J a STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS OR ENGLAND'S PATRON SAINTS BY FRANCES ARNOLD-FORSTER " We build not temples unto our Martyrs as zcnto gods, hit Memorials unto dead men, whose spirits with God are still living. " — S. Augustine. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON SKEFFINGTON & SON, PICCADILLY ftoblisher* to the (Qutm »tit> the frinr* oi 8»aU* 1899 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFOKD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. U^P] ET us now praise famous men, and our fathers that lltggfll begat us. "The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through His great power from the beginning. " Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies : " Leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their know- ledge of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent in their instructions : ' ' Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing : "Rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations : "All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. " There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. " And some there be, which have no memorial ; who are perished, as though they had never been ; and are become as though they had never been born ; and their children after them. " But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten." (£cclestasttras xlftj. 1-10. PREFACE. The subject of Church Dedications is one that, from a variety of causes, is beginning to attract a good deal of increased interest, not only on the part of students, but also among the general public ; and it is hoped that a place may therefore be found for a book which brings together a con- siderable amount of information relating to our English churches and the saints whose names they bear. The bond of association between our churches and the names of the saints is one that is very precious to many of us. Probably we are most of us agreed that " London Cathedral " would be a poor exchange for " S. Paul's " — that time-honoured dedication-name which enfolds twelve hundred years of history. The very sound of these names — S. Mary, S. Laurence, S. Cuthbert, and so forth — serves to call up visions of some much-loved church — whether in crowded city or in quiet village, whether venerable with age or newly built to meet the needs of to-day — churches differing widely from one another, yet alike in their purpose ; alike also in this, that they are stamped with the name of some saint of God. From the dawn of English Christianity up to the present day, the great majority of our churches, if not associated directly with one or all of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, have been dedicated either to All Saints or All Angels collectively, or to the saints of Scripture. Dedica- tions such as these meet us on every side, and demand no explanation. But the value of dedications does not lie merely in their obscurity or in their rarity, and there is, as we shall endeavour to show hereafter, much more to be learnt than might at first sight be supposed, from the propor- tion and distribution of these commonest of dedication-names. When we pass from the scriptural to the non-scriptural dedications, an interest of a new kind meets us. S. Nicholas, S. Margaret, S. George — how constantly are their names upon our lips ! In a sense, how familiar they are, and yet how slender is our real knowledge of those who bore viii PREFACE. them ! How gladly do we press back beyond picture and allegory to catch, if possible, some faint glimpse of their true personality ! And then again, beyond these semi-legendary saints, there stand the real historic figures, such as S. Clement, S. Martin, S. Oswald, whose noble stories we read with kindling hearts ; and those other figures, such as S. Teilo, S. Botolph, S. Maidoc, not less real, yet so hidden, so dimly seen through the mist of ages, that it is only by looking long and closely that we can image to ourselves what manner of men they were. As we travel through England and visit church after church, we meet many such names — some well known, some half known, some altogether unfamiliar to us — which stir our curiosity and make us desire to know more of the saints who bore them, and of how they came to be commemo- rated in these particular spots. But such knowledge is not always easy of access, as the writer has learnt by experience ; and even among those who are most disposed to be interested in the subject, there must be many who lack time and oppor- tunity to pursue the inquiry for themselves, and who may be glad to have brought before them in a convenient form some of the results of the study bestowed by historians and archaeologists upon these various saints and their English memorials. This book deals with all the known dedication-names found in England — about six hundred in all.* The Appendices give in tabular form certain particulars relating to the dedications of over fourteen thousand of our English churches, while the text gives more or less detailed accounts t of all the patron saints mentioned. The biographies contained in these " Studies " have been compiled from many and varied sources — from the original authorities, whenever these were happily accessible to the writer ; in other cases from the best books on the subject within reach. The exact sources of information made use of have always been noted at the foot of the page, thus enabling the reader to judge for himself of the value of the statements made. It may be safely asserted that there is no one book — neither the invaluable and comprehensive " Dictionary of Christian Biography," nor even Mr. Baring-Gould's extensive collection of the " Lives of the Saints " % — which includes all the strangely varied patrons who have given their names to our churches. Many of these, as we have already said, are among the best-known figures of their time. As we follow their story we find ourselves moving along the broad track of * Cf. footnote on p. 564 of vol. ii. only claim to possess churches dedicated t It has been thought needless to give since the Keformation ; the histories of all lives of the scriptural saints, and very the remaining saints are told at somewhat slight sketches have been considered suffi- greater length. cient in the case of those saints who can % Original edition, 1872. PREFACE. ix universal history ; but there are others, not a few, who can only be found by wandering into curious by-paths of biography and archaeology ; while there is a yet smaller number who have, so far, baffled all research. But, after all, these very obscure saints are but a handful in comparison with the whole number ; generally speaking, if we look closely enough we shall find that there is a story connected even with the less well-known names, and a story that is well worth the telling ; for dedication-names were not of old time given at haphazard, but sprang, for the most part, out of a natural regard to surrounding circumstances. A great deal of hidden history, a great deal of theology, and a great many small personal experiences underlie the thirteen centuries of our English church dedications ; and it is the special object of these " Studies " to bring to light some of this hidden history, and to show what deep and varied interest attaches to the familiar names of our churches. There is, moreover, much of interest in studying the geo- graphical distribution of these names ; in noting how one saint is to be found in every county, another in every county except Celtic Cornwall, while a third is to be found only, it may be, in one single village. The subject is, in fact, an inexhaustible one, for each separate dedica- tion-name — could we but trace its story — would carry us back far beyond the consecration of the particular church to distant lands and bygone centuries. " The continuity of good," said Archbishop Benson some years ago, in a sermon preached at the restoration of S. Bartholomew's, Smithfield,* "may be carried back even beyond the pale morning of Norman progress in which this foundation was laid." And then he tells again the well-known story (see p. 82) of Rahere, the twelfth -century founder of both church and hospital, and of the vision of S. Bartholomew that appeared to him on his way home from Borne. The Archbishop continues : " He must have seen the noble tower of S. Bartholomew which was just in those years added to the great church upon the island in the Tiber. That island had for immemorial centuries been dedicated to the healing of the sick. There had been the Temple of iEsculapius, and there the shrine of a yet older deity of healing. It suggests itself that the vision he really saw was a transplanting of church and hospital — that Bartholomew who dwelt on Tiber might dwell on Thames. But if so, then into what dim and shadowy ages the continuity of good runs back." Or, once again, to take a more modern example : see how the new church of Holy Cross in St. Pancras (p. 34), built as a memorial of Commodore Goodenough, that true-hearted Christian officer who met his * Guardian, June 7, 1893. X PREFACE. death at the hands of the heathen islanders of Santa Ornz, speaks of the far-away island in the Pacific, so named centuries ago by its Spanish discoverers, and now being won back anew to the faith of the Cross. As a rule, those who are interested in such matters have devoted their attention solely to pre-Eeformation dedications. In this book no such distinction has been made. The spirit of an age is often strikingly manifested by its choice of patron saints, and the favourite dedication- names of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries show no less strongly marked characteristics than those of the Middle Ages, and have therefore no less an interest of their own. Undoubtedly, the change in the point of view was tremendous when patron saints ceased to be chosen mainly for their value as intercessors, when their names were no longer followed by the appeal, " Orate pro nobis." Yet now that our patron saints are chosen as witnesses to the grace of God, as glorious examples to their fellow-men, we boldly claim that their influence for good is in no wise less real or less powerful than it was of old time. In the following pages the different saints have, as far as possible, been grouped according to their respective orders and natural associations — the Bishops of Eome in one chapter, the Welsh S. David and his friends in another, the Yirgin Martyrs in a third, and so on. Strict chronological order will plainly not serve us in dealing with saints, who, though con- temporaneous, have yet so little in common with each other as the cultured Roman gentleman, S. Gregory the Great, and such a fantastic, half -legendary figure as the Irish S. Brandan. The line of what may be » termed " natural association " has therefore been followed in these pages. The spelling of proper names has, as far as possible, followed the stereotyped usage of the different churches themselves — " S. Bertoline," instead of " S. Bertram," for example — rather than any more scholarly model. " Wilfrid " and " Edith " are names too firmly rooted amongst us to be readily exchanged for " Wilfrith " and " Eadgyth ; " and " Ethel- dreda" and "Alphege" have a more familiar sound in our ears than " Aethelthryth " and " Aelfheah." It would, however, be a hopeless task to take account of all the minor differences of local spelling, and it has hardly been attempted. It remains to give a few particulars * as to the more technical parts of the work. Appendix I. shows in tabular form the relative popularity of the various dedication-names at different periods of history, and also serves the purpose of an index. Appendix II. gives an alphabetical list of parishes throughout England, together with their several counties and * Further remarks on the various Ap- the table of " Explanations and Abbrevia- pendices and their uses will be found in tions " prefixed to vol. iii. PREFACE. XI dioceses, and the saints to whom their respective churches are ascribed — a list primarily based upon the Clergy List for 189G, though largely modified from other sources. Appendix III. gives the saints first and the parishes afterwards; it is practically Appendix II. reversed, for con- venience of reference, but in abbreviated form. The dates given in Appendices I. and II. have been collected from many different sources, and serve to classify the various dedications into four periods : those belonging to the pre-Ref ormation period ; * those of the eighteenth century ; those dedicated between 1800 and 1850 ; and, lastly, those, and they differ markedly from the preceding, dedicated in the latter half of the present century. It is important to remember that, from the point of view of these pages, the central question is simply at what period the existing patron saint of any given church came to be adopted, and that the periods here designated refer only to the origin of the dedication-name, and are in no way concerned with the date of the structure to which that name is attached. A newly rebuilt church may carry on a name that has for a thousand years been associated with the site on which it stands ; while, on the other hand, an ancient fabric that has unhappily lost the memory of its original dedication, may bear a name of modern choice. It happens not infrequently that a church is credited with two, or even three, patron saints ; and though it is probable that one only is recognized by established usage, it does not therefore follow that one name is right and the others wrong. It is possible that the church may at some period have been formally re-declicated to some different saint, or that the Lady-chapel or chancel may have been placed under the invocation of one patron, and the rest of the building dedicated to another. This explains the discrepancies which exist in the two important eighteenth- century volumes which are the basis of all the later books on Church Dedications — Bacon's Liber Regis, and Ecton's Thesaurus. The first of these two volumes — popularly known as " The King's Book " — has for its second title, " Thesaurus Rerum Bcclesiasticarum." It is an eighteenth- century (1786) reproduction, with additional matter, edited by John Bacon, of the manuscript returns made by the Commissioners of Henry VIII. in 1534 — on the very eve of the Reformation — touching the names, condition, and value of all the churches and benefices throughout England. The other volume has the same title — " Thesaurus Rerum Ecclesiasticarum " — and much the same scope. It came out more than thirty years before Bacon's edition of the Liber Regis, and was edited by John Ecton, who, like Bacon, held an official position as " Receiver " of ecclesiastical moneys. * But see table of " Explanations and Abbreviations " prefixed to vol. iii. . I. h Xll PREFACE. Ecton states on his title-page that " the dedications have been revised by Browne Willis, LL.D." Browne Willis was an archaeologist of note, never- theless the blanks in both works, where professedly the dedication-names ought to be, leave much to be desired. It was hardly to be looked for that omissions of such long standing should be made good in our time, but, as is shown in the present work, a surprising number of forgotten dedications have recently been brought to light by careful research into mediseval Wills and other ancient documents. The writer is well aware that it would have been most desirable to indicate the several sources from which the dedication-names given in Appendix II. were taken. In a few special cases this has been done, but to do it in all lay beyond the scope of the present work. A slender clue to the true patron of a church, but one which when judiciously used may help to turn many a doubtful hypothesis into a certainty, may be found in the date of the parish feast. Henry YIII. here, as in many other respects, did the student of dedications an ill turn, when in 1539 he published in the "Primer" — the authorized Prayer-book of that day — his mandate ordaining that " the feast of dedication of the Church shall in all places throughout this realm be celebrated and kept on the first Sunday of the month of October for ever, and on no other day. Item, that the feast of the patron of every church within this realm, called commonly the church holy-day, shall not from henceforth be kept or ' observed as a holy-day as heretofore hath been used." A certain number of parishes conformed to this regulation ; hence the numerous fairs and feasts that are held in the beginning of October. The majority of parishes fortunately had the independence to ignore the royal decree, and to adhere to their customary day ; but even they could not resist the Act of Parliament two hundred years later (1751), which enforced the adoption of the Gregorian Kalendar, or New Style of reckoning. The famous omission of the eleven days, which caused so much excitement throughout the country, has left a permanent impress upon our parish feasts, which are variously computed according to the Old or the New Style. Many parishes still adhere to the Old Style, and so celebrate their festivals some ten or twelve days after the Saint's Day which they are intended to commemorate. For example, Coin St. Aldwyn, dedicated to the Baptist, which formerly observed its patronal festival on August 29 — the day of the Beheading of S. John Baptist — now keeps it on the Sunday next to September 11. In like manner, S. Ann's at All-Cannings and S. Faith's at Havant, and hundreds more, still follow the Old Style. The difference is not always, it will be observed, exactly eleven days ; it is sometimes twelve or thirteen, occasionally even fourteen, varying probably according PRE FA CE. xlll to whether the feast is celebrated on the eve, day, or morrow of the saint's festival.* If any one desires to see how much lost knowledge can he recovered by a careful investigation into local feasts, he should study that wonderful little compilation, the Truro Diocesan Kalenclar. On the whole, the Celtic dedications have been far more scientifically worked oat than those of the Eoman Kalendar. Probably their very difficulty has aroused interest. We have no book that deals with English dedications as a whole in the thorough and scholarly fashion of Rees's " Welsh Saints ; " but much, very much, has been done for separate counties by such archaeologists as Precentor Venables, Mr. Thomas Kerslake, the Rev. Charles Boase, Mr. W. C. Borlase, Canon Raine, Canon Jackson of Leigh Delamere, and others. The results of their researches have been embodied in archaeo- logical journals, pamphlets, and manuscript indexes ; and, thanks to such sources as these, more than four hundred ancient dedications, supposed to be lost, have been incorporated in the present volumes — not to speak of numerous minor additions and corrections. It is to be deplored that some five hundred ancient churches still remain anonymous, but there is every reason to hope that some even of these will yet be recovered. In the chapter on " Lost Dedications " we have shown what has been effected in this way in one single county (Nottinghamshire) ; but there is this draw- back in treating counties and districts piecemeal — that, though the work may be thorough, the relation to the whole is lost. Thus, a Northumbrian antiquarian speaks — very naturally from his experience — of the frequency of the ancient ascription to SS. Philip and James, being unaware that there are more of these in his particular district than in all the rest of England put together. The comparative method is very important in the study of dedications, and requires for its exercise a large area. The present work covers the whole of England (including the Isle of Wight), but does not enter into Wales, the Isle of Man, nor even the Channel Islands, which ought in strictness, perhaps, to have been treated together with the rest of the diocese of Winchester. It lies outside the limits of these Studies to explain such curious affixes as S. Margaret Pattens, S. Mary Matfelon, and the like, which have no more relation to the saint proper than those graceful descriptive titles, "S. Mary-in-the-Elms," "S. John-in-the-Willows," "S. Peter-in-the- Rushes." They have all, however, been duly chronicled in Appendix II. But even assuming that a dedication-name has been established beyond doubt, it not infrequently happens that there is still a question as to the * If moreover, the change of Style was the difference would by that time amount not adopted in any place till after 1800, to twelve days instead of eleven. xiv PREFACE. identity of the saint intended. Is it S. Thomas the Apostle with whom we have to do, or is it his namesake, the murdered Archbishop of Canter- bury ? Does " S. Augustine " stand for the Bishop of Hippo, or for the missionary sent to England by Gregory ? So, too, as to the circumstances that prompted the choice of any particular patron. We follow up a promising clue, an ingeniously argued theory, which seems to fit the facts at every point, only to discover from some piece of local information, gleaned too late, that our whole fabric is overthrown by the readjustment of a date which alters the entire sequence of events. Such are some of the difficulties and disappointments that beset a student of dedications. No one can be more painfully conscious than the writer, of the many qualifications that ought to be possessed by any one who undertakes to write on this large subject, or more keenly alive to the fact that numerous imperfections and mistakes will inevitably be found in the present attempt to deal with it. The writer can only claim that these Studies — and they do not profess to be more than Studies — are the outcome of conscientious and careful labour. They have been a labour of love to herself, and she can but hope that they may prove of some interest and service to others. To professed scholars, indeed, these volumes cannot hope to offer anything new : the utmost they dare to claim is that the close comparative study of a multitude of small separate facts may have resulted, here and there, in furnishing a clue to the origin of some perplexing dedication, or in riveting one more link in an imperfect chain of evidence. Finally, the writer desires to express her warm thanks to the many correspondents — for the most part personally unknown to her — who have so kindly and freely responded to her appeals for information on points of local or special knowledge. Some of them — Mrs. Francis Holland, the Kev. C. Boase, Canon Jackson of Leeds, Canon Jackson of Leigh Dela- mere, Mr. Kerslake, Canon Raine, and Precentor Venables — have passed beyond the reach of thanks ; but there are many others — clergy and lay- men in every part of England— who have, with ready kindness, given the information that was asked for. All such help has been separately acknowledged in its place, but it must be gratefully said here how very largely this local and special knowledge has contributed to whatever of value the book may possess. F. A.-F. Whaefeside, July, 1899. NOTE ON REFERENCES. Many of the writers and books most frequently made use of in the follow- ing pages are referred to in the footnotes in shortened form, as in the subjoined list : all other references are given fully wherever they occur. "Age of the Saints" Arch. Journal Backhouse and Tylor Bacon Baillet ... Baring-Gould Bede Bentham ... Bingham . . . Bright's " Church His tory" Bristol, Bishop of " Britannia " Borlase (W. C.) Camden . . . Clerical Guide Clergy List :} County Histories Cox Daniel D. C. B Diocesan Kalendars " Dorset Antiq." . . . See Borlase. Archieological Journals and Transactions : various. " Early Church History." See " Liber Eegis." " Vie des Saints " : edition 1739. "Lives of the Saints" : first edition, 1872. " Ecclesiastical History " : Bolm's and Plummer's editions. " History and Antiquities of Ely " : 1771. Antiquities of the Christian Church." Early English Church History." " Account of S. Bertram's Shrine at Ham." " Augustine and his Companions." " Conversion of the Heptarchy " : etc. See Camden. " Age of the Saints " : 1893. " Britannia " : second edition, 1722. Bosworth: 1886. (with " Clerical Guide " incorporated : Kelly. 1896. Baines's " Lancashire." Blomerield's " Norfolk." Clutterbuck's " Hertfordshire." Hasted's " Kent." Hutchin's ''Dorset." Lower's " Sussex." Morant's " Essex." Nicolson and Burn's " Westmoreland." Nightingale's "London and Middlesex." Ormerod's " Cheshire." .Whitaker's "Loidis and Elmete " : and others. " Churches of Derbyshire." " The Prayer-book." ("Dictionary of Christian Biography": edited by Smith \ and Wace. Murray. Various. " Transactions of Dorset Field and Antiquarian Club." xvi NOTE ON REFERENCES. Ecton E. H E. P Eng. Chron. "Eng. Illus." ... " English Saints " Fleury Forbes (late Bishop of Brechin) ... Godwin and Britton Green Hodgkin Hooker Jameson, Mrs Lawton Lewis ... " Liber Regis " Loftie " London P. and P." ... Mackeson Montalembert Murray • • • Newell Newman Nicolas (Nicholas Harris) Rees (Rev. Rice) Rees (Rev. W. J.) Stanley Turner (Sharon) Wheatley and Cunning- ham Wheatly " York Churches " C" Thesaurus Rerum Ecclesiasticarum " : second edition, \ 1754. See Bede. See Hooker. English (or Anglo-Saxon) Chronicle : Bohn's edition. " England Illustrated : a Compendium of the Antiquities, civil and ecclesiastical, of England " : 1764. See Newman. "Histoire Ecclesiastique " : 1691. " Kalendars of the Scottish Saints." " Churches of London." " Conquest of England." " Making of England." " Short History of the English People." " History of Italy and her Invaders." "Ecclesiastical Polity." " Sacred and Legendary Art." "Collectio Rerum Ecclesiasticarum de Dioecesi Ebora- censi" : 1840. " Topographical Dictionary of England " : 1831. " Liber Regis ; vel Thesaurus Rerum Ecclesiasticarum " : Bacon's edition, 1786. " Historic Towns : London." See Wheatley and Cunningham. " Guide to the London Churches." " Les Moines d'Occident." English and Foreign Handbooks : various. " Ancient British Church." " Lives of the English Saints." " Chronology of History " : 1833. " An Essay on the Welsh Saints." " Lives of the Cambro-British Saints." "Eastern Church." " Memorials of Canterbury." " Memorials of Westminster." >" Sinai and Palestine." " History of the Anglo-Saxons " : 1832. [" London Past and Present " : 1891. " Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer." See Lawton. If the writer has in any case exceeded her rights in making use of information, whether from printed worhs or private letters, without express 'permission, she can only plead that the wrong is a most unintentional one, and wholly contrary to her own wish. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER PAGE Parallel Kalendars ... ... ... ... ... ... xix I. The Saints op the Anglican Kalendar ... ... ... 1 II. Choice op Dedications ... ... ... ... ... 6 III. Dedications to the Deity ... ... ... ... ... 17 IV. Dedications connected with the Life op Christ ... ... 28 V. The Holy Angels ... ... ... ... ... ... 37 VI. The Blessed Virgin and her Festivals ... ... ... 41 VII. S. Peter and S. Paul. S. John Baptist and S. John Evangelist 51 VIII. Apostles and Evangelists ... ... ... ... ... 71 IX. Other Scriptural Saints ... ... ... ... ... 88 X. Traditional Saints ... ... ... ... ... ... 97 XL The Virgin Martyrs ... ... ... ... ... ••• 105 XII. S. Margaret of Antioch and her Namesakes ... ... ... 130 XIII. The White Host of Martyrs ... ... ... ... ... 138 XIV. Soldier-saints ... ... ... ... ... ... 153 XV. The Medical Saints ... ... ... ... ... ... 163 XVI. Child-saints ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 168 XVII. The Legend op S. Christopher ... ... ... ... 177 XVIII. A Roman Empress ... ... ... ... ... ••• 181 XIX. The Fathers op the Church ... ... ... ... ... 190 XX. Bishops of Rome ... ... ••• ••• ••• ••• 275 XXI. Archbishops op Canterbury ... ... ... ... • 310* XXII. Archbishops op York ... ... ... ... ••• ••• 364 XXIII. The English Bishops ... ... ... ... ••• 394 XXIV. The French Bishops ... ... ... ••• ••• 434r XXV. Other Foreign Bishops ... ... ••• ••• ... 489 XXVI. Priests and Deacons ... ... ••• ••• ••• ••• 507 PARALLEL KALENDARS, SHOWING SAINTS AND FESTIVALS COMMEMORATED BY 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. (a) Anglican Prayer-book. Circumcision. Epiphany. Lucian, P.M. Hilary, B.C. Prisca, V.M. Fabian, B.M. Agnes, V.M. Vincent, M. Conversion of S. Paul. (&) Dedications op our English Churches. JANUARY. 10. n. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. [vieve, V. Melorius,M. Tewdric,K.M. Gene- S. Titus, B. Epiphany. Melanius, B. Lucian, P.M. Pega, V. Julian, M. Egwin, B.C. Benedict Biscop, A. Hilary, B.C. Kentigern, B. Antony, A. Wulstan, B. Fabian, B.M. Sebastian, M. Agnes, V.M. Vincent, D.M. Anastasius, M. S. Timothy, B. Cadoc, A. S. Paul, Ap. Advent, V. Chrysostom, B.D. Julian, B. Charles, K.M. Maidoc, B. XX PARALLEL KALENDARS. FEBRUARY. Peayer-book. Dedications. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. Purification of S. Mary the Virgin. Blasius, B.M. Agatha, V.M. Valentine, B. S. Matthias, Ap. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. Bridget, V. Abs. Crewenne, V. Uny, C. [Abp. Purification. Feock, C. Laurence, Blaise, B.M. Werburgh, V. Abs. Agatha, V.M. Vedast, B. Kew, V. Teilo, B. Mabena, V. Juliana, V.M. Mildred, V. Abs. Elwyn, C. Polycarp, B.M. Milburga, V. Abs. S. Matthias, Ap. MARCH. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. David, Abp. Chad, B. Perpetua, M. Gregory, B. Edward, King of the West Saxons. Benedict, A. Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. David, Abp. Albinus, B. Chad, B. Nun, 0. Wynwalloe, A. Piran, A. Sithney, A. Kyneburga, V. Abs. Enodoc, C. Congar, H. Senan, B. Felix, B. Constantine, K.M. Paul (of Leon), B. Gregory, B.D. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Patrick, B. Withburga, V. [K.M. 18. S. Gabriel the Archangel. Edward, 19. Alkmund, K.M. 20. Cuthbert, B. Wulfram, B. 21. Benedict (of Nursia), A. 22 23] Wynner,C. Piala,V. Ethel wald, H. 24. 25. The Annunciation. 26. 27. 28 29. Woolos, H. 30. 31. PARALLEL KALENDARS. xxi Peayek-book. I. 2. 3. Richard, B. 4. S. Ambrose, B. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Alphege, Abp. 20. 21. 22 23] S. George, M. 24. 25. S. Mark, Evan. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 1. S. Philip and S. James, Aps. 2. 3. Invention of the Cross. 4. 5. 6. S. John Evan, ante Port. Lat. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Dunstan, Abp. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. Augustin, Abp. 27. Ven. Bede, Pres. 28. 29. 30. 31. APRIL. Dedications. 1. 2. 3. Pancras, B. Bichard, B. 4. Ambrose, B.D. 5. 6. 7. Goran, C. 8. 9. 10. 11. Guthlac, P.H. 12. 13. 14. 15. Paternus (of Vannes), or Padarn, B. 16. Paternus (of Avranches), B. Magnus, 17. [K.M. 18. 19. Alphege, Abp. M. 20. 21. Anselm, Abp. 22 23! George, M. 24. 25. S.Mark, Evan. 26. Ricarius, A. 27. 28. 29. 30. MAY. 1. SS. Philip and James, Aps. Asaph, B. Breoek, B. Corentin, B. 2. Athanasius, B. 3. Invention of the Cross. 4. 5. Hydroc, C. 6. S. John Evan, (ante Port. Lat.). 7. John of Beverley, Abp. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Pancras (of Rome), M. 13. 14. 15. 16. Brandan, A. Carantoc, A. 17. Madron, H. 18. 19. Dunstan, Abp. 20. Collen, C. Ethelbert, K. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. Aldhelm, B. 26. Augustine, Abp. 27. Venerable Bede, P. 28. 29. Buriena, V. 30. Walstan (of Bawburgh), C. 31. Petronilla. V. xxii PARALLEL KALENDARS. Prayek-book. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Niconiede, M. Boniface, B. S. Barnabas, Ap. S. Alban, M. Trans. K. Edward. S. John Baptist. S. Peter, Ap. JUNE, l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Dedications. Kumon, B.H. Wyston, KM. Genesius, B. Petroc, A. Breaca, V. Boniface, B.M. Godwald, B. H. Meriadoc, B. Medardus, B. Columba, A. Ivo, B. Margaret, Q. S. Barnabas, Ap. Basil, B. Aldate, B. Cyril, M. Juliot,M. Alban, M. Nectan, C. Botolph,A. Gervase and Protasius, M.M. [of). Edward, K. of West Saxons (Trans. Mewan, A. [C. Bartholomew of Fame, H. S. John Bapt. (Nativity of). Germoe, [shore), V. Abs. Maxentius, A. Eadburga (of Per- S. Peter, Ap. Theobald, P.H. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Visitation of Virgin Mary. Trans, of S. Martin. Swithun, B. Margaret, V.M. S. Mary Magdalene. S. James, Ap. S. Anne. JULY, l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Visitation of Virgin Mary. Martin, B. (Trans, of). [Sexburga, Q. Abs. Morwenna, V. Modwenna, V. Abs. Disen, B. Everilda, V. Felicitas, M. S. Silas. [Q. Abs. Swithun, B. Edith (of Polesworth), Marcellina, V. Kenelm, M. Margaret, V.M. [A. S. Mary Magdalene. Wandregisilus, Menefrida, V. S. James, Ap. Christopher, M. S. Anne. S. Joseph of Arimathea. Samson (of D61), B. [K.M. Martha, V. Beatrice, V.M. Olave, German, B. Neot, H.C. PARALLEL KALENDARS. xxiii 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Pkayer-book. Lammas Day. Transfiguration. Name of Jesus. S. Lawrence, M. S. Bartholomew, Ap. S. Augustine, B. Beheading of S. John Baptist. Giles, A. Enurchus, B. Nativity of Virgin Mary. Holy Cross Day. Lambert, B.M. AUGUST. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Dedications. S. Peter ad Vincula. Sidwell, or Sativola, V.M. Dominic, C. Cassyon, B. Oswald, K.M. Transfiguration. Acca, B. The Holy Name. Laurence, M. Geraint, K. Marvenne, V. Abs. Clare, V. Abs. Hippolytus, B.M. Badegund, Q. The Assumption of the B.V.M. Helena, Emp. Cleodicus, C. Oswin, K.M. Simphorian, M. Oueu, B. S. Bartholomew, Ap. Ebba, V. Abs. Pandiana, V. Decuman, H. [B.D. Hermes, M. Augustine (of Hippo), S. John Bapt. (Beheading of). Can- [dida, or Whyte, V.M. Aidan, B. Eanswith, V. Abs. Cuth- [burga, Q. Abs. SEPTEMBER. S. Matthew, Ap. S. Cyprian, Abp. S. Michael and All Angels S. Jerom, CD. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Firmin, B.C. Silin, A. Giles, A. Teath, V. Bega, Abs. Nativity of Blessed Virgin Mary Bertoline, H. Wolfrida, Abs. Salvy, B. Protus, or Pratt, M. Cornelius, B. Holy Cross Day. Ninian, B. Edith (of Wilton), V. Lambert, B.M. Eustace, M. S. Matthew, Ap. [bald, A. Maurice, M. Laud, or Lo, B. Hy- Robert (of Knaresboro'), H. [gan, C. S. Cleopas. Fimbarries, B. Maw- Cyprian, Abp. M. Cosmas and Damian, M.M. Lioba, V. Abs. S. Michael and All Angels. Jerome, or Hierom, CD. xxiv PARALLEL KALENDARS. Prayer-book. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Remi°;ms, B. Faith, V.M. S. Denys, B. Trans. King Edward. Etheldreda, V. S. Luke, Evan. Crispin, M. S. Simon and S. Jude, Aps. OCTOBER, l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 35. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Dedications. Reniigius, B. Leodegarius, or Leger, B.M. Francis (of Assisi), C. Edwin, K.M. Faith, V.M. Osyth, V.M. Kevna, V. Denys, B.M. Oadwaladr, K. Paulinus, Abp. Ethelburga (of Barking), V. Abs. Wilfrid, Abp. Edward the Confessor, K. (Trans, of). Levan, C. Ignatius, B.M. Etheldreda, V. Abs. S. Luke, Evan. Frideswide, V.M. Adeline, V. Ursula, V.M. Crispin, M. Gwynnog, C. Eata, B. Ia, V. Merryn, or Meran, C. SS. Simon and Jude, Aps. Arilda, V.M. Urith, C. Quintin, M. NOVEMBER. All Saints' Day. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Leonard, C. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. S. Andrew, Ap. S. Martin, B. Britius, B. Machutus, B. Hugh, B. Edmund, K. Cecilia, V.M. S. Clement, B. Catherine, V.M. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. All Saints All Souls. Winifred, V.M. Dingat, C. Vigor, B. Rumbald, K.C [Hubert, B. S. Elisabeth. Illtyd, A. Leonard, H. Winnocus,A. The Four Crowned Martvrs. Cuby, [ B. Tesiliah, C. Martin, B. Britius, B. Dubricius, Abp. Mawes (poss. Machutus), B. Hilda, V. Abs. Hugh, B. Evilla, V. Edmund, K.M. S. Philemon. Cecilia, V.M. Clement, B.M. Catherine, V.M. Edwould, H. Barrog, H. S. Andrew, Ap. PARALLEL KALENDARS. XXV DECEMBER. l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Pkayer-Book. Nicolas, B. Conception of Virgin Mary. Lucy, V.M. O Sapientia. S. Thomas, Ap. Christmas Day. S. Stephen, M. S. John, Evan. Innocents' Day. Dedications. S. Silvester, B. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Eloy, B. Birinus, B. Barbara, V.M. Osmond, B. Nicholas, B. Conception B. V. Mary. Budoc, A. Deiniol, B. Lucy, V.M. S. Thomas, Ap. Holy Nativity. S. Stephen, M. S. John, Ap. and Evan. The Holy Innocents. Thomas of Canterbury, Abp. Silvester, B. Columba, V.M. Note. — There are many other saints com- memorated by the dedications of our churches, but the foregoing are all who have separate days assigned to them. Dedications com- memorating the Moveable Feasts cannot be shown here. ERRATA. Page 161, for January 22, read January 20. „ 394, number of churches dedicated to S. Aldhelm, for 3 read 4. .B. — To find the volume and page containing the history of any given saint, refer to Appendix I., at the beginning of Vol. III., which serves the additional purpose of an index. STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAPTER I. THE SAINTS OF THE ANGLICAN KALENDAR. It is probable that most constant church-goers have at some time or other bestowed a few moments' attention upon the Kalendar that stands prefixed to the Prayer-book services. It is a strange medley that meets our eyes, as we pass quickly from month to month. There are, first, the twenty-four so-called " red-letter days," too often printed like the other days in black letter, but originally marked out from the minor holy days by this honour- able distinction. They tell their own story, these red-letter days, for they all commemorate either events connected with our Lord's life, or else the festivals of the Apostles and Evangelists. Then, again, there are names — like those of " King Edmund " and " Edward, King of the West Saxons " — which would seem more fitly to belong to secular history ; a yet larger number are the common property of both ecclesiastical and profane history — the two Augustines, for example, and Gregory the Great. A few names, such as S. Valentine and S. Swithun, have become popularized through some superstition commonly connected with their festivals ; while others, like S. George and S. Denys, are known chiefly through the mediaeval legends and romances that have grown up around them. But when we have accounted for all the best-known names, when we have taken note of the "Invent, of Cross," "S. John E. ante Port. Lat.," and " 0 Sapientia," those standing causes of perplexity to the youthful student of the Kalendar — there still remain a large proportion of names which convey very little meaning to the average reader. Sacred Art gives a clue in some cases — S. Catherine, for example, and S. Cecilia have VOL. I. T5 2 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. i. been made familiar to us by many a famous painting ; but what of such names as Enurchus, Lambert, Britius, or Machutus ? Why, we ask, should these obscure names hold their place in our Prayer-book from generation to generation, while others of far greater distinction have been either deliberately struck out or never inserted ? In the words of Bishop Westcott : 44 In this respect, no one can fail to have felt how imperfectly our Kalendar reflects the Divine history of the Church." * " The Apostolic age," says the same writer, 44 stands there without preparation and without sequel. The old dispensation finds no representative from among the heroes of faith, law-giver, or prince or prophet, Enoch or Elijah, Moses or David, Samuel or Isaiah. The new dispensation finds no representative from among those, who in Christ's name and by Christ's power brought modern life and thought into His service." This reproach of having neglected the Old Testament dispensa- tion, universally true of the Western Church, does not apply to the Eastern Church.t In the Greek Kalendar we find Moses and Joshua, " Job the Just," David and Elijah, the whole roll of prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, and even 44 The Seven Maccabees," taking their places with " The Twelve Apostles " and the first deacons, with Philemon and Onesi- phorus, with 44 S. Mary Magdalen the Ointment-bearer," and 44 Ananias the Apostle." Following the history a little further, we have the Fathers of the Church, 44 S. Justin Martyr and his Companions," Polycarp and 44 Clement of Borne," 44 S. John Chrysostom " and Athanasius. There, too, we find those favourite mediaeval saints, 44 The Seven Sleepers," 44 The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste," Simeon Stylites, 44 Dionysius the Areopagite," and our own S. George. But beyond this point the Eastern Kalendar does not go ; the roll closes even earlier than that of our English Kalendar. It is matter of regret that our existing Kalendar is inferior, both in point of catholicity and of nationality, to those which preceded it. In the eighth-century Kalendar, commonly supposed to have been drawn up by the Yenerable Bede r we find the Maccabees, and also their Christian counterpart of the second century, 44 The Seven Brethren ; " of Bible saints we have the addition of S. Timothy. There is Ignatius, the great cham- pion of episcopacy, and Pancras, the Boman boy-martyr ; there are the soldier-saints, Victor and Maurice, and that heroic band of soldiers, 44 The Forty Holy Martyrs " — so they are recorded in Bede — who met a martyr's death upon the ice-bound pool at Sebaste fifteen hundred years ago, and whose story was kept in remembrance alike by the Eastern and the Western Churches. Antony and Paul the Hermit are representatives of a type of saint- hood then held in very high esteem. To it belongs in some sort another name in Bede's Kalendar, that of S. Cuthbert, the saint of Holy Island, reverenced in his own day more for his sanctity as a solitary than for his * "The Historic Faith." t See the Parallel Kalendars in Blunt'* ' Annotated Prayer-book." chap. i. THE SAINTS OF THE ANGLICAN KALENDAR. 3 earlier activity as a missionary-bishop. Bede gives us also Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, " the Apostle of Yorkshire ; " but for a fuller recognition of our national saints, we must look to the pre-Reformation Kalendars of Salisbury, York, and Hereford, where, side by side with the martyr Polycarp, the legendary Christopher, and the yet more legendary " Seven Sleepers," we find S. Patrick and S. Bridget ; the saintly King- Oswald ; John of Beverley ; Aidan, the zealous missionary ; William of York and Thomas of Hereford ; Hilda and Frideswide, the royal foun- dresses. Every one of these names has been in course of time dropped out, and English Church history is now represented in our Prayer-book by some sixteen names, not all of them belonging to the first rank. In regard to this matter of the Prayer-book Kalendar, the Irish Church and the Scottish Episcopal Church have taken very different lines. Both have been conscious of the inadequacy of the existing Kalendar, and the Irish Church has solved the difficulty by striking out all names of saints except those for which a special collect, epistle, and gospel are provided — the red-letter days, in short. The loss is a serious one, for, notwithstanding its manifold deficiencies, our Kalendar is yet richly suggestive, and until we have something better to fill its place, we could ill afford to be deprived of it. The late Bishop of Ely (Dr. Woodford) saw in this Kalendar a standing reminder to our English Church to be faithful to her world-wide charge. To him this "gathering together the devotional characteristics of the Church of all places and times in the English Prayer-book," seemed to be " one of those Divine providences by which the English Church is better qualified than any other to follow, with the faith and ministrations of Christ, the track of the great colonizing Anglo-Saxon race into every quarter of the globe." * The Scottish Church, unlike the Irish, has taken advantage of its greater liberty, not to abolish the Kalendar but to enrich it. The additions (with the one exception of " Cyril — Bishop ") are all, however, of a purely national character. We have King David and Queen Margaret, S. Patrick and S. Cuthbert, S. Mungo and S. Serf, S. Mnian and S. Columba, with some other names famous in Scottish history. As regards its national character, therefore, the Scottish Kalendar is superior to the English ; but its superiority is limited to this one point, so that we cannot look upon it as a model for our own future guidance. The time has perhaps not yet come for the drawing up of such a noble kalendar as Bishop Westcott has sketched for us, in his proposal to " people with familiar forms the vacancies of All Saints' Day, and to fill up the noble but blank outlines of the Te Deum," by a list of names " which all would accept as worthy of memory — names of rulers and scholars, of men who taught by their words and by their lives, who spread the faith and deepened our know- ledge of it." Such a commemoration would do much towards strengthen- ing our realization of the Communion of Saints, and would be a great matter for thanksgiving ; but in the meantime there is a source from * "The Great Commission." 4 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. I. which the deficiencies of our Anglican Kalendar may in great measure be filled up. In the dedication-names of our churches we have a reflection of "the Divine history of the Church," limited and imperfect enough, it is true, yet far more adequate than that furnished by the Kalendar.* To some extent, indeed, the reproaches brought by Bishop Westcott against the Kalendar are applicable also to this other form of commemoration. The number of saints is largely increased, but the type of saintship is not enriched in proportion to the added number. If it cannot justly be said that it is "removed far from the stir and conflicts of ordinary action," f yet it must be owned that " the prophetic type, the type of the artist and of the poet and of the scholar," are still wanting, and that our Kalendar ignores those who brought "modern life and thought" into Christ's service ; while it closes abruptly " before our own Church entered on its characteristic work in the old world or in the new." But church-building in England is not a thing of the past, and the range of dedication-names is being continually extended. New churches are rising up among us year by year, bearing the names of good servants of Grod — it may be of seventeen centuries ago, it may be of the Middle Ages, it may be of our own generation. Gladly we welcome all such additions to the roll of saints, for the chosen names enter into the daily life of parish and congregation, and stand as silent witnesses to the unity and continuity of the Church. This frequent mention of honoured names is one of the special reasons put forward by the great Hooker, " for which Christian churches might first take their names of saints." He says : " It liked good and virtuous men to give such occasion of mentioning them often, to the end that the naming of their persons might cause enquiry to be made, and meditations to be had of their virtues." { Hooker's further defence of the practice, upon the ground of the History that was enshrined in these dedication-names, must be reserved till we come to the consideration of the historical value of church dedica- tions (CH. II.). We know from the " Ecclesiastical Polity " that these dedication-names were a great offence to Hooker's Puritan opponents. As we shall see later on, he meets fully the charge brought against them of having been " superstitiously meant," and defends the custom both on its own merits and on the ground of its honourable antiquity. " Touching the names of Angels and Saints," says he, " whereby the most of our churches are called ; as the custom of so naming them is very ancient, so neither was the cause thereof at the first, nor is the use and continuance with us at this present hurtful." In the same paragraph Hooker lays down the great principle, that " churches were consecrated unto none but the Lord only," though for distinction's sake each one came to be connected with the name of " some memorable thing or person." The distinction is an * See the Parallel Kalendars printed t Westcott. at the beginning of this volume. % E. P., bk. v. chap. I. THE SAINTS OF THE ANGLICAN KALENDAR. 5 important one, and brings out the true principle according to which our churches have been dedicated and upon which alone the practice must rest its justification. The same distinction is emphasized by S. Augustine in his " City of God," in words which may fitly close this chapter. They are quoted by Hooker as strengthening his own argument : " The Gentiles to their gods erected temples ; we not temples unto our Martyrs as unto gods, but memorials as unto dead men, whose spirits with God are still living." CHAPTER II. CHOICE OF DEDICATIONS. It often happens that in passing from village to village in England the traveller meets with churches bearing strangely unfamiliar names, which provoke a momentary exclamation of wonder why the church should ever have been called by such a name. The question is one that admits of many different answers : — local influences, foreign connexions, chance associations, favourite legends, personal predilections of the founders — all these have had their share in determining the varied dedications of our churches. The practice of giving dedication-names to churches has existed in England from time immemorial, and ab Rome we can trace it for more than two centuries before the mission of Augustine. It was under Con- stantine the Great that the consecration of churches was formalized into a definite ceremony, and probably it was at the same time that the custom of distinguishing them by particular names became universal. But the custom itself was not a new one ; we have evidence of it in one form or another for nearly a century before this. In those days the range of names was far more comprehensive than it became later on, and was by no means confined to personal names. " Sometimes," says Bingham,'"" " they had their name from a particular circumstance of time or place, or other accident in the building of them. The church of Jerusalem was called Anastasis and Crux, not because it was dedicated to any S. Anastasis or cross, but because it was by Constantine built in the place of our Saviour's crucifixion and resurrection." The name of Holy Cross or S. Cross was never suffered to fall into disuse, but it is only within very recent years that churches have again been named in memory of the Resurrection. Among instances of the purely accidental choice of names, Bingham mentions that S. Peter's at Rome was anciently called Triumphalis, because it stood in Yia Triumphalis, and that one of the churches at Carthage was called Basilica Restituta from its being rescued out of the hands of the Arians. To these may be added an example from nearer home : Gasa Candida, now known as Witherne, on the coast of Galloway, gained both * "Antiq. of Chr. Oh. CHAP. II. CHOICE OF DEDICATIONS. 7 its old and its new name from the white stone church built there centuries ago, a.d. 556, by Ninian, the Apostle of the Picts. Bede tells us that "the place is generally called the White House, because he there built a church of stone, which was not usual among the Britons." * But such purely accidental designations are rare. Amid all variety of names, founders as a rule had a deliberate reason for their choice, intending — in Hooker's words— that " as oft as those buildings were mentioned, the name should put men in mind of some memorable thing or person. Thus, therefore," adds he, " it cometh to pass that all churches have had their name, some as memorials of Peace, some of Wisdom, some in memory of the Trinity Itself, some of Christ under sundry titles, of the Blessed Virgin not a few, many of one Apostle, Saint, or Martyr, many of all." When he speaks of the " memorials of Peace and Wisdom," he is plainly thinking of the famous churches of those names founded by Constantine the Great at Constantinople. | Of Santa Sophia, the Church of the Divine Wisdom, we shall have more to say hereafter (ch. hi.) ; for a modern parallel to the " Temple of Peace," we must look to New York with its " Grace Church." { There is, not unnaturally perhaps, more freedom in the American choice of dedications than in our own, as, for example, " The Church of the Heavenly Best." A practice has quite newly sprung up among us of distinguishing a church, simply by the distinctive vocation of the worshippers for whose special benefit it is primarily intended. Thus both at Hull and at Gloucester we have " The Mariner's Church," and at Hastings " The Fishermen's Church." Such designations are not in accordance with English usage, but their practical advantages are obvious. But now to turn from these impersonal and informal designations, whether of early or of late date, to the personal names, which are attached to the great majority of our churches. A frequently quoted and very early example of this sort, is the church of S. Cyprian at Carthage, which gives the key to a whole series of " personal dedications " — in Africa, in Rome, in England, and else- where. This saint was martyred in a.d. 258. Bingham, reproducing a sermon of S. Augustine's, says : " The church and the altar that was built at Carthage, in the place where S. Cyprian suffered martyrdom, was upon that account called Mensa Cypriani, Cyprian's Altar, not because it was built or dedicated to him or his worship (for S. Austin says it was erected only to God and His service), but because it was a memorial of his martyrdom, being built in the place where Cyprian himself was offered a sacrifice unto God." That places should be held dear for the sake of those who suffered there, was no less natural than that the churches afterwards built upon them should be called by the names of those whose memory they were * E. H. a "Grace Church" in London; but, accord- t Socrates, ii. 16. ing to Nightingale's " London and Middle- % The well-known City thoroughfare, sex," " the name of this street is derived " Gracechurch Street," looks at first sight from the circumstance of there having been as though we must at one time have had formerly a Grass Market here." 8 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. n. intended to preserve. It is to this class of dedications that Hooker refers when he says that churches might take their names " in regard of death, which those saints, having suffered. for the testimony of Jesus Christ, did thereby make the places where they died venerable." We have a notable example of this sort in S. Alban's Abbey, and another — a less inspiring one, it must be confessed — in the church of u S. Edward the Martyr," at Corfe Castle, the very scene of the murder of the hapless young Saxon king, Edward II. There was, moreover, another way in which personal names came to be connected with particular churches. " This is further evident," says Bingham, " that churches were sometimes named from their founders, who certainly did not intend to dedicate churches to themselves;" and he illustrates his remark by reference to three churches in Carthage, each one distinguished by the name of its founder. " A very large number of our most venerable English dedications are to be accounted for in this way ; though undoubtedly the names were bestowed, not by the founders themselves, but by other people in honour of the founders." The late Precentor Venables followed Dr. Stubbs * in distinguishing this class of dedications by the name of " proprietary dedications," i.e. " the calling a church by the name of the holy person who built it, and in connexion with whom it obtained local celebrity." Thus we have S. Guthlac's at Crowland in Lincolnshire, and S. Oswald at Oswaldkirk in Yorkshire, S. Chad at Chadkirk in Cheshire, not to mention a host of less well-known names of that " strictly local kind which attests," says the late Mr. Kerslake of Bristol, "the highest antiquity." An interesting example of this description of dedication, though not so obvious as the foregoing, is S. Paul's church at Lincoln. Precentor Venables has pointed out the close historical connexion of Paulinus, Archbishop of York, with this city ; and his belief that it is S. Paulinus, and not S. Paul, who is here com- memorated is strengthened, as will be shown hereafter (ch. xxii.), by the existence of another church of " S. Paul's " in a district of Northum- berland where Paulinus undoubtedly ministered. There is abundant proof that, in England at any rate, the founders of churches did not confer upon them their own names ; for we frequently find that the original builder of the church or religious house made choice of some honoured scriptural name, which a later generation set aside in honour of the founder's own. Thus Wimborne Minster in Dorset, which now bears the name of its Saxon foundress Cuthburga,f the sister of the Mercian King Ina, was originally dedicated by Cuthburga herself to the Virgin Mary. So, too, the nunnery founded by King Egbert for his daughter the Princess Edith f was originally dedicated to the Virgin, but in after-times it substituted the name of its first abbess, and the existing parish church still perpetuates the memory of " S. Edith." Very similar to this is the history of the priory church of SS. Mary and Eanswith f at Folkestone, founded in the first half of the seventh century by Eadbald, King of Kent, * Bishop of Oxford. t Ch. xl. CHAP. II. CHOICE OF DEDICATIONS. 9 for his daughter Eanswith, and dedicated in the first instance to S. Peter. Whatever may have been the causes that first led to associating personal names with different churches, the practice was one which commended itself to many minds, and soon became general throughout Christendom ; and what had been in the first instance merely the natural outcome of special circumstances became gradually the general rule. At the date of the Roman mission to England under Augustine, the earlier and more informal methods of naming churches had been largely superseded by personal names, which were now bestowed at the time of the consecration of the building. The great principle that " churches were consecrated unto none but the Lord only," was still witnessed to by those churches which bore only the name of the Sacred Trinity or of the Saviour ; but the names of holy men and women — whether drawn from the Bible or from later history — were already in the ascendant. Where there was no special cause at hand to determine the choice of what we may for convenience' sake term the dedication-name, it might be decided by a variety of influences. First of all, there was the force of old associations. What more natural than that missionaries founding new churches in a strange land should reproduce the dear and honoured names of the country they had left ? The late Dean Stanley, in his " Memorials of Canterbury," shows how this principle of home associations governed Augustine and his fellow-missionaries to England in their choice of dedication-names. The special reasons for the first chosen dedication, " S. Pancras," must be discussed later when we come to the history of that saint (ch. xvi.). The name is one that can never now lose its hold in England, though it no longer lives in the city where it was first bestowed. Augustine's next foundation was the Abbey of SS. Peter and Paul in Canterbury ; — " evidently intended," says Dean Stanley, " to carry back the thoughts of those who first settled within its walls far over the sea, to the great churches which stood by the banks of the Tiber, over the graves of the two apostles." But neither did this dedication remain ; for, as was often the case, a later generation substituted the founder's own name, and the building became known as " S. Augustine's Abbey." Rochester Cathedral, by its dedication to S. Andrew, long marked its connexion with S. Andrew's Convent at Rome from which its founder Augustine had himself been sent forth ; but in the reign of Henry VIII. the dedication was changed to its present form : " Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary." The same law of association has planted S. Botolph, the gentle hermit of the fens, in America. So little is certainly known of this seventh- century saint that there is little likelihood of modern churches being- dedicated to him for his own sake ; but the men of Boston — i.e. of " Botolph's town " — who first carried the old name to the New World, thought of little beyond reproducing the sound so familiar in their ears, " S. Botolph's church." In like manner we have newly-founded churches to S. Dionis, S. Kenelm, S. Olave, and others — dedications chosen, not for the sake IO STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. 11. of the saints themselves, but in order to mark a connexion with some older church of the same name now no longer existing, of which these modern churches are the direct representatives. Another group of dedications is to be accounted for by its connexion with French religious houses. Many of our existing churches are the successors of older monasteries whose names they still perpetuate. It often happened that the revenues of these monasteries were appropriated by the king or other proprietor to some French abbey, and that the English house thereupon merged its own name in the dedication of its French patron. Thus S. Barbara's, at Ashton-under-Hill in Gloucestershire (ch. xi.), owes its name to an Augustinian monastery of "SS. Martin and Barbara " in Normandy ; while another abbey in Normandy has given us the unfamiliar-sounding name of "S. Wandregisilus" (ch. xxviii.). So, again, the commemoration of an obscure French bishop, S. Laud, in a Buckinghamshire village (Sherington), is partially explained by the revenues of the church having been appropriated about the year 1195 by William de Sherrington to the French abbey of Marmontier (ch. xxiv.). These foreign dedications, not having either Catholic celebrity or local interest to recommend them, never became naturalized in England. S. Barbara, S. Wandregisilus, and S. Laud can each of them claim but a single existing parish church. Other French dedications were doubtless introduced by the Norman proprietors. Thus the Sussex church of Kingston-by-Sea, dating from Saxon times, bears the name of the French saint Julian (ch. xxiv.). The original dedication is unknown, but S. Julian must assuredly have come in with the Norman family of De Buci or De Bowsey, who were lords of Kingston from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and whose name of De Bowsey still lives on in the little inland parish in the distorted form of " By-Sea." * S. Denis (ch. xlv.), at Rotherfield in Sussex, is another instance of a French dedication due to the choice of the lord of the place ; but in this case the lord was himself a Saxon — not a Norman — Berth wald or Berto- aldus by name. This Berthwald, falling ill of an incurable disease, visited the monastery of S. Denis and S. Eleutherius near Paris, where he was cured — according to his own belief — by means of the miraculous aid of these saints. On his return to his own land' he testified his gratitude by founding a church at Rotherfield (a.d. 792), and dedicating it to his benefactor, S. Denis.f New Testament dedications have, of course, always been in use, though varying strangely in popularity at different periods. We shall see, when we come to consider the churches dedicated to the Apostles, how exceedingly rare are the ancient dedications to S. Paul— except in con- junction with S. Peter — while in the half-century from 1800 to 1850 there are more churches dedicated to him than to any other Apostle, except S. John. S. John is indeed the dedication that stands first in the nineteenth century — counting almost twice the number dedicated within * Lower's " Sussex." t Ibid. CHAP. II. CHOICE OF DEDICA TIONS. the same period to the Blessed Virgin, the favourite saint of pre-Reforrna- tion times, to whom one in six of all the existing churches in England are dedicated. S. Bartholomew, again, who in old times stood fourth in the rank of Apostolic dedications (S. Peter, S. Andrew, S. James, and S. Bar- tholomew), has only some thirty-five nineteenth-century churches — a smaller number than S. Barnabas, who before the Reformation was commemorated by scarcely more than half a dozen dedications. A certain number of dedications belonging to all periods of history — and probably a far larger number than there is any possibility of tracing — are to be accounted for on purely private grounds. Take for example S. Martin's at Fenny Stratford in Buckinghamshire, one of the rare instances of an eighteenth-century dedication to a non-scriptural saint. It was rebuilt in 1724 on the site of a ruined chapel by one Mr. Browne Willis, a famous antiquary. Mr. Willis laid the foundation-stone on S. Martin's Day, and caused the church to be dedicated to S. Martin, because his grandfather had died on S. Martin's Day in S. Martin's Lane. He further bequeathed a certain sum of money for a sermon to be preached annually on S. Martin's Day. It is by no means safe to conclude that a church is always named directly in honour of the saint whose name it bears. The number of eighteenth-century churches dedicated to S. George and to S. Ann point, not to a sudden revival of interest in S. George, " the Holy Martyr," or S» Ann, the supposed mother of the Virgin, but to a desire to compliment the reigning sovereigns. A certain newly consecrated village church of S. James was intended to commemorate neither the son of Zebedee nor the writer of the Epistle, but a private local benefactor of that name, whose services on behalf of the church the grateful parishioners desired to take this method of recording.* The above is not a solitary example, nor is it only in our own day that such personal considerations have been allowed to weigh in the choice of church dedications. We shall have occasion to notice later the group of dedications to 8. Remigius, peculiar to three of the eastern counties (ch. xxiv.), and to observe how far the personal element of local celebrities bearing the same name as the foreign saint may be held to account for them. Enough has already been said to show that whole chapters of history are embalmed in our church dedications. The late Mr. Green, the * A very marked example of this prac- tice of complimentary dedications is to be found in the history of the dedication names of two Australian churches, S. Philip's in Sydney and S. John's at Para- matta. A correspondent, writing to Notes and Queries (May 6, 1882), brings to light the following curious order issued from Government House, Sydney, in the year 1802: "His Excellency is pleased to direct that the districts of Sydney, Petersham, etc., be comprised within a parish to be henceforth named St. Phillip in honour of the first Governor of this territory (Captain Arthur Phillip), and the districts of Paramatta, Bankstown, etc., be comprised within a parish to be henceforth named St. John, in honour of the late Governor, Captain John Hunter, . . . and that the churches now building at Sydney and Paramatta be respectively named St. Phillip and St. John." 12 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. II. historian, used to delight, so his friends tell us, to trace out the history of London in the successive classes of dedications of the City churches— the Saxon, the Danish, and then the French saints. Mr. Kerslake did a like work for the ancient city of Exeter, and showed, from the names and geographical distribution of the various churches, how the city was for a time sharply divided into two camps, as it were, between Celt and Saxon.'* But valuable as is the historical information thus preserved for our use, it is slight in comparison with what it would have been had the original dedications been in all cases respected, and handed down unaltered from generation to generation. Unhappily, the very reverse has been the case, and dedications have been changed ruthlessly. At all periods of English Church history English churchmen have been prone to give expression to their special religious sympathies by changing the name of the church in which they worshipped, whenever the existing name chanced to be distasteful to them, or even beyond the range of their knowledge. In some cases they were happily content to add to the older dedication without entirely superseding it, and so we come to have those strange mixed dedications to national and scriptural saints combined, such as "SS. Mary and Eanswith," " SS. Peter and Felix," " SS. John Baptist and Pandiana," and the like. In the Middle Ages the re-consecration that necessarily followed upon the enlarging or rebuilding of a church gave free scope for a change of dedication. Precentor Venables was of opinion that it is to occasions such as these that we owe special groups of churches dedicated to some foreign saint, such as the churches to S. Denis in one district of Lincoln- shire. " The most probable explanation of such groups," says he, " is that the present dedication was given when the church was enlarged and the High Altar consecrated ; that it takes the place of an older dedication to a comparatively obscure saint, and that the new dedication commemorates the new saint under whose patronage the consecrating bishop had placed himself." f The frequency of this practice of re-consecration is shown by Mr. Middleton, the antiquary, in the case of the Gloucestershire church of S. Martin's, at Wolston or Woolston, the oldest part of which is very early Norman. " This little church," says Mr. Middleton, " appears to have been consecrated three times. . . . The second consecration appears to have been at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the last when the chancel was rebuilt in the fifteenth century." % It might well have been differently dedicated at each consecration ; but in this particular instance there is no reason to suppose any such change, for S. Martin of Tours, the earliest of our known English dedications, has always kept its hold in England, and probably only two centuries at the outside— the sixteenth and the seventeenth — have passed, from the first introduction of Christianity * "TheCeltandtheTeutoninExeter," t ''Lincolnshire Churches," Arch. Jour- Arch. Journal, vol. 30. nal, vol. 38. X Archseologia, vol. 47. CHAP. II. CHOICE OF DEDICATIONS. 13 into our island up to the present time, without the dedication of some church to the memory of this ardent soldier-bishop. Ely Cathedral presents one of the clearest examples of frequent re- dedication. Queen Etheldreda, in dedicating her conventual church to the Blessed Virgin Mary (a.d. 673), was only carrying on the still earlier dedication of a ruined church built by Ethelbert, King of Kent, a century before, in the neighbourhood of the present city. Her church having suffered severely from the ravages of the Danes, it became necessary under King Edgar thoroughly to restore it. Archbishop Dunstan officiated at the solemn service of re-consecration, on the day following the feast of the Purification, 790, dedicating the church to " SS. Peter and Mary" — the east end to the Apostle, the south aisle to the Virgin. From very early days the monastery had been generally known from the name of its founder as " S. Etheldreda's," but it was not until a fresh consecration in 1252 that her name was formally added to those of the other two saints, and the stately church dedicated in honour of " SS. Mary, Peter, and Etheldreda." For nearly three centuries this continued to be its proper designation, till in 1541 there appeared Henry VIII. 's charter "for erecting the Cathedral Church of the late Monastery of SS. Peter and Etheldreda at Ely, into a Cathedral Church by the name and title of 4 The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely.' " Since that time there has been no further change, and the canons of Ely still swear to observe the statutes of the cathedral of the " Holy and Undivided Trinity." But the force of association is strong. The vigorous personality of Etheldreda having im- pressed itself upon Ely for eight centuries, was not quickly to be displaced, and in popular estimation, and even in one published list,'"' Ely Cathedral still remains the church of S. Etheldreda. Etheldreda's great-niece, S. Werburgh (ch. xl.), the patron of Chester, has not been equally fortunate. The Abbey church at Chester was associated with her name for as long a time as was the monastery of Ely with that of her more famous aunt ; but when Henry VIII. changed the Abbey into a Cathedral, he altered the dedication from " S. Werburgh " to " Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary." Other special changes of dedications introduced by Henry VIII. must be noticed in their proper place. The Bishop of Oxford! (quoted by Precentor Venables) says of this reign : " The Catholic dedications after the Eeformation replaced in many cases the old historic saints. There were doubtless changes of dedication before, but that, I think, was the period of change." Undoubtedly this was a great period of change, but it is pro- bable that the displacing of the old historic saints — of England's own national saints in particular— had begun long before this. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the tendency seems to have been towards superseding purely local saints by the favourite names out of the service books— the Catherines and the Margarets and the Georges ; while the tendency of the post-Beformation dedications was either in favour * Clergy List, 1896. t Dr. Stubbs. 14 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. II. of purely scriptural saints, or of direct dedications to the Blessed Trinity, or to the Saviour. There was a strong reaction against the ordinary Kalendar saints and a marked preference for the very non-committal dedication to " All Saints." The favourite dedications of Henry VIII. himself were to the Trinity or the Saviour. In the case of Chester Cathedral the name of the Virgin enters into the dedication ; but in the case of S. Mary's, Southwark, now S. Saviour's, it was struck out. As we have said, " All Saints " now became common, and it is probably to this reign that we should refer a large proportion of the 1200 ancient churches bearing this dedication. It is intelligible why dedications to the Holy Cross or to unscriptural saints such as S. Leonard or S. Eichard should have been thus superseded ; it is even possible to understand why S. Mary Magdalene should have been set aside ; but it is quite inexplicable why a scriptural saint like S. Luke should have shared the same treatment, as seems to have been the case in more than one instance. That it was Henry's policy to diminish the number of Saints' Days observed throughout the country was further shown by his proclamation of 1536, commanding that all parish feasts should be held simultaneously on the first Sunday in October, instead of as hitherto on the anniversary of the dedication of the church, and that the particular Saint's Day should be entirely set aside. Custom, however, proved too strong for this Act of Uniformity, and the parishes for the most part clung to their separate feasts, which often remain to furnish us with a clue to the true dedication that underlies the later name of " All Saints." It was not, however, only under Henry VIII. that changes were made. The process has been going on continually up to the present time. Many churches dedicated to S. Thomas of Canterbury have either tacitly dropped half their dedication-name or openly changed it into "S. Thomas the Apostle." " SS. Mary and Sampson " has become " S. James the Great ; " while in other cases the dedication has not been formally changed, but allowed to lapse ; a new church has succeeded to an earlier one, and the original dedication has not been renewed. Thus the ancient church of S. German's at Marske-by-Sea has been succeeded by S. Mark's, and at Swindon " Holy Rood " has given place to " Christ Church," the original dedication being in this instance preserved by a new Roman Catholic church. The principle is a perfectly legitimate one, however unwisely we may conceive it to have been applied in particular cases, or however much, from an antiquarian standpoint, we may deplore its working. Undoubtedly the edification of the living is more important than the preservation of historical continuity, and if the Church is to adapt itself to all times, it must be free to reject and alter names which, however innocently given at the first, have since become a cause of superstition or an offence to weaker minds, or which tend to perpetuate false doctrine. We may regret the action of those who suppressed many an ancient and curious dedication — CHAP. II. CHOICE OF DEDICATIONS. 15 such as those to " Our Lady of Assumption," or, " S. Mary and the Holy Host " — but, in truth, they were only acting as Hezekiah acted when he " brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made," and called it Nehushtan — a piece of brass. If only the Church of England had followed strictly the advice of a certain early Archbishop of Canterbury, dedication-names might have been changed as need required without irrevocably losing the original name. Archbishop Wulfred, in a.d. 816, ordered that on or by every altar should be an inscription recording its dedication-name. Mr. Middleton observes that " after the twelfth century this canon appears to have been neglected, and hence such inscriptions as this are very rare." He adds, " One still exists painted on the wall by one of the crypt altars in Canterbury Cathedral, but I do not know of any other English examples." * The task of recovering these lost dedications is not, however, altogether a hopeless one. Sometimes — though this is a dangerous and often mis- leading track — the dedication lies embedded in the civil name of the parish, as in the case of Peakirk in Northampton, the kirk or church of S. Pega (oh. xlvii.). The names engraven on bells are sometimes appealed to, but are most unsafe authorities ; for bells are capable of being transported from church to church, and had, moreover, distinct dedication-names of their own. The village feasts, as we have already seen, often furnish a clue ; but even here caution is needed, for frequently when the dedication-day fell at an unseasonable time of year the feast would be changed to Whitsuntide or Michaelmas, or some more suitable day. Then again the change of style was observed in some parishes and not in others, so that in many cases, in order to arrive at the dedication-day, it is necessary to subtract from ten to thirteen days from the existing feast-day. Indirect evidence of the true dedication is sometimes found in old municipal towns in the days still appointed for the election of officers. Thus at Derby one of the old churches in the town is named " All Saints," but it is noticeable that the inferior officers of the municipality are, or were, elected annually on " the first Monday after S. Luke's Day." In the search after lost dedications light may fall from very unsuspected quarters, and, as we shall see in connexion with S. Richard of Chichester (ch. xxiii.), in one Sussex parish the strongest evidence comes from a bird in a basket ! Mr. Kerslake used to say that the whole matter of church dedications has been " totally neglected, and has not yet emerged into the region of scientific accuracy, though an unsuspected amount of knowledge of history and ethnology still lies under it." t He was of opinion, however, that many dedications " remain to be discovered by those who undertake to do so for separate counties. Such additions may be gathered from wills, parish records, and other writings that have not been printed." But while we sigh over our lost knowledge, we must bear in mind how * Arch&ologia, vol. 50, i f Private letter. 1 6 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. n. very many churches there are which have escaped all changes and still preserve their ancient dedications. We have dedications to obscure British saints, such as S. Aldate (ch. xxxn.) and S. Morwenna (ch. xxxiv.), who have lived on through the coming of Saxon and Dane and Norman, and have been untouched by the zealous reforms of either the Roman or the Puritan parties in the Church. For more than thirteen centuries they have kept their place, and it is not likely that they will be forgotten now. The memory of the mysterious Persian bishop who gives his name to St. Ives in Huntingdonshire (ch. xxv.), has lingered for over a thousand years in the part of England where, accord- ing to tradition, he travelled as a missionary and died. Felix, the Saxon Apostle of East Anglia (ch. xxiii.), is still remembered in the very scene of his labours ; while the Celtic Kentigern has left his traces in Cumberland, the country he so largely helped to evangelize. Surely there is much of history in the dedications that are left us, and in that representative gathering of saints, where the Jewish Apostle and the Greek Father, the Roman Deacon and the French Queen, stand side by side with the Yorkshire Crusader and the Scottish Missionary, the Persian Bishop and the English King. CHAPTER III. DEDICATIONS TO THE DEITY. Section A.— Dedications to the Saviour. See also dd. PAGE. NAME. CHURCHES. IS Christ Church ... 373 , 21 Holy Saviour ... 80 22 Jesus Church 4 22 God's Gift 1 23 The Wisdom of God 1 23 0 Sapientia. See Wisdom of God. 23 Emmanuel ... 40 23 The Good Shepherd 4 24 The Holy Kedeemer 1 21 Christ the Consoler 1 The Holy Name. See ch. iv. 505 Section B. — Dedications to the Holy Spirit. 24 S. Esperit 2 25 Holy Ghost 2 25 Holy Spirit 2 25 Holy Paraclete , 1 Section C. — Dedications to the Holy Trinity. 25 Holy Trinity 636 636 In considering the question of church dedications, it is most important to bear constantly in mind the great principle so plainly laid down by Hooker, and before quoted, that " churches were consecrated unto none but the Lord only." * We have already seen how gradually the very multitude of churches made it necessary for "some variety of proper names to be devised for distinction's sake," and how in the majority of cases there was super- added the name of some good man or woman, some "saint of the Lord." We see an example of this in the dedication of Etchingham in Sussex, which is usually given as " SS. Mary and Nicholas," but of which the earlier and more correct style really is, " God, SS. Mary and Nicholas." So, too, we have a charter of St. Bees in Cumberland, dated 1134, granting certain lands to " God, S. Mary of York and S. Bega ; " f or take Great Budworth in Cheshire, usually ascribed to " S. Mary and All Saints," but spoken of by Ormerod, the Cheshire historian, as "a fair parish church, dedicated to God and All Saints, in commemoration whereof our wake is * E. P., v. 13. t Nicolson and Burn. VOL. I. C STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. hi. celebrated November 1st." * No doubt many ancient churches had a somewhat similar form of ascription, but the first portion of the dedication- name would very naturally fall into disuse, while the saint's name would tend to become that by which alone it was usually known. Yet, while this practice has increased more and more, there have been not a few of our churches — rather more than one in twelve of the whole number — that have adhered to the original idea of church dedication, and have placed themselves under the direct and sole invocation of the Saviour, or of the Holy Spirit, or, it may be, of the Blessed Trinity. It is this very large and important class of dedications with which we have now to deal. Section A. — Dedications to the Saviouk. Dedications to the Saviour — most commonly under the Church. name of Christ Church —have held their place amongst us ever since the foundation of Augustine's so named humble church at Canterbury, that was to be the original of our great metropolitan cathedral. " It was then," says the late Dean Stanley,! " as it is still, properly called ' Christ Church,' or ' the Church of our Saviour.' We can hardly doubt," continues the same writer, " that this is a direct memorial of the first landing of Augustine when he first announced to the pagan Saxons the faith and name of Christ, and spread out before their eyes, on the shore of Ebbe's Fleet, the rude painting on the large board, which, we are emphatically told, represented to them ' Christ our Saviour.' " The use of the two names, Christ Church, or the Church of our Saviour, is noteworthy, as illustrating a very common early practice of using the two titles quite indifferently. In this there is nothing to surprise us, though it is contrary to modern practice ; but it is somewhat strange to find " Holy Trinity " used in like manner as an alternative name for the other two. Thus, Canterbury Cathedral figures in Domesday Book as the Church of the Holy Trinity ; and the beautiful old Minster church at Christchurch in Hampshire goes now by the designation of Holy Trinity, though the parish, " anciently called Twinam Bourne, has borrowed its present name from the dedication of its church to Christ." J In this instance the earliest dedication of the Priory church — before the time of the Norman Conquest— appears to have been to the Holy Trinity, but when it was rebuilt in the time of William Rufus, by Flambard, the famous church-building Bishop of Durham, it was re-dedicated to " Our Saviour Christ," § and since that time the two forms of dedication have lived on side by side. It is necessary, when we note the comparatively small number of ancient dedications to the Saviour, to remember how very large was the number dedicated to the Blessed Trinity, and that the two designations were used as convertible terms, for when we come to count up the existing pre-Reformation dedications under the name of Christ Church they are * Ormerod. X " Eng. lllus." t "Canterbury." § Lewis. CHAP. III. DEDICATIONS TO THE DEITY. 19 curiously few. First and most unmistakable of all is Canterbury Cathedral before mentioned. The modern chapel of Christ Church in Coventry, in the parish of S. Michael, may perhaps be considered as carrying on the memory of a chapel in honour of our Saviour, erected in this place in the fourteenth century, on land given by Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II. , though the actual site of this chapel is occupied by the existing parish church of S. John Baptist. In like manner, the modern church of Christ Church, Bermondsey, built in 1828, may, if it so chooses, regard itself as carrying on the traditions of a long vanished church in Bermondsey, founded about the year 1082 by one Aylwin Child, a citizen of London, and dedicated " to Jesus Christ." * So, too, the nineteenth-century church at Cressage in Shropshire, succeeding an old chapelry of unknown dedica- tion, did well to assume the name of Christ Church, for by so doing it gave new life to a very ancient and interesting local tradition. " Near Cressage," says a county history of fifty years back,| " are the remains of an ancient oak, supposed to have sheltered Christian missionaries previously to the building of churches ; it was then called i Chrest-ach,' i.e. i Christ's oak,' and from it the name of Cressage is said to be derived." Whatever the truth of this derivation, it was a felicitous thought to hand down the old tradition by the name of the hallowed building that now fills the place of the immemorial tree. The City church of Christ Church, Newgate, was originally dedicated by the Franciscan Friars to their patron S. Francis (ch. xxvii.), and only assumed its present style at the Reformation. From among the double dedications, however, we gain one more example ; the tiny chapelry of Armathwaite in Cumberland, with its ascription to " Christ and S. Mary," carries us back eleven centuries, to the time when William Rufus built a nunnery here dedicated to " Christ Jesus and His Mother Mary." X Worcester Cathedral has the same dedication under a slightly altered form — " Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin ; " but the first part of the ascription is a later addition, dating most probably from the third or fourth decade of the sixteenth century, when Henry VIII. set himself to revise the dedications of so many of our cathedral churches. In his reaction against what he considered the superstitious nomenclature of bygone generations, the king allowed himself but a very limited range of names, of which the three most frequently recurring were, " The Holy Trinity," " Christ Church," and " The Blessed Virgin Mary." It is to this period that we must assign the several changes of style in the cathedrals of Rochester, Chester, and Durham. S. Andrew's at Rochester, like S. Werburgh's at Chester, was altered into " Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary ; " while Durham lost a local association in dropping out its peculiar patron, S. Cuthbert, and changing its style from "Blessed Mary the Virgin and Cuthbert the Bishop " to " Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin." The memory of another national saint, rarer than either S. Werburgh * « Eng. Illus." t Ibid, t Lewis. 20 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. hi. or S. Cuthbert, was swept away in 1545, when Henry converted the Priory church of S. Frideswide (gh. xl.) at Oxford into a Cathedral, under the name of " The Cathedral Church of Christ." From an anti- quarian point of view we cannot but regret losing a rare dedication-name that carries us back to a romantic story of Oxfordshire eleven centuries ago ; but, regarded in every other light, we may well rejoice that the cathedral church of our oldest University city should be placed under no other invocation than that of the Saviour Himself. The cathedrals led the way in reviving what was afterwards to become one of the best loved of English dedications, and the parish churches were not slow to follow the example thus set. Christ Church at Tynemouth (sometimes called North Shields) bears date 1657. It was built to replace the ruined Priory of Tynemouth. This Priory, which was dedicated to " The Blessed Virgin Mary and Oswin King and Martyr," had been for some time used as a parish church ; but the new building did not carry on the old name, and this, our one and only ancient dedication to King Oswin of Northumbria (ch. xxxix.), was thus lost. The same period perhaps gives us the dedication of a chapelry at Selside in Westmoreland ; but this little building seems to have passed through so many vicissitudes that it is not easy to give an account of it. In existing lists * it will be found as S. Thomas, a name by which it seems to have been known in 1838 ; but Lewis, in describing the village, says : " The chapel, dedicated to Christ, was built about 1720 ; " and he further makes mention of a slab in the church, of unknown origin, bearing date 1634, which suggests the thought that the "building" in 1720 may only have been a re-building, and that so possibly the " dedication to Christ " may belong to the seventeenth rather than to the eighteenth century. In the eighteenth century there are not a few undoubted examples, as at Macclesfield, Southwark, Spitalfields, and elsewhere. With the present century the dedications to Christ Church increase with astonishing rapidity, amounting to over 350. In point of actual numbers, the last forty years of the century have given us more than the first fifty — 190 as against 165 — but in proportion to the number of churches built in the two periods respectively, it may safely be said that it was in the opening- half of the present century that this special dedication was most popular. We may be very confident that it will always now hold its honoured place amongst us, but the greater variety of dedication-names that has now become general prevents any one of them from being so freely used as in the days when no dedications were acceptable save those to the Saviour and to the Blessed Trinity and to the red-letter saints of our Prayer-book Kalendar. It is, however, probable that several of those churches now assigned to the latter half of the nineteenth century Avould prove, on closer investigation, to belong to the earlier half ; and the same may be said of most of the old chapelries. Many of these were made parochial between 1820 and 1850, and probably at that time adopted their present * Clergy List, 1896. CHAP. III. DEDICATIONS TO THE DEITY. 2 I name. In some cases doubtless the old dedication was untraceable ; in others it may have been to some black-letter saint, as, for instance, S. Giles at Tilstock * in Shropshire, now changed to Christ Church. Of the more recent churches in this name, there is not much that calls for special attention, only it may be observed that not the least interest- ing among them is Christ Church, Isle of Dogs, which owes its name to its being under the special charge of Christ Church College at Oxford. York, Norwich, Dartmouth, and one or two village ^viLir. churches, instead of being called " Christ Church," retain the somewhat rarer form of the dedication, " S. Saviour's." But in all these cases it is probably a mere accident that has kept the one form rather than the other. The indifferent use of " Holy Trinity " and " S. Saviour " is again illustrated by Ringley in Lancashire, which is assigned sometimes to the one, sometimes to the other invocation ; or by Clee in Lincolnshire, which is usually given as " Holy Trinity and S. Mary," though in some pre-Reformation Wills it is spoken of as " Our Saviour's." It is by no accident, however, that the noble church in Southward, sometimes called " The Cathedral of South London," has come to be "S. Saviour's." It was formerly known as S. Mary Overy," from the position of the priory church upon or over the river Ree, but when Henry VIII. suppressed the Religious House, he changed the dedication. We can hardly regret a change that brings into the heart of toiling South wark this most beautiful and comforting of dedications. The church of S. Mary Magdalene, at Exford in Somerset, has an alter- native dedication (recorded in a will of 1534) to " S. Salvym," or, as another example gives it, " S. Salvy." It has been supposed that this is another form of S. Saviour's — a corruption, it might be, of S. Salvator, — but there is no proof of this, and it seems far more probable that it is intended for the French bishop, S. Salvi (ch. li.). However this may be, there can be no room for doubt as to the intention of a church conse- crated at Foremark, near Derby, in 1662, under the name of " The Church of the Saviour." From this time on we meet with no further dedications in this name till we come to the present century, and then they become very frequent — with twelve in the first fifty years, and more than fifty since that time. It is most often found under the form of " Saint Saviour," but occasionally, as at Tynemouth, we find the more directly intelligible form of " The »Holy Saviour," or, as at West Cosely in Staffordshire, " The Blessed Saviour." Hooker, in the passage before quoted, says : " Some churches have had their names in memory of the Trinity Itself, some to Christ under sundry titles ; " but at the time when Hooker wrote, our English dedica- tions do not appear to have offered much variety in this respect, whatever foreign ones may have done. The early dedications to the Second Person of the Trinity are almost wholly confined to " Christ Church " and " S. Saviour," but gradually the list has been somewhat expanded. * Made parochial 1871. 22 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. hi. Jesus Church ^ WaS * n ^-°°k er,s boyhood that the consecration of the little chapel of Troutbeck, near Windermere, took place under rather remarkable circumstances. In 1562 it was consecrated by Bishop Downham, of Chester, by the name of " Jesus Chapel ; " but there having been some informality in the ceremony, it was re-consecrated in the same year by no less a personage than Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury.* The bell, cast some eighty years later, bears the legend : " Jesus be our speede." f Still more interesting, historically, from its connexion with Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, is the chapel of like name in the Southampton parish of S. Mary Extra. " Pear-tree Green," on which the chapel stands, is now easily accessible by railway ; but in the days of James I. those inhabitants of the great outlying parish who dwelt on the further side of the river Itchen were often liable to be cut off from attendance at church. To remedy their needs, the squire of the district provided of his own bounty a church and churchyard ; and when the saintly Bishop of Win- chester came to consecrate the same (September 17, 1620), the founder set forth with graphic force the grievous bodily perils incurred by those who sought to cross " the broad and dangerous " Itchen in stormy weather for the sake of worshipping in their mother church, and the spiritual perils of those others who were perforce deprived of the sacraments and the ministry of God's Word. The need was plainly too urgent to be dis- regarded, and Bishop Andrewes proceeded to the consecration of the " Jesus Chapel" and its adjoining churchyard, making use of most carefully drawn-up services which have become the basis of our present existing consecration services 4 Such a dedication was not, however, quite unknown in England before this time. Christ Church at Attercliffe, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was so named at the rebuilding in the first half of the present century, but it was the successor of an ancient chapel known as " The Holy Jesus." Probably a natural shrinking from a too free use — without any sort of prefix even — of so precious a Name induced the change, and also accounts for its never having found general acceptance, in spite of its introduction in the sixteenth century at both our universities. The college of that name at Oxford was a new foundation endowed and named in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; its beautiful sister at Cambridge was originally a Benedictine nunnery dedicated to " The Blessed Virgin, S. John Evangelist, and S. Rhadegundis." § " Jesus Chapel," at Enfield, near London, and " The Church of the Holy Jesus," at Lydbrook in Glou- cestershire — both of them modern — complete the dedications in this name. All our remaining dedications to the Saviour belong to the nineteenth century ; but before passing on to these weimust pause to mention a curious and wholly unique dedication of the seventeenth century which shows the God's Gift S Teater freedom and originality of this period in contrast T ° C S t1 ' with the monotonous rigidity of the eighteenth. This is * Bulmer's " Westmoreland." man's edition of Sparrow's " Rationale," t Ibid. 1840. \ See the whole Form printed in New- § " Eng. Illus." chap. in. DEDICATIONS TO THE DEITY. 2 3 the College Chapel of Dulwich School, founded by Edward Alleyn in 1619, under the striking dedication of " God's Grift." Equally rare, so far as English practice is concerned, but in of God. 18 ° m str ^ ct accordance with early Catholic precedent, is the dedica- tion of a recently founded church at Lower Kingswood in Surrey to " The Wisdom of God." The church is built in the Byzantine style, and its very name, no less than its outward form, carries our thoughts back to the world-famous cathedral of Santa Sophia at Constantinople " dedicated to The Eternal Wisdom, i.e. to the Second Divine Person." * If those are right — and we can hardly doubt that they are — who see in this ancient ascription no mere abstraction but a direct invocation of Him Who is the very Word and Wisdom of God, then we find in this latest of English dedications a link| with the two detached words that have for so long held their place in our Kalendar — " 0 Sapientia." These words, " 0 Wisdom," are taken, as is well known, pf c a ^Q ntm ' from the opening sentence of the ancient Latin antiphons to the Magnificat which were sung on seven different days in Advent, beginning, as is shown in our Prayer-book, on December 16. These most scriptural and poetical antiphons are beyond doubt immediately addressed to the Saviour, Whose coming they set forth under various aspects, and Whose aid they implore. The first antiphon, which might well become the watchword of a church dedicated to " The Wisdom of God," runs as follows : " 0 Wisdom, Which didst come forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from the one end of all things to ^he other, and ordering them with sweetness and might : Come, that Thou mayest teach us the way of understanding." Emmanuel ^ e ser ^ es tliat ^ e S' ms with " 0 Sapientia " ends with " 0 Emmanuel ; " and this brings us to another most beautiful dedication-name, never found in England before the present century, but now yearly increasing in favour, namely Emmanuel Church. We find no less than forty examples of it, eight of them belonging to the period previous to 1850, the rest of more recent date. In some cases, as at Birmingham and Streatham, the name is given in the Old Testament form of " Immanuel," but this is rare. It is perhaps not perfectly correct to speak of this dedication being found only in our own day, for Emmanuel College at Cambridge was founded and dedicated three hundred years ago, in 1584. The patronage of the parish of Loughborough in Leicestershire is in the hands of the College, and when in 1837 the mother church of All Saints became insufficient for the growing needs of the town, the College built a new church which bears the name of Emmanuel, and so witnesses to the ancient connexion between Loughborough and the University of Cambridge. The Good When we consider how largely the imagery of the Good Shepherd. Shepherd has entered into all our religious imaginations, it is * Murray's " Constantinople," based t Private letter from Canon Newbolt. on Von Hammer's " Ottoman Empire." 2 4 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. hi. matter for surprise that we should find only four churches bearing this tender and suggestive name. All four are of very recent foundation. The Hoi Redeemer, again, is a very rare ascription — in fact, Eedeemer. tne on ^7 Anglican instance of it seems to be in a modern church at Clerkenwell ; but this is an example that is sure to be imitated in course of time. " Christ the Consoler " is the expressive and touching Consoler! 6 dedication-name given to a beautiful church at Newby in the West Riding of Yorkshire, built some twenty-five years ago by Lady Mary Vyner as a memorial to her son, who was killed by brigands in Greece. Last on our list stands " the Church of the Holy Name," mirm. 0hj a imi( l ue dedication which will be more conveniently con- sidered in connexion with the festival of "The Name of Jesus " (ch. iv.). Section B. — Dedications to the Holy Spieit. From the dedications to the Blessed Saviour we pass on to those in honour of the Holy Spirit. The practice of dedicating churches to the Third Person of the Trinity has never become general, but it is of high antiquity; witness S. Augustine's pronouncement on the subject. No one held more firmly than the great Bishop of Hippo the principle that " Churches are dedicated solely to God and His service," howsoever they might likewise serve as memorials of the holy dead ; and in one of his controversies with a certain Arian bishop concerning the Divinity of the Holy G-host, he points to the custom of dedicating churches in His honour as an argument for His Godhead. " Since therefore," says he, " we should be sacrilegious in building a temple to any creature, how can He be other- wise than the true God, to Whom we not only build temples, but are ourselves His temples ? " In our country such dedications are but few in number, but they are to be found at the most widely differing periods of church-building, and run throughout the whole of our English Church History like a slender golden thread. S Esperit tw0 ear ^ est ma ^ e manifest their claim to antiquity by retaining their dedication-name in the Norman-French form of " S. Esperit." It is probable that there is some connexion between the two, as both are in Warwickshire, not so very far apart — the one at Marton, the other at Wappenbury. Wappenbury has also an alternative dedication to S. John the Baptist. Some centuries later, in the early years of the reign of Henry VIII., a certain Lord Sandys, in conjunction with Bishop Fox of Winchester, built at Basingstoke in Hampshire a most beautiful chapel which was dedicated to the Holy Ghost. The chapel was specially intended for the use of an Educational Guild, which they likewise set on foot. This Guild passed through many storms, and after having been chap. in. DEDICATIONS TO THE DEITY. 25 suppressed and re-established, and then again suppressed, it was re-organized by Mary Tudor as a Free G-ramniar School. Some fifty years ago the school was still extant — since then it has doubtless undergone some fresh experiences at the hands of the Endowed Schools' Commissioners— and the remains of the " Chapel to the Holy Ghost " were to be seen adjoining the schoolroom.'"" Holy Ghost * n ^ y ear 1635 we find the inhabitants of Middleton in J ' "Westmoreland subscribing money for a chapel, which was consecrated by Bishop Bridgman of Chester under the name of "The Chapel of the Holy Ghost." t After this there is a pause of more than two hundred years till we come to our own century. Now we have " The Church of the Holy Ghost " at New Town in the Isle of Wight, and two Holy Spirit dedications to tne " Holy Spirit," the first at Rye Harbour in Sussex, and the other at Milton in Devonshire. Kirkhaugh in Northumberland is an old parish, but its Paraclete. present dedication-name of " Holy Paraclete " is of modern origin, having been assumed at some re-building in lieu of the old name which had been lost. Section C. — Dedications to the Holy Trinity. Every county in England, with the seeming exception of Trinity. Bedfordshire, has at least one ancient church dedicated to the " Holy Trinity," and even Bedfordshire has made good the omission by a nineteenth-century church in that name. Cornwall would rank as another exception, but that in the year 1290 the parish church of S. Austell, which took its name from one of the long-forgotten " Children of Brychan " (ch. xxxiv), was re-consecrated and placed under the invoca- tion of the " Holy Trinity." More than six hundred of our churches are dedicated in honour of " the Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity." We cannot wonder that so grand and comprehensive a dedication-name should largely have been made choice of, but it must be ackuowledged that from an antiquarian stand- point it is one of the most perplexing of all church dedications. As before said, it is of almost universal distribution, owning no local preferences. At first sight it would app3ar to be almost equally universal in point of time, but a closer investigation seems to show that, broadly speaking, there are three periods in which it was chiefly in favour, namely, the two centuries succeeding the death of Becket, the latter half of the sixteenth with the whole of the seventeenth century, and again in the fifty years from 1800 to 1850. Dedications to the Holy Trinity were in use long before the institution of any separate festival of that name, and we have already noted that in the Domesday Survey Canterbury Cathedral figures as " Holy Trinity," though more usually known as " Christ Church." About this time the * Lewis. f Nicolson and Burn. 26 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. hi. question of instituting a separate festival in honour of the Trinity was under consideration at Rome, but was discouraged by the then Pope, ou the ground that such a festival was needless, the doctrine being recognized by the daily use of the Gloria Patri. Eighty years or so later, however, Becket, having himself been con- secrated on the Sunday after Whitsunday, appointed that henceforth in the churches under his jurisdiction that same Sunday should be regarded as the Feast of Trinity.* The Archbishop's order doubtless gave a great impetus to the English commemoration of this mystery, and tended largely to increase the number of churches built in honour of the Trinity. In this matter English usage was in advance of the rest of Christendom, for in other parts of Europe the Festival was observed indifferently — if at all — on the Sunday next before Advent, or on the octave of Pentecost ; and it was not until more than a century and a half later that an order from Rome authorized the long-existing English practice by enforcing the universal observance for this purpose of the first Sunday after Whitsuntide. To some extent, therefore, the practice of the Western Church was unified (the Eastern Church has never recognized any such Festival), but to this day our Prayer-book maintains one distinctive feature in this matter by dating all the latter Sundays of the Christian Year by their relation to the Feast of Trinity, while the Roman Church, though duly celebrating the Festival of the Trinity on the appointed day, on the following Sunday reverts to the thought of the special work of the Holy Spirit, and reckons all the remaining Sundays from Pentecost. Among the many dedications to the Trinity (considerably over two hundred) that belong to this Mediaeval period, we may specially notice Chilton in Somerset, which appears in old records under the designation of " Chilton Trinitatis." f To this early period, too, we shall probably be right in referring four of our Cathedrals : Bristol, Carlisle, Chichester, and Norwich. Ely is also in legal documents described as " The Cathedral of the Sacred and Undivided Trinity," but in this instance, as we have shown elsewhere, the dedication is no older than Henry VIII. He would have made a like change at Winchester, but Winchester was faithful to her old traditions, and though not rejecting the new dedication to the Trinity, she only superadded it to the already existing dedication in honour of SS. Peter and Paul and S. Swithun. Another of Henry VIII. 's dedi- cations in this name was the famous Trinity College at Cambridge. Its less famous namesake, " Trinity Hall," on the other hand, belongs to the earlier period, and was dedicated in 1347 by Bishop Bateman of Norwich (perhaps by way of association with his own beautiful cathedral of the same name) to "The Holy and Undivided Trinity." Trinity College, Oxford, was formerly known as " Durham College," and took its present name in 1555. In the Puritan reaction against names that might in any way be held to savour of superstition, Holy Trinity came more and more into favour, * Daniel's Prayer-booh. f Somerset, Areli. Journal, vol. 17. CHAP. III. DEDICATIONS TO THE DEITY. 27 and the seventeenth century, though not a period remarkable for church- building, gives us " The Sacred Trinity " at Salford, near Manchester (1635), and at least four other churches in the same name, of which the most notable is Berwick-on-Tweed, built under the Commonwealth. The eighteenth century adds about nine more, but it was in the first half of the succeeding century that this dedication regained a popularity as great as it had ever enjoyed in the Middle Ages. To this period we may un- hesitatingly assign over two hundred and thirty of the churches dedicated in this name. Like Christ Church, it was a dedication much in favour with the Evangelical party in the Church, so much so, that out of fifty-four modern churches held by the Simeon Trustees, more than one-third will be found to be dedicated either to the Saviour or to the Holy Trinity. In several instances the chain of association was still further lengthened by clerical patrons, themselves instituted by the Simeon Trustees, conferring upon the district churches in their own gift this same favourite dedication- name. After 1850 we note a change, and the number of dedications to the Trinity is reduced by nearly one half. There may possibly have been a feeling that the beautiful dedication was in danger of becoming a party badge, and that, therefore, it was well for a time to drop it, but it is in truth a sufficient explanation of the change to say that each Age has its own characteristic dedications, and that in the desire to revive long-disused dedications to the great names of the Catholic Kalendar and to our own national worthies, it was impossible to multiply churches in any one name to the same extent as in the days of the more limited range of choice. We may rejoice in the greater elasticity of our own generation in this matter of the naming of churches, we may feel that it enlarges our horizon, but yet we would not be without a single one of those dedications to the Saviour or to the Holy Trinity, which help to keep ever clearly before our eyes the great fundamental principle of all church-dedications. CHAPTER IV. DEDICATIONS CONNECTED WITH THE LIFE OF CHRIST. PAGE. NAME. DAT. CHURCHES. 28 S. Advent. See ch. xxxiv. 29 The Holy Nativity . December 25 ... 1 29 The Holy Epiphany ... . January 6 ... 3 29 The Transfiguration ... . August 6 ... 1 29 The Kesurrection ... 2 29 The Ascension ... 10 30 The Circumcision . January 1 ... 0 30 The Name of Jesus . August 7 ... 0 30 The Holy Name . . August 7 ... 1 31 The Invention of the Cross . ... 1 dd. 31 Holy Cross ... . September 14 ... 72 See also dd. 32 Holy Hood ... . September 14 ... 21 Set i also dd. 34 Corpus Cbristi ... 1 dd. 34 The Holy Host ... 1 dd. 35 S. Sepulchre ... 4 We pass next to a class of dedications differing somewhat from all the rest, namely, those which commemorate some event or sacred object con- nected with the history of our Blessed Lord. To this class belong the large number of dedications to the sacred symbol of our redemption, the Cross, and the much smaller group in honour of the Holy Sepulchre. With a few very rare exceptions, hereafter to be noticed, all dedications both to the Cross and to the Sepulchre are of very early date ; but the tendency to what we may call impersonal dedications has shown itself again in a new form in the nineteenth century, in dedications connected with the history of our Lord, such as the " Holy Nativity," the " Kesur- rection," and the like. This is in truth only a return to a very early practice, for the church built by Constantine on Calvary was known some- times as " The Church of the Holy Sepulchre," but also as " Auastasis," " The Church of the Resurrection." * It had, however, fallen completely into disuse, in England at least, until it was revived in our own times. S Advent ^ e ^ orn ^ sn cnurcn °f " S. Advent " looks as if it ought to stand first in this list, but in truth the name refers, not to the Christian season, but to an obscure Cornish saint of the name of Advent (ch. xxxrv.). " The Church of the Advent " is the name that has been * D. C. B., " Constantine." chap. iv. DEDICATIONS CONNECTED WITH CHRIST'S LIFE. 29 bestowed on the so-called " Cathedral of North Dakota " in Western America. This cathedral is neither more nor less than a railway ear, fitted up with font, organ, lectern, and all the accessories of a church. In this unique cathedral the Bishop of North Dakota journeys throughout his immense diocese, holding services at the various stopping-places. We have first, then, the church of " The Holy Nativity " Bel 25. 1V1 y at Knowle in Somerset, a church consecrated within the last fifty years. This is at present a unique dedication ; but the next event in the Lord's earthly life, His manifestation to the Gentiles, is commemorated by no less than three churches of " The Holy Epiphany " — at Lache in Cheshire, and at Austwick and Tockwith, both ph°any. P Jan.6. of them in the West Eiding of Yorkshire. When we consider the special significance to ourselves of this holy feast of the welcoming in of the Gentiles, it seems strange that until within the last twelve years it should not have been commemorated by a single church. But now it has come into use as a dedication-name, and we may trust that the churches which claim it may feel themselves stirred up by their very name to their high missionary responsibilities. Lewisham in Kent is another example of a unique fi°™tk£ S ~ dedication, and a most beautiful one — " The Church of the Aug. 6. Transfiguration." Our Prayer-book Kalendar, in common with both the Roman and the Eastern Churches, still notifies August 6 as the day of the Transfiguration ; but to our own grievous loss we have been deprived of the beautiful service which might make the anniversary so full of teaching. Is it too much to hope that the 6th of August may one day be again restored to its position in our Prayer-book as a red-letter day, and that w T e may again listen to the words of the long- forgotten collect,* praying that, as in " the glorious Transfiguration a voice from Heaven showed us " that we are God's " adopted children," so we may be " heirs to the King of Glory, and partakers of His bliss " ? Within the last quarter of a century two churches have The Kesur- rev ived Constantine's old dedication of " The Resurrection." rection. The one is at Eastleigh in Hampshire, the other in Stafford- shire, at a place which, by its name of Dresden, shows plainly that it is a creation of the Potteries. But all these dedications taken together are outnumbered Ascension hy the dedications in honour of the Ascension. We find at least ten churches, known either as " Ascension," " Holy Ascension," or " The Church of the Ascension." In every case the dedi- cation has been given within the past fifty years ; but in two instances out of the ten it has been only in order to replace the lost dedication of earlier times. Thus the corner-stone of the newly rebuilt church of Melton-Ross in Lincolnshire was laid on Ascension Day, and the building re-dedicated as " The Church of the Ascension." f Whixley in Yorkshire, a church which was founded in Norman times, was in a somewhat similar predicament. * See Roman Catholic Missal. t Arch. Journal, vol. 30. 30 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. iv. The old dedication was unknown on the spot, though Chancellor Raine in his researches in old Wills prior to the year 1560, has found it given once as " S. James," and once as " S. Mary." * Possibly the doubt as to which of the two was the true dedication had caused both to be for- gotten. In 1862 the church was restored, and the Vicar, the Eev. William Valentine, finding that " it was clear and without any doubt that the Village Feast since 1700 had been held on Ascension Day," thought they might assume the original consecration of the church to have taken place on that Holy Day.| Chancellor Eaine's references to the pre-Reforination Wills show that the assumption was an incorrect one, but the parish is not likely now to relinquish its beautiful dedication, or the consecration feast, for which, indeed, it may soon claim the authority of a precedent of two hundred years. It may be added, further, that a dedication to the Ascension is not as new in England as a dedication to the Epiphany or the Transfiguration. There is, indeed, no existing example of such a choice, but in the early years of Edward I. we find one Sir Anketine de Nurtival dedicating a chantry or college at Moseley in Leicestershire to " The Ascension of our Lord," — conjoined unhappily with " The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin." { rni . It will have been observed that no mention has been i hp i j'i i yp / iJ7Y7P7 - sion, Jan. l ; made of two days connected with our Lord, both of which and Name of are commemorated in our Prayer-book Kalendar — the " Cir- es ' to * cumcision " on J anuary 1 , and the " Name of J esus " on August 7. Both days have very much the same significance, only the August festival is of purely British origin and observance, while the Feast of the Circumcision is common alike to the Greek, the Roman, and the Anglican Churches. The origin of the August festival is obscure. It is not to be found in Bede's Kalendar, but it is noted in the Aberdeen Breviary, and in the Salisbury and York Kalendars it was marked as a red-letter day. In short, as Mr. Baring-Grould observes, " In the English Church, August 7 was observed as the festival of the Holy Name long before the Reforma- tion." § The office has been disused long since, but the beautiful and suggestive designation remains in our Kalendar. It is interesting to note in the life of Mrs. Monsell, the Mother-superior of Clewer, how the late Archbishop Tait, having occasion to visit her on August 7, wrote her name and his own in a Bible and Prayer-book which he gave her, sub- scribing the date as follows : "August 7, 1876. Name of Jesus." || The Feast of the Circumcision is not represented amongst us by any church dedication, but the Old English festival of the "Name of Jesus" is undoubtedly connected with the " Church of the Holy Nam?° ly Name " at B °y ton in Cornwall. The church itself is a very old one, but there has been some doubt as to the dedication- name. A local antiquary writes as follows in the Launceston Weekly News : * " Yorkshire Dedications." t Lewis, t Private letter from the Vicar of § August 7. Whixley, 1887. II " Life of Harriet Monsell." chap. iv. DEDICA TIONS CONNECTED WITH CHRIST'S LIFE. 3 I " The Holy Name seems to be the most probable, because the Eevel week used to follow immediately after August 7. The Yicar of Boyton* cor- roborates this, in a private letter, saying, " I never could ascertain any- thing for certain on this point, but I have been told by some of the old people that Boy ton Revel used to be held on or immediately after August 7, which is dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus. . . . Hence the supposition is that the church is dedicated to the Holy Name." Boy ton Revel, or Fair, is no longer kept up, but the church has reassumed its supposed dedication to " The Holy Name." Invention, or There are two days in our English Kalendar designed to Finding of the commemorate the Cross — May 3, marked as the "Invention doss. May 3. of the Crosg » and g e pt em ber 14, briefly described as " Holy Cross Day," but known to the Roman and Eastern Churches as " the Exaltation of the Holy Cross." Neither festival is given in the earliest version of Bede's Kalendar, though both of them must have existed in his time. For convenience' sake, we may consider them together. The Spring feast commemorates the supposed discovery of the true Cross at Jerusalem by Helena, the mother of Constantine, in the year 326 ; and the Autumn festival, the annual display of the relic in the church founded at Jerusalem by the Empress, together with its restoration to the city three hundred years later. The story of the Finding of the Cross — for our word " Invention " is a mere archaism, discarded by the Church of Rome — is so associated with the history of S. Helena that it is more properly reserved till we come to the life of that saint (ch. xviii.). The Eastern Church has a commemoration of the Cross Day^ orEx- peculiar to itself, which furnishes the clue to the true origin altation of of our " Holy Cross Day." It takes no notice of the Inven- Sept°l°4 S ' t ^ ou or Finding of the Cross as it stands in our Western Kalendars, but four days later, on May 7, it commemorates the " Labarum," that is, the sign of the Cross, which appeared to Constan- tine in the sky (October 23, a.d. 312), and which henceforth he adopted as his symbol, together with the ever-memorable words, " In this conquer." When we consider the momentous effect upon the history both of the Church and of the world at large of this vision of Constantine's, it seems fitting enough that it should have been held in thankful remembrance ; but possibly this ought to be regarded as a third festival, distinct from the two days devoted to the honour of the sacred relic discovered by Helena. We have abundant evidence that Constantine was always ready to show reverence to every manifestation of the Cross, and there is considerable reason to think that the September festival, as well as the May festival, date back to the lifetime of the first Christian Emperor. But the event which gave to the already existing feast of the 11th of September its peculiar glory, was neither the commemoration of the Labarum, nor the Finding of the Cross by the Empress Helena, but the triumphant recapture * Eev. T. Walters, 1890. 32 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. IV. of the precious relic by the Christians under the Emperor Heraclius (a.d. 628), and its subsequent solemn restoration to Jerusalem after it had been for fourteen years in the hands of the Persians. The whole question of these various commemorations of the Holy Cross is highly involved, but we shall probably be right in regarding the day which our Prayer-book Kalendar emphatically calls " Holy Cross Day," as having a triple signification, and being intended as a general thanksgiving : — in the first instance, for the vision vouchsafed to Constantine ; then, again, for the wondrous discovery of the Sacred Wood, made by his mother ; and, last of all, for the recovery of that relic from the heathen Persians.* To many of us, our most vivid association with " Holy Cross Day " comes from Browning's poem, in which he tells how the reluctant Jews at Rome were compelled annually to attend church on this day, and to listen to a sermon, and in which he gives the musings of one of their number during the period of enforced silence : — "... This world has been harsh and strange ; Something is wrong ; there needeth a change. But what, or where ? at the last or first ? In one point only we sinned at worst. * * * * God spoke, and gave us the word to keep, Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 'Mid a faithless world, — at watch and ward, Till Christ at the end relieve our guard. By His servant Moses the watch was set ; Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. " Thou ! if Thou wast He, who at mid-watch came, By the starlight, naming a dubious name ! And if, too heavy with sleep — too rash With fear — O Thou, if that martyr-gash Fell on Thee coming to take thine own, And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne — Thou art the Judge." Holy Cross, ^ n England we have over sixty ancient dedications to and Holy " Holy Cross," or " S. Cross," and twenty more in the dis- Rood - tinctively English form of " Holy Rood." The number is comparatively small, but the dedications are very evenly distributed throughout the whole island, from Northumberland to Cornwall, only five counties being without this dedication in the one form or the other.f Mr. Baring-Gould says that the September festival was held in special veneration in the Eastern Church, and the May festival in the Western ; but the number of parishes that hold their feasts on or about September 14 seems to prove that both days were regarded in England. Certainly the great Essex Abbey of " Holy Cross and S. Laurence " at Waltham, observed * For a full discussion of the whole complicated subject, see Baillet, " Sep- tember 14," and Baring-Gould, "May 3 and September 14." t The five counties are : Bedfordshire, Cumberland, Monmouthshire, Surrey, and Westmoreland. chap. iv. DEDICA TIONS CONNECTED WITH CHRIST'S LIFE. 33 both festivals, for we find fairs at Waltham on May 11 as well as on Sep- tember 26 — the feasts respectively of the Invention and Exaltation of the Cross, according to the Old Style.* The church of Ampney-Crucis in Gloucestershire, and the chapelry of Rodbourne in Wiltshire, are both of them dedicated to the " Holy Eood," but even had their dedications been changed or lost sight of, they might have been inferred from the names of the parishes. In not a few instances we find churches dedicated to the Cross or Rood bearing one or more alternative names ; as at Melling in Lancashire, which is variously known as " Holy Rood," " S. Thomas," or " S. Peter ; " f or Bottisham in Cambridgeshire, which is ascribed now to " Holy Cross," now to " Holy Trinity," and now to " S. Mary." The explanation, doubtless, is that the superstitious veneration accorded to the Holy Cross had caused the very name to be discredited. And in some instances — in more, probably, than we can at all estimate — the attempt to change it was successful. Thus Congresbury in Somerset is now known only as St. Andrew's, but in all probability it was originally Holy Cross, for the annual fair, which was first granted in the reign of Henry VIII.,} is held on September 14. "A large and lofty cross stauding in the centre of the village " § is happily too common a sight in Somerset villages to have any direct bearing upon the question, but it suggests the propriety of inquiring into the original dedication, and of reviving it if possible. It is not easy to account for the change of dedication at Swindon, which took place in 1302. Up to that time the church was known as Holy Rood, but it was then changed to " S. Mary." In 1850 the old church was destroyed, and replaced by a new one, which was named " Christ Church." The old name of Holy Rood has, however, been revived recently by a Roman Catholic church in the town. The church of Holy Cross in Bristol is perhaps better known as the " Temple " than by its dedication-name. Like its more celebrated name- sake in London, it was founded by the Knights Templars, and takes from them its popular designation. For the most part the dedications to the Cross and Rood are to be found in country villages, or small provincial towns, such as Crediton, Stratford-upon-Avon, Ham; but Southampton has its Holy Rood, and Canterbury and Shrewsbury their Holy Cross. S. Cross at Winchester was a name much brought under discussion some years ago owing to a dispute as to the right disposition of some ancient foundation connected with the church; and another famous S. Cross is the old church at Oxford, in the district known as Holywell (from its celebrated well dedicated to SS. Margaret and Winifred) ; built, or possibly rebuilt, shortly after the Conquest.|| Three recent examples of dedications to the Holy Cross remain to be considered. Among them is the new church of Clayton in Lancashire, * Lewis. t Baine's "Lancashire." \ Lewis. VOL. I. § Ibid. I! Ibid. 34 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. iv. consecrated in 1874, under the name of S. Cross. In this instance there is no apparent reason for the choice of the dedication, but a similar choice at Knutsford in Cheshire has ample historic justification, for the new church is situated in a district of Nether Knutsford, which has been known from time immemorial as " The Cross-Town." Sir Peter Leycester, writing in 1667, observes that " The Cross-Town hath in it an ancient parochial chapel," * but it does not appear whether the present parish church of S. Cross is an entirely new foundation, dating only from 1860, when it was made parochial, or whether it is the direct successor of the ancient parochial chapel in the Cross-Town. But of all the thirty dedications in this name not one surpasses in interest the very latest of them all — the church recently built in London as a memorial to the late Commodore G-oodenough, who was killed by the natives off Santa Cruz, in the Pacific Ocean. In 1876, the district was formed out of the parish of St. Pancras, and in the close of the year 1887 the foundation-stone of the permanent building was laid by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Eight Hon. G-. J. Goschen. The Guardian, in its account of the ceremony, says : t " Many circumstances combined to make it one of more than usual interest. . . . The first incumbent was the Hon. Algernon Stanley, who had spent some time on board the ship commanded by Commodore Goodenough ; and when that gallant officer was slain by a poisoned arrow at Santa Cruz (or the Island of the Holy Cross), he conceived the idea of naming the district after the Holy Cross, as a memorial of his lamented friend." More than three hundred years ago, the name of Santa Cruz was carried by Spanish sailors to that far-off island of the Pacific. There the name remained, a silent witness to the Christian faith and to the love of God, when all around spoke of heathenism and of cruel deeds of darkness ; and now the Pacific sends back the name to England, enriched with precious memories of a gallant soldier of the Cross, who died by the hands of heathen natives off this island of Santa Cruz, and who, in his prolonged death-agony, showed " how a Christian can die." % And so this London church is linked for ever, by that one strong bond, with a distant island in the New World, and surely it will regard it as a sacred trust laid upon it to fulfil, sooner or later, Commodore Goodenough's dying hope for "those poor natives," in sending forth " some good Christian man to settle among them, and to teach them," § making known to them afresh the forgotten story of love and forgiveness which the very name of Santa Cruz was meant to preach. Corpus Ohristi A festival of late institution (1264), and (in the Anglican and the branch of the Church) of brief duration, is that of " Corpus Thursday*' Christi " kn0WI1 in France as the " F6te Dieu >" and there after Trinity celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. Inasmuch Sunday. ag j ia( j for j tg 0 )3j ec t the exaltation of the doctrine of * Ormerod. § "Memoir of Commodore Goodenough, t Dec. 7, 1887. E.N." % Havelock's words on his death-bed. CHAP. IV. DEDICA TIONS CONNECTED WITH CHRIST'S LIFE, 35 Transubstantiation, it naturally fell into disuse in England at the time of the Keformation, but not before it had left its mark upon our dedication- names. Each of our two ancient Universities has its Corpus Christi College ; that at Oxford, founded and dedicated in 1513 by Fox, Bishop of Winchester,* and its counterpart at Cambridge, of much earlier date, founded in 1344 by the Brethren of "the Guild of Corpus Christi and S. Mary." \ One parish church, and apparently one only, is known to have had and retained this rare dedication, namely, that of Hatherley Down in Gloucestershire, which is ascribed to "S. Mary and Corpus Christi ; " but just the same meaning is found in a different form in the Cambridgeshire church of Cheveley, dedicated to " S. Mary and the Holy Host," the word " Host " not standing, as might at first sight be supposed, for the "Angelic Host," but having precisely the same signification as " Corpus Christi." It is almost a matter of surprise that these two dedications should have been allowed to survive, but both are found in obscure country villages where probably in the days when men had ceased to make careful mention in their wills of the exact dedication-name of the church in which they desired to be buried, none save an occasional antiquarian troubled himself to know the full dedication-name of the church in which he worshipped. It is further probable that these churches were usually known merely by their first name of " S. Mary," an ascription to which no offence could be taken. Holy Last on our list stands the little group of churches dedi- Sepulchre and cated to S. Sepulchre, or the Holy Sepulchre. This is a dedi- S. Sepulchre. ca tion-name that almost always implies the influence of the Knights Templars, whose peculiar charge it was to defend pilgrims wor- shipping at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Two of these churches, those at Cambridge and at Northampton, are what is popularly termed " round churches," being built something in the form of a sepulchre, upon the model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The Temple Church in London, which is dedicated to the Virgin, is of the same shape, and there is a fourth round church of the same description at Maplesteacl in Essex, but this is dedicated, not to the Holy Sepulchre, but to S. John of Jerusalem, the patron of the Order of Knights Templars. That the two dedications were regarded as almost synonymous is shown by the dedication of a church in Norwich to " S. John de Sepulchre." S. Sepulchre's at Cambridge, which appears to have been consecrated in the year 1101,J is the oldest of the four existing round churches, but it is probable that all the dedications to the Holy Sepulchre belong to either the twelfth or thirteenth century. There are two other churches in this name, one at Warminghurst in Sussex, and one in the City of London. Thetford in Norfolk had formerly a priory church dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre. It was founded in the reign of King Stephen, and destroyed at the time of the suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII. § We * " Eng. Illus." f Ibid. % Lewis. § "Eng. Illus." 36 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. iv. have one single example of this dedication in the North-country. There was a church of the Holy Sepulchre at a place in the neighbourhood of Morpeth, named Sheepwash, but the church has been demolished, and the district or parish taken into the neighbouring parish of Bothal. With the close of the crusades, the special feeling which had prompted this dedication ceased to exist. Perhaps it is not without significance that whereas our fathers dedicated churches to the Cross and Sepulchre, we dedicate them rather to the glorious Eesurrection and Ascension. CHAPTER Y. THE HOLY ANGELS. 37 The Holy Angels ... 2 37 (8. Michael September 29 ... 634 See also dd.) 37 IS. Michael the Archangel ... „ ... 2 [721 37 JS. Michael and All Angels ... „ ... 83 J \S. Michael and All Saints. See ch. l. 39 S. Gabriel March 18 ... 15 See also dd. 40 S. Kaphael ... 1 About one in every nineteen of our churches is placed by a happy and poetical instinct under the invocation of the Holy Angels — those blessed ministering spirits, those messengers from God to man, of whom the Scriptures speak so often, yet so mysteriously. Although from Genesis to Revelation, through History and Prophecy, Gospel and Epistle, we meet with continual allusions to the Angelic Host, two only of the number are mentioned by name ; and of these two one in particular has been seized upon by the imagination of Christendom as the representative and type of all the rest. It seems on the face of it that a dedication to the entire An^e?s° ly Angelic Host would be far more suggestive than a dedication to any one angel standing alone ; yet we have but two such all-embracing dedications, and both are' of recent date — the one, " The Church of the Holy Angels," at Hoar Cross in Staffordshire ; the other a chapel of the same name at Cranford in Middlesex. S. Michael is usually, as in our Prayer-book, associated lc ae ' with his fellow-angels, and commemorated together with them ; but in a few rare instances we have churches dedicated to him alone under his proper style of " S. Michael the Archangel." ArchaBgel. the ^ n arLC i ent example of this is to be found at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, and a modern one at Markington in Yorkshire. Probably many more churches have had the like dedication ; but these additional designations are prone to fall into disuse, and thus, out of a S Michael total of over seven hundred churches dedicated in this name, and All less than a hundred have been careful to preserve strictly their Se n §> el 29 complete dedication-name of " S. Michael and All Angels," 1 and the rest are content to be known simply as " S. Michael." 38 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. v. S. Michael has come to occupy so large a space in Christian Art and Christian Poetry ; the figure presented to our imagination is so clear and impressive, that it is almost startling to remember that his name occurs only five times in both Old and New Testaments combined. Very wonder- ful and striking, without doubt, are the glimpses here afforded us of " Michael your Prince," of the conquering Captain of the Heavenly Host ; but yet it is not from these passages alone that the mediaeval conception of S. Michael — the "Warrior- Judge — has been built up, nor upon these alone that the intense adoration of the Middle Ages was founded. This is not the place to enter into the consideration how far Jewish tradition, in the first instance, and afterwards the glosses of the theologians, added to and altered the original conception. The whole question is discussed in Mrs. Jameson's " Legends of the Saints," and elsewhere ; but it is necessary to refer briefly to two pretended apparitions of the archangel, botli of them supposed to have taken place between the sixth and the eighth centuries, which gave an immense impetus to the adoration for S. Michael. One of these led to his very special veneration in Eome ; another (which, no doubt, had a yet more immediate effect upon our English practice) led to the foundation of the famous and influential church of Mont Saint Michel on the sea-girt rock off the coast of Normandy. Our English counterpart, the Cornish " S. Michael's Mount," was appropriated by William the Conqueror to the French S. Michel ; but even before that time — in the days of Edward the Confessor, at any rate — there was a church upon the rock, dedicated to the archangel. Dedications to S. Michael are not only very common — witness seven of them in the City of London alone, and three in Norwich — but as a general rule they are said to be of very early date. The late Mr. Kerslake of Bristol, who was well qualified to speak with authority on this point, was of opinion that many of our dedications to S. Michael are "a survival of Celtic Christianity, allowed to pass on unadded to and unaltered ; " * but indeed each age has done its part towards increasing the dedications in this name ; and, so far as we can judge, they escaped the censure of Henry VIII. Edmund Spenser, in the sixteenth century, was still sufficiently imbued with the spirit of adoration towards the unseen heavenly host to pen the most beautiful praise of the angelic ministry that has ever been set forth by an uninspired writer ; but in the eighteenth century for the first time we seem to detect a shrinking from the recog- nition of these mysterious messengers of God's love to man, and the only clear example we have found of an eighteenth-century dedication to S. Michael is one at Manchester in 1789. Two or three other instances there are of churches to S. Michael, built in the eighteenth century, but in each case they prove to have been on the sites of older chapelries, and most pro- bably the name was simply carried on from the earlier dedication. In the first half of the succeeding century the number rose again to twenty-two, while from 1850 to 1898 we count more than three times that number. * Arch. Journal, vol. 38. chap. v. THE HOLY ANGELS. 39 There is an old saying that churches to S. Michael should by rights be situated on the crown of a hill, or at least on rising ground ; and Precentor Venables, speaking of the Lincolnshire dedications to S. Michael, observes : " There are examples that tend to show that even here it generally affected the highest ground attainable." * This point must not, however, be pressed too far, for churches in honour of S. Michael are to be found in every county in England without exception, and level Lincolnshire can boast more of them than hilly Cumberland. As regards modern churches in this name, the old custom has commonly been entirely set at nought, and sites high or low have been made use of at the convenience of the builders. Second among the archangels stands S. Gabriel, the March "I." messenger of the Annunciation. The mentions in Holy Scripture of S. Gabriel are almost equal in number to those of S. Michael, and yet it is unquestionably always S. Michael who rises up before us as the type and representative of the angelic host. No doubt this is primarily to be accounted for by the prominence accorded to him in such psssages as, " Michael, one of the chief princes " (Dan. x. 18) ; and still more by the famous verse in the Revelation, " Michael and his angels fought against the dragon." Yet the associations with the angel Gabriel are so precious to us that it seems strange indeed that so wide a distinction should have been made by our forefathers in the comparative honour paid to these two angelic beings. S. Gabriel, like S. Michael, comes to Daniel to comfort and strengthen him in the hour of his trouble and abasement, and to make him understand the hidden mysteries. Twice in this Book we have a glimpse of him, and once he appears before us as the winged messenger — "being caused to fly swiftly" — on his mission of consolation and enlightenment (Dan. ix. 21). But dearer to us by far are the visions of S. Gabriel granted to us in the opening chapters of S. Luke's Gospel ; the first where he declares himself to Zacharias in the words : "I am Gabriel that stand in the presence -of God ; " and the second, in which he makes known to the Blessed Virgin the Will of the Most High. We should have expected to find not a few churches placed under the special invocation of the Angel of the Annunciation, and it is true that not a few modern ones — thirteen of them — (all belonging to the latter half of the present century) have given expression to this feeling ; but in pre-Beformation times this dedication, curiously enough, never attained to any high degree of popularity, and, as compared with the dedications to S. Michael, it does not even rise to the proportion of one in a hundred. The five that can still be traced are all of them, however, of very high antiquity. There is the church of Binbrooke in Lincolnshire, said to be now in ruins ; there is the City church of S. Gabriel, consolidated with the church and parish of S. Margaret Patens. The remaining three dedications in this name are all to be sought for in the West-country- * Arch. Journal, vol. 38. 4Q STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. V. Devonshire still keeps the memory of the archangel Gabriel by a little church at Clyst-Sackville ; but here also the building is in ruins. The name is preserved in more lasting form by another Devonshire parish known as Stoke Gabriel ; and again by the Dorsetshire chapelry of Stanton (in the mother parish of Whitchurch-Canonicorum), which is distinguished from the innumerable other Stantons by its appellation of Stanton-St. Gabriel. This closes the list, unless we include the church of Harting in Sussex, frequently quoted merely as " S. Mary," but actually bearing a twofold dedication-name, "Our Lady and S. Gabriel." It is well to rescue from oblivion this beautiful association of the Blessed Mother with the messenger of glad tidings. S. Michael and S. Gabriel are the only two among the S. Raphael. arc hangels whose names appear in the Canonical Books ; but the Apocryphal Writings give us two more — S. Eaphael and S. Uriel ; while the names of the remaining three (tradition has always placed the number of the archangels at seven, no doubt from the frequently recorded mention in the Book of the Revelation of " the seven angels which stood before God") have been supplied from other Jewish sources. Uriel is indeed a familiar sound in our ears from Milton's conception of him in " Paradise Lost ; " but, in spite of the prominence accorded to him in the Book of Esdras, he never became so favourite a subject for the painter * as his brother archangel, S. Raphael, and there is not a single English church bearing his name. S. Raphael, on the other hand, was exceedingly popular in the Middle Ages, by virtue of his connexion with the much- loved story of Tobias in the Book of Tobit. The " affable archangel " — it is impossible now to think of him without Milton's epithet — with his youthful charge, was represented in many a work of art, more especially by his great namesake, Raphael.! Taking all this into account, we might reasonably have looked to find S. Raphael commemorated in one or more of our ancient churches, though we should be somewhat surprised to find any post-Reformation dedications in his honour. But in dealing with English church dedications we must always be prepared for the unexpected. The late Mr. Kerslake observes : " S. Gabriel is very uncommon, and S. Raphael almost absent in the old dedications of England and Wales." J So far as our lists go, he is altogether absent, and our only existing dedication in this name is a modern church in Bristol, consecrated in 1898. The present church is the outcome of an effort set on foot in 1859 to benefit the seafaring population of the city. With this object in view, the little chapel attached to the so-called " Sailors' College " was placed under the patronage of S. Raphael, who, from his faithful guardianship of the young Tobias, has always been regarded as the patron of travellers. * See "Sacred and Legendary Art." % "Dorset Antiq.," 1879. t Ibid. CHAPTER VI. THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND HER FESTIVALS. 'AGE. NAME. 41 S. Mary " The Blessed Virgin " 42 The Mother of God 44 Christ and S. Mary 44 The Blessed Virgin and Child 45 Our Lady 45 Our Lady of Pity 45 Our Lady of Sorrows 45 S. Mary of Charity 45 S. Mary de Grace. See S. Mary. 45 Lady S. Mary 45 8. Mary the Less. See S.,Mary. DAT. March 25, etc. CHURCHES. . 2162 See also dd. 1 — See dd. — See dd. 3 See also dd. 2 1 1 Festivals of the Blessed Viegin. 46 The Annunciation ... March 25... 4 47 The Visitation or Salutation ... July 2 47 The Assumption ... August 15 13 48 The Nativity ... September8 12 48 The Conception . . . December 8 1 49 The Purification ... February 2 1 Every one knows how common it is to find churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Everywhere we find them, from the stately cathedrals of Lincoln and Salisbury down to the humblest chapelry. A careful analysis of Appendix I. shows that one in every six is ascribed to S. Mary ; but if, instead of taking the entire mass of dedications, we take only those of pre- Reformation times, we find the proportion higher still — one in every five. On the other hand, there is a far more striking change in the proportion when we consider the post-Reformation dedications by themselves, for here the ascriptions to the Blessed Virgin only amount to one-eighteenth of the whole number. We find churches dedicated in this name very early in Anglo-Saxon history — as, for example, the monastery church to the Virgin at Lyminge in Kent, built about 633 by King Eadbald of Kent for his sister Eadburga, now known to us by the double dedication of " SS, Mary and Eadburgh ; " and in like manner the church of " SS. Mary and Sexburga " at Minster- in-Sheppey, founded by the Kentish queen Sexburga, about the year 675, in honour of the Virgin. Many more such instances might be brought 42 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. vi. forward, but yet we are very much iuclined to doubt whether at this early period S. Mary had attained to anything like the popularity as a patron saint that distinguished her in the Middle Ages. The church which claims the honour of being " the oldest church in England " is S. Martin's at Canterbury (which was already existing when Augustine came into Kent), while the cathedral church of Canterbury was dedicated to no one of the saints, not even to the Blessed Mother of our Lord, but to the Saviour Himself ; and while all our other cathedrals * are dedicated to some one or other of the saints, the oldest and greatest of them all keeps unchanged its rare and honourable title of " Christ Church." The sister cathedral of York took the name of S. Peter, while Eochester and London were dedicated, the first to S. Andrew, the second to the "Blessed Apostle of the Gentiles." If we examine the dedications specifically mentioned by Bede,f we shall find that ascriptions to SS. Peter and Paul — either separately or combined — outnumber all the rest put together. We find in the small total no less than ten churches bearing the name either of S. Peter or S. Paul ; then we have " Holy Saviour," S. Martin, S. Andrew twice over, and a dedication now unknown in England to "The Four Crowned Martyrs " (ch. li.), four obscure Roman saints who perished in the Diocletian persecution. Turning next to the dedications to S. Mary, we find mention of the monastery church of " The Blessed Mother of God " at Lastingham, and two other churches under the same designation, both of them attached to monasteries dedicated to " The Most Holy Prince of the Apostles." In later times, this same dedication to " The ofGod° er Mother of God " reappears at Postling in Kent, where it is still in use, though the church has an alternative ascription to " SS. Mary and Radegund." It is, of course, to be borne in mind that Bede's list is but a short and imperfect one, and that he often omits the name of the church of which he is speaking ; but many of these omissions we are able to supply from other sources, and having done so we find Bede's proportion in no wise altered. And if we further take account of the dedications of porches and graveyards we shall again meet with the names of S. Peter and S. Paul, together with those of S. Gregory and " S. Michael the Archangel." But from the time of the Norman Conquest we notice a great change, and dedications to the Yirgin, either by herself or conjoined with some other saint, meet us on all sides. Between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries the different festivals of the Yirgin were brought into greater prominence in the English Church, and as we shall see later, this was not without its influence on our dedications. We should naturally have expected that this particular dedication would have been among the first to fall into disfavour in Henry YIII.'s time ; but this was not the case, and the reaction against it did not * Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, was originally dedicated to S. Frideswide may be quoted as an exception, but this (ch. xl.). t E. H. chap. vi. THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND HER FESTIVALS. 43 set in until a later period. Henry VIII. had no scruple in associating the name of the Virgin Mother with that of her Blessed Son, and it is to him that we owe the actual dedications of so many of our cathedrals — as Chester, Rochester, and Durham — to " Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary." The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not times of extensive church building, and the favourite dedications of this period were to the Saviour or the Holy Spirit, or to the Apostles (S. Paul, for example, was just beginning to become popular) ; but even in the height of the Puritan supremacy we find one or two dedications to S. Mary, as at Limehouse in Middlesex, in 1654, and at West Cowes in the Isle of Wight, just after the Eest oration. But perhaps it is in the eighteenth century that the reaction against dedications in honour of the Virgin is to be most clearly traced. There are dedications to her undoubtedly, but instead of occupying, as they would have done in earlier days, the first place, they stand in the fourth place, as shown in the following list : — ■ S. George 21 S. John 18 S. Paul 16 S.Mary 15 In the first fifty years of the present century the lists show great changes, but the dedications to S. Mary occupy a still lower place, the figures standing thus — Holy Trinity 237 S. John 171 Christ Church 165 S. Paul 105 S. Mary 81 In the second half of this century the list is different again— S. John 219 Christ Church 191 All Saints 142 Holy Trinity 129 S. Mary 116 It will be observed that the dedications to S. Mary in the latter half of this century outnumber those in the former half and those of the eighteenth century both taken together ; but, curiously enough, the proportion they bear to the total number of churches built during the last forty years is no greater than in either of the preceding periods. There is little to be said as regards the local distribution of dedications in this name. They are to be found, as we might have expected, in every county of England— from Northumberland to Cornwall— though they are rare, not only in Celtic Cornwall, but also in Westmoreland ; and for the same cause, because in both these counties National saints are strong, and leave less space than usual for Scriptural saints. 44 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. VI. We find the name of the Blessed Virgin linked with names of saints of every kind and class — scriptural, foreign, and English. In some of these instances the dedication appears to have been a double one from the first, as in the case of the church of " SS. Mary and Leonard," at Wombridge in Shropshire, founded under that name as a Dominican Priory in the early years of the twelfth century. Then, again, we find a church origin- ally dedicated, as it would seem, to the Virgin alone, assuming in course of time the name of the founder in addition, as in Lichfield Cathedral, where the name of the holy bishop Chad has been superadded to that of S. Mary. Occasionally, too, we find the reverse process, as in the case of Crowland Abbey, known originally as " S. Gruthlac's," from the saint whose humble cell first caused the spot to be looked upon as sacred, but afterwards distinguished by the triple ascription, " SS. Mary, Bartholomew, and Gruthlac." Undoubtedly there was, from the tenth or eleventh century up to the period of the Reformation, a strong tendency to couple the name of the Virgin with that of the other saints, and even with that of S. h Maiy nd tne Saviour Himself ; witness the church of " Christ and S. Mary," at Armathwaite in Cumberland, which inherits its name from the Benedictine monastery of the time of William Rufus ; or The Blessed k na ^ other church at Beaulieu in Hampshire, dedicated to Virgin and " The Blessed Virgin and Child." * Most common of all, is Child. the joint ascription to " S. Mary and All Saints ; " our lists furnish us with twenty-seven examples of this, but probably there are many more churches so dedicated which are now known only as " S. Mary." " SS. Mary and Michael " is also of frequent occurrence, though less frequent than "SS. Mary and Peter," a very popular combination. Of other Apostolic saints associated with the Virgin we find S. John Evangelist and S. John Baptist, S. Andrew and S. Bartholomew, S. Thomas, and in one rare instance, " SS. Mary and Paul " (at Bardwell in Sussex) ; but it must be added that this last has an alternative, and more probable dedication to SS. Peter and Paul. We find two dedications to S. Mary and the Holy Cross or Rood, and two very remarkable combinations, " S. Mary and Corpus Christi," and " S. Mary and the Holy Host ; " but these will be discussed more fully elsewhere (ch. l.). Of the saints of the Roman Kalendar we find a large selection. " SS. Mary and Nicholas " occurs eleven times ; " SS. Mary and Laurence " three times ; while each of the following saints — Blaise, Benedict, Chris- topher, Clement, Leonard — is to be found at least once in conjunction with the Blessed Virgin. Turning next to our national saints, we find S. Mary linked with Chad, David, Eadburgh, Eanswith, Hardulph, Oswin, Patrick, and others. Asa rule the churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin are known now- adays simply as " S. Mary," but in some few instances the older and more * Otherwise S. Bartholomew. chap. vi. THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND HER FESTIVALS. 45 exact style can still be traced. Thus at Littlehampton in Sussex, and Our Lady. also afc Barrow-on-Humber in Lincolnshire, we find " Our Lady " (with, at the latter place, an alternative dedication Our Lady t0 the H ° lj Trinit ^)- Mother Sussex dedication, that of of Pity. Petworth, gives us "Our Lady of Pity," which is repeated at Dover, though the church there is more commonly known by its designation of " S. Mary-in-the-Castle," or " S. Mary de Our Lad of ^ astro '" ^ e ^ ave tne same dedication in a somewhat Sorrows. altered form at New Shoreham in the same county — " Our Lady of Sorrows." At Faversham in Kent we have OhS y ° f " S ' MaiT ° f Charit ^'" The c h™ch at Gloucester distin- arl y ' guished as " S. Mary de Grace " no longer exists, but the 8. Mary de designation is kept in memory by the consolidated parishes of Grace. « g. Michael with S. Mary de Grace." Lad S Mar Wareham in Dorset has the very unusual ascription " Lady S. Mary," which sounds like an accidental corruption of some older form ; but, curiously enough, one of the pieces of communion plate of pre-Eeformation date is inscribed with the legend " Lady S. Mary." With a dedication-name that occurs more than two thousand times, and which has been so multiplied in our great cities, the need for some dis- tinguishing appellation was obvious enough. In Ipswich alone we find four churches dedicated to S. Mary— S. Mary-at-Elms, S. Mary-le-Tower, S. Mary-at-the-Quay, and S. Mary Stoke. The City of London has no less than thirteen churches of S. Mary, distinguished by their various local names— S. Mary-at-Hill, S. Mary Woolchurch, S. Mary-le-Bow, etc. The same reason accounts for the curious appellation of the M Le?s. " S - Mai 7 the Less " at Durham, at Cambridge, and at Thet- ford in Norfolk ; a designation which is not intended to refer to any less known Mary, but simply to distinguish the one church from its older neighbour. We find the like distinction made in modern times at Lambeth by the nineteenth-century church of " S. Mary the Less," a daughter church to the old parish of S. Mary. " S. Mary the Less " at Wallingford in Berkshire came to an end in the fourteenth century, but, oddly enough, its existence is still borne witness to by the name of another church in the town, " S. Mary the More," or " le More," as it is sometimes written in old documents. " It is curious," observes a local archaeologist, "that the name should have survived after no distinction has been needed for five centuries. The distinction appears to have applied merely to the size or importance of the parish, as I believe both parishes were dedicated to ' S. Mary the Virgin.' " * This curious antithesis of " Less " to " More " seems to be peculiar to Wallingford ; but at York the distinction is made in a still quainter form, and the two churches are known as " S. Mary Senior " and " S. Mary Junior." * Private letter from the Eev. J. E. Field, Vicar of Benson, Wallingford. 4 6 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vi. Festivals of the Blessed Virgin. Churches dedicated to S. Mary keep their feast days at widely differing times of year, according to the particular festival of the Virgin of which they have made choice. Our Prayer-book Kalendar retains five such festivals — the Annunciation, March 25 ; the Visitation, July 2 ; the Nativity, September 8 ; the Conception, December 8, and the Purifi- cation, February 2 ; while it has very rightly rejected the most unscriptural feast of the Assumption, August 15. The Annun- We & YG tne ^ rst P^ ace to tne festival of the Annunciation, ciation. that feast of the Virgin which, according to English usage, March 25. j ias |3 ecome pre-eminently honoured with the title " Lady Day." The festival itself is of very ancient institution, and its observance can be traced back as far as the fifth century. In the end of the seventh century one of the Councils ordained that whereas all other feasts should be in abeyance during Lent, Sundays and the Annunciation should con- tinue to be duly celebrated. Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the day was still further honoured in England by being adopted as the beginning of the New Year instead of Christmas Day, which had formerly been accounted as such. For four centuries and more March 25 con- tinued to be regarded as the legal and ecclesiastical New Year's Day, and this, even long after our present New Year's Day, January 1, had come into use for all ordinary purposes. So long was this inconvenient dis- tinction maintained that even as late as 1604 the Prayer-book rubric reiterated "that the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the XXV day of March, the same day supposed to be the first day upon which the world was created, and the day when Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary,"* and this in the face of its own Kalendar of Daily Lessons which then, as now, began its yearly round with the opening days of January. The double reckoning, with its manifold inconveniences and inconsistencies, was maintained in England until 1751, when an Act of Parliament was passed for " regulating the commencement of the year, and bringing it into agreement with the common usage throughout the kingdom." When we take into account the great importance in both a civil and an ecclesiastical point of view of this feast of the Annunciation, and when we consider how directly and beautifully it is connected with the Gospel narrative of S. Luke, it strikes us as not a little remarkable that we find so few churches keeping their yearly festival on this day. We have, it is true, four churches dedicated to " The Annunciation," but three of them belong to the latter half of the present century. There must undoubtedly be many old churches in England that keep their dedication feast upon this famous holy-day, but it so happens that though instances abound of festivals held on the feasts of the Nativity or on the so-called Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the only example of an old parish feast celebrated on * Quoted from Keeling's "Liturgies Britannicse." CHAP. vi. THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND HER FESTIVALS. 47 March 25 that has come to the notice of the writer is that of S. Mary's at Truro, now Truro Cathedral. The Visitation The nexfc festival of S. Mary, according to our Prayer- or Salutation, book Kalendar, is the "Visitation of the Blessed Virgin July 2. Mary" on July 2, intended to commemorate the visit of the Virgin to her cousin Elisabeth recorded in the Gospel of S. Luke, that joyful meeting which has given us the Magnificat. Many travellers will recollect the beautiful representation of this scene in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence by Albertinelli, known as " The Salutation." This festival of the Visitation is of very late origin ; we hear of its being celebrated for the first time in 1316 (at Liege), some seventy years or more passed before it was formally instituted by the Pope, and it was not universally observed until the middle of the fifteenth century. There is no feast of the Virgin more based upon the Gospel story than this, but it was instituted too late to take any hold in England, and there do not appear to be any existing churches, either ancient or modern, which count the Visitation of S. Mary as their patronal festival. The old Carthusian Priory, however, now known as the Charterhouse, was originally, in the reign of Edward III. (1370), founded "in honour of God and the Virgin Mary," by the appellation of " The Salutation of the Mother of God." * The present chapel of the Charterhouse is no longer S. Mary, but S. Thomas, a dedication probably of seventeenth-century origin. Far otherwise is it with the famous August feast of the Uon ^ugTs Assumption, a feast which, as we have before remarked, has been happily expunged from our Anglican Kalendar. Every one who has ever lived in Roman Catholic countries knows how enthusias- tically this greatest of holidays — "Our Lady in Harvest," as it is sometimes popularly called — is there observed. This festival rests upon the tradition that the Blessed Virgin, instead of dying a natural death, ascended into heaven like her Divine Son, or rather that she was " assumed," i.e. taken up by Him. It was celebrated under the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, but possibly in those times the supernatural element may not yet have been introduced, and the day may have been held in pious memory just as it is still observed in the Greek Church, simply as the yearly remembrance of " the falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary." At first it was observed on January 18, but in the sixth century it was transferred to its present date. It was not until the ninth century that it was appointed by the Council of Maintz to be kept as one of the great festivals ; but this Council was merely giving formal sanction to a custom which already prevailed, for litanies had already been drawn up for use in the day's services, and even in the somewhat meagre Kalendar of our English Bede we find August 15 assigned to " the Assumption of S. Mary." The dedication festivals of our English churches reflect very unmis- takably the honour paid to this day. It is difficult to determine how far churches were actually dedicated to the Assumption, because it is a form * Nightingale. 4 8 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. VI. of dedication that has fallen into disuse ; but it is quite certain that it was a most favourite day for Dedication Festivals and their accompanying fairs. As a rule the churches that keep their feast on August 15 — and not a few of these can be traced — are now known merely as " S. Mary," but occasionally the more exact invocation comes to light ; as at Pulborough in Sussex, "Our Lady of Assumption ; " * or at Shareshill in Staffordshire, where we have " The Assumption of the Virgin Mary." Harlton in Cam- bridgeshire, built in the fourteenth century, is another example of the same, and so is Alne in the North Eiding of Yorkshire, where we have notice of a fair granted in 1256 on the "vigil, day and morrow of the Assumption." t But by far the most startling example of the honour paid to this festival is to be found in the dedication of a chantry or college founded at Noseley in Leicestershire about the year 1274 under the two- fold invocation of " The Ascension of our Lord and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin." \ The modern representative of this chantry is a nineteenth-century church dedicated simply to " S. Mary." The next festival of the Virgin recognized by our Sept "^ atlvlty ' Anglican Kalendar is her Nativity, a feast which, though apparently of later institution than some other of her festivals, is yet to be found in the Kalendar of Bede, no less than in the modern Kalendars of both the Greek and Koman Churches. There is extant a sermon preached at Constantinople on this subject in the first half of the fifth century, and it is clear that the day was informally observed long before its regular institution as a great festival. For example, we are told by the eleventh-century historian Ingulphus § that the English observance of it was decreed by a Synod of London in 948, but it is obvious that this Synod was merely giving the weight of its authority to a practice already general. The frequency with which September 8 occurs as a village feast is a good proof of the popularity of this festival. Thus we have Beaminster in Dorsetshire, Bowdon in Cheshire, Madeley in Herefordshire, and not a few others. Most of these keep their feast on the proper day, September 8, but in some parishes the change of style has made a confusion, and the feast now falls upon the Sunday nearest to September 18. The feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Son C< Dec P 8 December 8, is far later in its origin than all the other festivals of S. Mary. It is said to have been instituted by S. Anselm in the eleventh century, as a thankoff ering for the safety of William the Conqueror and his fleet in a violent storm ; || but however this may be, it is certain that the observance of this feast was optional, both in England and on the Continent, until the thirteenth century, and that it was not observed at Rome itself until the close of the fourteenth. From this time onwards the Church of Rome was continually bringing it into more and * Lower's " Sussex." t Lawton. X Lewis. § Baring-Gould, September 8. ]i Daniel. chap. vi. THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND HER FESTIVALS. 49 more prominence, until under the late Pope, Pio Nono, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin was promulgated as an article of faith. It is not common among us as a dedication festival, and the only dedica- tion in honour of the " Conception of the Virgin Mary " that the writer has met with is in Dorsetshire, that county of rare dedications, in the parish of Wraxall. The last feast on our list is that which is described in our M? n eP Feb?2. p rayer-book as "the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called the Purification of S. Mary the Virgin," and which still retains with us its old position of a red-letter holy- day. This festival was in the first instance counted among those in honour of our Lord Himself, and is still so counted in the Greek Church, where it is designated " Hypapante," * or " The Meeting," in reference to the meeting between Simeon and the Infant Saviour. The popular name for this day — " Candlemas " — and the mediseval practice of carrying lighted candles and torches on this day has been explained by the allusion to Simeon's prophecy that the Babe should be "a light to lighten the Gentiles ; " but it is more generally held to be a Christian adaptation of some old heathen festival in honour of Proserpine. The second title, " The Purification of S. Mary the Virgin," which has now so much overshadowed the earlier title, and has caused this day — notwithstanding the unmistakable language of the beautiful collect for the day, a collect as old as the days of Gregory the Great — to be regarded as belonging to the Virgin rather than to her Son, is said to date from the ninth century ; \ but yet in the so-called Kalendar of Bede, bearing date 735, February 2 is assigned to "the Purification," from which it would seem probable that the Boman pontiffs in the ninth century merely gave currency to a name that was already in use. Curiously enough, neither the Annunciation nor the Purification — neither, that is to say, of the two festivals of the Virgin that are fully recognized in our Prayer-book — appear to have found great acceptance as dedication festivals, possibly from the very simple explanation that when there were both summer and winter feasts to choose from the summer ones generally obtained the preference. Blidworth in Notting- hamshire is the only example we have found of a church dedicated to " S. Mary of the Purification." No doubt a careful study of the days of different parish feasts would enable us to assign many of the churches of S. Mary to their proper days. It only remains to be said, as another proof of the immense popularity of this saint, that besides the two thousand and odd dedications that are counted to her, and besides the large number of double dedications in which her name is conjoined with that of some other saint, our lists show over one hundred and fifty churches which have an alternative dedication to the Virgin— such as Widf ord in Oxfordshire, which is variously attributed * From the Greek virairavrrj. t See Baring-Gould; Daniel, etc. VOL, I t E 5o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vi. to S. Oswald or S. Mary ; Upton, in Buckinghamshire, which is either S. Lawrence or S. Mary, and so on. But it is needless to bring- forward more examples of the honour and reverence which have been, and which surely must ever be accorded to her whom the angel Gabriel pronounced to be " highly favoured of the Lord," and to be " blessed among women." CHAPTER VII. S. PETER AND S. PAUL. S. JOHN BAPTIST AND S. JOHN EVANGELIST. PAGE JM A Al It. DAY. CHURCHES. 52 | S. Peter ... ,„ June 29 927 See also dd. ) 54 J S. Peter ad Vincula August 1 ... 9 \ 936 54 ( Lammas Day, Anglican Kalendar. See S. Peter ad Vincula. I 55 SS. Peter and Paul June 29 277 56 S. Paul (l™™ 1 ! 25 (January 25 ... 1 I June 29 / 320 See also dd ' 320 S. John Baptist {lugu^ ..." } 570 See also dd ' S. John Zaehary. See S. John Baptist. 62 \ S. John of Jerusalem June 24 4 ) 576 63 J S. John de Sepulchre „ 1 63 \ S. John in the Wilderness ... „ 1 64 /S.John December 27 ... 533 See also dd. 64 S. John Evangelist See S. John. 64 / S. John ante Portam Latinam, May 6, Anglican Kalendar. See S. John. ) 533 69 J S. John the Apostle. See S. John. 69 [ S. John the Divine. See S. John. Section I.— S. Peter and S. Paul. The grouping together of these four saints, though somewhat unusual, is in truth an arrangement that suggests itself naturally and easily. S. Peter and S. Paul are of course indissolubly connected ; S. John must needs rank with the chief of the Apostles, and S. John the Baptist must of necessity be considered together with his great namesake, since their dedications are frequently inextricably confounded. Perhaps no chapter in the history of English dedications exemplifies so markedly as the present the curious fluctuations of feeling towards the various saints. For example, the pre-Reformation churches dedicated to S. Peter outnumber all those to S. John Baptist, S. Paul, and S. John the Evangelist put together ; whereas if we reckon the nineteenth-century dedications only, we find S. Peter occupying the third place, after S. John and after S. Paul, and we feel at once that the change is not purely accidental. Bishop Westcott has said, in writing of these three Apostles : " Those who have studied the life of the Church have often remarked that the history of the apostolic age has been reproduced on a large scale in the 52 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. vii. history of Christendom. St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John occupy in succession the principal place in the first century, each carrying forward in due measure the work to which he ministered. So, it is said, we may see the likeness of St. Peter in the Church of the Middle Ages, and the likeness of St. Paul in the Churches of the Reformation. There remains then, such is the conclusion, yet one more type of the Christian society to be realized in the world, which shall bear the likeness of St. John." * To some such threefold division of Church History our English dedications do undoubtedly correspond ; only it must appear by the frequent dedications to S. John that have marked the last forty years that we are already seek- ing to anticipate that last " type of the Christian society " to which Bishop Westcott looks forward as yet remaining to be realized in the world. The dedications to S. Peter, as they are by far the most 29 and Aug^T numerous of the four, so are they — speaking generally — the earliest, and the name when once given has been seldom altered. There are cases, no doubt, of such alteration made in honour of some local saint — as, for example, when Augustine's monastery of SS. Peter and Paul at Canterbury was changed to " S. Augustine " in honour of the founder ; or when, as at Norham, the church of " S. Peter, S. Cuthbert and S. Ceowulf " gradually dropped all its names except that of its great local patron, S. Cuthbert.j But on the whole the changes have been few, and it is easier to find examples of churches of S. Swithun, S. Michael, even of S. Mary, being re-dedicated in honour of S. Peter, than to find changes in the contrary direction.^ The wooden church of " S. Peter the Apostle," built at York by King Edwin of Northumbria, in the first half of the seventh century, has preserved its dedication unchanged through successive rebuildings, though the name of " S. Peter's Cathedral Church " is often lost sight of in the familiar designation of " York Minster." Thirty years later we have another royal founder, Wulphere of Mercia, dedicating a church " to the glory of Christ and S. Peter," at the place which then bore the name of Medeshamstede, but is known to us now only as Peterborough, or Peter's city, from the name of its great patron. No less than five of our cathedrals are dedicated to S. Peter — Exeter, Gloucester, Liverpool [the pro-cathedral], Peterborough, and York. Eipon is dedicated to him conjointly with the local patron S. Wilfred, and Win- chester conjointly with SS. Paul and Swithun. At Ely he was for a while conjoined with the favourite local saint, Queen Etheldreda, but both dedications were swept away by Henry VIII. In the country towns and villages throughout England, the pre-Eeformation churches dedicated to S. Peter are to be counted by the hundred. They abound in every county, with the single exception of Cornwall, which has so many local saints to * "Revelation of the Risen Lord," in Cheshire, and Treyford in Sussex respec- ch. viii. tively. Probably all three changes were t Arch. Journal, vol. 42. made either at some rebuilding, or when % At Stanley near Wakefield, Hargrave a chapelry was made into a distinct parish. CHAP. VII. S. PETER AND S. PAUL. 53 commemorate that it has scant room left for even the most famous of the scriptural saints. S. Peter has further given his name to two parishes, the one in the Isle of Thanet, the other in Monmouthshire. This last is known as " St. Pierre," the very form of the name witnessing to its antiquity. But by far the most famous of the English churches bearing this dedication is no one of our cathedrals properly so called, but the " Collegiate Church of S. Peter at Westminster," commonly known as Westminster Abbey. The foundation of S. Peter's church on Thorney Isle takes us back to the opening years of the seventh century, to the days when Sebert of Essex was reigning as a lesser king under the famous Ethelbert of Kent, and to the days of Bishop Mellitus, the first in the long unbroken line of the Bishops of London. In later days, when the Minster Church had already become famous, many a legend gathered about the story of its foundation. Sebert the King had been bidden, it was said, by S. Peter to build a church to his honour on Thorney Isle ; nay, it was even said that the Apostle had himself come to consecrate the new-built church. The legend is one full of poetry,* and it has a peculiar interest for English- men from the minuteness of its local touches. Other and more famous legends of S. Peter have Rome for their background. This is localized no less exactly, but the scene is our own Thames at Lambeth. The beautiful story is faithfully rendered in Mr. Matthew Arnold's poem on Dean Stanley and Westminster Abbey, from which the following stanzas are quoted : — " Rough was the winter eve ; Their craft the fishers leave, And down over the Thames the darkness drew. One still lags last, and turns and eyes the Pile Huge in the gloom, across in Thorney Isle, King Sebert's work, the wondrous Minster new. 'Tis Lambeth now, where then They moor'd their boats among the bulrush stems ; And that new Minster in the matted fen The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames. " His mates are gone, and he For mist can scarcely see A strange wayfarer coming to his side — Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar, And row him straightway to the further shore, And wait while he did there a space abide. The fisher awed obeys, That voice had note so clear of sweet command ; Through pouring tide he pulls, and drizzling haze, And sets his freight ashore on Thorney strand. * It appears first in one of the many founder of Westminster Abbey. It is given early lives of Edward the Confessor, who at some length in Stanley's " West- may himself be regarded as the second minster." 54 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vii. " The Minster's outlined mass Rose dim from the morass, And thitherward the stranger took his way. Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright ! Nave, choir and transept glorified with light, While tongues of fire on coign and carving play '. And heavenly odours fair Come streaming with the floods of glory in, And carols float along the happy air, As if the reign of joy did now begin. " Then all again is dark ; And by the fisher's bark The unknown passenger returning stands. 0 Saxon fisher J thou hast had with thee The fisher from the Lahe of Galilee — So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands ; Then fades, but speaks the while : At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relate How his St. Peter's Church in Thorney Isle Peter, his friend, with light did consecrate." One of the most striking of all the legends connected with S. Peter is that which tells how on the eve of his martyrdom he escaped from prison, and was hasting along the Appian Way when the Saviour met him. " Lord, whither goest Thou ? " was the question of the Apostle. " I go to be crucified again," was the answer of his Lord. Peter turned back straightway to prison and to death, but the lesson of that sacred meeting was preserved for after ages by the church which was built upon that spot, and which in memory of Peter's words has always been known as the church of " Domine, quo vadis." s Peter ad r £his is a dedication which stands by itself ; it can have Vincula, or ho counterpart in England or elsewhere, but there are several Lammas 0 f our English churches whose dedication-name carries us Day. Aug 1. back to S. Peter's first imprisonment at Jerusalem. The 1st of August, marked in our Prayer-book Kalendar as " Lammas Day," is kept in the Eoman Church as a festival in honour of the Apostle's miraculous release. " The story runs," says Canon Daniel, " that Eudoxia," (cir. 44 a.d.) "the wife of Theodosius, having been presented at Jerusalem with the fetters S. Peter had worn, sent them to the Pope, who laid them up in a church built by the Emperor to the Apostle's honour." Eudoxia obtained a decree from Theodosius that August 1 should henceforth be observed in honour of S. Peter, instead of Augustus Csesar as formerly. This festival is known in the Eoman Kalendar as " S. Peter ad Vincula," * " In the Romish Church this day dictio novorum fructuum. The derivation is known as S. Peter ad Vincula. . . . from lamb-mass grew out of the belief, Lammas is a corruption of hlaf-masse based upon our Lord's words to S. Peter, (further corrupted into hlam-masse), i.e. Feed my lambs, that the apostle was the the loaf-mass. In the Early English patron of lambs. The Promptorium Par- Church it was customary on this day to vulorum shews that this belief was the offer an oblation of loaves made of new accepted one in the fifteenth century. It wheat, as the first-fruits of the harvest. gives : Lammesse ; festum agnorum, vel In the Sarum Manual it is called Bene- festum ad vincula Sancti Petri." — Daniel. CHAP. VII. S. PETER AND S. PAUL. 55 or S. Peter's Chains, and the Collect for the Day runs as follows : " 0 G-ocl Who deliveredst blessed Peter the Apostle from his chains, and set him, untouched, at liberty ; deliver us, we beseech Thee, from the bonds of our sins, and mercifully protect us from all evil." Nine at least of our English churches commemorate by their dedication- name the festival of S. Peter ad Vincula. The most famous of them all is the well-known church within the precincts of the Tower of London. Then there is the important church of Stoke-upon-Trent, and some country churches, as Colemore, Hampshire ; Tollard-Royal, Wiltshire ; Wisborough, Sussex ; and Coggeshall in Essex,'" etc. But it can hardly be doubted that these are merely the survivors of a far larger number of churches bearing the same dedication. The general tendency to shorten an unusually long dedication-name would be strengthened in this case by the unfamiliar sound of the words. When the services ceased to be in Latin the designation " ad Vincula " would have no meaning in the ears of the people, and would naturally fall into disuse. In such cases the surest guide is the village fair. Eunham in Norfolk, for example, had " a fair and market " granted to it by King John on " the vigil and feast of S. Peter ad Vincula ; " and yet, oddly enough, this church is popularly known as " SS. Peter and Paul." The last half of this twofold dedication is so apt to be lost where it really exists that one is not prepared to find it in a church that seems properly to belong to S. Peter alone. More than twenty years ago the church was restored, and an anniversary of the re-opening was kept up for a few years on S. Peter's Day, June 29. Historic continuity would have been better satisfied had the day chosen been August 1, the festival of S. Peter ad Vincula. Ashwater, in the county of Devon, is probably another instance of a forgotten dedication to S. Peter ad Vincula, for it had a fair of its own on " the first Monday after August 1," t but this has been overshadowed by the more important fair held in the neighbouring parish of SS. Peter and Paul, Holsworthy. Holsworthy Fair usually begins on July 11— SS. Peter and Paul's Day, O.S.— and is still locally known as " Peter's Fair." According to some authorities % Ashwater is dedicated to S. Paul, but this is clearly a mistake, and on the spot the church is known only as " S. Peter's." In addition to the nine hundred and odd churches dedi- PauT June29 Cated to S * Pefcer ^ nimself > tnere are over 270 in which his au. une . aggociated wit k of ^ great Apostle of the Gentiles. This linking together of S. Peter and S. Paul is as old as the days of S. Clement of Rome, the immediate successor of the Apostles, who, in the noble and often-quoted passage in his Epistle to the Corinthians, joins them together as twin examples of patient suffering : " But not to * This last is popularly known only Vincula. A local antiquarian adds that as S. Peter's ; but a certain inhabitant of "the Feast of Dedication is held on Coggeshall in his will, dated 1515, desires August 1st, and not on S. Peters Day, to be buried " in the quire of S. Peter ad June 29."— Beaumont's " Hist, ot Oog- Vincula." Moreover, Henry III. granted geshall." _ a yearly fair of eight days' duration be- t Lewis, ginning from the vigil of S. Peter ad % Clergy List, 1896. 56 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vn. insist," writes he, " upon ancient examples let us come to those athletes [aOXrjToi] that have been nearest us, and take the brave examples of our own age. Through zeal and envy the most faithful and righteous pillars of the Church have been persecuted, even to the most grievous deaths. Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles : Peter by unjust envy under- went not one or two but many sufferings, till at last being martyred he went to the place of glory that was due unto him. For the same cause did Paul in like manner receive the reward of his patience. Seven times he was in bonds ; he was whipped, was stoned ; he preached both in the east and in the west ; leaving behind him a glorious report of his faith ; and so having taught the whole world righteousness, and for that end travelled to the utmost bounds of the west, he at last suffered martyrdom by the command of the governors and departed out of the world, and went unto his holy place." * Eusebius has preserved for us a tradition which was current in his time, that both Apostles suffered on the same day, and the Church of Koine still commemorates them jointly on June 29. The Feast of the Conversion of S. Paul was of comparatively late origin,f and was not brought into prominence in our own Church until after the Eeformation, when the festival was borrowed from the Kalendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church. It was natural therefore that the two names so closely associated the one with the other should be reproduced together in the dedication of many a parish church. The Clergy List gives considerably over two hundred examples, but the list may be largely added to, for several of the churches that are now returned as " S. Peter's " alone, are shown by the evidence of mediaeval wills to have been originally dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul. This form of dedication is, with hardly an exception, of pre- Reformation date. We may perhaps regret the disuse of a dedication which was in itself a symbol of the true unity between the two great Apostles, and a silent rebuke to those who would make factions in Christ's Church, saying, " I am of Paul, and I of Cephas." g Paill In the whole history of church dedications nothing is Jan. 25 and more curious than the change of feeling regarding S. Paul. June 29. We must of course not f or g e t that there are the 277 churches dedicated to him in conjunction with S. Peter, but except in this conjunction " S. Paul " is in truth a surprisingly rare dedication. Somewhat over 320 churches in all bear this name, and of these seven- eighths have been built since the Reformation. There remain some 30 pre-Eef ormation churches bearing the name of S. Paul ; but several of these either belong to some other saint, or have a doubt of some kind or another attaching to the antiquity of their dedication, so that the number of unquestioned ancient dedications given in honour of S. Paul the Apostle is reduced to little more than a dozen. The first of these in order of time is also the most famous, namely, * Clement to the Corinthians, cap. v. commemorating S. Paul's conversion till t " There is no trace of a Festival the twelfth century." — Daniel. CHAP. VII. S. PETER AND S. PAUL. 57 S. Paul's Cathedral in London, founded in a.d. 604. In his history of the evangelization of the East Saxons, Bede says : " When this province also received the word of truth, by the preaching of Mellitus, King Ethelbert built the church of S. Paul, in the City of London, where he [Mellitus] and his successors should have their episcopal see." We feel instinctively that the choice was a singularly happy one, and that no saint could so fitly represent the varied needs and aspirations of our busy London as S. Paul, the scholar, handicraftsman, thinker, traveller ; himself the " citizen of no mean city." It was not until twelve years later that Sebert founded S. Peter's at Westminster — a most unusual reversal of the common order of precedence. Thus, S. Paul's at Jarrow-upon-Tyne was so named by its monastic founder, Benedict Biscop (ch. xxviii.), as the complement to the church of S. Peter's • which he had previously founded at Monkwearmouth. It is just possible that some explanation of the same sort may apply to S. Paul's church at Irton in Cumberland. The next parish, two miles distant, is Drigg, dedicated to S. Peter, and it may be that the two churches have a common origin, and so divide between them the two great names that were so often borne by a single church. Both Canterbury and Bedford have their S. Paul, as also their S. Peter ; and Norwich with its three dedications to S. Peter has likewise its dedica- tion to S. Paul ; indeed, Norfolk has no less than four dedications to S. Paul, a larger proportion than any other county can show. A church at Bristol may be added to the list, unless, indeed, it should prove that the name was only given at the close of the last century, when the church was converted from a chapelry into a separate parish. Malmesbury in Wiltshire * and four or five other country churches also claim this rare dedication, and so does Wooburn in Buckinghamshire ; but it is noticeable that the fair granted to the parish of Wooburn by Henry VI. was on the Feast of the " Translation of King Edward," t the so-called " Edward the Martyr." Most probably the change was made at the Beformation, and no one can dispute that it was a change for the better. S. Paul's Church at Culham, near Oxford, is very old, and appears at first sight to be a notable exception to the general rule, but in a charter of Henry L, bearing date a.d. 1111, it appears as " S. Andreiv's Church, Culham." % There is apparently no record of any change of name, but it may very probably date from 1638, when certain alterations were made both in the exterior and interior, under the auspices, it is supposed, of Sir Edmund Cary, son of Elizabeth's famous chamberlain, Lord Hunsdon. It is not unlikely that some similar re-naming may have taken place at the oddly named Somersetshire church of " W T alton-in-Gordano," which was * This church was the eleventh-cen- though of the church itself nothing re- tury successor of an earlier building mains but the tower and spire. See Wal- dedicated to the Saviour, SS. Peter and cott's " Malmesbury." Paul. As that church was commonly t Lewis. known as S. Peter, so this was known as % Parker's " Neighbourhood of Ox- S. Paul. S. Paul's parish still exists, ford." 58 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vn. re-built early in the present century ; as also at Shurdington in Gloucester- shire, which is known to have been " re-consecrated " at some period of its history, and may well have passed through more than one change of name. Headon in Nottinghamshire, which is now known as " S. Paul's," appears by the evidence of pre-Keformation Wills to be " SS. Peter and Paul," and so too does Oulton in Norfolk. S. Paul's at Exeter is claimed by a great authority on dedications * as belonging properly to the Celtic S. Paul, known as S. Paul of Leon (ch. xxxvu.) ; and it is highly probable that nearly all churches of S. Paul in Cornwall, Devonshire, and Somerset, have either been re-dedicated, or else were originally intended for one of the two Celtic S. Pauls. The Parish of Kewstoke in Somerset contains in itself the name of a Celtic saint, " S. Kew " (ch. xxxvi.), but the church (now S. Paul's) may very possibly have been re-dedicated in honour of the Apostle. The village feasts if still kept up would decide many vexed questions, for the Celtic S. Paul would be commemorated in March ; the Apostle in June or early July, or possibly on January 25 — as at Ludgvan in Cornwall, where the dedication appears to have been changed from the local " S. Advent " (ch. xxxiv.) to S. Paul the Apostle. Walden in Hertfordshire and Wickham in Essex have both of them been erroneously supposed to be dedicated to S. Paul, because they are popularly spoken of as Walden St. Paul's and Wickham St. Paul's, but the church in both cases is dedicated to All Saints, and the additional designa- tion comes only from their being in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of S. Paul's Cathedral. f Last on our list of pre-Keformation churches in this name come the two venerable churches of Branxton in Northumberland, and S. Paul's-in- the-Bail at Lincoln, together with St. Paul's parish in Cornwall, all of which are attributed on good grounds to S. Paulinus, the great Apostle of Northumbria (ch. xxii.). But in the centuries since the Reformation the feeling of reverent admiration for S. Paul has been steadily increasing. " What wonder is it," says Dean Stanley, " that in the gradual rising of a freer spirit, the gradual opening of a wider sphere, theologians and statesmen, nations and individuals, were enkindled with new life by the words of Paul ? " % The seventeenth century was not a period of much church-building, but even in it we have indications of the set of the tide ; as in S. Paul's, Covent Garden, and in S. Paul's, Shad well, a chapel built in 1656, and separated from the mother-parish of Stepney in 1669. The patronage was given to the Dean and Chapter of S. Paul's, from which circumstance doubtless the church took its dedication-name. It ought rather to have been S. Chad's, as it is a well dedicated to this northern saint that gave the district its name of Chadwelle.§ To these two we may add the re- naming of the church at Culham, and the dedication of the chapel of * Kerslake, Arch. Journal, vol. 30. § Nightingale : the patronage has t Morant. since been transferred to the Bishop, t " Apostolical Age." chap. vii. S. JOHN BAPTIST AND S. JOHN EVANGELIST. 59 Witherslack in Westmoreland. This last instance, however, is hardly to be reckoned a case in point, for here, as in so many cases, the name was chosen from purely personal reasons. There had been a chapel in the place from very early times, whose dedication cannot now be traced. In 1664, a new chapel was erected by Dr. Barwick, Dean of S. Paul's, who was a native of the little Westmoreland village ; * seven years later it was consecrated under the name of S. Paul's Chapel. In the interval the Fire of London had occurred, and we may well believe that as the Dean looked upon the ruins of his world-famous cathedral, his thoughts would often turn to its humble namesake which he had founded in a quiet Westmore- land village. The association between the two S. Pauls is still further shown by the east window of Witherslack church, which contains side by side with the arms of the Earl of Derby [the Lord of the Manor] the arms of the Deanery of S. Paul's Cathedral. In the eighteenth century there was a marked increase of church- building, and accordingly we note at least sixteen new dedications to S. Paul ; more than double the number dedicated in that century to S. Peter. To this period we may assign the churches of S. Paul, that are to be found in many of our leading towns, as in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield. In the first half of the present century we find over one hundred dedications in this name ; and most notable among them are the two dedications at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. When we con- sider how fitly S. Paul represents the consecration of the highest culture to the service of God, one feels how strange it is that until 1830 he should not have been specially commemorated at either of our great Universities. In the succeeding years, from 1850 to 1896, the number is largely increased. In Northumberland and Durham it has been observed that : I" S. Paul is, next to S. John, the most frequent name for modern churches." f No doubt the gradual revival of interest in missionary work has inspired many of these dedications in honour of the greatest of missionaries ; but in whatever aspect we consider S. Paul, our chief wonder must be, not that there are in our times so many dedications in his honour, but rather that there are not far more. Section II. — S. John Baptist and S. John Evangelist. Eleven hundred of our English churches bear the name of S. John, but there is often a great difficulty in deciding whether the John in question is intended for the Baptist or for the Apostle. The distinguish- ing appellation of " Evangelist " or " Baptist " is continually dropped, and in many cases this results in a hopeless confusion between the two saints. Only a few years ago a new church was about to be consecrated under the invocation of S. John the Evangelist. The ceremony was duly gone through, and a hymn specially composed for the occasion sung. In this hymn full recognition was made of the son of Zebedee as the saint * Nicolson and Burn. f Arch. Journal, vol. 42. 6o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. vii. specially before the minds of the worshippers that day, but this was the sole indication which of the two S. Johns was intended. Throughout the rest of the service, and in all the legal documents, mention was made simply of "this Church of S, John." The omission was discovered only at the conclusion of the ceremony, when the distinctive appellation " S. John the Evangelist " was carefully inserted in all the documents. It may be said, that all churches that appear simply as " S. John " ought to be assigned of right to the Apostle ; but experience shows that there is a strong tendency to shorten all extra designations, and many an old church habitually spoken of merely as " S. John " will prove, on closer investigation, to belong to the Baptist. We say advisedly " many an old church," for, speaking very generally, it may be said that pre-Beformation churches of " S. John," without distinguishing appellation, are usually intended for the Baptist, while the very reverse may be still more safely assumed of any modern church bearing the same designation. In our own day there is no dedication so common as "S. John the Evangelist ; " it out- numbers, as we have already seen, even the dedications to "Christ Church" and "All Saints," and far exceeds those to the Blessed Virgin. Again, the nineteenth-century dedications to S. John Evangelist, are as three to one compared with those to the Baptist, and yet so immense was the ancient love and reverence for the Baptist, that the total number of churches in his honour is larger than of those dedicated to his great namesake. Undoubtedly, S. John the Evangelist is in a very marked sense the chosen saint of our Age, and it is perplexing to us that in the affections of our forefathers so many of the Apostolic band — not S. Peter alone, but S. James, and even the little-known Bartholomew — should have been preferred before him. We would not be understood to imply that there are not a goodly number of ancient churches dedicated in honour of the " disciple whom Jesus loved ; " — only that the proportion is far smaller than according to our present standard we should be inclined to expect. S. John Bap- " Verity I say unto you, among them that are born of tist. June 24 women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist ; " and Aug. 29. and a g a i n _« g e was a burning and a shining light." We may well believe that it was these words of our Blessed Lord that caused the Baptist to be such an object of special veneration to our forefathers, that in the churches dedicated in his honour he ranks with the very chief of the Apostles ; outnumbering all of them, indeed, save the brothers Peter and Andrew. Many a patron saint— even from among the Apostolic company — has been made choice of by mediaeval church-builders on the strength rather of some wild legend of a supposed apparition than for the sake of his real claims to veneration. But obviously in a life-history like the Baptist's, of which both the rise and close are so fully reported in the Gospel narrative, there is little place for tradition to enter in, and thus the Baptist stands before us singularly untouched by legend. S. John Baptist is honoured with two feast-days — the commemoration of his nativity on June 24, and the commemoration of his death on chap. vii. S. JOHN BAPTIST AND S. JOHN EVANGELIST 6 1 August 29. As a rule, it is the day of a saint's death that is held in special remembrance of him, but in this instance the festival of the birth has entirely eclipsed the festival of the martyrdom. Both days still hold their place in our Anglican Kalendar, but " S. John's Day" and " S. John's Eve " always refer to the midsummer festival of the Baptist. No doubt it is partly this very circumstance of its being celebrated just in the height of summer that has added to its popularity. Folk-lore shows us how, just as the old May-day sports sprang out of a desire to substitute some innocent amusement for the Pagan revels observed on that day, so the various cere- monies connected with the June feast of the Nativity of the Baptist were but a Christianized form of the ceremonies anciently observed at this period of the year in honour of the summer solstice ; this is a subject that lies outside our province, only it was necessary just to allude to it as one of the contributing causes of the extreme popularity of this festival. The August festival, which stands in our Prayer-books as " the Beheading of I. John Baptist," is of less universal observation, but some old churches in honour of the Baptist — Coin St. Aldwyn, in Gloucestershire, is a case in point — doubtless keep their dedication-festival on or near August 29. The parish of S. John Baptist at Pinner, near London, had fairs on both the days connected with its patron saint, and in 1414 we find the church of Tadcaster solemnly dispensed from keeping its dedication-feast as hereto- fore on August 28, the eve of " the Decollation of S. John Baptist," * and allowed to transfer the same to the Sunday next after the said feast, in order that the yearly holiday might no longer interfere with the harvesting operations.f In the presence of this evidence as to the dedication-name of Tadcaster church in the fifteenth century, it is somewhat surprising to find it nowadays always ascribed to the Blessed Virgin. As we should expect, there is no county in England without its dedica- tion to the Baptist, unless, indeed, the doubtful parish of " St. John's " in Cornwall ought to be assigned to the Evangelist rather than to the Baptist. Boughly speaking, the ancient churches dedicated to the Baptist average eleven in each of the forty counties, outnumbering those in honour of the Evangelist in the proportion of four to one. In "Worcestershire the difference in popularity between the two saints is even more manifest, for there the proportion is as twenty to one. Dedications to S. John Baptist have been less liable to alterations than dedications in almost any other name, and where an old chapelry is found bearing the name of the Baptist, the presumption is strongly in favour that such was the original dedication. In a few cases, however, we shall find it more newly given as a substitute for some unscriptural name that had fallen into disfavour. Thus the old chapel of Colaton-Raleigh, in Devonshire, was originally " S. Theobald ; " and the parish church of Royston, in Cambridgeshire, was " S. Thomas-a-Becket " until 1541 (the * The old word " Decollation" is still used by the Roman Church in the English version of the Missal, t Lawton. 62 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. VII. Fair is still kept on his Day) ; while the College of S. John Baptist at Cambridge was known as " S. Bernard " until renamed in 1557. But when S. John the Baptist was once established as the patron of a church, there was seldom any desire to displace him in favour of any other saint. There are, indeed, churches to S. John the Baptist with alternative dedications to S. Mary or to some one of the Apostles, but they are not numerous, and more than half of them are to be accounted for by the difficulty of dis- tinguishing between the two S. Johns. Besides those many churches dedicated to the Forerunner of Christ under his proper style and title of " S. John the Baptist," we find him under four other designations, of which the oddest is " S. John Zachary," or " Zachary's S. John." The City church of this name does Zachary not commemorate any new S. John, nor does it point — though this suggests itself as a reasonable explanation — to the relationship of the Baptist to the aged Zachary, or Zacharias ; but the explanation of the name is given in Maitland's " History of London," as simply this : — " In 1181 it was denominated John Baptist, but it was ' conveyed ' by the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to one Zachary, whose name it probably received to distinguish it from one of the same name on Walbrook, and was known as ' Zachary's St. John.' " S. John of Jerusalem commemorates the Baptist under Jerusalem. nis as P ecfc of patron of the famous Military Order of the Knights Hospitallers, or Knights of S. John, an Order insti- tuted in the eleventh century for the safe keeping of the Holy Places, and for the protection of pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. A branch of the Order very early spread into England, and in its corporate capacity owned land and churches in various parts of the country. We have traces of its presence in four or five of our churches, if not in more. London gives us two dedications to S. J ohn of J erusalem : the one at South Hackney, the other at Clerkenwell. The Clerkenwell church, which was made parochial only in the eighteenth century, was formed " out of the choir of a church anciently belonging to the Priory of the Knights Hospitallers," on land that was formerly denominated " the manor of S. John of Jerusalem." • In the year 1723 there was not much care to preserve the existing dedica- tion-name, and in some lists the church appears only as " S. John the Baptist," but there can be no doubt that it is a direct successor of the old church of S. John of Jerusalem. It seems strange to be reading records of the doings of " the Grand Priory of the Order of S. John of Jerusalem " in a newspaper of 1889, but the old Order has lately been revived, not only in name, but in very practical form, by the energetic founders of the Ambulance Society for giving aid to the sick and wounded, who, by the good work they have done, have earned their right to the old title. The paper before mentioned tells how, on S. J ohn the Baptist's Day, the asso- ciates of the Order met for their commemorative services in the Chapel Royal, Savoy, and afterwards held their " annual general assembly at the * Lewis. CHAP. VII. S. JOHN BAPTIST AND S. JOHN EVANGELIST. 63 Chancery of the Order," and ifc furnishes a striking illustration of the continuity of English life and history that the chosen meeting-place was "S. John's G-ate," Clerkenwell, a spot that must have witnessed many such gatherings of the Knights Hospitallers in bygone centuries. The peaceful village of Dinmore in Herefordshire, that now numbers only some 35 inhabitants, by its dedication-name of " S. John of Jeru- salem " carries back our thoughts seven hundred years, to the time when Dinmore Hill was crowned by a commandery of the Order, placed there in the reign of Henry II., and when the setting forth of the Knights on their hazardous journeys to the Holy Land, and their return to the shelter of Dinmore, must have been the absorbing interest of the neighbourhood. Another church in the possession of the Knights of S. John was Sompting in Sussex. Of this the dedication-name is unfortunately lost, but it is not improbable that it too may have been "S. John of Jerusalem." Sompting church did not, however, come into the hands of the Knights Hospitallers until 1306. For the hundred and fifty years previously it had belonged to the " Brethren of the Temple of Solomon," * better known as " the Knights Templars." From this circumstance the ecclesi- astical property became known as " the Temple," and probably the church — like Holy Cross church at Bristol, or the yet more famous example in London — merged its distinctive dedication-name in the designation of " the Temple Church." However this may be, there is no doubt as to the name of the ancient and interesting church of Little Maplestead in Essex. This parish was given to the Knights of S. John in very early days, in the reign of Henry I. It is interesting, as being one of the rare " round churches " built after the model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. We have the same style of building at Cambridge and North- ampton ; in both these cases the dedication-name is " the Holy Sepulchre " (ch. iv.), but here at Little Maplestead the Knights returned to their usual practice, and named the church after their patron, S. John of Jerusalem. A Norwich church combines, as it were, the two ideas in Sepulchre 6 its uni( l ue dedication— " S. John de Sepulchre "—which is plainly intended for S. John Baptist, viewed in his special capacity as guardian of the Holy Sepulchre. " S. John in the Wilderness " is the typical and appro- Wilderness* 116 P r * ate name given under very remarkable circumstances to a Yorkshire church of comparatively recent date, now included in the wide-spreading parish of Halifax. Whitaker, the well-known local historian of West Yorkshire, who wrote in the opening years of the present century, thus describes the situation of the church and the character of the people among whom it was placed. " In this chapelry " [of Lud- denham] " is a remote and obscure valley, not devoid of romantic beauty, called Turvin, in which has lately and very seasonably been erected a chapel, entitled The Chapel of S. John in the Wilderness, and con- secrated by the present Archbishop of York,t October, 1815. The native * Lower. t Archbishop Vernon. 6 4 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. VII. propensity of the inhabitants, and the almost inaccessible nature of the place, about half a century ago, rendered this valley and the adjoining wilds unhappily notorious ; for here the current gold coin of England and Portugal was clipped and defaced, while the clippings and filings during several years were melted down and re-struck in rude dies. At length the atrocious murder of a poor exciseman, who had boldly done his duty in attempting to bring some of the parties to justice, produced a general alarm ; two of the murderers were convicted and executed, and the gold coin was thenceforward ordered to pass by weight and not by tale." * So in this lawless valley a church was planted whose mission should be to preach repentance and amendment ; and fitly did it symbolize this duty in its very name, by pointing the worshippers back to the faithful Witness on the banks of Jordan, who came to show how the crooked might be made straight, and the rough ways smooth, through the power of One greater than himself. There is a little church in Devonshire, near Exmouth, which from its lonely situation is sometimes called " S. John in the Wilderness ; " but this seems to be a mere fancy appellation, not a true dedication-name. In double dedications the name of the Baptist is of frequent occurrence, and, as we shall have occasion to notice elsewhere (ch. l.), it is once happily conjoined with that of his great namesake, S. John Evangelist. jo k n S. John Evangelist, like each one of the saints considered Evangelist. m tms chapter, has his two festivals ; but in this case it is May 6 and the winter festival — the commemoration of the saint's death Dec. 27. — t ^ afc - g Q £ a i mog £ un i V ersal observance. The other day, which still lingers in our Prayer-book Kalendar in its quaintly abbreviated form of " S. John ante Port. Lat.," that is to say, " S. John before the Latin Grate," recalls the tradition found in Tertullian and Jerome, but not in Eusebius or any earlier authority, that the Apostle when at Eome was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, by command of the Emperor Domitian, and emerged unharmed. The day is still observed in the Roman Church, but the references in the appointed services for the day might apply to almost any Martyr or Confessor, and make no mention whatever of the peculiar sufferings of the Apostle. In England this feast has fallen into complete disuse, but at one time unquestionably it was observed here also, and therefore it is probable that some ancient Dedica- 8 J h ante ^ion-feasts are kept 011 ^ na ^ ^1- Examples are rare, but one Portam notable instance is furnished by the famous S. John's College, Latinam. Cambridge, which still observes its College feast — its annual May6 ' commemoration of benefactors — on May 6, the festival of " S. John before the Latin Gate." It appears that there is in some quarters a desire to restore the observance of this long-forgotten feast, for in a newspaper of January, 189 3,f we find it stated that " the Bishop of Oxford will lay the foundation-stone of the new church for the Cowley Fathers on the feast of 6 S. John before the Latin Gate.' " But though the red-letter Feast of S. John has completely and * " Loidis and Elmete." f Family Churchman. chap. vii. S. JOHN BAPTIST AND S. JOHN EVANGELIST 65 deservedly eclipsed the glory of the black-letter day, it is not easy to find instances of old parish churches keeping their dedication-feasts on December 27 either. S. John Evangelist's Day falls too near to Christmas Day to stand forth prominently as a landmark ; it is to a certain extent lost sight of in the greater Feast, and is not a date of such frequent occurrence as S. John Baptist's Day, for example. It often happens that a church attributed merely to " S. John " proves its true patron to be the Baptist by the fact that the yearly fair is held on or near June 24, but winter fairs or wakes are much less common than summer ones, so we are unfortunately deprived of one half of the valuable aid we might otherwise have looked for in determining the true dedication-name. The great difference in popularity between the two S. Johns has already been adverted to : the Baptist, as we have seen, is to be found in every county save Cornwall ; there are three or four counties from which the Evangelist is wholly missing. Kent and Worcestershire can show their eighteen and twenty churches respectively in honour of the Baptist, and only one apiece in honour of the Evangelist. So great a disproportion as this is not often found, but everywhere (Celtic Cornwall apart) the balance is largely in favour of the Baptist, except in the one case of the county of Hampshire. Here the order is strikingly reversed : we find nine ancient churches in honour of the Apostle, and instead of the thirty-six which according to the general rule would be the portion due to the Baptist, we count but four. This exception is in itself not one of the least puzzling of the many puzzling questions that arise in connexion with dedications in this name. All that has been said hitherto of the difference in popularity between the two S. Johns refers solely to pre-Reformation dedications. The disparity between the number of their respective dedications is no longer so striking as it once was, because the nineteenth century has done much to redress the balance ; but of modern dedications to S. John Evangelist we shall have occasion to speak later. For the moment, however, we have to deal merely with pre-Reformation dedications, and, whatever may be the cause, there can be no doubt that early dedications in honour of the Apostle and Evangelist are rare in comparison with those in honour of the Baptist. The fact is recognized by all who have studied the subject, but the explanation of it is hard to find. Most curious is it to notice how many a dedication, seemingly in honour of the Apostle, proves on closer investigation to belong of right to his famous namesake. Either some old document brings to light the forgotten affix of "the Baptist," or a chapelry claiming to be " S. John Evangelist " holds its fair on S. John Baptist's Day, Old Style (as at Ulpha in Cumberland) ; or, again, the church, though now ascribed to the Apostle, is found to have had in early days some national saint for its patron, as S. Wilfred at Preston in Lancashire. So, again, the church of S. John Evangelist at Wall in Northumberland is the successor of a very ancient chapel, but the old dedication was to Oswald the King. Newton- Arlosh in Cumberland, on the other hand, can prove its right to be called " S. John " by referring to its old fourteenth- vol. 1. ¥ 66 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vn. century designation of " Kirkeby Johan," but according to good authority the " John" in question is S. John Baptist.* But there is always danger lest a theory should be pressed too hard, and, in order to guard against this, great care has been taken in the subjoined lists in all doubtful cases to give the benefit of the doubt to S. John the Evangelist. Where there is not clear evidence to the contrary, all churches returned as " S. John " without any distinguishing appellation have been counted to the Apostle. If the Apostle John were known to us only through the pages of the Bible we might be prepared to find that he did not receive his full meed of veneration from the Middle Ages. We have seen already, in the case of S. Michael and S. Gabriel, how large a share a popular legend may have in exalting one saint above another (see ch. v.) ; but in the history of S. John Evangelist the legendary and traditional element is by no means wanting. Let us consider for a moment how completely some of the stories and sayings of S. John, handed down to us by the early Christian writers, have entered into our conception of the Apostle. How could we give up now the picture of the aged Apostle repeating over and over to the hearers who hung upon his words the charge, "Little children, love one another " ? f how surrender the story of his seeking out and winning back the young robber captain ? % But while we cling to these traditions and a few others as consistent with what we already know of the character of the Apostle, and as coming to us through trustworthy channels, there are a multitude of other legends of the type dear to the mediaeval mind, which later criticism has unhesitatingly rejected. Seeing, then, that S. John the Evangelist stands forth so prominently, not in the Gospel story alone, but in countless legends of varying degrees of authenticity, we should have expected to find him occupying a foremost place among our English patron saints. And for the first six centuries of English Christianity he did hold in our Church the high place that seemed his of right. There are not a few Saxon dedications in this name 5 there is the very ancient church of Escombe in Durham, and Mount Bures in Essex. More famous than either of these is Beverley Minster in Yorkshire. Long before the town of Beverley itself came into existence — before the minster church had risen up in stately beauty — the spot was already hallowed by a tiny church dedicated by some unknown founder to S. J ohn the Evangelist. When in the end of the seventh century Bishop John of Hexham, better known as S. John of Beverley (ch. xxii.), planted his monastery in those parts, he rebuilt the little church on grander lines, but did not change its name.§ And this English reverence for S. John Evangelist was deepened by a popular legend of purely national growth, which associates the Apostle with the last and best-loved of our Saxon kings, that gentle Edward the * Transactions of Westmoreland Arch. § The existing double-dedication of Soc. t S. Jerome. % Clement of Alexandria. "SS. John Evangelist and Martin" is generally traced back to the union of two separate por;icns of the monastery. chap. vii. S. JOHN BAPTIST AND S. JOHN EVANGELIST. 67 Confessor, whose actual virtues were so fondly idealized by his people's love. The story is found in slightly varying forms in many histories of the king, and is interesting to us as accounting for two at least of our dedications to S. John Evangelist. The version here given is to be found in the Chronicles of John of Brompton.* " King Edward the Confessor had, after Christ and the Yirgin Mary, a special veneration for St. John the Evangelist. One day, returning from his church at Westminster, where he had been hearing mass in honour of the evangelist, he was accosted by a pilgrim, who asked an alms of him for the love of God and St. John. The king, who was ever merciful to the poor, immediately drew from his finger a ring, and, unknown to any one, delivered it to the beggar. When the king had reigned twenty-four years, it came to pass that two Englishmen, pilgrims, returning from the Holy Land to their own country, were met by one in the habit of a pilgrim, who asked of them concerning their country ; and being told they were of England, he said to them, ' When ye shall have arrived in your own country, go to King Edward, and salute him in my name ; say to him, that I thank him for the alms which he bestowed on me in a certain street in Westminster ; for there, on a certain day, as I begged of him an alms, he bestowed on me this ring, which till now I have preserved, and ye shall carry it back to him, saying that in six months from this time he shall quit the world, and come and remain with me for ever.' And the pilgrims, being astounded, said, ' Who art thou, and where is thy dwelling- place ? ' And he answered, saying, ' I am John the Evangelist. Edward, your king, is my friend, and for the sanctity of his life I hold him dear. Go now, therefore, deliver to him this message and this ring, and I will pray to God that ye may arrive safely in your own country.' When St. John had spoken thus he delivered to them the ring, and vanished out of their sight. The pilgrims, praising and thanking the Lord for this glorious vision, went on their journey ; and being arrived in England, they repaired to King Edward, and saluted him, and delivered the ring and the message, relating all truly. And the king received the news joyfully, and feasted the messengers royally. Then he set himself to prepare for his departure from this world." This story is represented, adds Mrs. Jameson, in rude sculpture on the screen of Edward the Confessor's Cbapei in the Abbey. The figures are supposed to be about the date of Henry VI. A few other particulars, some of them very important for our special purpose, may be gathered from other lives of the king.f The ring was " large, royal and beautiful." The pilgrims were from the town of Ludlow ; the Apostle appeared to them in the form of " an old man white and hoary," "joyously like unto a clerk." When the pilgrims returned home to deliver their message, they found the king at his palace in Essex, "said to be called from this incident Havering-atte-Bower." The received etymology is thus expounded in pleasing fashion by Camden, the Elizabethan historian : " Havering, an ancient retiring place of the * Quoted in Mrs. Jameson. t Stanley's 4> Westminster." 68 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vn. Kings, called so from a ring given there by a certain stranger to Edward the Confessor, as a present from S. John." * Whatever we may think of the " Have a ring " derivation, it is an undoubted fact that the existing church of Havering has from time immemorial been dedicated to S. John the, Evangelist. Ludlow also keeps the twofold memorial of its con- nexion with this most popular legend, first, in its " College of S. John the Evangelist," founded in the reign of Edward the Confessor,! of which the existing church of S. John the Evangelist [a chapel of ease in the parish of S. Lawrence] is the direct representative ; and secondly, in " a representa- tion of the story in the painted window of S. Lawrence's church." % This legend naturally had great influence in increasing the honours paid to S. John, and not a few of the churches in this name may be assigned to some period within the next hundred and fifty years. The now vanished Yorkshire chapelry of Cowdon appears to have already in the reign of Edward the Confessor claimed the Apostle for its patron ; probably in this case the dedication-name came through the connexion of the chapelry with the church of S. John Evangelist at Beverley ; § but Cross Canonby in Cumberland, and Cirencester in Gloucestershire, were both of them founded within the interval specified. Again, S. John's College, Cam- bridge, inherited not only the site of the lands but also the name of a certain Hospital of S. John Evangelist, dedicated in the time of Henry II. The church of East Farndon in Northamptonshire was appropriated to S. John's College, and therefore there is ground for attributing it to the Evangelist, though it is sometimes assigned to the Baptist. Exact dates apart, there are further not a few churches dedicated to S. John the Evangelist, which by their Norman architecture proclaim themselves as belonging to this early period. Such are West Meon in Hampshire, Merrington in Durham, Pauntley in Gloucestershire, and many more. But from the thirteenth century onwards the proportion of dedi- cations in this name, for some inexplicable reason, gradually lessens, and has not yet entirely recovered itself at the end of six centuries ; not even though it has been the chosen dedication-name of this most church- building nineteenth century. Just as about this period the hitherto favourite Christian name of John fell from its leading position among English Christian names and gave place to the William^ which has ever since been the commonest masculine name among us, so too from about this time the popularity of S. John as a patron saint visibly declined. In the one case the cause is surmised to have been the discredit brought upon the name by the hated King John, first and only English king of that name ; but if we can suppose that the same prejudice had extended itself to the name of the Apostle, why should not S. John Baptist likewise have been affected by it ? That there was some such gradual change of feeling is undeniable, but the cause of it * "Britannia." f Lewis. % Stanley's " Westminster.' : § Lewis. || Cornhill Magazine, March, 1871. chap. vii. 6". JOHN BAPTIST AND S. JOHN EVANGELIST. 69 remains a mystery. Henceforward the dedications in honour of S. John Evangelist fell markedly below their proper proportion, but it must not for a moment be supposed that they suddenly and entirely ceased. There are plenty of instances to the contrary ; amongst others there is Little Leighs in Essex, founded in 1230, and placed under the invocation of "the Blessed Virgin Mary and S. John Evangelist," but now retaining only the first half of its name, and Whitchurch in Buckinghamshire, sometimes wrongly assigned to S. John Baptist, but with a record of a fair granted in the reign of Henry III., to be held yearly on the festival of S. John Evangelist." Certainly it sometimes happens, as in the foregoing instance, that the Evangelist is deprived of the dedications that are legitimately his ; witness Baildon in Yorkshire, an ancient chapelry, which in both the standard books on the subject of dedications f appears as " S. Giles," but in a will dated 1548 is mentioned as "the Chapel of S. John Evangelist in Baildon." % The existing church (made parochial in 1869) has there- fore good ground for calling itself as it does " S. John the Evangelist." How and at what period S. Giles came to be regarded as the patron does not appear. Possibly he was the real patron until the sixteenth century, and Baildon may have been placed under the special patronage of S. John Evangelist about the same time as another Yorkshire chapelry, Coley near Halifax, founded soon after 1500. Already in the sixteenth century we seem to see that the tide has turned again, and that S. John the Evangelist is beginning to regain his old position. In the churches of the seventeenth century, comparatively few in number though they are, we find his name ; as at Leeds, Oxburgh in Norfolk, and "Wapping in Middlesex. Wapping, by the way, is curious, because it exhibits the perpetual tendency to con- found the two S. Johns. Though founded as lately as 1694 it is in doubt between the Apostle and the Baptist, but there is this to be said in support of the theory that its true patron is the Apostle, that according to tradition the present church stands on or near the site of an ancient shrine dedicated to S. John the Evangelist, which was much frequented by sailors. § A hundred years later and S. John Evangelist stands first of all, narrowly followed, however, by S. Paul ; but in the succeeding century he stands forth without a rival, the chosen saint of our day. His churches are counted by hundreds, and each year sees fresh additions to their number. By far the commonest form of ascription amongst us is Apostle ^ " S * John the Evangelist." Two modern churches give us " S. John the Apostle," but we have no example of the beautiful American dedication (at Philadelphia) to " The Beloved Disciple." About a dozen of our churches — all of them modern — have Divine 11 ^ ma de choice of the designation prefixed to the Book of Revelation, " S. John th? Divine." So it is that we English * Lewis. \ Lawton. t Ecton and Bacon. § Mackeson. 7o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. vii. translate the Greek term "Theologos," while the French, Italians, and Germans render it more correctly "the Theologian." * " What wonder," so it has been said, " that in these our latter days, all thoughtful minds, whether in search of evidence from Christian history, of comfort from Christian truth, of instruction from Christian holiness, are turning by a natural instinct to the writings of the last Apostle, who left the historical record in his Gospel of the things which he saw and heard, and taught us that God is Spirit, and that God is Love ? " f It is nearly half a century since these words were written, and each succeeding year lends new force to them, as church after church rises up around us, dedicated to the blessed memory of " the disciple whom Jesus loved." * " ' Theologos ' or the ' Divine,' as ap- plied to S. John, is not used in its ordinary modern sense, but, as is well known, in the peculiar sense which it bore in the fourth century, ' one who spoke of the Divinity of our Lord.' " — Stanley's " Apos- tolical Age." t Ibid. CHAPTER VIII. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. PAGE. NAME. DAY. CHURCHES. 71 The Holy Apostles... 1 72 The Holy Evangelists 2 72 ' S. Simon Zelotes . . . ... October 28... ... 10 See also dd. ) 73 < S. Jude ... 35 See also dd. 73 SS. Simon and Jude ... ••• 9 73 S. James the Less . . . ... May 1 9 See also dd. j 74 S. Philip ... „ ... ... 45 See also dd. 1 74 SS. Philip and James ... 23 75 SS. Philip and Jacob . .. „ ... 1 1 75 S. Matthias ... February 24 ... 20 75 S.Matthew ... September 21 ... 130 77 S. Mark ... April 25 ... 123 78 S. Luke ... October 18 ... ... 147 80 S. Thomas ... December 21 ... 147 82 i ' S. Bartholomew ... August 24 ... ... 187 See also ] 83 1 I S. Nathanael ,, ... 2< , triple deds. 1 83 S. Barnabas ... June 11 ... 71 84 S. Andrew ... November 30 ... 690 See also dd. 86 S. James the Great... ... July 25 ... 551 189 Total ...2203 (See also ch. vii.) Nearly five thousand of our churches, or about a third of the entire number, are dedicated as might be expected to the Apostles and Evange- lists. Such dedications have at all times been general in England, and yet even within the narrow limits of these sixteen or seventeen names the special characteristics of the various periods of our Church History find expression. The Apostolic dedications of the Middle Ages differ from Aposttes y those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; while these in their turn differ somewhat from those of our own time. Hooker observes that churches take their names in memory, " many of one Apostle, Saint or Martyr ; many of all." This practice of building a church to the honour, not of any one individual of the twelve, but to all " the glorious company of the apostles," was of early origin, but not seemingly of long continuance. Oonstantine, shortly before his death, 72 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vm. founded "in that city which bore his own name" a church which he dedicated to " the memory of our Saviour's Apostles." * We have, how- ever, no ancient English church so dedicated, and the single example of the kind is a modern church at Charlton-Kings in Gloucestershire to the " Holy Apostles." There are two churches dedicated to the " Holy Evange- Evan»elists. ns ts," one at Normacott in Staffordshire, and the other at Skipton in Yorkshire, but both of these are modern. In the vast and ever-increasing parish of Bethnal Green the entire Apostolic band is commemorated by fourteen distinct churches. Up to the year 1743 Bethnal Green was included in the parish of Stepney ; three years later it had built for itself the church of S. Matthew. For eighty years S. Matthew's was the only church, then S. John's was added. Within twenty years from this time there rose up churches to S. Matthias, S. James the Less, S. Philip, S. Simon Zelotes, S. Jude ; but still the need was not overtaken, and now Bethnal Green counts its fourteen churches, thus commemorating each of the twelve Apostles, with S. Paul and S. Barnabas. Clearly the next two churches in the parish ought to bear the names of S. Mark and S. Luke, so as to complete the commemoration of the Evangelists. It happened about ten or eleven years ago that the rapid increase of population in Barrow-in-Furness, consequent upon the development of the iron works, necessitated a special effort in the direction of Church extension. It was resolved that four churches should be built and consecrated simultaneously. This was done, and by way of marking the connexion between the four it was determined to dedicate them respectively to the four Evangelists. The modern tendency has been to commemorate Apostles as such, the less famous as well as the greater. Partly, no doubt, this has been done for convenience' sake ; for as a rule it is in large towns or suburban districts that we find churches to " S. Simon " or " S. Jude," " S. James the Less " or " S. Philip." In such cases there is an obvious advantage in having a distinctive name ; but probably the ruling motive has been the desire to do honour to even the most obscure among the Apostles. S. Simon Perhaps it is by way of emphasizing the individuality of Zelotey. each of the twelve that we find those of the Apostles whom Oct. 28. ^ i£ a i en( j arg commemorate on one day more often separated than united. Thus we find ten churches to S. Simon — " S. Simon Zelotes," as he is carefully distinguished at Chelsea and at Bethnal Green — and thirty-five to S. Jude, whereas to the two combined there are only nine. The church at Simonburn in Northumberland was for a time ascribed to S. Simon, but archaeological authorities are of opinion that Simon in this instance is only a corruption of Sigmundfi an Anglo-Saxon warrior, and that the true dedication of the church is preserved in a well hard by, popularly known as " Mugger's Well," that is, S. Mungo. The probabili- ties are so strongly in favour of this famous local missionary, S. Mungo, * Eusebius. t Arch. Journal, vol. 42. chap. vrn. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 73 better known in Cumberland as S. Kentigern (ch. xxxiii.), that the church has now reverted to its old name of S. Mungo. j d It is not hard to understand why churches to S. Jude Oct. 28.' should outnumber those to S. Simon. Notwithstanding the desire to do honour to all the Apostles impartially, there is a strong natural instinct to give the preference to those of whom most is known, and of these two Apostles S. Simon is to us a mere name, whereas S. Jude is known to us as the writer of one of the Epistles and as the disciple to whose question we owe one of the precious revelations of the Father granted us in S. John's Gospel. There is not a single ancient church dedicated to S. Jude. SS Simon There are two if not three ancient churches dedicated to and Jude. SS. Simon and Jude conjointly ; one is at Norwich, one at Oct. 28. Bramdean in Hampshire, and one at East Dean in Sussex: It is possible that the East Dean dedication has only been conferred lately. No dedication-name is given in either Bacon or Ecton, and it may be that in this parish, as in so very many Sussex parishes, the original dedication- name had been entirely lost sight of and a new one was bestowed. Castle- thorpe in Buckinghamshire is seemingly an instance of modern changes ; it is now " SS. Simon and Jude," but in 1831 * it was dedicated to the Virgin. There is, however, no doubt attaching to the Norwich church, or to the little village church at Bramdean, both of which are entered as dedicated to SS. Simon and Jude, as well in the " Liber Regis " as in Ecton's " Thesaurus." S James the -^ilip and James are found both separately and Less. May 1. together, but S. Philip is by far the more common of the two dedications, both in ancient and modern times. It is not easy to see why this should be, unless it is that a degree of uncertainty has always rested upon the personality of S. James the Less. If "the brother of the Lord " could be unhesitatingly identified with James the Just, the first bishop of Jerusalem, the writer of the Epistle, the man of prayer,t surely we should have more churches dedicated to him ! There is an old chapelry of S. James the Less at Midhope in Yorkshire, but there is no proof that the name is old. The church of S. James at Clerkenwell ought by rights to be S. James the Less, for the present structure (rebuilt about 1623) succeeded to an earlier one which formed part of a priory dedi- cated to S. James the Less.J In this instance the historic connexion would be fitly marked by the resumption of the earlier name. Of modern churches of this name we find but few instances — one in Bethnal Green, one in West- minster, and some others in Durham, Liverpool, Plymouth, and elsewhere. * Lewis. f See Hegesippus's famous account of him, quoted by Eusebius : " He went into the Temple alone, where he was found upon his knees, making supplication for the forgiveness of the people : in so much that his knees were become hard and brawny,, like those of a camel, by reason of his continual kneeling to worship God, and to make supplication for the remission of the people." — Eusebius, Book 11.33; cf. S. James v. 16. X "Eng. Illus." 74 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vin. S PhT When we turn to S. Philip we find about forty-five May 1. 1P churches in all bearing his name. One belongs to the eighteenth century, four are of pre-Reformation date, the rest modern. Our knowledge of this saint is definite though slight, and perhaps it is for this reason that he has been more frequently chosen in modern times than his fellow- Apostle, S. James the Less. Bishop Light- foot has said that " when we turn to S. John's Gospel we can hardly resist the impression that incidents relating to Andrew and Philip had a special interest not only for the writer of the Gospel but also for his hearers." * It is to the Fourth Gospel that we owe all our certain knowledge of S. Philip. But even when we come to the less sure ground of tradition, the notices of " Philip the Apostle " are exceptionally trustworthy. We have good evidence for believing that he followed S. John to Hierapolis and there ended his days. We are further told that he was the father of three daughters, two of whom remained unmarried and lived on at Hierapolis after their father's death. Papias, ithe second-century writer, had himself talked with these daughters of S. Philip's, and heard from them " several stories of the first preacher of the Gospel which he trans- mitted to posterity in his work." f Another second-century writer, Clement of Alexandria, incidentally identifies S. Philip with the disciple mentioned in S. Luke who asked to be allowed to first go and bury his father before he followed Christ.^ Legend has been very busy about the name of S. Philip, and it may have been the story of his triumph over the serpent that caused him to be held in honour in old times. According to the legend he found the people of Hierapolis in superstitious bondage to a great serpent. He openly rebuked their idolatry, and by his prayers brought about the death of their so-called god. His boldness was his own undoing ; the angry multitude laid hold on him and crucified him.§ Of the four ancient churches dedicated to S. Philip one is at Brinkhill in Lincolnshire, one at Little Rollright in Oxfordshire, and one at Ratby in Leicestershire. The fourth is at Norton in Somerset, and is diversely given as dedicated to S. Philip alone, or to " S. Philip and All Saints." In old county maps Norton is marked under the name of " Norton-Philip," a good proof of the antiquity of the church dedication. SS Philip We find over twenty churches dedicated to SS. Philip and and James. James jointly. The anonymous writer of a paper on North- May L umbrian church dedications,] remarks that SS. Philip and James was " a likely day for church dedications from its falling on May- day which was also a popular holiday in olden times ; " and he goes on to say : " We have four ancient churches so dedicated in Northumberland, and one in Durham." If we look to other counties, however, we shall find that the dedication is a rare one. The only other examples are one at Bristol and one at Whittington in Worcestershire. The northern examples are at Witton-le-Wear in Durham, and at Rock, Whittonstall, and Heddon- * Colossians. § Baring-Gould. t Lightfoot on the Colossians. || Arch. Journal, vol. 42. % Miscellanies, iii. 4. CHAP. VIII. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 75 on-the-Wall in Northumberland. The fourth dedication is not known to the present writer. There is no apparent reason for the unusual popularity of these two saints in Northumbria ; only it is to be borne in mind that it not uncommon to find the same dedication repeated several times in any given district, as though one church had taken its name from another. SS PhT ^ e c k urca at Bristol, which bears date of the twelfth and Jacob century, is interesting from retaining the name in its earlier form, " SS. Philip and Jacob." The sixteen nineteenth-century churches to SS. Philip and James are scattered throughout England. It is not easy to say why these two Apostles should be commemorated together. There is a more evident bond of union between S. Philip and S. Andrew, fellow-townsmen, and as it would appear close companions, and this natural union finds recognition in the modern church of " SS. Andrew and Philip," at Westbourne Park in London (ch. l.). S. Matthias is another of the saints who has been honoured FeK24 hiaS ' in later times for the sake of his office - We find twenty churches dedicated to him within the present century, but there is only a single instance, and that a doubtful one, of any ancient church bearing his name. This is natural enough, for the one mention of this Apostle in the Book of the Acts has been but scantily supplemented by tradition. S. Matthias rarely figures either in legend or picture, and beyond the yearly recurrence of his festival there was nothing to keep him before men's minds. The one ancient church dedicated to him is Thorpe- next-Haddiscoe in Norfolk. Both Bacon and Ecton give it as S. Matthias, but Blomefield, the Norfolk historian of the last century, ascribes it with more probability to S. Matthew. We find fewer ancient churches dedicated to the Evangelists than might have been expected. Those dedicated to S. John are more than double the number to all the other Evangelists combined ; but these have been already considered in the previous chapter. S. Matthew and S. Luke rank almost equally in the ie^L^' number of their churches. Up to the Reformation there was a slight preponderance in favour of S. Matthew, but it has been more than balanced within the last fifty years by the increasing popularity of S. Luke. The legends of S. Matthew add little to our conception of him, and it is probably only in virtue of his position as Apostle and Evangelist that there are any old churches dedicated to him. There are twenty-five ancient churches bearing his name, but in several cases there is an alternative dedication — usually to the Blessed Virgin. Thus Oheadle in Cheshire, Langford in Nottinghamshire, Milton in Oxfordshire, and Rowde in Wiltshire, are all four variously ascribed to S. Matthew or S. Mary. Eye in Suffolk is elsewhere given as " SS. Peter and Paul ; " Boughton in Nottinghamshire is of doubtful authority. Wolsingham in Durham has for its alternative dedication " SS. Mary and Stephen," but in this case S. Matthew is more likely to have been the original dedication, for the fair-day is on September 21. 7 6 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vm. There is no doubt about the dedication at Charmouth in Dorset, for in 1279, in the reign of Edward L, license was granted to hold an annual fair here on the " eve, day and morrow of S. Matthew." * At Hutton Buscel in Yorkshire the evidence is less direct but scarcely less convincing. The rectory of Hutton originally belonged to the Buscel family, but in 1453 it was transferred to the Abbey of Whitby. The transaction was formally completed on October 2, 1453. f This, it will be noted, is S. Matthew's Day, O.S., and the question suggests itself whether the appropriation was purposely concluded on the feast-day of the church, or whether, on the other hand, Whitby Abbey then conferred upon its new property the name of the saint upon whose festival it entered into full possession. Among other ancient churches dedicated to S. Matthew are those at Walsall, Normanton-on-Trent, Ipswich, and one in the City of London. There are a certain number of old chapelries, now separate parishes, bearing the name of S. Matthew, but these are for the most part to be mistrusted ; for wherever the pre-Reformation name can be traced it proves to have been something other than S. Matthew. S. Matthew's, Holbeck, for example, consecrated in 1832, may be regarded as the successor of the church which stood in Holbeck a hundred years before the Norman Conquest, but then this chapel was dedicated, not to S. Matthew, but to the favourite Yorkshire saint, S. Helen. So, too, Naburn in the same county was formerly S. Nicholas, and Midgham in Berkshire, and Meer- brook in Staffordshire, were S. Margaret and S. Mary respectively. In all probability the great period of change was the first half of the present century. Bethnal Green and Upper Clapton belong to the eighteenth century, but we have at least thirty-eight dedications to S. Matthew in the years between 1800 and 1850, more than in the whole pre-Reformation period. Since 1850 more than sixty have been added to the number, giving a total of one hundred since the beginning of the century. Is it fanciful to imagine that a business age like our own should have felt a special sympathy with S. Matthew, the consecrated type of a wealthy man, called not like his fellow-disciples from the simple life of a fisherman, but from the midst of a worldly business abounding with temptations peculiar to itself ? It is quite possible that some of the modern churches to S. Matthew have been so dedicated for love of Keble's beautiful S. Matthew's Day hymn. The choice of dedications has often rested upon causes slighter than a favourite hymn ; and there must be many gentle hearts in this busy crowded world who have found comfort aud inspiration in the lines suggested by the call of him who rose at once, " and left his gold ; his treasure and his heart transferr'd." " There are in this loud stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of th' everlasting chime ; * Lewis. f Lawton. CHAP. VIII. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 77 Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." Ancient dedications to S. Mark are very rare ; and this Apri?25*. i s surprising when we consider his wide-spread fame on the Continent, first as the reputed founder of the Alexandrian Church, and then as the patron saint of Venice. There do not appear to be more than five genuine pre-Reformation dedications to S. Mark — namely, Bristol, Lincoln, Bilton in Warwickshire, Englefield in Berkshire, and Farnborough in Hampshire. Lyncombe in Somersetshire and Fro- desley in Shropshire are both of them old parishes, but their several churches were rebuilt in the first half of the present century, and it is probable that the dedications to S. Mark may have been bestowed at that time. This has undoubtedly been the history of Marske-by-the-Sea in Yorkshire, which has allowed its most venerable and historic dedication- name of " S. G-erman " (ch. xxiv.) to lapse, and has named its existing church S. Mark. Markby in Lincolnshire is sometimes ascribed to S. Mark, sometimes to S. Peter. In all probability the last is the true patron, and " S. Mark " has only been suggested by the name of the parish, Markby. Coming down to the eighteenth century, we find churches to S. Mark at Hastings, Manchester, and in one or two other places. The first half of the nineteenth century gives us thirty-seven dedications in this name, and its latter half more than double that number. Probably a large pro- portion of the modern dedications to S. Mark have been chosen upon the assumption that the second Evangelist is identical with the " John Mark " whose character and history are so plainly written for us in a few passing scriptural allusions : the widow's son who once withdrew from the work, yet who afterwards became necessary to the very Apostle whom at the outset he had disappointed. There has been to many minds a special pleasure in connecting Mark the Evangelist with the Mark whom S. Paul names when he speaks of his " fellow- workers unto the kingdom of God, men that have been a comfort unto me." The Collect for S. Mark's Day, with its prayer for the grace of steadfastness, seems to sanction this con- nexion, but modern commentators tell us that the two are not to be confounded, and therefore we must fall back upon the traditional notices of the Evangelist. Eusebius has gathered together from earlier writers various scattered notices of S. Mark, all of which agree in making him the companion and disciple of S. Peter." Eusebius quotes the following passage from Clement of Alexandria concerning the origin of S. Mark's Gospel : " When Peter preached the word publicly in Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were there present entreated Mark [who had been his follower a long time, and remembered what he had said] that he would write down the things which had been spoken. When he had * Cf. 1 Peter y. 14. 78 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. viii. composed the Gospel, he imparted it to those who had entreated it of him. Peter, having understood this, used no persuasives either to hinder him or to incite him to it." Eusebius himself goes rather beyond this account when he says that the Apostle Peter " was much delighted with the ardent desire of the men, and confirmed that writing by his authority, that so henceforward it should be read in the Churches." Irenams, indeed, affirms that it was not till after S. Peter's death that Mark " delivered to us in writing what Peter had preached." Papias, the earliest authority of the four, does not enter into this disputed point, but only says : " Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, accurately wrote whatever he remembered ; but yet not in that order wherein Christ either spake or did them ; for he was neither an hearer of the Lord's, nor yet his follower ; but as I said, he was afterwards conversant with Peter. . . . For Mark made this one thing his chiefest aim, [to wit] to omit none of those things he had heard, nor yet to deliver anything that was false therein." Eusebius further mentions the report that S. Mark went into Egypt " and settled Churches in the very city of Alexandria," but he makes no mention of all those legendary circumstances of his preaching and death which figure in later histories. Pre-Reformation dedications to S. Luke are not common ; Q c J^ 8 e * neither indeed are they very rare. If the existing names are to be trusted, there are about twenty ancient churches and chapelries in his honour, but it is noticeable that, as in the case of S. Matthew, an alternative dedication is occasionally given. Thus the old church of Hodnet in Shropshire — Bishop Heber's parish— is variously given as " S. Luke," or " SS. Peter and Paul ; " and Thatcham in Berk- shire and Duston in Northamptonshire are also known as " S. Mary." The local distribution of churches to S. Luke is somewhat curious. They predominate in the Midland counties, or, roughly speaking, in the ancient dioceses of Lincoln, and Coventry and Lichfield. There is a cluster of them round about Northampton — at Cold Higham, Duston, Great Doddington, Kislingbury, and Spratton. Wellingborough should, perhaps, be added to the list ; for though S. Luke's church has only been dedicated within modern times it is noticeable that the fair-day is on October 29, S. Luke's O.S.* The old parish church is known as " All Saints," but it is quite possible that in the sixteenth-century passion for doing away with dedications to individual saints " All Saints " may have been substituted. So, too, at Derby : the parish church is " All Saints," but by ancient custom "the inferior officers" of the municipality arc " elected annually on the first Monday after S. Luke's Day." | Probably both here and at Wellingborough the modern church has revived the true dedication. Leicestershire ranks next to Northamptonshire, with three dedications to S. Luke — at Gaddesby, Laughton, and Thurnby ; there is further, in the same county, S. Luke's chapel at Newton-Harcourt. The dedications of old chapelries are very frequently of far later date than the buildings themselves, but probably we may trust the dedications * Lewis. t Ibid. CHAP. viii. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 79 at Heage in Derbyshire and (xoostrey in Cheshire, seeing that they bear the name of a saint already familiar in those counties. Other dedications to S. Luke are found in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire. Coming farther south, we find two in Somerset, both of them close to Bath ; one in Devonshire at Newton- Poppleford, founded by Edward III. as a chantry chapel about 1330, and one at Charlton in Kent with its fair held on S. Luke's Day. To these must be added S. Luke's (otherwise S. Mary's) at Thatcham in Berkshire, and the famous Old Chelsea Church. To find other dedications to S. Luke we must" go north to the diocese of Carlisle ; here there are but two churches bearing his name — one at Ousby in Cumberland, and one at Soulby in Westmoreland ; but in West- moreland at least he seems to have been held in special honour. Kirkby Stephen bears in its very name its dedication to S. Stephen, yet by charter from Edward III. it held its fair on S. Luke's Day. It was perhaps in consequence of this that the neighbouring chapelry of Soulby was dedicated to S. Luke. The present building appears to date from 1663, but this is not necessarily the date of its foundation. The little village of Staveley near Kendal had also its yearly fair granted in 1329 to one William de Thweng, " on the eve, day and morrow of S. Luke." The existing church of S. James dates only from 1845, and county his- torians * are of opinion that the old church was dedicated to S. Margaret. They, however, go only upon the authority of the name inscribed upon one of the bells, the least trustworthy of witnesses. We may with quite as good ground believe it to belong to S. Luke. Lastly, we have the same perplexity as regards Ambleside. The so- called " old church " on the hill in this little town is dedicated to S. Anne. It was built in 1813 on the site of an older chapel, supposed — but without certain proof— to have been also S. Anne's. It is noticeable, however, that in the Commonwealth " the keepers of the liberty of England " granted to the " vill of Ambleside " two fairs, one to be holden on the Wednesday in Whitsun-week, and one on October 18, or, as it is expressed in a charter of King James II., renewing the grant, " upon S. Luke's Day and the day next following." f The " keepers of the liberty of England " were not likely to have made special choice of any given saint's day, unless there was something in the previous circumstances of the town to guide their choice. We are forced to the conclusion that " S. Luke's fair," as King James's charter calls it, was already an institution in Ambleside, and S. Luke's Day possibly the dedication festival of the little chapel. J At the very outside, however, ancient dedications to S. Luke do not exceed thirty in number ; the eighteenth century gives us three, but in * Nicolsoii and Burn. venience' sake, irrespective of tlie church t Bulmer's "Westmoreland," and dedication festival ; but it is difficult to Nicolson and Burn. see why places so far apart from one % It is, of course, possible that the fair- another as Ambleside and Kirkby Stephen days at two or three places in Ihe same should have been influenced by any county may have been assimilated for con- common rule. 8o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. vm. the last ninety-six years we have more than a hundred churches thus dedicated, causing S. Luke to stand first among the three earlier Evangelists. Traditional notices of S. Luke are scanty, and add but little to our knowledge of him. The tradition that he was a painter is late and worth- less ; yet it has been repeated so often in legend and picture that it has helped to mould and fix the popular conception of him as the patron of Art and Culture. But it is above all as " the beloved physician " that modern churches are now dedicated to his memory. It was a tender and beautiful instinct that caused the founders of the great London lunatic asylum more than a century ago (1753) to link their pitiful institution with the name of " Luke the physician and evangelist, whose praise is in the G-ospels." Again, a modern guild of medical men gives evidence of its Christian aims by the name that it has chosen for itself, " S. Luke's Guild." T1 Few apostolic dedications are more characteristic of Dec. 21. modern times than S. Thomas ; few were regarded with so little favour in pre-Eeformation days. There are about thirty ancient churches bearing his name, but the strong probability is that most of these were originally dedicated not to the Apostle, but to " S. Thomas the Martyr," otherwise Thomas Becket (ch. xxi.). There are close upon seventy ancient churches dedicated to Thomas Becket ; it would be difficult to find seven unmistakably dedicated to his greater namesake. There are indeed about thirty more which are known simply as " S. Thomas," and at first sight it would seem natural to assign these to the Apostle, but experience shows that " S. Thomas " is usually only a shortened form for " S. Thomas of Canterbury," the last half of the name having been at some time or other tacitly dropped, and probably nearly the whole thirty ought to be added to the account of Becket. In 1537 the name of Thomas Becket was blotted out of all church service books. Like other of Henry VIIL's arbitrary changes of the same nature, it was but partially successful ; many churches clung to their old dedication, but a certain number obeyed the proclamation and dropped the proscribed portion of their names. It was at this time that the church at Exeter became " S. Thomas the Apostle " instead of " S. Thomas of Canterbury." From this example it will be seen that the word " Apostle " is often an addition or alteration, later than the date of the original dedication. The old churches that have it are not many in number. Bradwell-juxta-Mare in Essex has a good claim to be one of them, for early in the fourteenth century we find one Robert de Cheddeworth granting lands in Brad well to a certain chaplain in order that he might " celebrate masses for the sake of the King " (presumably Edward II.) " in the church of S. Thomas the Apostle in Bradwell." * The S. Thomas at Stanhope in Durham is probably another genuine dedication to the Apostle, for its fair is held on December 21, but the S. Thomas at Stockton-on-Tees in the same county is (like similar dedications at Lewes and elsewhere) merely an abbreviation for S. Thomas the Martyr. * Morant. CHAP. VIII. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 8l The fair-days or other circumstances may enable those who live in the various localities to judge which of the two saints is the patron of their church. The late Mr. Kerslake was inclined to rank very low the churches dedicated to the Apostle. "I would not venture to say," writes he,* " that all S. Thomases were S. Thomas of Canterbury, but most English ones were, and possibly all." t Blakeney in Norfolk has a curious triple dedication to " SS. Nicholas, Mary and Thomas the Apostle." The church of S. Thomas in Southwark was founded by King Edward VI. for the use of the patients in S. Thomas's Hospital. Edward undoubtedly intended to commemorate the Apostle, not the Archbishop ; but in truth he was only renewing an earlier dedica- tion, for the hospital itself had been dedicated three centuries before (1215) by its founder, Peter de Eupibus, Bishop of Winchester, to " S. Thomas the Apostle." % Already in Edward VI. 's time the tide was beginning to turn, and now the number of churches dedicated to the Apostle far exceeds those dedi- cated to Becket. The chapel of S. Thomas in the Charterhouse, built in 1621 on the site of the old Carthusian Priory of S. Mary, is no doubt in one sense intended for S. Thomas the Apostle, but possibly the choice was determined on out of compliment to its founder, Sir Thomas Sutton. § The eighteenth century gives us nine churches to S. Thomas, and ever since then the number has been steadily increasing. Older dedications, such as S. Nicholas at Simpson in Buckinghamshire, S. Giles at Wednes- field in Staffordshire, and S. Thomas-a-Becket at Heptonstall in Yorkshire, have been displaced to make room for S. Thomas the Apostle. Selside in Westmoreland is given in the Clergy List for 1896 as " S. Thomas ; " but Lewis, writing in 1831, says : " The chapel dedicated to Christ, was built about 1720 by the inhabitants on a site given by the Boman Catholic proprietor of Selside Hall, on condition of his being allowed to keep the original chapel." Unless this "original chapel" was dedicated to S. Thomas (it may very possibly have been to S. Thomas of Canterbury), and the original dedication has been resumed on historical grounds, it is difficult to account for the present name. There are about a hundred nineteenth-century churches to S. Thomas. The old mistrust of S. Thomas as being a sceptic has given place in our own day to a feeling of gratitude to him who " for the more confirmation of the faith " was suffered for awhile to doubt. Canon Bright in his lines on S. Thomas's Day has given expression to the changed feeling regarding this Apostle — * Private letter. doubt if S. Thomas would otherwise have t " S. Thomas (of Canterbury )," says been a favourite being a sceptic, but the same writer, " was blotted out of all acceptable at the revulsion against church service books by proclamation to Popery." churchwardens in 1537, and probably the % " Eng. Illus." same caused the change in dedications. I § Nightingale, VOL. I. G- 82 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. viii. " How oft, 0 Lord, Thy Face hath shone On doubting souls whose wills were true ! Thou Christ of Cephas and of John, Thou art the Christ of Thomas too." S. Thomas's usual symbol of a carpenter's rule is sometimes taken as a reference to his natural disposition to prove all things ; but the true explanation of it is to be found in the famous mediaeval legend of his being sold into India to work as a carpenter, a story which is given at length in the pages of Mrs. Jameson and Baring-Gould, g Bartholo- ^ * s difficult to account for the special popularity in old mew. times of S. Bartholomew. There are but four, or at the Aug. 24. most £ ye ^ English counties which have not a church named in his honour. From Northumberland to Cornwall we find ancient churches dedicated to this Apostle ; some one hundred and fifty in all. In the number of his charches S. Bartholomew ranks fourth among the twelve Apostles, being exceeded only by S. Peter, S. Andrew, and S. James. The obscure Bartholomew, who is to us a mere name, is preferred even to the "blessed Apostle and Evangelist" S. John. Nor is his great popu- larity to be accounted for by any specially striking legend concerning him. He is variously stated to have preached in India and in Arabia, and, according to one legend, he was associated with S. Philip in the triumph over the serpent at Hierapolis ; but the traditionary notices of this saint are scanty and untrustworthy, both as regards his life and the scene and method of his martyrdom. Many strange tales were told of the miraculous preservation of S. Bartholomew's remains, and in the Middle Ages half the leading cities of the Continent appear to have boasted some bodily relic of this Apostle. Nor was England neglected in the general distribution. "An arm was taken to Canterbury by Anselm," • and it is quite possible that this relic may have influenced the dedication-name of many other English churches. Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire was, in the eighth century, formally dedicated to S. Guthlac, its hermit-founder ; but in after-times when the tide was setting in favour of Catholic as against local saints, the old dedication was expanded into its present form — " SS. Mary, Bartholomew and Guthlac." The famous priory church of S. Bartholomew's at Smith- field, founded in the beginning of the twelfth century, is supposed to owe its name to the direct choice of the Apostle himself. Rahere, the founder, determined to atone for the sins of his youth by a penitential visit to Rome, and there doubtless he saw and revered the reputed body of S. Bartholomew. Sick in mind and body he lay weeping, with none to raise him out of his bitter despair, when he saw in a vision a man of kingly form, who stood beside him, and whose very presence brought with it comfort and strength. And the stranger said, "I am Bartholomew, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, that come to succour thee in thine anguish, and to open to thee the sweet mysteries of Heaven. Know me truly, by the will and commandment of * Baring-Gould, August 24. chap. viii. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 83 the Holy Trinity ... to have chosen a place in the suburbs of London, at Smithfield, where in my name thou shalt build a church." So Rahere returned with a good courage to London, and forthwith set himself to fulfil the commands of his heavenly visitant and to build him a church." * The nineteenth-century dedications to S. Bartholomew do not exceed forty in number ; there has been no special inducement to connect a church with a saint of whom so very little is known. Recent criticism, however, has thrown a flood of new light upon this unknown Apostle, by S Nathanael su && estin g ais identity with Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, " the Israelite in whom was no guile." We have two modern churches to S. Nathanael, one at Bristol, and another at West Derby in Lancashire. In the Kalendar of the Eastern Church, S. Bartholomew is com- memorated on June 11, in conjunction with S. Barnabas, of whom we have now to speak. The dedications in honour of S. Barnabas have a history June 11. ^he vei T averse of those in honour of S. Bartholomew — very rare in the Middle Ages, they are now steadily on the increase. We have but seven old churches in this name ; the first half of the present century gives nearly the same number, but in the last forty-six years we have over fifty such dedications. No doubt he has been chosen partly as a type of missionary zeal, partly for his name's sake, and partly for love of his own tender, generous nature. Eusebius mentions a tradition that S. Barnabas was one of the seventy disciples, and legend emphasizes his connexion with his native island Cyprus, and places the scene of his martyrdom there, but our real knowledge of his life and character does not go beyond the Acts of the Apostles. The seven old churches bearing his name are as follows : Stokenham in Devon, Queen-Camel in Somerset, Brampton-Bryan on the borders of Herefordshire and Radnorshire, Peasemore in Berkshire, and Bromborough in Cheshire, which last place can point to its charter granted by Edward I. entitling it to " a yearly fair of three days on the feast of S. Barnabas, the vigil, and the day following." f The two remaining dedications to S. Barnabas are both of them in Essex — the one at Mayland and the other at Great Tey. A curious piece of indirect evidence of the antiquity of the dedication at Great Tey is furnished by the fair-day in the adjoining district of Pontesbright, which is kept on the first Tuesday after June 1 1 . Pontesbright, now a separate parish, was formerly an outlying hamlet of Great Tey, where for the convenience of the inhabitants a chapel was built about the year 1360. This chapel was either never formally dedicated, or else the saint's name was completely merged in the common designation of "the White Chapel," which the Lord Chancellor Audeley (temp. Henry VIII.) in a legal document renders " Alba Capella." \ Meantime, in the matter of its feast-day, the chapel-of-ease doubtless followed the * Knight's " Old England." X Morant. f Ormerod. 8 4 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. viii. practice of the mother-church. Gradually the chapel which was the distinguishing feature of the hamlet gave a new name to the entire district, which at the present day is better known as Ohappel than by its more ancient and correct designation of Pontesbright. A dedication- name appears still to be wanting to the " white chapel," and, if so, it might fitly adopt as its patron S. Barnabas the Apostle. g A d The two Apostles who have been most steadily and con- Nov. 30. * tinuously honoured in England are S. Andrew and S. James. From the time when Augustine of Canterbury dedicated S. Andrew's Cathedral at Eochester in memory of his own monastery of S. Andrew's on the Ccelian Hill at Rome, this dedication has always been a favourite one. S. Andrew is one of the six or seven saints common to all the forty counties of England, and, as a rule, dedications in his name have been but little interfered with or altered. Where there is an alternative dedication the presumption is that S. Andrew is the earlier of the two, as in the case of Culham, Oxfordshire, now S. Paul's, but in the twelfth century " S. Andrew's." So, too, in the case of Ombersley in Worcestershire — the one and only ancient church that claims S. Ambrose for its patron — the evidence tends to show that the original dedication was to S. Andrew, and that S. Ambrose is merely a later corruption, suggested by the place-name, like S. Acca from Aycliffe in Durham (ch. xxiii.), which in the same way rightfully belongs to S. Andrew. Kirk-Andrews-on- Eden in Cumberland, and Kirk-Andrews-on-Esk in the same county, proclaim plainly enough both their dedication saint and their own antiquity.* The early traditions concerning S. Andrew are very scanty, and the later ones very untrustworthy. Eusebius says merely that he preached in Scythia ; various regions are named by later writers, but two or three accounts associate him with Greece, and lay the scene of his martyrdom at Patras in Achaia. Can it have been the mention in S. John's Gospel of the Greeks coming to seek Andrew's intervention that suggested the introduction of Greece into the later legends ? Of the legends concerning him one series reads much like a Christianized fairy-tale ; there is, however, an account of his crucifixion which may very possibly contain a basis of truth, notwithstanding the suspicious elaboration of details. It tells of his wonderful influence over the multitudes, his dauntless bearing towards the heathen pro-consul, and of his two days' sermon as he hung tied with cords upon his cross, witnessing for his Lord up to the very end.j Scotland, as we all know, claims S. Andrew for her patron, and has ntroduced his peculiar form of cross into our Union Jack ; but her * S. Andrew's, Wingfield, in the time the first two names fell into disuse, county of Suffolk, appears to have been and now the church is known only as dedicated at its foundation in 1362 to S. Andrew's. " S. Mary, S. John Baptist and S. An- f Baring-Gould, November 30, drew " (" Eng. Illus."), but in course of CHAP. vni. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 85 connexion with the saint only began in the eighth century, when, according to a most misty legend, certain of his bones were secretly stolen away from Patras and brought to St. Andrews. It has been suggested * that Scottish influence may have extended across the border and have accounted for some of the churches to S. Andrew in the north of England. It may be so, but the truth is that the great patron of Scotland is not specially popular in the northern counties ; in Northumberland and Durham, at least, his dedications are fifty per cent, below the average of the rest of England. One North-country dedication there is which certainly takes its origin from Eome, not from Scotland. S. Andrew's, Hexham, was so named by its seventh-century founder, S. Wilfrid. Trained up by the monks of Lindisfarne according to the usages of the Celtic branch of the Church, he in early manhood renounced the traditions of Iona and Lindisfarne, and identified himself with the Eoman party with all the proverbial zeal of a convert. He went on pilgrimage to Eome, and on his arrival he straight- way visited S. Andrew's oratory, and there solemnly consecrated himself to the evangelizing work that lay before him in his native land. This S. Andrew's oratory is supposed to have been a part of the famous S. Andrew's monastery on the Coelian Hill which a century earlier had sent forth Augustine ; and thus S. Andrew's at Eome and S. Andrew's at Hexham join hands. The place accorded in the Gospels to "Andrew, Simon Peter's brother," in no way accounts for the great honour that has since been paid him. Old Thomas Fuller, the Church historian of the seventeenth century, takes upon himself to resent in his quaint fashion the seeming slight put upon this Apostle, saying, " I read at the transfiguration that Peter, James and John were admitted to behold Christ, but Andrew was excluded. So again at the reviving of the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue these three were let in and Andrew shut out. Lastly in the agony, the aforesaid three were called to be witnesses thereof, and still Andrew left behind. Yet he was Peter's brother, and a good man, and an apostle ; why did not Christ take the two pair of brothers ? was it not pity to part them ? But methinks I seem more offended thereat than Andrew himself was, whom I find to express no discontent, being pleased to be accounted a loyal subject for the general, though he was no favourite in these particulars." t Would it not have pleased old Fuller to know of the 600 or 700 English churches built in honour of S. Andrew ? There are about 570 ancient ones (including the two cathedrals of Wells and Eochester X) an( * over 90 consecrated in the present century. The first-called of the Apostles has been almost as great a favourite in modern as in ancient times, and we have at least one example of an earlier dedication being * Arch. Journal, vol. 42. J Changed by Henry VIII. to " Christ t Fuller's "Scripture Observations." and the Blessed Virgin." 86 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. viii. displaced in his honour, notably S. Leonard's at Toddington in Gloucester- shire, now changed to S. Andrew's. Nor is it only in the Western Church that S. Andrew is brought into such special prominence. The Kalendar of the Eastern Church commemorates " The Twelve Apostles " all together on July 30 ; SS. Peter and Paul, and SS. Barnabas and Bartholomew, she commemorates in pairs, but the only two out of the twelve to whom she assigns each a separate day are " S. John the Divine " and " S. Andrew the Protoclete," i.e. " The First-called." * S. James the " ^- James the brother of John," as he is described in Great. Bede's Kalendar, has fewer ancient churches (about 330) than July 25. ^ Andrew, but more modern ones. In the first half of the present century alone we find more than 80 churches dedicated to him, and in the last five and thirty years we have nearly 100 — about as many as have been dedicated during the same period to S. Peter. Probably one reason for his great popularity fifty or sixty years ago was that owing to his death being recorded in the Bible there could be less room for legend in his history than in that of other saints. " S. James the Great" at Milton Abbas in Dorsetshire is a nineteenth-century substitution for the curious mediaeval dedication to " SS. Mary and Samson," S. Samson being, as we shall hereafter see, a British saint who became the patron of D61 in Brittany (ch. xxxir.). " S. James the Greater " at Derby is also apparently a modern church, but in any case it has an historical right to its dedication, for in the twelfth century there was a church of S. James in this town, subordinated to the Abbey of Bermondsey. Though not one of the commonest of our ancient dedications, S. James is to be found in every county of England, unless with the single exception of Rutland. Altogether he has over 550 churches, of which about 330 are ancient. As a rule he is designated as " S. James" and nothing more, but in two or three instances a more specific designation is given, as " S. James the Greater," at the old chapelry of Eastbury in Berkshire ; "S. James the Apostle," at Bury St. Edmunds; and "S. James the Elder," at Llanvetherine in Monmouthshire. It might have been supposed, as has been already said, that the express statements in the Acts of the death of this Apostle would have left no room in his history for legend. But this has not been the case. Spain could not be content without legends tending to magnify both herself and her Apostle patron, whom she transformed from a simple fisherman into a wealthy hidalgo.t Not only did she claim to have been evangelized by his direct agency, but, further, in one of her battles against the Moors, eight centuries later, she asserted the supernatural intervention of her mighty champion, " Sant' Iago," and assigned to him very much the part of the Great Twin Brethren in the Battle of Lake Regillus. These fantastic * S. Jude, indeed, is commemorated Lebbseus or Thaddaeus, and the writer separately on June 19, but in all proba- of the Epistle being regarded as a distinct bility he is not reckoned among the personage, twelve, his place being filled by S. f Mrs. Jameson. CHAP. VIII. APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 87 Spanish legends were doubtless not without influence upon the veneration paid to S. James in England as in other European countries. It is a relief, however, to turn from them to the one early tradition connected with S. James, handed down to us by Eusebius from writings * a century before his own day. Whether true or not, there is nothing in it in- compatible with the Bible account of his death. The following is the story as given by Eusebius : — " Concerning this James, Clement relates a memorable history, speaking as he had heard from his predecessors. For he says that he that accused him before the judgment-seat, seeing him openly and willingly testify and declare the faith of Christ, was moved thereat, and professed that he also was a Christian. And so, says he, they were both together led away to suffer. And, as they were going, he beseeched James to pardon him ; who, after a short deliberation said : ' Peace be to thee,' and kissed him ; and so they were both beheaded together." * " Clementine Recognitions." CHAPTER IX. OTHER -SCRIPTURAL SAINTS. The Holy Innocents. S 89 S. Elisabeth 89 S. Susanna 90 S. Mary Magdalene 93 S. Mary of Bethany 8. Joseph of Arimathea. 93 S. Cleopas 94 S. Stephen 96 S. Silas 96 S. Timothy 96 S. Titus 96 S. Philemon CH. XVI. . . November 5 .. July 22 ... January 19 i CH. LI. September 25 December 26 July 13 January 24 January 4 November 22 . First cent. 202 See also dd. 1 124 See also dd. 10 1 1 1 Total 345 We have already seen that the custom of placing churches under the invocation of some departed saint had its origin in the memorial churches built over the graves of the martyrs, and so for ever associated with their names ; but we have also seen that the practice soon expanded, and that churches were named in honour of one or another saint without there being of necessity any local connexion between the particular church and the saint thus commemorated. And so in very early days it became customary to place churches under the special patronage of the most famous of the scriptural saints — the Blessed Virgin Mary, for example, and the leading Apostles. But while some of the scriptural saints were made choice of again and again, others were almost entirely ignored. It is true that no member of the Apostolic fellowship is entirely wanting in our roll of pre-Eeformation dedications ; but while S. Peter and S. Paul and S. Bar- tholomew are to be found in every part of England, S. Simon and S. Jude and S. Matthias are only to be found here and there. And when, setting aside the Virgin and the Apostles, we come to the consideration of the remaining Bible saints, we shall find in like manner that one or two have been singled out for special veneration, while others, who none the less hold their place in the Kalendars of the Church, have remained wholly uncommemorated until our own day. CHAP. IX. OTHER SCRIPTURAL SAINTS. 8 9 We have already considered the dedications to the Holy Angels, the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and the Baptist. The Babes of Bethlehem — the Holy Innocents — will be spoken of in another place, together with the rest of the innocent child saints of other ages and other kindreds and tongues (ch. xvi.). We have now, therefore, only to do with the less famous men and women of the New Testament ; for our Western Church lacks the noble boldness of the Eastern branch that counts among its saints the holy men of the old dispensation. We have, in fact, only some ten or eleven names, beginning with S. Elisabeth, the mother of the Baptist, and ending with S. Philemon. The Holy See CH. XVI. Innocents. All the three churches in this name are of recent date, the Noy 1 ^ 6 ** 1 ear li est °f them being that at Aspull in Lancashire, built in the first half of the present century. To us it seems some- what strange that the mother of so great a son, she of whom the inspired writer bore witness that, like her husband, she was " righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless ; " she to whom belongs the honour of having been the first to recognize in her cousin Mary the mother of her Lord, should have been thus passed over by successive generations ; but so it has been, and though her name has become one of the commonest of our English Christian names, it would seem to owe its popularity primarily to the mediaeval S. Elizabeth of Hungary, the subject of Kingsley's drama, " The Saint's Tragedy," and through her to our own Queen Elizabeth ! Strange though it may seem, good Queen Bess has not been wholly without influence on our dedications, for when in 1887 there was a meeting at the Mansion House '"* to con- sider the question of dividing the parish of S. Mary's Chadwell and building a new church at Tilbury, one of the speakers " alluded to the historical associations connected with Tilbury, and suggested ' S. Elizabeth ' as the name of the new district," a suggestion which has since been duly acted upon. In the case of a Lancashire church, S. Elizabeth's at Eeddish Green, there is some doubt as to the particular Elizabeth in question. The name is believed to have been chosen chiefly from personal reasons. The then incumbent f was of opinion that it was originally intended to include in the dedication S. Elizabeth of Hungary. But as the church banners and the tablet over the west door both of them bear repre- sentations of the Salutation — the meeting of the Virgin and S. Elisabeth — we may fairly assume that it is the S. Elisabeth of Scripture who is the true patron of the church. S Susanna ^ e name °^ ®* Susanna sounds strangely in our ears, and there is but a single church that bears it ; that, namely, of Horsley-Woodhouse in Derbyshire, a new district church in the Southwell diocese, consecrated in May, 1882. Here again the name was chosen from personal associations with one who before her death had * Guardian, November 2, 1887. f Kev. A. Crofton, 1888. go STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. ix. contributed largely to the building of the church whose completion she did not live to witness. "There is, I believe," writes the curate in charge, the Eev. A. Gr. Waldy, " a S. Susannah, a virgin and martyr in the third or fourth century, but I have always taken it as referring to the Susanna who ministered of her substance,* which in this instance is very appropriate." | S. Mary Foremost in this company of loving ministering women Magdalene. stands Mary Magdalene, she " out of whom went seven July 22. devils ; " but she also to whom it was granted to be the first to behold her risen Lord, to be the first to do His bidding after that He was risen from the dead. And twice besides we catch a glimpse of her ; standing at the foot of the cross with those other Maries, and sharing in the solemn watching without the sepulchre. These are all the Gospel notices that speak of Mary Magdalene by name ; but it is not on these alone that the mediseval conception of her has been built up. The Western Church — though not the Eastern — has variously identified her with Mary of Bethany on the one hand, and with the nameless "woman that was a sinner" (Luke vii. 36-50) on the other; while the Church of the Middle Ages, not content with weaving into one all that the Scripture says of these three women, added a tissue of the wildest legend. According to these legends S. Mary Magdalene, and her brother Lazarus and her sister Martha, travelled to France and settled them- selves near Marseilles, where the Magdalen expiated the sins of her youth by a lifelong penitence, and at length died in the desert, far from all earthly succour, but ministered to by angels. In the thirteenth century one of the usual discoveries of relics was announced to have taken place in these parts — relics of S. Mary Magdalene and of Lazarus — and in order to do honour to them the Count of Provence, a brother of S. Louis, built a church not very far from Toulon. A few years later this prince happened to be taken prisoner. He ascribed his release from captivity to the inter- cessions of S. Mary Magdalene, who became his special patroness,^ and from this time dates the widespread increase of her popularity. It is necessary to refer briefly to these apocryphal tales, because it was doubtless on account of the French feeling concerning S. Mary Magdalene that she came to be so largely reverenced in England. Undoubtedly several of our churches in this name — those, for example, at Barnstaple in North Devon, and at Oxford, both of them assigned to about the time of the Norman Conquest — can be traced back far earlier than the thirteenth century, but it was at this period that the veneration for her received a new and strong impulse. Her threefold personality, so to speak, had been unquestioningly accepted in the English Church ; yet it was chiefly as the " sinner, forgiven much because she loved much," that our ancestors liked best to conceive * " And Joanna, . . . and Susanna, and t Private letter, 1887. many others, which ministered unto Him % Mrs. Jameson, of their substance." — Luke viii. 3. CHAP. IX. OTHER SCRIPTURAL SAINTS. 91 of S. Mary Magdalene, whose very name became to them a symbol of penitence. S. Mary of Bethany was not ignored. The ancient Collect — still in use in the Eoman Missal — has a distinct reference to her in the words, " Blessed Mary Magdalene, at whose request Thou wast pleased to raise Lazarus from the dead." The Gospel for the day was a narrative of the anointing of the Lord's feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke vii.), and it may fairly be said that the real omission in the service of this day is of any allusion to the true S. Mary Magdalene, such as she is presented to us in the Gospel history. In England her immense popularity is witnessed to by some 170 ancient churches ; so evenly distributed throughout the country that there are but three counties (Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Westmore- land) in which they are wanting. In one case our saint has impressed her name upon the whole village, " Stocklynch-Magdalen " in Somerset- shire, so called to distinguish it from the adjacent Stocklinch-Ottersey. In both Germany and France the name of Magdalen or Madeleine is a great favourite ; it does not hold quite the same place with us, though no doubt it was at one time commoner than it is now. It was probably felt to be, as it stood, too long and formal for familiar use ; our forefathers shortened it to the ear— if not to the eye— by pronouncing it " Maudlin," while they continued to write it " Magdalen," and this abbreviation might have served the purpose if the adjective " maudlin " — a word originally suggested by the tear-stained aspect of the penitent Magdalen * — had not fallen into such bad repute. For a time, however, it was an accepted abbreviation, and the old pronunciation is still preserved in constant use among us by the two colleges of S. Mary Magdalene at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. The Oxford college was founded in the middle of the fifteenth century, on the site of an old hospital dedicated to S. John, and, characteristically enough, S. John was displaced to make room for the more popular saint. The sister college at Cambridge was founded almost a century later (1542) by Baron Audley, the then Lord Chancellor. " It has been remarked," says an eighteenth-century work on English topography,! " that the founder's name is contained in the word M-audely-n, which is the orthography according to the vulgar pronunciation." Many a dedication-name has been made choice of on grounds more slender than this, and it is quite likely that some such personal reason may have influenced Lord Chancellor Audley. Otherwise perhaps he would have selected some different saint, for already at this period the fame of S. Mary Magdalene was beginning to wane. Doubts concerning her actual personality were beginning to arise, and though in the First Prayer-book of Edward YI. (1549) the office for her day was still retained, the Collect that identified her with Mary the sister of Lazarus was dropped out, and a new one substituted which referred to the penitence of the forgiven sinner : " Merciful Father, give us grace ... if it shall chance us at any time to offend Thy Divine Majesty, that we may truly * Johnson's Dictionary. t " Eng. Ulus." 92 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. repent, and lament the same, after the example of Mary Magdalene." But while the Collect was changed the Gospel remained the same as heretofore, namely, the seventh chapter of S. Luke. There was more and more a general inclination to return to the opinion of Origen, that Mary Magda- lene was no more to be identified with " the woman that was a sinner " than she was with Mary of Bethany. The English Church, however, halted between two opinions, and compromised matters very oddly by striking out all mention of S. Mary Magdalene — even to her very name in the Kalendar — from the Prayer-book of 1552, while the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611) went out of its way to maintain the old belief by the wording of the argument to the seventh chapter of S. Luke : " Christ sheweth by occasion of Mary Magdalene, how he is a friend to sinners, not to maintain them in their sins, but to forgive them their sins, upon their faith and repentance." At the subsequent revision of the Kalendar the name of the Magdalen was restored, but no attempt was made to bring back the ancient services of her day. This middle course satisfied no one, and, as time went on, the feeling against the identification of the two women only strengthened. Nathaniel Lardner, a dissenting theologian of considerable note in the eighteenth century, wrote a letter showing the wrong done to S. Mary Magdalene by giving to penitentiaries the designation of " Magdalen Houses," * and a certain Huguenot divine published a most vigorous attack on the English Authorized Version for " the false witness " that it bore in attaching the name of the Magdalen to the nameless sinner of S. Luke's narrative. " Which of the Evangelists," he argues, " has taught us the proper name of the woman ? . . . Where do we find that Mary Magdalene had been a woman of evil life ? The Gospel tells us that she had been tormented with seven devils or evil spirits, an affliction which might happen to the holiest person in the world ; but we do not see even the shadow of a word which marks her with infamy." f It was left for the Eevised Version of the New Testament to sweep away the very unjustifiable gloss of the Authorized Version ; but meantime the effects of that assumption were seen in the growing reluctance to dedicate churches in honour of S. Mary Magdalene. Purity, not penitence, was the type of sainthood that now appealed to the reverence of the age, and in so far as S. Mary Magdalene was identified with the penitent sinner she sank below the required ideal. From the time of the Reformation down to the nineteenth century dedications to the Magdalen are of very rare occurrence, and Willen in Buckinghamshire (built, it would appear, in 1680) stands forth as an exception to the general rule. There seems a possibility that the feeling against the Magdalen was even carried to the extent of leading some old churches to change their dedication-name. Barton-Stacey in Hampshire, for example, is now known as All Saints, but the village fair is held on S. Mary Magdalene's Day, O.S. The evidence is not, however, con- clusive, for the parish church of All Saints at Otley in Yorkshire likewise * Notes to Southey's "Roderick." t Ibid. chap. ix. OTHER SCRIPTURAL SAINTS. 93 observes its feast on S. Mary Magdalene's Day, O.S., and in this case the name of "All Hallows" can be traced back to pre-Reformation days. Possibly, therefore, the choice of the day in both instances was dictated merely by motives of convenience, the long days of July being a more favourable time of year for holiday-making than the beginning of dark November. But if S. Mary Magdalene has lost a few of her churches by design, she has probably lost a yet larger number by pure accident. Barnard Castle in Durham, though holding its fair on S. Mary Magdalene's Day, is popularly known only as " S. Mary's." Here, and no doubt elsewhere, the distinguishing appellation of " Magdalene " has fallen into disuse, with the natural result that the church is supposed to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary. With the first half of the present century came a slight revival of the long-disused dedication to S. Mary Magdalene ; seven churches at least can be counted, and in the succeeding forty years we find three times that number. It would be going too far to say that all these nineteenth- century dedications are intended solely for the S. Mary Magdalene of the Gospel narrative. Rightly or wrongly, the image of her whose many sins were forgiven for the sake of her great love, has now become so much a part of our conception of the Magdalen, that it is well-nigh impossible for us to separate the two ; our critical judgment may condemn the identifi- cation, but nevertheless the memory of it remains indelibly impressed upon our forms of speech, our art, our whole tone of thought. Yet, granting all this, we may still feel confident that the generation which has commemorated so many of the less famous saints of Scripture would never have ignored S. Mary Magdalene, the faithful follower of the Lord, the privileged bearer of good tidings on the Resurrection morning. S Mary of Whatever doubts may exist as to the precise identity of Bethany. S. Mary Magdalene, there can be no doubt as to the founders' Jan. 19 * intention in dedicating a modern church at New Wortley, near Leeds, to " S. Mary of Bethany." It will be remembered that the Collect of the Roman Missal assumes the Magdalen to be the sister of Lazarus, but that such an identification was deliberately repudiated by the compilers of the First Prayer-book of Edward VI. We may be glad to have the name restored to us in a form that at once calls up before the mind the sweet image of the home at Bethany. S. Joseph of See CH. LI. On September 25 the Roman Kalendar commemorates | e ^ le £P as - S. Cleopas, the disciple who is known to us only through ..cp . , . ^ Luke's precious narrative of the walk to Emmaus on the first Easter Day. We know of no instance of any pre-Reformation church in his honour ; but of late years the city of Liverpool has wisely enlarged her roll of saints by dedicating one of her many churches to * According to the Use of Paris j March 18 in the Greek Church ; see Harris Nicolas. 94 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. IX. this S. Oleopas, whose name must always bring with it thoughts of the Risen Lord. S. Stephen, like S. John Baptist, has been singularly Dec*26^ en * untouched by legend, and probably for the same reason — that the deaths of both are recorded in Holy Scripture. Possibly this very absence of legendary surroundings may have tended to make him less popular than many less well-known saints — S. Bartholemew, for example. From the time of the Conquest until the present day dedications to the proto-martyr have never been wanting, but they have never until lately been at all numerous. The total number of existing churches in honour of S. Stephen is about one hundred and twenty, and of these less than forty can be traced back to pre- Reformation days. What there are, however, have the advantage that they have never been denounced as superstitious, and consequently have never been altered or interfered with. We have failed to find any dedications to S. Stephen during the Saxon period, but with the accession of the Normans our saint is brought into prominence. William the Conqueror dedicated the beautiful church at Caen, which he had himself built, and in which he was buried, to S. Stephen ; and the Conqueror's grandson, Stephen, gave more than one proof of his devotion to his patron saint. He arranged that his coronation should take place in the Abbey upon S. Stephen's Day, and he further gave the name of S. Stephen to the chapel which he built adjoining Westminster. Little could its founder foresee " the interest which through his great work was to attach to those walls for centuries to come."* It was destined to pass through many vicissitudes. Edward III. rebuilt it " on a yet more splendid scale than S. George's at Windsor ; " f Edward VI. "allotted it as a place of consultation to his faithful Commons," J and there for close upon three hundred years " the faithful Commons have consulted," and from it has come the well-known designa- tion "the Parliament at S. Stephen's." Sixty years ago the historic chapel was destroyed by fire, but "though the walls and roof were hopelessly gone, the site was preserved with jealous care, and a chamber, new yet old, the exact verisimilitude in length and breadth and height, occupies the very same space — and we may say in all but the identity of the bricks and mortar, is the very same building. ... It was well to preserve a chamber so rich in associations ; and though no longer a Commons House it serves appropriately as an entrance corridor." § But it is probable that S. Stephen's Chapel at Westminster does not exhaust the connexion of the Plantagenet kings with their favourite saint. Four dedications to S. Stephen in Celtic Cornwall is so surprising a proportion as to make it certain that some outside influence must have been at work. Was it the influence of the Plantagenet kings, who as * " The Palace at Westminster," W. D. % " Palace at Westminster." Arnold. § Ibid, t Stanley's " Westminster." - CHAP. IX. OTHER SCRIPTURAL SAINTS. 95 earls, and afterwards as dukes, of Cornwall had large territorial rights in that corner of England ? In one case — that of Mawnan, near Falmouth — S. Stephen has been joined to the native saint, and the church is known as " SS. Maunanus and Stephen." In the three remaining instances S. Stephen is in undisputed possession, and has stamped his name upon the entire parish : thus, St. Stephen-by-Saltash, St. Stephen-by-Launces- ton, and St. Stephen-in-Brannel. It is noteworthy that the two first of these, if not all the three, are built on lands belonging to the Duchy. It is somewhat curious that another dedication to S. Stephen is to be found in the city of Exeter, where also the Dukes of Cornwall had certain rights. S. Stephen's, Walbrook, in the City of London, was founded by a courtier of Henry I., who may have considered his choice of a name as a compli- ment to the known predilections of the Conqueror's family. The other City church of the same name — S. Stephen's, Coleman Street — belongs to the same century, as does the interesting old church of S. Stephen in Canterbury (more strictly speaking, at Hackington, close by), which was founded in 1187 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, in honour of SS. Stephen and Thomas of Canterbury. Here the latter saint has been dropped out, but S. Stephen still remains. Once again we may trace the indirect influence of William the Conqueror in the dedication of the ancient Westmoreland church of Kirkby-Stephen. The first recorded mention of the church is in connexion with its Norman proprietor, Ivo de Taillebois, one of the great Norman barons, to whom William granted " so much of the county of Westmoreland as is now called the barony of Kendal." * There is no record of a church here previous to this time ; but in 1088 we find Ivo de Taillebois granting the church of Kirkby-Stephen to S. Mary's Abbey at York. Possibly the Norman baron was guided in his choice of a dedication by a desire to imitate, and thereby to gratify, his royal master. After the eleventh and twelfth centuries there is no very rapid increase in dedications to S. Stephen, though examples are to be found in several important provincial towns— as at Bristol, Norwich, and Ipswich. The seventeenth century — a period by no means conspicuous for activity in church-building — gives us three more, all three of them in country villages in the North of England. The personal element that prompted the choice is plainly apparent in one case — S. Stephen's, East Hardwicke, in the West Riding of Yorkshire — where Stephen Cawood, in 1653, left money for the purpose of " erecting and maintaining a chapel and free school." | The eighteenth century also contributes one or two churches in this name. In the first half of the nineteenth the number rises with a bound to close upon twenty ; and in the succeeding half -century the ever-growing feeling of reverence for the proto-martyr declared itself by dedications equal in number to all that had gone before. S. Stephen is dear to us, not merely for his own sake, but as the type and representative of all who should hereafter follow in his glorious * Nicolson and Burn. f Lewis. 9 6 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. ix. footsteps ; andi this thought has been happily expressed by the dedication- name of two modern Lancashire churches to " S. Stephen and All Martyrs." It is one of the characteristics of nineteenth-century July 11 ?? church dedications that they bring forward the names of not a few scriptural saints that were never so distinguished in earlier days. S. Silas cannot be said to have been an unknown saint to our ancestors, for he was duly commemorated in the Kalendar on July 13 ; but it is only in our own day that any church has been built in his honour. S. Silas, the faithful companion of S. Paul, the sharer in his sufferings and imprisonment at Philippi, has been an object of special regard within the last fifty years. We reckon no less than ten churches in this name. S. Paul, S. Barnabas, S. Silas — these three saints are being more and more brought into prominence by our nineteenth-century dedications, and each one of the three serves to typify the true missionary spirit of the Church of Christ. Liverpool — more strictly speaking, Everton — which has Jan Cl ^° tlly displayed a good deal of originality in the matter of dedi- cations, gives us S. Timothy, a most suggestive choice. A companion dedication to this last is furnished by JaJ 1 ? 18 ' another Liverpool church that bears the name of S. Titus — a dedication rare in England, but quite in its right place in Crete, where it is still to be found, attached to the old Latin cathedral of S. Titus in Candia. Another district of Liverpool, the same which has already Nov h 22 m0n * &i yen us ^* Silas, furnishes us with yet another of the com- panions of S. Paul — namely, S. Philemon. There is surely no small gain in this modern practice of bringing into greater prominence the less famous of the scriptural characters. May we not believe that many a worshipper to whom the names of S. Timothy or S. Philemon are dear, primarily for the sake of the church that has made them familiar, will afterwards turn with quickened insight and sympathy to those Epistles of S. Paul that make known to us the character of Timothy, his " dearly beloved son," or of Philemon, the friend in whose loyal obedience to his wishes he trusted so implicitly ? CHAPTER X. TRADITIONAL SAINTS. PAGE. NAME. DAY. YEAH. CHURCHES. 97 S. Anne July 2G ... First cent. ... 77 See also dd. 100 S. Petronilla May 31 ... Second cent. 1 S. Aune. " ^ N tne nea ^ of that Sea of Galilee, towards the north, July 26. is a strong and lofty castle called Saphor : and close by it First cent. ig Capernaum. ... In that castle St. Anne, our Lady's mother, was born." With such an air of intimate knowledge does the old fifteenth-century traveller, Sir John Mandeville, write of a saint con- cerning whom Scripture is utterly silent, and who is known to us only through the apocryphal Gospels, and more especially through the so-called " Gospel of James " — the book " which has invented the names Joachim and Anne for the parents of Mary." * No one can read the story of the childless couple and their joy in the announcement of their promised child without being struck with many obvious resemblances to the Old Testa- ment story of Elkanah and Hannah, and to several other Scripture narratives. "The object of this Gospel," says Dr. Salmon, "is clearly supplementary to our Gospels, and it is intended to satisfy the curiosity of Christians with regard to the things which took place before the birth of our Lord. If we are to ascribe to the book any ' tendency ' beyond the simple -desire to gratify curiosity, the doctrine which the inventor seems most solicitous to establish is that of the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary." As the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin increased in favour, so there was a natural tendency to bring into greater prominence S. Anne, the supposed mother of the Virgin. The scanty notices of the apocryphal Gospels no longer sufficed ; ampler lives of her were furnished, and received as matter of history — witness Sir John Mandeville's positive statement as to her birthplace. The number of natural objects bearing the name of this saint, such as S. Anne's Hill, S. Anne's Well, and the like, mark the greatness of her popularity in the Middle Ages ; but it is noticeable that, in the reverence done to her, popular feeling had somewhat outrun authority. Although the Emperor Justinian in the middle of the sixth century is known to have * Salmon. VOL. I. R 9 8 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. x. dedicated a church at Constantinople in honour of S. Anne,* it was not until some time after the date of the Council of Trent that the observance of her festival " was imposed by authority on the Western Churches." f The dedications to S. Anne in this country may be roughly divided into three periods : those belonging to late mediaeval times, dating from the thirteenth century to the time of Henry VIII. ; those belonging to the eighteenth century ; and those of our own day. It must be premised that there are more than ordinary difficulties attending the investigation of dedications in this name, because an unwontedly large proportion of them belong to chapelries, and the par- ticulars concerning chapelries are often very hard to trace with exactness. The dedication-name is not brought into such prominence as in the case of a parish church, and very often it is scarcely heard until the chapelry gains a new importance by being made parochial. Local knowledge would probably show that a considerable proportion of the seemingly modern churches dedicated to S. Anne are in truth old foundations, carrying on the name of the older chapelry ; but this point cannot always be established by the usual authorities, such as the Liber Regis and Ecton, which are too often silent as to the names of chapelries, and therefore all the statistics here given as to the number and dates of churches dedicated to S. Anne must be received with extreme caution. Sometimes, however, where direct evidence fails, the date of the local feast-day comes to our help, and conclusively shows the dedication-name to be of high antiquity. Take, for example, the so-called " Old Church " of S. Anne's at Ambleside. Until quite recently the town of Ambleside was a chapelry divided between the two neighbouring parishes of S. Oswald's, Grasmere, and S. Martin's, Bowness. The church itself is an ugly structure, rebuilt at the beginning of the present century, and the traditional name of " S. Anne's " is not mentioned in any of the local histories ; but curiously enough, Ambleside is one of the five places in England which still retain the ancient custom of " the rushbearing" — the yearly memorial of the days when the strewing of fresh rushes in the church was an accustomed part of the economy of every church. " Rushbearing Sunday " at Ambleside is always " the Sunday following the last Thursday in July," a date which can by no possibility be made to correspond with the date of the similar festival at the mother- church of S. Oswald's, Grasmere, always kept on the Sunday following S. Oswald's Day, or, in other words, on the Sunday after August 5. By what festival, then, is the Ambleside feast governed ? In all reason- able probability, as the very name of the church suggests, by the feast of S. Anne, which falls in the last week of July. Again, the parish church of All Cannings in Wiltshire proves the antiquity of its dedication-name by keeping its feast on August 6— S. Anne's Day, O.S. So, too, the like evidence of the feast-day helps us with regard to one of the most generally known of the early dedications to S. Anne, namely, the old chapel of S. Anne's at Buxton. " We have little doubt," * Daniel. t D. 0. B. CHAP. X. TRADITIONAL SAINTS. 99 says an authority on the subject of Derbyshire churches,* " that there was a Christian chapel here in 1280. Probably the chapel of S. Anne's was one of the Well chapels." Of even earlier date is the Lancashire chapelry of S. Anne's at Wood-Plumpton, which was existing in the time of Henry III. — perhaps the earliest example of an English dedication in this name. Lancashire, for some unexplained reason, appears to have had a peculiar devotion to S. Anne, for of the total number of dedications to this saint — between seventy and eighty all told — more than one-fourth are to be found in the County-Palatine. It would seem further that S. Anne is regarded as in some special sort the patron of wells ; note, for example, the wells called by her name at Buxton, Malvern, and Nottingham. Separated by some three centuries from the period assigned to the Wood-Plumpton chapelry is the Yorkshire chapelry of Southowram, near Halifax, variously known as " St. Anne's-in-the-Grove," and " St. Anne's- in-the-Briars," which was founded in the time of Henry VIII. (about 1530), and is probably the latest of our pre-Reformation dedications in this name.f After this, as might be expected, there follows a long interval — more than a hundred and fifty years — without any dedications at all to S. Anne ; and when at length the name is revived it is with little thought of the supposed mother of the Blessed Virgin, and merely as a compliment to the Princess Anne, then newly married to Prince George of Denmark. Such is said to have been the history of the dedication of St. Anne's, Soho, consecrated in 16854 As a Christian name Anne had become too firmly rooted in England ever to lose its popularity, and the precedent set in Soho found many imitations, especially in the succeeding century, when many founders of churches seem to have taken advantage of the opportunity of doing honour to a name endeared by so many associations, and at the same time of marking their respect for the sovereign who, whatever her shortcomings, undoubtedly entertained a very sincere zeal for the welfare of the Church and kingdom, and who in return earned from her subjects the epithet of " Good Queen Anne." It is to this period and to this state of feeling that we must attribute many of the S. Anne churches to be found in our great cities, such as Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle. The more modern churches dedicated to S. Anne cannot be accounted for so satisfactorily. It must be repeated that in all probability a large proportion of the thirty churches marked in Appendix III. as belonging to the nineteenth century are not new foundations, but have only carried on the name of some older chapelry. In some cases, however, no doubt the name has been deliberately conferred ; partly because S. Anne still continues to hold her place in our Prayer-book Kalendar, partly from a desire to revive mediaeval practices, partly from a love of the early tradition of the joy of the childless mother in her unlooked-for blessing. Lasb of all, in the not infrequent juxtaposition of churches dedicated, * Cox. t " Loidis and Elmete.' X Maokeson. IOO STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. x. the one to the Blessed Virgin, the other to her supposed mother, we see the desire to associate the mythical S. Anne with that highly favoured one, from whom S. Anne herself derived all her honour, g Petronilla. " ^ ar ^ Waltheof was beheaded at Winchester on the Mass- May 31. day of St. Petronilla." So runs the entry in the English Second cent. chronicle for the year 1076? concer ning the death of the popular national hero Waltheof, the husband, by the way, of one of our saints, or, to speak more correctly, one of those " saints that are no saints " (see "Judith," ch. li.). "S. Petronilla's Mass-day" would not nowadays be a very widely recognized landmark, but at the time when this entry was made S. Petronilla had been for more than three centuries highly honoured in England ; and we cannot doubt that when her name was bestowed upon a certain church in East Anglia — of which we shall have to speak later — it was so bestowed with the fullest and most untroubled acceptance of the popular tradition that made S. Petronilla no less a personage than the daughter of S. Peter himself. The legend of S. Petronilla, in the form in which it has been handed down to us from the fifth century, sets forth how this saint was bedridden from paralysis, and how S. Peter was rebuked by one of his disciples — or, as some versions of the story say, by Simon Magus — for not healing his own daughter. " He replied " — we quote Bishop Lightfoot's summary of the legend * — " that her sickness was for her good, but that as an evidence of his power she should be cured temporarily and should wait upon them. This was done ; she rose and ministered to them, and then retired again to her bed. After her discipline was completed she was fully healed. Her beauty attracted Flaccus the Count who came with armed men to carry her away and marry her by force. She asked a respite of three days. It was granted. On the third day she died. Then Flaccus sought her foster sister, Felicula, in marriage. Felicula declined, declaring herself to be a ' virgin of Christ.' For this she was tortured and put to death." The body of S. Felicula was thrown into the common sewer, but was afterwards rescued, at the cost of his own life, by Nicomede, the otherwise wholly unknown priest, who is commemorated in our Prayer-book Kalendar on June 1, the day following the feast of S. Petronilla (see "Mcomede," ch. xxvi.). S. Felicula's body was afterwards buried by Nicomede in the cemetery on the Ardeatine Way — that cemetery which is the one spot in the world most closely associated with the real story of Felicula's famous sister, S. Petronilla. We shall have much more to say hereafter concerning this most memorable sleeping-place, which is indeed the true centre of the whole history ; but for the moment we must return to the legend. The least critical of readers will at once see in the incident of * For a full discussion of the story of S. Petronilla and its historical value, see Lightfoot's "Clement of Rome," vol. i., to which this account of the saint is indebted, though several additional details have been taken from the article "Petronilla" in D. C. B., and from other sources. CHAP. X. TRADITIONAL SAINTS. IOI S. Petronilla's rising from her sick-bed to minister to the wants of others a recollection of the G-ospel narrative of the healing of Peter's wife's mother ; he will have no hesitation in further declaring that the greater part of the story of Petronilla as here presented is obviously purely fictitious. But in truth we have no reason to suppose that it was ever intended to be taken as historic fact ; it seems rather to have belonged to the class of what we may call " religious romances." Writings of this kind, in which fact and fancy were intermingled with a bold freedom most annoying to the modern historical student, were much in vogue in the religious reading world from the second to the fifth century. We shall have occasion to speak elsewhere at more length of these historical romances when we come to one of the most famous of them all, the so- called " Clementine Recognitions," which professes to tell the life-story of Clement of Rome (ch. xx.). Without pausing now to enunciate the points at which the supposed histories of both Clement the bishop and Petronilla the virgin are intertwined, we may note here that the respective romances have much the same character. Both contain grains of fact, inextricably blended with a large proportion of pure fiction ; in both there are distinct touches of local colour plainly taken from the life ; in both scriptural celebrities are freely introduced ; and in both Simon Magus appears in his worst light. Lastly, scholars can detect in both the heretical bias of the earliest versions of the story, and trace the subsequent " editing " which was intended to fit them for Catholic readers. The full-blown Acts of S. Petronilla, as we have them, are but a single episode in a whole cycle of other narratives known as the " Acts of the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus." It is, in fact, a story within a story, of which the cemetery in the Ardeatine Way may be said to form the central and historic link. The Acts in their final form are not supposed to be of earlier date than the fifth century, but the episode of S. Petronilla was found before this in the apocryphal books of the Manichasans, and was known to S. Augustine. The utter childishness of many of the accessories of the story, the unworthy picture which it draws of S. Peter — his selfish display of his own power, his petty triumph over Simon Magus — none of this seems to have troubled mediaeval readers ; but in course of time the fatherhood of S. Peter did present itself to some minds as a grievous stumbling-block, and an attempt was made to explain it away as a merely spiritual relationship. To Protestant writers, however, the first was the graver difficulty of the two ; they began to doubt the details of the legend, and gradually the entire legend itself ; and so it came about that after the Reformation S. Petronilla was wholly repudiated in England. But in our own day interest has been reawakened in S. Petronilla, and scientific criticism has taken a new direction, or perhaps we might more justly say, has flowed back into old and long neglected channels. The key of the problem has been found by means of diligent research in the catacomb or cemetery of S. Domitilla — that very cemetery on the Ardeatine Way of which such frequent mention is made in the various 102 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. X. Acts. The name of Flavia Domitilla is so intimately associated with that of S. Clement of Borne that we shall have occasion to speak more of her elsewhere (see " Clement," ch. xx.). For the moment it is sufficient to say that she was a noble Eoman lady, belonging to the imperial family of the Flavians, who lived in the closing years of the first century of our era ; that she was a devoted adherent of the new faith, and placed both her house and her lands at the disposal of the infant Church in Eome. " We can hardly doubt," says the late Bishop Lightfoot, speaking of the so-called Catacomb of Domitilla, " that it stands on ground which once belonged to Flavia Domitilla ; and that it was probably granted by her to her dependants and co-religionists for a cemetery." Here tradition affirms that the great Bishop Clement himself was laid to rest ; here beyond doubt many less distinguished Christians of the second century, who were in some degree " under the shelter " of the Flavian family, found their last resting-place — a fact which is abundantly testified by the tombs and inscriptions that yet remain to verify the unbroken tradition of centuries. There were the tombs of the martyrs Achilleus and Nereus ; and there, among the rest, lay a sarcophagus noticeable for the touching simplicity of its brief inscription : " To the darling daughter, Aurelia Petronilla." In days of turmoil and persecution it may easily have lain there unobserved ; but in the season of quiet that succeeded the " Peace of the Church," when there was leisure to take account of the treasured records of the saints of old that had been long stored up in the silent refuge of the catacombs, attention was attracted by the name " Petronilla." It must be, men argued, a diminutive of Peter, and from thence it was easy to go a step further and to assert it to be S. Peter's own daughter ; while a crowning touch of interest was given to the discovery by the declaration that the inscription was " engraved by the Apostle's own hand." Naturally enough no honour was accounted too great for so illustrious a saint ; and in the last decade of the fourth century the then Pope built up over the tomb a splendid subterranean basilica with three aisles, and the walls are adorned with a fresco which represents " S. Petronilla the Martyr, as she is there designated, conducting one of her votaries to Paradise." * Side by side with these material honours paid to the supposed saint there was an increasing tendency to make her the heroine of legendary stories. There was, in fact, as it has been said, "a combination of two elements ; " the Gospel narrative of the miraculous healing of S. Peter's kinswoman — a story which in distorted form had already passed into the popular writings of the time — and then the discovery of the sarcophagus bearing a name somewhat resembling that of the Apostle. Nothing more was needed. "Even the simple fact" — to quote Bishop Lightfoot — " of a conspicuous tomb bearing the name Petronilla, and the dedication to a ' darling daughter,' would have been a sufficient starting point for the legend of her relationship to S. Peter, when the glorification of that apostle had become a dominant idea." * D. 0. B. CHAP. X. TRADITIONAL SAINTS. 103 It was not to be expected that the relics of a reputed daughter of S. Peter should long be allowed to remain in the obscurity of a subterranean basilica. S. Petronilla's fame was spread abroad among the Franks, and the Oarlovingian kings adopted her as their special patron — their " auxilia- trix," to use the phrase of the day — and in the eighth century King Pepin prevailed upon the then Pope, as part of the price of his alliance with the Papacy against the Lombards, to translate S. Petronilla's relics from their earliest resting-place to the imperial mausoleum at the Vatican. Eight hundred years later, when S. Peter's was rebuilt, they were once more translated to a separate side chapel specially designed for their reception, and there they remain to this day beneath a mosaic reproduction of Gruercino's picture of the saint's entombment in S. Peter's. But through all the vicissitudes of restoration and translation S. Petronilla had never ceased to be regarded as peculiarly belonging to the kings of France ; and such is the strength of this unbroken tradition that even at the present day the ambassador of the French Republic, " after presenting his cre- dentials to the Pope, visits the Chapel of S. Petronilla.* And what, it may be asked, was the fate of the rich sarcophagus ? Its contents were carefully preserved, and are doubtless where they claim to be, beneath the altar in the chapel in S. Peter's ; but the sarcophagus with its pathetic inscription, " perished in the ruthless and wholesale van- dalism which swept away . . . other priceless memorials of early Christendom to make room for the modern church of S. Peter in the sixteenth century." f The precious monument was broken up into paving-stones ; but fortunately before this was done the inscription had been exactly copied by the hand of a fifteenth-century antiquarian ; and this inscription, brief though it be, has told its own story to the scholarly investigators of our own generation. The name Petronilla, they tell us, is properly derived, not from Peter, but from Petronius ; and Petronius was the name of the founder of the Flavian family, a name to which a descendant of that great house would have an hereditary right, and which might naturally therefore occur in the cemetery of Flavia Domitilla. Once more the catacomb was searched, and the place where the famous sarcophagus had rested identified ; and there, near to that same spot, unmolested by church-builders or exca- vators, were other inscriptions commemorating different members of two great imperial families, the Flavians and the Aurelians. Both of these names are combined on the tomb of the beloved maiden, " Aurelia Petro- nilla," who may reasonably be conjectured to be a descendant of both houses — on the father's side a representative of the Aurelians, on the mother's side related to the Flavians,! a somewhat younger kinswoman, it may be, of that devout Flavia Domitilla from whom the cemetery takes its name, and — for of this we can feel no doubt at all — her sister in the faith of Christ. So at last the true Petronilla emerges from all the maze of apocryphal story in which she has for centuries been lost. * D. C. B. t Lightfoot. % D. C. B. 104 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. x. We have already said that the only known English dedication to S. Petronilla is in East Anglia, at Whepstead in Suffolk. * Whepstead lies close to Bury St. Edmunds, and from the days of Edward the Confessor the manor formed part of the possessions of the monks of S. Edmund's famous abbey. As the earliest mention of the manor (temp. Edward the Confessor f) speaks of the manor without reference to the church, it is probable that Whepstead owes to her monastic proprietors both the foundation of her church and the choice of her patron saint. It is not, however, impossible that both church and dedication may already have been in existence at the time when the monks entered upon their new estate. Certain it is that the legend of S. Petronilla was known in England three centuries and more before the reign of the Confessor ; witness the fact that in 710 a certain Kyneburga, Abbess of Gloucester, was buried in her own church at Gloucester " before the altar of S. Petro- nilla ; " and nineteen years later her brother Osric's place of burial is designated by the same landmark 4 The dates are interesting, as proving that the English veneration for S. Petronilla was more than abreast of the French feeling, for it was not until some thirty years after this time that our saint was formally recognized as the patroness of the Carlovingian kings. As was before said, there can be no doubt whatever that at this period, and for some centuries to come, the dedication-name was bestowed in the full belief that the saint was none other than the daughter of S. Peter. To some it may seem a poor exchange to have a church associated with an unknown Eoman maiden of the beginning of the second century, rather than with the reputed daughter of S. Peter ; but there is a strange pathos of its own in the thought of this " most sweet child," § this " darling- daughter ; " the Roman counterpart of the little English child laid to rest in the cloisters of our own Westminster Abbey in the stormy year of the Revolution of 1688, whose short life-story is summed up in the one sentence, " Jane Lister, dear child." || We catch a glimpse of two Christian homes, both alike left the poorer by the loss of a beloved daughter, and we are content that the rest should remain untold. * Not in Bacon or Ecton, but so given on the authority of the Rev. F. Haslewood, F.S.A., secretary of the Suffolk Arch. Soc, and so acknowledged at Whep- stead. f "Supplement to the Suffolk Tra- veller," 1844. % D. 0. B., " Keneburga " and " Osric." § " Filise dulcissiinse." || Stanley's " Westminster." CHAPTER XI. THE VIEGIN MAETYES. 8. 107 8. Prisca NAME. Martha. See ch, li. 8. 8. 8. 108 S. Ill S. 114 S. 115 S. 117 S. 122 S. Columba. See ch. li. Margaret See ch. xii. Faith. See ch. xiii. Cecilia, or Cecily Agatha Lucy 124 125 January 18 November 22 February 5 December 13 . January 21 . November 25 . December 4 . August 29 civ. 268 I I 1 * 1 *?") {Kalendarj No ded. Catherine Barbara Candida, or Whyte Juliana. See>ui ^ ^g neg; w h ose praises were spoken by S. Augustine and written by S. Ambrose and S. Jerome — S. Agnes, who for centuries was looked upon as the pattern of pure Christian maidenhood. Her story contains a large admixture of legend, but there appears little doubt that it rests upon a general basis of truth. The child of wealthy Roman parents, and distinguished for her riches and beauty, Agnes was sought in marriage by a young heathen noble of high position. She firmly refused his suit, making answer that she was already betrothed to a greater Bridegroom. This stirred the jealous passions of the lover, nor was he appeased by learning the true meaning of her words. " Knowest thou not," said one, " that Agnes has been a Christian from her infancy upwards, and the husband of whom she speaks is no other than Jesus Christ ? " f It is probable enough that under other circumstances Agnes's religion might have been forgiven, but, joined to the insult offered to the son of the prefect, it became an unpardonable offence, and it was determined to put in force against her the terrible Diocletian edicts against Christianity. The rest of the Acts tell of the various indignities heaped by cruel men upon the gentle maiden whom the fire itself refused to harm. The story is a painful one in itself, and is overlaid with miraculous and extravagant touches which only mar its simplicity ; and yet it is not wholly unredeemed, for through it all the bright light of Agnes's purity shines forth, reminding one of the lady in " Comus," who, in her " hidden strength " and " virgin purity," walks unharmed amid all manner of outward dangers. S. Agnes might fitly be ranked among the child-saints, for, according to the authority of the Fathers, she was but thirteen years of age at the time of her execution. Apart from this, however, it is evident from the Acts of her martyrdom that she was regarded as little more than a child. " Remember," the heathen governor is represented as saying to her in her examination, " you are only a child, though forward for your age." And Agnes makes answer, " I may be a child, but faith dwells not in years, but in the heart." Dedications to S. Agnes are rarer than we should be inclined to expect, * Preface to Prayer-book. f Mrs. Jameson. Il6 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xi. and the nineteenth-century churches in her honour completely outnumber the pre-Reformation dedications. Probably Tennyson's beautiful lines on S. Agnes's Eve have not been without influence on the modern feeling for this saint. They breathe the very spirit of the S. Agnes of the legend ; there is the same spotless purity, the same passionate yearning to be set free from all earthly ties, and made fit to be joined to her Lord — " For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, to make me pure of sin." The high- wrought aspirations of the poem do not go beyond the fervent outpourings supposed to have been spoken by the girl-martyr while in the flames: " I bless Thee, 0 Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, who permittest me, intrepid, to come to Thee through the fires. Lo ! what I have believed, that now I see ; what I have hoped for, that now I hold ; what I have desired, that now I embrace. I confess Thee with my lips, and with my heart I altogether desire Thee. I come to Thee, one and true God. Amen." Tennyson shows us a pure-hearted nun in the uneventful still- ness of her quiet cloister, patiently watching " the creeping hours," waiting in undoubting faith for the blessed consummation on which her heart is fixed : the ancient Acts of S. Agnes show us a maiden of like nature in the triumphant hour of her martyrdom. The circumstances are different, the spirit is the same. The nineteenth-century dedications to S. Agnes in Bristol, Liverpool, Kennington Park, and elsewhere, do not call for much remark. The earlier traces of her veneration amongst us are not always easy to follow. Cawston in Norfolk, however, tells its own story very plainly, for not only is the church dedicated to S. Agnes, but the fair-day is kept on February 1, S. Agnes's Day, O.S. The island and parish of St. Agnes- in-Scilly is plainly named from her, as is likewise the Cornish parish of St. Agnes near Truro, with its " S. Agnes's Well " close to the site of an ancient chapel. We must speak with more reserve of the third parish in this name, the Cambridgeshire " Papworth-St. Agnes." The existing church is dedicated not to S. Agnes but to S. John the Baptist, and it seems possible that the Agnes in question may only have been a local proprietress to whom the saintly prefix came in course of time to be attached."* Nor is London without its memorials of this highly honoured virgin. In the Middle Ages there was a church of S. Agnes standing in Alders- gate, and though the building has long passed away, the name is still retained in the consolidated parishes of " SS. Ann and Agnes," Alders- gate. This union of the parish of St. Agnes with that of " St. Ann in the Willows " is not a recent arrangement, but took place sufficiently long ago to allow time for the growth of that ubiquitous myth, that the church was built by "two sisters named Anne and Agnes." f In Old Street, which runs out of Aldersgate, was a celebrated well known as " S. Agnes- * Compare the adjacent parish of Pap- f Newcourt, quoted in " London P. worth Everard, erroneously called " Pap- and P." worth-St. Everard " (ch. ll). CHAP. XI. THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. 117 ]e-01air." Until within the last hundred years part of the surrounding district was still known as "S. Agnes-le-Clair-Fields," and when the fields vanished their memory was preserved for a time by such names as S. Agnes Street or Orescent or Terrace. Fortunately St. Agnes' Terrace still remains,* but the other names have been altered, and thus one more interesting link with the past has been lost. S. Catherine The ^ ate conventionally assigned to this most popular of or Katherine. saints, a.d. 307, would naturally lead us to class her among Nov. 25. ^ nuruberiegg victims of the fourth-century persecutions, and it is disappointing to find that in reality there is no faintest mention of her name in history or legend for some five centuries to come. So far as can be traced, the starting-point of the famous story of S. Catherine, the martyr of Alexandria, was the discovery upon Mount Sinai some time early in the ninth century of an unknown corpse which the Christians of those regions, suffering heavily at that time beneath the persecution of their Saracen masters, chose to pronounce the body of a Christian saint and martyr, and to which they gave the symbolical name of Catherine, a diminutive form of the Greek adjective KaOapos—pure. Having provided their newly-found saint with a name, the next step was to provide her with a feast-day, a pedigree, and a legend ; a threefold task which the Greek romance writers were entirely competent to undertake. The story of " the Lady Catherine," which purports to be told by a servant belonging to her household , is an excellent example of the religious romance proper before referred to (p, 101). Its outline is as follows : Catherine was the only child and heiress of a certain king of Egypt, who was himself descended from the father of Constantine the Great. This maiden was as good as she was beautiful, and no pains were spared to train her mind in all the noblest learning of the philosophers of old. When Catherine was about fourteen her father died, and she became queen in her own right ; and now it was needful to provide her with a suitable husband, but the young queen had no mind to turn her thoughts from study to matrimony, and she proposed conditions that baffled her people, for she would have no husband but one who should be far above herself in all gifts of nature and of grace — " so noble that all men shall worship him, so great that I shall never think that I have made him king, so benign that he can gladly forgive all offences done unto him." | Thus Catherine, though as yet knowing nothing of the true God, set before her pure imagination an ideal which He alone could satisfy. The rest of the legend follows very well-worn lines : a hermit declares to her the way of salvation, and forthwith Catherine makes known her resolution to be the bride of none but Christ Himself. Then the inevitable tyrant— in this case represented by the wicked Roman Emperor Maxentius— appears upon the scene, and Queen Catherine is called upon to defend her faith against the arguments of the wisest of the pagan philosophers. This set disputa- tion, which enables all the Christian arguments to be set forth to advantage, * "London P. and P." t Mrs. Jameson. Il8 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xi. is another very favourite episode, in the management of which the Greek romance writers excelled. S. Catherine made long speeches, which it is to be feared modern readers would pronounce wearisome, but which had the effect, it need hardly be said, of convincing the philosophers, insomuch that they gladly suffered death for the faith which just before they so vehemently denounced. But the hardened Maxentius hated Catherine the more for her beauty and her fortitude, and when he found that he could in no way obtain any power over her will, he decreed that she should be done to death with tortures unspeakable ; and out of the ingenuity of his cruelty he devised a wheel set round with spikes whereon her tender body should be broken, and when by Divine interposition this failed in its purpose, he caused her to be scourged and beheaded. So far the scene of the legend has been laid at Alexandria ; it yet remained to bridge the chasm between Alexandria and Mount Sinai, and this was done by a bold poetic flight, for it was said that when S. Catherine was dead " angels took up her body and carried it over the desert, and over the Ked Sea, till they deposited it on the summit of Mount Sinai." * Such in brief is the famous story of S. Catherine. It is not worth while to consider at length the various sources which might have suggested materials for the legend. One writer points out that the wheel as an instrument of torture appears in the Acts of a certain Christian slave- woman,! Charitana by name, in the time of the Diocletian persecution : Mrs. Jameson dwells on the coincidences between the story of S. Catherine and that of the noble heathen maiden, Hypatia ; while still more strenuous efforts have been made from the seventeenth century onwards to provide S. Catherine with a solid background of history by identifying her with a certain nameless lady % of Alexandria, described by Eusebius as conspicuous alike for her birth, her wealth, and her learning, who suffered banishment, together with the loss of all her estates, rather than become one of the victims of the infamous Emperor Maximinus. The identification is at first sight very plausible, but it breaks down utterly on closer investigation Much stress has been laid upon the point that Eusebius's heroine resembled S. Catherine in her learning ; but, as Baillet justly observes, this argument would be stronger elsewhere than in Alexandria, a city where, in the days of Origen at least, scholarly women were no rarity ; and it is noticeable that Eusebius expressly says that though the lady he tells of " was prepared to die," the tyrant could not bring himself to kill her. And so we must relinquish the attempt to find any one authentic Catherine ; but as we consider the various scattered elements that may have entered into the story, we may say in the words of a writer on this subject : " If two real persons " (that is, the slave-girl Charitana and Eusebius's nameless lady of Alexandria) " of widely different, but equally noble and characteristic type, had thus been blended into one St. Catherine, it would help to account for the great hold that saint has had upon the popular imagination." § * Mrs. Jameson. % Called " Dorothea " by Kufinus. t D. C. B., " Charitana." § E. B. Birks in D. C. B., " Charitana." CHAP. XI. THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. The futile endeavours of modern critics to free S. Catherine's story from its most glaring impossibilities were to some extent anticipated by the celebrated Greek legend collector of the tenth century, Metaphrastes, who, so to speak, " edited " the Acts of S. Catherine, and pruned them of some of their wildest extravagances,* in the hopes of thereby rendering them more credible, if not more authentic. So far as Western Europe was concerned he might have spared himself the trouble. The Latin Church was late in attaining to a knowledge of the legend of S. Catherine. It owed both S. Catherine and S. Nicholas to Eastern channels, but as soon as it had the opportunity it welcomed the one saint as heartily as it did the other. No tiresome critical scruples as to impossibilities or anachro- nisms hindered S. Catherine's enthusiastic acceptation among the Christians of the West ; rather she was loved the more for the sake of the marvellous element which provided so much food for the imagination. Here in England her feast-day became a popular holiday, and selections from her Acts were put into the form of lessons to be publicly read in church. The very divergences in the original form of the legend had advantages, for they enabled different nationalities to modify the story according to their own peculiar bent ; and Mrs. Jameson quotes a most characteristic constitutional turn given to the story in its English version, where we read that Queen Catherine was " desired to call a parliament " to satisfy the reasonable discontent of her people, and that " the estates being met, they besought her that she would be pleased to take a husband who should assist her in the government of the country," etc. Among the numberless dedications to S. Catherine of Alexandria, by far the most interesting, as it is also the very first in order of time, is the church attached to the convent of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, that ancient convent of S. Catherine's to which all Christians owe a debt of gratitude for its long guardianship of the precious MS. of the New Testament known as the Sinaitic Codex. We must not, however, linger by S. Catherine's supposed sleeping-place, or stop to speak of the honours paid her at Rome, in Russia, in France — throughout, in fact, the entire limits of Christendom ; we must come nearer home to the English churches dedicated in her honour. : It is commonly said, and probably with truth, that S. Catherine was introduced into Western Europe by the Crusaders, and if so she cannot have been known there previous to the eleventh century. England seems to have been well to the fore in following the new fashion, for " about the year 1110" we hear of the performance at Dunstable of a miracle-play founded on the story of S. Catherine ; f in 1148 we find Queen Matilda, the wife of King Stephen, founding a collegiate church and hospital of S. Katherine's % in the neighbourhood of the Tower. The hospital, * Baillet, November 25. nearest to the Greek original. On the t Godwin and Britton. whole, it would seem that the modern \ Both forms of the name appear to be tendency is to revert to the K, which was used indiscriminately, but those churches the form most common in England in which adhere to the initial K are of course pre-Reformation days. I20 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. XI. modified to suit present-day needs, still exists, though it has been transferred from its original site to the Eegent's Park in order to make room for a great expansion of the London Docks. Not the college merely, but "the entire parish of St. Katherine with its 1250 houses, was excavated and carried away," * but in the name of " St. Catherine's Docks" we can still trace the ecclesiastical history of the district. Two other City parishes of very early date, " St. Katherine Coleman " f and " St. Katherine Cree," J witness to the popularity of the learned lady of Alexandria. The chapel of S. Catherine's within the precincts of Hylton Castle, in the county of Durham, well-nigh rivals Queen Matilda's foundation in point of antiquity, for its "records extend back as far as 1157." § It was used for divine service as recently as the beginning of the present century, but has now fallen completely into ruin, and has apparently been superseded by a more modern structure dedicated to another famous virgin saint, S. Margaret. S. Catherine is so general a favourite that she cannot be said to belong to one part of England more than another. She is to be found in three-fourths of our counties, even in Cornwall — where doubtless some earlier national saint was dispossessed in her honour. The Knights Templars, who stamped the memory of their Order upon the Cornish parish of Temple, also doubtless introduced the new foreign S. Catherine to whom the church is dedicated. Winterbourne-Basset in Wiltshire, and Montacute in Somerset, belong to the fourteenth century, the time apparently of S. Catherine's greatest popularity. In each of the counties last mentioned, and in Hampshire, we find not less than six dedications to S. Catherine, most of them of ancient date ; while the Hampshire parish of Catherington (in old maps " Katherington ") would seem by its very name to proclaim its patron. The number of dedications to S. Catherine would be largely increased if we were to take into account the many small wayside chapels that bear her name. It is curious to notice how generally these are situated on the crown of some hill (if possible overlooking the sea) — a symbolical reference no doubt to S. Catherine's last resting-place upon Mount Sinai. Take, for example, S. Catherine's hillside chapel at Winchester : the foundations alone remain, but the hill is still known as " St. Catherine's Hill,|| though commonly shortened by the Winchester boys to the one word " Hills." The same thing is to be found again in this same county of Hampshire some two miles north of Christchurch ; and Abbotsbury in Dorsetshire furnishes a third instance, far more satisfactory than the former two, because the tiny fourteenth-century building is still in good condition. It was intended " for the shipwrecked mariners to return thanks in," and when this " sailors' chapel" is taken in conjunction with the dedication of the parish church to S. Nicholas, the patron of sailors, it shows how * Murray's "Kent." proximity of the church to Christ-church t See ch. li. % i.e. " St. Katherine : Christ Church," an abbreviation arising from the close Priory. § Murray's " Durham. 1 || Murray's " Hants." CHAP. XI. THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. 12 1 entirely sea-faring were the interests of the little community. The modern church of Ventnor has done well to choose S. Catherine for its patron, for a glance at the map of the island will show how S. Catherine has stamped herself upon the natural features of this southern line of coast ; the head- land running out to sea is " St. Catherine's Point ; " the downs on the brow of the cliff are " St. Catherine's Downs." " St. Catherine's Beacon " recalls the twofold provision made in the time of Edward II. for the safety of the sea-going folk — "sufficient revenues for the support of a priest who, beside saying his office, should keep a light burning in stormy weather, to warn the tempest-tossed mariners off these rock-bound coasts." * The tower of the chapel is still standing, but the lighthouse has been removed to " St. Catherine's Point," a situation where it can do better service than on the old beacon, but where it is no less than formerly " St. Catherine's Light." " St. Catherine's, Lincoln," is a postal district but not a parish. No doubt, like another postal district of the same name, " St. Catherine's, Guildford," it bears witness to some now forgotten chapelry of S. Catherine's ; but we must beware of the tendency to attribute to the saint more than rightfully belongs to her. Thus the manor of Great Parndon in Essex is " vulgarly called St. Katherine's," but a local historian f states that the name comes not from the saint but from a certain Katherine de London, the daughter of the thirteenth-century proprietor of the manor. As we have said, the fourteenth century was pre-eminently the period of S. Catherine's greatest popularity ; but as late as 1459 we find the Master of King's College, Cambridge, founding a Hall which he dedicated to S. Catherine. J After this comes an interval of nearly four hundred years, broken only, so far as we know, by the little seventeenth-century chapelry of S. Catherine's on Canvey Island in Essex. The present building— consecrated on June 11, § 1712 — was the successor of a little wooden chapel built by the owner of the soil some time in the seventeenth century for the use of the Dutch workmen whom he had imported to make dykes on his island property after the Dutch fashion. || It is not possible to ascertain whether the name of Catherine was also attached to the first chapelry, but if so, it may have been made choice of by way of compliment to Queen Catherine of Braganza, the consort of Charles II. When we come to the nineteenth century we have a score or more of dedications to S. Catherine. She is in fact almost the rival of S. Margaret, who is of all the Virgin Saints the most popular in our own day ; and as the saint of Alexandria is no more historic than the saint of Antioch, we can only suppose that in both instances the attraction lies in the suggestiveness and allegorical beauty of the legends. S. Catherine has a special distinction of her own in virtue of her supposed learning, * Murray's " Isle of Wight." t Morant. t Camden. § Canvey Feast is kept on June 25; i.e. June 11, O.S. II Morant. 122 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xi. and this has caused her, like her sister-saint, S. Ursula, to be regarded as a patroness of schools. There is a double appropriateness, therefore, in bestowing the name of " S. Catherine's " upon a leading girls' school at Bramley near Guildford. Not only may the pupils recall their patron saint's enjoyment of the severer branches of study, but when they climb "St. Catherine's Hill" to the south-west of the town, they will be reminded of her again by the sight of the ruined hillside chapel that still bears her name, a chapel so ancient that it was rebuilt in 131 7.* The Londoner too may be reminded of S. Catherine, not indeed by natural objects bearing her name, but by many an ancient yard and alley that still preserves a memory of the once popular legend of her martyrdom. "The Catherine Wheel" remained a favourite sign with our ancestors even after the Eeformation, and contrived to hold its own in spite of the efforts of the Puritans to change it into the meaningless " Cat and Wheel." In the eighteenth century we find " seven alleys, three courts and seven yards all deriving their name from this popular sign," t and we learn that it is " still of common occurrence." The well-known Mrs. Delany lived for two or three years (1768-1771) in a "place called Catherine Wheel Lane," behind the "Thatched House Tavern in St. James' Street," but she unluckily chose to name her residence from the tavern rather than from the lane.} If we were asked to name a typical example of the wild De? a 4 baiii inventions that in too many cases do duty for the lives of the Virgin Martyrs, we might well instance S. Barbara. The Boman Catholic writer so often quoted in this chapter § begins his account of the celebrated S. Barbara by saying that she has this in common with S. Catherine, that she is equally unknown to the ancients, and that her history is not more certain. He might have added, however, that the advantage lies wholly on the side of S. Catherine, whose legend — late and worthless though it may be in an historical point of view — shows a richness of imagination of which the legend of S. Barbara is strikingly devoid. It may be taken as a sign of the vitality and many- sidedness of S. Catherine's story that it has been widely modified according to the genius of the different countries in which it was spread abroad : S. Barbara's story, on the contrary, remains stereotyped much as it was first put forth by the not very original invention of the eighth- century romancer. Like innumerable other heroines of romance, the beautiful Barbara was the only daughter of a wealthy father, who, in order to preserve her from unworthy suitors, shut her up in a high tower, where she occupied her solitary hours in severest study. The nationality of the learned princess — to this dignity she was raised in later times — has been disputed : some hold that she sprang from Tuscany, some from Asia Minor, some from Egypt. The question is of no great importance ; but * Murray's " Surrey." t " London P. and P." % Ibid. § Baillet. CHAP. XI. THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. 123 perhaps the Egyptian version has the most to recommend it,* for Heliopolis, " the city of the sun," sounds a highly appropriate back- ground to the whole romance. The Christian element is, however, still wanting in the story, and is introduced in two ways — first by the appearance of Origen as tutor to the damsel, and secondly by S. Barbara's vehement determination to have three windows let into the bath-room of her tower in place of the two ordered by her stern father, in order by means of this symbolism to preach the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. We may here observe that in one of the York churches (S. Martin's, Coney Street), where the windows are a curious mosaic of fragments of mediaeval glass, the favourite symbol of the tower with its three windows is depicted, surmounted by the letters " ara," the obvious termination of " Sancta Barbara." The name of Origen raises a momentary hope that we are on historic ground ; but no, — the compilers of religious romances were as much given then as now to introduce the names of well-known personages ; and in the legends both of S. Catherine and S. Barbara Origen has been considered a suitable instructor for such scholarly ladies. In the case of S. Barbara the instruction was by correspondence only, and the letters of both tutor and pupil are actually given in the Acts — " such letters," says Baillet, " as they " (the compilers of the Acts) " may have thought likely, and of which they seem themselves to have been the secretaries." After this flight into the realms of history we return to romance pure and simple. The father returns from a journey, is furious at his daughter's apostasy, denounces her to the persecuting pro-consul, who causes her to be cruelly treated in the vain hope of forcing her to recant. In the last stage of the drama the father carries her off to a mountain and there beheads her with his own hands, but has no sooner done so than he himself is struck dead by a flash of lightning ; from which circumstance S. Barbara has come, oddly enough, to be looked upon as the patroness of " armourers and gunsmiths, firearms and fortifications," f as well as a protectress against thunder and lightning. Such is the commonly received version of the story of S. Barbara ; and as to searching for the historic S. Barbara it is pure waste of time, for though we may believe that a maiden of the name of Barbara did suffer martyrdom some time prior to the eighth century, there seems no prospect of arriving at any more exact knowledge of her. Among the Greeks she was highly celebrated, but in England she never took root, and the only known church that bears her name is at Ashton-under-Hill in Gloucestershire, not far from Cheltenham. The reason for the choice is more easily to be accounted for than is usual in such cases, for in the adjacent parish of Beckford, with which Ashton is closely associated ecclesiastically,! there was a monastery which was given * In fact, Baillet inclines to the opinion, t Mrs. Jameson, though with much reserve, that the real j At the present day both parishes are Barbara suffered in the time of the Alex- held by the same vicar, andrian bishop, Heracles, a disciple of Origen. 124 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. XI. by Henry I. to the Augustinian monks belonging to the convent of " SS. Martin and Barbara " in Normandy.* S. Candida Another less famous victim of the Diocletian persecution, or Whyte. whose name is kept before our memories by a single church Aug. 29. dedicated in her honour, is S. Candida. The fine old Dorset- shire church of Whitchurch-Canonicorum, near Lyme-Eegis, is placed under the twofold invocation of " S. Candida and the Holy Cross," an accidental combination of the same sort as we meet with in " Holy Cross and S. Lawrence " at Waltham Abbey. The name of the parish has been supposed " to point to a time when its church of ivhite stone was a notable object among the mean wattled or wooden edifices with which the religion of our ancestors was contented ; " f but the same writer who puts forward this unsatisfactory explanation goes on to state that " later authorities derive it from a mythical ' St. White,' or ' Sancta Candida ; ' " and adds the important piece of evidence that a well belonging to the said saint was known to have existed near to the church. The famous example quoted in Bede of Whitheme, or Candida Cam — so called because S. Ninian, the Apostle of the Picts, " there built a church of stone, which was not usual among the Britons" — does not apply here. Among the Anglo- Saxons it was a universal custom from the first coming of Augustine to name their churches from the person or thing in whose honour they were dedicated, and not from any accident of their outward appearance. We may find dedications to the " Holy Cross " or the " Holy Sepulchre," or we may find dedications to a seemingly unknown " S. Candida ; " but it is contrary to English precedent that a church should take its name merely from its external whiteness. A further argument in favour of a dedication to some actual saint of the name of " White " is furnished by a second parish of the name of Whitchurch — " Whitchurch-cum-Felton," not far from Bristol. The existing church is dedicated to S. Gregory, but the tradition of centuries has faithfully maintained that this later and larger church, built to supply the joint needs of two adjacent villages — Felton and Whitchurch — did but occupy the site of a long-vanished chapel to S. Whyte.J A fifteenth-century antiquarian, William of Worcester, goes so far as to claim Whitchurch-Canonicorum as the burial-place of this unknown virgin, " Whyte, or Candida." § Perhaps this is going too far. Those who have experience of William of Worcester as a guide to Cornish saints know well that he sometimes shows himself more zealous than trustworthy ; but there is a Eoman S. Candida — one of the countless sufferers in the Diocletian persecution — said to have been buried, not indeed at Whitchurch-Canonicorum, but in a church bearing her own name without the Portuan Gate at Eome. The name is not an uncommon one in Eoman Kalendars, and nothing more is known of this particular * "Eng. Illus." Note, however, that % Lewis, in the Clergy List for 1896 the dedication § Quoted in Pooley's " Crosses of is given as " S. Andrew." Somerset." t Murray's "Dorset." CHAP. XI. THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. 125 S. Candida except that in the ninth-century Kalendar of Usuardus she is commemorated on August 29, and that about the same time a church was built in her honour, in which her relics remained until they were translated to the church of S. Praxedis. But we have too many examples of English dedications to obscure martyrs, whose very existence is scarcely known except through the mention of their names in the different martyrologies, to be greatly surprised at any addition to their number. There may have been some special local reason, now completely lost sight of, why these obscure martyrs were chosen in particular localities ; for example, the church in question may have been enriched with some relics of S. Candida. How- ever this may be, the veneration in this particular case seems purely local and yet very intense ; for we find in the immediate neighbourhood of Whitchurch-Canonicorum — though across the Somersetshire border — several places having this same prefix " White " — Whitestaunton, White Cross, White Lackington, White Town* — all of which, in the opinion of the Somersetshire archaeologist before quoted,! are " doubtless derived from S. Whyte." But as time went on S. Whyte and her story faded out of recollection. In the Somersetshire Whitchurch she was altogether replaced by the Eoman bishop Gregory, and though in the Dorsetshire parish she was allowed to linger under her Latinized form, it was with an addition — " S. Candida and the Holy Cross." The next two saints on our list, S. Juliana and S. Beatrice, 8 Beatrice ^ YG cur iously opposite fates : the one has been deprived of the church to which she is rightfully entitled ; the other has been credited with a church to which she has no right (ch. li.). 8. Ursula. See CH. LI. There is an obscure ninth-century virgin, S. Maura, Ma^ra r, ° r commemorated at Troyes on September 21,J who may perhaps be very indirectly associated with the Somersetshire parish of Bratton-St. Maur (or Seymour) ; but for the direct connexion between the name and the parish, see ch. li. S. Winifred. Some a P°logy is required for introducing a Welsh damsel Nov. 3. of the seventh century § into the company of Virgin Saints Seventh cent. mQgt of w k om come f rom Rome or Egypt, and most of whom are ascribed to the third or fourth century of our era. The real and only justification for classing S. Winifred with the foreign virgins is that she belongs to them by natural affinity. Celtic though she may professedly be, she is unknown to the sober records of the Welsh genealogies, and while her fantastic Latin life forms a very suitable pendant to the equally marvellous histories of S. Barbara and S. Ursula, she has nothing in common with such a well-authenticated flesh-and-blood saint as the * Possibly also Whiteparish near Salis- § For the life of S. Winifred, see bury. D. 0. B., and Bees's " Cainbro-British f Pooley. Saints." i Harris Nicolas and Baring-Gould. 126 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xi. beloved Bridget of Irish fame. For the sake of the many English maidens who bear her name it would be satisfactory to be able to point to a real historic S. Winifred, as real and authentic as the Saxon Hilda, for example ; but it must be confessed that the actual Winifred, or G-wenfrewi (the form of her name has undergone considerable improvement in the course of centuries), has been so overlaid by mediaeval myths as to be altogether unworthy of belief. And unfortunately in this case there are no earlier allusions to the saint, no meagre references to her in genealogical tables, no record of the hallowing of church or sacred spring, by which we may test the ampler statements of the imaginative twelfth century. " Her parentage," says the indefatigable Welsh antiquarian, Mr. Rice Rees, " is not mentioned in the Welsh accounts, and the time in which she lived is ascertained only from the names of her contemporaries which occur in her legendary Life." * And more suspicious still, even in Domesday Book — three hundred years after her supposed death — there is no mention of the church and well traditionally said to mark the place where she was killed. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that her whole legend must be received with extreme caution. Some floating tradition no doubt there was concerning S. Winifred and her untimely fate, which was crystallized into its received form in the twelfth century, at the time when her supposed remains were translated to the church of S. Giles in Shrewsbury. The Flintshire village of Holywell is familiar to many a railway traveller who dashes past it in the Irish mail, but probably very few of them give a thought to the Welsh maiden from whom, according to the popular legend, it draws its name. S. Winifred, then, was the only and much loved child of a wealthy and devout soldier living in North Wales. He consented freely, though not without some inward pangs, to his daughter's earnest desire to consecrate herself to a virgin life, and took counsel with a holy man, S. Beino,f how best she might be prepared for the life which she had chosen. " The saying of the soldier having been considered, Beino said, ' If thou wilt give up thy farm to my management, I will dwell with thee and instruct thy daughter in the divine law.' " An arrangement agreeable to both sides was come to, and the saint " fixed his cottage on the estate " of Winifred's father. Moreover, "he there built a small church in which he celebrated mass, and daily instructed the virgin Winifred in divine literature." (The reader should note the numberless examples of mediaeval customs, phraseology, and ways of thought in this supposed seventh-century story.) Now it befell one Sunday that the parents had gone to church to hear mass, and Winifred was alone in the house, when her solitude was disturbed by the visit of a young prince of those parts, who had wearied himself in hunting, and stopped now at the cottage to quench his thirst. The maiden received him with fearless courtesy, and would gladly have supplied * " Welsh Saints," f More often called " Beuno," a saint of some note. CHAP. XI. THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. 127 his needs ; but the sight of her rare beauty inflamed his worst passions, and he began to speak to her in words that she would not stay to hear. Making some excuse, she slipped from the room, and hastened towards the church ; but the wicked prince, perceiving that she would have nothing to do with him, was infuriated, and went in hot pursuit of her, and over- taking her as she crossed the threshold of the church, struck off her head with a single blow. The sequel is very much what might be expected from a twelfth-century legend. S. Beino cursed the villain, who forthwith " melted in his sight as wax before a fire," and then he set himself to the restoration of the dead maiden, who rose up whole as before, save only for a white mark round her neck. On the place where she fell a fountain sprang up whose stones were stained as with blood. After these things S. Beino thought good to journey elsewhere, and in due time Winifred herself became the abbess of a tiny community of eleven nuns at a certain spot in the Yale of Clwyd, where she died once more, and where she was buried, side by side with two other Welsh saints, S. Senan and S. Kebi. One very quaint touch of the mediaeval legend-writer must not be omitted. When the tutor and pupil were about to part, S. Beino asked a boon of the maiden, namely, that she would send him yearly a cloak of her own work. With charming simplicity she made answer : " My lord, to do this for thee will not be giving me any trouble, but the greatest difficulty appears to me how it shall come to thee, for I do not know where thou dost dwell." The saint met this most practical objection by bidding her place the cloak upon a particular stone in the middle of the stream, on which he had been wont to pray and meditate. " Place the cloak thereon at the appointed time, and if it will come to me it will come ; " and with this oracular sentence and " a mutual benediction, they separated." The legend goes on to tell of the admirable working of this primitive parcel-post, of the way in which the cloak — being punctually deposited in the appointed place — was safely and dryly carried over stream and sea ; and it further adds that the virtue of the garment was such that when worn by its rightful master, it " neither got wet with rain, nor was its nap moved by the wind." Between the putting forth of Domesday Book in 1086 and the trans- lation of S. Winifred's relics to Shrewsbury in the twelfth century, a chapel had been built over the well which was the supposed scene of her marvellous death and resurrection ; and the second part of the Latin life of the saint consists of miracles wrought through her power in the chapel or beside the well. Camden * tells us of the small church close to the holy well that was standing in his day, and of the painted window commemorating " the history and execution of the saint." The legend, in the proportions to which it had then grown, exceeded his powers of belief, but he was clearly impressed by the pebbles in the brook, " on which are seen, I know not what kind of blood-red spots." * "Britannia." 128 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xi. A hundred years after Camden's day, James II. made a pilgrimage to S. Winifred's Well and drank of its waters, in the belief that in virtue of this act he might be vouchsafed an heir to the throne. When in course of time the desired Prince of Wales was born, the pilgrimage to S. Winifred's Well was recalled with approbation or displeasure as the case might be. In Eoman Catholic circles, at any rate, it tended to exalt the wonder- working well, which under the name of " the English Lourdes " still continues to attract its pilgrims, and provides occasional paragraphs for the newspapers. Readers of the Times may remember to have noticed a letter in the winter of 1894-5 calling attention to the phenomenon that the tremendous frost of that period had no power over S. Winifred's Well. Besides the Welsh " Holywell " that takes its name from S. Winifred, there is the district of " Holywell " in the city of Oxford, so named from a spring dedicated to S. Winifred in conjunction with S. Margaret.* Another S. Winifred's Well, less famous than the preceding two, is to be found in the hamlet of Woolston in the Shropshire parish of West Felton.j Six English churches are usually ascribed to S. Winifred ; but close investigation shows that in nearly every case her claim is disputed, and that the only absolutely certain dedication in this name, beyond the original one at Holywell in Flintshire, is a modem church of S. Wenefrede at Bickley in Cheshire. The two ancient Devonshire parishes of Brans- combe and Manaton may just possibly have come by their Celtic patroness through the strong Celtic influences of the neighbouring county of Cornwall, or they may have adopted her in consequence of the popularity of her legend ; but it is a great deal more likely, considering how near they both lie to Crediton, that they are both of them intended for the great missionary, S. Boniface (ch. xlii.), best remembered in his native district by his English name of Winfred.J Doubtless S. Winifred did become widely popular after the translation of her relics (November 3, the day on which she is commemorated, is the anniversary of her translation to Shrewsbury, not of her death), and it is a strong proof of this popularity that two Nottinghamshire churches, Kingston-on-Soar and Screveton, have been ascribed, though erroneously, to the Welsh virgin. Chancellor Raine's careful researches into the old wills preserved at York show that in both cases the true patron is the native-born Wilfrid (ch. xxii.), whose name might easily enough be confused with Winifred. Most probably the same explanation applies to the West Riding church of Stainton, which has an alternative dedication to S. Peter, or S. Winifred. Is it possible that the original dedication was in imitation of Ripon Cathedral, " SS. Peter and Wilfrid " ? S. Osyth. See CH. XL. S. Sidwell, See CH# XL< or Salivola. * Lewis. origin unhesitatingly to Branscombe, and •j. ibid. it applies with equal force to Manaton X The late Mr. Kerslake gives this —See " Dorset Antiq.," vol. 3. CHAP. XI. THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. I 29 S. Arilda. 8. AUcelda. S. Dominica. See ch. xl. See ch. xl. See ch. li. Our own country is not wholly without claims to have a part in the roll of Virgin Martyrs, but the conditions of the Anglo-Saxon Church were such that among our women saints there were but few martyrs, in the common acceptation of the word. There were but few who were called upon to prove " the constancy of their faith even unto death ; " but on the other hand there were a countless number who by " the innocency of their lives " bore their witness to the Master Whom they also served, and who thus " glorified His Holy JSTame." England is rich in Virgin Saints if not in Virgin Martyrs, and it has been well said, " The Church needs saints as much even as martyrs." * * Dean Church's Sermon on Bishop Andrewes. VOL, h K CHAPTER XII. S. MARGARET OF ANTIOCH AND HER NAMESAKES. TAGE. NAME. DAY. YEAR. CHUliCHES. 131 S. Margaret of Antioch ... July 20 ... 256 See also dd. 133 S. Margaret of Scotland ... Nov. 16 andJune 10 1093 ... Doubtful 136 Lady Margaret of Richmond June 29 1509 ... 1 More than two hundred and fifty of our English churches are associated with the beautiful name of Margaret. If it were possible to call up before our imagination all the different personalities that have been present to the minds of the different founders when they made choice of S. Margaret for their patron saint, the result would be a somewhat surprising one. From those early days when her adoration was first introduced into Saxon England down to the present, who has given a thought to the obscure virgin martyr " Marina " who is declared by scholars to be the true origin of the far-famed virgin of Antioch ? One is even tempted to ask whether without that advantageous change of name from Marina to Margaret our saint would ever have attained anything like her actual popularity. According to one theory our Margaret is identical with the famous actress of Antioch, Pelagia by name, who was surnamed " Margarita " from the number of pearls she wore. The story of her conversion and after- life is told by a certain deacon of Edessa who lived in the middle of the fifth century, and who wrote from personal knowledge of the circumstances.* It would be interesting to identify this Margarita, also called Marina, with our Margaret ; but the one distinguishing point of our saint is that she was a martyr, and in S. Margarita's history there are no pretensions to martyrdom. In the GrTeek Church a certain S. Marina of Alexandria, " virgin and martyr," was commemorated on July 17, around whose story a whole tissue of impossible marvels had sprung up. The romance became popular, and was finally adopted by the Roman Church as belonging to the still more obscure saint, Margaret of Antioch, whose commemoration, after being kept on various days in June and July, was at last fixed upon July 20, the day accepted by our Anglican Kalendar. * D. C. B., - Pelagia." chap. xn. S. MARGARET AND HER NAMESAKES. The confusion between the two names Marina and Margaret is still visible in kalendars of the ninth century ; but even in the fifth century the romance of the dragon had begun to be connected with the name of Margaret, and even then the story had been discredited as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius. But in spite of criticism the romance held its own, and continued to be elaborated according to the taste of the narrator till the twelfth or thirteenth century. England was not backward in its recognition of S. Margaret of Antioch ; her name is found in English litanies * of the seventh century, and a Welsh version of her story has been preserved which rivals any of the early legends in its unquestioning acceptance of the marvels. Of these mediaeval romances something must be said hereafter, but even in the height of their popularity in this country, the name of Margaret was winning fresh associations from a native-born saint, Margaret the grand- niece of Edward the Confessor and wife of Malcolm III. of Scotland. Five hundred years later there died another English Margaret, " the Lady Margaret," gratefully remembered both at Oxford and Cambridge. Had she lived a generation earlier she would have been canonized as surely as her Scottish namesake ; but even as it is, she has given her name to one of our churches. But all the modern churches of S. Margaret that rise up round us year by year, to whom are they at heart dedicated ? Most of them perhaps not to any historical saint at all ; some perhaps to the Martyr-maiden created by the poet and the musician ; t many more to an allegorical S. Margaret, a sort of personification of innocence and purity overcoming the powers of evil — the S. Margaret, in short, of Raphael's picture of the maiden rising unharmed from the jaws of the dragon ; in some cases again the name has doubtless been chosen for the sake of its meaning, and the thought of the gates of pearl in the Heavenly Jerusalem ; while in not a few we may be perfectly certain that it was chosen wholly and solely for the sake of some saintly Margaret known and beloved by the founder. Of these half -recognized, half -defined Margarets we can say nothing ; but three Margarets at least there are who claim each a distinct place among our patron saints — Margaret of Antioch, Margaret of Scotland, and Margaret of Richmond. S. Margaret Ifc is use l ess to tr y to attach a date to a saint so apocryphal of Antioch. as the S. Margaret of the mediaeval legend. The Welsh July 20. version,;]; from which the following account of her is drawn, contains the marvels of the original Greek story in mediaeval dress, and is a good specimen of the kind of religious romance popular in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The narrative purports to have been written by an eye-witness of her innumerable sufferings ; but it need scarcely be said that it is the most clumsy of forgeries. " The most blessed Margaret " was the only child of a " dignified " * Baring-Gould, July 20. X See the Life of S. Margaret in f Of. Sullivan's " Martyr of Antioch," " Cambro-British Saints." based upon Milman's drama. 132 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xn. gentleman near Antioch.* Her father " worshipped the false gods," but the child learnt from her old nurse " to believe in the true God," and had her young imagination kindled by many stories of the martyrs who shed their blood "for the name of Jesus Christ." And although Margaret was " nobly born and beautiful and beloved, yet she was humble, and did not refuse to attend to the sheep of her nurse with other maidens." At this point the romance falls into the inevitable groove. A heathen potentate, here named Oliver, and vaguely described as " the sovereign of the countL-y of Asia," is fascinated by her beauty, and desires to take her for his own either by fair means or foul, and Margaret's steady rejection of all his offers of course raises his wrath. He sends his " knights " to seize her, but they are overawed by her fearless demeanour. Then he causes her to be cast into prison and to be grievously beaten with rods, so that all who saw her were moved with compassion. " Now when she came within the prison, she put on herself the sign of the cross of Christ," and gave herself up to prayer. In her prayer she entreated, " Cause me that I may see my enemy, who contends against me." Then comes the one distinguishing incident of her legend. " There suddenly appeared to her in the corner of the prison, a marvellous dragon. . . . From his nostrils proceeded smoke and fire, and he uttered a strong rough voice, and fire from his mouth gave light to all the prison." And in the terror that overwhelmed her Margaret " had no remembrance of God having heard her prayer, and that he was showing to her the enemy who contended with her," but she sank trembling upon her knees, and prayed for protection against this great monster. " And while she was so saying the dragon came with his mouth wide open, and fell on her and swallowed her ; but the sign of the cross which she put upon her grew in the mouth of the dragon, and became greater and greater until it cleaved him into two portions. And the blessed Margaret got up, harmless and uninjured," and burst into a song of praise, saying : " The strong dragon I slew, and trod him under my feet with the hope that I had in God, and therefore I will thank God." This portion of her legend has been told at some length because of the prominence accorded to it in all representations of S. Margaret. What remains may be very briefly dismissed. She is subjected to divers torments, in the midst of which a dove crowned with gold comes from heaven and lights upon the " blessed Margaret," as in the original Greek story of S. Marina, and a voice is heard summoning her to " the kingdom of the heavenly country." In her final prayer before the moment of her execution, words are put into her mouth which were no doubt not without effect upon the number of churches dedicated to this saint. " God," said she, " hearken to my prayer, and grant to every man who shall write my life and relate my works, or shall hear or shall read them, that his name be written in the book of eternal life ; and whosoever shall build a church in my name, do not bring him to thy remembrance to punish him for his wrong doings." * Antiocliiu Pisidia according to most actress " Margarita " undoubtedly belongs of the legends ; whereas the converted to Antioch in Syria. chap. xii. S. MARGARET AND HER NAMESAKES. T 33 Such is the extraordinary tale of " the passion of S. Margaret," which was familiar to oar forefathers through an Anglo-Saxon translation,"" before it was still further popularized by the version of the story brought home from the East by the Crusaders.t If the dedications to S. Margaret were evenly distributed throughout England, we should find no less than six churches in her honour in each of the forty counties ; but East Anglia, for some hitherto undiscovered reason, appears to have a special devotion to the Martyr of Antioch. It is true that there are but five counties J from which she is absolutely missing ; but in Norfolk the number of dedications rises to fifty. Lincoln- shire follows with thirty ; Suffolk shows twenty-two, in which she is equalled by Kent ; and Essex has fourteen, the same number as Yorkshire. Some of the comparatively few Yorkshire dedications in this name are of recent origin ; the fifty Norfolk churches, on the other hand, are all ancient, some of them so ancient as to be practically in ruins, but the name still remains. As a rule, dedications to S. Margaret are either of quite recent date, or of pre-Ref ormation origin. Eighteenth-century dedications in this name are exceedingly rare. S. Margaret's at Owthorpe in Notting- hamshire claims to have been "built by Colonel Hutchinson, sometime governor of Nottingham Castle, during the Civil War," § but it is possible that this was only a rebuilding, not a new foundation. " Nettleden St. Margaret," in the Buckinghamshire parish of " Nettleden St. Lawrence," is fairly reckoned among the ancient dedications, for whether the existing church be ancient or modern, the hamlet in which it stands has long been known as St. Margaret's, from a Benedictine Nunnery dedicated to this saint, founded in 1160 by the then Bishop of Winchester.! One of our earliest dedications to S. Margaret, and certainly our most famous, belongs to the little historic church that stands beneath the shadow of Westminster Abbey, and which is in truth older than the abbey itself. Dean Stanley says in speaking of the building of Westminster Abbey in the closing years of the Confessor's reign (1065) : ' ; A small chapel, dedicated to St. Margaret, which stood on the north side of the present Abbey, is said to have been pulled down ; and a new church, bearing the same name, was built on the site of the present Church of St. Margaret. The affection entertained for the martyr-saint of Antioch by the House of Cerdic appears in the continuation of her name in Edward's grandniece, Margaret of Scotland." f S Mar aret ^ n( ^ brings us to the second of our three Margarets, of Scotland. Queen Margaret of Scotland, the fair young Saxon wife of Nov. 16 or Malcolm Canmore, the mother of the Scottish S. David. June 10, 1093. -g om - n ex ^ e [ n distant Hungary, the little princess was brought back to England at the age of ten years, when it was thought that some member of her family might be the successor of Edward the * Baring-Gould, July 20. § Lewis, f Mrs. Jameson. II Ibid. X Northumberland, Cumberland, But- % " Memorials of Westminster.'' land, Worcestershire, and Cornwall. 134 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xn. Confessor. Ten years later a crushing blow was dealt to all such expecta- tions by William the Conqueror's victory at Hastings ; but not even then did the national party wholly renounce the hope of seeing a Saxon prince upon the throne, and it must have been with a sinking heart that Margaret watched the various unsuccessful attempts in favour of her boy-brother, Edgar Etheling. She understood only too well how much depended on the success or failure of those attempts ; not dignity and position merely, but actual personal safety. One by one the attempts failed, and a year or so after the battle of Hastings the entire Saxon royal family — the widowed mother, the two sisters, and the young Etheling himself — were on board a ship off the coast of Northumberland, not knowing where to turn for refuge. By permission of Malcolm they found shelter in Scotland, " and then it was," says the English Chronicle, "that King Malcolm desired to have Margaret to wife : but Edgar and all his men refused for a long time, and she herself also was unwilling." It was not the life she would have chosen for herself ; she had set her heart on serving the Lord in the single state, without the cares and distractions of married life. " The king urged her brother until he said yes, and indeed he did not dare to refuse, for they were now in Malcolm's kingdom. The king therefore married her, though against her will, and thanked God who had given him such a wife " (1070). If Margaret had been like some other of our saints, she might have professed that the marriage thus forced upon her was no marriage ; but in a more Christian spirit she accepted her new calling, only determining "therein to abide with God." What Margaret did for her husband's kingdom is to be read, not so much in the Lives of the Saints, as in the pages of the History of Scotland. She worked, as a wife should work, through her husband. "The foreseeing Creator," says the English Chronicle, " knew long before what he would do with her, namely that she should increase the glory of G-od in this land, lead the king out of the wrong into a right path, bring him and his people to a better way, and suppress all the bad customs which the nation formerly followed. And the king turned himself to God, and forsook all impurity of conduct, and as S. Paul says : ' Full oft the unbelieving husband is sanctified and healed through the believing wife.'" And, adds the Chronicle, "The Queen above named afterwards did many things in this land to promote the glory of God, and conducted herself well in her noble rank, as always was her custom." Much needed reforms were instituted in matters of Church discipline. Commerce with other lands was encouraged, and Scotland, " under the fostering circumstances of a vigorous and enlightened rule was fast springing into political power." * Outwardly it was the " brave and wise " f Malcolm to whom all these reforms were due, but the unseen instigator of them all was the gentle Margaret. Nor could it ever be said of her that she neglected her natural womanly duties. The training of her eight children and the due ordering * Forbes's " Kalendars." t Sir Walter Scott. chap. xii. S. MARGARET AND HER NAMESAKES. 1 35 of her household was her first care. In the life of her, written by her confessor, we see, says Bishop Forbes, " a picture of the highest and purest domestic piety of the middle age. Attentive to her family, sedulous in the discharge of her royal duties, S. Margaret yet led the austerest and most devout life. One can hardly understand how she contrived to compress within the space of one day all her exercises of devotion, but we have no reason to doubt her biographer. There is an atmosphere of calm unexcited truthfulness about the narrative, as well as an absence of the mythical, which commends it to us as the work of an eminently truth-loving man, and the incidental allusions to the current history bear the test of all that we know of the times." * In strange contrast to the marvellous history of S. Margaret of Antioch stands the one very unmiraculous miracle of S. Margaret of Scotland's life, recorded in the Aberdeen Breviary. This tells how the Queen's precious illuminated copy of the Gospels fell into a stream, and after some interval was rescued from thence uninjured. We could have no more interesting relic of the sainted Queen than this book, and, curiously enough, after having been for centuries lost sight of, it has lately been recovered and secured as national property. The circum- stances of its identification were remarkable. The manuscript was not in itself of sufficient antiquity or merit to attract great interest, and it had lately been rejected by the British Museum, when it was bought by the Bodleian Library at Oxford (in 1887) for a comparatively trifling sum. On examination it was found to contain a Latin poem, stating that this volume had been for some time lying under water. A lady who was present chanced to recall the circumstances of S. Margaret's lost copy of the Gospels, and, upon further investigation, this proved to be the very volume there spoken of. " All Scotsmen," says the Academy, " will be glad to know that the facsimile reproduction of this venerable and nationally most interesting manuscript has been undertaken," etc. The close of S. Margaret's life was marked by a double sorrow. She was already ill when her husband and two of her sons marched against England, on the expedition which was to prove fatal to King Malcolm. The younger son made his escape from the battle, and came straight to his dying mother. " How fares it," she asked, " with your father, and with your brother Edward ? " And then, as he stood silent, she added, " I conjure you by the holy Cross, and by the duty you owe me, to tell the truth." "Your husband and son are both slain," was the reply. Already she had prepared her mind for the worst. " The will of God be done," she cried ; and then throwing up her arms, she added, " I thank Thee, Almighty God, that in sending me so great an affliction in the last hour of my life, Thou wouldest purify me from my sins." The day of her death was November 16 (1093), and it is on this day that she is commemorated in the Kalendar of the Scottish Prayer-book, drawn up under Archbishop Laud's supervision; but on June 19, 1250, * Forbes. 136 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xii. about the time of her canonization by Pope Innocent IV., her remains were translated to Dunfermline, and this day was also kept in remem- brance of her until the seventeenth century, when in order to please our exiled King James II., the then Pope altered the festival to June 10, the birthday of Prince James Edward, better known as the Old Pretender. In trying to trace any churches that may be dedicated to Margaret the Queen rather than Margaret the Martyr, it is important to bear in mind these changes of day. Her feast might be observed either in the middle or end of November (either Old or New Style), or in the middle or end of June, but it is not likely to be found in the first half of June. It has been noticed before that dedications to " S. Margaret " in the North of England are comparatively rare. The extraordinary enthusiasm for her that prevails in East Anglia is wholly wanting north of the Humber, where dedications in this name are so few and sporadic as to suggest the likelihood that they are derived from some different source. A northern antiquarian, speaking of S. Margaret's two churches in the county of Durham, observes : "The name is probably not from the virgin of Antioch, but from the wife of Malcolm Canmore." * The chapelry of North Hylton in the same county is sometimes ascribed to S. Margaret ; but this is of doubtful authority, and there is an alternative dedication to S. Catherine. In Northumberland and Cumberland the name is altogether wanting ; in Westmoreland it appears only (so far as ancient dedications are con- cerned) in conjunction with S. James at Long Marton. Further south the number slowly increases, and it would be going much too far to claim all the nine ancient Yorkshire dedications to S. Margaret as belonging to the Scottish Queen. There seems little question, however, that it is the good Queen who has caused the name of Margaret to be so widely popular in the North of England, no less than in her own Scotland. The Lady ^ there is some hesitation in deciding what churches Margaret of niay rightfully be assigned to Margaret of Scotland, there is Richmond. n0 doubt at all about the one and only church that claims June 29 1509 ' ' as its patron Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII. In some respects she is not unlike her predecessor, Margaret of Scotland, for her wisdom and foresight, her gift of discerning the right men to fill positions of importance in the State, made her a valuable counsellor to both son and grandson, insomuch that her death, when it occurred, was felt to be a national loss, and the " endammaging of the public weal." f In her own love of knowledge, and in the well-considered efforts she made to encourage the spread of it, she belongs fitly to the period of the New Learning. She who was " the instructress-general of all the Princes of the Royal House," % was also the foundress of at least four institutions that have remained with us to this day. Oxford, as well as Cambridge, * Arch. Journal, vol. 42. J Stanley's " Westminster." f Grafton's "Chronicles." CHAP. xii. S. MARGARET AND HER NAMESAKES. 1 3 7 owes to her its " Margaret " Professorship of Divinity ; but the younger University is in a more especial manner her debtor, for she it is who " founded the two fair Colleges of Christ and St. John in Cambridge ; " * and the poet Gray, in his ode composed for a grand ceremonial in the Cambridge Senate Hall, wherein he celebrates the various benefactors of the University, makes special mention of Margaret of Eichmond — " Foremost, and leaning from her golden cloud The venerable Marg'ret see ! " Yet in spite of all this it has been truly said of Margaret of Eichmond that " her outward existence belonged to the medieval past." f Dean Stanley, after describing the noble effigy of her in the Chapel of West- minster Abbey built by her son Henry YII., says : " She lived almost the life, in death she almost wears the garb, of an Abbess. Even her marriage with Edmund Tudor was the result of a vision of St. Nicholas. The last English sigh for the Crusades went up from those lips. She would often say that if the Princes of Christendom would combine themselves and march against their common enemy the Turk, she would most willingly attend them, and be their laundress in the camp." Of her private virtues those could speak best who knew her best, like Bishop Fisher of Eochester, her chaplain and her intimate friend, who said, in preaching her funeral sermon : " Every one that knew her loved her, and everything that she said or did became her." Within our own generation both Oxford and Cambridge have been moved to do honour to their common benefactress. One of the leading Colleges for Women at Oxford has been named from her " Lady Mar- garet's." The Cambridge memorial to her is one which would have been yet more consonant with her own feeling. S. John's College has con- nected itself with the poor London parish of Walworth, in the diocese of Eochester. As the mission work grew and increased it became neces- sary to build a new church, and it was determined that it should be dedicated by the name of "The Church of the Lady Margaret." A proposal to adopt the more conventional " S. Margaret " was received with great disfavour, and in June, 1889, the church was duly consecrated under the name that plainly marked out its association with the foundress of S. John's College, the pious Tudor lady who, according to the expression of old Thomas Puller, in her " humility and charity desired to be rather good than great." The uncanonized Countess of Eichmond and the single-hearted Queen of Scotland might fitly take their places in our Prayer-book by the side of the Martyr-maid of Antioch, to the great enrichment of our Anglican Kalendar. * Fuller's " Bedfordshire Worthies." f Stanley. CHAPTER XIII. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. I. — Martyks of Milan and Rome. PAGE. NAME. DAY. TEAK. CHURCHES. 139 SS. G-ervase and Protasius . . . June 19 First cent. ... 1 140 S. Erme, ErvaD, or Hermes ... August 28 ... 120 ... 2 141 S. Pratt, or Protus, Martyr ... September 11 ... 260 ... 1 II. — Three Gallican Martyrs. 142 S. Symphorian August 22 ... 180 ... 2 144 S.Crispin October 25 ... 285 ... 1 145 S. Faith, Virgin October 6 ... cir. 304 ... 24 See also dd. III. — Three Martyr Mothers. 147 S. Felicitas, Widow November 23 ...cir. 150 ... 1 148 S.Perpetua March 7 203 [ ^ Uc ^ n \ No dedication. KEalendar) 151 S. Julitta, or Juliot June 16 304 ... 2 See also dd. " The white host of martyrs praiseth Thee." Such is the more exact fourteenth-century rendering of the original Latin clause in the TeDeum* It brings before us the image of that white-robed multitude of all nations and kindreds and tongues that, having come out of great tribulation, stand evermore triumphant before the throne of God. Our thoughts turn first to the Leaders of that army — martyrs like S. Stephen, or the Apostles, or Ignatius and Polycarp, or many another of whom we have already spoken ; but the innumerable company is made up not only of these great saints but of countless lesser ones, some who are known to us only by name, and a far greater number who are not known to us at all. The men and women brought before us in this chapter are among these more obscure saints. Peacefully they follow their various avocations : the Eoman prefect exercises the authority entrusted to him ; the young nobleman in Burgundy stands at the threshold of life with all pleasant things opening before him ; the French workman follows his humble calling ; the young wife in Carthage rejoices over her new-born infant ; * " Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus." chap. XTH. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. 139 the aged widow in Rome ponders how best she may bring np her sons as good citizens, not of this world only, but of the next. Suddenly they pass out of this happy obscurity into the fierce light of a heathen court of inquiry ; they stand before us exposed to insult and cruelty, on trial for their faith, and ready for the sake of it to face agonies both of body and spirit worse far than death itself. It is surely needless to repeat that many, many more names might be included in this chapter — all our Soldier-saints, for example ; all the Virgin-saints ; Laurence the faithful deacon ; Pancras the boy-martyr ; and others far too numerous to be here particularized — but these have all their places elsewhere ; and for the rest, the few saints now before us may be taken as not unworthy representatives of the class to which they belong. I. — Martyrs of Milan and Rome. The story of these twin brothers is very curious, inasmuch and Pro-^ 6 as tne ^ ^ not ^ ecome famous till some three hundred years tasius. after their death. The occasion of their coming into notice First cent was ^ e consecration of a new church in Milan in the time of S. Ambrose. The builders of the new church were feeling bitterly their poverty in the matter of relics. The very natural desire for some tangible memorial of the holy dead had already grown into a dangerous superstition, though the consequent practice of exchanging and selling relics had not yet come into existence. Ambrose felt the deficiency as much as any of his people ; and while he pondered how it might be made good, the thought came to him to investigate the Christian cemetery adjoining the church of SS. Felix and Nabor. According to the later legend, he undertook this investigation in consequence of a dream he had, in which he was visited by two young men of wondrous beauty, who declared themselves as the twin brothers, Gervase and Protasius, and told him where to search for their remains ; but the story of the dream does not rest upon Ambrose's authority. The excavations were duly under- taken, and the discovery made of what S. Ambrose describes in his letter to his sister (ch. xlvii.) as the bodies of " two men of wondrous size, such as ancient times produce." Somehow they came to be identified as the brothers Gervase and Protasius, who had suffered long ago in the time of Nero. " Old men began to remember that they had heard formerly the names of these martyrs and had read the title on their grave ; " * and from the moment of the discovery of these remains the popular enthusiasm knew no bounds, and there was no limit to the miracles said to have been wrought by their agency. But the whole transaction was subject to as much hostile criticism then as it would have been now, and S. Ambrose's opponents did not scruple to accuse him of having got up the entire business for his own ends. To this it must be replied that if there was * D. 0. B., Ambrosius. 140 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xm. imposture Ambrose was the victim not the author of it. Mr. Stokes observes'' 1 " that "it is hardly possible to read through the epistle of S. Ambrose to his sister Marcellina and still imagine that such genuine enthusiasm could go hand in hand with conscious deceit." If, as Mr. Baring-Gould conjectures,! the brothers were already known and regarded as the proto-martyrs of Milan, whose story was known but whose burying- place was forgotten, the joy at the discovery of the bodies is easily explained ; and that such a discovery should take place while digging in an old cemetery adjoining a Christian place of worship is probable enough. The only history of these saints rests upon an exceedingly brief account generally attributed to Ambrose himself ; but since it contains no mention of the discovery of the bodies, Mr. Baring-Gould is of opinion that it is a document of earlier date than is commonly supposed, and has been falsely ascribed to S. Ambrose. Certainly if the history is a later forgery it is odd that it should be so barren. According to this statement, Gervase and Protasius were citizens of Milan, sons of an officer in the army — Yitalian by name — who had himself suffered martyrdom. His name is conspicuous in ancient martyrologies, and many Italian churches are dedicated to him. The sons became possessors of his wealth, and for ten years dispensed it in works of Christian charity as faithful stewards. At the end of this time they were arrested by the order of one of Nero's generals, and commanded to sacrifice to the gods. They both refused, and Gervase was beaten to death, and the other brother beheaded. Their legend adds that " a good man, named Philip, carried home their bodies and buried them in his own garden," % a garden that may henceforth have become a most precious sleeping-place for the Christian dead. The brothers soon became popular in France, and in a limited degree in England also, as we shall see when we come to the philanthropic brothers of Southampton in the reign of Henry III. — Gervase and Protasius — who by their charitable deeds and gifts emulated their Milanese namesakes. § We find, however, but a single church to their honour, namely, that of Little Plumstead in Essex. S Erme Scarcely less shadowy than the twin brothers of Milan Ervan, or is the martyr Hermes, a Roman prefect, a married man, who, Au m 28 120 to £ etner w i tn n * s wno l e household, was converted to Chris- tianity by Alexander, one of the early bishops of Rome, and baptized by him. His sister Theodora is mentioned by name as having been associated with her brother and his wife and children in their new- found privileges.|| Hermes is said to have suffered martyrdom under Hadrian about the year 120.1 No particulars have come down to us, but indeed the pre- sumption is strong that in those early days of Christianity a prominent Roman official openly confessing the new Faith would not have * D. C. B., " G-ervase and Prota- § See ch. xv\, " Julian the Hos- sius." pitaller." f June 19. || D. 0. B. % Mrs. Jameson. ^ Borlase. chap. xiii. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. 141 escaped notice. All that we know of this saint is an incidental notice in the apocryphal Acts of Alexander the bishop ; but at one time he must have attained a considerable degree of celebrity, for relics of him were translated to Salzburg in 851. His name is found in a Breton liturgy of the tenth century, and William of "Worcester makes mention of him as " Sanctus Hermes confessor . . . Oornubia 28 die Augusti." * August 28 is the day assigned to " S. Hermes of Rome " in the early Kalendars, and the Cornish parish of St. Herme, or Erme, near Truro, for centuries kept its feast on the Sunday next to xiugust 28, thus plainly showing that it was Hermes, the Eoman prefect, who had been accepted for its patron. Unfortunately this link with the past was snapped in 1788, when for some local reason the feast was altered to the last Sunday in October. Another Cornish parish — that of St. Ervan — is sometimes attributed to S. Hermes, and there was undoubtedly a chapel of this name near Marazion, in the parish of St. Hilary ; so that unquestionably the Roman prefect had a recognized standing in Cornwall ; but Mr. Boase suggests that the name may " have taken the place of some Celtic name, as has happened in other cases ; " and Mr. Borlase suggests f that the real patron of St. Ervan may be, not the foreign Hermes, but the native- born Erbin, the father of King Geraint — Tennyson's Geraint, we may perhaps venture to say (ch. xxxv.). The name of the saint is given in some ancient lists as " Erbyn," which favours the native theory, but more usually it is given in the form of " Ervan," which archaeologists are free to interpret according to their lights. In the case both of St. Erme and St. Ervan the true explanation would seem to be that the owner of the original name having been wholly forgotten, the parish was glad to adopt a saint whose name was famous through the Breton service-books. S Pratt or ^ ar more legendary than S. Hermes is S. Protus of Protus, M. Rome, the saint who in all probability gives his name to Sept. 11, 260. c ] lurc ] 1 0 f Blisland near Bodmin. In a manuscript of the last century % he appears in the undignified form of Pratt — " Proto, or Pratt." Mr. Borlase is inclined to regard " Proto " as the short of Protasius, and would consequently identify our saint with a Milanese bishop of that name in the fourth century, a friend of S. Athanasius. But the evidence of Blisland feast-day points us to another saint, a certain very apocryphal martyr, commemorated at Rome together with his companion S. Hyacinthus on September 11, under the reign of the Emperor Gallienus.§ His story may be found in Baring-Gould's " Lives of the Saints," || where it forms part of the romantic and fabulous Acts of a certain high-born damsel, S. Eugenia. Protus and his fellow-sufferer Hyacinthus, eunuchs in the service of the governor of Alexandria, are represented as zealous adherents of the faith to which they have been converted, and for which in the close of the story they suffer death ; but * Mr. Boase in D. C. B. § D. C. B. t "Age of the Saints." II September 11. X Tonkin, quoted by Borlase. 142 STUDIES ~d~A T CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xiii. we may well say with Mr. Baring-Gould, "It is scarcely worth while entering into the consideration of the ridiculous anachronisms and im- possibilities contained in this story, which is evidently nothing more, and at first was intended to be nothing more, than a religious romance." This S. Protus, mythical though he is, was commemorated in the leading English Kalendars — those of Hereford, York, and Sarum — and the romance of Protus and the lady Eugenia was doubtless at one time widely known. A highly legendary martyr and the hero of a popular tale was, on the face of it, a more likely patron than an obscure Milanese bishop, whose matter-of-fact history, so far as we know it, offers no special point of interest ; but when it is taken into account that Blisland feast was kept on September 11,* that is to say, on the feast-day of S. Protus of Rome, we can hardly have any further doubt as to the true patron. II.— THKEE GaLLICAN Maktyrs. g m From these highly legendary figures we pass to a little piiorian, or group of martyrs who come to us through the channel of the Simphorian. Gallican Church. The notices of S. Symphorian of Autun, b ' ' ' though they show some signs of later editing, are considered by scholars to be unmistakably based upon very ancient and authentic records.! The Gallic population of the city of Autun was devoted to the worship of Oybele, the mother of the gods, whom they venerated under her Phrygian name of Berecynthia.J " The worship of Cybele," says the late Bishop Lightfoot,§ " with its wild ceremonial and hideous mutilations would naturally be attractive to the Gaulish mind. . . . There was enough in the outward ritual with its passionate orgies to lure them." And again : " The Gospel, as a message of mercy and a spiritual faith, stood in direct con- trast to the gross and material religion in which the race " (i.e. the Celtic race) " had been nurtured, whether the cruel ritualism of their old Celtic creed, or the frightful orgies of their adopted worship of the mother of the gods." || " Celtic idolatry," says another writer,^ " in Asia and in Gaul followed precisely the same ritual ; " and just such a collision as had in S. Paul's time taken place in Galatia between Christianity and heathenism was now about to take place in the Celtic city of Autun. Symphorian was the son of a man of good birth and position, Faustus by name. His mother, at any rate, was a most devout believer, and he had been brought up from early childhood as a Christian. The growing number of the Christians was a source of alarm to Heraclius, the governor of the province, who endeavoured, as Julian the Apostate vainly en- deavoured a century and a half later, to restore to the old religion its * Truro Kalendar. Owing to the change of Style, the feast is now kept on September 22, or on the Sunday nearest to that date. t Dr. Stokes in D. C. B. % From Mount Berecynthus in Phry- gia. § Galatians. || Ibid. f Dr. Stokes. chap. xiii. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. 143 former prestige. On the occasion of one of the consul's visits to Autun,* an image of the goddess was carried in procession through the city, and as it passed, all men were expected to fall down and worship it. The young Symphorian alone stood erect, and the officers, marking his attitude, arrested him and led him before the governor. Heraclius asked him why he refused to kneel before the mother of the gods. "lama Christian, and I adore no images," was the reply, with the contemptuous addition, " Give me a hammer, and I will make short work of Berecynth." The governor observed, " The fellow seems to me to be not only sacrilegious towards the immortal gods, but to be tainted with rebellion." Then he made inquiries concerning Symphorian's name and family, and, turning to the young man, urged him not to suppose that his high birth would save him were he to persist in his obstinacy. Failing to make any impression upon him, he commanded him to be severely beaten and put into prison. Two days later Heraclius summoned him again, and used all his powers of persuasion, with an evident desire to save him in spite of himself. He even offered him preferment in the army if he would then and there recant by offering to the gods the incense " which is due to them." " It would be much better for you," he argued, " to serve the immortal gods, and to receive a gratuity from the public treasury with an honourable military office." But Symphorian was unmoved by all these inducements, and continued steadily to testify against the iniquities of the worship of Cybele. Then when Heraclius saw that his arguments were despised, he condemned Symphorian to death ; and he was straightway led away to be executed without the city. No time was granted for farewells ; but his mother mounted on to the city wall to have one last sight of him, and as he passed by, she cried out, " My son, my son Symphorian, remember the living God, and be of good courage. Baise your heart to Him that reigneth there. Fear not death which leads to certain life." \ These heroic words were embodied in one of the most ancient service-books (the Gothic Missal J), and so became familiar to after generations. Besides the Abbey church at Autun itself, which preserved the name and story of S. Symphorian, we have record of a church dedicated to him at Clermont by another of our saints, Bishop Genesius (ch. xxiv.). It is not a little remarkable that a saint so justly venerated in France as S. Symphorian should have been so little honoured in England ; but it so happens that our only dedications in this name are to be found in Corn- wall, where it is supposed that they have been introduced through the usual channel of the Breton liturgies and kalendars.§ The two dedica- tions are at Veryan and Forrabury respectively. Some lists add Tintagel, but Mr. Borlase is of opinion that Tintagel should be rightly ascribed to SS. Marcellina (ch. xlvii.) and Materiana (ch. li.). Perhaps after all there is an undesigned appropriateness in the fact that it is by the Celtic Church of Cornwall that this firstfruits of Celtic * Baring-Gould, August 22. t Ibid. X D.C.B. § Borlase. 144 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xiii. Christianity — this strong champion of the truth against the dark supersti- tions of Celtic heathenism — should be commemorated. S. Crispin's Day is to many of us a well-known land- Ocf r 25 P 285 m &rk, not merely because it has a place in our Prayer-book Kalendar, but because of the stirring fashion in which it is immortalized in Shakespeare's Henry V. In Holinshed's Chronicle, which is the source of Shakespeare's history of Agincourt, we do not find in the King's own mouth any reference to the day, but the chronicler himself notes that the battle was fought " on the feast of Crispine and Crispinian, daie faire and fortunate to the English, but most sorrowful and unlucky to the French." The King in his speech to the soldiers is made to refer to the memorable day in three slightly different forms. At the beginning of the speech he says — " Crispin Oispian shall ne'er go by ... but we in it shall be remembered ; " and at the close he makes use of the common form, " S. Crispin's Day." The reduplication " Crispin Crispian " approaches most closely to the correct designation of the day, as it is found in the Roman Kalendar and in our own early English Kalendars. The truth is we have here, not one saint, but two— a pair of brothers with names perplexingly alike. According to the popularly received account of them, they were natives of Rome, who followed S. Denys on his missionary journey into France and preached the Gospel at Soissons, supporting themselves in the mean- time by working as shoemakers. About the year 285 the Roman general Maximinus Herculeus came to Soissons to put down a rising of the BagaudEe," those hapless insurgents of whom we hear so often in early Church history. There may very well have been Christians among the insurgents, and if so, Christians would at that juncture be peculiarly obnoxious to the governor ; but however this may be, the brothers were denounced on account of their religion, and were executed by order of the prefect. f The innumerable companions ascribed to S. Denys cause one to look with suspicion upon any saint included in that wide category, and it is indisputable that whatever the foundation of truth in the story of S. Crispin and his brother, it has been overlaid with an astonishing amount of fabulous additions ; but in the bare outline of the history there is nothing impossible. Unfortunately, their written Acts are of late date — written, it is supposed, long after the event, from the floating traditions of the place ; and doubtless the old men of Soissons were not more proof than the veterans who fought at Agincourt against the irresistible temptation to " remember with advantage " the heroic deeds of the past. At any rate, Soissons still cherishes the memory of the kindly brothers who once exercised their craft there for the benefit of the poor, making shoes for them " without fee or reward," out of leather supplied by the angels ! J Mr. Baring-Gould observes that to this day it is customary at * Baring-Gould, October 25. t Mrs. Jameson, t Ibid. chap. Xlli. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. H5 Soissons during the Eogation season for the procession of priests and people to stop in its perambulation outside a certain house in the town (No. 14, Eue de la Congregation), which occupies the site of the old church of " St. Crepin le Petit," * and there chant a Collect and antiphon of SS. Crispin and Crispianus. In France the name of the pious shoemakers can never wholly be forgotten by their brothers of the craft, for a " Saint Crepin " is the technical term for a shoemaker's kit. The same word is also embodied in two French proverbs : " Porter tout son Saint Crepin " is an expression for carrying one's all about one ; and " Perdre son Saint Crepin " means to lose one's all. The now forgotten story was once familiar in England also, and may perhaps even to this day be dimly remembered in one little corner of Kent if " S. Crispin's monument " still keeps its ancient name. Camden,! in describing the dangerous promontory of Dungeness so well known to sailors, thus writes : " Among those pebbles, near Stone-end, is a heap of large stones, which the neighbouring people call the monument of S. Crispin and S. Crispinian, who, they say, were cast upon this shore by ship-wrack, and call'd from hence into their heavenly country." Nevertheless, until quite lately we had not in all England a single dedication to S. Crispin, but the omission has now been made good in the most appropriate town in the whole country, namely, Northampton, the very stronghold of shoe- makers. The first stone of the new church — which is, strictly speaking, a chapel or mission-church in the parish of St. Sepulchre — was laid on S. Crispin's Day, 1883, and the dedication took place on the same day in the following year. The formal consecration was delayed till the building should be in a more complete state. It is pleasant to be able to add that the funds for the building were raised by a committee of working-men, and that the shoemakers in particular, though they did not actually contribute more than a very small proportion of the whole, were "to a great extent instrumental in raising and collecting the rest." J S. Faith V. Scarcely less obscure in reality than S. Crispin, but far Oct. 6, more famous, is the maiden martyr of Aquitaine, S. Faith, cir. 304. w | 10 | g k e ;[j evec i to have suffered at Agen in the time of the Diocletian persecution by order of Dacian, the Eoman governor so notorious for his deadly persecution of the Christians in his own special province of Spain. When summoned before the judge and interrogated, she fearlessly confessed that " from a child she had served the Lord Jesus Christ with all her heart." She is said (but the Acts of her martyrdom are of late date, and must not be too much trusted as to details) to have suffered by fire. It is also said that a timid fellow-Christian of the same city, Caprasius by name, who watched her sufferings from his safe hiding- * So called to distinguish it from the X Communicated by the Rev. C. E. more important Abbey of St. Crepin in the Welldon, then curate of S. Giles, North- same city. ampton. f "Britannia." VOL. I. L 146 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xm. place in a cave, was so much moved by the sight of her constancy that he came forth and voluntarily delivered himself up to the judges.'* Norman proprietors brought with them into England the story of their heroic young countrywoman, and it readily took root among us. S. Faith has retained her place in our Prayer-book Kalendar through all its many vicissitudes from the days of the Salisbury Kalendar down to the present time ; and her feast was anciently a landmark of some consideration, as we may see from the fact that at Barnstaple the election of the mayor always took place on the Monday following S. Faith's Day, although the parish church is dedicated, not to her, but to the Apostles Peter and Paul. The twenty-four churches dedicated to S. Faith are to be found in seventeen counties of England, distributed over all parts of the kingdom from Yorkshire to Cornwall. In many cases no doubt the name was conferred by the religious house in Normandy to which the English church was attached. Thus, for example, S. Faith's at Newnton-Longville in Buckinghamshire owes both its dedication-name and its appellation of Longville to its connexion with the Norman Abbey of S. Faith's at Longville, to which it was given in the time of Henry I. by its foreign proprietor.! It was just at the same period that Horsham in Norfolk was in like fashion made over by Robert de Fitzwalter and his wife to another Norman Abbey, that of de Cenchis. The little old church of S. Faith at Maidstone, like its near neighbour, Canterbury Cathedral, has served as a refuge for worshippers of different persuasions, having been "used at successive periods by the Walloons who settled here under Elizabeth, and by the English Presbyterians." % By far the most generally known of the dedications to S. Faith is the church which bears her name in the crypt of S. Paul's Cathedral. " It was originally a distinct building, standing near the east end of S. Paul's, but when the old cathedral was enlarged, between the years 1256 and 1312, it was taken down, and an extensive part of the vaults was appropriated to the use of the parishioners of S. Faith, in lieu of the demolished fabric. This was afterwards called Ecclesise Sancti Fidei in Cryptis." § In one or two cases of churches assigned to S. Faith we find, as might be expected, some alternative patron ; as at Leven in East Yorkshire, usually ascribed to the Holy Trinity, and Stert in Wiltshire, commonly known as S. James ; but in both instances earlier records || show the original patron to have been S. Faith. Childerditch in Essex still retains a double invocation to " All Saints and S. Faith ; " while Saltash in Cornwall by some odd chance unites the virgin martyr of Aquitaine with S. Nicholas, the semi-mythical bishop of Myra. Of modern churches in this name we find three, two of them in greater London. In every new or newly discovered dedication to S. Faith we may rejoice, not only because all the little that is known concerning her is * Baring - Gould, October 6; and § Brayley's "London and Middlesex." D. C. B. II Lawton's " York Churches ; " and t " Eng. Illus." the wills examined by the late Canon % Lewis, Jackson of Leigh Delamere, CHAP. xiii. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. H7 beautiful and edifying, but also because, even to the unlearned, who know nothing whatever of the French saint, her very name of " Faith " suggests holy and helpful thoughts. III.--THREB Martyr Mothers. S. Felicitas of Rome, S. Perpetua of Carthage, and S. Juliot of Tarsus, though belonging to countries widely removed the one from the other, are yet bound together by the common tie of motherhood. To each one the pangs of martyrdom were intensified by having to witness the sufferings of her children. S.Felicitas W. ^. Felicitas— according to the belief of the early Church as Nov. 23, cir. set forth by a sermon in her honour preached by Gregory the 150 * Great in a church dedicated to her — was a widowed Christian matron living in Rome, who devoted her whole life to deeds of charity and the upbringing of her seven sons. In the time of the Emperor Antoninus Pius the whole family was denounced to Publius, the prefect, on account of their religion. He ordered them to sacrifice to the gods, and on their refusal they were one by one put to death with cruel torments. Felicitas stood by watching the prolonged agony of her sons, encouraging them throughout in such words as these : " Behold, my sons, heaven, and look upwards, whence you expect Christ and His saints." She was denied even the sad joy of dying with her children, for when the last of them had suffered she was ordered back to prison, and kept there for another four months, at the end of which time she — "the more than martyr," as S. Gregory calls her — was set free by the sword of the executioner to follow " the seven children whom she had already sent forward into the kingdom." * The touching story of S. Felicitas has been discredited on more accounts than one ; and first because there was no authorized persecution of the Christians under Antoninus Pius. But this is far from conclusive ; there are many examples of the fury of the heathen mob being stirred by some public calamity, such as fire or flood, famine or earthquake, and of their avenging themselves upon the Christians in the district as being in some unexplained fashion the indirect cause of their ills. " Doubtless in some such way," says Professor Stokes, " Felicitas and her children suffered without any participation on the Emperor's part." The second objection is found in the suspiciously close resemblance between this story and its heroic Jewish counterpart in the Book of the Maccabees. The similarity of the names f and circumstances are too remarkable to escape notice ; indeed Mrs. Jameson { says : " The confusion which anciently existed between these Jewish and Christian martyrs was such that the name of Felicitas was given to the mother of the Maccabees. The church of Santa * Rev. G. T. Stokes in D. 0. B. spoken of as king; cf. Baring-Gould, t Antoninus for Antiochus ; Publius July 10. for Philip : the Roman emperor being } " Sacred and Legendary Art." 148 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xm. Felicita at Florence stands where stood a chapel dedicated to the Sette Maccabei." A not impossible explanation of the difficulty seems to be that a Christian mother and her sons did actually suffer for their faith in Eome in the days of Antoninus Pius, but that the details of her history having been forgotten, they were freely supplied from the familiar and readily accessible source of the Maccabean Books. Our only dedication to S. Felicitas is at Phillack, near Penzance ; and it must be confessed that this is of doubtful authenticity. We have been driven to admit the probability that " S. Felix " of Philleigh is none other than the Celtic bishop Teilo in a strangely distorted form (ch. xxxn.), and we shall perhaps at some future time have to surrender our faith in S. Felicitas and to allow sadly that she is only usurping the name and dignities of some native Cornish saint (ch. xxxvi., " S. Piala ") ; but for the moment she is the acknowledged patroness of Phillack, and the inhabitants have testified their acceptance of her by placing in their church (which was rebuilt in 1857) a stained-glass window representing the mother and her seven sons. * Though there is not a single ancient church in all March? ^203 England that commemorates the fame of this heroic young sufferer, yet her recognition in our Prayer-book Kalendar justifies us in enriching the present chapter with her most pathetic story. That story has a unique interest of its own, because it purports to be mainly related by the martyr herself, the closing scene being added, of course, by another hand. The early date of these Acts of S. Perpetua is shown by many accidental allusions to very ancient Church customs and the use of very early Christian phraseology. " The minute account of the passion " of this martyr, says a modern scholar,* " bears every mark of authenticity." It is allowed on all hands that this narrative is the genuine work of contemporaries, and if the description of S. Perpetua's trial and imprisonment was not actually written by herself, it must at least have been written by one who had been with her and talked with her during those dreadful days. No one who is accustomed to legendary histories of martyrdoms, such as those of S. Catherine or S. Margaret, can fail to note the marvellous difference of tone in the dignified simplicity of S. Perpetua's touching narrative. We pass now from the Latin into the African Church, from Rome to Carthage. We know from the Acts that S. Perpetua was a young Carthaginian widow \ of good family, that she was twenty-two years of age, and that she had recently become a mother. The family, while united by closest bonds of affection, were, as so often happened in those days of transition, divided in point of religious faith. The aged father was an ardent adherent of the old creed, the mother was a Christian, and Perpetua herself and one of her brothers were among the catechumens. * Professor Stokes in D. 0. B., whom husband at the time of the trial and see throughout. martyrdom, and it is thought probable f There is certainly no mention of her that he had recently died. chap. xiii. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. I49 An Imperial edict, issued in the opening years of the third century, "forbidding any fresh conversions to Christianity, while imposing no penalties on original Christians," * is supposed to have been the immediate occasion of the arrest of S. Perpetua and her fellow-catechumens. Not the least part of S. Perpetua's trial was the necessity of resisting her father's repeated appeals to her filial duty. "My father," says she, " sought with all his power to turn me away from the faith. ' Father,' said I, ' do you see this little pitcher lying here ? Can it be called by any other name than what it is ? ' He answered ' No.' ' Neither can I,' replied I, ' call myself anything else but what I am, a Christian.' " Shaken with anger and disappointment, the old man withdrew, and " in this interval of peace I, together with my companions, received holy baptism. As I was cleansed in the regenerating waters the Holy Ghost inspired me with the desire of asking for no other grace except that of constant patience amidst bodily sufferings." Sorely must that patience have been needed when, a few days later, the prisoners were removed into the dungeons. " I was terrified," says she, " for I had never felt such darkness. 0 what a dreadful day ! The fierce heat, the rough behaviour of the soldiers, and anxiety on account of my infant overwhelmed me." By means of bribes to the gaolers the prisoners secured the privilege of being allowed to pass several hours of each day in a more decent part of the prison, where they were allowed to see their friends, and where Perpetua's little pining infant was brought to her to be nursed. With a sad heart she commended it to the care of her mother and brother ; but after a while she was spared the anguish of these daily partings from her little one. " I obtained leave for my infant to be with me in the dungeon, and forthwith I grew strong, and the dungeon became to me as it were a palace, so that I preferred being there to being elsewhere." When it was reported that the examination would soon take place, Perpetua received a second visit from her father, who sought once more to shake her from her purpose. " Have pity, my daughter, on my grey hairs. Have pity on your father. Have compassion on your brothers and mother, and on your child who will not be able to survive you. Lay aside your lofty spirit and do not bring us all to destruction." " These things,'' says Perpetua, "my father said in his affection, kissing my hands and throwing himself at my feet, calling me with tears not daughter, but lady. And I grieved when I thought of his grey hairs, and that he alone of all my family would not rejoice at my martyrdom, and I strove to comfort him, saying that on that scaffold whatever God wills shall happen, for we stand not in our own strength, but in that of God." We have no space here to speak of the comforting visions that were vouchsafed to Perpetua in these days of trial ; we must pass on to the day of her trial. Perpetua shall again speak for herself. " Another day while we were at dinner we were suddenly taken away to be * D. C. B. 150 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xm. examined. At once the report spread through the neighbourhood, and an immense multitude of people were assembled in the audience- chamber. The others were interrogated and confessed Christ." When it came to Perpetua's turn, her father drew near, and again repeated that old heart-breaking appeal, " Have pity on your babe," words which were re-echoed by the judge himself. " Have compassion," said he, " on thy father's grey hairs ; have pity on your babe ; offer sacrifice for the well-being of the Emperor ; " but the steadfast reply was still the same, " That I cannot do." The father still persisting in his vain interference, the judge lost patience with him, and commanded him to be beaten with rods. " I felt," says Perpetua, " as if I had myself been beaten." Calmly she records the sentence. " The procurator then delivered judgment, condemning us to be exposed to the wild beasts, and we went down cheerfully to our dungeon. Then I sent to my father to ask for the child, but he would not give it me, and God so willed it that the child no longer desired the breast." So meekly and thankfully did the young- mother submit to the snapping of the most precious of her earthly ties, while she records with gratitude all the signs of kindly compassion that were still shown her in these last days. One of the warders, moved to admiration by the bearing of his charges, or, as Perpetua says, " perceiving that the great power of G-od was with us," showed them special consideration, " and admitted many brethren to see us, that both we and they might be mutually refreshed." With the account of one last visit from her father, and the relation of one more vision, Perpetua's own narrative comes to an end ; but the remainder of the history is distinguished by the same mixture of perfect simplicity and dignified reserve that marks the earlier part. The night before their sufferings the prisoners were served, according to custom, with a public supper, which they turned into an agape, or love-feast. Curiosity drew many spectators, and to these the Christians talked, speaking of their own future with a calm courage that amazed those who heard. The rest has often been told. With unfaltering steps the little procession made its way from the prison to the amphitheatre, Perpetua coming last of all with a peaceful countenance and downcast eyes. It was proposed to clothe the men as priests of Saturn, the women as priestesses of Ceres ; but the protest of Perpetua availed to save them from this cruel indignity, and they advanced into the arena, Perpetua chanting a hymn as she moved onwards. Then the two women (Felicitas * and Perpetua) were brought face to face with the wild cow that was to toss them. Perpetua's calm composure, her noble self-forgetfulness, never failed ; after the first terrible onset, she wkh her own hands rearranged her disordered dress and bound up her fallen hair, and seeing that Felicitas was thrown down and wounded, she went to her and helped her to rise. The first shock seems to have mercifully numbed her from all further consciousness of pain : as she was led out of the arena she asked, like one * Not, of course, to be confounded with S. Felicitas of Home. chap. xiii. THE WHITE HOST OF MARTYRS. roused out of sleep, when they were to be led forth to the beasts, and when she was told what had passed she could hardly believe it. Almost her last recorded words were spoken to the brother who was likewise her fellow-sufferer : " Stand fast in the faith, and all of you love one another, and be not distressed at our sufferings." Once more the whole band of Christians were called back into the areua ; they came in of their own accord, and having greeted one another with the kiss of peace, they each in turn stood to receive the sword-thrust which was to end their long- agony. " 0 most blessed and brave martyrs ! " cries the compiler of the Acts, " 0 truly called and chosen to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ!" After reading the foregoing narrative, one asks one's self with amazement how it is that so little honour has been paid to such a martyr as S. Perpetua, while there are churches by the score to such semi-mythical sufferers as S. Margaret and S. Catherine. It was not that the name of S. Perpetua was unknown to the English Church, for it held its place in our pre-Reforma- tion Kalendars (that of Salisbury, for example), just as it holds its place in our existing Prayer-book Kalendar. The probable explanation is to be found in the branch of the Church to which S. Perpetua belonged. She was a member of the North African or Mauritanian Church, and we shall elsewhere have occasion (ch. xix.) to observe how little count our English dedications take of this branch of the Church. If S. Perpetua had been a Roman martyr — still more, if she had been a virgin rather than a matron — we should probably have many dedications in her honour ; but the omission is one that is almost certain to be made good before long, if indeed there be not already some modern church in her honour that has not fallen under our notice. S Julitta or ^ ne P at hetic story of S. Julitta of Tarsus will be told in Juliot. June full in connexion with her little child, the three-year-old 16, 304. Cyricus (ch. xvi.). As a rule, the two are commemorated together, but each of them has also two or three separate dedications. The mother alone has given her name to the Cornish parish of St. Juliot's, where her feast is still observed on the last Sunday in June (or the first in July), but the original chapel in this place was only the complement of the chapel of S. Cyricus, in the parish of St. Veep, also in Cornwall. Both these churches were offshoots of the important Cluniac Priory of Monta- cute in Somerset. The church at St. Veep was rebuilt and re-dedicated in 1336,* and very probably St. Juliot's belongs to about the same period. Lanteglos is likewise dedicated to S. Julitta, but here the feast-day has been lost sight of. The Acts of SS. Cyricus and Julitta were condemned by Pope Gelasius in the fifth century on account of the many inaccuracies that had crept into the story, but in the sixth century an authentic narrative was furnished to the Church by the then Bishop of Iconium — S. Julitta's native town — from the traditions and records in the possession of the lady's descendants.! * Borlase. t D.C.B. 152 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xm. Indeed, the story of the mother and her little child had taken so deep a hold upon the imagination of Christendom, that no Papal condemnation could have dethroned it from the place which it occupied, and Gregory XIII., in the sixteenth century, was only following, not leading, public opinion when he restored the festival to all its former honours. Felicitas of Rome, Perpetua of Carthage, Julitta of Tarsus and her unconscious child-martyr — representatives of the Churches of Europe, Africa, and Asia — how strikingly do they, in their joyful acceptance of martyrdom, illustrate the words that Browning * puts into the mouth of the dying S. John — " Another year or two, — what little child, What tender woman that hath seen no least Of all my sights, but barely heard them told, Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh, Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God ? " * " A Death in the Desert.' CHAPTER XIV. SOLDIEK-SAINTS. 153 S. Eustachius, or Eustace ... September 20 ... cir. 118 ... 2 See also dd. 8. Hippolytus. See ch. xix. 8. George. See ch. xlv. 155 S.Maurice September 22 ... 286 ... 8 S. Quintin. See ch. li. 159 S.Sebastian January 20 ... cir. 288 ... 2 8. Alban. See ch. xxxviii. 8. Anastasius. See ch. li. Eves since the first days of Christianity the army has furnished numerous and heroic examples of unflinching fidelity to the Heavenly Captain. The great host of soldier-saints is in some measure, but by no means adequately, represented amongst us. Even of the eight names brought together in this chapter, the majority have strong claims to be considered elsewhere than among the soldiers. It is left therefore to S. Eustace, S. Maurice, and S. Sebastian to uphold the fame of their distinguished order. S. Eustachius is a peculiarly disappointing saint. Our tachius or interest in him is first aroused by the fact that his martyrdom Eustace. is ascribed to almost the earliest ages of Christianity. The cir P ii8°' military commander Eustachius — or "Placidus," as he was said to have been called before his baptism — was undoubtedly venerated at Rome in the days of Constantine the Great.* This is the earliest authentic mention of his name, but the legend itself takes us back far behind the days of the Church's prosperity under Constantine. It takes us back to the beginning of the reign of the heathen Hadrian, early in the second century ; to a time when but few Christians were enrolled in the ranks of the army, and when those who did take up military service knew well that they might at any moment be called upon to choose between abjuring their faith and suffering for it. The moment came when such an alternative was offered to Eustachius, and the record of his name among the Church's martyrs shows what decision he then made. The secular history of that period knows no * D. C. B., " Eustachius " (2). 154 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xiv. prominent officer of the name of Eustachius, but Josephus speaks of a certain Placidus who was a celebrated commander under the Emperor Titus. We have seen that " Placidus " was the name borne by our saint previous to his conversion, and it has been conjectured that both names refer to the same individual. It is not impossible ; although in that case the saint must have been very old at the time of his martyrdom.'* Up to this point the story, scanty as it is, bears all the signs of truth, and even where we have to call in the aid of conjecture we are still moving on historic lines. But unhappily the meagre outlines have been filled up with an unsparing hand, and the result is a poor and utterly worthless romance which passes under the name of the " Acts of S. Eustachius." As Baillet, the devout yet critical Roman Catholic hagiographer of the last century, severely observes : " It was not worth while to abandon truth for fiction if the subject were not to be better handled." f The legend follows very familiar lines. It begins with a recital of the saint's virtues even in the early days when he walked only by the natural light of conscience ; then it tells the story of his sudden conversion while following the chase, and dwells at length upon the many purifying trials which befell this devoted husband and father. He is bereaved of all that he holds dearest to him, only to receive them back unexpectedly ; but finally, when he believes that all his tribulations are at an end, he is summoned by the Emperor to sacrifice to the gods, and here — at this one only point — we seem to touch the genuine Eustachius. The legend is commonplace enough, and almost every feature of it may be matched from some other legend ; but, nevertheless, it has enjoyed a considerable popularity, and the episode of the stag will be long remem- bered. This part of the story tells how, as he was hunting in the forest, he beheld a stag bearing between its antlers a dazzling crucifix, and from this crucifix that Voice spoke to him which spoke to the Apostle of old on the Damascene road, bidding him follow the Master Whom he had served without knowing Him, and foretelling the afflictions that should be his earthly guerdon.J It is this scene which has caused S. Eustace to be looked upon as the patron saint of huntsmen, an honour which he shares with Bishop Hubert (ch. xxiv.). S. Eustachius is not found in Bede's Kalendar, and it is probable that he was hardly known in this country, until his fame had been established in France by the translation of his remains from Rome to the Abbey of S. Denis. In the West-country we find two dedications in honour of S. Eustachius — the one at Tavistock in Devonshire, the other at Ibberton in Dorsetshire. Ibberton church is known nowadays as "S. Eustace," but the standard County History notes that in the churchyard is a well, " vulgarly called Stachy's Well," § a very manifest corruption of the older form of the saint's name " Eustachius." S. Eustachius was at any rate sufficiently familiar in the West of England to induce some mediaeval * D. C. B., « Eustachius " (2). t September 20. % Mrs. Jameson. § Hutchin's " Dorset. CHAP. XIV. SOLDIERS A I NTS. 155 copyist to substitute his more famous name for that of the unknown S. Ewe, the patron of the Cornish parish of that name (ch. xxxvi.). This copyist implies that the church of St. Ewe was actually dedicated to S. Eustachius ; but there is no real evidence of this, and the statement seems to rest only upon what Mr. Borlase describes as the too great readiness of " the mediaeval scribe to write a name he knew in place of a Celtic one which he did not."* There is, however, at least one more indisputable instance of a genuine dedication to the Eoman S. Eustachius at Hoo in Suffolk, where the church is placed under the twofold invocation of " SS. Andrew and Eustachius." S. Hippolytus. See CH. XIX. S. George. See CH. XLV. „ . The famous story of S. Maurice and his companions has S. Maurice. . . ' ,, J , , . . f ., , ,, Sept. 22, 286. g iven ns e to endless controversy, and opinions as to its truth range from the complete acceptance of it in all its details by writers of the school of Alban Butler, to its equally complete rejection, not only by such men as Voltaire and Gibbon, but by some among the critical historians of our own day ; while there is yet a third party who hold that the story, however much it has been exaggerated, nevertheless rests upon a foundation of truth. But before entering upon the story of the martyrdom there is one observation to be made that has a general bearing upon the authenticity of the narratives of our soldier-saints. It is curious to note the contrast between these soldier-saints, who only flash upon us in one glorious hour of their lives — and that the last — and those other saints whose histories we can follow step by step, from birth to death. Maurice, Sebastian, Alban, all have this in common, that they are known to us only in the hour of trial and martyrdom ; and from this it naturally follows that our knowledge of them is slight and fragmentary. They are not like the sainted bishops, or missionaries, or Fathers of the Church, whose Christian profession has been throughout its course seen and read of all men ; they are laymen, following a calling that at first sight might seem to be the very least in harmony with Christianity — men of whose religion we hear nothing till a sudden testing-time comes, which proclaims to themselves and to the world the reality of that hidden faith. All at once the man becomes a hero, and then there arises the natural desire to know more of him ; something is added to the simple story of his death to heighten its effect, and too often the result has been that the overlying mass of legends and improbabilities has caused the original substratum of truth to be discredited. The scene of the martyrdom of S. Maurice is laid in a spot well known to modern travellers — the little town of St. Maurice in the Rhone valley. For many a century it has been known by the name of the martyr who made it famous, but its original name was Agaunum. More than thirteen hundred years ago one of the Burgundian kings founded * " Age of the Saints." 15^ STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xiv. at this place a monastery in honour of S. Maurice and his fellow-martyrs ; and this was the stirring story that used there to be told in sermon and discourse — a story that had been handed down from mouth to mouth by the descendants of those in whose very midst this terrible deed had been done. There, in that very village, it was said, a contingent of soldiers of the great Roman army had once been quartered on their way to suppress a rising of the peasantry in Gaul. Before the campaign was undertaken orders were issued by the commander-in-chief that all the soldiers should take part in a sacrifice to the gods for the success of the expedition. Tidings were brought to him that the soldiers belonging to the Theban Legion refused to join in the ceremony. Orders were imme- diately sent that unless they yielded at once the legion was to be deci- mated. Under this pressure some few gave way, but the main body, encouraged by their commanding officers — Maurice, Candidus, and others whose names have been preserved — stood firm. The lots were drawn, and the whole force was decimated, without shaking the constancy of those who escaped. Once again the process was repeated ; and at last, when this trial likewise had failed in its object, orders were given for the wholesale massacre of the remaining Christians. When all was over a certain soldier of that legion, Yictor by name, who had been absent from the camp on leave, returning to Agaunum, voluntarily gave himself up to share the fate of his comrades. Such is, in its briefest outline, the noble history of S. Maurice and his companions, a history which has sunk too deeply into the hearts o£ Christians to be lightly parted with. It is useless, however, to deny that there are many difficulties connected with it, and certain discrepancies in the different versions of it ; and of some of these we must now speak. The first grand difficulty that presents itself is the lateness of the authorities on whom we have to rely. In none of the contemporary writers have we any allusion to this Marfcyr-army ; there is complete silence concerning it for a hundred and twenty years, and then first we have a reference to a sermon on the subject preached by a certain abbot in the district of the Jura, which gives the number of martyrs, in its most startling form, at 6600. Some thirty or forty years later (a.d. 440) appeared a work by one Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, entitled "The History of the Sufferings of S. Mauritius," on which our knowledge of the story is almost entirely based, though some few independent touches are given in the " Acts of S. Maurice," drawn up either at the same time or it may be a little later. The Bishop of Lyons enumerates the chain of witnesses through whom the history had reached him, and it is evident enough how much room existed here for inaccuracies to creep in. His informants had received the story from the Bishop of Geneva, who in his turn had received it from the Bishop of Martigny. We see from this how firmly the tradition was established in the regions where of right it belonged. Doubtless if such a noble deed had come to the knowledge of Ambrose or Augustine, or any of those trans- Alpine bishops to whom CHAP. XIV. SOLDIER-SAINTS. 157 writing came almost as readily as speech, we should have had it fitly celebrated in a written form ; but it is easy to believe that to these less highly cultured bishops in their secluded mountain homes in Le Valais, oral tradition was a method of communication still sufficiently satisfactory alike to them and to their flocks. But then, it is argued, so striking an event must have been known from end to end of the Roman empire. The loss in a given time and place, not in open warfare, but by a wholesale butchery, of 6600 soldiers of the Roman army, could not have remained unchronicled for more than a hundred years after its occurrence. True enough ; but then the question arises whether there is any real ground for supposing that the entire legion was here concerned. "We all know how loosely the majority of laymen are apt to use military terms, and how hopelessly they confuse battalions and regiments and companies. Now, the various bishops and preachers, who are our authorities for the martyrdom of S. Maurice and his companions, knew positively that these soldiers belonged to the Theban Legion, and so spoke of them in general terms as " the legion," without pausing to consider whether they represented more than a portion of the whole legion. Mr. Baring-Gould * thinks there is reason to believe that the Theban Legion at this very time was dispersed throughout Gaul and the district of the Rhine, and that " one cohort may have been at Agaunum, not more ; " but in any case we should surely feel that the expression " legion " is not intended to be pressed too closely. Much stress has been laid on the silence of Eusebius as to this event, wnich offers indeed a direct contradiction to his statement concerning the army at this time, namely, that " the great numbers of the believers probably deterred him " (that is, Diocletian) " and caused him to shrink from a general attack." From this it is urged that there can have been no extensive persecution in the army at this period. But Eusebius has just been speaking of the testing or purging of the army that had already been begun, and of the soldiers of Christ, who, "without hesitating, preferred confession of His name to apparent glory and comfort ; " while " a few here and there exchanged these honours not only for degradation but even for death." And then he adds that "when he began to arm more openly it is impossible to tell how many and how eminent were those who presented themselves in every place and city and country as martyrs of Christ." So far Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History ; but in his Chronicle the same writer says that Diocletian ordered the trial of the faith of the soldiers to be made throughout the whole army. It is clear, however, from the passages first quoted, that Eusebius did not claim to be aware of every instance of persecution throughout the army. It must be remembered, too, that what we know to be a noble act of martyrdom would be regarded by many who witnessed it or heard of it purely in the light of a mutiny, which the military authorities were justified in promptly suppressing. * September 22. 158 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xiv. According to one version of the story, Maurice and his companions suffered owing to their refusal to take up arms against their fellow- Christians ; but there is no good evidence in support of the assertion that the BagaudaB, the insurgent Gallic peasantry in question, were Christians. The statement in the " Acts of S. Maurice " that the soldiers were required to join in the heathen sacrifices for the success of the undertaking, supplies us with a sufficient reason for their refusal to obey orders. The general may have supposed that, by making an example of a few, he would break down the opposition of the rest ; and it would appear from the narrative that their unexpected constancy stirred him to fury. Lastly, it is objected that at this period of history it is in the highest degree improbable that there should have been an entire legion consisting of Christians. In the first place it has been shown that the expression " legion " is not to be taken very exactly ; but even in the end of the third century it does not appear an incredible thing that a single company or cohort should be found consisting mainly of Christians ; and less so still when we recollect that this particular legion was recruited principally from the Thebaid in Egypt, a district where Christianity had so firm a hold. Dr. Cazenove * gives an apt illustration of this when he says : " Anglo-Indians tell us that the troops of the Rajah of G-walior used to contain a number of Christians quite disproportionate to the scanty percentage of the converts in Hindostan. ... A similar observation would hold good in the British army as regards the number of Presby- terians or of Roman Catholics in a given regiment. It depends largely on the recruiting ground." To sum up then : — we may admit freely that the story has been grossly exaggerated, and yet need not give up our belief that in the neighbourhood of the little town which to-day bears his name, a Roman officer, together with a band of devoted soldiers, did some sixteen hundred years ago lay down his life for conscience' sake. After the publication of the Bishop of Lyons's book, and still more after the founding of the monastery at Agaunum, the fame of S. Maurice spread rapidly. " The lance of St. Maurice became the ensign of the Burgundian kingdom, the emperor " (of Germany) " at his coronation was invested with the spurs of St. Maurice." f In art S. Maurice has become a favourite subject, and his name is established as a recognized Christian name throughout Western Europe. " S. Maurice and his fellow-martyrs " have a place in the somewhat scanty Kalendar of our English Bede, no less than in the existing Roman Catholic Kalendar. Under the circumstances it is surprising that we do not find more than eight of our English churches dedicated to him ; but these eight are curiously widely distributed — north, south, east, and west — from Northumberland to Hampshire, and from Lincolnshire to Devon. Five of the number are to be found in small country villages ; one is at Winchester, and the remaining two are both of them to be found, * D. C. B., " Legio Thebjea." f Ibid, CHAP. XIV. SOLDIERS A /NTS. 159 appropriately enough, in York, a city which has so many military associa- tions. In no case does there appear to be any local explanation accounting for the choice of the dedication ; and in no case are the companions of S. Maurice associated with their leader, though in the Kalendars they are thus linked together ; but the immense veneration shown for S. Maurice in France at Yienne, Angers, and elsewhere, is a quite sufficient explana- tion of his presence amongst us. That veneration was at its height in the thirteenth century, when S. Louis caused the remains of the saint to be translated from their resting-place in the Rhone valley to the chapel which he had built expressly for their reception in Paris." Probably most of our eight churches in honour of S. Maurice were so named after the date of this translation, but one of the number, at any rate — Ellingham in Northumberland— claims to have been founded by its Norman proprietor at an earlier date, in the twelfth century.j 8. Quintin. See CH. LI. S. Sebastian Are we to re g ar( l it as a sign of our national independence, M. Jan. 20, or are we more reasonably to regard it as a mere chance, cir. 288. fo&t, while S. Sebastian is venerated on the Continent as one of the most illustrious of the martyrs ; while his church in Borne has been for centuries one of the seven great places of pilgrimage, here in England he is — to our lasting loss — almost unrecognized ? Two obscure villages, in Lincolnshire and Norfolk, are the sole proofs that his striking story was known to our forefathers, and this in spite of the fact that city after city in France boasted his relics and claimed his special protection. S. Maurice, on the other hand, whose very name is wanting in the popular Eoman Kalendars of the present day, who has no special office assigned to him in the Missal — he can boast not less than eight English churches as against S. Sebastian's two. We can only repeat that the whole study of English church dedications is full of surprises, and that this is not one of the least among them ; but at the same time we should be very slow to ascribe the curious omission to anything beyond mere accident. Every one knows S. Sebastian as he is represented in a hundred works of art — the young stalwart figure bound to a tree, transfixed with arrows ; but those who know only this one incident in his history have missed much of what gives to the story of this Eoman soldier its special and most individual interest. For it was not only by his death that Sebastian showed himself a " faithful martyr." Long before his trial came he had been quietly witnessing for his heavenly King ; following the daily routine of his profession with all the more zeal because it was his life's purpose to do all to the glory of God ; serving the Emperor with the more loyalty because his religion consecrated obedience to the powers that be ; serving him not only by outward action but by secret prayer ; making it his aim beyond and above all else to lend a helping hand to his weaker brethren in the faith. And indeed such brotherly help was often needed ; for though in these early years of Diocletian's reign there was no organized * Baillet, September 22, f Lewis. l6o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xiv. persecution of the Christians such as was to make his closing years of power for ever memorable, Rome was continually the theatre of some act or other of oppression, aimed not at the whole community, but " at a few obnoxious devotees," * or too often, it may be, prompted solely by some private grudge. The absence of any general persecution at this time has inclined some critics to assign S. Sebastian's martyrdom to the year 303, but the earlier date 288 agrees far better with the details of the story, and is not lightly to be disregarded. And here it may be observed that though we are not fortunate enough to possess the original Acts of S. Sebastian, and though it is evident that those which have come down to us from the fourth century have been only too plainly amplified and dressed up, there is no reason to doubt their general truth. The common representations of S. Sebastian agree in portraying him as a mere youth, but the very earliest of the series, a seventh-century mosaic preserved at Rome, which may not improbably embed a trustworthy tradition, shows him as " a bearded warrior ; " f and such a conception of him is more in harmony with his position of authority both in the army and at court, and with the general deference that appears to have been accorded to him. For some years all went peacefully, and Sebastian went on his quiet useful way unmolested, loved and respected by all men ; in no wise concealing his faith, yet not obtruding it. At Milan, the town where he had been educated, and where he was for a time quartered, he was well known, and moreover the Church in that place was singularly free from external trouble. To Sebastian therefore it was matter for rejoiciug when he found himself in the more troubled arena of the capital. It was not long before he was called upon openly to show his colours. Two brothers had been arrested and tortured on a charge of Christianity, and were even now in prison under sentence of death, but respited for one month in the hope that in the interval they would yield to the entreaties of their wives and parents and the unconscious pleadings of their little children, and recant. Sebastian visited them assiduously, and so renewed their wavering courage that when the time came they firmly and joyfully met their death. More than this : he gathered round him the kinsfolk of the two sufferers, and imparted to them his own spirit of burning devotion, so that they no longer shrank from the sacrifice that was demanded of them. A strange meeting-place it was that these Christians had hit upon in the hour of danger — no other than a chamber in the Imperial palace, belonging to an official of Diocletian's household, who was himself a Christian, and in complete sympathy with Sebastian. Now, even as two hundred years before, there were Christians to be found among " Caesar's household." The then Pope, Caius, watched with glad approbation Sebastian's brave missionary work, and surnamed him, it is said, " the defender of * D. C. B., " Caius " (3). t Mrs. Jameson. CHAP. XIV. SOLDIER-SAINTS. 161 the Church." Sebastian was too marked a man for his doings to pass unnoticed, whether by friend or foe. Some say that his ministrations among the Christians were denounced by a traitor from among their own number; but be this as it may, - Sebastian found himself summoned to give an account of himself to the Emperor. He defended himself by saying, truly enough, that his religion did not make him the less loyal subject; but he added, some words concerning the vanity of the worship of the heathen gods which angered his hearer, who forthwith ordered him, without any form of trial or inquiry, to be led away by a company of archers into an adjacent field and there to be put to death. The order was executed in so far that our saint was left for dead upon the field ; but one of the women to whom he had ministered — whose husband was himself among the martyrs — went in search of his body, and discovered that he was still living. She brought him secretly to her house and nursed him back to health ; and now his friends implored him to save his life by withdrawing into some place of safety. But Sebastian had it deeply at heart to make one more appeal to the Emperor, an appeal which, by setting before him the justice and piety of the Christian belief, might win peace and safety for all his fellow-Christians. With this purpose he placed himself upon the great staircase of the palace by which Diocletian must needs pass on his way to the temple, and as he drew near, advanced and made a last fervent appeal to him on this behalf. To the Emperor it was as though an apparition had suddenly crossed his path. Was not this the very Sebastian whom he had condemned to death, risen from the dead ? In startled silence he listened for a moment, and then amazement gave place to anger, and he commanded that the over-daring officer should be carried to the circus and there beaten to death. The order was carried out, and his body was afterwards thrown into the Cloaca Maxima — an indignity often shown to the bodies of Christians — but from thence it was rescued by a certain noble Christian lady, and was kept in safety till such time as it could receive honourable burial. It is needless to dwell on the widespread posthumous honours paid to this well-beloved saint throughout the Continent, seeing that in this country they waked only the faintest echoes. The two village churches of Great Gonerby in Lincolnshire, and Woodbastwick in Norfolk, are the only pre-Eeformation dedications in this name that have as yet come to light, though it is highly probable that a careful study of ancient wills and deeds might slightly increase the number. At Woodbastwick our soldier is commemorated conjointly with S. Fabian, Bishop of Borne and martyr, whose name is familiar to many of us through the Prayer- book Kalendar. There is no natural connexion between the two saints, and their association at Woodbastwick arises simply from their being commemorated on the same day (January 22), and so having given their joint names to a well-known Boman church.* In Bede's Kalendar and * The Kortian church of " SS. Vincent and Anastasius " (ch. xxvi.) has a similar accidental origin. VOL. I. M l62 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xiv. in our English mediaeval Kalendars both names stood together as they do to this day in the Roman martyrology, but in the sixteenth-century revision of our Anglican Kalendar the name of Sebastian was most unfortunately struck out, while that of the more obscure Fabian was retained. 8. Allan. See CH. XXXVIII. _ , . See ch. Li. The histories associated with both these b. Anastasius. . , , , , , ipii it names are told elsewhere, and our record of the soldier- saints is thus appropriately closed with the stirring story of S. Sebastian. CHAPTER XV. THE MEDICAL SAINTS. PAGE. NAME. DAY. YEAR. CHURCHES. 164 SS. Cosmas and Damian September 27 ... Fourth cent. ... 3 r S. Julian the Hospitaller January 9 ... cir. 310 ... 7 165 \ cf. S. Julian the Bishop. See ch. xxiv. Theee is in the city of Philadelphia a church founded by the widow of a medical man in memory of her husband, and appropriately placed under the invocation of " The Beloved Physician." This American dedication only emphasizes the natural tendency to do honour to those among the saints who have ministered not to the souls alone, but also to the bodies of their fellow-men. " Honour the physician with the honour due unto him," wrote the Son of Sirach long ago, and the number of modern churches bearing the name of S. Luke shows that his precept is not forgotten in our own day. S. Luke undoubtedly stands foremost among the saints of this class, but then it is to be remembered that he is chosen not merely in his capacity as the " beloved physician," but primarily as an " Evangelist and Physician of the soul ; " and, apart from this, he stands before us in many different aspects, as the missionary, the scholar, the man of letters, and — if we may trust a long-standing tradition — as the artist also. But something has already been said on this subject in speaking of the Evangelists (ch. viii.), and therefore we will here omit all consideration ■of the numerous dedications to S. Luke, and pass on to the other representatives of the healing art, the twin brothers, Cosmas and Damian, and Julian, known as " the Hospitaller," all three of them saints early known and reverenced in the Christian Church. In the legends and pictures of the Middle Ages they occupy a large space ; in the biographical dictionaries, on the other hand, a few lines will comprise all that can be certainly told of them ; but, nevertheless, they are important, because they became the types of a beneficent order of saints, whose special gift was most needful in drawing suffering men to Him Who is indeed the Good Physician. 164 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xv. ao ^ In studying the legends of these saints we immediately SS. Cosmas „ , , „ -,.,-, i n .1 • * andDamian. find ourselves confronted with no less than three pairs ol Sept. 27. twins, all bearing the same names, and all following the ourt cent. game pro f ess i OI1# T^jg j s confusing, but not very surprising ; for the appropriate naming of twins appears to be a matter of such difficulty that the same names have a strong tendency to repeat themselves again and again ; * nor is there anything inherently improbable in the second pair of twins having been moved to adopt the same calling as their distinguished namesakes. As to the third pair, "if they ever existed, they were not martyrs at all, but only doctors and veterinaries of a much later date." t With this pair, and the ridiculous stories that have grown up around their names, we have fortunately nothing to do ; neither have we in England much to do with the first pair, though in the Eastern Church they are highly venerated. Our particular SS. Cosmas and Damian, then, are the middle pair ; supposed to have flourished early in the fourth century, some twenty or thirty years later than their namesakes. According to their legend they were Arabs by birth, but the scene of all their miracles, and finally of their martyrdom, is S. Paul's province of Cilicia. They gave themselves to the study of medicine purely that they might be the better able to relieve the suffering poor around them.. Though poor themselves, and forced to practise the most rigid self-denial, they refused all payment for their services, and thus they became known as the " silverless " doctors. It was specially noted of them that their merciful skill was freely bestowed upon the dumb animals no less than upon their fellow-men. They are supposed to have been martyred under Diocletian, with all the usual circumstances of horror. Their fame quickly increased, and in the fifth century we know of at least three churches in their honour, one of which was erected by the Emperor Justinian as a thank-offering for recovery from illness through the supposed medium of their intercessions. In later days grotesque stories were told of blunders committed by the brothers— such as the affixing the leg of a dead Moor to the body of a Eoman whose limb they had themselves amputated ; J but no ridiculous stories could shake the hold that they had obtained over the popular imagination, and for centuries they kept their place as the chief patrons of the medical art. The true value of their legend has survived not merely the gross absurdities with which it has been overlaid, but also the more modern objection sometimes raised, that the brothers never had any real existence at all, but were merely a Christianized substitute for iEsculapius. A writer on this perplexing subject sums up as follows all that can really be said to be known about these saints : " Brothers, physicians, ' silverless ' martyrs ; they afforded much to feed the heart of * Of. p. 167, the twin brothers at t D- 0. B. Southampton, named after the Milanese % Mrs. Jameson, twins, Gervase and Protasius. CHAP. XV. THE MEDICAL SAINTS. 165 Christendom," for " they became types of a class, the ' silverless ' martyrs, i.e. physicians who took no fees, but went about curing people gratis, and claiming as their reward that those whom they benefited should believe in Christ." * Various foreign towns were the fortunate possessors of relics of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and it is doubtless through the channel of some Norman proprietor that three of our churches in the south of England came to be placed under the invocation of these twin brothers. Two of the churches are in the ancient kingdom of Kent, at Blean and Challock respectively, and the third is not very far distant, at Keymer in Sussex. S Julian the ^ ur remamm S saint in this class appears at first sight Hospitaller, to be of more widespread popularity than the Cilician J . an - ?> brothers : but then there is great doubt how far he is the cir olO lawful owner of all the churches that bear his name, and in the case of churches dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damian no such doubt can arise. He resembles ,them in two points — first, the solid facts concerning him are scanty in the extreme ; secondly, for fifteen centuries he has held a place of his own as a type of the Christian philanthropist. There are two versions of his story agreeing in the main with one another, but differing in this respect, that whereas the one represents all his acts of tender charity as the outcome of bitter penitence for having unwittingly slain his own father and mother, the other represents him as devoting his life from its spotless opening to its- heroic close to the service of God and man. The first horrible story may be read in Mrs. Jameson ; the second is given in Baring-Gould, \ where the date and authority of the Acts of this martyr are fully discussed. S. Julian, according to the legend, was by birth an Egyptian of wealth and position. At an early age, when he had scarcely passed out of boyhood, he was united in marriage with a maiden named Basilissa, his friend and companion from childhood, and one whose nature was as pure and as open to all good influences as his own. On their marriage night, when the young husband and wife were alone in their chamber, disclosing to one another their common desire to con- secrate their lives and service to God and man, they beheld a vision of surpassing sweetness. The room was flooded with fragrance and with heavenly light, and they beheld the Lord Jesus standing beside them, and speaking to them in words of tenderest benediction. And then appeared four angels bearing a book written with letters of gold, which was the Book of Life, and they bade Julian look upon the open page, and when he looked he saw thereupon the names of himself and of his wife Basilissa. From henceforth the daily life of Julian and Basilissa in its sanctified love, its noble self-forgetfulness, its ungrudging devotion to the needs of others, seemed to realize the ideal of the poet Keble, who * Kev. G. B. Birks in D. 0. B. t January 9. 1 66 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xv. in the " Christian Year " has described to us the blessedness of such love as that of Julian and his young wife — " Such if on high their thoughts are set, Nor in the stream the source forget, If prompt to quit the bliss tbey know, Following the Lamb where'er He go, By purest pleasures unbeguil'd To idolize or wife or child; Such wedded souls our God shall own For faultless virgins round His throne." When he came into possession of his father's property Julian made his own house into a hospital, and there he and Basilissa ministered with their own hands to the sick poor, even to the lepers. His surname of " the Hospitaller " has reference not only to his care of the sick, but also to the shelter which he extended to all needy wayfarers, making his house into a veritable hospitium, or hostelry. S. Julian's proper emblem is not the medical appliances of the " silverless " physicians, but an oar, in reference to the commonly received legend that his dwelling was on the banks of a great river,, and that one of his most frequent acts of mercy was to ferry strangers across the dangerous waters " without fee or reward." After many happy years together Basilissa died, and her husband was left to carry on alone the works that had been the delight of both. In the Diocletian persecution he was denounced as a Christian, and, after a brief term of imprisonment, was cruelly put to death in some Egyptian town of uncertain identity. His story under various forms quickly obtained popularity. There is extant a homily of S. Chrysostom (cir. 387) on "S. Julian the Martyr," which is supposed to refer to the Hospitaller, but is likewise claimed for another Egyptian saint of the same name. A more indisputable honour was a church at Constantinople (existing in the fourth century), dedicated to the joint memories of SS. Julian and Basilissa. It is much to be regretted that though the name of Julian has been bestowed on some half-dozen English churches, it is in no single instance found associated with that of his wife, and therefore we are left in considerable doubt as to whether some of the number ought not more properly to be attributed to another S. Julian, a French bishop of some note (ch. xxiv.). The number of saints— episcopal and otherwise— dis- tinguished by the name of Julian, tends yet further to increase the confusion ; but it is probable that most of our English dedications are intended either for the Bishop of Le Mans or for the Hospitaller. The late Precentor Yenables was inclined to assign the Lincolnshire dedication of Benniworth to the Bishop of Le Mans, while Dr. Cox, the editor of the " Lichfield Year-Book," claims for the Hospitaller S. Julian's church in Shrewsbury ; but there is abundant evidence to prove that the true patron of the Shrewsbury church is a feminine saint, S. Juliana (ch. ll). CHAP. XV. THE MEDICAL SAINTS. 167 At Wellow in Somerset, where the same doubt as to the true patron prevailed, the parish observes its annual feast on October 17, and at first sight it appears that some clue ought to be furnished bj this date ; but unhappily there is no S. Julian of any importance commemorated on this day ; and it may very possibly be that here, as in many other places, in the time of Henry VIII. the date of the feast was changed to October according to that king's decree. The Vicar of Wellow (Rev. Le G-endre Horton) having vainly sought for trustworthy information on the point, decided it in favour of the Hospitaller by putting up in the church a stained-glass window, representing the saint as a ferryman with his customary emblem of an oar. A sculptured figure of the same saint has likewise been placed in a niche over the principal doorway. But at Southampton there is an ancient church of S. Julian's which is unmistakably under the patronage of the old philanthropist. This church, which is given up to the use of the French residents in the town, and which therefore retains its old French form of " S. Julien," had its origin in the reign of Henry III. At that time there lived in South- ampton two merchants. They were brothers, and most likely twins, for they bore the names of the sainted twins of Milan, Gervase and Protasius. These brothers, after the example of S. Julian, turned the very house in which they dwelt into "a hospital for poor people, and endowed it with some lands, to which several benefactions were afterwards added." * The chapel they naturally dedicated to S. Julian, "for which reason it is often called the hospital of S. Julian in Southampton, but generally God's House." t Edward III. gave the mastership of the hospital into the hands of Queen's College, Oxford, which continued to hold it until comparatively recently ; but for at least two centuries after its founda- tion the hospital and chapel of S. Julian remained an object of royal bounty. Possibly in time to come some forgotten parish record may bring to light the name of the devoted wife Basilissa as associated with that of S. Julian, in some one of our English churches, and then our roll of saints will be enriched by the rare and welcome addition of a sainted husband and wife who together " laboured much in the Lord." * " Eng. Illus." f Ibid. CHAPTER XVI. CHILD-SAINTS. 169 The Holy Innocents ... December 28 ... ... 15 See also del. 169 S. Agnes. See ch. xi. 169 ( S. Pancras of Kome ... May 12 303 ... 7 \ cf. S. Pancras of Taormina. ch. xxv. 170 S. Cyriac, Cyril, or Cyr ... June 16 303 ... 6 See also del. 172 S. Ruinbald, or Kumbold ... November 3 ... Eighth cent. ... 7 174 S. Kenelm July 17 819 ... 9 175 S. Wyston, or Winston ... June 1 849 ... 3 Dean Co-let, the friend of Erasmus and More, in his preface to the easy Latin G-ramrnar which he drew up for the use of S. Paul's School (that school which he himself dedicated to the Child Jesus), thus addresses himself to his little scholars : " Wherefore I pray you little babes and all little children, learn gladly this little treatise. . . . And lift up your little white hands for me which pray for you to God, to Whom be the honour and imperial majesty and glory. Amen." * The same feeling which prompted Colet — which in our own time prompted General Gordon — so to value the prayers of little innocent children here upon earth, no doubt led in earlier ages to the dedication of churches in honour of the spotless child-saints whose intercessions would be specially blessed. We have in England between fifty and sixty dedications to child-saints ; more than thirty of which are ancient. The terms " saint " and " martyr " have been very loosely used in connexion with those children whose violent and untimely deaths have called forth feelings of reverent pity. Our little Anglo-Saxon kings, for example, S. Kenelm and S. Wyston, have no claim but this to the honours of martyrdom. The Holy Innocents, on the other hand, according to an often-quoted definition, " suffered in deed but not in will," | and are rightly accounted martyrs, since they died in Christ's cause, though not consciously for His sake. Midway between the babes of Bethlehem and the Saxon princes, stand three children, all of them most truly martyrs, in will as in deed, S. Agnes, S. Pancras, and S. Cyriac. * Seebohm's " Oxford Reformers." f Wheatley. CHAP. XVI. CHILD-SAINTS. 169 The Holy Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent, each gives us a church Innocents. in honour of the Holy Innocents — at Foulsham, Barton, Dec. 28. Lamarsh, and Adisham respectively. There are also eight modern dedications in this name. Of late years there has been a revival of the observance of the Holy Innocents' Day. The half mourning character which used to mark it in old times has been completely laid aside, and it is increasingly coming to be regarded as the special festival of children. Perhaps Dean Stanley's happy institution of the yearly Innocents' Day sermon to children in Westminster Abbey has not been without influence on the growing observance of this feast. g A nes The three saints next in order of time were all of them " ^ ~" victims of the terrible Diocletian persecution (a.d. 303-304). The most famous of the three, S. Agnes, though but a child in years, is always ranked among the Virgin Saints, and her history has therefore been given elsewhere (ch. xi.). S. Pancras of ^- ? ancras belonged to a family of wealth and position, Rome. ^ and was Eoman by his upbringing, though not by birth. His May 12, 303. p aren fc s were heathen, and lived and died in ignorance, as it seems, of the new faith that was overspreading the world. The father, who died last, "before his death entrusted Pancras" — we quote Mr. Baring- Gould * — " to his brother Dionysius, adjuring him by all the gods to take care of the child. Dionysius moved with his nephew to Eome and took a house on the Cselian Hill. There they became acquainted with the bishop of Eome, who baptized them. A few days after his baptism, Dionysius died. The persecution of Diocletian was then raging. Pancras, then aged fourteen, was denounced, and was executed with the sword, and buried on the Aurelian Way by a pious woman named Octavilla." It may be observed in passing that in after-times " by the bones of S. Pancras " came to be regarded as a peculiarly binding form of oath, and a strong security against perjury.t S. Pancras has a special interest for Englishmen, because the first -church consecrated by Augustine in England was dedicated in his name. The building, which was originally a Saxon temple standing without the city of Canterbury, was made over by King Ethelbert to the Eoman missionaries, and Augustine accepted the gift ; acting at once upon the principle afterwards laid down by S. Gregory : " that the temples of the idols ought not to be destroyed, but converted to the service of the true God." Dean Stanley suggests two reasons why S. Pancras should have been made choice of. " First," says he, " St. Pancras being regarded as the patron saint of children, would naturally be chosen as the patron saint of the first-fruits of the nation which was converted out of regard to the three English children in the market-place." % This is a pretty fancy, and to us in the nineteenth century it seems a very sufficient explanation (has * May 12. that he will help him to the throne of t Cf. Tennyson's "Harold," where England. William makes Harold swear a solemn % "Canterbury." oath upon " the jewel of S. Pancratius" i;o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xvi. not a church in London quite recently formed a boys' guild, and given to it the name of the boy-martyr, S. Pancras ?). We would gladly accept it as the true reason ; and yet it supposes a touch of poetry which is very little in keeping with the character of the unimaginative Augustine, even if we are to suppose that the scene witnessed by Gregory in the slave- market ten years before had made as deep an impression on Augustine as it has on ourselves. Augustine's great master Gregory might well have been capable of so graceful and tender an association, but Augustine himself hardly. And moreover Dean Stanley's second reason is one which is sufficient in itself, and far more in accordance with Augustine's known practice of reproducing in this far-away land the familiar names to which his ears had been accustomed in Eome. " Secondly," continues the Dean, "the monastery of St. Andrew on the Caslian Hill, which Gregory had founded, and from which Augustine came, was built on the very property which had belonged to the family of St. Pancras, and therefore the name of St. Pancras was often in Gregory's mouth [one of his sermons was preached on St. Pancras' Day] and would thus naturally occur to Augustine also." * There is no church of S. Pancras in Canterbury at the present day — only a few ruins of uncertain genuineness ; but the name has taken firm root in England, and can never now lose its hold. We have fifteen existing churches of S. Pancras, but seven of them (that is, all the W est- country group), in the opinion of experts, belong, not to the boy-martyr, but to a certain bishop of the same name (ch. xxv.). The remaining eight are all, with a single exception, to be found in the south-eastern counties : one in Kent (Ooldred), three in Sussex (Arlington, Chichester, and Kingston-by-Lewes), and three in London. Of the London churches, one is in the City, and the two others are both of them in the parish of the same name, made now so familiar to thousands of people by the great railway station which stands within its bounds. "Old S. Pancras " still has its separate existence as a distinct church, but all parochial rights have been transferred from it to the church of " New S. Pancras," consecrated in 1822. The eighth dedication, at Wroot in Lincolnshire, has been most satis- factorily accounted for by the late Precentor Venables.j He refers to the letter of Pope Vitalian to Oswy, King of Northumbria (a.d. 665), given in Bede, in which Yitalian announces his " blessed " gifts, entrusted to " the bearers of these our letters," of relics of the apostles and martyrs, among whom " Pancratius " is specifically mentioned. Precentor Yenables points out that the island of Axholme, in which Wroot is situated, formed at that time part of the kingdom of Oswy, and suggests that the church may have been built by him in order to receive the sacred relics. S. Cyriac, ^ ne ^ ast °f the foreign child-martyrs is S. Cyriac, more Cyril, or Cyr. familiar to us under the French form of the name, " S. Cyr." June 16, 303. A ccorc y n g ^ 0 the best authenticated version of the story, * " Canterbury." f Arch. Journal, vol. 38. CHAP. XVI. CHILD-SAINTS. 171 Cyriac was the child of a widow lady, Julitta by name, who lived at Iconium. When the Diocletian persecution broke out the . mother and child fled to Tarsus, but there too the malice of their enemies found them out, and " S. Juliot "—as she is designated in Cornwall (ch. xiii.)— was arrested and brought before the heathen governor, one Alexander. The little boy came running by his mother's side. It does not make the story of the three-year-old martyr the less pathetic that throughout he seems to have had no thought beyond that of clinging closely to his mother and imitating whatever she might say or do. Juliot was questioned as to her name and country, but like our S. Alban, and no doubt from the same fear of implicating others, she made answer only, "lama Christian." Then the governor ordered her to be placed on the rack, " and, to keep the child quiet, he took him on his knee, and began to fondle him." * But the little fellow was bent on getting to his mother ; he struggled hard to set himself free, and struck the governor, crying out in the words he had just heard from his mother, "lama Christian too." Stung by the child's resistance, the governor threw him from him ; his head came against the marble steps of the throne and he was killed on the spot. The mother saw, and thanked God that her babe had been found worthy to die for His sake. Such a thanksgiving filled up the measure of Alexander's wrath, and he ordered that she should be beheaded. The west of England has some eight or ten churches dedicated to S. Cyriac and his mother, either separately or conjointly. How comes it that the baby-martyr of Tarsus should be commemorated in Devon and Corn- wall ? The very names were unfamiliar to English lips, as is shown by the various forms into which they passed—" SS. Quiricus and Julietta" at Tickenham in Somerset ; " SS. Cyricus and Julietta " at Luxulyan in Cornwall ; " S. Cyril " or " S. Cyr " at Stinchcombe and Stonehouse in Gloucestershire ; " S. Cyres " at Newton-St. Cyres, the little Devonshire village from which Lord Iddesleigh takes his second title ; and " S. Cyriac " at Laycock in Wiltshire, at South Pool in Devon, and at S waff ham Priors in the county of Cambridge. The probability is that the dedication came into England in the Norman times through French religious houses. Auxerre was a famous centre for the relics of S. Cyriac and S. Julitta, which were thence dispersed throughout France. Five at least out of the nine churches to S. Cyriac were connected with some religious foundation, Benedictine or otherwise ; and we shall probably not be wrong in suppos- ing that in every case the dedication has been introduced through a foreign channel. It must also have been popular in the Armorican or Breton Church, for we find " Julitta and Cyricus " in all the three Celtic Churches of Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland.f It is probable that in more cases than one the new and popular name was given to supersede that of some for- gotten native saint. This is undoubtedly the case in the parish of St. Veep — renamed in 1336,— and may possibly be the case at Luxulyan also.f * Baring-Gould, June 16. t See Borlase, Bees, and Forbes. \ Borlase. 172 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xvi. It has lived on unchanged, but has never become thoroughly naturalized among us. The honour due to the doubly brave mother has been almost lost sight •of in the honour paid to her little loving child. From six of the dedica- tions her name, if it was ever there, has disappeared ; and where mother and child are commemorated together his name stands first. We come now to our English-born child-saints : S. Eum- Eumbold^or ^ald, wnose extravagant legend was so extraordinarily popular Kunwald. in Saxon England ; and S. Kenelm and S. "Wyston, whose Eighth cent P^hetic stories are the counterpart one of another. The difficulties connected with the story of S. Eumbald are so great that those who have experienced them feel ready to forestall all outside criticism by appealing to the reader in the words of old Thomas Fuller, spoken regarding this same perplexing matter : " Reader, I request thee to take this on my credit for thy own ease, and not to buy the truth of so difficult a trifle with the trouble I paid for it." And furthermore, all who take in hand to write the history of this most fabulous prince may gladly avail themselves of Fuller's prefatory observation : " I writ neither what I believe, nor what I expect should be believed, bub what I find written by others." * The legend of S. Rumbald, such as it has been preserved for us in the collections of Friar Capgrave, shall first be briefly told in its original grotesqueness, and we may then note how extraordinarily widespread was its popularity throughout the length and breadth of England. According to the legend f this infant marvel was the son of a nameless king of Northumberland by a Christian daughter of Penda, the famous heathen King of Mercia. The supposed genealogy is important as linking him with the North of England as well as with the Midlands. His birthplace was King's-Sutton in Buckinghamshire. No sooner was he born than he found voice to declare three times, "I am a Christian." He then desired to be baptized, and with truly royal decision made choice both of his sponsors and of his own name. Unhappily, however, he omitted to give any directions as to the spelling of the said name, and hence it is to be found in some half-dozen different forms. He pointed with his infant finger to a great hollow stone, almost beyond the strength of man to lift, which should serve him as font, and being duly baptized he delivered himself of a sermon. Exhausted by all these efforts he died at the end of three days, but not before he had taken thought for the disposition of his body, bequeathing it for one year to his birthplace Sutton (thenceforth distinguished as King's-Sutton), then for two years to Brackley in Northamptonshire, and finally to 'the town of Buckingham for ever. Curiously enough, no one of the three places specified in the legend has retained any special commemoration of S. Rumbald, and neither of the * Fuller's " Worthies " ; Buckingham- f Morant's " t Essex " and elsewhere, shire. CHAP. XVI. CHILD-SAINTS. 175 three churches bears his name. King's- Sutton and Brackley are both of them dedicated to S. Peter ; and Buckingham, which once boasted itself the fortunate keeper of his coffin, is dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, and has lost all memory of its once highly venerated child-patron. There are two traces of him, however, still in his native county : the one a mineral spring at Astrope, near to his birthplace King's- Sutton, which still goes by the name of " S. Eumbold's Well," and the other a church bearing his name at Stoke Doyle in the eastern part of Northamptonshire, some considerable distance from the scene of the legend. But the fame of S. Eumbald was by no means confined to his own district. In the city of Lincoln we find records of a church of " S. Eumbold," now demolished. Precentor Venables is inclined to ascribe this dedication to a certain celebrated Bishop of Mechlin, afterwards Arch- bishop of Dublin, a saint almost as mythical in his way as the baby-king ; but the popularity of the latter was so immense that there seems reasonable ground for believing him to be the intended patron. Travelling southwards, we come -to the existing church of " S. Eun- wald's " in Colchester, which is allowed on all sides to belong to little King Eumbald of Mercia. The neighbouring county of Kent has but a single church in his honour — that of Bonnington, where he appears as " S. Eumwald " — but nowhere was he at one time more venerated than in the Kentish church of Boxley. Here there was a small figure of S. Eun- wald, " which only those could lift who had never sinned in thought or in deed,"* and which was therefore regarded with feelings of the deepest awe. At Folkestone, too, S. Eumbald was a familiar name, and here he appears in the new character of patron of fishermen. Camden, writing in Queen Elizabeth's time, could still speak of his feast being annually observed at this place " in December." The date is somewhat perplexing, for S. Eumbald's Day is usually given as November 3, or, according to the Eoman Kalendar, as November 2. Passing on into Sussex we come upon another of his disputed dedi- cations — that of Eumboldswyke. Certainly the name suggests S. Eumbold as the natural proprietor, and the church claims to be so dedicated ; but a Sussex antiquarian writing on the subject observes : " I think this ascription rests only on an assumption founded on the name of the parish. Eumbold is much likelier to have been the Saxon proprietor than the patron saint." f This tendency to evolve the saint's name from the name of the parish is so common that we do well to be on our guard against it ; but in a district Avhere the particular saint in question is known to have been largely honoured, his presence in any given parish does not seem to require much explanation. More explanation might reasonably be asked as to his presence in so remote a corner of England as Dorsetshire, where he is represented by two churches not very far apart — the one at Cann y the other at Pentridge. At first sight it is startling to find the Mercian * Thiselton Dyer's " Church Lore f Lower. Gleanings." 174 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xvi. king so far from his own dominions, but it is only one illustration of what we shall have frequently to observe hereafter, of the way in which Mercian influences, and consequently Mercian dedications, extended themselves into Wessex. Let us assume, then, that the six existing churches already enumerated all agree in claiming the infant prodigy as their patron, there still remains one more dedication to be considered. In the North Riding of York- shire, near Darlington, stands the church of Romaldkirk, supposed to be dedicated to " S. Romald." The question arises, Who is this S. Romald ? Various conjectures have been hazarded, but none of them are wholly satisfactory. Was he S. Rumold, the Bishop of Mechlin before men- tioned ; or S. Romuald, the eleventh-century abbot, founder of one of the mediaeval religious orders ? Their names agree better with the form now in use, 4i S. Romald ; " but there is little else to support their claims, and it is only comparatively recently that the name has been stereotyped into one fixed orthography. "In the old registers," writes the Rector of Romaldkirk* " the name is frequently spelt Rumbald or Rumbold." " S. Rumbald " at once carries back our thoughts to the baby-king, and then we recall that he was a reputed son of a Northumbrian king, so that Northumbria had a right to a reflection of his glory. Unfortunately there is no help to be gained from the date of any village feast, " for," writes the Rector, " I cannot find out that our dalesmen ever indulged themselves with keeping one. I think it far more likely," he continues, " that a Northumbrian, as S. Rumwald is said to have been, should have attracted attention in this part of the world, than that the devotion should have been bestowed either upon an Irishman, afterwards a foreign bishop, as S. Rumold, or an Italian as S. Romuald." On the whole, therefore, we are inclined to add Romaldkirk to the other churches of S. Rumbald, thus bringing them up to a total of seven, in very nearly as many different counties. S. Kenelm, though not so manifestly mythical as S. Juf^r7 1] 8l9 ^ um ^ a ^5 i s y efc a vei 7 shadowy figure, and in the fuller versions of his story there is much that is plainly untrue, or, more properly speaking, mere poetical growths, filling up the bare outline of fact. According to the simplest accounts of the old chroniclers, Kenelm was the son of one Kenulf, King of Mercia, who succeeded to his father about the year 819. " But through the envy of his sister Quenred, he was cruelly murdered at Clent in Staffordshire, on the 17th of July. The said Quenred bribed the governor of his person, who, upon a day, under colour to have the king out in hunting, led him into a thick wood, and there cut off his head from his body." \ In later versions the story is amplified ; we have the sister who loved him in contrast to the sister who envied him ; the miracle of Aaron's rod was worked by the little king as he stood in the wood expecting his death ; * t> o ^ -r. i t The old chronicles, quoted in * Rev. S. G. Beal. Ormerod. CHAP. XVI. CHILD-SAINTS. 175 and when even this sign of heaven-sent favour did not move his wicked guardian, he " began to sing the £ Te Deum,' and when he came to the verse, * Thee, the white-robed army of martyrs praise,' the assassin smote off his head ; and then he buried him in the thicket." * A white dove carried the news of his murder to S. Peter's at Eome, and a pillar of light shining in the thicket showed the place where he lay hidden.f Over this spot, which is close to where Halesowen now stands, a chapel was built and dedicated in honour of the little king. The parish church at Halesowen is S. John the Baptist, and the old " S. Kenelm's chapel " is no longer in existence, but the tradition was never lost : and now, a thousand years later, the name has been revived by a S. Kenelm's church at Eomsley, formerly a part of the parish of Halesowen, but in 1863 made into a distinct parish. There are several other dedications to S. Kenelm ; Little Hinton in Dorset ; Sapperton and Alderley in Gloucestershire, and Upton-Snodsbury in Worcestershire, indifferently given as " S„ Kenelm " or "S. Yenolme," the corruption of spelling bearing evidence to the antiquity of the dedication. In Monmouthshire we have Rockfield, and in Oxfordshire Minster-Lovell and Enstone, eight in all. S. Kenelm's Day, July 17, became a saint's-day of mark, and in the chronicles of S. Werburgh's Abbey it is expressly noted that Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., entered Chester upon S. Kenelm's Day, 1256, and in his capacity of Earl of Chester, received the homage of the Welsh and Cheshire nobles. % S. Wyston, 'or S - Wy ston > or Winston, or Wistan — we have the name in Winston. all three forms — also belongs to Mercia. Like Kenelm, he June l, 849. wag ^ ut a w hen he succeeded to the throne (cir. 843), and like the little Kenelm he was felt to stand in the way of more powerful claimants. At the instigation of his great-uncle the boy was treacherously put to death. A courtier, or attendant, came to him and asked for a kiss, and " whilst the child was kissing him, he struck him on the head with the haft of his dagger, and a follower ran him through with his sword." § The murder was committed in Leicestershire at a place afterwards known from the event as Wistow. As in the story of S. Kenelm, the spot was made known by a column of light standing over it, and the body was removed to Repton for burial. At both places the church dedications still preserve the memory of the child-king. At Wistow we find him as S. Wistan ; at Repton as S. Wystan. A second Derbyshire dedication to S. Wyston at Bretby is accounted for by the fact that Bretby was originally a chapelry under Repton. It is curious to note the differing degrees of influence of the child- saints upon our baptismal names. Wyston is unheard of ; Kenelm, on the other hand — though not common and principally identified with one family — is yet a recognized English Christian name. Juliot or Juliet has come to us through other channels ; so perhaps has Cyril. Cyriac * Baring-Gould. % Ormerod. t Ibid. § Baring-Gould, June 1. 176 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xvi. has fallen into complete disuse, though Milton's sonnets to " Cyriac Skinner " show that it was once not unknown among us. Pancras has never taken any hold in England ; but Agnes, the girl-martyr, has given us one of the most popular of our national names ; one which has taken deep root in Great Britain, naturalizing itself in Scotland as " Innes," in Wales as " Nesta," or " Nest." CHAPTER XVII. THE LEGEND OF S. CHRISTOPHER. S.Christopher ... July 25 ... Supposed third cent. ... 7 See also dd. a m. • x i There are few stories of the saints that we should more S.Christopher. .... . . . 1 1 . n . July 25. unwillingly lose than the beautiful and suggestive allegory Supposed. 0 f g # Christopher. We deliberately speak of it as an allegory, because it has been generally allowed, even from very ancient clays, that, though it may rest upon a certain basis of historic fact, the greater part of the narrative consists of pure inventions that have lent themselves admirably to allegorical treatment. In the Decian persecution (a.d. 250) one of the victims was a martyr of the name of Christopher, said to have been baptized by Babylas, Bishop of Antioch (a genuine historic figure), and a brief account of his sufferings is to be found in a celebrated ninth-century martyrology.* So far, perhaps, we have the real Christopher ; but all the remaining stories that have grown up round about him are of a fanciful nature, wholly different from the sober statement of the martyrology. These stories are of all kinds, from the wildly fantastic, the horrible, the grotesque inventions of the earliest forms, to the poetical and spiritual conceptions with which we are now familiar. In tracing the growth of the legend of S. Chris- topher we see how it was gradually raised, purified, transformed. If we first consider the story in its modem form, and then turn back for a few moments to its origin, we shall see how great have been our gains. Over and over again has this story been told, but never, perhaps, more simply and beautifully than by the late Dean Stanley, when he made it the text of his Innocents' Day Address to the hundreds of children assembled in Westminster Abbey. The following is the Dean's version of the legend : " There is an old story, a kind of Sunday fairy tale, which you may sometimes have seen represented in pictures and statues in ancient churches (there are two sculptures of it in King Henry VII. 's chapel in this church), of a great heathen giant who wished to find out some master that he should think worthy of his service — someone * Usuardus, July 25. VOL. I. N 178 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap, xvil stronger than himself. He went about the world, but could find no one stronger. And besides this, he was anxious to pray to God, but did not know how to do it. At last he met with a good old man by the side of a deep river, where poor wayfaring people wanted to get across, and had no one to help them. And the good old man said to the giant, 4 Here is a place where you can be of some use ; and if you do not know how to pray, you will, at any rate, know how to work, and perhaps God will give you what you ask, and perhaps also you will at last find a master stronger than you.' So the giant went and sat by the river-side, and many a time he carried poor wayfarers across. One night he heard a little child crying to be carried over ; so he put the child on his shoulder and strode across the stream. Presently the wind blew, the rain fell, and as the river beat against his knees he felt the weight of the little child almost greater than he could bear, and he looked up with his great, patient eyes (there is a beautiful picture in a beautiful palace at Venice, where we see him with his face turned upwards as he tries to steady himself in the raging waters), and he saw that it was a child glorious and shining ; and the child said, * Thou art labouring under this heavy burden because thou art carrying One who bears the sins of all the world.' And then, as the story goes on, the giant felt that it was the child Jesus, and when he reached the other side of the river he fell down before Him. Now he had found someone stronger than he was, someone so good, so worthy of loving, as to be a master whom he could serve. In later days the thought of the giant Christopher (the ' bearer of the child Christ ') was so dear to men, that his picture was often painted large on the churches, so that those who saw it far off should have a pleasant and holy remembrance through the day which would save them from running into evil."* "We are so accustomed nowadays to look upon S. Christopher as the type of bodily strength sanctified to the highest ends, that it is a shock to our feelings to go back to the early versions of the Acts, in which the giant strength of Christopher is displayed in a succession of more or less grotesque feats, whereby he not only delivers himself from the torments prepared for him, but brings ridicule and shame upon his captors. It must be owned that these fabulous Acts are not edifying- reading, and they may be dismissed with the observation that the name of Dagon f given to the tyrant king is one among various indications that the compilers borrowed names as well as incidents from the Old Testament writings when it so suited their purpose. But while the Latin Church saw in stories like these nothing derogatory to the honour of their saint, they protested indignantly against the form of the legend current in the Greek Church, in which S. Christopher is represented as belonging to the race of cynocepJiali, or dog-headed men, and having been raised to true manhood only after his baptism. So seriously was this belief held in the Eastern Church, that it finds * " The Beatitudes," sermon xi. t Elsewhere called Dagnus. chap. xvii. THE LEGEND OF S. CHRISTOPHER. 179 expression even in the words of one of the appointed services for his day, in which "Christopher of the golden-name, the soldier of Christ," is solemnly commemorated in these strange terms : " With the head of a dog, noble in faith, fervent in prayer." * This Greek belief in the double nature of S. Christopher explains a paragraph in Mrs. Jameson's " Sacred and Legendary Art," in which she says : " M. Didron tells us, that in the Greek churches he found St. Christopher often represented with the head of a dog or wolf, like an Egyptian divinity ; he adds, that he had never been able to' obtain a satisfactory explanation of this peculiarity. These figures, which are ancient, have in some instances been blurred over and half effaced by the scruples of modern piety." And yet, notwithstanding this, the Greek Church in some respects went beyond the Latin in its reverence for S. Christopher, for it com- memorated him in conjunction with no less illustrious a person than the Prophet Isaiah, because it regards them both alike as in some sort " God- bearers," and this brings us to the consideration of the saint's various names, none of them without their influence upon the legend. First of all there is Christopher itself, the name of the actual martyr, which may with good ground be looked upon as the key-note of the whole after story. Like so many of the beautiful Greek compounds, Christopher, that is to say, the " Christ-bearer," was a name full of significance, " and probably became a baptismal name very early." It is tolerably certain that the legend of the strong man carrying the Christ- child is to be looked upon as an allegory gradually evolved out of the meaning of the name. This tendency to play upon names is shown still more clearly in the more complete versions of the story, where the giant, before his conversion, appears simply as Offero, " the bearer," or sometimes as Reprobus, " the worthless one," only rising at the climax of the story into the full dignity of " the Christ-bearer." The story, such as we now have it, of the strong man seeking a master, one stronger than himself ; binding himself first to the service of the Evil One, and then deserting him because he perceived that at the sight of the cross his master himself quailed ; then passing into the service of the Crucified, content to do the lowliest offices, and to serve Him by labour if not by prayers ; the crossing of the river, and the revelation of the Heavenly Child — all this part of the story was first made popular in the end of the thirteenth century, when it appeared in the famous collection of doings of the saints, known as " The Golden Legend." The compiler states that he had found in certain Acts these additional par- ticulars, which he gives as a preliminary to the already familiar narrative of Dagon the tormentor, and the amazing constancy of the martyr Christopher. Ecclesiastical authority seems to have looked with suspicion upon the beautiful emendation, for even three hundred years after this it is wanting from one of the best known of the collections of Lives of the Saints. * D. 0. B. here and throughout, when not otherwise specified. l8o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xvn. But what authority might see fit to ignore, appealed instantly and powerfully to the poetic feeling of all Christendom. Artists seized at once upon the subject, and treated it in countless ways ; while preachers and moralists found in it a text full of suggestiveness. Gradually the earlier legend, with all its many blots, faded away out of recollection, and in its place the idealized strong man, the protector of the weak and helpless, stood forth and became dear to the popular imagination of Englishmen. His image was familiarized in many different ways, by paintings and sculptures of colossal size, by little medals * intended to serve as amulets, by the wide diffusion of rough wood-cuts representing the giant, staff in hand, bearing the Heavenly Child across the torrent. One famous specimen at least of these very early popular pictures of S. Christopher is known to exist in England:! beneath it is inscribed a Latin couplet to the effect that — "Whoso looks upon the face of Christopher shall not on that day die any evil death." These words, or very similar ones, are often attached to representations of S. Christopher, and tended, as a matter of course, to increase the already growing devotion to this saint. By way of having his saving image readily ac- cessible to view, it became a not uncommon practice to paint it in bold fresco style upon the north wall of churches and in other conspicuous places. When we consider the widespread popularity of this saint in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it is somewhat surprising not to find a much larger proportion of churches dedicated to him, but it is probable that a careful study of pre-Beformation Wills would yield not a few forgotten dedications ; as for example at Ditteridge in Wiltshire, which was held to be anonymous until the investigations of the late Canon Jackson of Leigh Delamere showed that it belonged to S. Christopher. Aylesbeare in Devonshire has an alternative dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary : perhaps the two names ought rightly to be associated, as in the case of " SS. Mary and Christopher " at Panfield in Essex. Another Essex dedication to S. Christopher is at Willingale-Doe. The name of S. Christopher is preserved for us in the City church of " S. Christopher-le-Stocks," now amalgamated with S. Margaret Lothbury, but the structure no longer exists. Lympsham in Somerset, Baunton in Gloucestershire, Pott-Shrigley in Cheshire, and Winfrith-Newburgh in Dorset complete the list, making in all a total of eight English churches dedicated to S. Christopher, a number which Avill in all probability be largely added to in succeeding generations. * "Chaucer's yeoman wore a silver medal of the saint, whose aid was com- monly invoked here against storms." — D. C. B. t At Althorp ; see the reproduction of the picture in Mrs. Jameson. CHAPTER XVIII. A ROMAN EMPRESS. NAME. DAY. TEAR. CHURCHES. S.Helena ... August 18 ... cir. 328 ... 117 See also dd. S Helena ^ HE rea ^ ^^ or 7 °^ ^* H e l ena > the mother of the Emperor Helen, or ' Constantine, is in itself so full of romance that there seems l^cir 328 Ug * nee( ^ ^ or Editions of mediaeval legend-mongers. ' ' ' Strange indeed were the vicissitudes of her long and chequered life. Sprung from the lowliest origin, she was raised by her marriage with Oonstantius to a position of high consideration ; after sharing his fortunes for twenty years, she was set aside at the very moment when those fortunes had attained their highest point ; thrown back for a time into her first obscurity, the accession to power of her only son set her in the foremost place accorded to any woman ; shielded henceforth from all external cares, but sorrow-stricken by the tragedies within her own family circle, she sought comfort in the Faith first made known to her by her son ; and in extreme old age she faced the fatigues and dangers of a pilgrimage to the far East that she might know the joy of worshipping in the very " footsteps of the Saviour," * and might lavish the wealth so freely bestowed upon her by her imperial son in doing honour to the most sacred places upon earth. Until we come to the period of her pilgrimage the details of S. Helen's life are provokingly meagre, but there is no doubt as to the truth of its main outlines. Her birth is supposed to have taken place about the middle of the third century, and her home is believed to have been a little village in Bithynia, originally called Drepanum, but afterwards designated in her honour Helenopolis. According to the generally received belief, she was, if not a servant in an inn, at best an innkeeper's daughter, and this tradition is not disputed by those who lived nearest to her time ; indeed, S. Ambrose, who wrote about seventy years after her death, glories in her low estate, saying : " She is said to have been a hostleress, and thus to * Eusebius. 182 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap, xviii. have made the acquaintance of Constantius the elder. A good hostleress who so devotedly sought the manger of the Lord," and so on. At the time of his meeting with Helena, which may, it is conjectured, have been on his return from an embassy to Persia, Constantius was a young officer in the army, of good position, and the nephew of the reigning emperor, Claudius. It seems probable that the marriage was not fully legalized until after the birth of their only child, Constantine ; but the present Bishop of Salisbury * observes that " the looseness of the marriage tie among the Romans is quite a sufficient explanation," both of their previous relations and of the unfortunate Helena's subsequent divorce after twenty years of married life. It was then thought expedient for her husband to seek a wife of more exalted birth, better befitting the dignities of a Csesar, and as an act of expediency the separation from his first wife was carried out ; such an act not necessarily implying, says the bishop, " any offence or misconduct on the part of the wife, or any special heartlessness on that of the husband." History is silent as to what befell the deposed Helena during the fourteen remaining years of Constantius' life ; but this much is certain, that the indignity thus placed upon his mother was bitterly resented by her son, and that from the time that he became his own master, there was none whom he more delighted to honour than his aged mother. She appears to have grown up in such close relations with her grandchildren that we can hardly doubt that she must henceforth have made her home at her son's court ; but it is in the later years of Constantine's reign that we hear most of her, and there is unhappily no direct evidence to show that she joined him at York, or indeed ever sojourned in this country. The great change that passed over the entire empire in 312, when Constantine declared his allegiance to the Cross, deeply affected the welfare of S. Helena. With joy she opened her heart to the teaching of her son, embracing so fervently the blessed truths of the Gospel that she, " having before not been," as Eusebius tells us, " a worshipper of God," now " seemed from her tender years to have been taught by Him Himself who is the common Saviour of all." We may well believe that these years were among the happiest of the aged Helena's life. Her grandchildren, and most especially the promising young Crispus, the only son of Constantine's first marriage, were a perpetual interest to her, and " one of several indications of the close tie existing between the aged empress and her eldest grandson " is a journey to Rome taken by Helena in company w T ith the youthful and highly popular prince Crispus, in honour of which event the emperor granted a release of prisoners. Constantine deemed no honours too great for that revered mother. " He honoured her," says Eusebius, " with imperial dignities in such a manner, that in all the provinces and by the very companies of soldiers, she was styled Augusta and Empress, and golden coins were stamped bearing her image. Moreover, Constantine granted * D. C. B. CHAP. XVIII. A ROMAN EMPRESS— S. HELENA. 183 her power over the imperial treasures, to make use of them in such manner as she thought good." Coins bearing an inscription to her as empress have been found, and an interesting memorial of her has come to light at Salerno in an inscription put up in her lifetime by some enthusi- astic admirer, commemorating the triple glories of the sovereign lady, " Flavia Augusta Helena," as wife, mother, and grandmother of Caesars. But dark days were at hand. The later years of Constantine's reign brought out what was worst in his character. He became jealous of the favour shown to his eldest son, and caused him to be sent into exile and there put to death. There is much of mystery concerning the murder both of Crispus himself and also of his stepmother, Fausta, who was suspected of being implicated in her stepson's disgrace, and who speedily shared his dark fate. The empress-mother grieved sorely over the untimely death of the young Crispus. She shared in the general belief of Fausta's guilt, and her " bitter complaints about her grandson's death are said to have irritated Consfcantine to execute his wife by way of retribution." * The contemporary historian, Eusebius, for obvious reasons, keeps silence as to this double murder ; but it was not long after this time that the empress-mother, supported by all the prestige of her son's name and the vast wealth of his exchequer, set forth on her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. " We may fairly suppose," says the Bishop of Salisbury, "that it was as much distress and penitence for these tragic and cruel acts, as thankfulness for the success of the Mcene council, that roused Constantine to found and endow a number of churches at this time, and to give other material advantages to the Christian Church." The bishop suggests that Helena may in her degree have shared the same feelings when she vowed to go on pilgrimage ; but Eusebius chooses rather to dwell on the brighter side of the picture, and says : " She had determined that she ought to give thanks with supplications for her own son so glorious, the emperor, and for his sons the Caesars, her grandchildren, most dear to G-od." The journey alone was no light undertaking, and Helena was now approaching her eightieth year ; but, as the historian tells us, she was blessed not only with "the greatest healthiness both of body and mind," but she had the still rarer blessing of what he describes as " a youthful spirit," which enabled her to surmount many of the troubles of life. Her progress through the East was a memorable one. In her own attire she showed the utmost simplicity, and in the different churches on her way she loved to mingle with the other worshippers as a private person ; but the rich gifts which she bestowed upon even the humblest of these churches, " the innumerable benefits and favours which she heaped both on cities and on every private person who approached her," proclaimed the royal munificence which she exercised in her son's name, while the consistent piety of her deeds and words manifested the reality of her Christian profession. * D. 0. B. 184 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS, chap. xvm. There is no memorial of S. Helena more authentic, more deeply interest- ing, than the Church of the Nativity which she built at Bethlehem, above the cave which was the traditional place of the Saviour's birth. In the fifteen centuries that have elapsed since the mother of Constantine came to Bethlehem, many changes have been wrought, and the church which she raised has been in great part superseded by successive edifices, but " there seems," says the late Dean Stanley,* " no sufficient reason to dispute the antiquity of the nave ; " and who is there that can stand unmoved in that nave, " common to all the sects, and for that very reason deserted, bare, discrowned, but in all probability the most ancient monument of Christian architecture in the world " ? That nave is " all that now remains of the Basilica, built by Helena herself, the proto-type of those built by her Imperial son at Jerusalem beside the Holy Sepulchre, and at Rome over the graves of St. Paul and of St. Peter. The long double lines of Corinthian pillars, the faded mosaics dimly visible on the walls above, the rough ceiling of beams of cedar from Lebanon, still preserve the outlines of the church once blazing with gold and marble." One other church is specially singled out by Eusebius as the work of S. Helena— the one which she built upon the crown of the Mount of Olives in remembrance of the Ascension. He adds in general terms that these were not the only churches which she built ; but he does not connect her, as later writers have done, with the most famous of all the holy places — the so-called cave of the Resurrection, the site of Constan- tine's ever famous Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That church was, as we know, not completed until some few years after the death of the empress (a.d. 335), which may be the reason why he makes no reference to her share in this matter ; nor can it be clearly gathered from his account whether the demolition of the temple of Venus, which in those days defiled the very place of the Passion, and the subsequent discovery of the sacred tomb, took place during S. Helena's lifetime or not. It may be justly argued that Eusebius is not very careful to distinguish between the separate achievements of the mother and the son, so close was the co-operation between them, but yet it is, as has been observed, " hardly conceivable " that in recounting the foundations of the empress, " he should have left the one on the site of the Resurrection unspecified." f Closely associated with the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre is the supposed discovery of the true cross. :f It is important to bear in mind that though there is good evidence that within twenty years of the exca- vation of the cave of the Resurrection, the real wood of the cross was believed to have been discovered, there is no mention of any such discovery in the contemporary historian Eusebius. To come to what more directly concerns our present purpose ; — although S. Helena's chief claim to fame in the Middle Ages lay in the belief that she was associated with this momentous discovery, it will be found that " none of our three earliest * " Sinai and Palestine." t Bishop Wordsworth in D. 0. B. % See also ch. iv., "Holy Cross." CHAP. XVIII. A ROMAN EMPRESS— S. HELENA. 185 authorities speak of her as the discoverer." * It is not until a hundred years after her visit to Jerusalem that we find in the historian Socrates the story in all its details — the Divine vision which first caused her to go on pilgrimage ; t the bringing to light of the three crosses ; the test which declared one alone of the number to be endowed with miraculous powers of healing ; the gift to Oonstantine of the two nails, and the use he made of them for his helmet and bridle — a strange example of the spirit of the times, previously noted by S. Ambrose ; and lastly, the erection, not by Oonstantine, but by Helena herself, of a church " in no wise inferior in splendour to the former church in the cave at Bethlehem." % Socrates here brings together all the points that most conduced in after generations to the glorification of S. Helena. Bishop Wordsworth thus sums up the whole matter : " On the whole, considering what has been already noticed, that our earliest authorities do not represent Helena as the discoverer, and that the story gradually grows as time goes on, it seems most probable that she had no part in the discovery at all, even if it took place, which itself seems exceedingly doubtful. That the site of the Holy Sepulchre was discovered, or supposed to be discovered, in the reign of Oonstantine, there seems every reason to believe ; and considering the temper of the times, it is easy to understand how marvels would grow up around it." § And now to return to our saint's personal history. There is much uncertainty as to the circumstances of her death, though some affirm it to have taken place on her homeward journey in her native village of Drepa- num,|| where also she first met Constantius. She retained to the very last her powers of mind, and with that " singular prudence " which Eusebius elsewhere praises as specially characteristic of her, she set herself to make her will, being careful to leave some part of her property to each one of her grandchildren. " Having in this manner made her will, she after- wards," says the historian,^ " closed her life, her great son being present with and standing by her, paying all imaginable respect, and embracing- her hands." Whatever may have been Oonstantine's shortcomings, he was unfailing in his love and reverence for his mother. By his command her body was carried with great pomp to Constantinople (or, as some say, to B,ome), and there deposited in a " royal monument." We turn now from the historical Helena to the S. Helena of our English chroniclers. Upon the slender basis of a phrase in two Latin authors, which speaks of Oonstantine as " taking his rise from Britain," ** a complete mythical history of S. Helena has been built up by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Henry of Huntingdon. According to these authorities, * D. 0. B. t This part of the legend is comme- morated in the well-known picture by Paul Veronese, in the National Gallery, in which the venerable empress is por- trayed, without much regard to historic truth, as in the prime of life. % " Eccles. Hist." § D. C. B. || See "Sinai and Palestine." «|f Eusebius. ** One panegyrist, however, speaking in Constantine's own presence, does appear to have used the words : " You have en- nobled Britain by being born there." Quoted in Morant's " Essex." i86 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS, chap. xvm. she was the daughter of Ooel, a shadowy British king,* who is said to have given his name to Colchester. Geoffrey of Monmouth is nothing if not circumstantial. He describes the care with which Helena was educated so as to fit her for her royal responsibilities, and lays stress not only upon her beauty but upon her " surpassing skill in music aud the liberal arts." He also furnishes sundry particulars concerning the treaty of peace between King Ooel and " Constantius the Senator," and the subsequent marriage of the British princess to the foreign general. Henry of Huntingdon supplies an additional item, to the effect that it was the beautiful Helena who caused London to be walled ; and indeed there is no end to the boons traditionally ascribed to her, for even in remote Wales the belief lingered long that certain roads in that country were of her making.f It was not to be borne, however, that Essex should have all the credit of so great a princess, and the North of England put in a claim to have given her birth. In the words of Gibbon : " The kingdom of Ooel, the imaginary father of Helena, was transported from Essex to the wall of Antoninus." It is one of the inexplicable anomalies of our National Martyrologies that though the mother of Constantine was so extraordinarily popular in this country, her name is not to b3 found in the Kalendars of either York, Salisbury, or Hereford ; and indeed her day, August 18, is assigned to a comparatively obscure saint, Agapitus. Our mediaeval Kalendars do indeed take account of the two festivals connected with the Cross, the first of which — the so-called " Invention " — may be in some sense regarded as S. Helena's own festival ; but in Bede's Kalendar all three days are alike blank. Traditional beliefs die hard. Morant, the painstaking eighteenth- century historian of Essex, was scholar enough to be thoroughly aware of all the arguments against Helena's British birth, and yet he clung obstinately to all mediaeval authorities, fortifying himself the more by the support of the "Colchester Chronicles," a work of about the time of Edward III., which had much to say concerning King Coel and his daughter. With all the pride of a Colchester man he writes : " We are too much interested in Helena to let her pass without giving a further account of her ; " and then follows a history of her, in which the several legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth on the one hand and Socrates on the other are interwoven with considerable skill. The writer further calls attention to the fact that "the arms of Colchester are a cross between three crowns ; " and finally adds upon his own account that " the most pious Helena undoubtedly showed a tender regard for her native place, and built S. Helen's Chapel." This last statement we may take leave to * This King Coel has obtained, by the old English song of " Old King Cole," way, a curious kind of immortality, first which is believed to have for its hero the throughout the Middle Ages as the sup- legendary king of Essex, posed father of his illustrious and sainted f Camden, daughter, and then through the famous CHAP. xvni. A ROMAN EMPRESS— S. HELENA. I8 7 doubt ; but it may very likely be true that it was rebuilt, and not merely founded in 1076, which is the first authentic notice of it. But it was not in the fourth century, nor even in the eleventh, that S. Helena was at the height of her glory in her supposed " native place " of Colchester. Colchester has been unfaithful to its old allegiance, and in these days S. Helen's Chapel has ceased to exist, and the only memorial of her, so far as we are aware, is the coat of arms already alluded to ; but in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the town was very much given up to the veneration of the Empress Helena. There was, first of all, her chapel in S. Helen's Lane, vulgarly called " Tenant's Lane ; " but more important than the chapel itself was the so-called " Guild of S. Helen," founded in 1407. This was a large and aristocratic guild for the fashionable world of both sexes, which took its rise in the chapel of the hospital belonging to the Crutched (i.e. crossed) Friars of the Order of S. Augustine. For the first ten years the numbers were limited to sixty-five ; towards the end of the fifteenth century the privilege was extended to eighty-seven members, all of whom — whether Londoners or local dignitaries ; clergy or laymen ; men or women ; the Abbot of S. John's, Colchester, or the Countess of Hertford ; John, Lord Berners, or the Rector of Stanway — alike counted it an honour to be admitted into the noble "fraternity of S. Helen." The chapel appropriated to their use was properly dedicated to the Holy Cross, but was chiefly known by the name of " the Guild of S. Helen," and in time both chapel and hospital passed into the gift of the powerful " Fraternity of S. Elene," as we find it designated. In this same fifteenth century we come across yet a third Colchester tribute to the patroness of the town, for, in the time of Henry YL, a certain private citizen built a separate chapel adjoining the church of the Holy Cross Hospital. The lengthy form of dedication runs thus : " To the honour of Almighty God, Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ, S. Helen, S. Katherine, and All Saints." The garden of the hospital, now the Botanic Gardens, is, we believe, the sole remaining relic of these three kindred institutions associated with S. Helena. Considering the Colchester feeling for this saint, it is somewhat sur- prising that she is not more generally popular in the county. Essex can show two or three dedications to the Holy Cross, but the only one seemingly to S. Helena is at Rainham, where she is combined with S. Giles. Bunyan's Elstow in Bedfordshire is a very ancient memorial of our saint. The name itself is a corruption of Helen-stow,* and bears witness to the nunnery, founded by Judith (ch. li.), wife of Waltheof of Hun- tingdon, and niece of William the Conqueror, in honour of S. Helen. The existing church is under the twofold invocation of SS. Mary and Helen. It will be observed that we in England have fallen into the regrettable habit of abbreviating the last syllable of the stately name, * Camden. 1 88 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS, chap. xvm. though the Nottinghamshire parish of Thoroton still clings to the old Latinized form of " Elena." More venerable than even Elstow is the City church of S. Helen in Bishopsgate, which was standing in 1010 when the bones of S. Edmund the Martyr were removed thither from St. Edmund's Bury to prevent their falling into the hands of the Danes.* The official staff of the church bears to this day an effigy of the patroness, which is said to be " more suggestive of Helen of Troy than of the venerable empress." \ It is not a little unexpected to find S. Helena in Cornwall. Mr. Borlase is of opinion that the island so named in the Scilly group may be a mis- reading for " S. Dellan," one of the innumerable corruptions of S. Teilo's name (ch. xxxn.) ; while he would attribute the undoubted S. Helena at Helland, in the same county, to Armorican, or it may be still later influences. In the Isle of Wight our empress has impressed her personality on an entire parish, as she has likewise done in the Lancashire parish of St. Helens. In 1816 the authorities saw fit to re-dedicate the parish church to S. Mary, but the name was too firmly grafted upon the whole populous town for such a change to have had much effect in obliterating the saint's memory. It must be acknowledged, too, that if S. Helena has here lost what was rightfully her own, she has taken what was not hers at Warrington, where, though S. Helen has for many a century been in possession, the original patron is the mysterious S. Elphin (ch. li.). To see S. Helena in her glory we must go to the North of England. Speaking very generally, the tendency in the North seems to have been to honour S. Helena— in virtue, doubtless, of her discovery of the Holy Cross ; in the South of England the tendency seems rather to have been to honour the Cross itself ; and thus we find that while the churches south of the Trent dedicated to the Cross or Eood outnumber by four to one those north of the Trent, the North-country dedications to S. Helena are between two and three times as numerous as those in the South of England. At Grove in Nottinghamshire the two ideas are combined by the dedication of the church to " S. Helen and the Invention of the Holy Cross ; " and this aspect of S. Helena's work is brought into prominence in the Durham church of Kelloe by the remarkable carved cross in the chancel wall, which represents the saint making her great discovery.^ It has been surmised that it was her reputed Yorkshire birth that has caused S. Helena to be so immensely popular in the North of England. Perhaps we may with more justice attribute it to her great son's personal connexion with York. The York church of S. Helen-on-the-Walls lays claim to the possession of the tomb of S. Helena's husband, Con- stantius.§ * "London P. and P." f London Church Staves ; see Guar- dian, October 2, 1895. % Murray's " Durham." § Camden reports that he had been informed by " credible persons " that even after the days of the Reformation "there was found a lamp burning in the vault of that little chapel, wherein Constantius was thought to be buried." chap, xviii. A ROMAN EMPRESS — S. HELENA. 1 89 Lincolnshire is the real stronghold of dedications to S. Helena. York- shire can show thirty such, but Lincolnshire has almost if not quite as many ; in fact, these two counties between them furnish almost one half of the dedications in this name. " We cannot," says the late Precentor Venables,* " form any trustworthy conclusion as to the date of these dedications, but they are probably very early." Of modern dedications in this name we have but few ; and two at least of these can give an excellent account of themselves. Oothill, or Dry Sandford, in Berkshire (if indeed it be not a genuine old chapelry), takes its new name from the mother-church of S. Helen, Abingdon ; and Denton in Wharf edale, an old chapelry which had lost all knowledge of its original dedication-name, was justified in assuming at a formal re-dedication ceremony in 1890 the name of S, Helen, for a walk round the adjacent park had been known from time immemorial as " S. Helen's Walk," and there was likewise a S. Helen's Well. In both these cases there was strong- historic justification for the choice ; but apart from this, the aged empress is so dignified and interesting a figure that we may well be glad to have her brought anew before our minds ; and even viewing her history in its most legendary aspect, we may still, to quote the words of a living preacher,! " take the idea of her life story, and say, ' There is the story of a woman of our own country who discovered the Cross, and by so doing became a saint indeed.' " * Arch. Journal, vol. 38. Kipon at the re-dedication of Denton f Sermon preached by the Bishop of Church, June 19, 1890. CHAPTER XIX. THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. Section I. — The Apostolic Fathers. PAGE. NAME. DAY. YEAK. CHUKCHES. 8. Clement. See ch. xx. 193 S. Ignatius, B.M. ... October 17 ... cir. 110 ... 1 199 S. Poly carp, B.M. ... February 23 ... 155 ... 1 Section II. — The Ante-Nicene Fathers. 204 S. Hippolytus, B.M. ... August 13 ... 230 ... 2 214 S. Cyprian, B.M. ... September 14 ... 258 ... 4 Section III. — Champions or the Nicene Creed. 5^22 S. Hilary, B January 13 ... 368 ... 2 See also dd. 8. Martin. See ch. xxiv. 229 S. Athanasius, B. ... May 2 373 ... 1 Section IV. — The Greek Fathers. 233 S. Basil the Great, B. »• * *"*}•'' 379 - * 407 ... 5 244 S. Chrysostoro, B. ... January 27 Section V. — The Latin F 252 S. Ambrose, B April 4 ... 258 S. Jerome, P September 30 9( ,y j S. Augustine of Hippo, B. August 28 \ Cf. S. Augustine of Canterbury, ch. xx] 8. Gregory the Great. See ch. xx. Section VI. — The English Fathers S. Bede. See ch. xxviii. ATHERS. 397 ... 5 420 ... 1 .. 430 ... 1 When we consider the unspeakable debt of gratitude which the Church owes to that long line of Doctors and Teachers on whom S. Athanasius by a happy inspiration bestowed the name of " the Fathers," we might expect to see multitudes of churches dedicated in their honour. Experience, however, shows that this is not the case. So far as English pre-Reforma- tion dedications go, it would be difficult to find ten of the Fathers who have been commemorated in this fashion ; and a study of the manner in which those ten names are represented throws a good deal of light upon chap. xix. THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. 191 the type of saintship that attracted or failed to attract our forefathers. The following table illustrates the difference in this respect between present-day church-builders and their earlier representatives, and shows the ever increasing tendency to honour the great teachers of the Church ; be they Eastern or Western, from Rome or from Smyrna, from Alexan- dria or from Constantinople. The figures are if anything rather below than above the mark. 0. 9. 1. Clement of Rome. (Widely celebrated by reason of his legendary history.) 2. Ignatius of Antioch, M 3. Polycarp of Smyrna, M 4. Hippolytus of Portus, M. (Widely celebrated in France and elsewhere by reason of his legendary history.) 5. Cyprian of Carthage, M. (Traces only of one chapelry, now demolished.) Hilary of Poitiers. (Widely known to the Celtic Church through an accident of personal association with Poitiers; also in the Roman service books.) ... Athanasius of Alexandria Basil the Great of Csesarea. (Introduced into England by the Knights Templars ; possibly also known to the Celtic Church through their Eastern associations.)... Ambrose of Milan. (One ancient church erroneously ascribed to him.) Martin of Tours. (First introduced into the Celtic Church by a personal disciple. Widely popular both among Celtic and Roman Christians for the sake of his asceticism.) 11. Chrysostom of Constantinople 12. Jerome, Presbyter. (The recluse of Bethlehem. Found in Wales as well as in Monmouthshire; perhaps known to the Celtic Church through Eastern associa- tions.) ... ... ... 13. Augustine of Hippo. (Many ancient churches in this name, but impossible to distinguish them from those intended for Augustine of Canterbury; the name frequently given by Augustinian monks, but doubt- ful whether or not with direct reference to their patron.) Gregory the Great of Rome. (Commemorated by reason of his direct connexion with the evangelization of this country.) 10 14 ANCIENT DEDICATIONS. 35 None None 3 None None 151 None Uncertain 28 MODERN DEDICATIONS. 20 1 1 None None 1 None Are there any general conclusions to be drawn from the statistics given above ? First of all, we shall hardly be mistaken in saying that the enthusiasm of our forefathers was more readily called forth by the active than by the contemplative life. Their natural sympathies were more with the men of action, so to speak, than with the leaders of thought. The history of the soldier-missionary Martin abundantly satisfied this instinct ; and it contained moreover the ascetic element which is one of the qualities 192 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. most highly sought after in mediaeval saints ; the element which has given so extraordinary a pre-eminence to such hermit-saints as S. Leonard, for example, or S. Giles. The legendary history of S. Clement of Eome supplies the same quality of stirring incident that is supplied by the real life of S. Martin, and his apocryphal adventures in the Crimea offer the same food for the imagination that is given yet more unsparingly in the fantastic stories of S. George and S. Nicholas. But if action on the one hand and asceticism on the other are two important qualifications for sanctity, there is yet a third factor of very considerable weight, namely, nationality. Up to a certain point the catho- licity of the English Church is indeed borne witness to by the variety of her patron saints. It is true that Roman and Celt, Syrian and Persian, Spaniard and African, are all there side by side. Nevertheless, the Church in these islands had its strongly marked preferences ; the Celtic branch gave the first place to its own local benefactors, such as S. Davids; the second to the Blessed Virgin and S. Michael the Archangel ; and the third to such Kalendar saints as the Eastern s< Cyricus and Julitta " and " S. Blaise," names prominent in Eastern martyrologies and introduced to the Celtic Christians by their fellow-countrymen in Armorica.* The Eoman branch of the Church, on the other hand, gave the place of honour to the Blessed Yirgin and the leading members of the Apostolic college ; their allegiance was next given in fullest measure to those saints who came direct from Rome itself (like S. Laurence), or else from France (like S. Martin). The third place was given to their own national saints, such as S. Oswald or S. Wilfrid ; and thus it will be seen that very little place was left for the great names of the Eastern or of the African Churches. There are exceptions no doubt, but the only exceptions on any large scale are S. George, S. Nicholas, and S. Giles, f S. Catherine and S. Margaret ; and they are in entire agreement with the theory that we have put forth, for all five of them are in the highest degree legendary, and all five are as completely adopted by the Gallican Church as though they were Western in origin. On no other ground but this of less acceptable nation- ality can we explain the omission of so striking and dramatic a figure as S. Ignatius the Martyr, or account for the fact that while he is not comme- morated at all amongst us, S. Laurence, the Roman deacon, can boast over two hundred churches. Or why should S. Martin of Tours have fifty times as many churches as his single-minded friend and neighbour, S. Hilary of Poitiers, the courageous confessor and theologian, unless it be that the one was a husband and father, and that the other led the hard life of a cenobite ? Or, once again, why should the Roman Clement have struck so deep root, and the glorious Athanasius, the dauntless champion of the true faith, be utterly ignored, save that the apocryphal adventures of the * See this point discussed in an article by the late Mr. Kerslake in ''Dorset Antiq.," vol. iii. f Although by birth accounted a Greek, S. Giles may for all practical pur- poses be reckoned among the French saints, and though nominally an abbot, be might well be called a hermit ; hence a twofold reason for his popularity. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. IGNATIUS. 1 93 Koman — nay, the very legend touching his dead body — came more home to medieval church-builders than the real sufferings and hair-breadth escapes of the Alexandrian Patriarch ? But though so many great names are missing, yet we have, besides the two Eoman bishops, S. Hippolyfcus, S. Martin of Tours, S. Cyprian, S. Hilary, and S. Basil ; and S. Jerome and S. Augustine are at any rate represented amongst us, though very meagrely. Meantime we repeat that in so far as the Fathers were in any measure commemorated amongst us, it was not for the sake of their writings, but for some more directly personal reason. The British Christians may have shared — there is some reason to suppose they did — the Eastern enjoyment of theological controversy for its own sake ; but such subtleties were foreign to the genius of the ordinary Teutonic mind. S. Hippolytus was widely celebrated in the East, even during his lifetime, by reason of his learned and voluminous writings ; we may safely assert that in Hertfordshire and Dorsetshire these genuine writings were utterly for- gotten, and that the saint was remembered only as one who was said to have been torn asunder by wild horses. S. Clement is dear to us of the nineteenth century for the sake of his epistle, that precious link with the Apostolic writings ; we know positively that during the Middle Ages, when S. Clement was at the zenith of his fame, that epistle was practically a lost book. It is therefore needless for us, and would indeed be wholly out of place, to dwell at any length in these pages upon the theological controversies which yet make the real importance of the Fathers of the Church. We need not enter into the disputes — so difficult to follow, but none the less so vital to the preservation of our Christian Faith — with Arians and Pelagians and Donatists ; into the principles of Church government, and the value of asceticism. All this lies outside our province ; but it has been well said that the value of Patristic Literature cannot be correctly estimated until we know the writers themselves ; " for the Fathers not only wrote, but worked, and what they really meant in their writings is often best explained in their lives." * To a certain extent, of course, the personal history and the religious controversies are inseparably bound together ; but it is of the personal history, with all its minute vivid touches, all its curious sense of reality, of nearness to ourselves, that we desire chiefly to speak. Section I. — The Apostolic Fathers. ■8. Clement. See CH. XX. g Ignatius Our conception of S. Ignatius the Martyr has suffered B.M. Oct. both loss and gain through the exhaustive researches of modern I7,t cir. 110. scholarship. There has been some loss ; for we are bidden * Eev. E. S. Ffoulkes in D. C. B. s " Fathers." VOL. I. f Bishop Light foot, to whose great work this account is mainly indebted, 0 194 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap, xix- to relinquish, as late and ill-supported, the popular tradition that made Ignatius the child " set in the midst " by our Blessed Lord as an ensample to His disciples. We are bidden also to relinquish, on even stronger grounds, the dramatic interview between Ignatius — " which is Tbeophorus," " the God-bearer " — and the Emperor Trajan ; and lastly, we are told that even our brief and simple account of the saint's death is to be received with extreme caution, seeing that it is no contemporary document,, but at best a late compilation from earlier records. In all this we have suffered loss ; but in other directions we have gained y and the gain has far more than outbalanced the loss, for the labours of the late Bishop of Durham may be said to have closed the historic controversy that has raged for successive generations as to the genuine- ness of the so-called Ignatian Epistles, and we may rest assured now that we hold in our hands the very seven letters of which Eusebius wrote — the immortal letters which were the legacy of Ignatius the Martyr to the Christians of his time. Once more we repeat that our gain far outweighs our loss ; for, all unconsciously, Ignatius has drawn for us in these letters a more living- portrait of himself than any biographer could have produced. The cir- cumstances under which those seven letters were written are well known,, and indeed they tell their own story to all who care to read them. They are the farewell messages of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch ; all of them written upon the same memorable journey when he, a prisoner already condemned to " suffer as a Christian," was going forward to meet certain death. " It is this passage from Antioch to Rome," writes Canon Scott Holland,* "that was turned by Ignatius to such good account. He seized the splendour of the occasion with all the inspiration of genius ; he felt the immense stir that was moving in the whole Church as he, one of its great chiefs, passed through it to his death : the chains were on him, binding him to the rough soldiers, who guarded him night and day like watching ' leopards ; ' before him was the great amphitheatre in mighty Rome, with its thousand thousand spectators, tier above tier, in the midst of whom he should soon stand for Christ until the wild beasts tore him limb from limb ; so, through city after city, he was to pass to his glorious doom, and everywhere, he knew, Christian eyes were watching him, Christian hearts were lifted with noble pride, following him in anxiety dates the martyrdom of S. Ignatius about a.d. 110 — certainly between that and 118 — but thinks it impossible with the present data to speak moie exactly. As to the day, he dismisses as valueless the Roman February 1, and thinks that December 20 or 17 may be the anniversary of a transla- tion of the saint's remains at Antioch. A Syriac martyrology of a.d. 411, probably based upon some record still earlier than itself, gives October 17 as the feast of S. Ignatius; and Bishop Lightfoot, though holding even this day to be of doubtful authority, yet says : " The only anniversary which has any claims to consideration as- the true day of martyrdom is October 17. Nor is this date improbable in itself. Ignatius wrote his Epistle to the Romans on August 24, and he was about to embark at Troas at the time. This interval of between seven and eight weeks would be long enough and not too long for the- journey from Troas to Rome, aud for the necessary delays which might occur on. the way or after his arrival." * " The Apostolic Fathers.'* chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. IGNATIUS. 1 95 and hope to his confession. It was an unparalleled dramatic moment, and, under the favour of Roman mercy, he was free to use it as he would. He might see his friends ; he might write his letters, as St. Paul in prison saw Luke and Onesimus, and wrote the epistles of the captivity, bound to a Roman soldier. So deputation after deputation greeted him from the Churches ; messenger after messenger bore off his inspiring farewells ; gifts, interviews, salutations, surrounded him." In those letters the whole passionate nature of the man reveals itself. In later ages they have become a battle-ground for theologians, because of the flood of light which they throw upon Church organization in the first decade of the second century. But let it not be thought that any one of the seven is a formal treatise against heresy, or in defence of episcopacy ; rather they are the outpourings of a man speaking for the last time of all that he holds most precious to him. One by one he singles out those who have ministered to him, and sends to each some special message ; he recalls their every act of service, and relies on their past zeal for him as a pledge that they will not now let his beloved Church of Antioch go uncared for. " Remember in your prayers the Church which is in Syria which hath God for its shepherd in my stead. Jesus Christ alone shall be its bishop — He and your love." So he salutes and commends and warns one and another — the " blame- less" Polycarp ; and Crocus, the delegate from Ephesus, " whom I received as an ensample of the love which ye bear me ; " and Alee, " a name very dear to me." And what is it which he desires for them and for the Churches of which they are the representatives ? It is that through all trials they should be kept " abiding and unchangeable " in a perfect " union of faith and love, a union with Jesus and the Father ; " and to the end that they may be preserved in that holy union, he presses on them the need of main- taining the threefold ministry of the Church, and of rendering unshaken obedience to the bishops, who are the centre of all authority and order. So, in such godly harmony shall the presbytery be " attuned to the bishop, even as its strings to a lyre, so shall all the separate members of the Church form themselves into a chorus, and taking the key-note of G-od shall in unison sing with one voice through Jesus Christ unto the Father." It is a well-recognized fact that after the death of Ignatius " we hear no more doubts, no more dissensions, recorded about this office," * and it is not less certain that " the name of Ignatius is," as Bishop Lightfoot says, " inseparably connected with the championship of episcopacy." The two facts cannot be reasonably separated the one from the other. " This unanimity, this identity," so it has been said, " remain strange and un- accountable, unless we find the explanation made manifest in these last farewells of Ignatius." f That which lends to all these letters their peculiar interest, namely, their close intermingling of abstract and personal topics, is well shown in the famous passage in which he warns the Christians of Smyrna against the * Scott Holland. f Ibid. 196 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Docetic heresy that was one of the perils of the age. He illustrates the falsity of the belief by his own present experiences ; and from that warning he passes without a break into one of his finest and most often- quoted outbursts concerning his own approaching martyrdom. " If these things were done by our Lord in semblance, then am I also a prisoner in semblance. And why then have I delivered myself over to death, unto fire, unto sword, unto wild beasts ? But near to the sword, near to G-od ; in company with wild beasts, in company with God. Only let it be in the name of Jesus Christ, so that we may suffer together with Him. I endure all things, seeing that He Himself enableth me, Who is perfect Man." So long as the Church at Antioch was unprovided for there was one anxiety to draw his thoughts back earthwards ; but when, through the loving services of his friends, he was enabled to say, " God hath banished all my care," then all his thoughts could leap forward into the glorious future awaiting him. To him as to S. Laurence the Deacon (ch. xxvi.), and to many noble kindred spirits, martyrdom was the coveted seal of ■discipleship, the proof shown openly to all the world of the sufficing reality of their faith. For such as Laurence and Ignatius there were no doubts, no fears ; for in the burning words of Ignatius himself : " As for me, my charter is Jesus Christ, my inviolable charter is His cross and His death and His resurrection." The desire of his whole heart is this : " Only be it mine to attain to Jesus Christ," and all the sufferings that may lie between are but as welcome steps to that goal. " Do not hinder me from living," so he appeals to his fellow-disciples in Rome ; — " I dread your very love, lest it do me an injury." " Suffer me to receive the pure light." " It is good for me to die for Jesus Christ rather than to reign over the furthest bounds of earth." " Him I seek Who died on our behalf ; Him I desire Who rose again for our sake." And so the passionate flood of self-devotion flows on, yet checked now and then by some touching word of self -distrust, some fervent appeal for those earnest prayers which shall win for him the strength he so sorely needs : " Only pray for me that I may have power within and without, so that I may not only say it but desire it ; that I may not only be called a Christian but be found one." Or again : " I have many deep thoughts in God : but I take the measure of myself lest I perish in my boasting. For though I desire to suffer, yet I know not whether I am worthy." " For myself I am ashamed to be called a bishop ; for neither am I worthy to be called one of them, but I have found mercy if so be I shall attain unto God." In one of his letters in particular this burden of unworthiness is weighing heavily on him throughout, but yet in the closing sentences the hope on which his whole life is grounded shines forth : "I am still in peril ; but the Father is faithful in Jesus Christ to fulfil my petition and words. May we be found unblamable in Him." And here the stirring narrative ends suddenly ; if indeed we are for- bidden to take as authentic the brief account of his martyrdom,* which * In the " Acts " of S. Ignatius. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. IGNATIUS. 1 97 describe the scene — in itself so simple and probable — of the saint's kneeling down among his brethren and uttering in their midst his last spoken prayer before he was hurried away into the amphitheatre to be delivered up to the wild beasts. But though we know nothing certainly as to the manner of his martyrdom, we do know that the martyr's crown was not denied him. When Polycarp, in obedience to his honoured friend's last instructions, wrote to the Christians at Philippi concerning the care of Ignatius's own beloved Church in Syria, he could exhort them to faith and patience by the example which had been set forth before their eyes, " not only in the blessed Ignatius, and Zozimus and Eufus, but in others among yourselves, and in Paul himself and the rest of the Apostles." He could even then speak confidently of Ignatius as being among that glorious company who " are gone to the place that was due to them from the Lord, with Whom also they suffered ; for they loved not this present world, but Him Who died, and was raised again by God for us." At that very time Polycarp was occupied in collecting for the Philippians such of the letters of Ignatius as had come into his hands, and these he despatches to them, begging of them in return to make known to him " what you know certainly of Ignatius and his companions." * The bare fact of the martyrdom without any particulars was all that had then reached Smyrna, but it was possible that Philippi, which lay some stages nearer to Pome, might have learned more. The answer to that request has unhappily never reached us. And yet we know enough. " The writings of Ignatius show him to us," says Bishop Lightfoot, as "a distinct and living personality, a true Father of the Church, a teacher and an example to all time ; " but it is, he adds, " in the momentary light " of his martyrdom that we see the otherwise unknown bishop as he really was. " No martyrdom," says the distinguished writer just quoted, " has had so potent an influence on the Church as his. ... It was by their lives, rather than by their deaths, that the Apostles edified the Church of God. Ignatius was before all things the Martyr. Every- thing conspired to concentrate men's thoughts on his martyrdom — the sudden flash of light following upon the comparative obscurity of his previous life — the long journey across two continents from the far East to the far West — the visits to many churches and the visits from many others — the collection of letters in which his own burning words are en- shrined — the final scene of all in the largest, most central, and most famous arena of the world. Hence his Epistle to the Eomans— his paaan prophetic of the coming victory — became a sort of martyr's manual. . . . After all it is only by an enthusiasm which men call extravagance that the greatest moral and spiritual triumphs have been won. This was the victory which overcame the world — the faith of Ignatius and of men like-minded with him." f A few words must needs be devoted to the after commemorations of * Bishop Lightfoot surmises that these fellow-martyrs ; possibly the Zozimus and " companions " of Ignatius may have been Kufus mentioned above. t " Ignatius," vol. i. 198 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xix. this great saint. In his own Anfcioch he was long remembered, and, rightly or wrongly, it was confidently believed in the fourth century that his sacred bones had been brought back from Rome and laid to rest in the cemetery at Antioch. A little later the relics were removed from thence and carried to the famous " Temple of Fortune " in the same city, which was henceforth transformed into a Christian place of worship under the name of " the church of S. Ignatius," and it is supposed that the feast of S. Ignatius kept by the Greek Church on December 20 * marks this second translation. It cannot be said that the Western commemoration of S. Ignatius is in any degree commensurate with his immense influence upon the Church at large. The Martyr himself, with the poetic insight that is such a part of him, beholds in his own death a link between East and West. Thus he bids the Christians of Romej give thanks to God for that He has so honoured the Bishop of Syria, in that He summoned him from the East into the West, to become an offering on God's altar. " Good and fair it is to sink into the West to death from the world unto God, that I may rise again to Him in His own East." The festival of the martyrdom of S. Ignatius is duly observed in the Roman Missal,J and is distinguished from the ordinary service appointed for martyrs by the incorporation of Ignatius's own famous words : " I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ." And yet, in spite of all this, S. Ignatius's " foothold in Western Calen- dars " remained, as Bishop Lightfoot has justly observed, " precarious." His name was altogether absent from the oldest Latin Marfcyrologies, such as Jerome's, and though it has a place in Bede's Kalendar, it is apparently missing from the Salisbury Kalendar. In short, to quote the bishop's summary : " The commemoration of Ignatius of Antioch only obtained a place among the festivals of the Latin Church at a comparatively late date, and even then with many fluctuations. B.ut in these islands several centuries elapse before he is recognized ; and indeed he seems never to have obtained a firm footing in our Northern Calendars, whether Celtic or English. . . . Even in those which belong to as late a date as the four- teenth century his name is frequently wanting, and S. Brigid still retains sole possession of February 1." Under these circumstances it was hardly to be looked for that there should be churches dedicated in his honour. We know of none such, and there is little reason to hope that any may yet be brought to light among our five hundred lost dedications. Rome gave no lead in this direction ; for though there is at Rome a church of S. Ignatius, it commemorates, not the martyr-bishop from Antioch, but his Spanish namesake, Ignatius Loyola. Nevertheless, at last the omission of centuries has been made good amongst us, and that under circumstances of unique and striking * Or, as in not a few Kalendars, that f Scott Holland's " Apostolic Fathers." of Bede, for example, on December 17. % On February 1. chap.' xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. POLYCARP. 1 99 interest. The church of " S. Ignatius the Martyr " at Sunderland, which •was consecrated on July 2, 1889, was the gift of the then Bishop of Durham, Bishop Lightfoot, and was designed by him as "an outward recognition of the mercies of the first seven years of his episcopate." * " The dedication," says one who was present, " is as unique as the occa- sion ; " f and no one who knows anything of the work done by the bishop in connexion with the Ignatian controversy, of his success in restoring shaken confidence in the authenticity of those ancient writings, can fail to appreciate the felicity of the choice. In conclusion, let us quote from the sermon preached at the opening- service by the founder's lifelong friend, the present Bishop of Durham : % * ' For us to-day the largest thoughts must take a personal shape. I have just spoken of this building, most religious in its solemn dignity, as a memorial of an Episcopate rich in abiding fruits, a memorial of sacrifices offered and blessed, of prayers made and answered. And it is in the true sense a living memorial. For there is indeed (would that we did not forget it) between a gift and a bequest the whole difference of life. The benefactor lives in his gift. He himself works through it, and he enjoys the fruits of its working. This church of Ignatius places its giver's long chosen literary labours, which he postponed to his appointed charge, in connection with your services to Christ, in which he will find his great reward. It offers to you by its unique dedication the inspiring example of a new saint. ... It reminds you of the wide-spread glory of your spiritual ancestry in which you reckon side by side an apostle of the far East and an apostle of the far West, Ignatius of Antioch and Columba of Hy." § 8. Polycarp We nave ^ e9n tem P te( l to linger somewhat unduly over B.M. Feb. S. Ignatius owing to the special interest both of the dedica- 23,|| io5. t - on ^self and of the channel through which it has been lately reintroduced amongst us. There is no such peculiar interest attach- ing to our one only dedication to his younger friend, S. Polycarp ; yet the one name would have seemed grievously incomplete without the other. We should still feel we knew Polycarp if we knew him only through the letters of S. Ignatius, and most of all through that letter addressed to him by name, in which the elder man speaks of his " blameless face," his *' godly mind, grounded as it were on an immovable rock." Polycarp it Avas to whom Ignatius addressed the thrilling summons : " The times require thee as pilots require winds ; " it was Polycarp whom he charged to stand " firm as an anvil when it is smitten, inasmuch as it is the part •of a great athlete to receive blows and be victorious." And yet Polycarp has an even higher interest for us than springs from his friendship with the dying Ignatius, for in him " one single link •connected the earthly life of Christ with the close of the second century, * Guardian, July 3, 1889. Sunderland is dedicated to S. Columba t Ibid. of Iona. X Dr. Westcott. \\ So Lightfoot, who dismisses the § Auother recently built church at Roman January 26 as having arisen purely through error. 200 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. though five or six generations had intervened. S. John, Polycarp, Irenaeus — this was ithe succession which guaranteed the continuity of the evangelical record and of the apostolical teaching." * We can never read without a fresh thrill of quickened feeling the oft- quoted passage in which Polycarp's famous pupil Irenaeus recalls his youthful intercourse with his revered master ; incidents faithfully noted down — " not on paper but in my heart " — so that in old age he could remember them better than the events of recent occurrence ; could still describe " the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord and about His miracles, and about His teaching, Polycarp, as having received them from eye-witnesses of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures." f It has been well said % that " this impress of Polycarp, as of one whose greatness lay in his sacred remembrances of the mighty dead, is peculiarly essential to his character. He left no original doctrine behind him, nor did any original work that was preserved ; every memorial of him presents him to us as a most pure and holy representative of greater men." It has been pointed out § that we catch glimpses of Polycarp at " three different periods of his life — in youth as the disciple of S. John ; || in middle age as the companion of Ignatius ; in declining years as the master of Irenaeus ; " and it is observed that " these three periods exhibit a continuous life. Polycarp repeats with emphasis in extreme old age the same lessons which he had learned with avidity in his tenderest years." Kenan has described Polycarp as " ultra-conservative," a description which prompts Lightfoot to rejoin that " his was an age in which conserva- tism alone could save the Church," and that Ignatius had " rightly divined that he was the one man whom the season demanded." But to his own generation, to the men among whom he moved and taught, Polycarp was something far more than a mere depositary of even the most sacred recollections. The sight of the blameless life, the fervent and all-embracing intercessions, the steadfast clinging to the post of duty, the care for others, the forgetfulness of self — all this caused Polycarp to be a living- epistle, witnessing to the truth of the faith which he professed. And those who knew him best knew also the tenderest side of his nature. There was a very stern side, as we see plainly in his dealings with heretics, and in those stories of his Apostolic teacher on which he was most wont to dwell. To him heresy was altogether a fault of the will, not of the understanding, and to him heretics were evil-doers, with whom it was not meet to have any dealings. But where the difference was not * Lightfoot. § Lightfoot. f Irenaeus ; quoted also in Eusebius, || In Lower Asia, during the time v. 20. _ therefore of S. John's residence in Ephesus. % Scott Holland's "Apostolic Fathers." chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. POLYCARP. . 201 one of principle he was the first to admit the right of each man to his Christian liberty ; and though it must assuredly have caused him pain to witness in the Roman Church a method of reckoning Easter that was foreign to what he had learned from S. John's own practice — and no argument could persuade him to prefer the Western methods — yet he was content to acquiesce peaceably in a difference of opinion. He and the Roman Pontiff discussed the point, and though neither convinced the other, there was no break in their friendship. Polycarp, at the other's request, celebrated the Eucharist in his stead, and they " separated from each other in peace." * Ignatius had charged Polycarp to be gentle and sympathetic. " Bear all men, even as the Lord also beareth thee ; " and in the one letter of Polycarp's which has come down to us, he] does indeed show himself mind- ful of the counsel. How tenderly does he rebuke the sin of a certain presbyter at Philippi, one Yalens, who appears to have given way to a spirit of avarice ! "I am greatly afflicted for Yalens ; " and again : " My brethren, I am exceedingly sorry both for him and for his wife, to whom God grant a true repentance." Fervently he exhorts the Philippians — not as one who had authority over them, or as one who could " come up to the wisdom " of their first teacher, " the blessed and renowned Paul," but as one whose help they had themselves invited — to a forgiving temper, to that loving spirit which draws the erring brethren back into the right path ; warmly too he commends his messenger Crescens, the bearer of the letter, and at the same time he bespeaks their good offices for Crescens's sister, " when she shall come to you." Forty years had come and gone since Ignatius had parted from Polycarp at Smyrna and passed onward to his triumph ; for forty years his friend had been patiently toiling on at the post where he was set ; ever watchful, earnest, patient ; redeeming the time, as though there were for ever ringing in his ears that noble saying of Ignatius : "A Christian is not his own, he must always be at leisure for God's work." What wonder was it that such a man as this should be beloved and venerated above the rest ; that he should be called even by the heathen, " the father of the Christians ;" that "even before his hairs were gray he should be treated with every honour by those about him ; " so that when the infirmities of age increased upon him, the Christians were "wont to contend who should soonest " render him all the help he needed, even to the drawing off of his shoes. Had Polycarp of Smyrna died peacefully in the fulness of his years, he would yet have been lovingly remembered among the saints of God ; but when to all the constant beauty of his long life was added the seal of martyrdom, we can well understand that his fame eclipsed that of other contemporary martyrs ; so that, in the words of his own sorrowing yet triumphant Church, " he alone is chiefly had in the memory of all men, insomuch that he is spoken of by the very Gentiles themselves as having been not only an eminent teacher, but also a glorious martyr." * Eusebius. 202 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Poly carp's martyrdom stands out in strange contrast to that of his friend Ignatius. Of the one we know nothing but the mere fact ; of the other we know all the separate details as they were treasured up in the faithful memories of his fellow-townsmen, and written at length in a circular letter, addressed primarily to the Christians of the neighbouring Church of Philomelium, but intended to be transmitted to other Churches. The genuineness of this document is happily fully allowed, and a wonder- fully graphic history it is which has thus come down to us of the events of a few hours. It is a narrative which cannot be compressed without loss, and there is no touch in it that does not heighten the simple dignity of the venerable martyr. There is no impetuous courting of danger ; nay, rather, for the sake of those who love him, he goes into hiding once and again ; but when he is brought face to face with danger there is no shrinking ; only a calm acceptance of his lot :— " The will of the Lord be done." So he goes down from the upper room and receives his captors as though they were his guests, bidding that food and drink should be prepared for them, and asking of them no other boon but an hour's liberty to pray without disturbance ; and as the guards marked his stately bearing and listened to that stream of self-forgetting prayer, some of them began to wonder * l why there should have been need of all this care to take so godly an old man,'* while some began to repent of the errand on which they had been sent. The same impulse moved the officers whose duty it was to bring him in their chariot from the village into the city, and with real concern they tried to make him see how small a matter it would be to say, " Caesar is Lord," and so save himself. For a while he was silent ; then, as they continued to urge him, he said plainly : " I am not going to do what you counsel me." It was Friday evening when he had been arrested : by this time the day had broken, and the Saturday, which happened to be a special holiday among the Jews, had begun. The mob, Jews and Gentiles alike, demanded that the prisoner should be given to the lions ; but the chief officer, the Asiarch,* refused, saying that the season for such spectacles was past. " Then it pleased them to cry out with one consent that Polycarp should be burnt alive." Now, as Polycarp was entering the arena, an unseen voice, heard by many, uttered the words, " Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man." Once again the pro-consul renewed his former entreaties : " Let him but swear by Caesar's fortune and say, ' Away with the atheists ! ' " Those last words found an echo in Polycarp's heart, and with stern face and uplifted hand he repeated, " Away with the atheists ! " The consul may have seen in this a sign of wavering, for he spoke further : " Eeproach Christ, and I will set thee free." Then it was that the old man made that memorable reply which will live for ever among the victories of faith : f " Fourscore and six years have I served Him, and He hath done me no wrong ; how then can I speak evil of my King and Saviour ? " But * Cf. Acts xix. 31, R.V. t See the fine passage in Hare's Victory of Faith." CHAP, xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. POLYCARP. 203 still the consul urged him to " swear by the genius of Caesar ; " and then Polycarp, with characteristic straightforwardness, as though afraid that his former words might have been misunderstood, said : " It seems to me that in urging me to swear by the genius of Caesar, as thou callest it, thou seemest not to know what I am ; know then at once and without doubt that I am a Christian." It was plain now to all that the aged bishop was immovable. For himself he desired only that the suspense might be ended : " Why tarriest thou ? Do with me what thou Avilt." So the crier proclaimed throughout the lists, " Polycarp has confessed himself to be a Christian ; " and preparations were hastily made for getting together a fire. And when all things were in readiness, they would have nailed him to the stake, but he said, " Let me alone ; for He Who gives me grace to bear the flame will enable me to stand unshaken without the help of your nails." " Where- fore they did not nail him, but only bound him " to the stake ; and there he stood, " like a goodly ram, the leader of the flock, bound and ready for sacrifice," pouring out his glorious Eucharistic prayer even to the very moment when the faggots were set on fire. So died Polycarp, " the faithful witness," and his disciples gathered up his bones, "more precious than the richest jewels," and placed them in safe keeping in a place where year by year they might " with joy and gladness " keep the anniversary of his martyrdom. The fame of Polycarp, as was but natural, spread from Asia Minor into the daughter Churches of Gaul, where in the time of Gregory of Tours, and no doubt for long afterwards, his festival was observed with great solemnity. His name was in the Eoman Kalendar no less than in the Kalendar of the Greek Church ; but for some unexplained reason it is not to be found either in Bede's Martyrology or in the Salisbury Kalendar, and this naturally resulted in our having no single ancient English dedi- cation in his honour. At last a new church in Liverpool, now made parochial, has chosen S. Polycarp for its patron ; and whether or not there is any special reason for the choice, we may well rejoice to have thus brought before us anew a man who was so great in the eyes of his contem- poraries that the very Jews declared that the Christians would " forsake the Crucified One and worship this Polycarp " — a strange and ignorant charge, which drew from those who heard it the splendid reply which is the very key to all Christian veneration for the saints: "As if it were possible for us to desert Christ Who suffered for the salvation of the whole world ! For Him indeed we worship, as Son of God ; but the martyrs we only love with all honour, as followers of the Lord, because of their supreme devotion to their Master and King. May it," so the noble passage ends — "may it be our lot to be found partakers and fellow-disciples with them." 204 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Section II. — The Ante-Nicene Fatheks. S. Hippo- Prudentius, a Spanish poet, who visited Eome close upon lytus, B.M.* fifteen hundred years ago, has recorded for us his first vivid ug. 13, 236. j m p ress j ons wnen ne visited the catacomb of S. Hippolytus the Martyr. "Not far from the city walls, among the well trimmed orchards," he descended by steep and winding steps, and found himself in the dark passages that led past the sleeping-places of the dead to the sacred altars of the living. The same sense of impressive strangeness must possess every imaginative and reverent pilgrim to the catacombs ; but the Spanish poet and the pilgrim of our day see the same places under very different conditions. The modern visitor follows his guide through the silent deserted corridors, peopling as best he can the vacant places with the figures of the past ; the fourth-century poet could scarcely thread his way through the fervent throng of worshippers who were crowdiDg in from all the country round to keep the festal day of the honoured martyr who slept in that hidden sanctuary. From " early morning to the setting of the sun " the stream flowed on. There might be seen the peasant from the outskirts with wife and children ; here the nobles in their garb of festive white ; nobles and common folk jostled each other shoulder to shoulder in the narrow space, all impelled by the same desire to kiss the silver shrine which guarded the precious relics. Windows cut in the roof let in rays of sunlight upon the darkness, and made it possible to read the exquisitely carved tablet that told the name and story of the saint ; but that story was yet more plainly set forth in a painting hanging within the cavern, a painting portraying the fearful death of an aged, white-haired martyr, who has been torn asunder by wild horses ; showing, too, the weeping friends following along the blood-stained road and reverently gathering up the poor scattered members ; and many of the pilgrims, as they gazed on this picture, wept for very pity at the sight. Who, then, was this martyr whom the Church thus delighted to honour ? What was his name, and what his story ? Our poet has no doubt as to the answer. Hippolytus, Prudentius tells us, was a priest or presbyter occupying a leading position among the Christian community round about Ostia and Portus (the twin harbours of Eome), who suffered, for the sake of Christianity, the same fate as his classical namesake, Hip- polytus, the son of Theseus, who was torn by wild horses. The sentence- was prompted, Prudentius tells us, by the associations of the name ; " but," says Archbishop Benson, \ " it is more like a poet's or a painter's than a prefect's deed to tear an old Christian with horses, whether because of his own unluckily suggestive name,J or because of the tale of his namesake." * This account of S. Hippolytus is based upon Bishop Lightfoot's work on the "Apostolic Fathers," and the quota- tions, where not otherwise stated, are from him. t Quoted in Lightfoot's "Hippolytus."" % Hippolytus, from the Greek word lirrvo\vTos=-oi 'lttttoi \vovctl, meaning "torn by horses." chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S. HIPPOLYTUS. 205 We begin to doubt whether the picture was ever intended " to represent the actual event ; " whether, in short, it had more than a symbolic refer- ence to Hippolytus the Martyr ; and our misgivings are strengthened when, two hundred years later, in the spurious Acts of the famous Roman deacon, S. Laurence (ch. xxvi.), Hippolytus reappears in the guise of S. Laurence's soldier-gaoler. He is converted by his sainted charge and follows him to death. Strange to say, this Hippolytus also is condemned to the very same punishment as his priestly predecessor ; stranger still, he is buried in the self-same cemetery beside the Tiburtine Way that led to Tivoli, and is commemorated on the self -same day, August 13. At this point we begin to suspect that there is great confusion somewhere ; these mythical horses are responsible for much of it, but not for all ; and so we become aware that we have entered a famous labyrinth which has long been and still remains the despair of scholars. At first sight the matter would seem to be still further complicated by the existence of yet another Hippolytus, the well-authenticated third- century theologian and controversialist of that name, who is reckoned among the Fathers of the Church. He, too, presents sundry difficulties on his own account, but he is notwithstanding a distinct historical personality. Now, if these three supposed namesakes, Hippolytus the Father, Hippolytus the Presbyter, and Hippolytus the Soldier, could be reduced to one single man, our task would be considerably simplified ; and it is just this unifica- tion of the three conflicting personalities that has been attempted by Bishop Lightfoot. Fortunately, the undertaking has been made somewhat easier by the Roman excavations of recent times which have brought to light once more the very basilica which Prudentius visited in a.d. 400. The costly shrine, the precious metals, the marble walls, have long since disappeared ; but as of old the skylights in the roof throw light upon the subterranean darkness, and show the altar still standing there where the poet described it. The carved inscription on which Prudentius's eyes rested had long ago been carried away, and has been recovered from other sources ; but even before the basilica was brought to light, the plot of ground beneath which it lay concealed had been plainly identified with Hippolytus by the discovery (a.d. 1551) in a part of the same field of a statue representing a figure sitting in a cathedra, or bishop's chair. The head was missing * and there was no name attached, but the long list of literary works inscribed upon the base of the chair — works well known to have proceeded from the busy pen of Hippolytus — solves beyond all doubt the question of identity. And curiously enough, the statue, though without date of any sort, bears upon its face evidence that it was erected within a few years of Hippolytus's death, if not actually in his lifetime. On one side of the chair is inscribed a table for calculating Easter for a given period. In the infancy of mathe- matics, to produce such a table was no everyday achievement, and it was * The statue is now in the Lateran true head has unfortunately never been Museum. It has been restored, but the found. 206 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. reckoned among our hero's special titles to fame ; but, unhappily, his chronology proved faulty, and already within six or seven years of his pro- bable death his scheme had to be abandoned, and was not likely there- fore to have been any longer treated with such conspicuous honour. As will naturally have been inferred from the foregoing, Hippolytus was a bishop whose chief claim to distinction lay in his literary works — works exegetical and controversial, which have caused him to be ranked among the Apostolic Fathers. Enough of these writings remain to prove abundantly that in all the controversies of his day, Bishop Hippolytus took a foremost part. Throughout his whole career he stands forth as " the champion of purity in the Church — the severe opponent of any laxity which might endanger the virgin discipline of the Christian brotherhood." He was a man who cared passionately for his own ideals, and who spoke and wrote strongly — aye, intemperately — of those who differed from him ; be they who they may, even his own ecclesiastical superiors, the successive bishops of Rome. With two of the Popes Hippolytus came into open con- flict. In company with a third, it was ultimately his lot to be sent into banishment to the notoriously unhealthy island of Sardinia, and there to end his days. The circumstances that led to his banishment are im- perfectly known, but the coupling of his name with that of the Chief Pastor of the Roman Church shows that he was regarded as a leading member of the Christian community. , A still greater proof of the im- portant place which he had attained in the estimate of his contemporaries was shown from another quarter, when shortly after his death his remains were brought back to Rome and laid in the cemetery on the Tiburtine road that still bears his name ; in the very spot, as we may reasonably believe, that had been the frequent scene of his ministrations. This translation of the remains of S. Hippolytus the bishop is proved by the most venerable martyrologies to have taken place on August 13, a day constantly associated with the name of Hippolytus. The year is judged to have been about a.d. 238. But how comes it, we may ask, that a man who had been not only under the ban of the civil authorities, but also in violent collision with his own leaders, could receive such exceptional posthumous honours ? As to this last, it has been observed that "men treat with leniency the faults of one who has real claims to respect." * " Hippolytus," says Dr. Salmon, " was a man of whose learning the whole Roman church must have been proud ; he was of undoubted piety, and of courage which he proved in the good confession which he afterwards witnessed." And as to the erection of the statue, if Bishop Lightfoot is correct in his supposition that the whole plot of land on which the statue was erected, and beneath which the cemetery lay, was the private property of Hippolytus himself, the civil power would not interfere with the uses made of it. But in truth it is very difficult for us through all the mists of contro- versy that have gathered about the name of Hippolytus to appreciate how * Dr. Salmon in D. C. B. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. HIPPOLYTUS. 2QJ commanding a figure he was in his own day. " It has seldom happened," says Dr. Salmon, " in ecclesiastical history that one who enjoyed so much celebrity in his lifetime has been so obscurely known to the church of subsequent times." It was chiefly through his immense literary activity that he influenced his own generation ; and his works, though well fitted to meet the interests and needs of the present hour, and tending to give " a great impulse to the study of God's Word," * were not of a nature to be read in after ages, except indeed by scholars and antiquarians. But in his own day his books attracted the attention of the entire literary world ; and we happen to know that on the occasion of a certain sermon, which he preached in the very height of his controversy with one of his episcopal opponents, he had among his auditors no less a man than Origen. Nor was Origen the only distinguished man with whom Hippolytus was brought into contact. In his younger days he had attended the lectures of Irenseus himself. " The position and influence of Hippolytus,"' says Bishop Lightfoot, " were unique among the Roman Christians of his age. He linked together the learning and traditions of the East, the original home of Christianity, with the marvellous practical energy of the West, the scene of his own life's labours. Not only was he by far the most learned man in the Western Church, but his spiritual and intellectual ancestry was quite exceptional. Though he lived till within a few years of the middle of the third century, he could trace his pedigree back by only three steps, literary as well as ministerial, to the life and teaching of the Saviour Himself. Irenseus, Polycarp, S. John — this was his direct ancestry. No wonder if these facts secured to him exceptional honour in his own generation." Nor was it in his own generation only, for the name and fame of Hippolytus continued to loom large through succeeding ages ; and yet fate has dealt very hardly with him. It is not merely that his real history has been forgotten, but that all manner of perversions of the real history have gone abroad. His episcopal office has been disputed, because his see is hard to define ; and he has been accounted a priest rather than a bishop. Moreover, he, the jealous defender of the faith, has been solemnly accused of tampering with heresy, and with a heresy that did not come into being till he was laid in his grave ; his conflicts with the Popes have caused him to be looked upon as himself an anti-pope ; he has been credited with dying a horrible and fantastic death suggested by an old legend ; and finally, he has been robbed of his rights in his own cemetery, and has had to see even his own last resting-place ascribed to another Hippolytus — Hippolytus, the priest of Ostia, of whom Prudentius sang. But our contention is that the bishop and the so-called priest are but one and the same. That our Hippolytus was a bishop is perfectly plain from his own writings ; but it is also plain from the evidence of the only contemporary document — that which records his banishment to Sardinia — * Salmon. 208 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. that he was spoken of as " Hippolytus the Presbyter," the very term which is used in the inscription found in his cemetery and by Prudentius himself. Bishop Lighfcfoot is of opinion that the word " Presbyter " does not in this connexion " represent office, but that it expresses venerable dignity, such as is accorded to those who are depositaries of the wisdom of the past." Such a use of the term to denote a reverend elder is found not seldom in writers of the first centuries ; sometimes applied to the Apostles, sometimes to their immediate disciples, and bearing much the same meaning as our " Fathers of the Church." And so, argues Bishop Lightfoot, Hippolytus, bishop though he was, " has a title of his own, more honour- able than any conferred by any office ; just as Bede is called the Venerable ; " but in course of time the peculiar signification was lost, and the term was -explained in its ordinary sense as designating the second Order of the Ministry. But allowing that Hippolytus was a bishop, the question arises — What was the see over which he ruled ? It is evident that he was near enough to Borne to take a leading part in all Boman affairs, but his name most often occurs in connexion with Portus, the harbour of Borne, some fifteen miles distant from the city ; and one favourite theory has been that he was bishop of this place. Unfortunately, Portus was at no time a recognized episcopal see ; but Bishop Lightfoot suggests as a solution of the problem that Hippolytus may have held the somewhat anomalous position — appointed thereto, we may suppose, before the accession of either of the two Pontiffs with whom he lived in such perpetual warfare — of a non-territorial bishop ; specially intended to superintend the vast foreign population of soldiers, merchants, and seafaring men who thronged the harbours of Ostia and the yet more stirring Portus. " A bishop was needed who could take charge of this miscellaneous and disorderly flock. He must before all things be conversant in the manners and language of Greece, the lingua franca of the East, and indeed of the civilized world. Hippolytus was just the man for the place." This theory, moreover, agrees well with his own description of himself as " bishop of the Gentiles ; " but if the arrange- ment was of a temporary and exceptional nature, it is easy to understand that later writers might have known nothing of it. As to Hippolytus having been tainted with the particular form of heresy known as Novatianism, the chronological objection before alluded to sufficiently disposes of that ; but it is conceivable enough that some confused knowledge of his standing feuds with the Popes should have led to a charge of heresy — a charge that was promulgated in very tentative fashion by his admirer, Pope Damasus, some hundred and fifty years and more after the saint's death, when the said Pope erected, in the cemetery which he had so carefully restored and beautified, that memorial tablet which Prudentius read. In that inscription Damasus puts on record what little he had been able to glean concerning the history of the martyr whose fame still clung to the basilica of S. Hippolytus. He does not shrink from acknowledging that "Hippolytus the Presbyter" is "reported" to have chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S. HIPPOLYTUS. 20g been for a long time involved in the Novatian schism, but that in the end he repented him of his error, and on his road to martyrdom charged the Christian friends who accompanied him to follow the Catholic faith. " Our saint," adds he, " by his confession won the crown of martyrdom ; " but with striking candour he concludes — and it is a proof how scanty was his knowledge of the matter — " Damasus tells the tale as he heard it. All things are tested and proved by Christ." It will be observed that while Damasus looks upon Hippolytus as a martyr, he says no word as to the manner of his martyrdom. All that we know of the fate of the real Hippolytus is from an almost contemporary notice,* which runs thus : " At the same time Pontianus the bishop and Hippolytus the presbyter were banished to the unhealthy island of Sardinia." Sardinia was a convict station, notoriously unhealthy, and the official entry, by dwelling on its " unhealthiness," suggests that Hippolytus and his fellow-exile died in their exile — "a too probable result," says Bishop Lightf oot, " of such banishment to an octogenarian." If this were so we should regard him rather as a confessor than a martyr ; but such was not the belief current in the fourth century, and in the fifty years' interval between Pope Damasus and the poet Prudentius an elaborate theory as to the manner of his martyrdom had grown up, and we find ourselves con- fronted with the story of the prefect and the wild horses. We have seen that Prudentius accounts for the dreadful sentence by the explanation that it was suggested to the prefect by his victim's classical name ; but Prudentius did not himself invent the form of martyrdom ; he merely gave currency to the popular opinion of his time, which in its turn was moulded by the picture displayed in the basilica. Here at last we come to the origin of the confusion, and we have now to inquire what was the meaning of this picture. This picture at least, if nothing else in the whole perplexing story, was plainly suggested by the famous myth, and very high authorities f are agreed that " the most probable explanation seems to be that the manner of Hippolytus' death being unknown, and some concrete representation being necessary, this early Christian painter selected the fate of his mythical namesake as 4 a pictorial mode of writing above the shrine Hippolytus Martyr.' " The next step was easy enough ; the symbolical character of the painting would be quickly misunderstood, and it would come to be considered — as indeed we know that it was — the representation of an historical fact. So far it has been an intricate but not impossible task to blend into one personality S. Hippolytus the Father and S. Hippolytus the Presbyter. A new source of dire confusion before long presents itself in the tendency to regard our saint as a mere satellite to the greater light, S. Laurence the Deacon (ch. xxvi.), and as one of the companions of his martyrdom. A comparison of dates shows the statement to be a pure anachronism, for Hippolytus had been dead full twenty years at the time of S. * " Liber Pontificalis ; " supposed date t Archbishop Benson and Bishop a.d. 255. Lightfoot. VOL. I. P 2IO STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Laurence's martyrdom. The evidence of dates notwithstanding, this new complication was at one time received with immense favour, and it therefore demands our attention. Curiously enough, the confusion appears to have originated from a purely accidental coincidence of time and place, and for the right understanding of it we shall require some slight acquaint- ance with Roman topography. Just opposite the cemetery of Hippolytus so often described, divided from it only by the highway leading to Tivoli, was and still is the cemetery of S. Cyriace, more often called, from the famous martyr who slept therein and who gave name to the church in the midst of it, the Laurentian cemetery. Both cemeteries alike formed part of an estate known (probably from the name of some former owner) as the Ager Veranus. Though situated so close one to another, the several cemeteries and basilicas were wholly distinct ; but it was easy enough for pilgrims to cross the road from the one side to the other, and more especially would this be the case in the festal month of August, when the feast-days of the respective saints were observed ; S. Laurence on the 10th of the month, and S. Hippolytus on the 13th. Multitudes would then pour forth from Rome, some with the express intention of visiting the shrine of S. Hippolytus on the northern side of the road, a yet greater number bent on worshipping in the shrine of S. Laurence on the southern side. Great indeed had been the honours once paid to the memory of S. Hippolytus ; but after a while his special claims to fame somehow ceased to be remem- bered. As it has been said, " A sponge passed over the records of Hippo- lytus and his times ; and only a confused smear remained of a once exceptionally vivid and characteristic portraiture." Pope Damasus did his best, and with considerable temporary success, to revive the popular vene- ration for his memory, but we have already seen how meagre was his own information. It was impossible, however, for a learned divine like Hippo- lytus to excite the same passionate enthusiasm as a youthful martyr like Laurence the Deacon. The story of S. Laurence's good confession and his triumphant death was too grandly simple to be forgotten, though it might be burdened with a mass of unimportant and probably apocryphal additions. " It is no marvel then," says Bishop Lightfoot, " that the aureole which encircled the heads of other neighbouring saints and martyrs — even of the famous Hippolytus himself — should have paled in the light of his unique splendour." The ever-increasing admiration for S. Laurence found outward expression in successive rebuildings of the church that bore his name ; and at the same time the ever-growing magnificence of the church on the southern side of the way exercised "a fatal influence on the decadence and obliteration of the humbler cemetery and shrine " of S. Hippolytus, which was suffered to fall into complete ruin. But Hippolytus had one possession which was far too valuable to be forgotten or neglected — the reputation, namely, of his strange and horrible death. This and the memory of his supposed priestly calling alone sur- vived ; and it was told how among the companions of the sufferings of S. Laurence the Deacon was Hippolytus the Presbyter. So closely indeed chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. HIPPOLYTUS. 211 was his story interwoven with that of the more famous martyr, that the stately church of S. Laurence, which was reared by Pope Pelagius II. towards the end of the sixth century, was dedicated not only to S. Laurence himself and to his venerated master, Bishop Sixtus (see story of S. Laurence, ch. xxvi.), but also to S. Hippolytus ; * and the idea of this triple dedi- cation was still further emphasized by a mosaic set up in the apse, in which Hippolytus in his priestly vestments is represented, together with the Apostles Peter and Paul, and his fellow-martyrs Sixtus and Laurence. But so far, whatever else S. Hippolytus had lost, he had retained his ecclesiastical status ; of this, too, he is now to be robbed, and when next we meet him it is in the novel guise of a soldier. The ninth-century martyrologist Ado has preserved for us the so-called Acts of SS. Laurence and Hippolytus, which seem to have been specially written to serve " as a guide-book for the pilgrims to this Ager Yeranus " — this burying-ground which contained so many precious relics. Needless to say, these Acts gave countless details of the lives and deaths of the martyrs which were not to be found in more trustworthy documents. The story of S. Laurence, in particular, is embellished with additions wholly unknown to S. Ambrose or S. Augustine ; and amongst other things we hear how his steadfast bearing in the hour of trial so wrought upon the feelings of two of the soldiers who were set to guard him, that both alike sought baptism at the hands of their prisoner ; both of them were put to death in consequence ; and both of them were buried in the cemetery of the Ager Yeranus. The name of the one soldier was Hippolytus, the name of the other was Romanus ; and it is not a little strange that they have this further point in common : Romanus, like Hippolytus, is a genuine historical character — a martyr in the Diocletian persecution — and like Hippolytus also, not a soldier, but an ecclesiastic, a young deacon of Antioch. How comes it, then, that both these reputed companions of S. Laurence should have been transformed into soldiers ? In the case of Romanus the explanation seems simply this : that figures drawn from Christian warfare and intended purely as metaphors have received a literal interpretation, and so have served " as the bridge of passage from Romanus the cleric to Romanus the soldier." Upon a mural tablet in S. Laurence's church the two names stood in close juxtaposition : " Hippolytus," and " Romanus Miles." The tablet omitted the usual title "Presbyter," but gave prominence to the inevitable story of the wild horses ; to the history of Romanus, on the other hand, it added nothing at all, and it is by no means improbable that before long the proper name was wholly forgotten, and the words taken to mean that Hippolytus was " a Roman soldier." However the transformation came about, it was joyfully accepted, and though there seems to have been some slight difficulty in reconciling the new career with the established tradition that had represented Hippolytus * Bishop Lightfoot conjectures that tury church of Pope Sixtus III., of which this triple dedication may possibly have the later church was nominally only an belonged originally to a yet earlier period, enlargement, though practically tanta- and have been attached to the fifth-cen- mount to a rebuilding. 2 1 2 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xix. as a priest, this was ingeniously got over by some phrases in the spurious Acts, in which the judge orders his victim to be stripped of the dress which " he wore as a Christian," and to " resume the profession of a soldier which thou didst always follow." Nothing was now lacking to fill up the measure of our saint's popularity. " Hippolytus the presbyter " had already made his way into France ; " Hippolytus the soldier " was a yet more welcome guest, and we may see an unmistakable sign of that popularity in the way in which his name stamped itself upon the nomenclature of the country, for to this day we meet it in France both as giving name to a little town, and as a baptismal name. France with her " S. Hippolyte" has kept wonderfully near to the original form of the somewhat unmanageable appellation, but she like- wise knows him under the abbreviation of " Bilt." The Italians have turned him into " Polto ; " in the far East he becomes " Iflites ; " in Africa he is with difficulty recognized as " Abulides ; " while in our own Hert- fordshire he simply drops the aspirate and stands forth as " Ippolits " or Eppallets," * or in the mouths of the village rustics is further shortened into " Pollits." We have little space to linger over foreign churches that bear the name of S. Hippolytus — not even over the most interesting of them all, the ruined church at Portus, a place which "by history and tradition alike is more closely identified" than almost any other spot with the real Hippolytus. Murray's " Handbook of Rome " gives a hasty description, first of the ruined church with its mediaeval bell-tower, and then of the once famous patron, and immediately passes on to call attention to the " Farm of S. Hippolito " hard by, famous for its breed of horses. It is an odd chance that even at this distance of time S. Hippolytus cannot escape from his association with horses ! Something must, however, be said of the French Abbey of S. Hip- polytus in the neighbourhood of St. Denis, which boasted the possession of the body of the saint, brought, it was said, straight from the cemetery at Rome in the eighth century. The claim was hotly disputed by Rome, and no less hotly defended by the famous Abbey of S. Denis, to which in course of time the sacred deposit had been translated. The dispute came to a crisis in the twelfth century when the then Pope, Alexander III., was visiting St. Denis, and chanced to inquire whose bones a certain reliquary contained. When told that they were those of S. Hippolytus, the Pope replied, undiplomatically enough, " I do not believe it, I do not believe it. I supposed that he still lay in the City." " He had," says Bishop Lightfoot, " only too much reason for his scepticism, for he might have known that Rome itself contained no less than three bodies of S. Hippolytus. The saint himself, however, would stand no trifling. His bones rattled and rumbled in that reliquary, like the roar of thunder, till the Pope cried out in terror, ' I believe it, my lord, I believe it, my lord ; do keep quiet.' " And in the end the distinguished visitor had to * Glutterbuck'8 " Hertfordshire." chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S. HIPPOLYTUS. 213 atone for his ill-judged scepticism by placing a marble altar in the oratory of the saint. It was probably about two hundred years after the Pope's discomfiture at St. Denis — that is to say, about the middle of the fourteenth century — that the pseudo-Hippolytus made his appearance in Hertfordshire, and about this same period also that he became the patron saint of Byrne Intrinsica in Dorsetshire.* There are only these two counties which possess any dedication to this saint so highly venerated on the continent. Unfortunately, both churches, though now made parochial, were originally only chapels-of-ease, the first dependent upon Hitchin,f the second dependent upon Yetminster ; and as usual in the case of chapelries, we are at a loss to account for the special origin of the dedication-name. With characteristic forcibleness the saint in both instances impressed his name upon the surrounding district. In Dorsetshire a corrupted form of Hippolytus lingered for centuries as a baptismal name : the registers of Holnest, a parish some few miles from Ryme, show in 1607 the baptism of " Epowlett " Beere, and twenty years later the burial of Agnes, wife of " Epollet " Eutter.J In Hertfordshire all that part of the mother-parish of Hitchin which lay round about the chapelry became gradually known by the name of the saint as " Pollits," " Ippolyts," " St. Ibbs," or more formally "St. Ippolits." How much of his varied biography S. Hip- polytus brought with him into Hertfordshire is doubtful ; at least, we have good evidence that the wild horses were as usual in great prominence ; but alas for our saint ! the story underwent strange changes in the telling of it, and John Norden the antiquary, who published his " Englaud : A Guide for Travellers," in 1625, was confronted with a version of the same at Ippolyts that was worthy of the well-known game of " Russian scandal." He was informed then that S. Hippolytus " was in his life- time a good tamer of colts, and as good a horse leech ; and for these qualities was devoutly honoured after his death, as all passengers by that way on horse-back thought themselves bound to bring their steeds into the church, even up to the high altar, where this holy horseman was shrined," etc. Another early informant adds that the horses were brought up to the altar through the north door, and that the floor of the church was boarded for the greater convenience of the horsemen. Clutterbuck, the compiler of the standard History of Hertfordshire, strongly discredits this " ridiculous story," and shows that by the beginning of the present century all such traditions had utterly died out ; but in defence of Norden we may point out that it would be harder for him to invent such a strange rigmarole than to retail what he had actually heard ; and further, it must be remembered that superstitious practices are apt to linger on in quiet places long after the belief that prompted them has died out. Thus at last we have threaded our way through the complicated * The first known mention of the % Private letter from the Rev. 0. H. name occurs in an ecclesiastical document Mayo, Vicar of Longburton, Sherborne, dated 1405. 1896. f Cussan's " History of Hertfordshire." 214 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. labyrinth that was once described by a former distinguished Vicar * of Ippolyts as " the Hippolytus tangle ; " and we have seen how hardly a reverend and learned Father of the Church has been treated ; how his true claims to fame have been ignored, and how he has been remembered only by virtue of the military profession with which he had nothing to do, and the fantastic martyrdom which he never suffered. S. Cyprian. From the wild confusions and myths that have grown up B.M. Sept. around the notable figure of S. Hippolytus, it is refreshing- ly 258. to tum to daylight distinctness in which may be seen every act and word of his younger contemporary Cyprian, f Archbishop of Carthage. This is not the place in which to enter upon the later con- troversies that have gathered round the name of the great African Father — far-reaching questions concerning episcopal authority and Roman supremacy, the nature of Baptism, and the sinfulness of separation from the visible Church. It is enough for our present purpose to try and set him before our imagination as he moved up and down among his own people ; the trusted leader, as much loved as he was revered ; ruling, teaching, sympathizing, encouraging ; showing by his life among them for fourteen years an example of powers all consecrated to one high end ; showing at length by his joyous acceptance of martyrdom the willing- sacrifice of life itself. At the time when first his faithful deacon and biographer Pontius begins his narrative, Cyprian was already one of the foremost citizens of Carthage, a distinguished lawyer noted for his rare gifts of oratory, and popular throughout Carthage society ; enjoying then, as he enjoyed to the end of his career, the friendship of the families of most illustrious birth and standing. He was a man of wealth, possessing in the suburbs of the city his own well-appointed villa standing in the midst of beautiful gardens, a pleasant country home where we have at least one glimpse of him entertaining his friends. In this year— a.d. 246 — Heathenism with all its open as well as secret evils was still paramount in the busy pleasure- loving city ; but even then Christianity was a steadily growing power, a factor in the life of the city that could not escape the attention of the active-minded lawyer. He came under the influence of a devout presbyter named Csecilian ; he read the books of the Christians ; he examined into their doctrines, and most of all into that doctrine of conversion — of change of heart, of habit, of affections— which seemed to him well-nigh impossible. For himself, knowing " the clinging vices " of the old bad life, he " despaired of better things ; " but the time came when by his own experience he learned, as he himself tells us, the power of the second birth. Then all things became new ; " doubtful things began to become certain, dark things to be enlightened ; what before had been thought impossible to be capable of attainment." * The late Professor Hort. or possibly " Thascius Caecilius Cypri- t In the Anglican Kalendar comme- anus;" but it is enough, for our purpose morated on September 26 ; see p. 221. to give the name by which he was and is % More strictly "Thascius Cyprianus," commonly known. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. CYPRIAN. 215 It was little wonder that the Christian community hailed with en- thusiasm such an accession to their ranks, or that the newly baptized Cyprian passed rapidly through the stages of deacon and presbyter, and in two years' time was called upon to fill the vacant office of bishop, or " pope," to use the local term. In the whole province of North Africa there was no diocese of such importance as Carthage. Its bishop exercised metropolitan authority over all the fourscore and more sees belonging to the different cities. It was his task to summon councils, to lead opinion, to hold communication with the leading foreign Churches — with Alexan- dria on the one hand, and Rome on the other. His duties were those of statesman as well as chief pastor, and the qualities demanded of him were just those which Cyprian had in rich abundance. His wide culture, his social standing, his knowledge of the world, his legal training, — all these external advantages, dominated by the one single desire to serve the Church of Christ upon earth, gave him a degree of influence not only within but beyond the limits of the Christian society which none of the neighbouring bishops could ever have attained. Gladly then they followed his lead, whether right or wrong — u an army of bishops, moving as one man under him." * Some few there were indeed who both opposed his election and never ceased to cause him trouble, but the majority trusted him to the utmost. It was no easy task which awaited him. A whole generation of Christians had grown up who knew nothing of the testing of persecution. In the year 248, when, to quote Archbishop Benson's graphic description, " the figure of the well-known advocate, now for some time missed from court and forum, and grown familiar to Christians in the semicircle of presbyters, took the white linen-covered chair of the illicit assembly in some merchant prince's basilica," there were but a few months left of the " forty-eight years' peace which had assisted the extension of the Church without promoting either its devotion or its organization." Habits of laxity had grown up which were an ill preparation for the persecution that was now by order of the Emperor Decius about to overtake the whole Church. In vain the bishop enforced his favourite truth that " In the heavenly camp both peace and strife have their own flowers with which the soldier of Christ may be crowned for glory." The storm burst and found too many all unprepared to meet it. Some " were conquered before the battle," t and " came voluntarily to the capitol " to offer the saving sacri- fices ; others sought to obtain from the civil authorities certificates of their acknowledged conformity to the established religion .{ Others, on the contrary, trusting in their own strength, courted apprehension, and * Archbishop Benson in D. 0. B. Decian persecution have lately come to t The quotations, where not otherwise light. They are addressed to " the Corn- stated, are from Cyprian's own writings. missioners of the sacrifices ; " they state X These certificates were known as how the personages therein named and libelli, or tickets ; hence the designation their families were " constant in ever of " Libellalici " often given to those who sacrificing to the gods," and they desire availed themselves of their use. Two the magistrates to sign the documents, such certificates belonging to this very which are signed accordingly. 2l6 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. then, under the terrible pressure of torture, gave way. Such needless running into danger was not approved by their chief. For his own part he thought it best to withdraw into retirement, and he denounced the practice of going in crowds to visit those who were already imprisoned, as tending to promote excitement and so to increase official suspicion. His prudent action drew down upon him much censure, and it was freely whispered by some enthusiasts that it was prompted by cowardice. The charge was spread abroad as far as to Eome, and the bishop felt it due to himself to write his defence to the presbyters and deacons in that city, to explain that the motive for his flight had been " consideration not so much for my own safety as the public peace of the brethren, lest by my over- bold presence the tumult might be still further provoked." " Neverthe- less," adds he — and the records of his letters and his gifts abundantly support the claim — " although absent in body, I was not wanting either in spirit, or in act, or in my advice, so as to fail in any benefit that I could afford my brethren, in anything that my poor abilities availed me." In truth, the charge of cowardice was one of the vainest that could well have been brought against that daring spirit. The Roman clergy rightly acknowledged in their " Father Cyprian " the strength of a mind " conscious to itself of uprightness, accustomed to be satisfied with God for its only judge, and neither to seek the praises nor to dread the charges of any other ; " and Cyprian himself, in writing to his friend Cornelius (oh. xx.), the then Bishop of Rome, to encourage him in his stand against the anti-Pope Novatian and his followers, unconsciously lets a good deal of his own indomitable boldness appear. "If, dearest brother," says he, " evil men may accomplish by daring and desperation what they cannot do rightly and equitably, there is an end of the vigour of the episcopacy and of the sublime and divine power of governing the Church ; nor can we in fact be Christians, if it is come to this, that we are to be afraid of threats." If thus they give place to the violence of heretics, what more is left but that " the Church should yield to the Capitol, and the priests depart " and make place for " the images and idols " ? These are brave words, and they are not the empty boasts of one who is himself set in a position of security ; even as he wrote he had ringing in his ears the clamours of the populace as they demanded anew what they had so often asked before, that the pro- scribed bishop should be brought into the circus " for the lions." Truly enough could Cyprian say, even while his actual martyrdom was in the far distance : " We are still placed in the battle-field ; we fight daily for our lives." It is not difficult to see in Cyprian's letters the intense burning fervour of his nature ; one can see also the vehemence, the power of stinging sarcasm, that must have made him a formidable opponent when he was a pleader at the Bar. Once only, however, in all the large collection of his letters that have come down to us, in replying to a supposed friend who had too lightly given credence to the calumnies that were circulated about the Bishop of Carthage, and with cruel hastiness condemned him unheard, does chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. CYPRIAN. 21 J Cyprian give vent to his stream of polished sarcasm ; but that once is, as Archbishop Benson says, sufficient to show that if Cyprian were charitable it was a " charity with a will." For the rest there is in his letters a tone of restrained force, of mingled dignity and tenderness, that agrees well with his biographer's description of his bearing, as at once dignified and gentle, his aspect both " grave and joyous." The archbishop's literary gifts were always at the service of his beloved people ; and the various writings of his which have come down to us were all composed, some in the form of speeches, some as pamphlets, to meet special needs as they arose. Such were the famous treatises " On Unity," on " The Lapsed," on the right use of the Lord's Prayer, and many others, every one of which was charged with some direct practical teaching. During the few years of calm that followed the Decian persecution there was work enough to satisfy even the energy of a Cyprian. First of all came the question of restoration of discipline ; of dealing with those who had unhappily failed under trial — the so-called " lapsed." Counsels were much divided ; the severe party inclined to perpetual excommunication ; the other extreme demanded instant and complete indulgence. It lay with Cyprian "to steer the middle course of the Church in a steady path." * Patiently he judged each case on its merits, fearlessly refusing re-admission to those who haughtily claimed it as their right, yet no less fearlessly insisting that the way of return should be tenderly kept open for those who sought it with persevering penitence. " Let no one," he urged, " cast down more deeply those who are down ; " and to the penitent himself he held out the inspiring hope : " The soldier will repeat the fight, made braver for the battle by his very suffering." If any one could so misread S. Cyprian's whole character as to construe this divine compassion for sorrow-stricken, fainting souls into a careless indifference for the preservation of the Church's purity, they must surely understand him better when they see how, in a mistaken defence of that purity, he separated himself from the Catholic Church at large by insisting upon re-baptism in the case of such as had been baptized by heretics. Strange it was that he who valued unity so highly should have failed to see that by his action he was doing much to endanger that precious unity. Yet if from very " hatred against heresy " Cyprian was " carried aside " f into uncatholic error — an error that had all the more weight by reason of "the worth and regard "J of him that taught it — it is only just to remember that in theory Cyprian always maintained the right of each bishop to act according to his own free judgment, though in practice his sole judgment became temporarily the rule of the North African Church. In the midst of these theological questions Cyprian found time for much practical philanthropy, and notably for the raising of a fund to ransom the large number of captives who had been carried off by the * Pontius's Life, t Hooker, E. P. X Ibid. 2l8 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Berber tribes situated round about Numidia. The distribution of this money was entrusted to the bishops of the several districts concerned. In his graceful letter accompanying the £800 which he had raised, Cyprian expressed his fulness of sympathy with the sufferers, his gratitude to the bishops for having afforded the givers the opportunity of being " sharers in your anxiety," and takes pains to secure that the smaller donors shall get their meed of thanks. In the first enthusiasm of his conversion Cyprian had interpreted literally the command to sell all that he had, and had parted with all his property, even to his beautiful gardens ; but these were bought up by friends and restored to him. Afterwards he came to feel that the right distribution of his wealth was no less a duty, and letter after letter shows him giving out of his private means to the relief of distress in some form or other. So far we have seen Cyprian as the father of his own people ; now we are to see him as the benefactor of pagan and Christian alike. In the year 252 the dreaded plague, which had already decimated Alexandria and many another city, made its appearance in Carthage. Where it once entered there it lingered year after year, a scourge of whose awful virulence we in Europe can hardly form any conception. A horrible selfish panic mingled itself with the actual danger and cruelly intensified it. The civic authorities were paralyzed ; they ordained special sacrifices to Apollo, but did little besides. Then it was that the fearless leader of the Christians stepped into the breach ; he called a meeting of his own community, and being assured of their loyal co-operation — the gifts of the wealthier, the personal services of the poorer brethren — organized a scheme for the care of the sick and the burial of the dead, without distinction of creed. " We call God Father ; we ought to act as God's children." " Let us answer to our birth ; " such was the animating motive which again and again in speech and writing he pressed upon his people. Yet some there were whose hearts failed at the near approach of death. To comfort such he wrote his beautiful treatise " On the Mortality," in which he gently rebukes those faithless ones who showed by their fear of death that they were "unwilling to go to Christ." He reminded them how this sickness was as a time of training for Christians, and sought to raise their drooping thoughts to " our country Paradise, where a great number of our dear ones is waiting for us, and longing for us." But there were others, more highly wrought, who mourned over the sickness chiefly because it deprived them of their hope of martyrdom. He reminds such that " God does not ask for our blood but for our faith." And yet the sickness was slowly but surely opening a road to martyrdom at first unlooked for. The persistent abstention of the Christians from the sacrifices to Apollo caused them to be regarded with increasing suspicion as the possible cause of the protracted calamity. The growing anti-Christian feeling in Carthage was strengthened, moreover, by a like feeling that was gaining ground more and more in the imperial counsels at Rome under certain strong influences that were being brought to bear upon the Emperor chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. CYPRIAN. 2ig Valerian. A new policy of suppression was about to be tried, a bloodless policy, so it was intended to be, which should effect its purpose by making it penal to hold Christian assemblies, and most of all by condemning the leaders — that is, the bishops and presbyters — to banishment, so leaving the people shepherdless. On August 30, 257, Cyprian was summoned to the presence of the pro-consul, informed of the new regulations, questioned briefly as to his own position, and interrogated as to the presbyters residing in the city. As to himself, he answered unhesitatingly that he was " a Christian and a bishop." Concerning others, he merely reminded the pro-consul that there were "very good regulations against informers," and therefore declined to answer. He received with his accustomed dignity the sentence of exile which was then pronounced on him without delay. The place appointed, where the closing year of the bishop's life was to be spent, was a little town some fifty miles from Carthage, isolated indeed, but pleasant ; nor were the conditions of his exile in any way severe. He was allowed to associate with whom he would, and to follow all his ordinary occupations. Very different in this respect was his lot from that of some of the other bishops, who were condemned to labour in the mines under circumstances of the utmost hardness. Their grateful answers show us that in their distress they had no greater earthly comfort than in Cyprian's letters. He entered as usual into each detail of their sufferings, sorrowing for them, yet glorying on their behalf that they were now called to " fulfil in deed what they had before taught in words." And indeed his various letters to the confessors are a storehouse of ennobling consolation, as when he writes to encourage those who shall be called upon to suffer in loneliness, apart from the sustaining presence of their brethren : " He is not alone who has Christ for his companion. . . . Christ everywhere looks upon His servant fighting. . . . The glory of martyrdom is not less that he has not perished publicly. . . . God looks upon us in the warfare ; His angels look on us ; Christ looks on us. . . . Let us be prepared for the struggle." His own struggle was not far off. Upon the night of his arrival at the place of exile, he had a vivid dream that he was once more sentenced to death, but that the judge had reprieved him until " the morrow." That interval he interpreted to mean one year, and it became a fixed point in the minds of himself and his friends that he should suffer in a year's time, and that this was his interval for final preparation. A year later, in August, 258, there could be no further doubt that the moment for which he had been so long waiting was at hand. Private intelligence reached him of the new edict of deathly severity that had just been promulgated, and of the consequent martyrdom at Rome of the bishop Sixtus and four of his deacons (ch. xxvi.). Cyprian in return tells his correspondent that in their own African Church the persecution was being pressed on, and desires that " every one of us may think less of death than of immortality." A little later he was summoned to 2 20 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Carthage, and bidden to remain a prisoner on parole at his own house till such time as his cause should be heard. His friends — heathen no less than Christian — urged him to flee, but he held that this was no longer his duty as once it had been. It was his earnest hope for the honour of his Church that it might be vouchsafed him to make his last confession openly in his own beloved Carthage, and it was all in keeping with the man's habitual mastery over external circumstances that it was virtually he himself who determined the time and place of his martyrdom. Yet more earnestly he desired that at that great crisis he might say " what the Lord will wish to be said at that hour." On the night of September 13 — his friends could not fail to note that the next day, "the morrow," would be the exact anniversary of his memorable dream — the summons came. Cyprian was driven straight to the pro-consul's house, but found that officer too ill to give him a hearing before morning. No indignity was offered him, and he spent the peaceful last night in the company of his chosen friends ; the whole people meanwhile keeping faithful vigil without. When morning dawned he was led forth to the court-house,* a great multitude following him, so that, in the graphic words of his biographer, he seemed like " a centurion of God" leading " a numberless army" that looked " as if they were on the march to take Death itself by storm." The trial was mercifully brief : a few direct questions simply answered, then the formal indictment setting forth that the accused had been — and his disciples gloried in the most true charge — "a standard-bearer of the sect, an enemy of the gods ; " one who must be made an example to his people, that by his blood discipline should be ratified. Then followed the sentence of decapitation, and Cyprian's calm reply : " Thanks be to God." That involuntary utterance was his sole yet all-sufficient " message " to the Church. Little time was allowed for farewells. He was forthwith hurried away to the place of execution still followed by the sorrowing crowd, many of whom climbed up into the surrounding trees to see the end. There was no attempt at rescue. The Christians knew too well that this was their leader's triumph hour ; even though he stood among them silent, unable to speak to them of all that was in his heart. The officers on their part did not seek to repress the demonstrations of sympathy ; they even left to two of his clergy the task of bandaging his eyes. The executioner drew near, and Cyprian, " with his usual largeness of ideas about money, desired his friends to give him some twenty-five pieces of gold." | Then he bade them hasten ; but the hands of the executioner trembled so that they could not do their office, and the centurion, stepping forward, gave the death-stroke in his stead.J With a solemn joy the Christians, still all unmolested, came and went to view the mortal remains of their leader ; * We have two separate accounts of t Benson's " Cyprian." the trial and martyrdom — the official % Ibid, reports of the pro-consul as well as Pontius's Life. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S. CYPRIAN. 22 1 and at even they laid them with " prayer and great triumph " in a cemetery close to the city gates, where in more peaceful days a basilica bearing the martyr's name was raised to his honour. Another " memorial church of S. Cyprian " marked the place where he suffered, and there was yet a third close to the shore, interesting to us as the place where Monnica wept and prayed on the night when her son was clandestinely sailing for Rome.* There is no saint whose " birthday " — to use the old exultant term of the early Christians — is more clearly established than S. Cyprian's. The 14th of September is more than commonly associated with his name, and yet our Prayer-book Kalendar has unfortunately transferred the com- memoration to the 26th day of the same month ; no doubt with the object of not clashing with the observance of Holy Cross Day. From the time of Bede up to the sixteenth century our English Kalendars followed the universal example of commemorating S. Cyprian, together with his friend S. Cornelius of Rome,f upon Holy Cross Day. Archbishop Parker and his colleagues, however, making it their principle not to com- memorate more than one event on a single day, dropped out S. Cornelius altogether, and transferred S. Cyprian to September 2 6, J a day already assigned in the Kalendars to another S. Cyprian, an entirely fabulous personage known as " S. Cyprian the Magician." § S. Cyprian the Bishop was therefore happily substituted for S. Cyprian the Magician — unques- tionably a good exchange ; and though we must regret oar loss of the correct anniversary, we may be thankful to have retained the true S. Cyprian on any terms. S. Cyprian's name was inserted in the Canon of the Mass, and so great at first was the Roman reverence for this great martyr that it seemed as though he were going to be a splendid exception to the general rule that saints of the African Church received scant recognition from either Rome or England. But the event has proved otherwise. His name remains, it is true, in the Kalendars, but Rome of to-day has no church in his honour, and we in England can trace but one single ancient dedication to him, while there are at least two dedicated to his far less memorable friend, the Roman Cornelius (ch. xx.). Kirk-Leatham is a large parish on the east coast of Yorkshire, not far from Redcar. Here in old days there stood a chapel known as " S. Cyprian-on-the-Sands," a not inappropriate dedication for a saint who was known to all sailors in the Mediterranean, and who had given his own name to the September gales, the so-called " Cypriana." || But, alas ! S. Cyprian's chapel has long been destroyed,!! and if we would seek an actual commemoration of this great personality we must look to the newly-built churches that are springing up year by year, such as S. Cyprian's in Marylebone, and others of the same name in Kent, in Lancashire, and in Worcestershire. * Augustine's " Confessions." § Baring-Gould, September 26. t As to the true date of S. Cornelius's || Benson, death, see life of that saint, ch. xx. ^[ The parish church is dedicated to X Benson's "Cyprian," S. Cuthbert. 222 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Section III. — Champions of the Nicene Creed. S. Hilary of Feast of S. Hilary, like the Annunciation of the Poitiers, B. Blessed Virgin or the Feast of S. Michael and All Angels, has Jao. 13, 368. k ecome a well-known point in our civil reckoning, and " Hilary Term " suggests a familiar note of time to every lawyer, though probably the majority would be at a loss to give any account of Hilary himself. The association itself, needless to say, is a purely accidental one ; but it is not altogether inappropriate, for S. Hilary of Poitiers was of considerable importance in his lay capacity, either as an official attached to the court of the provincial governor or as a municipal magistrate, before ever he became a bishop. He is the more interesting to us because, like S. German, like S. Ambrose, like many another of the saints, he was distinguished as a layman before he was distinguished as an ecclesiastic. His was a brilliant, many-sided nature, throwing itself with energy into whatsoever it took in hand ; and if he has not risen to the very first rank among the Fathers of the Church, the cause may lie in this very versatility. In every direction he has been eclipsed by some other, and yet by the greatest masters alone. As a defender of the Catholic Faith against the Arians, his strenuous labours are half forgotten in the splendid fame of S. Athanasius ; as a commentator and theologian he is inferior to S. Augustine ; as an ascetic he is distanced by S. Jerome ; as a missionary he stands far below his younger friend, S. Martin ; as a religious poet he is not equal to S. Ambrose ; as an historian he is not to be named with our English Bede. But if S. Hilary was not pre-eminent in any one direction, he was useful in many. He was essentially one of those men of whom it may be said that they " served their own generation by the will of God." Nor would it be just to overlook one rare quality in Hilary which he possessed in a high degree : no one who knew the sacrifices that the Bishop of Poitiers had freely made for the sake of his creed could doubt the sincerity of his religious convictions ; and he had the singular power of imparting to others his own fervour ; yet for all this Hilary never allowed either his judgment or his charity to be impaired by heat of controversy. He was truly one of those who " labour for peace," and in an age when catch- words were rife on all sides he resisted the temptation to carry on warfare by that easiest of methods, and set himself resolutely to search for the common ground of belief that so often underlies differences of expression. " The zealous Hilary," says G-ibbon,* in introducing a passage in which the Bishop of Poitiers deplores the unhappy dissensions among Christians, " unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher." Philosophy was assuredly no new study to the scholarly Hilary, who had been brought up in all the liberal culture of a well-educated pagan ; but his passionate pleadings were born more of Christian charity than of cold philosophy. * " Decline and Fall," vol. iii. CHAP. XIX. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S.HILARY. 22$ In the middle of the fourth century the martyr-age was past for those living beneath the protection of the Roman Empire ; but there was much of hardship still to face, and Hilary — as Gibbon acknowledges — had his full share of such hardships, thus giving him an ample right to " the honourable title of ' Confessor,' bestowed on those who struggled for the faith, though they may not have been called upon to resist even unto blood." * And although we are past the martyr-age, we are still traversing a very early period of Church history — a period when paganism and Christianity were still living together side by side, and thoughtful laymen like Hilary might pass from the old to the new Faith without any marked change of outward circumstances. Once more, we are traversing a period when the famous Council of Nicsea had already met, but when its work was still new ; when the Nicene Creed had not yet become a sacred heirloom, but was still an almost untried weapon, newly fashioned to meet the pressing needs of the day, and meeting them so effectually that Hilary could declare that though he had actually never known the Creed till after he became a bishop, he had yet drawn out for himself from the Bible its distinctive teaching.! It is impossible to enter into the spirit of those times without remembering that that Arian controversy which to us is apt to seem so tedious, so abstruse, was to those who took part in it, and more especially to the Eastern Christians, full of most vital interest as touching the very groundwork of their faith. The intellectual activity of those days, the universal sense of trouble and unrest, may be to some extent estimated by observing that during the fifteen years of Hilary's episcopate not less than thirty ecclesiastical Councils were held, an average of two a year ; so that, as Hilary himself bitterly complained,:): " every year, nay every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries." And again : " We make creeds arbi- trarily, and explain them arbitrarily. . . . The partial or total resemblance of the Father and the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. . . . We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others ; and reciprocally tearing each other to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin." Nor was this keen intellectual excitement confined to theologians ; witness the brilliant satirical description which Hilary's contemporary, Gregory of Nyassa, gives of Constantinople : " The city was full of these discussions — the streets, the market-places, the drapers, the money- changers, the victuallers. Ask a man how many oboli ; he answers by dogmatising on generated and ungenerated being. Enquire the price of bread, and you are told, ' The Son is subordinate to the Father.' Ask if the bath is ready, and you are told, ' The Son arose out of nothing.' " § If in the West there was less inclination, not to say less capacity, for * Cazenove's " S. Hilary." % In the famous «* philosophic " pas- f With reference specially to the sage quoted by Gibbon, clause, "of one substance with the Father." § Quoted in Stanley's "Eastern Church," 224 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. such subtle disputations, there was no less serious a danger that plain people would become hopelessly entangled in the bewildering meshes of controversy, and be persuaded without perceiving it into errors of belief that might have far-reaching and disastrous consequences. It was the special work of the clear-headed scholarly Bishop of Poitiers to serve as an interpreter between East and "West, and to point out to the multitudes who looked to him for guidance the difference between essentials and non- essentials, and amid the labyrinth of conflicting opinions to keep clear the old pathway of Catholic truth. It was a task for which his natural dis- position and his Roman training both combined to fit him, and perhaps no man living could have done it so well. So far we have said very little as to Hilary's personal history, but in truth the outward events of his life were so entirely moulded by the cause for which he fought that they would be hardly intelligible without some understanding of that cause. When first we meet him he is, as we have seen, a leading citizen of Poitiers, a married man with one only daughter, and still an adherent of the old faith in which he had been brought up. He himself attributed his conversion to a careful study of the Scriptures, more especially to the prophecies of Isaiah and the first chapter of S. John's Gospel. The Christian doctrines of the Unity of the Godhead and of man's immortality satisfied at once his reason and his deepest spiritual aspirations. There was not with Hilary any great moral conflict to be passed through ; it was rather the happy acceptance of a Faith to the truth of which his conscience already bore witness. For a time he continued to follow his accustomed profession, but when the Bishop of Poitiers died, the unanimous wishes of the Christian community turned to Hilary, layman though he was, as the fittest person to be his successor ; and according to a custom not very uncommon in those early days, he was rapidly passed through the successive steps of deacon and priest, and raised to the rank of bishop (a.d. 353). The report of the sanctity of the new bishop drew to him a very earnest young- disciple, originally a soldier by profession, who was like Hilary in desiring to devote himself wholly to the service of God. This was none other than the famous S. Martin, afterwards Bishop of Tours (ch. xxiv.). Hilary was quick to discern in him the promise of future usefulness, and this was the beginning of an unbroken friendship between the two men. It was no light task to which Hilary was called. The Arian heresy was now in favour in high places : the Emperor Constantius was imbued with it, and many of the Gallican bishops were tainted by it. A Council held at Beziers soon brought into clear relief the strength of Hilary's con- victions and made him a marked man. Not long afterwards an edict was issued banishing him to far distant Phrygia in Asia Minor, and he had to leave wife and home and go forth solitary into exile. The precise ground of his accusation was never made clear, but Hilary believed that his enemies had circulated gross slanders as to his private life. His first care in his exile was for his bereaved flock at Poitiers, and he chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. HILARY. 2 2 5 wrote to thern repeatedly, earnestly imploring them not to be shaken from the Catholic faith. His disappointment was proportionate when months passed into years and no cheering word of response ever reached him from home. Heart-sick, he was ready to give up writing, when at last a welcome budget arrived, accounting for the cruel silence by the difficulty of dis- covering his whereabouts ; telling how all his clergy had stood firm, even under open persecution and bodily ill-usage, and entreating him to make clear to their comprehensions the real bearing of the endless controversies that were incessantly raging round them. No more congenial task could have been proposed to Hilary, and this was the occasion of his most important literary and theological work, the treatise entitled "On the Synods of the Catholic Faith against the Arians." Though primarily intended for the instruction of his own diocese — and Hilary might justly make his boast to the emperor that though an exile he was still to all practical purposes a bishop in Gaul — it was yet addressed to his " fellow- bishops " in many different quarters of the empire. " The bishops of the British provinces " are specially mentioned, and we, remembering how S. Hilary has for centuries been commemorated in these islands, may be glad to think that the needs of our Church were present to his mind, and that our representatives had their share in the greeting : " To my most beloved and blessed brethren and fellow-bishops Hilary, the servant of Christ, wishes eternal salvation in God and our Lord." In the third year of Hilary's exile (a.d. 359) the Council of Eimini met — that memorable council at which the skilful Arians contrived so completely to outwit the orthodox majority that they unknowingly agreed to heretical conclusions, and in the famous phrase of S. Jerome, " The world awoke and groaned to find itself Arian." Under ordinary circum- stances Hilary would have taken his part with the other Western bishops at Eimini, but for the convenience of the Eastern bishops the council was divided into two sections, of which the second met at Seleucia in Asia Minor, and our Phrygian exile received a summons from the civil authorities bidding him appear at the Eastern meeting-place. What the Arians had won at Eimini by force of tactics they were able at Seleucia to claim by virtue of mere numbers, and it was the extreme wing of the party — men with whom even one so moderate as Hilary could hold no terms — that was here chiefly represented. The gathering was a stormy one. For one or two days Hilary attended the sessions ; then, finding himself in a hopeless minority, and shocked and pained by the profane analogies irreverently brought forth in illustration of the most sacred mysteries, he withdrew from the discussion. Possibly his silent protest had more effect than he supposed. It seems to have been intimated to the emperor that the banished bishop was doing more harm to the Arian cause in the East than he would be likely to do in his own slower-thinking West, and though his sentence was not formally revoked, he received a hint that he was free to return home. He availed himself of the permission, but travelled very slowly, embracing every possible vol. 1. Q 2 26 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. opportunity of confirming in the faith those who were still staunch, and endeavouring to bring about a better understanding with the so-called semi-Arians, many of whom were virtually at one with the Orthodox party, except that they could not accept the definition " Homoousion," * but clung to their own watchword " Homoiousion." t Hilary had to suffer the reproach of all moderate men. He was often misdoubted by his own friends ; and men could not understand how he could be so conciliatory in one direction, so unyielding in another, not perceiving the immense distinction he drew between what he considered mere intellectual error and those opinions which he considered tended to the subversion of belief and the growth of moral evil. Such he believed had been the result of the extreme Arianism which he had witnessed among the Eastern bishops ; and where Hilary believed that there was moral blame, there he could see no possibility of entering into friendly relations. By nature he was, as we have said, of a charitable disposition, and a peace- lover ; but he was fearless withal, and when he held that occasion called for it, he could address himself in no measured terms to an adversary, be he an heretical bishop or the emperor himself. He was a mau who would have gloried in an open confession of his faith, and who owned to oftentimes feeling conscious that martyrdom would have been easier to face than the more specious dangers of his own softer age. % And now, after an absence of nearly six years — two of them spent upon the return journey, which was, as we have seen, a mission in itself — Hilary was restored to his home, where he was joyfully greeted by wife and daughter. To this period of Hilary's life belongs his memorable letter to his daughter Abra.§ This letter with its pathetic sequel affords us our one and only glimpse into Hilary's home life, and is at the same time a powerful illustration of the deep-rooted asceticism of the man triumphing over natural affection. We will give the story in the stately language in which it was once familiar to thousands of English readers in Jeremy Taylor's " Holy Dying." " When S. Hilary went into the East to reprove the Arian heresy, he heard that a young noble gentleman treated with his daughter Abra for marriage. The bishop wrote to his daughter that she should not engage her promise, nor do countenance to that request, because he had provided for her a husband fair, rich, wise and noble, far beyond her present offer. The event of which was this : she obeyed, and when her father returned from his Eastern triumph to his Western charge, he prayed to God that his daughter might die quickly ; and God heard his prayers — Christ took her into His bosom, entertaining her with caresses of holy love, till the day of the marriage supper of the Lamb shall come. * " Of one substance," as in the Nicene Creed. f " Of like substance." It is the close resemblance between these two Greek words that provoked Gibbon's sneer : " The profane of every age have derided, the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians." % See Cazenove's " S. Hilary " in D. 0. B. § The authenticity of this letter has been disputed, but, according to Dr. Cazenove, on insufficient grounds. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. HILARY. 22 J But when the bishop's wife observed this event, and understood of the good man her husband what was done, and why, she never let him alone till he obtained the same favour for her ; and she also at the prayers of S. Hilary went into a more early grave, and a bed of joys." There is little more to tell. From his now desolate home the Bishop of Poitiers went forth again on a second mission to Italy, having as always for his one object the promotion of unity based upon Catholic truth. From Italy he returned to his native Poitiers, where the last three years of his life were spent in uneventful peacefulness, ruling his well-loved diocese. He died in the year 368 on January 13, the day on which he is still commemorated in our Prayer-book Kalendar. Ever since that time " Hilary " has been a popular baptismal name in France, and a glance at any French atlas will show its frequency as a geographical name.* But it is not with S. Hilary's popularity in his own France, but rather with his commemoration in England, that we are immediately concerned ; and on this point there is a good deal to be said. We have three several dedications to S. Hilary in this country ; in Lincolnshire, in Cornwall, and in Cheshire. All three are widely separated the one from the other, and there is reason to suppose that they represent three distinct channels of thought and influence. As a saint of the Roman Kalendar, commemorated in all the service-books and locally honoured at Poitiers, it was only natural that S. Hilary should find his way into England, at any rate after the Norman Conquest. The Lincolnshire church of Spridlington is commonly known simply as " S. Hilary's," though sometimes also as " SS. Hilary and Albinus," reminder of a bygone time when the parish contained two separate churches both alike dedicated to French bishops, S. Hilary of Poitiers and S. Albinus or Aubin of Angers (ch. xxiv.). The church of S. Albinus no longer exists, though the name has fortunately been retained, and the presence of these two favourite French patrons makes it tolerably certain that Norman influences were at work in Spridlington. But the Roman Church had no monopoly of veneration for S. Hilary of Poitiers ; he was equally dear to the Celtic Church, and this by reason of a curious personal association. Among the great missionaries of the Celtic Church whose fame is deeply rooted on the continent, is the Irish S. Fridolin.t S. Fridolin's first halt was at Poitiers, where doubtless he was shown the treasured transcript of the Greek Gospels said to be written by S. Hilary's own hand.J Here at any rate he acquired a reverence for S. Hilary which he never lost, and which continued to be " the characteristic of some of the earliest Scottish missionaries on the * It has been suggested that part of his career are well established, his date the popularity of this name may be due cannot be accurately determined, as the to the Bishop of Poitiers's later namesake, only landmark is the name of the French S. Hilary of Aries. See Cazenove's " S. king, Clovis, of whom unluckily there Hilary," to which the foregoing account of were two (see D. C. B.), divided from one the saint is very largely indebted. another by nearly two centuries. t This saint probably nourished about X Fleury, vol. iv. the sixth century, but though the facts of 228 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. continent."* On leaving Poitiers S. Fridolin pressed on by way of Strasburg into Switzerland, where he testified his devotion to his newly chosen patron by fonnding churches in his honour, first at Grlarus, and afterwards at Seckingen near Basle, in which latter neighbourhood "a circle of churches dedicated to S. Hilary or to S. Fridolin himself, serves as a proof of the reality of this history." t We are told that "Glarus still retains in its name " the traces of this visit— a statement which is more easily intelligible when we remember that the Celtic form of the name Hilary was " Elair," no very distant remove from " G-larus." The continental reverence for S. Hilary reacted upon the Church in the British Islands, and we find dedications to S. Hilary as far north as the Shetland Islands, and in a parish in Aberdeenshire, where we find "S. Hilary's Well," corrupted into "Teller's Well." In spite, however, of such misrenderings of his name, there is no doubt as to the saint intended, for in an ancient Scottish martyrology we find January 13 assigned to " Elair, Abbot of Poitiers." % The substitution of " Abbot " for " Bishop " is an interesting error, coming as it does from a nation to whom from long reverence for the great head of the Church at Iona the title of Abbot carried far more weight than that of Bishop. Our second English dedica- tion to S. Hilary is the Cornish parish of that name near Marazion, a dedication which we may reasonably attribute to this wave of Celtic reverence for the saint of Poitiers. But what are we to make of our third example, at Wallasey in Cheshire ? It is plain that it must be studied in conjunction with the not inconsider- able group of Welsh churches of the same name, and it is more than doubtful whether any of these can be rightly attributed to our S. Hilary. The key to the position seems to lie in the form of the saint's name before referred to, " Elair," which lends itself very readily to a confusion with the favourite Welsh saint " Elian." " S. Elian the Pilgrim," as he was called, is tradi- tionally said to have come from Lindisfarne into Anglesey to the court of the Welsh Prince Caswallon, a powerful chieftain, whose reign is assigned to the middle of the fifth century. Caswallon held the new-comer in high esteem, and built a church for his ministrations, which in after days was called by the saint's name, and became a noted place of pilgrimage. § Llaneilian is near the sea-coast, not far from Amlwch, the little watering- place now growing up into popularity, and the neighbouring headland, " S. Elian's Point," is an additional reminder of the history of the evangeli- zation of Anglesey. Modern maps give honour where honour is due by rendering the name in its native form ; but mediaeval usage boldly translated it into " Hilary's Point," a confusion which is repeated again and again in Welsh churches. Llanilar in Cardiganshire, a church which is also ascribed to " S. Hilary," lies apart from the rest, but the remaining three are all very compactly situated in the adjacent counties of Carnarvon, Denbigh, and Flint. In all of them the churches are said to be dedicated * Forbes. \ Ibid, t Ibid. § Lewis. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S. ATHANASIUS. 229 to " S. Hilary," though the native name for the churchyard wells—" Fynnon Eilian" (Eilian's Well)— indicates plainly enough the true patron. In one of the Denbighshire parishes we learn that " the well is sometimes resorted to for the practice of invoking vengeance upon the heads of such as have given offence," * an association which ill becomes our peace-making S. Hilary ; but it would be unjust to judge even the true S. Eilian's dis- position by this circumstance, for a power of merciless banning was one that Celtic Christians were only too fond of attributing to their favourite saints. Eglwys-Bhos, close to Conway, is yet another church of S. Hilary. Like Llaneilian in Anglesey, which it almost faces, it is situated upon a pro- montory ; and like Llaneilian also it was the residence of S. Eilian's royal patron, Caswallon. It is difficult to study carefully the position of these Welsh dedications to S. Hilary and then the position of Wallasey in Cheshire, just across the water, without coming to the conclusion that the patron was originally the same. Wallasey — that is, " the Welshman's Island"f — lies upon that narrow neck of land between the estuaries of the Mersey and the Dee which is now attached to the mainland, but which was originally an island. There, in the midst of the waters, rose " two rocky islands, the parishes of West Kirkby and Kirlcby-iii-Walley "J — the latter always so designated till the fifteenth century, when it was abbre- viated into its present form of " Wallasey." The written history of these parishes begins only with the Norman Conquest, when the whole district was partitioned out amongst the different Norman nobles ; and if we had nothing else to guide us, we might suppose that S. Hilary of Poitiers was now first introduced into this part of England. But the use of the Celtic word " Kirkby " to signify " church town," is a proof that the foundation was of earlier date, and the fact that the patron saint of the twin parish of West Kirkby is none other than the Irish S. Bridget, prepares us to accept at Wallasey a patron of Celtic choice. The church stands on " high rocky ground above the houses," § in just such a situation as was dear to Celtic builders, and one which bears some resemblance to S. Eilian's other churches in Anglesey and Carnarvonshire. But whether originally intended for S. Hilary of Poitiers or not, there is no doubt that Wallasey now belongs to him by prescriptive right, || just as much as the Cornish parish of St. Hilary, or the Lincolnshire Spridlington ; and we could not wish for any of the three churches a worthier patron. 8. Martin. See CH. XXIV. S Athanasius ®- Hilary has brought us into the very heart of the Arian B. May 2, ' controversy and shown us something of the importance of 373, the work that was then done once for all by the defenders of the faith. Glad indeed we may be of the link thus afforded us with that memorable period ; but nothing can compensate us for having no adequate * Llaneilian-yn-Rhos. See Lewis, t Irvine's " Notes on the Parish Churches of Wirral." % Ormerod. § Ibid. || The same may perhaps be said of all the Welsh parishes except the Anglesey Llaneilian, which alone amongst all the group adheres steadily to its true patron, S. Eilian. 230 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xix. recognition of the foremost champion of tlie Catholic cause, the man who from almost his own times was honoured with the title of " Athanasius the Great " — the man whose every utterance was so weighty that there was a sixth-century saying : " Whenever you meet with a sentence of Athanasius and have not paper at hand, write it down upon your clothes." * Gibbon, in his stirring account of the heroic Bishop of Alexandria, notes that "in a church dedicated to S. Athanasius " the scene of " the intrepid primate boldly encountering his angry sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street of Constanti- nople," would afford "a better subject for a picture than most of the stories of miracles and martyrdoms." f There are countless scenes in the adventurous life of S. Athanasius that might equally lend themselves to such a purpose ; the misfortune is that the churches dedicated in his honour are so exceedingly rare. Neither in Rome nor in England has he been commemorated as he ought. Rome perhaps remembers — she may well desire to forget it — that she did not always stand by Athanasius in his hour of need. There is, it is true, a church in Rome bearing the name of u S. Atanasio," but it is of late origin, founded in 1577 for the use of the Greek population in the city .J Unfortunately, England has in this matter followed the lead of Rome, and we have no single pre- Reformation dedication to S. Athanasius. It is something gained that now at last in the nineteenth century the omission should have been made good ; but such recent commemorations cannot but be wanting in the deeper interest that attaches to the venerable dedication-names that have come down to us bearing with them the weight of centuries of history. The life of Athanasius from first to last abounds, as we have said, in picturesque scenes and dramatic incidents, beginning with that very earliest glimpse of him, a boy at play among other boys on the seashore, and he, the leader of the sport, acting the part of bishop and baptizing some of the lads — an incident on which Keble has seized as characteristic of the future saint — " Some youthful Athauase, e'en now Upon his future task intent ; His Creed rehearsing to the roar Of billows on the lonely shore, Or with a child's deep earnestness Showing his mates how saints baptize and bless." § And when the boy grew to manhood, his career was a series of adventures as romantic and varied as ever befell a hard-pressed fugitive ; concealed now in a disused well, now in the city home of some high-born * Stanley's " Eastern Church." t "Decline and Fall," ch. 21. % Murray's " Home." § " Lyra Innocentium." Canon Bright (D. C. B.) doubts the story as it is found in Sozomen, because the names and cir- cumstances as there detailed are incon- sistent with the known dates of history ; but it is likely enough that the incident is itself true, though the details may be incorrect. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. ATHANASIUS. 23 1 lady ; now lodging in the lowly cells of the hermits of the desert. No princely exile ever drew to himself more devoted adherents than " the royal-hearted Athanase ; " none was ever more worthy of such devotion. It was the man's own commanding personality and not his position that made him the centre of attention throughout his forty-six years' episcopate ; that made him alike a rallying-point for the friends of the Church and a target for her foes. The keen-eyed Julian the Apostate estimated aright the influence of this one persecuted man. " Julian," says Gibbon, " who despised the Christians, honoured Athanasius with his sincere and peculiar hatred." No adversity could crush that dauntless spirit nor make it " bate a jot of heart or hope." It was ever his way " Still to bear up and steer right onward." Of that long episcopate of his, close upon fifteen years — that is, nearly one-third of the whole — were spent in exile ; much of it in hiding, in daily peril of apprehension and death at the hands of his unremitting and power- ful foes, the Arians. The intervals of peace were broken and uncertain ; yet in those intervals the great Patriarch of Alexandria turned his mind to the ordinary duties of a chief pastor — for example, the missionary needs of the heathen in Abyssinia, and the sadder internal disputes at home — as though he had a mind devoid of care. And yet these years of so-called peace were largely occupied in defending himself against malicious and groundless charges. They were accusations of a kind that the man's whole moral nature made simply incredible ; nevertheless, because they were made officially by those in authority, they had one by one to be laboriously disproved. And yet the daily harass could not rob Athanasius of his natural gaiety, nor turn his fund of dry humour into bitterness. Now and again a significant smile or a half-jesting reply would serve his purpose as well as hours of argument — as, for example, when asked his opinion of death-bed baptisms, he replied with " an apologue which admitted of no rejoinder," * representing an angel inquiring of the late Bishop of Alexandria : " Peter, why do you send me these sacks (these wind-bags) carefully sealed up, with nothing whatever inside them ? " Still more memorable was his telling defence when he was called to answer publicly the charge of having first mutilated and then murdered a supposed rival. Athanasius bided his time, caused diligent search to be secretly made for the man, and at the critical moment produced him, dramatically enough, in open court ; summoned witnesses to identify him, and then, after gravely exhibiting his two hands in succession, contented himself with observing : "I suppose that no one thinks that God has given to any man more hands than two." The like readiness is shown in his famous reply to his pursuers on the Nile, when asked if he had seen Athanasius : " He is very near you." When fresh trials threatened Athanasius, and when for the fourth time he received orders to leave his see and go into exile, he could still cheer the fainting hearts around him with the hopeful words : " It is but a cloud * Stanley's " Eastern Church." 232 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. which will soon pass." But when the danger was actually upon him, how majestic was his bearing, how splendid his faith ! See him when the midnight vigil in his crowded church is suddenly invaded by soldiers clashing their arms and discharging their arrows ; when death seemed imminent. See how he first calms the panic of the trembling people by bidding them join in repeating that triumph song of old, " His mercy endureth for ever," then quietly dismisses them to their homes ! We can picture the scene ; the diminutive figure occupying his accustomed " throne " at the extreme end of the church, and by the power of that unwavering firmness, by that awe-inspiring beauty of countenance,* controlling the tumult ; refusing for his own part to escape while his people were in danger — " I said I would not do so until they had all got away safe " — and remaining at his post till he fainted, and was borne out unconscious. But in his gifts of leadership, aye, and of personal attractiveness, Athanasius has had many equals ; that which lends worth and dignity to all his conflicts is that they were never tainted by any slightest touch of self-interest or personal aggrandizement. Never did he let himself lose sight of the spiritual grandeur of the cause for which he suffered — that cause which, as he rightly saw, was vital to the very existence of Chris- tianity. Yes, it was purely for truth that he fought — not for triumph, nor for party ; for, like S. Hilary, Athanasius would thankfully hold out the hand of fellowship to the more moderate of his opponents, the so-called semi-Arians, in spite of the differences that divided him from them. The honour of his Incarnate Lord was beyond all else dear to him, and for this he strove by word and deed and pen. In his writings he sought to draw out the deep things of God declared to us in those sacred Scriptures in whose constant study he found his greatest consolation ; and we know how from that time to this those writings have influenced the religious thought of Christendom. We know, too, how his name has become associated, though quite erroneously, with the Latin hymn of a much later date — the so-called Athanasian Creed — which sets forth anew, sometimes in the very words of the great master, the truth which it was the mission of his whole life to proclaim, the mysterious union in one nature of the " perfect God and perfect Man." \ So single-minded was Athanasius's devotion to the one high end, so unceasing his struggles, that the fervent praises of his ardent hero- worshipper, S. Basil, do not sound exaggerated when, towards the close of the elder saint's troubled life, he pours out his admiration in an enthusi- astic letter to the veteran whom he had never been privileged to see face to face, calling him " a truly grand and apostolic soul, who from boyhood had been an athlete in the cause of religion." % And if the question arises, Was it all worth while, that life of severe, unending struggle ? let us look for answer to the witnesses of his own * Gregory of Nazianzen describ3s him f A phrase borrowed direct from as of "almost angelic beauty of face and Athanasius's writings. — D. 0. B. expression." See Stanley. \ S. Basil's Letters. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. BASIL. 233 day, to friends and foes alike — to the Julians as well as to the Basils. Let us look also to the witnesses of our own day, and especially to one not more naturally disposed than Gibbon to admire an ecclesiastical champion as such. " Carlyle himself," it has been said, " came to see that if the Arians had won, Christianity would have dwindled into a legend." * But what need is there to seek to sum up in imperfect words the character and career of Athanasius, when it has been done once for all by Hooker in his immortal portrait of the sore-tried champion of our faith, " who by the space of forty-six years his enemies till the last hour of his life never suffered to enjoy the comfort of a peaceable day. . . . Crimes there were laid to his charge many, the least whereof being just had bereaved him of estimation and credit with men while the world standeth. His judges evermore the selfsame men by whom his accusers were suborned. Yet the issue always on their part shame, on his triumph. . . . Only in Athanasius there was nothing observed throughout the course of that long tragedy, other than such as very well became a wise man to do and a righteous to suffer. So that this was the plain condition of those times : the whole world against Athanasius, and Athanasius against it ; half a hundred of years spent in doubtful trial which of the two in the end would prevail, the side which had all, or else the part which had no friend but God and death, the one a defender of his innocency, the other a finisher of all his troubles." Surely with these words ringing in their ears English Churchmen will become more and more conscious of the debt of gratitude which all Christians owe to S. Athanasius the Great, and we shall surely see a sign of that gratitude in the increasing number of churches founded in his honour, though at present it would seem, so far as our lists go, that we can reckon only one such dedication, the newly built church of S. Athanasius at Kirkdale, a district of Liverpool. It is much to be regretted that this church does not observe any patronal festival on May 2, the anniversary of the saint's death, and the day on which he is commemorated alike by the Latin and the Greek Churches. Section IV. — The Greek Fathers. S Basil the ^' ^ as ^ m a vei T famous passage likens his correspondent, Great,f B. the great Athanasius, to a man standing on some high watch- Jan. 1 and tower,{ looking out over the sea and beholding with watchful ' " eye the many ships battling with the waves. The image of the lighthouse is well fitted to Athanasius ; for Basil we may find a * Froude's "Life of Carlyle in Lon- don," vol. ii., quoted by Canon Bright in his "Three Great Fathers," to which book and to the same writer's article in the D. C. B. this sketch is largely be- holden. t For the account of S. Basil, see Precentor Venables's article in D. C. B. ; Newman's " Church of the Fathers ; " the Eev. Blomfield Jackson's "Prolegomena" to the edition of S. Basil's works in Wace's Nicene Library ; and, above all, S. Basil's own letters. J The marble lighthouse of Alex- andria, " the Pharos," must surely have been before Basil's mind as he wrote. 234 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. more apt comparison in that bark which elsewhere he himself pictures : " cut off in a mid-ocean of troubles," the billows breaking above it, and yet, "though at the last pitch of peril," still "holding out with all possible earnestness ; " — " holding out in Christ Who strengthens us." Here we have brought before us in a single sentence " the saintly Basil's purpose high," and also the conflict which beset him on all sides. S. Basil, the Archbishop of Cassarea in Cappadocia, was a noble champion in the same cause for which Athanasius and Hilary spent their lives. He was no less staunch an opponent of Arianism than the other two : the Creed of Nicsea was to him the symbol of all that he held most precious ; but in some respects his task was even harder than theirs. Basil's position in the far east of Asia Minor was very lonely. We have the testimony of S. Hilary that the standard both of faith and morals was low among the Phrygian bishops with whom he came into contact during his exile. Heresy had made more way in the East than in the West, and of the men with whom S. Basil mixed, those who equalled him in either in- tellectual powers or force of character, were for the most part either pagans or heretics. Private affection and support were never wanting to him, but so far as public action was concerned, he had to lead many a forlorn hope. Like his hero Athanasius, he was called to stand alone " contra mundum," but he had not the buoyant temperament which makes it possible lightly to rise above storms of calumny. Prematurely aged by continuous ill health, accounting himself " an old man " at forty, harassed from early manhood by a chronic and depressing ailment, it was little wonder that he should sometimes be ready to cry out, " I seem to have no one on my side. I can but pray I may be found among the seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Such despondency was surely natural enough. Natural, but " injurious to the soul," as Basil told himself ; that which is above nature is the heroic spirit in which he laboured on ; neglecting none, even the homeliest, of his many duties. His troubles pressed heavily upon him, but he had learnt the consolation which he preached to others ; he knew by experience that " even while we are in the act of praying God will say to us, ' Lo I am with you.' " The exceptional intimacy of our knowledge of Basil ought always to be borne in mind in forming our estimate of him. He is shown to us not only in his heroic moments of confessorship, calmly confronting a hostile emperor, or with dignity rebuking the insolence of a powerful courtier, but in all the searching frankness of family life. He is shown to us not only in his formal treatises and sermons, but in the careless freedom of familiar letters. His portrait has been drawn for us with an honesty and a minuteness that makes us know both his virtues and his failings as we might know T a brother's ; and how nobly Basil bears such knowing ! It is a rare and beautiful picture of Christian family life that is sketched for us in the writings both of Basil's own brother and of his brother-like friend,* the two Gregories. We become acquainted with * S. Gregory of Nyssa and S. Gregory of Nazianzus. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S. BASIL. 235 three successive generations — the grandparents who for the sake of the faith had taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods ; the parents whose wealth was lavished in building a chapel in honour of the local martyrs, the famous " Forty Soldiers of Sebaste " (see S. Blaise, ch. xxv.) ; the ten children, five of whom have left their mark upon the history of the Church. Boyish impatience might occasionally resent the prolonged religious observances which were so great an element in the home training,* but the children never lost the impress of that early training, and in after years they fully recognized its value. "When long afterwards Basil was called upon to defend his religious consistency, he could say deliberately : " The teaching about God which I received as a boy from my blessed mother and my grandmother Macrina, I have ever held with increased conviction." There had been no change of principle, only the childish teaching had grown with his growth, attaching itself to the riper reason of manhood. But of all the members of that happy household at Annesi \ none is so wholly lovable as the eldest daughter, named after her grandmother Macrina, she who comes before us as the darling and support of her widowed mother, the tender guardian of the younger children, the faithful friend and counsellor of her elder brothers. Step by step we follow Basil through school and college. His school was at Oaesarea, the capital of Cappadocia, afterwards to be his bishopric. Here he attracted the kindly notice of the old archbishop, and here, too, he formed the friendship which was to colour his whole life, with his fellow-student, the famous Gregory, commonly known as S. Gregory of Nazianzus. Then came a period of study at Constantinople, followed by five important years of University life at Athens. In these years the young scholar from Cappadocia was brought into contact with all that was intellectually most brilliant. Julian, the future emperor, Oelsus, Libanius % —all these are to be reckoned among Basil's early friends, and with all of them he was well able to hold his own, proudly disproving in his own person the proverbial stupidity of Cappadocia. But of all his friends none was so dear to him as his old school comrade, Gregory of Xazianzus. The pair were inseparable — " Had all things common, and one only soul In lodgment of a double outward frame," * Basil's younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, has left on record his own youth- ful distaste for the night-long vigils at the time of the yearly festival. f Situated in the province of Pontus on the Iris river, not far from Neo-Csesarea. X The genuineness of Basil's corre- spondence with Libanius has been ques- tioned, but not, as it would appear, on sufficient grounds; and the letters, if genuine, show how great was the intimacy between them. The three letters between Basil and the Emperor Julian are in like manner disputed. Julian's second letter contains the famous passage: ''I have learned to know and condemn what once I read ; " and in Basil's answer we have the retort : " What you read you did not understand. If you had understood you would not have condemned." There is a ring of splendid fearlessness which is very characteristic of Basil. 236 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. as sang the poetical Gregory." Gregory tells, too, of that which gave strength to their union — " Our special bond, the thought of God alone, And the high longing after holy things." Great things were expected of the brilliant young University student, and when the ordinary time of departure came, he was pressed to remain longer at Athens ; but he had resolved to take up the profession of rhetoric in his own country, and to this end he returned home. From the towns- folk of Neo-Csesarea he received a regular ovation, and they urged him to set up as a teacher in their midst. Is it to be wondered at that his home belongings saw signs in the young man of a little conceit ? His sister Macrina had the courage to tell him of it, and gently to warn him against the spirit of worldliness which she feared for her darling brother. Her pure aspirations called forth all that was noblest in him, and he was now moved to seek for baptism, which, according to the frequent practice of that age, had been deferred till such time as he should spontaneously desire it. Macrina, too, instilled into her brother her own enthusiasm for the ascetic life, and it was determined that before pledging himself to his intended career, he should travel to Jerusalem and Egypt, with the avowed purpose of studying the monastic settlements which were so marked a feature in those parts. The result of his travels was that Basil returned to his Pontine home fully resolved to devote himself to the direct service of God in the solitary life. The purpose formed at eight and twenty was never lost sight of ; the manner of life was somewhat modified by circum- stances. The hermitage became in time a ccenobium, where men like- minded with himself lived with Basil, dividing the time between manual labour and prayer and evangelistic work. A little later, and Basil, now in Deacons' Orders, left his monastic settlement in the charge of one of his brothers, and himself went down to Cappadocian Csesarea, the scene of his school life, and there gave all the help he could to the successive archbishops ; first to the old man Dianius, whom as a lad he had learnt to reverence ; and then to his successor. There were difficulties in both posts which only tended to illustrate Basil's high sense of duty. Upon the death of the second of these two bishops, Basil himself was appointed, though not without considerable opposition, to the vacant see, an office which he continued to hold until his death some nine years later (a.d. 379). Such are the bare facts of his uneventful outward life, a life henceforth devoted to the care of his diocese and to the supervision of all its interests, temporal and spiritual. There are journeys still, constant and wearisome, and no small additional burden to a man in chronic ill health, but they are all within the limits of his extensive archiepiscopal charge, all under- taken at the call of duty. Such is the outward life : the inner life he * See Newman. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. BASIL. 237 unconsciously reveals to us in those three hundred letters which are his completest memorial. All through his life letters were a great source of enjoyment to Basil. Out off as he was from the congenial society to which he had been accus- tomed, it was a relief to Jiim to pour himself out upon paper, and so to keep in touch with old friends. His own letters are easy and graceful, as when he writes to a fellow-bishop : " You owe me a good turn, for I lent you a kindness which I ought to get back with interest. Pay me then, my friend, by paying me a visit." His friends' replies, however much he might complain of them as " laconic," were worth a great deal to him, and more generous communications were proportionately welcome. " When I take your letter into my hand, first of all I look at its size, and I love it all the more for being so big ; then, as I read it I rejoice over every word I find in it." Sometimes he owns with a sigh that letters are but " lifeless things," but a cordial greeting from a tried friend makes him exclaim : " One can see your soul in your letter, for no painter can so exactly catch an outward likeness as uttered thoughts can image the secrets of the soul." Letters attached his old friends to him ; they also won for him unseen friends. He accounted it as " one of the greatest of God's gifts " that he was enabled to know the great men of his time — Athanasius, for example, and Ambrose— by correspondence, if not face to face. Did Athanasius but know the power of his letters he would "never lose a single opportunity of writing." And yet, what were letters compared to personal intercourse ? If but one such meeting could be " added to the story of his life," he would deem it sufficient compensation for all his former afflictions. In the earlier letters, written when he was making trial of his solitary life in his self -chosen retreat not far from his old home at Annesi, there is a pathetic undertone through all the surface playfulness. He describes in glowing terms to his friend Gregory the charms of his picturesque mountain glen on the Iris river — the description has often been quoted as one of the earliest examples of appreciation of picturesque scenery for its own sake. Again and again he extols " the quiet," which with God's aid he is " cultivating in abundance," as the best means whereby he may " cling to God." So he holds bravely to his discipline, but in his honesty he confesses to Gregory that he has not yet been able to " get quit of myself." " I carry my own troubles with me. So I have not got much good out of my solitude." He urges his friend to come and share his life. Gregory comes for a time, and while there throws himself heartily into all Basil's pursuits — devotional, industrial, and literary ; but the miserable fare and the general discomfort were not to his taste, and in one of his amusing letters to his friend, he jestingly recalls the trials of the new experience : " The dwelling without roof and without door — the hearth without fire and smoke ; that sad and hungry banquet, for which you called me from Cappadocia." Then, too, " the ungarden-like garden STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. void of pot-herbs," in which "vine-dresser I and dainty you laboured together." " I have remembrance," he writes, " of the bread and of the broth — so they were named — and shall remember them. You indeed will set it out in tragic style yourself, taking a sublime tone from your suffer- ings. But for me, unless that true Lady Bountiful, your mother, had rescued me quickly I had been dead long ago, getting myself little honour, though much pity, from Pontic hospitality." * So wrote Gregory, jesting yet admiring ; but Basil's dream of having him for his constant companion was never to be realized. As for Basil, though he joined in the laugh against himself, he was secretly disap- pointed. He was always expecting more of his friend than he was able to give, and the friendship at last unhappily broke down under the pro- longed strain. Basil, in the days of his episcopate (for certain tactical reasons of his own, into which we need not here enter), appointed Gregory to be bishop of an insignificant and out-of-the-way place, a little posting- town, important only as the junction of three great roads, and in all other respects highly disagreeable. We may readily believe that Basil felt that he was serving the best interests of the Church in the appointment, and there is much dignity in his defence of his action. " I too was anxious that our brother Gregory should have the government of a Church com- mensurate with his abilities ; and that would have been the whole Church under the sun gathered into one place. But as this is impossible, let him be a bishop not deriving dignity from his see, but conferring dignity on his see by himself. For it is the part of a really great man not only to be sufficient for great things, but by his own influence to make small things great." Unluckily, Gregory did the worst thing he could under the circumstances ; he did not refuse the call, but he obeyed reluctantly, and nursed to the end his sense of grievance. There was no vulgar quarrel, but intimacy was gone for ever. Gregory retained his old admiring attitude. Years afterwards, in his funeral oration on his friend, he acknowledged that Basil had " slighted friendship " only out of a sense of higher duty ; yet even at that sacred moment he could not refrain from stigmatizing his behaviour as " extraordinary and unfriendly," and dwelling on his own pain. The alienation was the more grievous because Basil in his laborious troubled life as archbishop needed all the loyal co-operation he could have to lighten his burden. And first there were all the ordinary labours connected with the charge of an extensive archdiocese ; labours increased by the difficulties of travelling, especially in the winter season. Jealousies between neighbour- ing dioceses had to be delicately appeased : there was " the necessary visitation of parishes in my district ; " there were orphaned churches to be tenderly consoled for the loss of some valued pastor exiled for the faith ; above all, there was the all- important work of teaching the teachers, for the country clergy were, very generally speaking, inexperienced men * Newman. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. BASIL. 239 of humble standing, who divided their time between the duties of their sacred office and their accustomed secular calling. Themselves, it might be, but newly baptized, and by long use blunted to the horrors of many a heathen practice, they were set over a flock who were still exposed to all the old bad influences. To raise the standard of morals for both teachers and taught was no less a part of Basil's pastoral work than to uphold the unity of the Faith. There is a noble directness in his course of sermons on the Creation delivered in his own church at Cassarea — sermons delivered twice a day to congregations largely composed of working men, who came morning and evening with their wives and their little ones at the invitation of their archbishop, "to stand around the vast and varied workshop of divine creation." The sermons, as was natural, were largely scientific, and though, the science may seem to us quaint and out of date, it was in accordance with the most advanced knowledge of the day. Basil's interest in all scientific questions is apparent in his private letters, and it is said that, except in the matter of geography, he " is abreast with the science of his time." * But the science was never allowed to obscure the spiritual teaching, and in the homely applications drawn from beast and insect and flower, there was always some special lesson for the most ignorant listener. The mothers bending over their silk-weaving at home might see in the caterpillar a parable of the resurrection ; the children might learn, as they watched the ways of the young storks, a lesson of tenderness to aged parents. Very impressive to a bystander must have been the great volume of sound that rose up from the whole church — " the voices of men, of children, and of women, rising up in prayer to God, mingling and resound- ing," to use the preacher's own image, " like the waves which beat upon the shore." In the early mornings Basil was careful not to overstep his limits of time, lest any of the many artisans whom he saw crowding around him should be unduly hindered from their day's work ; but at evening, when the willing hearers again collected to " lend their time to God " before dispersing to their suppers and their nightly amusements, he was under 110 such restriction, and once and again the growing darkness took him at unawares : " Evening which long ago sent the sun to the west imposes silence upon me. Here then let me be content with what I have said, and put my discourse to bed." In addition to the duties of his office, Basil was overwhelmed with business both private and public. He was a first-rate man of business, and was never too much occupied to serve a friend, at whatever expenditure of trouble to himself. Now he is helping a widowed mother to safeguard the interests of a young heir, now a friend who has got into difficulties as a trustee ; now he has the still more delicate task of reviewing a friend's book and giving an opinion which shall be at once candid and kind. Among the troubles brought to him we find such familiar-sounding * The Rev. B. Jackson's " Prolegomena." 240 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. grievances as the inequalities of rating, the right of charitable institutions to be exempted, and the special burdens of clerical taxation. Basil was, generally speaking, on excellent terms with the Government officials of his district, and his good offices with one or other of these officials were in constant request. An undertaking more trying than most was that of pleading on behalf of an acknowledged offender. Basil did not shirk the task, but he was absolutely straightforward, and prefaced his appeal for clemency with the avowal : " This man has been an intimate friend of my own, and is like a brother to me. Why should I not speak the truth ? When I learned the reasons for his being in his present troubles, I said that he had only got what he deserved." The saying of Aristotle, "A friend is another self," comes fitly from the mouth of Basil, who made his friends' interests so completely his own that we find him writing to a magistrate " not to be surprised at my calling my friend's property my own." Nor was it only private troubles that thus aroused his sympathy. The sufferings of the rural population in the iron-producing districts of Taurus, taxed utterly beyond their means, evoked an energetic protest ; and no citizen in all Cappadocia took more to heart than did the archbishop the division of the province and the transfer of the chief city of government from Osesarea to some other place. " My country in her troubles," he wrote, " calls me to her side ; you know, my friend, how she suffers." But no active labours on behalf of others could ever divert Basil from the constant intercessory prayer which he regarded as his chief work. " To forget you in my prayers," he writes, " is impossible, unless first I forget the work to which God has called me." Many a tender letter of sympathy or congratulation, of counsel or of spiritual encouragement, addressed to mourners, to church workers, to penitents, to young men in the full tide of life, was the outcome of these prayers. The common religious lif e of worship and service which had been his ideal in the old days of the Iris river settlement was worked out at Csesarea on a more elaborate scale. The church, surrounded by the dwellings of the brethren, became in time the nucleus of a great philan- thropic settlement, with its well-organized hospital, its leper-house, its workshops for industrial training, its staff of guides for travellers, its lodging — not for the bishop and clergy alone, but for the Imperial officials and their escort. Not least in importance in Basil's eyes was the guest- house, which gave him an opportunity of natural and easy intercourse with young professional men, soldiers, it may be, or barristers, and so of winning them to higher aims. The institution grew so vast that it became known as " the new town," or in later days, in memory of the founder, as " the Basileiad." But all work of this description, though never ending, was congenial enough ; the trial lay in the perpetual struggle against the rising tide of Arianism. Personal danger had no terrors for Basil. When the Emperor Yalens came into Cappadocia with the avowed object of removing the chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. BASIL. 24 1 Catholic bishops and filling their places with Arians, Basil met first the threatening chief officer, Modestus, and then the emperor himself, with absolute fearlessness. His dauntless bearing could not but command respect. " No one jet," said the Prefect, " ever spoke to Modestus with such freedom." " Perhaps," was the bold reply, " Modestus never yet fell in with a bishop, or surely in a like trial you would have beard like language." * From henceforth that officer became Basil's friend, and the vacillating emperor was awed into an understanding that it was best not to interfere with the Archbishop of Csesarea. One of his subordinates once attempted something of the sort, and found himself beholden to his intended victim for his rescue from the angry mob. The citizens of the two Caesareas were at heart profoundly attached to their famous fellow- townsman — many of the younger men indeed showed their admiration by an obvious imitation of his ways and mannerisms, even to the very cut of his beard ; nevertheless, in small matters they reserved to them- selves an old friend's privilege of being often provokingly critical and captious. For Basil himself there was never much personal danger, but he had the constant distress of seeing the sufferings of his people in other districts — congregations dispossessed of their ancient places of worship ; flocks bereaved of their pastors ; the sick and dying forced to accept the minis- trations of Arian clergy ; and, most grievous of all, many under stress of trial falling from the purity of their first faith. The persecution was all the harder to bear because the persecutors " put forward the name of Christ," and so to the outside world the sufferers had none of the glory of martyrdom. We can understand the mood which prompted Basil to cry out for " the good old times," when the undivided Church presented a united front to the bloody persecution of idolaters. And yet it was not even from the Arian party that the cruellest trial came. There was treachery within the camp ; men whom Basil had trusted and honoured to the utmost paltered with the truth ; for ex- pediency's sake they signed some of the many floating heretical creeds. They sought to stand well with both sides, and being tainted with heresy, they sought to cover their own defection by implicating the archbishop in their unsteadfastness ; or, as Hooker quaintly puts it, " because the light of his candle too much drowned theirs," they were glad to lay hold upon such " colourable matter " as they could find, j With marvellous in- genuity they wove a tissue of statements, half true, half false — and " a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies." They circulated in garbled form a letter which twenty years before he had written, " as lay- man to layman," to one who afterwards became a notable heretic ; { they urged that he frequently used theological terms which were capable of very diverse interpretations. Such insidious attacks could hardly be repelled. It was like " struggling in a night battle, without being able to distinguish * Newman. % Apollinarius. t E. P., v. 11. VOL. I. R 242 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. XIX. between friends and foes." Sometimes Basil set himself to answer each charge categorically ; sometimes he contented himself with the simple assertion, " Truth is fighting on my side ; " and he spoke well. Time and truth have proved his work — work that has been not less lasting and valuable than that of the earlier champions of the Faith, only somewhat different. Since the days of Athanasius the centre of conflict had slightly shifted. It was now the G-odhead, not of the Son, but of the Holy Spirit, that was most in peril ; and it was for this article of our Christian Creed that Basil contended with a passionate loyalty worthy of Athanasius him- self. The " Gloria Patri " was to him as a very trumpet-call, summing up all that he held most dear ; but the words had not yet crystallized into their present unchangeable form, and it was made an offence against Basil that he occasionally varied his ascription, sometimes saying " with " or " through " in place of the more customary " and." But what to him was the glorious fulness of meaning of that doxology is best shown by his own words : " We must as we have received even so baptize ; and as we baptize even so believe ; and as we believe even so give glory. Baptizing we use the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; con- fessing the Christian faith we declare our belief in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost ; ascribing glory unto God we give it to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." * Nevertheless calumny continued to rage, and weak and suffering as he was in body, Basil would well-nigh have been overwhelmed, save only for his unwavering conviction that " Hope in God is the strongest of all things." " Ere long," he wrote to the troubled Church of Antioch, " our Champion will appear. Expect tribulation after tribulation ; hope upon hope ; yet a little while, yet a little while. Thus the Holy Ghost knows how to comfort His nurslings by a promise of the future." Basil could comfort others, but who was there to comfort him ? Once and again he appealed to the bishops of the Western Church, but from them he got no help and only scant sympathy. In the West the prospects of the Church were already brightening, but the troubles of Cappadocia seemed to them remote, perhaps uninteresting. Truly Basil was left desolate— one dear friend in exile, another hopelessly alienated, another proved faithless. His surviving brothers indeed were loyal to the core, but one was immersed in business, and the good blundering Gregory was never to be relied on for any matter that needed delicacy of handling. Those closing years, when each month brought some fresh increase of illness, would have been dark indeed had it not been for the untiring devotion of a much younger friend, the Bishop of Iconium,t who became to Basil in the five remaining years of his life as " a well loved son." He sent him gifts— well meant if not always quite appropriate, as when he sent sweet- meats, and had to be playfully reminded by Basil that his teeth were gone and " his days for munching were over "—and with delicate tact drew him into the employment that was most perfectly congenial to him— * Hooker's translation of Ep. 159. f Amphilochius by name. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. BASIL. 243 writing long letters on Biblical exposition. It was he, too, who prevailed upon Basil to write his great treatise on " The Holy Spirit," and bestowed upon the method of its publication an amount of loving thought that was deeply gratifying to its author. Basil had once pathetically owned that he " really hungered for affection," and it is pleasant to think how fully this want was supplied in his last days. And still he toiled on to the very last against ever-increasing illness. On January 1, 379, when he was known to be dying, "his death-bed was surrounded by crowds of the citizens, ready to give part of their own life to lengthen that of their bishop." * He rallied sufficiently to be able to ordain some of the most faithful of his disciples, and to speak a few words of exhortation to the bystanders, and with the words, " Into Thy hands I commend my spirit," he passed away. In the Greek Church S. Basil is commemorated on the actual day of his death (January 1), but the Roman Kalendar assigns to him January 14, the traditional day of his consecration.f Ancient English dedications to S. Basil are sadly rare ; but happily we can at least claim two such, not to speak of a quite modern dedication which is not without interest of its own. The parish of Toller Fratrum in Dorsetshire belonged to the Knights of S. John of Jerusalem.^ Is it too bold a surmise that some of the Brotherhood when travelling in the East may have experienced the benefits of the Basileiad at Csesarea, and in gratitude for the same dedicated their church at home to its sainted founder ? Until the Turks entered into possession there was little in the slow- moving East to break the continuity of centuries ; and there is no sufficient reason for supposing that Basil's foundation was not still carry- ing on in the Middle Ages the work for which it was designed in the fourth century. It would be pleasant to extend the same guess to the Monmouthshire church of Bassaleg, which looks on the surface as though it must have reference to our saint, and to persuade ourselves that some wandering Celt on his return from Eastern pilgrimage had in like manner brought home the memory of the Cappadocian saint. But, in the first place, such importa- tion of saints from without is contrary to the early practice of the Celtic Church, though to some extent allowed at a later period ; and further, experts § tell us that it is doubtful in the extreme whether the church is really dedicated to S. Basil at all, although it is freely conceded that it now belongs to him by prescriptive right. If philologists are to be trusted, it is one of those cases where, instead of the parish taking its name from the saint, the saint has been evolved out of the name of the parish. The true spelling, of which Bassaleg is a corruption, is said to be Maesaleg, and this is interpreted to mean " the field of Alectus," from maes, a field, and Alectus, a Roman general, who once fought in the neighbourhood. Such * Gregory of Nazianzus, quoted in § Private letter from the Kev. J. Jones, D. C.B. Vicar of Bassaleg, who had consulted a Welsh antiquary of repute, the late Octavius Morgan, Esq. f "Prolegomena." X Hutchins's " Dorset/' 244 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. is one theory ; there are others, but they all seem to agree in this, that Basil is a pure afterthought, and cannot be looked upon as the key to the difficulty. At what period he was adopted as patron is unknown, and very possibly the name became gradually attached to the church without any formal dedication. Certainly there is no trace of any parish feast on S. Basil's Day. There is an alternative dedication to the Holy Trinity which does not rest on any better authority than that to S. Basil, and which must obviously be of comparatively recent origin, as such an ascription was unknown in the early days of the Celtic Church. The district of S. Basil's, Deritend (near Birmingham) — a temporary mission church,* merely licensed, not yet consecrated — owes its name to an early benefactor, the late Bishop Philpott of Worcester, who made choice of the Greek Father out of a sense of the great benefit which he had derived from the study of S. Basil's works. t And thus the influence of the Fathers lives on from age to age, and a Birmingham church of the nineteenth century links us with the Eastern Church of fifteen hundred years ago. S. Chrysostom, ^ n fcne summer of 1890 the consecration of a new church B. Jan. 27, in Bradford dedicated to S. Chrysostom gave the bishop of 407 ' the diocese % the opportunity of telling his hearers § some- thing of the true greatness of their patron saint. He put them in mind how Chrysostom knew what it was to " do something for Christ," how he " cast his life in the venture." " He saw," said the preacher, " his career as a lawyer and knew that meant the accumulation of fresh wealth and the gaining of fresh honour. He possessed capacities and talents that might have landed him in the foremost place among his fellow-men. But he turned aside from all, and took his place among the storm and peril which surrounded his Master. He rebuked the strongest and the most powerful in the land. He saw his Empress in all the weakness and voluptuousness of her life frowning upon him, but he could dare to act despite her frowning, and thought it better to die in exile with his honour untouched and his faith unblemished, than to pay unnecessary homage which would have harmed her soul and degraded his character." Between those two sacrifices there lay a long untroubled interval, rich in successful work gratefully acknowledged by his fellow-men ; but always we see in Chrysostom the same readiness to choose, wherever choice must be made, the higher and the harder path. The early life of Chrysostom has many points of resemblance with that of Basil. There are the same strong Christian influences at home ; there is the same thorough education ; and curiously enough, Libanius, the distinguished heathen orator, is a link between the two saints. He had been, as we know, a fellow-student of Basil at Athens ; now at Antioch, thirty years later, we find him as the tutor of that John of Antioch whom * 1897. % Dr. Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon. f Private letter from the Rev. F. Mac- § From the " Monthly Record " of the kenzie, late Incumbent of S. Basil's, Derit- parish, July, 1890. end. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. CHRYSOSTOM. 245 we call Chrysostom, and so recognizing the merits of his pupil that when asked to name his successor he replied, " John, if the Christians had not stolen him from us." But the Christians and the Christian faith had taken lifelong posses- sion of the ardent young student. His conversation from childhood up was blameless, and those enemies who in later days sought to rake up some ground of accusation against him could find no blot upon his pure youth. Like Basil, he too became inflamed with desire for the ascetic life ; first in the gentler form of a monk in a Syrian hillside community, and next in the austerer form of a solitary in a mountain cavern. After six years, he too, like Basil, left what he always calls the far easier life of a monk to take up the duties, first of deacon and then of priest in a great city. So, with health shattered and nerves overstrained, but with a deeper intensity of spiritual purpose, he comes back to his native Antioch, where he is already known and respected, and soon makes himself a power there by that wonderful eloquence of his, which in the next generation was to gain for him his inseparable surname of " Chrysostom," the golden-mouthed. That " gift of speech was " one day, as Newman says, " to be his ruin " — his ruiu at Constantinople, but his glory as an instrument for good in the happy eighteen years at Antioch. How proud Chrysostom was of his city with her ancient Christian memories ; how bent on recalling it to its noblest traditions ; how pro- foundly real in all his sermons ; how watchful to " buy up the oppor- tunity " ! His homilies, like everything he wrote — even his private letters — bear witness to that close knowledge, that deep love of Holy Scripture, which is Chrysostom's greatest glory. Such a knowledge and such a love he would fain have implanted in the hearts of all who listened to him. He reminds those who cannot read how much they may gain by earnest attention to the public reading of the Bible in church ; but he urges upon all who can read the privilege of making " a church of their home," and reading God's Word both separately and with their families. Let them not neglect so plain a duty on the ground that manuscripts are rare and costly. Many of the poorer classes were constantly making this excuse, that they had no Bibles. " I would like to ask them," said Chrysostom in one of his sermons, " whether any man would let himself be hindered by poverty, however great, from possessing the necessary tools of his trade ? Is it not singular that in the one case he never thinks of laying the blame on his poverty, but does his best that it may not hinder him ; while in the other, where he is to be so great a gainer, he complains of his poverty." * Listen for a moment to the preacher as he illustrates his favourite theme of the glorious freedom of those who have learnt what it is to " have familiar speech with God." f " When Christ came," thus he speaks in another of his sermons, " He purified the whole world ; every place became a house of prayer. Mark you, how the world has been purified. As it * Quoted in Neander's " Church Hi*- t This phrase occurs in one of his letters, tory," vol. iii. 246 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. regards the place we may everywhere lift up holy hands, for the whole earth has been consecrated, more consecrated than the holy of holies." Then passing with that simple directness which belongs to him to the practical application of his grand principle, he continues : " How can a man of business, a man tied to the courts of justice, pray and resort to the church thrice in a day ? It is possible and very easy ; for if you cannot easily repair to the church, you may at least pray before the door ; and that even though you may be tied to the courts of justice ; for it needs not so much the voice as the disposition of the heart. . . . Place and time are no hindrance. Though you bow not the knee, though you beat not the breast, though you stretch not your hands to heaven, but only manifest a warm heart, you have all that belongs to prayer. The wife, while she holds in her lap the spindle and spins, can with her soul look up to heaven, and call with fervency on the name of the Lord. It is possible for this man to offer a fervent prayer while he is on his way alone to the market ; for that other, who sits in his shop and sews leather, to lift up his soul to God ; and the servant who makes purchases, goes errands, or sits in the kitchen, has nothing to hinder him from doing the same thing." In those days Chrysostom's greatest trials were very much those of any earnest-minded popular preacher who is at the same time a highly sensitive man. The people throng to hear him and interrupt his preaching with tumultuous applause, and then forthwith they disperse and hurry off to the dangerous joys of the circus, and forget all that they have so lately applauded. His hearers are fervid, impressionable ; but the impression is only short-lived. One moment they praise the preacher extravagantly ; the next they criticize him with merciless keenness, forgetting that " being but a man it is to be expected that sometimes he will make mistakes ; " and accusing him, " as if they were judging an angel." * And all the time Chrysostom was keenly conscious that he was no angel, but only a man laden with infirmity ; and, with the candour that is throughout one of the most engaging features in his character, he acknowledges his irritability, his over-susceptibility to praise and blame, and the need of perpetual struggle against these defects. But there came a time when criticism was silenced, when the light- hearted population flocked into the church in anxious penitential mood, in the hope of gaining from the great preacher some store of hope and conso- lation. This was in the eight weeks of terrible suspense after the three hours of riot in the streets of Antioch, when the populace, in a fit of sudden rage at some new financial measure, had wreaked their anger on the statues of the Emperor Theodosius the Great and of his beloved empress. The momentary madness past, the city was left to ponder the fearful punishment which was like to follow so daring an outrage. The task of interceding with the justly offended emperor was entrusted to * From Chrysostom's treatise " De Sacerdotio," quoted in Bright's " Three Great Fathers." chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. CHRYSOSTOM. 247 Flavius, the aged Bishop of Aiitioch ; and during his absence, during the weeks of mourning when the theatres and baths were closed, when the Imperial officials were exhibiting their loyalty by dealing out indiscriminate punishment — dread shadow of what might be to come — it was then that the familiar voice of the trusted presbyter, John Ohrysostom, day by day appealed to the anxious listeners, seeking to press home the lessons of this time of uncertainty and humiliation. Easter Eve brought with it the glorious tidings of a free pardon from the generous Theodosius — tidings told in dramatic form by the preacher in his Easter Day sermon ; but the special work of Chrysostom did not end when the rejoicings began, for it was his happy office to prepare for baptism a large number of catechumens whom the recent events had attracted from paganism to Christianity. If the career of Ohrysostom had closed here we should think of him only as the golden-mouthed John of Antioch — " From thee the glorious preacher came With soul of zeal and lips of flame," * but there was to be yet another chapter in his history, and we are to see him in the Eastern capital, " A court's stern martyr guest." The fame of the preacher had reached those in authority at Constantinople, and they determined to secure him as their archbishop. By a well- prepared stratagem Chrysostom was suddenly seized upon by the Imperial officers and carried off in the Imperial conveyances the eight hundred miles to Constantinople ; and thus as a prisoner he entered upon his new sphere of work. It must be admitted that Chrysostom of all people had no right to complain of finding himself the victim of a " pious fraud." They were common enough in those days, and he himself had not only defended but practised them when it suited his convenience ! His consecration was deferred till his arrival in Constantinople, and then by a curious coincidence it took place on the eleventh anniversary (a.d. 398) of a day already memorable in his history, that 26th of February which had seen the historic riot at Antioch. Chrysostom had always peculiarly dreaded the responsibility of the episcopate, and from the outset he foresaw that the task imposed upon him would be of no common difficulty : yet he did not shrink from it. His predecessor had been a well-disposed faineant: he was a thorough-going reformer. Yet at first it seemed as though he were to be as popular as in his native city. He entered upon his new charge with a child-like readiness to love and be loved, which was not slow in winning a response from the mass of the people. " I have only addressed you on one day," were the opening words of his second sermon, " and from that day I have loved you as much as if I had been bred up among you." t He was no less plain-spoken than at Antioch, but on the whole they liked his directness. Many of his censures * Newman. t Quoted in Bright. 248 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. were aimed at a class above themselves, and for the rest, it has been justly pointed out that censures distributed among an entire congregation are apt to sit lightly on individuals. Preacher and congregation understood one another. With strangers the vast audience might show itself dis- courteous and riotous, but it would stand patiently for any length of time listening to the voice of the little figure seated at the raised reading-desk ; and Chrysostom was not insensible to the compliment. The fashionable world, too, headed by the Empress Eudoxia, flocked to hear the arch- bishop, affording such an admirable field for pickpockets that Chrysostom recommended his audience to leave their purses at home. For a while the courtly hearers were more amused than irritated by the minute denunciation of prevailing faults and extravagances ; but as the novelty wore off, as certain persons in great places became uneasily con- scious that the accusations were intended for themselves, the preacher incurred considerable odium. It is possible that Chrysostom's pulpit boldness might have been forgotten had he not been socially a failure. Partly on principle, partly also on account of his delicate health and the importance of adhering to one uniform meagre diet, he withdrew altogether from the public feasts ; and this was great cause of offence. S. Basil would have been no less abstemious, and yet would have entertained his distinguished guests with a gracious hospitality that would have caused his own peculiarities to be forgotten. Chrysostom had not this happy art ; indeed his manners were hopelessly against him. In the intimate circle of his own friends none could be more genial, more sympathetic ; but among strangers he was fenced in an armour of brusque reserve that was chilling to the admirers who worshipped him from afar in the pulpit. " AVhen you met him anywhere outside the church," complained a shoemaker, " you could seldom get him to stop and have a word with you." * And if these faults of manner injured him in the estimation of the laity, they injured him yet more grievously in the estimation of a large portion of his clergy. They had been too long accustomed to a lax rule ; there were innumerable matters that rightly demanded the archbishop's interference, but that interference was too often displayed in an unconciliatory manner. And the disaffection was unhappily not limited to his own clergy. It was shared by many of the surrounding bishops over whom in his reforming zeal he exercised a much-disputed authority. It was not in Chrysostom's nature to stand aside contentedly and witness wrongs that might easily be amended. A kind of Primacy seemed of right to belong to the capital of the Eastern Empire ; but the claim had no recognized foundation, and was hotly resisted by many ; and most of all by Chrysostom's malignant rival, the Patriarch of Alexandria. Gradually, almost imper- ceptibly, the clouds gathered. For a time Chrysostom stood high in the favour of the unprincipled empress ; and he, who ever showed himself ready to believe the best of all men, believed in the sincerity of her professions, though it must be owned that to our Western habits of mind * Bright. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. CHRYSOSTOM. 249 the extravagant language of compliment which the archbishop employed towards her is scarcely more pleasing than his unmeasured invectives at a later period. It is much disputed whether S. Ohrysostom was actually so ill advised as to compare the empress to Jezebel and Herodias ; the sermons which so report him are declared to be spurious, but it was popularly believed at the time, and such lauguage in his mouth is in no wise inconceivable. The more pointedly the preacher denounced fashionable vices the stronger became the flood of fashionable hatred ; and at the same time he was making himself enemies among the Arian party — enemies more powerful than the friends he was winning by his missionary endeavours among the Gothic tribes of Hungary and elsewhere. In truth, his downfall was predetermined in high places, and though a certain theological colour was afterwards given to the attacks upon him, the whole matter was really a revolt of empress and courtiers, disloyal bishops and clergy, against one who, Baptist-like, strove to set up amongst them a higher standard of truth and right. We need not follow the successive steps of the plots against Chrysostom — the mockery of a trial where the judges were his known enemies and the degrading accusations utterly hollow. Before such a synod Ohrysostom rightly refused to appear, and the sentence of banishment was passed in his absence. Yet for peace' sake he obeyed it without protest, though he knew full well that a word from him would have sufficed to raise the fury of the mob ; and then — as afterwards on the occasion of his second exile — he sought to distract the minds of his friends from dwelling over-much on the personal aspect of the trouble. He besought them not to let partisanship for him prevent their giving their services to his successor ; and he reminded them that " the teaching did not begin with him and it will not end with him." So he went forth ; and then came the short-lived triumph. The empress, terrified by the earthquake which her guilty conscience inter- preted as a heaven-sent judgment, despatched messengers to implore him to return. " The Bosphorus," says Gibbon, " was covered with innumer- able vessels ; the shores of Europe and Asia were profusely illuminated ; and the acclaims of a victorious people accompanied from the port to the cathedral, the triumph of the archbishop." But before many weeks had gone by there was a renewal of plots against him, and the pride of the empress in arrogating to herself some- thing like divine honours once more called forth his sternest rebuke. The empress now prevailed upon her feeble husband, the Emperor Arcadius, to exercise his power, and the archbishop was for several months a semi-prisoner in his own house, suspended from all official duties pending the arrival of the formal sentence of deposition. There is no need to dwell on the agony of that protracted time of waiting, when the archbishop had almost daily to hear of some fresh outrage inflicted upon his faithful flock, both clergy and laity — the 250 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. " Johnnites," as they were termed — who were known to be loyal to their deposed chief. " He was indeed," says Cardinal Newman, " a man to make both friends and enemies ; to inspire affection and to kindle resent- ment, but his friends loved him with a love stronger than death, and it was well to be so hated, if he was so beloved." The same passionate feelings, both of hostility and devotion, were shown towards the exile as he travelled slowly under the care of not unkindly guards to the place of banishment appointed to him in the remote province of Cilicia, the place which was to be his home for three years. Strangers " drowned in tears " stood respectfully to see him pass ; private individuals placed their houses at his disposal ; the skilful physicians of Cassarea — trained, we can hardly doubt, in the Basileiad (see p. 240) — counted it a privilege to minister to him ; while others — the unworthy Bishop of Caesarea among the number— shrank from giving countenance to a personage so obnoxious to government. Our knowledge of these three years is peculiarly intimate, thanks to Chrysostom's own voluminous letters, which bring before us not only his every passing circumstance but his every changing mood of mind. With the frankness of a child he details every discomfort— discomforts which told so heavily on his sensitive frame ; while at the same time with tender gratitude he is careful to chronicle every alleviation provided for him by friends, absent or present. His passing moments of utter depression, the sanguine expectations that more naturally belonged to him — all these are laid bare with a perfect simplicity that is in itself very endearing, apart from the unmurmuring sweetness that lends it a higher beauty. His soul was free from all tinge of personal resentment ; he counted himself happy when he could change an enemy into a friend ; and for the rest, it was the conviction of his whole being that to those that love God all things work together for good. Certain phrases were so often on his lips that they became recognized watchwords among his friends. Such for example was his oft-repeated " There is no real calamity but sin," and that yet more frequent doxology, "Glory be to God for all things." The hope of returning to his see never wholly faded out of Chrysostom's mind ; but meantime there was much that he could do by letter to guide and support the churches ; not in troubled Constantinople alone, but in his well loved Antioch, and in the newly converted districts of Phoenicia. Never perhaps had he been more powerful for good than in these years of exile and bodily distress. In the oft-quoted words of Gibbon : " The respectful attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desolate spot among the mountains of Taurus." But such a respectful homage was displeasing in the extreme to his implacable foes at Constantinople. They would fain be rid of this Chrysostom, but dared not kill him outright. The fragile exile had openly declared that another journey such as he had once undertaken would be his death ; it was determined therefore to banish him to the chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. CHRYSOSTOM. 25 I coasts of the Black Sea, to a desolate and far-away region, where even if he survived the fatigues of the journey, he was not likely to stand against the rigours of the climate. No one who is familiar with the history of Henry Martyu can fail to be struck by the likeness * between those two tragical journeys, and it is pathetic to remember that both these saints of God ended their sufferings at the very same spot. The modern Tokat,f where Henry Martyn lay down to die, is built upon the ruins of the ancient Comana Pontica { where S. Ohrysostom breathed his last. In the fifth century there stood there a little wayside chapel in honour of some martyr, served by certain brethren. Here Ohrysostom and his guards halted on the last night of his life, and he entreated to be allowed to prolong his stay a little. But the brutal guards forced him on some four or five miles farther under the burning sun, till the extremity of his illness made it clear to them that the dying man must needs be taken back to the shelter of the chapel. The last scene shall be told in the words of his contemporary bio- grapher^ who must have learnt it from eye-witnesses. "When he got there he asked for white vestments suitable to the tenor of his past life, and clad himself in them from head to foot, and then gave away his old ones to those about him. Then having communicated he made the closing prayer ' On present needs.'' He said his customary words, ' G-lory be to G-od for all things,' and having concluded it with his last Amen, he stretched forth those feet of his which had been so beautiful in their running, . . . and shaking off this mortal dust, he passed to Christ." The year was a.d. 407, and the day the 14th of September, an anniversary already precious to the Church as the " birthday " of S. Cyprian. His recognized festival, however, is on January 27, the day on which, thirty-one years later, repentant Constantinople sought out his remains, and brought them back in solemn shame to the city whence the living archbishop had been banished in disgrace. That last prayer of the dying saint, " for all things needful," falls upon our ears like an echo of the familiar words in the prayer that is for ever associated with the name of Ohrysostom : " Fulfil now, 0 Lord, the desires and petitions of Thy servants, as may be most expedient for them." In all probability his only real connexion with this prayer is that it is found in the liturgy of Constantinople which passes by his name, a liturgy which he to some extent edited and shortened for more convenient use in his own great Cathedral church. The direct authorship of this beautiful collect, then, cannot be ascribed to him, but the association is now too firmly riveted to be easily forgotten. There is, alas ! no single dedication to this great Father of the Church of earlier date than the first half of the nineteenth century—that at Peck- ham ; but new churches in his honour are springing up in our midst, in * Of. Newman. river so often mentioned in S. Basil's t Murray's " Asia Minor." life. X In Pontus, not far from the Iris § Palladius, quoted in Newman. 252 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Liverpool, Birmingham, Bradford, and elsewhere ; and we can hardly doubt that the majority of the worshippers in those churches find in the so-called " Prayer of S. Chrysostom " their best loved, perhaps their only, bond with the heroic Archbishop of Constantinople. Section Y. — The Latin Fatheks. S. Ambrose Among the crowds who Sunday after Sunday in the year B. April 4, 385 filled Milan and hung upon the words of the eloquent 397 ' Bishop Ambrose were listeners of widely different moods. Some there were who drank from the lips of the preacher " the pure water that springs up unto eternal life ; " others there were who cared little for his matter, yet critically compared his style with that of the best orators of the day, and allowed that it stood the test.* Among such dispassionate hearers was Augustine, the African professor of Rhetoric, newly come to occupy the vacant chair at Milan, eager to make acquaintance with the great man who was the virtual ruler of Milan. Ambrose had now been bishop for more than ten years, and his com- manding influence had been proved in a hundred ways, though the most memorable incident in his career was still in the future. Assuredly Augustine had 'heard before ever he came to Italy of Ambrose, the son of one of the four great prefects of the Empire, who had given early promise of following his dead father's footsteps and rising to civil distinction. He must have heard the strange story of his election to the bishopric of Milan ; how he, still an unbaptized catechumen, entered the church with his troops simply in his official capacity as Governor of the province, " to quell the rising fury of the partisans of the two rival candidates ; and how, while he soothed the people with his wise words, a little child suddenly called out, ' Ambrose is bishop,' and the words were caught up and carried round the church by the rapturous acclamation of the multitude." f Doubtless, too, Augustine had heard that favourite story of the swarm of bees which flew harmlessly in and out of the mouth of the future preacher as he lay sleep- ing in his cradle ; a portent, as it was said in the light of after days, of the eloquence that was one day to be his. But it was not these bygone stories that chiefly excited the new-comer's interest in the great champion of the Catholic party. Augustine was fresh from Rome, and all Rome was ringing with the question whether or no the banished altar surmounted by the winged figure of Yictory standing upon the globe — the so-called " Altar of Yictory "—should be restored to its ancient position in the Senate-house. The heathen senators, with Symmachus the distinguished prefect of the city as their spokesman, pleaded for its restoration, not merely for its own sake, but as a link with the glorious past of Rome. They urged that it had been allowed to * For all the references to S. Augustine f Hodgkin. and the quotations from his writings, see the " Confessions." chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. AMBROSE. 253 remain even under the rule of the christian Yalentinian I. ; and their plead- ing might have prevailed had the christian party had a less commanding- leader than the Bishop of Milan, whose influence with the Imperial court was so great. To Ambrose there could be no question of compromise on such a point ; be the historic associations what they might, they could not outweigh the fact that the winged Victory was the symbol of Heathenism. Again and again the discussion was raised, and each time the dying paganism was defeated. Augustine was well acquainted with the noble Symmachus, and indeed owed to him his appointment at Milan ; he would be all the more eager therefore to know also the prefect's formidable opponent — his opponent, and yet, as there is reason to believe, his personal friend. So much of Ambrose's history was already known to Augustine by hearsay ; he had not been long in Milan before he was witness of an exciting drama in which the bishop was the central figure. The empress- mother Justina had made her appeal to Ambrose to give up for the use of the Arians one of the two Milanese churches. Such a surrender was impossible to Ambrose. The empress had it in her power to take by force what buildings she chose ; for him to hand over either the one or the other of them would be interpreted by both parties as a sign that in his eyes there was no cardinal distinction between Arianism and Catho- licism. Whatever else he had, Ambrose declared, was at the disposal of his sovereign, but the churches were not his to give ; come what might he was prepared to die rather than betray his trust. The bishop was the idol of the city ; the Imperial troops themselves were suspected of being secretly on his side ; it would have been easy for him to excite a powerful opposition against the empress, but he firmly forbade anything beyond a sustained passive resistance. It was a hard trial, but the people were obedient to his lightest word ; and when, in the Holy Week of the year 385, and again in the same sacred week of the year following, Justina made determined efforts to carry her point, she found herself on each occasion confronted by a steadily disciplined host, who held both churches in peaceful occupation by day and by night, passing the long hours in prayer and singing, or in listening to the stirring words of their indomitable chief. A guard of soldiery was placed around the churches ; they were needless ; — the adherents of Ambrose remained at their post like sentinels on duty ; and the Arians, warned by the fate of one of their presbyters who had been mobbed in the street and only rescued by the orders of the imprisoned bishop, were afraid to enforce their claim. So the struggle went on day after day, to the intense excitement of those without ; but the empress dared not push matters to extremes. The feeling of the city was plainly against her ; and both times, before Good Friday was reached, the guards were withdrawn, and the persecution suddenly collapsed. Among those who " lived in prayer " the while, " taking a chief part in those anxieties and watchings," was Augustine's 254 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. mother. As for himself, he owns that he had no interest in the spiritual meaning of the long conflict, but the " alarm and commotion of the city could not but stir him," and could not but quicken his admiration for the intrepid leader. He had heard him in the pulpit ; he had watched his bearing in time of trial ; and now as a frequent visitor to his house he was learning to know the great man under yet another aspect. The reception-room of the bishop was like the crowded audience-hall of some royal personage. None were refused admittance ; none were announced ; but when the great man was seen to be at liberty, one after another of the waiting multitude would press forward " full of his own business," and seek advice from the wise counsellor in their midst. The bishop had grown used to living in public, and his people, on their side, had grown used to interpret his ways. When they perceived him absorbed in a book, " refreshing his mind, free from the noise of other men's matters, and disinclined to be disturbed," they kept a respectful silence ; and if the reading was protracted beyond its usual brief duration, they withdrew. Augustine had the advantage of not coming as a complete stranger. Ambrose welcomed him cordially for the sake of his friend Monnica, and would often " break forth in her praise, congratulating me on having such a mother ; " and Augustine on his side was warmly grateful for the good will and the "fatherly manner" of him whom "so many persons of rank honoured." He began to love him — " not indeed as a teacher of truth, but as a person who was kind to myself." But the intercourse did not pass beyond certain formal limits. Ambrose praised the young man's mother, but seemed not to realize " what a son she had in me ; " and the hurry and crowd in which the bishop's life was necessarily spent, prevented Augustine from " seeking at his hands what I wished as I wished." It may have been inevitable— Augustine always loyally maintained that it was inevitable. " I certainly," says he, " had no opportunity of consulting that holy oracle of Thine about the things I desired, unless it might be done in a very brief manner. But these my perplexities needed one with much leisure to whom they might be poured forth, which he was never found to have." So he excuses his hero ; and yet we doubt whether a Cyprian or a Basil would have been so blind to the signs of spiritual tumult in the young man's mind. Something of the same lack of insight into another's special needs is perhaps indicated by Ambrose's reply to Augustine's letter asking what portion of Holy Scripture he should read in preparation for his baptism. " He directed me to the prophet Isaiah. . . . But I not under- standing what I first read of this book . . . put it by, to be taken up again when more expert in the Lord's words." It is somewhat remarkable that Ambrose who possessed such strong artistic gifts should not likewise have possessed the quick sympathies of the artist temperament. His delight in both music and poetry is well known ; and it is well known, too, how he turned both arts to account in the service of religion. Very early editions of our Book of Common Prayer, with their chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. AMBROSE. 255 heading of the Te Deum — " The Hymn of S. Ambrose and S. Augustine in English " — bear witness to the popular tradition that this memorable song of praise was the joint composition of the two saints at the time of Augustine's baptism. Needless to say, there is no historic ground for such a belief ; but Augustine has left on record his own deep sense of gratitude for the verses written by Ambrose,*"" which came into his mind as he lay upon his bed sorrowing for the death of his mother. Other critics may find in Ambrose's verses a certain coldness ; | Augustine felt no such want, for he penetrated to the true " passion," " the burning fire," J which underlay the austere rigidity of form. It was characteristic of Ambrose to conceal his deepest feelings. In the sacred task of hearing confessions this reserve seems to have been very much broken through. At such times his biographer testifies he would " rejoice with them that did rejoice and weep with them that wept, for he would so weep with one that acknowledged his errors as to force him to weep also." So, too, the gentler side of Ambrose is revealed in his relations with his dearly loved brother and sister. In the life of that sister, S. Marcellina (ch. xlvii.), we catch glimpses of the bishop in his tenderest aspect. Nevertheless, it is not in his dealings with individuals nor in his private friendships that Ambrose stands forth pre-eminent ; rather it is on the broader stage of public affairs that he is seen to the greatest advantage. To write a complete history of the Bishop of Milan § would be to write a history of the Italy of that day ; for in all matters that concerned the welfare of his country, Ambrose for nigh upon a quarter of a century took a foremost part. His position was unique ; he was not exempt from persecution, yet he was feared by his persecutors ; he might be sentenced to exile, but if he thought fit to ignore the order no one moved a finger to enforce it. In like manner he never, says Hooker, " yielded to having the Causes of the Church debated in the Prince's Consistory." He excused himself to the Emperor (Yalentinian), and being summoned " to answer for Church matters in a civil court he came not." || His noble " scorn of consequences " gave him a boldness which, together with his known disinterestedness, won for him a marvellous supremacy over minds of very different orders. Ambrose belongs to that class of men whom the contemporary bio- grapher of S. Cyprian happily describes as "needful men." He was needful to the two young emperors (Gratian and his half-brother, Yalen- tinian II.), whose every aspiration for good he nourished, and whose policy he directed. He was needful to his bitterest enemy Justina, who in the intervals of her conflicts with him at home sent him on distant embassies, committing to his loyal wisdom the most delicate of negotiations touching * The hymn beginniug " Aeterne § The episode of the discovery of the rerum Conditor." relics of SS. Gervase and Protasius is not t Archbishop Trench, quoted in Thorn- given here, as it is fully given in the ton's " S Ambrose " history of those saints (ch. xiii.). X Ibid. || E. P., bk. viii, 2 5 6 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xix. the welfare of the State. He was needful to the usurping Emperor Maximus, who appreciated at first sight the great qualities of the chosen envoy, and would willingly have won him to his cause. But not even the knowledge that under the reign of the usurper the Catholics would have the upper hand could tempt Ambrose to be untrue to his lawful sovereigns. " Even Maximus," he said proudly, " will clear me of this charge, since he will confess it was through my embassy he was kept from the invasion of Italy." And if the subtle inducement of advantage to the true faith failed to move his righteous soul, much less could any material bribe have power over the man. Wealth was to him " an object of contempt." * It was little to him to strip himself of his own property for the sake of the poor ; but for the sake of the captives taken by Maximus he unhesi- tatingly sacrificed the precious sacramental vessels of the sanctuary. Above all, Ambrose was needful to Theodosius, deservedly called " the Great," inasmuch as he had realized " how hard it is for a ruler to meet with one willing to tell him the truth," and inasmuch as he honoured the one man who did fearlessly tell it to him at all hazards. " Ambrose," said he, " is the only man whom I consider worthy of the name of Bishop." And once more ; Ambrose was needful, even in his declining years, to Stilicho, the renowned general, the faithful guardian of the tottering Empire, who declared that " the death of such a man was the death of Italy itself." S. Ambrose did all that in him lay to call forth what was most manly in the amiable dispositions of a Gratian or a Valentinian, but it was in the Spanish Theodosius alone that he found the fulness of response for which he longed. The emperor and the bishop worked together for the good of Church and Empire more as colleagues than as sovereign and subject. We are told that it is to Theodosius at least as much as to Con- stantine that the " permanent alliance between Church and State must be attributed,"! and it was Ambrose who was his teacher. But it was Theodosius who "showed the way to persecute successfully," % and here a l so — we ma y not deny it — Ambrose was his teacher. In all the painful succession of edicts forbidding to Arians and heathens alike the exercise of their religion, depriving them of many of the most ordinary civil rights, we must regretfully acknowledge the hand of Ambrose. Toleration was no virtue in his eyes, and he had less sense of simple justice than the emperor ; for when Theodosius would have compelled the Christian rioters in a certain city to compensate the J ews for the damage done to their synagogue, Ambrose publicly " preached at him " — to use the emperor's own expression — and persuaded him to change his decision. Both in his intolerance and in his use of violent invective when denouncing an enemy, Ambrose shows himself a man of his time and not above it. Here he disappoints us ; but when it comes to a plain question of moral right and wrong he never disappoints us. Call to mind the memorable scene of his reception of Theodosius, when with still dormant * Gibbon, t Hodgkin. % Ibid. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. AMBROSE. 257 conscience the emperor, in despite of the bishop's written warning, presents himself with all his splendid retinue in the cathedral at Milan ; his soul stained with the atrocious massacre of those seven thousand innocent victims at Thessalonica. We know the story well : how Theodosius at first tried to brave it out and pleaded the sin of David in extenuation of his own act. " If you have sinned like David, repent like him," was the stern answer ; and the emperor withdrew abashed, even weeping, feeling the truth of the rebuke, yet too proud to own himself in the wrong. So for eight long months he held aloof, and Ambrose on his side made no sign. A less upright man might have yielded to the temptation to conciliate even by compromise so mighty a penitent ; a more tender one might have striven to break down the barrier of pride and false shame ; Ambrose was content to wait. Then came the Christmas time when the emperor, no longer able to bear the misery of isolation, and finding that the intervention of his worthless minister Eufinus availed him nothing, humbled himself, and went in person to the bishop's house, there to seek the forgiveness for which he yearned. Yet even now Ambrose made it clear to him that forgiveness could only be bestowed after open acknowledgment of sin. The place, the garb, the posture of the meanest penitent— no humiliation, was to be spared the royal sinner by reason of his rank ; and besides this, as a lasting reminder of his fall, Ambrose imposed upon the emperor a condition, wise and statesmanlike, which should bring lasting good out of the terrible evil that had been wrought. " Since passion was the cause of thy fall, 0 Emperor, prepare a law which shall interpose an interval of thirty days between the signing of any capital sentence and its execution. In these thirty days if passion not justice dictated the decree there will be a chance for reason to be heard." * Such a just and merciful law was wholly in accord with Ambrose's deep sense of the sacredness of human life. That sense was shown in his earnest care to avoid bloodshed in the early struggle with Justina ; it was shown when, regardless of court etiquette, he forced his way into the presence of Gratian to obtain a reprieve for a prisoner too hastily condemned to death ; it was shown when he upheld the rights of sanctuary against his friend Stilicho ; it was shown yet more unexpectedly when he (like S. Martin) refused to hold communion with the large body of bishops who in the name of religion had put to death the so-called heretic Priscillian. Gibbon, who says in epigrammatic fashion that " the cause of humanity and that of persecution have been asserted by the same Ambrose, with equal energy and with equal success," praises what he calls Ambrose's " humane inconsistency " in this matter of Priscillian ; but in truth it was no " inconsistency," only the loyal and consistent application of a lifelong principle. All Ambrose's severest measures had for their one aim the reclamation of the heretic, not his extirpation ; his true life, not his premature death. Ambrose held the see of Milan for twenty-three years, and to the last * Hodgkin. VOL. I. S 258 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. he laboured indefatigably for his country and his Church. Even when mortal illness had seized upon him his mind was occupied with their interests. The young deacons without, who were incautiously discussing his successor, were startled as they named a certain name to hear from within the sick chamber the vigorous comment thrice repeated, " Old but good." Count Stilicho sent a deputation of the noblest men of the city to the bishop's dying bed, to ask if prayer might be made for the continu- ance of a life so precious to the State. Ambrose's indirect answer to the pathetic appeal was given in the words : " I have so lived among you that I am not ashamed to live on ; but I am not afraid to die, for we have a gracious Lord." It was Holy Week — a season already memorable in Ambrose's history. At midnight on Good Friday he became visibly worse, and received the last sacraments, and in the early morning of Easter Eve (April 4,* 397) the great Christian warrior passed to his rest. " Sant' Ambrogio " is still the hero of his own Milan. His " ritual " is jealously adhered to in place of the ordinary Roman ritual accepted elsewhere ; and memories of him and his great deeds surround the traveller on all sides ; f but in England it is more than doubtful whether we can claim any genuine ancient commemoration of him. Ombersley, near Droitwich in Worcestershire, has not infrequently been ascribed to S. Ambrose, probably on the evidence of such spellings of the name as Ambresley, for example, which occur in some pre-Eeformation records. It is to be feared that Nash's " County History " is indisputably in the right in giving the more familiar " S. Andrew " as the true patron ; but nevertheless it is not impossible that the parish does take its name from an Ambrose, not our Bishop of Milan indeed, but a Celtic prince Ambrosius, the son of Constantine of Britain (ch. xxxv.), whose name is also thought by some to linger in the Wiltshire Amesbury and in the Oxfordshire Ambrosden. Opinions, however, are divided on this subject,J and if we are obliged to relinquish our episcopal patron, the claims of the other Ambrose — the great antagonist of Vortigern — are less immediately interesting to us. Of modern churches to S. Ambrose there are at least five, four of which are in Lancashire, and the remaining one at Bournemouth. ^ j If we had no dedication to S. Jerome we should be Sept. r 3oJ 6 420 ^ deprived of a unique and highly picturesque figure, for there is nothing else in the Lives of the Saints that quite matches the accomplished scholar, the man of the world, the brilliant satirist, in the seclusion of his cave at Bethlehem, the centre of an admiring circle of learned ladies. * The day on which he is commemo- rated in our Anglican Kalendars. t Murray's " North Italy." % Private letter from the late Mr. Kers- lake, who considered the derivation from Ambrose " ingenious but not probable." § All the quotations from Jerome's letters are taken from Dean Fremantle's edition (published in Parker's " Post-Ni- cene Fathers"). Use has also been made of Outts's "Life of S. Jerome," S.P.C.K. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S.JEROME. 259 Jerome is at once so far removed from us and yeb so near. He lived when there were " giants in the land ; " he was the contemporary of Athanasius and Chrysostom, of Ambrose and Augustine. He who had witnessed the formal abolition of paganism by the Roman senate witnessed also the fall of the city into the hands of the barbarians ; but through all he stands aside and sees history in the making rather than makes part of it, and looks upon things around with the contemplative interest of an antiquary. As a boy he visits the catacombs with the same sort of curi- osity that a modern tourist might show. The vices he rebukes among his Roman hearers are those of a selfish culture, a love of ease and display, a dangerous tendency to gossip ; and he is half glad to turn away his eyes from the present to lose himself in the simpler life of the Egyptian ancho- rites, to study their past ; while the outcome of all his extensive learning is to marshal the authority of the Past rather than to add new light to the world's store. But though Jerome's ideal may be the life of some simple hermit, learned only in the things of religion, he can never divest himself of the broader culture in which he has been steeped. He may condemn classic lore, yet it haunts his memory and enriches his letters ; and Jerome in his cave is less unlike than he would fain suppose himself to the well- known Jerome of Eoman society. In one respect Jerome differs from the men with whom we most readily compare him. Although " a Christian born of Christian parents," he does not seem to have enjoyed the blessings of a happy home training such as fell to the lot of a Basil or an Ambrose. We know little indeed of his early years. We know nothing of his mother, but we do know that he was estranged, not without fault of his own, from his mother's sister. His only brother was twenty years younger than himself ; and his only sister, instead of drawing him on to further heights of holiness, needed a brother's hand to lead back her wandering steps. He inherited landed property from his father, and his circumstances were easy and luxurious ; but when he came to Rome from his home in north-east Italy to take his chance among the hundreds of gay and careless students living like himself iu lodgings and attending professorial lectures, there were no sacred home memories to keep him from giving way to the temptations that surrounded him on every side. A revulsion came, and came speedily ; and with earnest penitence and purpose of amendment the young student sought for baptism. We know nothing whatever of the circumstances that led to this change, save that it was Jerome himself who gave the impulse for good to his immediate companions, not they who communicated it to him. For the rest of his life Jerome had an overwhelming sense of the dangers from which he, like " a shipwrecked mariner," had been rescued. A sense of his own peril and that of others also never left his mind, and it was almost inevitable that in his eyes there should be but one path of safety — the ascetic life. He misdoubted even things innocent in themselves, and he to whom the pure joys of Christian family life had been so imperfectly known could never 260 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xix. estimate aright their unspeakable value, or recognize their G-od-given grace ; yet perhaps those who know most of the iniquities of Roman society in the fourth century will best allow for the reaction that exagge- rated and warped all Jerome's views of life. For three years Jerome and a band of friends lived together in a sort of community life at Aquileia, and there Jerome " entered definitively upon the twin pursuits of his life, Scriptural study and the fostering of asceti- cism." * But the society broke up and the friends dispersed. Jerome never, as Dean Fremantle observes, had the same influence over men as he had over women. He now yearned for something harder than he had yet experienced, and five years of a hermit's life in the Syrian desert supplied the rough discipline for which he craved. He has left us a vivid picture of the bodily hardships he there endured, and a no less vivid picture of his mental struggles. He confesses that he experienced in his own person the truth of the famous line : " They change not mind but sky who cross the sea." Characteristically enough he consoled himself with literature, and began to publish ; and characteristically enough also he became involved in controversies and disputes even in the desert, and was thankful to quit it and go elsewhere. He came to Antioch, and there, much against his will, was ordained priest ; but at heart Jerome remained a mere monk, and never exercised his priestly functions if he could avoid it. When at length he returned to Rome in the year 382, his scholarship had gained for him a recognized position, and the then Pope, Damasus, made great use of his services. At Rome Jerome became the intimate friend of a high-born and wealthy widow, the Lady Paula, the names of whose illustrious ancestors — the Scipios, the Gracchi, iEneas, Agamemnon — read like an epitome of all classic history and song. Jerome's friendship embraced all Paula's children, and spread through the circle of her noble Roman friends, among whom we must specially make mention of the Lady Marcella. Too true to the best traditions of their race to be satisfied with the idle pleasure- loving existence to which the conventions of the age condemned them, these women responded eagerly to Jerome's praise of a simpler life, a life governed by rule, not by impulse. Convents for women were as yet unknown in the West, but Jerome set before his zealous disciples the ideal of a hard self-denying life to be lived by each one in her own home. Compared with their former selves they showed themselves, in Jerome's phrase, " positive heroines." To learn to use their own feet instead of being carried, to wait upon themselves, to lay aside cosmetics and all the fashionable adornments of their rank— this was the first and perhaps the hardest step in their new life. The long fasts, the frequently recurring hours of daily and nightly prayer, the diligent study of the Scriptures — to all these demands they responded with a joyous alacrity that called forth their director's admiring wonder, even while he spurred them on to greater efforts. * Fremantle. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. JEROME. 26 1 Very delightful must have been the meetings of the friends in the house of the Lady Marcella on the Aventine— those meetings of "the House of Ladies," as Jerome playfully called them — for the systematic study of the Bible, which some of them, under the inspiration of their scholarly leader, were learning to read in the original languages. Jerome was in his element here, explaining and guiding ; yet he recognizes the intellectual power of his noble pupils, who always seized upon the most difficult points for interpretation, and the intellectual independence that would not content itself with the mere ipse dixit of any teacher. Some- times Jerome, when he had a matter very much at heart, chose to express himself by letter instead of by speech, and from this time forward we detect in all his letters a tone of authority, the tone of a spiritual director. These letters were handed about from one to another, copied, learnt by heart, discussed, criticized, — alike by admirers and by enemies. They were, in fact, almost public property, and influenced the reading world quite as much as his more formal treatises. In those days, as Dean Fremantle observes, "no distinct line separated private documents from those designed for publication ; " and thus it might unfortunately happen — and did actually happen in the famous correspondence between S. Jerome and S. Augustine — that the person to whom the letter was addressed was one of the last to read it. It would be impossible to exaggerate the value of these letters, both as an unconscious revelation of Jerome's own vigorous, faulty personality, and also as a gallery of pictures of fourth-century manners and customs. If the caustic descriptions of typical offenders are still amusing to English readers of to-day, we may suppose how great was their piquancy to Roman readers, who would have the additional amusement of pointing to the various originals. It is undeniable that Jerome's letters are apt to lose in spontaneity from the writer's consciousness of the celebrity to which they were destined. When a letter of sympathy to a friend on the death of his wife is deliberately postponed for two years, the first fervour of grief has in- evitably cooled ; and it is not surprising that, after a few formal condolences, the letter should resolve itself into a treatise on the advantages of remain- ing a widower. So, too, it is a little chilling for a troubled correspondent to have her consolations abruptly brought to a close with a recommendation to study what the writer has already said on the same subject to another correspondent ; and we are inclined to doubt whether in the first hour of her grief a bereaved mother like Paula would have drawn all the comfort that Jerome supposed from his bold promise that her dead child's name should become immortal through his writings — a proud boast that has been abundantly justified. The death of Paula's daughter just referred to marked an era in Jerome's history. This much-loved widow of twenty — Blesilla by name — was one of those who came strongly under Jerome's influence, and was noted even in that austere circle for her unmeasured austerities. Within 262 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xix. seven months of her conversion she was seized with mortal illness, con- sequent, it was believed, upon the hard life she had adopted. Blesilla had been the centre of a brilliant set, and her premature death roused the indignant sympathy of her former acquaintances. They did not hesitate to tax Jerome the Monk with being the cause of this tragedy. The sight of her broken-hearted mother's abandonment of grief gave some colour to the vulgar belief that both mother and daughter were the victims of his oppression, and the cry began to be heard, as Jerome himself tells us, " The monks to the Tiber ! " Such taunts stung Jerome to the quick, and even in his panegyric on the youthful saint, he must needs dwell on the wrong done to himself by such unchristian lamentations. About this time Pope Damasus died. A little earlier, and Jerome would have stood a good chance of being his successor, and he knew it. " Every one concurred in judging me worthy of the episcopate. Men called me holy, humble, eloquent." That hope was now gone for ever. " He had offended," says Dean Fremantle, " almost every class of the community by his unrestrained satire," and the untimely death of Blesilla gave the finishing touch to his unpopularity. His guileless platonic friendship for the Lady Paula became the subject of much ill-natured gossip ; and, galled and disappointed, he began to turn his thoughts towards some country retreat where, free from the bustling and the back- biting of a big city, he might pursue a student life amid idyllic surround- ings. The project was scarcely conceived before it was put into execution • and in August of the year 385 he left Rome for ever, to take up his abode in Palestine. His brother and several friends threw in their lot with him ; but the brother afterwards revisited Italy, an indulgence which Jerome never permitted himself. Meantime the same ideal had been suggesting itself to Paula and her unmarried daughter Eustochium ; and nine months after Jerome's de- parture, they, with a little train of maidens like-minded with themselves, set sail for the East. To Jerome, who carried with him everywhere the tools of his calling, his writing materials and his library — now no incon- siderable collection — the change of abode was comparatively pleasurable. With Paula it was far otherwise. She had not only "despised her wealth," but with strangely perverted ideas of duty she was " deserting " her children, her youngest daughter and her little fatherless son. The " suppressed sobs " of the one, " the outstretched hands " of the other, rent her heart ; yet with a firm courage she forsook all to enter that land which to her glowing imagination was verily " the land of promise." At Antioch the two parties met, and before settling at Bethlehem made a pilgrimage to Egypt, in order to visit the homes of those solitaries of the desert whose manner of life had so powerfully influenced their own lives, and through them was destined to influence generations upon generations of Western Christians. The autumn of 386 found them settled at Bethlehem. Both Jerome and the Lady Paula were tolerably wealthy, though Paula's hopeless and deliberate mismanagement of her chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. JEROME. 263 finances eventually well-nigh resulted in the realization of her avowed wish that she might so spend her all as to be indebted to charity for her winding-sheet. Their plan was to build two separate monasteries — for men and for women — near to the sacred church that then, as now, sur- mounted the traditional "Cave of the Nativity" (ch. xvnr.), the very central spot of all their devotions. During the three years in which the monasteries were being prepared, Paula made shift as best she could in a hostelry, while Jerome took permanent possession of another cave not far from that of the Nativity. It may be as well to observe here that the lion who occupies so prominent a place in old pictures of S. Jerome is a pure invention of the mediaeval imagination ; yet in such a life there were of necessity many hardships and many worries. Fortunately, the emigrants, the ladies especially, were buoyed up by their happy gift of always seeing the ideal side of their life. As they trod the scenes of the Lord's earthly life, the G-ospel history seemed to be re-enacted before the eyes of faith. Jerome entered to some extent into their pious fancies, as when he writes that he is building a hospice for the entertainment of strangers, so that " if Joseph and Mary chance to come to Bethlehem they may not fail to find shelter." Nevertheless, Jerome could see more clearly than his companions that the earthly Jerusalem was very far indeed from being the Heavenly City. He believed indeed that it was " not for nothing that he, like Abraham, had left home and people ; " yet he reminded his correspondent that " access to the courts of heaven is as easy from Britain as it is from Jerusalem." The ladies lived in hopeful expectation that Marcella would see her way to joining their little Roman colony. In this they were disappointed ; but other guests came and went, and the simple household cares incident upon the reception of visitors— the lighting of fires, the sweeping of floors, the boiling of cabbages, on all which Jerome dwells admiringly — afforded a wholesome variety to the graver duties of Paula's daily round. Nothing surprises us more than the facility with which guests came and went between Rome and Bethlehem, making less of the journey than we might be disposed to do to-day. The recluses never felt themselves out of touch with their old world, though their change of abode haa set them free to regulate their lives according to their own ideal. Jerome showed himself a genial host to all his old friends, and only worked far into the night to make good the time stolen from his precious literary labours. Much of this time was given to theological controversy — now with those who disputed his ultra-asceticism ; now with our own countryman, the redoubtable Pelagius ; now with some neighbouring bishop ; and now with Augustine himself, the one disputant whose own sweet courtesy had power to charm even Jerome out of his habitual roughness into a sort of grim playfulness. For in controversy it must be freely owned that between his satire and his vehemence Jerome is apt to show himself at his very worst. In his unmeasured attacks upon an antagonist — too often, alas ! an old friend changed by Jerome into an enemy — he wholly 264 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xtx. forgets his oft-quoted maxim of the sage of old, " In nothing too much." His strictures on the Christian control of the tongue do not apparently extend to the control of the pen, and it is his delight if he can succeed in attaching to his opponent an enduring nickname. From this aspect of Jerome it is a relief to turn to his uncontroversial labours ; to the splendid perseverance with which he toiled year after year at his lifelong task of translating and illustrating the Holy Scriptures. By every means in his power he sought to fit himself for the work which he first took in hand at Kome at the bidding of Pope Damasus. " You urge me," he wrote in one of his prefaces, " to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which are now scattered throughout the world ■ inasmuch as they differ from one another you would have me decide which of them agree with the Greek original. The labour is one of love, but at the same time perilous and presumptuous, for in judging others I must be content to be judged by all." The toilsome work of translation occupied Jerome for two and twenty years ; while from his twentieth year up to the last twelvemonth of his life, he was engaged in transcribing or composing commentaries on different parts of the sacred volume. His greatest and most enduring gift to the Church was his famous Latin version of the complete Bible translated from the original tongues — the so-called Yulgate — which was for over a thousand years the universally accepted Bible of Christendom. He put his whole conscience into the work of translation, making it a sacred duty to adhere faithfully to the sense at whatever sacrifice of style, and labouring painfully after a simplicity of diction — in itself uncon- genial to one steeped in classical literature — that should befit " the simple words of our Christian peasants and fishermen," those simple words that had such depths of meaning. If Jerome was a great teacher he was no less an untiring learner, and missed no opportunity of profiting by the instructions of those from whom he had anything to gain. "At length," says he, "my head became sprinkled with gray hairs, so that I looked more like a master than a scholar." The acquisition of Hebrew cost him years of patient toil. He had begun it long ago in the desert ; at Bethlehem he perfected himself from a rabbi, who was " in his own person a second edition of iucodemus," and dared not give his lessons except " under cover of night." When he passed from Hebrew to Chaldee he found the difficulties so tremendous that even he was ready to despair. But he took courage from the repeated saying of a certain Jew, " Labour conquers all things," and set to work once more. From very early manhood Jerome had suffered from a chronic weakness of the eyes. The crabbed Oriental characters were no small aggrava- tion of the trial, and he was often obliged to be dependent upon the humours of an impatient shorthand writer, and had either " to say what- ever came uppermost," or, if he wished "to think a little and hoped to produce something superior," to discover by "the clenched fist and chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—S.JEROME. 265 wrinkled brow " of the offended amanuensis that he was plainly conscious of having come for nothing. As time went on Jerome's private correspondence became more and more extensive, and letters reached him from all parts of the known world asking advice on the most various topics. More than one parent appealed to the aged monk for guidance as to the education of their children ; and it is charming to find the self-confident Jerome for once acknowledging his wisdom to be at fault when invited to lay down a code of regulations for " a little girl who cannot understand what you say, of whose mind you know nothing, and of whose inclinations it would be rash to prophesy. Will she," he continues, "hear the deep things of the Apostles, when all her delight is in nursery tales ? Shall I urge her to obey her parents when with her chubby hand she beats her smiling mother ? For such reasons as these my dear Pacatula must read some other time the letter that I send her now. Meantime let her learn the alphabet, spelling, grammar and syntax. Then when she has finished her lesson she ought to have some recreation. At such times she may hang around her mother's neck and snatch kisses from her relations." Jerome had no poetic liking for childhood in the abstract, and was keenly alive to the annoyance of the " crying of infants," but love will work wonders, and nothing can be more tender than his letter on the birth at Eome of Paula's first grandchild, congratulating the whole family on the possession of " such a rosebud." He goes into the minutest details as to her earliest steps in the paths of learning ; the very first words the baby tongue should utter ; the manner in which, by the use of ivory letters, reading lessons may be made a joy, not a penance ; and he winds up with the proposal : " If you will only send Paula, I promise to be myself both her tutor and her foster-father. Old as I am I will carry her on my shoulders, and train her stammering lips." So he writes ; yet all Jerome's training has for its end the making of a nun. That is to be the ideal set before each little maiden so soon as she can grasp its meaning. And since even such godly parents as Paula's daughter and her husband can hardly ensure such training, he urges them to give up " this most precious of gems " in her tender infancy to the charge of her grandmother and aunt at Bethlehem. At his bidding the sacrifice was made, and it 'was this second Paula who, seventeen years later, nursed Jerome through his last illness. Whatever Jerome's faults, he was uniformly gentle and chivalrous to women. He delighted to publish his gratitude for the services which he had received in his scriptural studies from many women friends. He valued their comments on what he had written, and loved to link their names with his various compositions, many of them undertaken at their particular request as a substitute for the " sleepy commentaries " of which one lively lady complained. To help them he would cheerfully lay aside whatever he had in hand, patiently resuming it when the interpolated task was concluded. Many of these dear friends of his have been immortalized 266 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. by Jerome's exquisite memorial sketches — written for the most part in the form of letters to the bereaved relatives — which are among the most enduring portions of his voluminous writings. But life, even in Bethlehem, was not all passed in such peaceful pursuits. Jerome shall tell in his own words something of the storms that swept over them from time to time. " Suddenly the whole East was terror- struck, for news came that the hordes of the Huns had poured forth and were filling all the world with panic and bloodshed. May Jesus avert from the Roman world the further assaults of these wild beasts ! Every- where their approach was unexpected ; they outstripped rumour in speed, and when they came they spared neither religion nor rank nor age ; even for wailing infants they had no pity. "We were compelled to man our ships * and lie off the shore as a precaution against the arrival of our foes. No matter how hard the winds might blow, we could not but dread the bar- barians more than shipwreck. Just at that time also there was dissension amongst us " — a misfortune, alas! too common wherever Jerome might be! — " and intestine struggles threw into the shade our battle with the barbarians." This alarm passed, but there were other disturbances. Their troubles were still further increased by growing poverty, and the opening years of the fifth century witnessed the death of the revered Paula. The loss was a heavy one to the little community at Bethlehem ; but all personal sorrows were soon to be overshadowed by the overwhelming calamity of the fall of Rome (a.d. 410). Jerome had been for a quarter of a century a voluntary exile from. Rome, standing curiously aloof from all political events ; but tidings such as these could not fail to stir all the patriot within him. And for him, moreover, the national ruin was mingled with private mourning. The Lady Marcella had died from the effects of cruelties practised by the invaders ; Paula's son-in-law and many another of his friends had perished. " I was so stupefied and desolate," he writes, " that day and night I could think of nothing but the welfare of the community ; it seemed as though I was sharing the captivity of the saints, and I could not open my lips until I knew something more definite ; and all the while full of anxiety, I was wavering between hope and despair, and was tortured myself with the misfortunes of other people." For once even study failed him ; his commentary on Ezekiel was left untouched. The aged scholar felt himself filled with " a longing to turn the words of Scripture into action ; not to say holy things but to do them ; " and this natural instinct found its outlet in comforting the multitudes of homeless, destitute fugitives from the Imperial City, who day by day flocked into Bethlehem. " We cannot," says he, " relieve these sufferers ; all we can do is to sympathize with them, and unite our tears with theirs." Yet all that could be done Jerome did ungrudgingly, and " not a single hour, nor a single moment," passed in which he and his helpers were not occupied in relieving the crowds of brethren, till " the quietness of the monastery was changed into the bustle of a guest-house." * The colonists had taken temporary refuge at Joppa. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. AUGUSTINE. 26 J In time the old labours were resumed, and patiently continued for nine years longer, when illness abruptly stayed his hand in the midst of an unfinished work, " still full of energy and of his old controversial vigour." * But they were years of loneliness, for Paula was gone, and Paula's daughter Eustochium ; and though in his lingering illness he was lovingly tended, it was by a younger generation, and glad must he have been when his own call came (September 30, 420), and he was laid to rest beside his two loved friends. When we take into account the extraordinary influence upon the entire mediaeval Church of Jerome's ascetic views ; when we consider how he fostered the monastic temper, and thus prepared the way for Benedict's carefully denned system, we may well marvel that more churches have not been dedicated in his name, and that it should have been left for the Celtic districts of our island to do him honour. The only known English dedica- tion to S. Jerome is at Llangwm in Monmouthshire, where he is comme- morated under his Latin form of " Hierom," a form which, as may be seen from our Sixth Article of Eeligion, lingered long amongst us. Across the Welsh border we find two other parishes similarly named " Llangwm," the one in Pembrokeshire (where the patron is again described as S. Hierom), and the other in Denbighshire,^ where he is anglicized into " S. Jerome." There can be little doubt that in all three cases the name of the parish contains the name of the saint, and of the same saint. The most natural supposition is that the intended patron was originally some national hero whose true name has in course of time been merged in that of the cele- brated Latin Father ; but since Mr. Eees, in his learned and exhaustive work,J makes no such suggestion, we may well be content to take the name in its most obvious connexion, and with it all the noble associations that cling around the story of the recluse of Bethlehem ; and if we choose we may please ourselves with the plausible fancy that the knowledge of S. Jerome was introduced into Britain by some Celtic pilgrim to the East, who had found in Jerome's guest-house at Bethlehem " the welcome which Mary and Joseph had missed." S. Auo-ustine The nam e of S. Augustine is borne by some twenty-five of Hippo, B. of our ancient English churches, and by about the same Aug. 28, 430. numDer 0 f modern churches ; but it is doubtful how many of these are to be ascribed to the great Latin Father ; doubtful, indeed, whether any one of the whole number — except a single modern church at Stockport which keeps its festival on August 28 — can rightly be so ascribed. There are, however, as we shall see, a few which may more reasonably than the rest be associated with the Bishop of Hippo ; and in the prevailing uncertainty we shall allow ourselves the benefit of the doubt ; for this great teacher, the power of whose influence it is so hard adequately to estimate, is a patron whom we can ill afford to lose from amongst us. * Fremaiitle. t Lewis. % "Welsh Saints." 268 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. It has often been said that S. Augustine is the greatest Christian teacher that the world has seen since the days of the Apostles. With the exception of the Apostles, it is not too much to assert that no one man has exercised so great or so lasting an influence upon religious thought as the Bishop of Hippo. So many-sided is his teaching, that Churches the most mutually antagonistic agree in calling themselves followers of Augus- tine, each one taking hold of some separate point in his theological system. He is accepted by the Eoman Catholics as one of their greatest saints, and yet he is the founder of all the principal Churches of Protestantism. The doctrine which Luther held to be the very hinge of Protestantism — that of justification by faith — had been clearly set forth by Augustine ; the Calvinists drew from his works a defence of their favourite doctrines of predestination and irresistible grace ; the Jansenists, while denying all sympathy with the Calvinists, appealed to the same authority in their quarrel with the Jesuits ; and lastly, he is " in a most true sense the spiritual father of all the reformers of the sixteenth century," * and through them of the evangelicals of a later day. Taking the Pauline Epistles as his guide, Augustine set himself to con- struct a complete system of theology, and in the execution of this task he did not shrink from handling the most difficult problems. Others have followed in his footsteps, but Augustine was one of the first to attempt to thread " the wandering mazes " of " Providence, Fore-knowledge, Will and Fate — Fixed fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute," and therefore his opinions on these points are continually referred to, even where they have not been accepted as a warranted part of Catholic belief. But of this we may be sure — if our mediaeval forefathers dedicated churches in honour of S. Augustine of Hippo, it was not from any conscious sense of their indebtedness to him theologically, nor was it for the " force and speculative character of his thought, or for the eloquence and sensi- bility he brought into scholasticism." t If they built any churches to him at all, it was either for love of the man himself, or yet more indirectly for the sake of that great Monastic Order which owed to him its inspiration, its name, its rule of life. Looking, then, at S. Augustine with the eyes of church-builders of the Middle Ages, we shall be justified in leaving on one side the great controversies which occupied so large a space in his history ; only in so doing we must remind ourselves that we can never hope in the least to understand S. Augustine's personal history unless we realize that all those controversies, instead of being external incidents in his career, were the expression of his innermost convictions. F. D. Maurice has powerfully said in describing Augustine's search for truth : " All his knowledge was purchased by the fiercest personal struggles. Whether he resorted to the * Sermon by the late Eev. E. J. Eose, f Mary Sibylla Holland. Vicar of Weybridge. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. AUGUSTINE. 269 Manichees or to Plato or to the Bible, it was that he might find an inter- pretation of himself. Of no one can it be so truly said that his lore was from within and not from without ; " * and this personal element is no less strong in Augustine's defence of truth than in his search for it. And how all this is made real to us in that marvellous book of the " Confessions ; " that matchless " story of his conversion, in which for the first time the history from day to day or from hour to hour of the human soul is given — surprising its vaguest desires, its most secret emotions." f Is there any other autobiography that brings us into such close relation with its writer ? which enables us so to see with his eyes, to feel his feelings, to live his life ? We must not yield to the temptation to linger over the well-known story as Augustine has set it forth step by step in the pages of the '* Con- fessions." There we trace his whole history from early childhood to the moment of his baptism ; and when the last note is sounded and the long storm of sin and doubt and inward conflict has given place to the serene peace of that solemn farewell at Ostia on the eve of Monnica's % death, we lay down the book with the same sense of blank that we experience when a close daily intimacy is suddenly cut short. Something more indeed is given to us later in Augustine's own record of the conversations that passed between himself and his honoured mother and a band of intimate friends in that quiet seven months' interval of preparation for baptism, which a modern poet has called " S. Augustine's Holiday ; " § but how meagre is all our knowledge of the remaining forty years of his life ! There was, it is true, but little of outward events during those forty years of diligent pastoral labours — first as priest and then as bishop in his native Africa. His literary works are with us in abundance to speak for themselves, and foremost among them stands that noble Christian Apology to which, amid the confusions and terrors of a falling Empire, he devoted thirteen years of labour, and which by a splendid inspiration he entitled " The City of God," inasmuch as it was designed to set forth that " heavenly and divine commonwealth whose king is truth, whose law is purity, whose mode of existence is eternity." j| And yet we feel that a biographer who, like Possidius the bishop, lived in Augustine's house and ate at his table and formed one of the. happy group of young men who lived a simple common life under the leadership of their beloved chief, and were by that most genial and inspiring of teachers trained for the future duties of the episcopate — we feel that such an one might have recorded for us much of the easy flowing talk that made of every meal a festival when it had Augustine for its president. Possidius is but a poor reporter, yet now and again he sets down some incident or saying, or it may be some little social custom, that faithfully reproduces the spirit of his great-hearted master. We catch glimpses of * " Moral and Metaphysical Philo- sophy." t Mary Sibylla Holland. \ This spelling of the name, which is now coming into frequent use, is a return to the form used by S. Augustine himself. — D. C. B. § Archbishop Alexander. || From one of Augustine's Epistles, quoted by Canon Bright. 270 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. the plain but open-handed hospitality, the gay talk ranging over all sorts of topics, limited only by a reverence — then too often wanting — for the Holy Name, and by a kindly charity for the absent. We see the integrity that shrank from any appearance of bettering his own social condition by his ecclesiastical standing ; the justice that would not let even the Church itself be enriched at the cost of private rights ; the patience that sacrificed hours of his precious time to the hearing of civil causes in the hope of checking litigation ; the sensitive response to the half understood monitions of the inward voice that caused him to break off the thread of his prepared sermon and speak on present-day difficulties in the hope of benefiting some one hearer ; * the brotherly care which provided for his own sister the headship of a community of women, and took pains to draw up for her use a code of rules. Something of all this we do get from the faithful Possidius, but it is sadly meagre. The saint reveals himself more clearly in his letters, even in his sermons and treatises. There it is that we learn to know " his subtle and vigorous mind, the astonishing imagination which he carried into theology, the depth and simplicity of his emotion, and the peculiar re- flective sadness which the Christian religion was developing in humanity." f We see the straightforward honesty which denounces all the sophistry of " pious frauds ; " the generosity which, in refuting the work of his greatest antagonist, Pelagius, respects the anonymity which is an open secret, in the hope that so he may make it easier for the writer to return into the paths of truth ; we see the deferential sweetness that prevails over the sour irony of the aged Jerome. It would, of course, be both idle and dishonest to deny that there is a harsher side to S. Augustine's nature ; and yet we cannot but feel that his instincts were broader than his systems, and that his famous phrase, " Love, and do what you will," is more truly characteristic of him than that other phrase, " Compel them to come in," with which in later years he reconciled his reluctant conscience to the supposed duty of applying penal measures to heretics. With the loftiness of spirit that belonged to him, Augustine could grasp what so many of his contemporaries failed to grasp, the grand principle, " There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord." While for his own part he adhered rigidly to the ascetic life, he could thus write concerning the blessings of married life, and write moreover to a widower who had deliberately renounced his first purpose of binding himself to celibacy, and had taken to himself an Arian bride. Augustine's corre- spondent was none other than the famous Count Boniface, at once the defender and the betrayer of Africa. " Now, however," writes the bishop, " since thou hast married a wife (who came to thee in all innocence and simplicity of heart, though thou after those words of thine shouldest not * He had the happiness of learning had been a message of peace to one at afterwards that that impromptu sermon least among 1 the con.ore nation. f Mary Sibylla Holland. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. AUGUSTINE. 2jl have asked her to come), I can no longer give thee the same advice, but I do exhort to faithfulness though not to celibacy. . . . However, from loving God, not the world, from acting loyally and working for peace in these very wars (if thou must still be engaged in them), from turning the good gifts of this life to good account, and refusing to do aught evil for their sake, from all these things a wife is no hindrance, or ought to be none." * The pressure of those wars of which he wrote to his frieud Boniface was to weigh heavily upon himself. The irresistible onward rush of the barbarians did not spare the prosperous province of Africa. Hippo was among the cities that held out the longest, and the weary siege was protracted for fourteen months. At the outset the question was much agitated how far under the circumstances it was lawful for the clergy to save themselves by flight. In this, as in other matters, Augustine's decision showed his fine sense of proportion. Flight, he declared, was perfectly lawful when no duty was thereby neglected ; but care of the flock must ever be the pastor's first consideration. " 0 that then," cries he in generous warmth, " there may be a quarrel between God's ministers ivho are to remain and who to flee, lest the Church should be deserted, whether by all fleeing or all dying." f But for himself, the one privilege which the old man claimed was that of continuing to serve in the post of greatest danger ; and thus he remained in the city ; counselling, sustaining, comforting, those within the walls, and in particular the repentant Boniface. Yery solemn now was the talk at that pleasant table, where the master had always loved to pour out his thoughts. " We used continually," says his biographer, " to converse together about the misfortunes in which we were involved, and contemplated God's tremendous judgments which were before our eyes, saying, 'Thou art just, 0 Lord, and Thy judgment is right.' " Once Augustine let them see something of his own inmost wishes, saying to them : " Know ye that in this present calamity, I pray God to vouchsafe to rescue this besieged city, or else to give His servants strength to bear His will, or at least to take me to Himself out of this world." And, says Possidius, " we followed his advice, and both ourselves and our friends and the whole city offered up the same prayer with him ; " and, adds he, " in the third month of the siege he was seized with a fever, and took to his bed and was reduced to the extreme of sickness." Augustine was an old man now of seventy-five years or more. He had made it his aim for a long while past to withdraw himself as far as. might be from all unnecessary cares, spending the time thus saved in studying and writing and preaching ; but now he desired that all the time which remained to him should be spent in that humble preparation for death, without which, as he had often said, it befitted no man, not even the most tried Christian, to depart from this life. With his own hand • n * j ■ rr j i ■ t Quoted in Newman's " Lives of the Quoted in Hodgkm. Fathers." 272 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. he wrote out large the penitential psalms and had them placed against the wall where his eye might rest upon them ; and so, says Possidius, " he used to read and weep abundantly." He begged that his sick-room might be kept 'from all needless distractions, and " this," says his old friend, " was strictly attended to, and all his time given to prayer, . .. . and we stood by, beheld, and prayed with him." For ten days they kept their loving watch, and then on the night of that 28th of August (a.d. 430), which our Anglican Kalendar, ever since the time of Bede up to the present, has associated with the name of Augustine, the vast and free spirit of the great Bishop of Hippo passed away. So we think of him " satisfied " at last ; and our thoughts find expression in Browning's lines on Michael Angelo — " How will he quench thirst, Titanically infantine, Laid at the breast of the Divine " — a bold image, which Augustine himself had long ago anticipated in his words recalling the insatiable questionings of his loved friend, Nebridius : " Now he does not apply his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth to Thy Fountain ; and drinks in wisdom as much as he can receive, according to his thirst ; happy without end." When we consider all that Augustine is in himself, and all that we owe to him, we shall be the more anxious to persuade ourselves that we have a right to include him among our patron saints ; but it is undeniable that Augustine of Canterbury, both in his capacity of Benedictine monk aud from his personal associations with this country, is likely to be the greater favourite of the two from the point of view of the mediaeval church-builder. On the other hand, it may be reasonably urged that from the beginning of the twelfth century onwards the Augustinian monks were a great power in England, and at first sight it would seem only natural to attribute all such "Augustine" dedications as can be traced to this influence to the glory of their founder, the Bishop of Hippo. The inference is a natural one, but it is doubtful if it is warranted. The late Mr. Thomas Kerslake, whose authority on such matters stands very high, was of opinion that "all English St. Augustines, except modern High Church ones, are St. Augustine the Less of Canterbury. The Augustinian monasteries had not St. Augustine for dedication. There are about two a little confused, but I believe by mere coincidence. They were under the Rule of St. Augustine of Hippo, but clo not seem to have had the dedication sentiment towards him." # This absence of the " dedication sentiment " is pointedly illustrated by the case of S. Augustine's church at Alston Moor in Cumberland. The parish was appropriated in the twelfth century to the Augustinian Canons of Hexham ; f but a fair which is held there on the last Thursday in May is a strong indication that the real patron of the church was Augustine of Canterbury, whose feast is observed on the 26th of May. Mr. Kerslake, however, somewhat * Private letter. t Nicolson and Burn. chap. xix. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH— S. AUGUSTINE. 273 understates the number of dedications liable to be confused, owing to their direct connexion with some Augustinian monastery. Such was the Cathedral at Bristol, now known as " Holy Trinity," but originally a Priory of Augustinians, and dedicated to S. Augustine.* The existing church of " S. Augustine the Less " adjoining the Cathedral suggests a distinction between the two saints ; but it is far more likely that the distinction referred only to size and dignity, and that the patron — be he who he may — was the same in both cases. " S. Augustine de Wick " at Dodderhill in Worcestershire was an off- shoot of the Augustinian Priory t at Wick, in the same county. The beautiful church at Hedon, in the Holderness district of North-east York- shire—locally called "the king of Holderness " J — is of like monastic origin ; § so is Ashen || in Essex, but at Ashen there is confusion upon confusion. In modern lists the church is rightly stated to be dedicated to S. Augustine, and the dependence of the parish upon the Augustinian Priory of Stoke Clare would seem to be some sort of justification for such a dedication, but, as a matter of fact, the original dedication is unknown. The late rector made diligent search IF in parochial registers and other ancient documents, but without discovering the patron saint ; nor was there any village fair to guide him in his search. In 1859 the chancel was entirely rebuilt, and was dedicated to S. Augustine, but unfortunately to Augustine of Canterbury. It is obvious that in this par- ticular case the monastic associations have had no bearing upon the dedication ; yet enough examples have been brought forward — and pro- bably their number might be multiplied — to show that the Augustinian monks at least took pleasure in indirectly perpetuating the name of their founder. How far they placed their churches under his direct invocation is another matter, and this second point can only be proved by a careful scrutiny of the different feast-days, which unhappily are not always easy to ascertain. Meantime, in this unsatisfactory condition of uncertainty we shall rejoice in our one certain dedication to this saint, modern though it be ; ** and we shall venture still to cherish the belief that some few of our Augustine churches were founded with the intention of doing honour to the great memory of that child of prayers and tears, the blessed Monnica's world-famous son. S. Gregory the Great, the last of the Latin Fathers, Grfat g ° ry * s b etfcer represented than any of the other three ; but his story will be told elsewhere among the Bishops of Rome (ch. xx.). * " Eng. Illus." II Dependent on the Priory of Stoke f Ibid. Clare (see Morant), which belonged to i As S. Patrick's at Patrington in the the Order of the Augustinian Hermits. same district is termed " the queen of Private letter from the Rev. E. H. Holderness." Deaue, Eector of Ashen, 1897. § Appropriated to the Augustinian ** S. Augustine, Stockport. Priory of Bridlington. — Lawton. VOL. I. T 274 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xix. Section VI.— The English Fathers. 8. Bede. See CH. XXVIII. In all likelihood, as years go on, we shall see an increasing number of dedications to the Fathers of the Church. Fresh names, moreover, will probably be added to those already on our list, and all such additions ought to be hailed with gratitude as tending to spread a knowledge of the great Teachers of Christendom. CHAPTER XX. BISHOPS OP ROME. PAGE. NAME. DAT. YEAR. CHURCHES. 275 S. Clement, D.O November 23 . . . cir. 100 ... 56 288 S. Fabian, M. January 20 250 ... — See dd. 290 S. Cornelius, C. September 14 .. 252 ... 2 294 S. Silvester, or Sylvester, C. December 31 . 335 ... 1 290 S. Gregory the Great, D. ... March 12 604 ... 29 See also dd. The Bishops of Rome commemorated amongst us are not numerous, but they are an interesting set, embracing as they do two such great names as S. Clement, the Apostolic Father, and S. Gregory the Great. They give us also S. Fabian the Martyr, S. Cornelius, the exiled friend of S. Cyprian, and S. Silvester, famous for his supposed participation in the Emperor Constantine's gifts to the Church. S. Clement * I fc was i n the closing years of the Commonwealth (1658) D.C. Nov. 23, that the parishioners of the City parish of S. Clement's, East- ,! 100 ' cheap, were celebrating the completion of the rebuilding of their church. Just at the same time their rector, the Rev. John Pearson — better known to us as Bishop Pearson — was also completing, after long- years of labour, his famous work on the Apostles' Creed. In presenting this volume to his parishioners the author took occasion to dwell on the " very great felicity " of these two events — the re-opening of the church, and the publication of the book — thus coinciding ; " for though," said he, " I can have little temptation to believe that my book should last so long as that fabric, yet I am exceedingly pleased that they should begin together." He then went on to speak as follows to his " right worshipful and well-beloved parishioners" concerning the patron saint of their church : "The blessed saint by whose name your parish is known, was a fellow-labourer with St. Paul, and a successor of St. Peter ; he had the honour to be numbered in the Scripture with them whose names are written in the book of life ; and when he had sealed the gospel with his blood, he was one of the first whose memory was perpetuated by the building of a church to bear his name. Thus was St. Clement's church * The account of S. Clement is chiefly and the quotations are from him unless based upon Bishop Lightfoot's great work, otherwise stated, 276 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. famous in Rome, when Rome was famous for the faith spoken of through- out the whole world. He wrote an epistle to the Corinthians infested with a schism, in imitation of St. Paul, which obtained so great authority in the primitive times, that it was frequently read in their public congre- gations ; and yet had for many hundred years been lost, till it was at last set forth out of the library of the late King. Now as by the providence of God, the memory of that primitive saint hath been restored in our age, so my design aimeth at nothing else but that the primitive faith may be restored." This address must have fallen very freshly upon the ears of seventeenth- century auditors, to the majority of whom S. Clement was nothing more than a name ; much of it would have been quite as fresh to the original parishioners of S. Clement's at the time of the first foundation of the church ; they would, it is true, have been able, nothing doubting to add many apocryphal details to the brief statement of the preacher that S Clement "sealed the gospel with his blood;" but as to that famous "epistle which obtained so great authority in the primitive times"— that epistle which is one of our most valued links with the great Bishop of Rome-as to all this, the original parishioners of S. Clement's, Eastcheap, would have known nothing at all. For many hundred years-as says Pearson— that epistle had been lost, and in truth beneath the mass of untrustworthy and fictitious narrative that had sprung up under the shelter of S Clement's famous name, the real Clement was almost as much lost as his own epistle. Pearson could boast that in his time "the memory of that primitive saint hath by God's providence been restored," but the restoration of the seventeenth century was only a partial one, and it has been left for a great scholar of our own generation * to complete that work of restoration, to sift the true from the false, and to combine out of the scattered materials that have come down to us as living a portrait as we can ever now hope to possess of Clement of Rome, the great bishop whose memory the Church has honoured for well-nigh eighteen hundred years. ... _ , Something undeniably we lose by modern criticism. We are no longer able— and perhaps this is the greatest loss of all— confidently to identify S Clement of Rome with Clement of Philippi, S. Paul's fellow-worker, "whose name was in the book of life." Prom the third century onwards the identification has been unhesitatingly made, but there is no direct evidence in support of it ; and we are reminded, not only that the name is by no means an uncommon one, but also that there are serious chrono- logical difficulties to be faced if the two Clements are indeed the same. A*ain, we can no longer say with confidence that S. Clement died a martyr's death ; nor do we dare any longer to claim him as the immediate successor of the Apostles and as consecrated by them, even though we still hold fast to the certainty that he was their actual disciple, and that his name stands almost at the beginning of the long roll of Bishops of Rome. * Bishop Lightfoot. chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. CLEMENT. 277 And modern criticism obliges us to renounce yet more than this : it forces us, very reluctantly, utterly to abandon the attractive theory propounded by not a few writers that our Clement was a member, and a distinguished member, of the Imperial family ; holding a leading position in the direc- tion of secular affairs, yet no less the chief pastor of the Church. The confusion has arisen from an attempt to identify Clement the bishop with a well-known namesake and contemporary of his, Clement Flavius the consul, a cousin of the Emperor Domitian, who was put to death by the emperor's command as a follower of Christianity, while his wife, whose attachment to the new faith is yet better authenticated than her husband's, was banished to the island of Pontia. There is a wonderful fascination in the suggestion that these two men, the one so prominent in the state, the other the head of the infant Church, are in truth one and the same ; but Bishop Lightfoot utterly repudiates all such attempts to ascribe " imperial relations to Clement the bishop," declaring that, whether they be advanced by ancient or by modern writers, they can spring only from " the confusion of ignorance ; " while as to the union in the same man of the double functions of bishop and consul, he says : " It would have strained the conscience and taxed the resource of any man in that age to reconcile the profession of a Christian with the duties of the consular magistracy ; but to unite it with the highest office of the Christian ministry in the most prominent Church of Christendom, would have been to attempt a sheer impossibility." And yet the name of Clement does guide us to the discovery of a real bond, though not a bond of relationship, between the consul and the bishop. It was customary in Rome at this time for the dependant of a great man when he obtained his freedom to adopt his patron's name — and the name of " Clement " was not uncommon at this period among the dependants of the Caesars. After close investigation of a mass of small details, Bishop Lightfoot has come to the conclusion that in all probability " Clement the bishop was a man of Jewish descent, a freedman, or the son of a freedman, belonging to the household of Flavius Clemens, the emperor's cousin." Hence we may think of our Clement " as more or less closely attached to the palace of the Caesars, not, however, as a scion of the imperial family, but as a humble dependant of the household ; " but how well educated, how cultivated, how superior to their patrons some of these "humble dependants" of great houses might be is brought home to us forcibly enough by the ever memorable instance of Epictetus. Thus we are led to the belief that our Clement was one of the members of " Caesar's household," that vast colony of men and women among whom S. Paul found so many friends. Whether it was the direct preaching of " Paul the prisoner " that first brought him to Christ, or whether he was already among the number of those " beloved of God, called to be saints," to whom the Epistle to the Romans was specially addressed, we know not ; but at least it was during the lifetime of S. Peter and S. Paul that Clement gave himself to the service of the Master Whom those Apostles preached. 278 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. Tradition has constantly affirmed that Clement the bishop was a personal disciple of the Apostles, and it has been remarked that the very nnusnal epithet of which he makes use in his epistle, " the good apostles" may be " most naturally explained on the supposition that he is speaking in affectionate remembrance of those whom he had known personally." Then there swept over the Church the awful storm of Nero's persecu- tion, the persecution which deprived the Roman Church of her Apostolic leaders, the persecution of which Clement, thirty years later, wrote to the Corinthians in burning words which show how the events of that time of terror were for ever stamped upon his memory. But he himself lived through that " baptism of blood." He is, as a modern writer has said,* " among that band of believers who prove that the Church could survive all human leaders, even though they were S. Peter and S. Paul — the first to realize the new life which springs from the seed of martyrdom." If we might accept a valueless second-century assertion that was at one time widely believed, we should say that Clement, who had already received consecration from S. Peter himself, immediately stepped into the vacant place ; but the best authorities tend to show that two other bishops, Linus and Anacletus, filled the high office before it devolved upon him, and that well-nigh a quarter of a century had elapsed since the death of S. Peter before S. Clement was called upon to take up the great charge ; and then " in the last decade of the century, the eyes of the whole Roman Church are turned upon him, amid the anxieties of perilous days, that he may come forward to champion the Christian cause in the Imperial City." f Perilous days indeed they were : after a fairly long interval of calm, which was " a period of study and peaceful progress for the Church," per- secution had broken out afresh. " Domitian proved another Nero. . . . He directed against the Christians a succession of sharp, sudden, partial assaults, striking down one here and one there, . . . and harassing the Church with an agony of suspense." None knew where the next blow would fall. " We," says the bishop in his famous letter to the Corinthians, " are in the same lists, and the same contest awaiteth us." Ready though he was to be offered, Clement was to serve Christ by life rather than by death ; but while the bishop escaped,- Clement the consul, the emperor's cousin, was among the victims. " He was only one, though the most con- spicuous, of a large number who suffered for their faith." The bond between the two Clements, strong in itself by mere force of circumstances, must have been strengthened a hundred-fold by their possession of a common faith. How entirely the husband and wife had identified them- selves with the faith preached by their own freedman is proved by the death of the one, the banishment of the other. It has received fresh confirmation by the recent discoveries among the Roman catacombs that have brought to light a Christian burial-ground in which rest the remains of many members of the Flavian family, while an inscription states that * Canon Scott Holland, "Apostolic f Ibid. Fathers." chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME— S. CLEMENT. 279 the ground was part of the estate of Domitilla, the wife or widow of Clement the consul. And as this Christian widow gave of her lands for a last sleeping-place for her fellow-believers, so it would seem she gave a portion of her dwelling- place to be their place of worship. Christian Rome has little of higher antiquity to show than the church which bears the name of S. Clement. Three successive edifices have risen up one upon another, but archaeologists encourage us in the belief that in the third and lowest story, which has only of late years been laid open to view, we have the very building in which Clement the bishop ministered. Some have supposed that this first humble place of worship, over which the later churches of S. Clement sprang up, was the bishop's own house ; but Bishop Lightfoot inclines to the opinion that it was more likely to have been the house of Clement the consul. "Whether," says he, "the two Clements stood to each other in the relation of patron and client, as I have supposed, or not, it is not un- natural that the Christian congregation in this quarter of the city should have met under Clement the bishop in the house of Clement the consul, either during the lifetime or after the death of the latter, seeing that his wife or widow Domitilla bore a distinguished part in the early Roman Church." Of the nature of that service, with its perpetual memorial of the central fact of our religion, we can form a tolerably distinct idea from Justin Martyr's well-known description of the established routine of Christian worship, written some two generations after Clement's time. And through Clement's famous letter we get to know something of the very forms in which Christian devotion in those days was wont to express itself. In the noble intercessory prayer with which the bishop closes his epistle, and in other passages scattered throughout the document, we come upon phrases — such as the Angels' cry : " Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Sabaoth ; all creation is full of His glory " — that fall upon our ears with a precious familiarity, as still forming a part of our most sacred service, and it has been observed that the "close intermixture of definite liturgical expressions, with the natural language flowing freely out of the author's own heart, seems to chime in well with the belief that the Liturgy repre- sents more or less the form which the traditional language took when it fell from the lips of S. Clement."* But Clement had yet wider responsibilities than the charge of his own special Church at Rome. " He is described," says Bishop Lightfoot, " by one who professes to have been his contemporary, Hermas, the author of the * Shepherd,' as the foreign secretary of the Roman Church." t The stress of persecution was only beginning to subside when the Bishop of Rome turned his mind to the internal troubles of the Church at Corinth, addressing to the members of that Church a long and carefully thought out * Scott Holland. book to Clement, that he might send it to t Bishop Lightfoot's phrase " foreign foreign cities, " for to him that office has secretary " is based upon the admonition been committed." addressed to Hermas to send a copy of his 28o STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. epistle, in which he enters into all their difficulties and dissensions as though he had no other concern but for their necessities. This epistle, written not in his own name, by the way, but in the name of the Church in Rome — yet none the less attributed by unbroken tradition to the bishop himself — is " the one clearly established incident in Clement's administra- tion of the Eoman Church." The limits of space forbid us to dwell upon either the subject-matter of this famous letter, or its historical and theological bearings ; but something must be said of it, for it is only through this letter that we can see S. Clement as he really was. Through it " we hold in our hands one real remnant of the actual work of that high-minded soul ; we can see in this the features of the man himself ; we can catch a glimpse of that great majesty which so captivated the imagination of the early Church." * Unconsciously the writer reveals much of himself : we see his passionate devotion to the Master by whose authority alone he rebukes and exhorts ; we see his hero-worship for the Apostles, his appeals to their well-remembered examples. We see him so steeped in the knowledge of the Old Testament that his very thoughts naturally clothe themselves in the words of Scripture. We see, too, how he is shamed and saddened by the thought of the unworthy dissensions that are hindering God's work and bringing dishonour upon the Church ; and with what noble fervour he appeals to the disputants, by the very " bond of the love of God," to lay aside all private grudges, and henceforth to live " as citizens of that kingdom of God which bringeth no regrets." As, like S. Paul, he sets himself to commend their former virtues before rebuking their present sin, so, like S. Paul, he closes with a belief that they will abundantly satisfy his expectations ; persuaded that when they have realized afresh the divine beauty of obedience and order and peace, they will assuredly follow that more excellent way. There is good reason to infer, from the incidental words of a writer who lived fifty years after this time, that Clement's letter succeeded in its purpose, and that up to his day at least " the Corinthian Church continued true to its higher self." Certain it is that she counted the letter a treasure of high value ; eighty years after it was received it was still habitually read aloud in the congregation, and in the precious fifth-century manuscript in which, two hundred and seventy years ago, it was first made known to English scholars, it was found bound up together with the books of the New Testament. Curiously enough, however, it does not seem to have been translated into Latin ; and thus when Greek ceased to be a living language, the epistle of Clement ceased to be read, and in course of time was altogether forgotten till its re-discovery in the seventeenth century. Nothing more is known of S. Clement's personal history. The best authorities agree in assigning his death to about the year a.d. 100, but there is no evidence to suggest that he died any but a natural death. Up to this day, whenever Mass is celebrated in the Church of Rome, mention is made by name not only of the Apostles, but of Clement also, and of * Scott Holland. chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. CLEMENT. 28 1 his two predecessors, Linus and Cletus.* "It is notorious," says Dr. Salmon, " that the early Christians did not think it necessary on the death of a bishop to discontinue his name in their public prayers. . . . We may then probably conclude that this commemoration dates from Clement's own time, and that Clement is one of the three members of the Roman Church who were first specially mentioned in its prayers." \ To some it will seem that what is really known of this great saint is meagre and inadequate ; for our own part we feel that there is more than enough to satisfy the imagination in being thus brought into contact with one who " stands between the ordinary commonplace of later history and the marvellous glory of the Apostolic circle " {—one of whom it could be said that " he had the preaching of the apostles still ringing in his ears, and their tradition before his eyes." § To us it is sufficiently thrilling to be brought near to those first wonderful years of the Church's life, when the blessed Apostles could still be spoken of as " the champions who lived very near to our time," " the noble examples which belong to our own generation." But yet this has not been the universal feeling. The authentic history has seemed inadequate for the greatness of the name with which it dealt, and with the object of supplying what was lacking there has sprung up an endless mass of what may be called " Clementine literature," all of it more or less apocryphal. But however apocryphal it may be, it is not possible for us altogether to ignore it, for it is just these later legendary stories that have caused S. Clement's immense popularity in England and elsewhere. It must be owned that his popularity in the Middle Ages did not arise from his being either an Apostolic Father or a Bishop of Rome. S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp were Apostolic Fathers, but to neither of them is there a single ancient dedication in all England ; S. Linus was Bishop of Rome before S. Clement, and like him is mentioned in the New Testament, but we know of no church dedicated in his honour. Of all the many apocryphal histories of S. Clement, the one which obtained the widest currency in the Church purported to be an autobio- graphical account of a journey which he made in company with S. Peter, and which, in addition to recording many of S. Peter's supposed discourses, gives many details of S. Clement's family history, of his conversion to Christianity and his baptism by the Apostle. The earliest version of this story appeared within two or three generations of S. Clement's death. We may look upon it, however, much as a religious novel written with a strong- theological bias, and recommending itself to the general reader by its free use of great historic names, and of names especially that were already familiar through the New Testament— S. James, S. Barnabas, Zacchseus, Simon Magus. Different versions of the tale soon began to appear. " As time went on," says the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin,|| "far more interest was felt in the framework of the narrative than in the discourses * Otherwise Anacletus. t D. 0. B. t Scott Holland. § Irenseus. || Dr. Salmon. 282 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. themselves."* Gradually the heretical colouring of the original was somewhat softened, the story was improved,! and the book became increasingly attractive to orthodox readers. The most popular version of all, and that in which the novel element distinctly predominated over the controversial, goes by the name of the Recognitions, from the circumstances of S. Clement's successive highly melodramatic meetings with the various members of his family — his father, his mother, and his twin brothers — from whom he has been separated from early childhood, and whom he has long mourned as dead. The question naturally arises — " How much historical groundwork would be necessary to recommend a work obviously unhistorical to the Church of the second century ? " % The answer seems to be that very little historic truth was either given or required. Here and there, where it suited his purpose, the author probably made use of real facts as well as of real names, but his general aim was, not to write a true history of S. Clement, but to advance a certain set of theological opinions, and thus we may be prepared for " a conscious tendency to exaggerate at will." § This earliest invention succeeded so well that it was speedily followed by a letter purporting to be written from S. Clement to S. James the Less, describing his appointment by S. Peter to be his successor to the see of Eome. We know well how little apt the majority of readers are to discriminate between the historic and the fictitious elements in a popular novel, and we cannot wonder that these detailed statements concerning S. Clement's imperial relationships and his apostolic consecration soon came to be accepted as unquestionable facts. But the Recognitions dealt primarily only with an important episode in S. Clement's life — his supposed journey with the chief of the Apostles — although it incidentally told much of his pretended family history. It was not until some three hundred years after his death that a further stage in the legendary stories was reached, in the so-called " Acts " of Clement, which bestowed upon him the honours of martyrdom. The scene of these Acts, which are " evidently fictitious from beginning to end," is laid, not in Rome, nor as in the Recognitions at Alexandria, nor in Antioch, but in the far-distant Crimea. The story sets forth how Clement by his preach- ing converts a certain lady of high degree, the wife of an officer of the Imperial court ; and how the husband, after a period of bitter antagonism, follows his wife's example, and is himself baptized, together with no less than four hundred persons of high rank. The Emperor Trajan, alarmed at this sudden spread of the new doctrines, thereupon commands the principal offender Clement to be banished for life to the marble quarries in a desolate region of the Chersonesus, and many Christians voluntarily follow their teacher into his exile. At Clement's prayer a well of water springs forth to fertilize the barren land. His ministrations are so blessed that idol temples are destroyed, and in less than a year's time seventy-five churches * D. C. B., « Clementine Literature." % Scott Holland, t Ibid. § Ibid. chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. CLEMENT. 283 are built. Trajan, on hearing the fame of these doings, sends the governor of the district to put a stop to them. Clement is cast into the deep sea, and in order that " not so much as a relique of him may be left for the Christians," an iron anchor is fastened about his neck. But his disciples make earnest prayer that his resting-place may be revealed to them, and once a year as the day of his martyrdom comes round, the waves go back two miles, exposing to view " a stone shrine, not reared by mortal hands ; " and as the eager pilgrims press to offer their devotions at this sacred spot, it becomes the scene of miracles more wonderful than the saint is ever recorded to have wrought in life. Such is the legend which, more than all the rest put together, has tended to glorify S. Clement. It was early translated into Latin, and before long found its way into the G-allican service-books, formally establishing the popular belief in Clement's martyrdom. While there is no ground for believing in his martyrdom, and far less for believing him ever to have been in the Crimea, there is no need to charge the compilers of the Acts with any fraudulent purpose. The Recognitions had rightly associated S. Clement with the well-known family of the Flavians, and at the distance of three centuries it was not unnatural that a confusion should grow up between the two Clements, and that the martyrdom of Clement the consul should be ascribed to the now more famous Clement the bishop. A similar confusion will account for his place of banishment. Clement the consul's wife was, as we know, banished for the sake of her faith to Pontia, a little island midway between Sardinia and the mainland. Some memory of this name may have been in the mind of the compiler of the Acts when he wrote that Clement " was banished to Pontus." Each locality had in its own time been a recognized place of banishment, but to readers of the fourth or fifth century " beyond Pontus " would convey nothing but images of the desolate penal settlement in the Chersonesus, where prisoners were then sent to labour, and where the sight of the marble quarries, existing then as now, would seem to furnish an additional proof of the truth of the story. One more stage in the development of the widespread veneration for S. Clement must be briefly noticed before we turn to the consideration of the English churches dedicated in his honour. Nearly eight hundred years had passed since the saint's death when, about the time of our King- Alfred, two ardent missionary brothers, Cyril and Methodius, came out of their native Slavonia to the scene of S. Clement's supposed martyrdom in the Crimea. Their minds were full of the sacred associations of the place, but they found no recollection of it whatever among the people, who indeed were in a complete state of heathenism. Undiscouraged by their ignorance, and in obedience to the promptings of a dream, Cyril made search in a raised mound upon a certain island. No costly shrine was discovered, but some scattered bones were brought to light, and last of all, an anchor was dug up. This satisfied the enthusiast that he had found that for which he sought. Nothing doubting, he carried the precious relics 284 STUDIES IN CHURCH DED1CA TIONS. chap. xx. with hirn on all his missionary wanderings through Bohemia and Moravia, and finally bore them to Rome, where they were received with great pomp and solemnly deposited in S. Clement's own church. The inhabitants of the Crimea, now newly awakened to their great privileges, were hence- forth more tenacious of them. They even- chose to forget that the relics had been taken from them, and in answer to an inquiry made in 1058 by King Henry I. of France as to whether the body was still in their keeping and still continued to perform its annual miracle on the saint's birthday, they returned the most satisfactory assurances. To an Englishman the name and sight of Sebastopol must ever suggest memories very different from those of which we have been speaking, but yet if he will he may see at Sebastopol the rock-built church which bears the name of Clement,* and the marble quarries in which Clement is said to have laboured. Eastern Europe is very conservative, and this supposed discovery by the missionary Cyril made a lasting impression upon it. If it was slower than the West to adopt S. Clement, it clung to him the more firmly when once it had adopted him ; witness the immense popularity to this day among all the Slav nations of " Clement " as a baptismal name. Cyril's influence made Clement peculiarly beloved in Bohemia, and at Prague we still find S. Clement's church | and a college of later date like- wise called by his name. Indirectly, too, through the channel of a fifteenth- century namesake, the Bishop of Rome has given his name to a small distinctive race known as the " Clementines," a people now found only in a couple of villages on the Danube, but of deep interest to the ethnologist.! But for the moment little was needed to enhance S. Clement's fame in Western Europe. What the Recognitions had begun the Acts had finished ; and before the time of Cyril's discovery, S. Clement was already known in England, as we see by the insertion of his name in Bede's Kalendar on November 23, the traditional day of his death. After the translation of his pretended relics to Rome in the ninth century, more and more churches were built in his honour in France, and this was certain, sooner or later, to lead to similar dedications in England. In this country we have between fifty and sixty churches dedicated to S. Clement. One of the earliest of them, and by far the most widely known, is the church in the Strand that goes by the name of " S. Clement Danes." Putting aside the tradition that makes it claim to have been founded in a.d. 700, we can at least trace it back to the tenth century. It must have existed before 1002, for, according to one statement, after that terrible English S. Bartholomew, the massacre of the Danes on S. Brice's Day, " many of the proscribed nation fled to it for sanctuary." § A gene- ration later we hear of S. Clement's churchyard serving as the common burial-place of the Danes. || As to the exact circumstances which earned for the church its now indissoluble affix there is a good deal of difference * Murray's " Russia." t Murray's " South Germany." % Ibid. § " Penny Cyclopaedia." || Ibid. CHAP. XX. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. CLEMENT. of opinion, but none as to the fact that it must have gone by this name at a period prior to the Norman Conquest, when the Danish population was still an important factor in the national life. As late as the sixteenth century we still hear of " the fair fountain called Clement's Well," in the parish of S. Clement Danes, close to which the Inn of Chancery, known as " Clement's Inn," formerly stood.* The legendary Acts of their patron were familiarized to the worshippers in S. Clement Danes by the display on all sides of his proper symbol, the anchor, " which may still," says Mrs. Jameson, " be seen upon the weathercock surmounting the steeple, and on the buttons of the officials," etc. The foundation of the City church of S. Clement's, Eastcheap, is of uncertain date. We have a mention of it in 1309, but we can hardly doubt that it existed much earlier. It is this S. Clement's within the City of London, and not S. Clement Danes, which is known to every English child through the old rhyme of " Oranges and Lemons," and we may observe, by the way, that the rhyme itself suggests a period when the church still kept to the softer Latinized form of the name, " Clemens," instead of the harder " Clement." There are considerable difficulties in determining the dates of most of the ancient churches dedicated to S. Clement — difficulties arising usually from their very antiquity ; but on the whole, judging from what historical notices we have, and from the architecture of many of the churches, we should be inclined to say that the twelfth century was the time when S. Clement was at the zenith of his fame in England. There are, no doubt, churches dedicated to him both of earlier and of later date, but that he was a special favourite in Norman times can hardly be questioned. S. Clement's at Oxford was granted by Henry I. in 1122 to the monks of S. Frideswide in that city. It is noticeable, by the way, that each of the Universities has a dedication in honour of S. Clement of Rome. Possibly the Cambridge S. Clement may have something to do with the choice of the same dedication-name at Terrington in Norfolk, a parish which forms part of the University preferment, being held together with the Margaret Professorship. Ashampstead in Berkshire and Fiskerton in Lincolnshire are both Norman in architecture ; so are the famous churches of Sandwich and Old Eomney ; but these places are both so ancient that one is inclined to place the foundation of their respective churches at an earlier date than is shown by the existing structures. The double dedication to " SS. Mary and Clement " at Clavering in Essex can be explained very satisfactorily, but by a somewhat lengthy chain. Clavering was appropriated in the reign of Henry II. to the Cluniac Priory of S. Mary's at Prittlewell in the same county. Prittlewell naturally enough bestowed upon its new possession its own dedication- name of S. Mary, but it added thereto S. Clement. The reason for this can be traced. The parent house of Clngny on the Loire, with a fine disregard of facts, boasted among its chief glories the possession of the * "London P. and P." 286 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. XX. head of S. Clement of Rome * — though some folks declared that it was but the head of some less-distinguished Clement— and we can well understand that Clugny would encourage its foreign branches to do honour to this treasured relic by placing their churches under S. Clement's patronage. It is not unlikely that the strange maritime adventures attributed to S. Clement, together with his seafaring emblem of the anchor, may have conduced to make him specially popular in seaport towns, and may account for his presence in three out of the five Cinque Ports, notably Old Eomney, Sandwich, and Hastings. Hastings in particular is the centre of an interesting group of Clementine churches. This ancient port was given at the time of the Conquest by the Norman king to his follower, Count William of Eu. It was either Count William himself or his descend- ants who built Hastings Castle. This castle, like that of Dover, contained a regular collegiate establishment, with a dean and canons,f and it is noticeable that the Essex church of S. Clement's, West Thurrock, was part of the endowment of this college. :f It is not unreasonable to suppose that the existing church of S. Clement's in Hastings may likewise have had some connexion with the so-called " Castle chapel." Certain at least it is that this Hastings S. Clement, founded in the thirteenth century, gave its name to the nineteenth-century church of S. Clement's at Halton-in- Hastings, a district church taken out of the mother-parish. Is it going too far to suggest yet a fourth link, in the Devonshire church of S. Clement's at Powderham, which at the time of the Conquest belonged to this same Count d'Eu, who, as we have seen, was also lord of Hastings ? But if this is putting the foundation at too early a date, it is curious that there is yet another link between S. Clement's Powderham and S. Clement's West Thurrock, for in the course of the fourteenth century both these churches, together with the Essex church of S. Clement's at Leigh or Lee, were con- nected with the Bohun family, § and the idea forcibly suggests itself that there must have been some one individual, known or unknown to us, to whom for some particular reason the name of S. Clement was specially dear. S. Clement's Day was in old times a high holiday in England, appointed to be so observed by the Council of Worcester in 1240. It may be still a holiday in some of the country parishes whose dedication- feast is kept on that day, but it is surprising to hear of its being still kept in places that have no special association with the saint. Miss Yonge, writing to the Guardian, says : " Can any of your readers explain why St. Clement's Day, November 23rd, is observed as a festival by black- smiths, and whether the same custom prevails in other counties besides Hampshire ? They explode powder on their anvils and fire off guns, and certainly at one village (Twyford, near Winchester) there is what is called a Clem feast for the smiths, a dinner at which is read a curious * Baillet, November 23. t Murray's " Sussex," % Morant. § Of. Murray's " Devon " and Morant's Essex," chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. CLEMENT. 287 story of Solomon's having given a banquet to all the labourers of the Temple, from which the blacksmiths were excluded till they proved their claim by pointing to their work. They were then admitted after washing off their smuts. Whence does this legend come ? . . . I cannot discover any connection between St. Clement and smiths, unless his anchor be the link, and Brand never seems to have heard of the festival." Twyford church itself is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, not to S. Clement ; but it lies near enough to Winchester to have been naturally influenced by Winchester customs, and the " Clem feast " here alluded to may possibly have had its rise in some festival of S. Clement's church in that city, a church which no longer exists. Indeed it is one of the signs of the general antiquity of dedications in this name that we so frequently come upon traces of churches of S. Clement that have fallen into decay or have wholly ceased to exist. The writer just quoted remarks, on what authority we know not, that " St. Clement is generally considered the patron of sailors." There seems little to recommend his claims in this respect, unless it be his mother's wonderful escape from shipwreck as related in the Clementine Eecognitions. His own death by drowning can hardly be a reason for so regarding him, but the long line of Clement churches stretching along the Lincolnshire coast favours the theory that he was so looked upon. A careful study of local history might serve to show whether there is a common bond of origin between any of these eight churches. Some of the number are inland, but the greater proportion are near the seashore. North of Lincolnshire S. Clement has not taken much hold. There is one single church in his honour in Yorkshire, but none in Northumber- land, Durham, or Westmoreland. Norfolk, crowded though she is with memories of S. Nicholas and his golden balls and S. Margaret and her dragon, has yet made room for S. Clement and his anchor, and, like Kent, can show five churches in his honour ; but no county rivals Lincolnshire in devotion to the saint. So far we have spoken only of pre-Beformation dedications ; there are a considerable number of modern ones. Of these not a few are, as we might expect, in London ; but no part of England can show so many modern dedications to S. Clement as Lancashire. If the object in each case has been to secure a distinctive dedication-name it has failed, for we are confronted with at least eight or ten churches so named. There must, one would suppose, be some reason for this peculiar manifestation of Lancashire feeling towards S. Clement, but that reason is not apparent. It is just possible, however, that several of the apparently new churches may be the successors to old chapelries, and have merely carried on the ancient name. Such an old chapelry we know to have existed at Spotland, for example,* but even this merely carries the inquiry back to an earlier stage, and does not explain S. Clement's special popularity in the County Palatine. * Though it is not quite clear that the original dedication was to S. Clement. 288 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. S. Clement of Rome has the distinction of being one of the non- scriptural saints whom the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century have most entirely agreed to honour, though our forefathers thought chiefly of his legendary history, and we think chiefly of his real history — of his intercourse with the Apostles, of the epistle that he wrote, and of the perilous days through which he steered the ship of the Roman Church. Not lonff asro in the excavations that were being made Jan ^(Mi&o a ^ R° me along the Appian Way, there came to light a slab bearing in abbreviated form the three words, " Fabianus, episcopus, martyr." Hard by were discovered similar stones with the names of other Roman bishops of the same period — in those days of constant persecution the bishops of Rome succeeded one another with startling rapidity — showing plainly that the place must have been specially set apart as an episcopal cemetery. We cannot rank Fabian among the many commanding figures in the long line of Roman bishops, but from the numerous scattered notices of him and the chance allusions to him in the lives of men more famous than himself, we gather that he was a man of unshakable constancy, remarkable for his gifts as an organizer, and that he held the respect of the most distinguished of his contemporaries. He does not come before us at all until the time of his election to the vacant see in the year 23G. Previously to that time he was a simple layman living in the country ; but being by chance in Rome at the time of the election, he entered the church where the brethren were met together to watch the proceedings. Eusebius tells how he was " pointed out as the chosen of heaven, by a dove settling on his head, whereupon all the people, moved with one divine inspiration, declared him worthy by acclamation, and at once placed him on the episcopal throne." * That a similar story is told of another of the Popes does not necessarily discredit it, for such incidents were undoubtedly regarded as heaven-sent intimations ; nor was it an unheard-of practice to raise a layman at once to the highest ecclesiastical dignity, passing him as rapidly as possible through all the successive degrees (cf. S. German, ch. xxiv.). During the fourteen years of his episcopate, Fabian showed himself a wise and strong ruler of his diocese. He lived in days when the possibility of martyrdom was before the eyes of every Christian, and when not every man proved strong enough to stand the fearful test. One of the most practical questions of the time was how rightly to deal with these weaker brethren — " the lapsed " as they were called (see Cyprian, p. 217) ; and when " Fabian of most noble memory " was himself called to die a martyr's death, his clergy felt keenly the loss of his "authority and judgment" in treating this most difficult matter.! No * For the history of S. Fabian, see of this saint are most carefully brought throughout an article by the Eev. J. together. Barraby in D. C. B., in which all notices f See the correspondence between S. Cyprian and the Roman clergy. CHAP. XX. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. FABIAN. 289 detail was too small for his attention. To him was owing the perfecting of the already existing system for collecting all possible records touching those who had suffered as martyrs ; to whom also was owing the careful ordering of the various Christian cemeteries in his diocese, and the provision of buildings within their limits to serve as oratories. He bestowed special pains on one particular cemetery on the Appian Way, known as the Oallixtine Cemetery. Thither he caused the body of one of his predecessors, who had been martyred in Sardinia, to be transported, and there we are told he himself was afterwards buried. It is in this very burying-ground, in the portion now called " the Papal Crypt," that the before-mentioned slab was discovered. Nor were his energies confined to home matters : we hear of his writing to censure an African bishop who was accused of grave heresy ; and he is credited with having taken an active part in the founding of the G-allicau Church. This is possible enough, but the statement that it was he who sent forth Dionysius or Denys, the very shadowy patron saint of France, together with six other missionary bishops, rests on less good authority and must be mistrusted, notwithstanding the full and precise catalogue of the seven men and their respective dioceses. Fabian was a friend of both Origen and Cyprian ; and Origen, when his orthodoxy was impugned, felt it incum- bent upon him to write to Fabian, among other friends, to clear himself. The immediate cause of his martyrdom is not known, but when the Emperor Decius succeeded to the throne and fresh persecution broke out, the Bishop of Eome was one of the first to suffer (January 20, 250). His clergy wrote at once to S. Cyprian informing him of the death of their chief, and received from him in reply a letter in which he speaks of " the glorious departure of the good man his colleague," and rejoices that " his honourable end had corresponded to the uprightness of his administration." * The little Norfolk church of AYoodbastwick is the only one in this country that has preserved the memory of S. Fabian ; and here, curiously enough, he is linked with a Roman soldier of a generation later, the cele- brated S. Sebastian (ch. xiv.). There is no obvious reason why the bishop and the soldier should thus be associated, and at first sight their fellowship is a matter of perplexity ; but the real explanation is most likely a very simple one, namely, that they are so united merely owing to the accident of their being severally commemorated on the same day, January 20. If, as was so often the case, the church at Woodbastwick took its name from the saint on whose festival it was dedicated, the founders may have felt it well to take advantage of the two patrons whose names stood side by side in the Kalendar. It would be interesting to know if the church still observes its patronal festival. This association of the two names was preserved in our earliest English martyr ology ; but our reformed Prayer-book Kalendar, with its usual unaccountableness, has dropped out the popular S. Sebastian while retain- ing the little -known Fabian (cf. Sebastian, p. 1G2). * D. C.B, VOL. I. U STUDIES IN CtiORClI DEDICATIONS. chAp. xx. g Cornelius This saint is frequently and rightly described by the old (J. Sept. 14,* writers as " a martyr," but the word as applied to him must 2o2- not be pressed beyond its original sense of " a witness," for though the whole of Cornelius's brief and troubled public career was one sustained confession of the faith that was in him, the sacrifice of his life was not demanded of him. Cornelius, such as he is made known to us in his own letters and those of his friend S. Cyprian of Carthage, does nob seem to have possessed the breadth of view or the genius for ruling of his immediate predecessor Fabian ; but like him he was a man of spotless character, and his very willingness to step at the bidding of the Church into the vacant place of the martyred Fabian is an evidence of his courage. He seems to have been by nature peaceful and retiring, doing his work quietly, forming, no doubt, one of that little band of " forty-six priests " whom he mentions in one of his letters when detailing the statistics of the Church in Rome. When Fabian was put to death, Cornelius was unanimously elected by both the clerical and lay Orders in the Church to succeed him. What led to the appointment we cannot tell, but from the fact that his grave has been found, not in the Papal Crypt, but in the burying-place of the powerful Roman family of the " Cornelia," it is inferred that he was of high birth, and this circumstance may not have been without its influence. He must have known well that it was no easy task which he was undertaking. He cannot have been ignorant of the tyrant Decian's threat that he would '■ sooner see a new pretender to the empire than a new Bishop of Rome ; " but already the see had lain vacant for eighteen months, to the great confusion of the Church, and Cornelius did not hesitate to throw himself into the breach. It happened that just at this time the emperor was absent from Rome prosecuting some military enterprise from which he was destined never to return, or Cornelius might quickly have suffered the fate of Fabian. But the external trial of persecution would doubtless have been to a spirit like his far less grievous than the endless internal dissensions with which he at once found himself confronted. The question of the treatment of the "lapsed" was now assuming more serious proportions than in the days of Fabian, and opinion was vehemently divided thereupon. The cases were innumerable, and varied infinitely in kind and degree, from the momentary weakness extorted by cruel tortures and bitterly repented, to the shameless recantations voluntarily made to the heathen magistrates in the hope of saving property as well as person. It was clear that all cases could not be treated in the same manner, and Cornelius sought to deal with them one by one, inclining always to the side of mercy. But this did not suffice ; some definite line of policy was urgently required for the guidance of the hundreds of bishops f perplexed by the same problem. Among those who * For further discussion of the exact of Constantino (that is, some fifty years day, see p. 293. later than tlie peiiod now under con- * t Gibbon, on the authority of Bingham, sideration) at one thousand, reckons the number of bishops in the time chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. CORNELIUS. 201 had either not been tempted or who had remained staunch, there was a tendency to resent Cornelius's merciful dealings and to insist on harsher terms. Were those, they indignantly asked, who had denied their faith to be re-admitted to the communion of the Church on equal terms with those who had sacrificed all for conscience' sake ? The malcontents at last found a leader in a certain discredited priest, Novatian by name. His ante- cedents ill fitted him for the part he now chose to play. If report spoke truly of him, he had himself apostatized in the hour of danger, and thereby saved his life ; but now he put himself at the head of the party that was crying out for greater strictness of discipline, and began insidiously to spread all manner of slanders against Cornelius, and to encourage the growing feeling that he was too weak a man for his post. It was repre- sented that Cornelius had freely partaken of the Communion with those who had sacrificed to idols ; and that, in short, his tolerance amounted to a sinful indifference. Cornelius was not careful to answer these accusa- tions, even though they were widely believed and tended to do him much harm ; and our chief knowledge of them comes through the warm defence of him in a letter of Cyprian's to one of the African bishops, whose faith in the Bishop of Rome had been shaken by the slanderous reports con- cerning him. Meanwhile, in the out-of-the-way country districts, among the more isolated and less educated clergy, the mischief wrought by these false reports was yet greater and more lasting. The artful Novatian contrived to allure into Rome from a remote corner of Italy three country bishops of the lowest stamp, assuring them that their presence in the city was essential to the prevention of schism. He and a number of his partisans made a feast for the new-comers, and under pretext of hospitality made them drunk. While they were in this state, Novatian prevailed on them to lay hands on him and consecrate him Bishop of Rome. One of the wretched consecrators soon realized how utterly he had been misled, and came with tears to Cornelius seeking his forgiveness. He was pardoned and re-admitted to communion with the Church, but was deposed from his see. The difficulties of Cornelius's position were now much increased, for though Novatian — the first anti-Pope in the history of the Holy See — was resolutely disowned by the leading Churchmen, he had a very considerable following among the zealots in the Church. His able way of stating his own case drew to his side many of the noblest spirits, men who had been long languishing in prison for the sake of their faith, and who, understand- ing little of the rights of the case, were carried away by his ardent letters. The adhesion of these men was of great moment to the schismatical party, but had they been on the spot they could hardly have failed to discover how much of their new leader's fierce enthusiasm for a stricter rule was coloured by personal hatred to Cornelius. In the very act of administering the Sacrament, Novatian would take the worshipper by both hands and say to him, "Swear to me by the Body and Blood of Christ never to leave me to return to Cornelius." 292 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xx. Cyprian in the mean time convened a council at Carthage, at which were discussed two important matters— first, the adoption of one uniform policy towards the erring brethren, according to which there should be a recognized scale of penalties for all the varying degrees of apostasy ; and next, the whole history of the schism at Eome. Cornelius's reputation was abundantly cleared, and a full report of the proceedings was sent to him as to the lawful head of the Roman Church. That indefatigable letter- writer, S. Cyprian, added a private letter to Cornelius, enclosing letters, to be given or withheld at his discretion, to the most noted of those late sufferers for the truth who had been led away by Novatian. Fortified by the decisions of the African Church, Cornelius summoned a similar council to meet at Rome, where the canons of the Council of Carthage were received and ratified. It was marked by a very striking- circumstance. A large number of the most highly venerated of the schismatics, influenced no doubt ] by Cyprian's letters, came to Cornelius and frankly acknowledged their error, and entreated to be forgiven. After careful deliberation, Cornelius decided that, for the good of the Church at large, their abjuration must take place publicly. The news was received with the greatest excitement ; nothing had been so grave a blow to the unity of the Church as the defection of these men ; nothing could do so much to restore it as their voluntary admission that they had been misled. Multitudes came together to the appointed place of meeting, welcoming their former heroes with as much enthusiasm as though they had been newly delivered from prison ; and the formal words of retractation — " We know that Cornelius is Bishop of the Holy Catholic Church by the choice of Almighty God, and that we, though in heart belonging to the true Church, have been led away to hold communication with a heretic and schismatic" — were mingled with the sound of joyous weeping. Cyprian was prompt as ever to write his congratulations, and indeed they were called for. This incident did more than anything else could have done to strengthen Cornelius's position, and from this time forward the intruding bishop, Novatian, vanishes into obscurity. But Cornelius was never, during his fourteen months' episcopate, to be for long without perplexities, and his next trouble seemed in danger of resulting in a breach between himself and his best friend, S. Cyprian. The very same trouble that had so recently befallen the Bishop of Rome now befell the Bishop of Carthage. A schismatical priest caused himself to be consecrated bishop, and took advantage of a temporary exile of Cyprian to proclaim himself Bishop of Carthage. He had the effrontery to send a representative to Cornelius, claiming recognition from him. At the first application Cornelius rejected the whole story with indignant scorn, and thrust the envoy out of the church ; but when no letters from Cyprian arrived, and the unscrupulous envoy contrived to make his tale more and more plausible, Cornelius — half persuaded, half terrified — began to waver, and wrote in a somewhat aggrieved strain to Cyprian to complain chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. CORNELIUS. 293 of his having left hirn so long ignorant as to what had passed. In truth, Cyprian had written, but his first letter had miscarried ; he now wrote again at great length and with some not unnatural heat. He said plainly that if the audacity of bad men were to overawe lawfully constituted authority, there would be an end of all settled government ; he entered fully into the history of the schism at Carthage, and ended by requesting Cornelius, as a matter of 1 justice to him, to read this letter publicly to his clergy and people, in order to clear him of blame in their eyes. " Your own affection has often moved you to do this thing for me, but this once I ask you to do it at my express entreaty." Cornelius might fail in judgment, but where he saw his duty no man could stand more firmly than he, and a testing time was now at hand. Persecution had again broken out under the new Emperor G-allus. The two friends — Cyprian at Carthage, Cornelius at Kome — were called upon to give an account of their faith. There was no wavering now, no possible room for doubt ; and the fearless steadfastness of Cornelius's demeanour so strengthened those who witnessed it, that all the Christians who were with him imitated his staunchness, and some even of those who had previously apostatized now came forward to make their confession afresh. The question was put, Would he sacrifice to the gods ? and the answer was unfaltering. A few years back such a refusal would have been fol- lowed by instant sentence of death ; but this was not one of the bloodiest of the persecutions, and Cornelius was only banished from Eome to Civita Vecchia. Thither he was followed by multitudes of the faithful, and there shortly afterwards (a.d. 252), in the language of an ancient record, " With i>'lory he took sleep." * It has been said, but on insufficient evidence, that Cornelius was be- headed. It is true that Cyprian speaks of him as a " martyr," but, as it has been pointed out, it is matter for doubt " whether the word ' martyr ' was always used in its modern sense ; or whether the confession which Cornelius was undergoing at Centumcellas " (the modern Civita Yecchia) " with the whole church was not regarded as itself a species of martyrdom." \ From the circumstance that his festival was afterwards observed together with that of his friend S. Cyprian on September 14, the day of S. Cyprian's martyrdom, it has been supposed that the friends actually died on the same day, though at six years' interval ; and Jerome has directly stated as much. Closer investigation has shown, however, that the true date of Cornelius's death was most probably in the end of June.J It is interesting to note that the correspondence between Cornelius and Cyprian is fitly closed by one last letter of Cyprian's, written on hearing of his friend's exile, in which he congratulates him and the whole Church of Eome on his "glorious confession," and looks forward in prayerful confidence to the new dangers that were threatening them both. It is a fresh illustration of the influence of the Roman branch of the * Benson's " Cvprian." t D. C. B. % Benson's "Cyprian." 294 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. Church upon our English dedications, that whereas we have not a single ancient parish church in honour of so distinguished a man as the African S. Cyprian, we have two dedications, in counties as distant the one from the other as Lincolnshire and Cornwall, in honour of his comparatively obscure contemporary, S. Cornelius, Bishop of Eome. The first of these is at Linwood, the other at Cornelly. In neither case is the particular reason for the choice apparent. Probably to many of those who worship in the churches that bear his name, " Cornelius" suggests, not the Roman bishop, but the devout Roman soldier of the Acts of the Apostles. S. Silvester, Historical criticism has dealt hardly with S. Silvester, the or Sylvester, 0. saint who has the distinction of occupying the last day of the Dec. 31, 335. y ear j fc ^ ^^e^ hi m 0 f q\\ that at one time made him famous, and we can only hope that it will not at some time or other rob him of the solitary church that is dedicated in his honour in the West of England. And the curious part of the matter is that he is not one of those saints whose very existence is in doubt ; on the contrary, he is a perfectly well authenticated figure, holding the Roman see for nearly twenty-two years at the most memorable period of the Church's history ; and yet next to nothing is recorded of his real acts, and the most part of what is recorded of him is not to be believed ! Indisputably, Silvester was not one of the " makers of history." He fulfilled the functions that were required of him in the matter of attending synods convened by the Emperor Constantine, but we hear nothing of any independent action on his part. During the period in which we have any knowledge of him, he was not tried by any shock of persecution, for his long episcopate was covered by the reign of Constantine, so favourable to the Christians. It is clear that he was not of a very energetic disposition, and he was probably already an old man at the time of his election, for we find him twelve years later pleading his great age as an excuse for his fail- ing to appear in person at the world-famous Council of Nicasa. A good deal of activity is attributed to him by later writers, who credit him with having convened at least three councils on his own account — one of them with the object of refuting the Arians, and another in order to demonstrate to the Empress Helena the superiority of the Christian over the Jewish religion — but these councils are now unhesitatingly pronounced spurious. i The source of Silvester's fame, then, is plainly not to be sought in any genuine acts of his ; but legend has very plentifully filled up the blank that history has left, and represents the inconspicuous Silvester as a principal instrument in the temporal aggrandizement of the Roman see, and claims for him the distinction of having baptized the mighty Constan- tine. The obvious inconsistencies in this story were detected even in the uncritical twelfth century, but by this time the glorification of Silvester as a supreme benefactor to Rome was firmly established, and his name registered in many a Kalendar of Saints. How and when the legends took their rise is not known. They are drawn principally from the so-called " Acts of Silvester," a document chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. SILVESTER. 295 known to us only by compilations based on it, but which claims to have been among those which were " examined and approved " by Pope G-elasius in the closing years of the fifth century, when he was making his review of the records of the Saints and Martyrs of the Church. These acts first present Silvester to us as hiding in the mountains to escape persecution. At that time, say they, the Emperor Constantine was suffering from leprosy as a punishment for his sin in having allowed the persecution. He has been told that he can be cured only by a bath of infants' blood, but the wailing of the infants when taken from their mothers moves his compassion. He is then warned in a dream to summon the banished bishop, who exhorts him to be baptized, and even as he emerges from the font the leprosy departs from him. Then in gratitude for this great mercy, Constantine proceeds to heap up benefits upon the Christians. Each day sees some fresh addition to their privileges ; on the fourth day, the Bishop of Rome is decreed to be the chief over all the bishops of Christendom ; on the fifth, rights of sanctuary are granted to all Christian churches ; on the seventh, the tithes of all the Eoman lands are given to the Church ; and on the eighth, Constantine lays with his own hands the first stone of the magnificent church of S. John the Baptist, afterwards called the Lateran.* Here we have in brief the famous story of " the Donations of Constan- tine," on which for centuries to come so much stress was to be laid as exalting the supremacy of the Papal See. It is perhaps a sufficient confu- tation of the central feature of the story to observe that Constantine, not- withstanding his profession of Christianity, delayed his baptism till he was at the point of death, some two years after the death of Silvester ; but there is, generally speaking, some foundation, however slender, for a widely believed myth, and a close study of the contemporary histories, both Christian and pagan, has suggested to modern writers a very possible explanation. f Both pagan and Christian historians are at one in saying that Constantine, after having caused his own son to be executed, and having committed divers other horrible cruelties in his own family, went through a period of bitter remorse ; and one of the heathen historians says that having in vain sought purification at the hands of the heathen priests, he was recommended to turn to the Christians, whose doctrine embraced forgiveness of all manner of sin ; and that he thereupon gave up the religion of his forefathers. It is further stated by the same authority that the Christian bishop to whom he applied was " a Spaniard with an Egyptian name." Such a description could by no possibility be made to apply to Silvester, but might well suit the celebrated Spanish bishop of Cordova, Hosius. Under all the circumstances, it is in the highest degree probable that Constantine was for the time " drawn more than before towards the Christian doctrine of Atonement and washing away of sin," J and this may have given rise to the story of his baptism ; or it may be that " the legend * Mrs. Jameson. % Ibid., " Constantine.*' t T>. C. B., "Constantine" and "Sil- vester." 296 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xx. in its earliest form did not really imply actual baptism by Silvester, but only some sort of lustration for the cure of his alleged leprosy." * And as regards the supposed Donation, it is unquestionable that its extent has been extravagantly magnified ; but, in the words of the writer just quoted,f " there seems to have been a foundation of fact for it so far as this : that Oonstantine, at Eome especially, . . . was liberal in founding churches and in granting immunities and endowments to the clergy ; and it is not improbable that the subsequent possession of the Lateran palace by the popes was due to him." There are other legends of S. Silvester, very much of the fairy-tale order — all tending to exalt his supernatural powers — which may be read in Mrs. Jameson's " Sacred and Legendary Art." They all helped to make popular this undistinguished Bishop of Rome, and to represent him as some- thing as utterly unlike the quiet inactive Silvester of real history as is possible to be conceived. So popular did he become that it is matter for surprise that our one and only English dedication in his honour should be that of S. Sylvester's in the little Devonshire village of Ohivelstone. S. Gregory the Some thirty dedications in this name are a strangely Great. D. inadequate recognition of all that we English Churchmen owe March 12, 604. to the man tQ whom Bede gQ f e ii c it 0 usly applies S. Paul's words : " We may and ought to call him our apostle, because he made our nation, till then given up to idols, the Church of Christ ; so that though he is not an apostle to others, yet he is so to us, for we are the seal of his apostleship in our Lord." True it is that S. Gregory has many another claim to greatness ; it is very possible to write volumes concerning the great part he took in guiding the history of his time, without making any mention of the English Mission ; and yet it is a true instinct that leads us to look upon this as the greatest, the most lasting, of his achieve- ments ; and herein we English Churchmen of the nineteenth century are in harmony with S. Gregory's own Eoman contemporaries, for when they inscribed his epitaph upon his tomb in S. Peter's church, the one deed of his which alone they were careful to specify amid their more general praises was his care for the salvation of the English.:]: It is impossible rightly to understand Gregory without some com- prehension of the times of stress and danger in which he lived ; yet it is equally impossible in the narrow limits of space at our command to attempt any history of that eventful period of the Lombard invasion ; and the utmost we can hope to do is to give some idea of the great ruler who still to this day influences our Church at so many points — its govern- ment, its music, nay, the very words of its most sacred petitions. What manner of man was this who, first as Prefect and afterwards as Bishop of Rome, withstood emperors, resisted the barbarians, organized the national defences, made war and peace at his own judgment, determined for centuries to come the principles of government of the foreign Churches, * D. C. B., " Constantine." X See the epitaph quoted in Bede. t Rev. J. Barmby, in D. C. B. chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 297 and by his indefatigable labours did more than any of his predecessors to help forward Rome's later claims to a universal supremacy ? In the hundreds of S. Gregory's letters that have been preserved, we have not merely an astonishing proof of his industry, but what is practically an unpremeditated autobiography. "We can watch him at work, now arguing out the subtlest questions of metaphysics, now laying down first principles of ethics, now providing with kindliest forethought for the needs of some sick friend, and oftenest of all entering into the minutiae of some business arrangement, whether touching the disposition in the field of the Imperial forces or the management of the vast Papal estates. For during his tenure of office as prefect of the city, the future bishop had been trained to close business habits, and all this practical experience was turned to account for the good of the Church as well as for Rome. Surely, we think to ourselves, a man of such boundless activity must have been endued with strength of body corresponding to his strength of mind. And yet it was not so. From early youth he laboured under the disadvantage of perpetual ill-health, and " it is the more wonderful," to quote Bede once more, " that he could write so many and such large volumes, seeing that he was continually suffering from slow fever, and was oftentimes tormented by pains and weakness in his stomach " — sufferings in part the result of the excessive austerities, ill suited to his delicate frame, in which the young enthusiastic monk had indulged at the outset of his monastic career. He became subject to severe fainting fits, and was compelled, much to his sorrow, to obtain a dispensation from observing the ordinary fasts of the Church. In addition to this standing delicacy, he was sorely troubled by repeated and prolonged attacks of gout in its most acute form. He was not a man given to complaining, yet now and then some such cry as this is wrung from his lips when writing to an intimate friend : " Such are the pains inflicted upon me by gout and other infirmities, that life is to me the heaviest of punishments. Every day I faint with the pain, and wait with sighing for the remedy of death." Or again, at a time when for two years he had been for the greater part of each day confined to bed by the " tortures " he endured, he describes to his correspondent how he would rise for a few hours to celebrate Mass, and goes on : " Then I am forced to lie down, in such severe pain that only an occasional groan enables me to bear my agony. This pain in my case is sometimes gentle, sometimes intense, but never so gentle as to depart, nor so intense as to kill me. Hence I am daily dying, and daily % driven back from death." Lifelong sufferings such as these must needs tell upon a man's character for good or ill. It takes a hero to escape being altogether crushed by such disabilities and sinking into a useless and self-engrossed invalid. No one can deny the heroic element in Gregory, but neither can those who admire him most deny that his sufferings had in some measure sharpened his temper. His letters abound in cutting phrases ; — his rebukes to a neglectful or stupid subordinate must have been truly 298 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. CHAP. XX. uncomfortable for the offenders, and his brilliant sarcasm harder to bear than more straightforward denunciations ; but surely there are abundant excuses to be made, and through all the ingenuity of censure we read the impatience of an energetic man, chafed almost beyond endurance by the limitations of his own bodily condition ; cruelly conscious how much he could have done had he but been endued with the health and vigour which were freely bestowed upon others who made little use of them. But if Gregory's sufferings did often betray him into hasty and sharp speeches, they never closed his heart to the sufferings of others. It was true he could make no allowance for slackness or stupidity, but he was never for a moment selfishly indifferent to the distresses of others, be they bodily pains like his own, or lack of outward comforts, or the more subtle trial of fallen fortunes. His sympathy was inexhaustible for all such trials ; the concerns of the sufferers became for the time his own ; he would not rest till he had done his utmost to give relief, and there was sure always to be a delicate appropriateness in his manner of giving help that must have doubled the value of the gift ; as, for example, when he gives order that the daughter of a bankrupt shall have her father's drinking-cup restored to her ; or when he desires that bedding shall be provided for the destitute nuns in the city ; or when he commands that a warm waistcoat be sent " with all speed " to a needy bishop, " because the cold is intense ; " or again, when he writes from his own sick-bed to offer the comforts of his house to a sick friend, promising him that if he will only come his people shall undertake the entire nursing, and that he will himself be answerable for securing him the necessary quiet which he will find it impossible to get amid all the claims of home duties. But we are anticipating, and must return to the days when Gregory was no ecclesiastic at all, but the leading layman in Kome, holding the office of prefect of the city, a position surrounded with all the pomp and dignity that we are accustomed to associate with a judge on assize ; but charged also with the real weight of responsibility and authority which, to a nature. like Gregory's, was its greatest attraction. " Great therefore," says a modern historian, " must have been the marvelling of the populace in the Forum when one day the news was spread abroad that the Prefect of the City was about to lay aside his silken robe decked with jewels, to don the coarse sackcloth of the monk, and to minister as a pauper to his pauper brethren. This, however, was the truth." * The motives for so startling a change have been diversely construed. Some would see in it a deep-laid scheme for arriving at the Popedom, and are of opinion that even in the days of his prefecture Gregory had per- ceived that " the office of Pope was the only one which brought with it real power, or which was worthy of a Boman's acceptance," and that he " could not but know and feel that he had capacities for it such as no other man then living possessed."! Others again believe that he may * Hodgkin. t Ibid. chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 299 have acted from more straightforward and nobler motives. They recall his strong hero-worship for S. Benedict, the single-minded founder of Western monasticism (ch. xxvii.). They recall how he associated himself with the personal disciples of that great man, how he set himself to gather up every particular touching their master's thoughts and aims and deeds ; and remembering his unfeigned admiration, not only for the man but for his system, they no longer find it incredible that he should have thought it his highest duty — nay, a sacred privilege — to follow in S. Benedict's footsteps. Of the utter unlikeness of spirit between himself and his hero — of the wide diversity of their conspicuous gifts — Gregory in his hour of enthusiastic self-devotion was perhaps not the best judge. But such a sacrifice was not contrary to the traditions of the noble Roman family whence he sprang. Gregory's own honoured parents — " the noblest of the senate," to quote Gibbon's description of them— were also " the most pious of the Church of Rome." Three of his aunts had already entered the Benedictine Order ; his blue-eyed, cheerful-faced mother, though unveiled, was a nun at heart, and is reckoned among the saints ; his father's high administrative capabilities had in his later years been placed at the service of the Church. At the time of which we write the father was dead, but we may well believe that he would have rejoiced to see his son " selling all that he had," and turning the old home upon the Cselian Hill into a monastery dedicated to S. Andrew — that monastery which was destined to play so great a part in our English history. And so the Prefect of Rome entered his old home, not as master, but as a humble monk, obedient to all the rigid monotony of the Benedictine discipline. Strange indeed must have been the change, and it is infinitely pathetic to think of the one visible link between the present and the past which in later days gladdened Gregory's eyes — the carefully painted portraits of his beloved parents, which he caused to be executed upon the walls of the monastery, and which hung for centuries in company with the portrait of their keen- eyed, alert-looking son — all three pictures the work of one artist. Very remarkable now as in later days was the breadth of the young monk's outlook. It is to this period of his life that the ever-memorable incident of the English slave-boys in the Forum belongs. How well we know it all ! The group of fair-haired foreigners whose forlorn plight moved the compassion of the monk ; the long string of felicitous puns which seem to have impressed the scene with curious vividness upon the memories of Gregory's companions, while we can hardly doubt that they served the speaker himself (then as on many another occasion) as a screen for deeper feeling than he chose to betray. For it was no passing- em otion that had been roused in Gregory's mind. The sight of those hapless Yorkshire lads in the Roman market-place spoke to him as plainly as the vision of the Man of Macedonia spoke long before to the Apostle Paul. We know well how, like the Apostle, he forthwith acted upon the conviction that " God had called us to preach the Gospel unto them," and 300 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. with characteristic promptitude obtained leave to be himself the leader of a mission to England. And we know, too, how that undertaking was frus- trated just as it seemed to be prosperously begun, by the recall to Eome of the ardent-tempered leader, the moving spirit of the whole. "We remember the playful words in which Gregory veiled his disappointment at the failure of his cherished scheme, and his prompt obedience to the unwelcome voice of papal authority. All the details of the story are familiar enough to us ; but do we always remember — and unless we do remember it we shall not rightly apprehend Gregory's noble fixity of purpose — that some twenty years elapsed between this first abortive mission to England and the subsequent mission of Augustine ? In those long years Gregory's own circumstances underwent a great change, and there were at all times many and important matters pressing upon his attention ; yet the unspoken appeal of the slave-children, their mute cry, " Come over and help us," never ceased to sound in his ears. Gregory was strong enough to wait, too faithful to forget ; and in the end it was vouchsafed him to redeem the pledge given so long ago. Meantime there was work of a different kind awaiting the archdeacon — for such seems to have been his position at this time. He was sent on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople as " apocrisarius," or, to use the modern equivalent for this unfamiliar term, as Papal Nuncio. It was in all ways an important episode in his career, for it introduced him into a new and not perhaps very congenial world. It made him acquainted with the leading statesmen of the Eastern capital, more especially with the Patriarch of Constantinople, the noted " John the Faster," destined later to be Gregory's most hated rival ; and lastly, it brought him into close relations — intimate, however, rather- than cordial — with the worthy Emperor Maurice and with the whole Imperial family. His mission ended, Gregory returned to S. Andrew's, not now as a mere monk but as its abbot. He threw himself into all the duties of his new office with all his usual zeal, and it is no small evidence of the true great- ness of the man that, after all the variety of brilliant social intercourse which he had enjoyed at Constantinople, where the Papal Nuncio was plainly a personage of much account, he should give himself up to the minutest details of monastic discipline as contentedly as though his ambition knew no further range. Four years later the abbot's organizing genius found a sufficient outlet in planning the colossal procession which on three successive days was to perambulate Rome, chanting penitential litanies, and imploring the Divine mercy to stay the terrific plague which was ravaging the city. His old experience as prefect stood him in good stead at this juncture, and the elaborate arrangements were triumphantly carried out with a splendour of effect that made a deep impression upon the popular mind, all the deeper because it was firmly believed that the Archangel Michael had been seen in bodily form standing upon the mausoleum of Hadrian — the Castle of S. Angel o, as we now call it— in the act of sheathing his destroying sword. chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 301 The part taken by the Abbot of S. Andrew's in this impressive religious demonstration had brought him once more conspicuously before the eyes of the public. About this time the then Pope died, and Gregory was chosen to be his successor (a.d. 590). The choice can hardly have come as a surprise even to himself ; but he earnestly pleaded to be excused, and when refusal was no longer possible, submitted with a heavy heart. From the moment of his assumption of his new dignity he foresaw plainly that his leisure for contemplation was hopelessly abridged. " Under the colour- able pretext of bishopric I am in truth brought back to secular life ; for in this office I am in bondage to so many worldly cares, that in no part of my career as a layman can I remember to have been in equal slavery." Thus he wrote to the emperor's sister, sorrowfully deploring the loss of all those opportunities for spiritual meditation which had been his ideal when he exchanged the prefecture for the monastery. Sometimes his lamentations are couched in highly humorous form, as when he complains to another correspondent : " It is all very well to make the name the likeness of the thing and to turn neat sentences and pretty speeches in your letters, and to call a monkey a Hon, but it is just the same thing as we do when we call mangey puppies pards or tigers." * But whether grave or gay his lamenta- tions were unceasing. We, who can look back upon Gregory's life as a whole, can say un- hesitatingly that his genius was better fitted for the active than for the contemplative life ; we see plainly, moreover, that he took a keen delight in those very secular employments under which he none the less groans as hindering him from his proper task. Are we therefore to think that his lamentations were insincere ? By no means. He knew himself with sufficient honesty to know that his bent for outward things was in truth a snare to his higher nature, and he strove to counteract the danger by still maintaining, as far as in him lay, the regular observances of the cloister, making it his aim — to quote his own words — " to be held fast to the calm shore of prayer, as it were with the cable of an anchor, whilst he was tossed up and down by the continual waves of worldly affairs." So wrote the busy statesman-bishop thirteen hundred years ago, and in the familiar cadences of the Collect that first appears in the Sacramentary of Gregory may we not recognize the outward expression of his own inmost aspirations: "Prevent us, 0 Lord, in all cur doings with Thy most gracious favour, and further us with Thy continual help, that in all our works begun, continued and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy Holy Name " ? Was it by such a cable as this that Gregory held himself " fast to the calm shore of prayer," and consecrated his manifold secular occupations ? How many and varied those occupations were we have already seen ; and Gregory was not a man to do anything by halves. Affairs of state did not hinder him from abstruse researches into the composition of the musical scale, nor yet from the far more irksome task of instructing, rod in hand, * Quoted in Church's "Essays." 302 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xx. his little choristers in the practical art of chanting — an ordeal which was probably as trying to the teacher as to the taught. As we read the Pope's letters to his different agents all the world over, we feel that he might rightly have adopted as his own Strafford's famous motto " Thorough." From his more direct spiritual labours — the composition of his important scriptural commentaries and the delivery of his carefully prepared sermons — Gregory turns with unabated energy to his duties as landlord. No detail concerning the good management of his vast estates is beneath his attention ; whether it relates to the breeding of horses, the letting of farms, or the regulation of weights and measures ; and throughout it is striking to observe his painstaking endeavours to deal justly with every single tenant ; his honest determination not to acquiesce in conventional abuses, but to do that which he holds to be just in itself ; his earnest desire that the Church's good name should not suffer through the harshness or criminal indolence of his clerical agents. But if Gregory was humane he was none the less businesslike. He desired that the slaves on his property should be ransomed, but at as low a cost as possible. And if he was exacting in his demands upon his subordinates — " Your Experience," " Your Negligence," as he ironically designates some of these defaulters — it is to be remembered that he was no less severe towards himself ; that he held himself verily guilty of the death of a poor man who had died in the city from starvation, and did penance for the same. It is bewildering to think of the multitudes who depended for their daily bread upon the Pope's forethought. His almsgiving was on a munificent scale ; and all this catering for many hundreds — a serious matter even in times of peace — became a cause of daily anxiety in the stress and scarcity produced by war-time and the ever-growing fear of invasion. City after city had already fallen into the hands of the Lombards— the "unspeakable Lombards," as Gregory designated them — and Rome was in constant expectation of sharing the same fate. In excusing himself from replying at length to a correspondent, Gregory thus writes : " Under the weight of so great tribulations, surrounded as I am by the swords of barbarians, I am so oppressed that I cannot say much, nay, can hardly breathe." Was it, we wonder, under some such circum- stances as these that Gregory framed the prayer which we associate with his name : " Grant that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in Thy mercy " ? Imperial succours were slow in coming, and upon the Bishop of Rome devolved the duties of statesman and general. His military capacities were fully equal to the demand made upon them, and had it been an equal warfare against heathen invaders, Gregory would have been wholly in his element. As he truly said of himself on one occasion, " I suffer long, but when once I have made up my mind to suffer no longer I go joyfully to meet danger half way." Gregory did in truth effect much, but in dealing with the Lombard invaders, the Pope — whom even the reluctant Gibbon CHAP. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 303 terms " the father of the country," " the saviour of Rome " — had not a free hand. That his forces were inadequate would not have daunted his splendid courage ; he was far more hampered by the remembrance that these Lombard invaders were Arians, not heathens ; wedded, many of them, to Catholic and believing wives ; and the conviction forced itself upon him that there might b3 a more excellent way of conquering them than by the power of the sword. In the strife with the barbarians there were oocasional truces. Gregory was engaged in yet another strife which knew no truce. His hatred of the Patriarch of Constantinople only increased in intensity as the years went on. 44 John the Faster " was a self-made man of irreproachable character, given to obtruding his virtues upon the world in an aggressive fashion that was distastef al to more than Gregory ; and now he added to his offences by arrogating to himself the title of " Universal Patriarch." To some even of Gregory's contemporaries — as, for example, the Patriarch of Antioch — "the matter seemed of little moment," but Gregory's wrath knew no bounds at the assumption. He flattered himself that his letters on the subject were " sweet and humble," and in truth, speaking generally, he was an adept at conveying the most stinging reproaches in polite form ; as when he inquired of the Faster, " Did he carry his abstinence so far as to feel bound to abstain even from telling the truth ? " But sometimes he would lay aside even this pretence of courtesy, and launch into most unmeasured invective, as when he denounces the title as " foolish, proud, pestiferous, profane, wicked ; a diabolical usurpation." It is curious to remember that we owe to Gregory's determination to rebuke by his own proud humility the swelling pretensions of his rival, the fine title of "Servus Servorum," which has ever since been the official title of the Popes of Rome. Even in writing to his Imperial mastar Gregory could not always restrain his biting sarcasm ; yet at times, when great issues were at stake, he could rise to far loftier strains than he commonly employed. Thus when the emperor promulgated the edict forbidding civil servants and soldiers to enter the monastic profession, the Bishop of Rome, while Avith characteristic loyalty he accepted the hateful order, at the same time relieved his own conscience by addressing to the emperor a most memorable protest. He solemnly bids him beware how he forbids earnest-minded men " to renounce the world at the very time when the world's own end is drawing near ; " how he deprives his soldiers of the " privilege of con- version," and he reminds him, too, that it is when " God's army grows strongest in prayer that the Imperial forces do most prevail against their enemies." Then in burning words, too splendid to be paraphrased, he arraigns the emperor before a higher tribunal thau any upon earth : " Lo ! thus to thee, through me the lowest of His and thy servants, Christ makes answer, saying : ' From a notary I made thee Captain of the Guard, from Captain of the Guard Caesar, from Caisar Emperor, and not only that but father of Emperors yet to be. I have committed my priests to thy 304 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. keeping, and wouldest thou withdraw thy servants from my service ? ' Most pious lord ! I pray thee answer thy servant what reply wilt thou make to thy Lord, when He comes and says these things to thee at the Judgment ? " Thus did Gregory "by the pages of this memorandum," to use his own phrase, pay " the debt which he owed to each ; to the Emperor obedience, to God the assertion of His rights." But though Gregory never failed in outward loyalty to the emperor, it is easy to see from the whole tone of his correspondence that there was a certain soreness in his mind regarding the emperor's attitude towards him — a feeling that he was not receiving the support he might rightfully have looked for, either in his struggle with the Lombards, or in his more personal quarrel with the detested Patriarch. This may explain — nothing- can ever palliate — the want of feeling Gregory displayed at the time of the Emperor Maurice's assassination. Communication was tardy in those days, and we may well comfort ourselves with the belief that when Gregory penned his letters of fulsome congratulation to the new emperor, the murderous traitor Phocas, he was in ignorance of the heart-rending details of the wholesale butchery of the Imperial family, and with his habitual hopefulness he had already set himself to expect all possible good from the new order of things. Yet explain it as we may, Gregory's attitude towards the two emperors remains the one great blot upon his history which we are bound sorrowfully to acknowledge. In all his intercourse with Constanti- nople we see Gregory on his least attractive side, and it is refreshing to turn to a worthier aspect of him, and to mark his tender care for his newly planted churches. - From among Gregory's eight hundred letters it is very interesting to choose out those that bear upon his mission to the English — " a people shut up in a little corner of the world," as he describes them to a correspondent in Alexandria. By means of these letters to various corre- spondents we can trace out at each new stage of the work evidences of the bishop's wise forethought. When he has once chosen his messengers we see how carefully he prepares their way by enlisting as far as in him lies the sympathy and co-operation of all who may be able to render them assistance. With what eagerness does he look for tidings of their welfare ; how disappointed he is when such tidings are delayed beyond his expecta- tion ; how ready with his timely words of rebuke or encouragement ; how indefatigable in supplying each new want as it arises, taking just as much trouble on behalf of the reinforcements as he had taken for the first party of missionaries, when the scheme enjoyed all the hopeful attractiveness of novelty ! His genius for detail is as strong as ever, and in one of his earliest letters to a Gallican priest, we find him laying down careful instruc- tions as to the way in which certain Gallic money, " which is not current in our country," may be profitably laid out in Abe redemption of English slave-boys of the age of seventeen or eighteen, " with a view to their being- placed in monasteries and brought up to the service of God." Further directions follow as to the necessity of baptizing them in case of mortal chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 305 illness. Could lie write these words without recalling vividly those other English slave-boys of long ago ? Assuredly not ; and thus it was that Gregory after twenty years once more set his hand to the unfinished work which he had then been forced to lay aside. The Bishop of Rome had a valuable gift for drawing out all that was best in people. He began by taking for granted that all his correspondents had the will to help him and lacked only the opportunity ; and he was rewarded for his confidence by winning help from even the most unpromis- ing quarters. One of his fellow- workers was the Frankish queen-mother, the redoubtable Brunichildis, who has certainly not an enviable reputation in history, though in truth it is but due both to her and to Gregory to remember that opinions are divided about her ; that certain good deeds — such as the manumission of slaves and the building of churches — are undoubtedly to be reckoned to her credit, and also — what is still more to our purpose — that all the worst crimes that are rightly or wrongly imputed to her were committed after Gregory's death. We will not deny that the Bishop of Rome had a remarkable power of shutting his eyes to disagree- able facts, but history tends to show that the best side of the Austrasian queen was apt to be displayed towards Rome, and it is only charitable to suppose that Gregory knew sufficient good of her in the past to justify the praises which he lavishes upon her while he entreats her to add to her former good deeds by providing his messenger Augustine with a safe conduct, — no superfluous protection at a time and in a country where no man's head seemed to be safe on his shoulders. Who could resist the infection of Gregory's ardent zeal when he wrote : " It is a case in which souls are at stake ; " or who could fail to be gratified and stirred up to fresh activity when his small services were accepted with the grateful reminder that " he who assists in a good work makes it his own " ? In writing to the various Gallican bishops, Gregory, as is natural, adopts a more authori- tative tone, yet never omits the gracious certainty that they will be willing to do even more than he says. There was, however, one anxious moment when the mission seemed in danger of failing through the faithlessness of the missionaries them- selves. We shall have occasion elsewhere (ch. xxi.) to speak of Gregory's letter to the brethren when they wrote requesting to be released from their task. It is enough to observe here with what delicate tact he mingles rebuke with encouragement, and how unconsciously he reveals himself in those closing aspirations : " Though I am denied a part in your labours God grant that I may be an associate in your reward." It was not long before the Pope's heart was gladdened by hearing of success beyond his fondest hopes. Two deeply interesting letters refer to this time — the one addressed to Augustine, the other to Gregory's intimate friend, the Patriarch of Alexandria. We shall have more to say elsewhere of the light the first of these letters throws upon Augustine's character (ch. xxi.). Here it is sufficient to note that it is far more spiritual in tone than the majority of Gregory's letters, and that it is VOL. I. X 306 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. touching as a manifestation of the writer's great, almost fearful, joy in the outpouring of the Divine blessing upon his cherished work. But he never shows himself more lovable than in his letter to his old friend at Alexandria, whom he knows to be "capable of sympathizing deeply with the joy of others." He tells him in brief the story of the English mission — how, " by the help of your prayers it has pleased God to put in my mind to send among them as a preacher Augustine, one of the brethren in my monastery." " News," says he, " has just reached me of his well- being and wonderful deeds ; " and he goes on to tell how Augustine and his companions seemed " quite like apostles in the signs they have wrought," and how " more than ten thousand of the English are reported to have been baptized upon the same day." Then with his own peculiar gracious- ness he concludes : " I have mentioned these facts that you may know what your prayers have wrought at the farthest extremity of the world, while you are talking to me about the people of Alexandria. While your holy doings are made manifest in the place where you are, the fruit of your prayers is apparent in places where you are not." The Kentish king and queen were now added to the number of Gregory's numerous royal correspondents. To each of them he addressed one of those epistles written in the mingled style of praise and exhortation of which he was so great a master. To each of them he sent " small presents " — very probably, as to some other distant adherent, " filings from S. Peter's chain," or some similar treasure — gifts "which will not appear small when received by you with the blessing of the holy Apostle Peter." In course of time matters were so far advanced that Gregory thought fit to confer upon his English lieutenant the pall which marked the dignity of metropolitan. It is in the letter accompanying this gift that he bestows upon Augustine the fateful commission to exercise authority over " all the priests in Britain." This is neither the time nor the place to enter upon the many consequences that flowed from this commission, but on Gregory's behalf we must remember that he had no special reason to think well of the Celtic Church. In more than one of his letters we find him complaining that the " priests of the neighbouring country are neglectful " — " wanting in pastoral solicitude," and as a matter of fact we know that he had already written to remonstrate with them on this very matter. Moreover, it is easy to understand that Gregory, Koinan to the backbone as he was, could act more effectually through his well- drilled Roman subalterns than through the indirect agency of the free lances of the Celtic Church. Now that the first stage of rapid conversion was passed, there lay before Augustine the more difficult task of building up and organizing the infant Church. Many complicated questions of Church governmen and Church discipline presented themselves, and for the solution of ever perplexity the archbishop had recourse to the advice of his wise leade at Rome. In response to his numerous questions, the indefatigable Pop chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 307 wrote the long letter which Bede very properly speaks of as a separate book — " the Book of Answers." He enters with minutest care into the several questions propounded to him, satisfying his correspondent's anxious mind upon each vexed point of ceremonial observance, while yet he seeks to train him to the grasp of broad general principles ; as when he lays down the famous axiom that " Things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things." His own breadth of view is shown, not only in this letter but in one addressed to Abbot Mellitus, afterwards first Bishop of London, in which he retracts his former opinion that all idol temples are to be destroyed, and desires that they shall rather be purified for the worship of the true God, so that the new converts worshipping in familiar places may be gently led forward in the paths of holiness, inasmuch as " he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps." A lighter task than determining these difficult questions was the providing the Church at Canterbury with a bountiful supply of church furniture, vestments, relics, and, above all, books. The time was ripe now for such a gift. At an earlier stage of the mission the Pope had relied more upon pictures than upon books ; for we can hardly doubt that the banner and the painted representation of our Lord, which the missionaries bore before them in procession, were provided by the forethought of him who held that " pictures are to the unlearned what books are to the learned." Nor are we to suppose that Gregory's care for England was limited to the single kingdom of Kent. His far-sighted wisdom was occupied in shaping the much larger scheme which was to embrace the whole island, and was destined to come into operation at such time as " the City of York with the places adjoining " should have " received the word of God." So, up to the last Gregory was thinking and planning for the good of this distant Church. He did not live long enough to see the establish- ment of the Northern archbishopric, nor yet — happily for him — the storm that was to sweep over the Church at Canterbury. He was still in the full vigour of his mental powers when the enfeebled frame at last gave way, and death released him from his long sufferings. The actual day of his death was March 11, 604, but he is com- memorated on March 12, the day of his burial, a day which from the eighth century was solemnly appointed to be observed in the English Church. In the Abbey-church at Canterbury one special altar kept alive the memory of his name, and there, week by week, he and his faithful lieutenant, Augustine, were jointly remembered. There is a striking appropriateness, literal as well as figurative, in the words chosen for S. Gregory's office : " This is the prudent and faithful servant whom the Lord places over His family to give them their measure of wheat in due season." * * Roman Missal. 3 o8 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xx. We began this account of Gregory by observing how inadequately he is commemorated in this country. His famous predecessor, S. Clement, has twice the number of ancient churches, owing doubtless to the attractions of the religious romance of which he was the hero. Attractions such as these were wholly wanting in the case of the purely historic Gregory. His churches are, it is true, few in number, but for the most part they are of early date, and it would seem as though he had been more appreciated by the Saxons, who owed him so much, than by the church-builders of a later day. The Norman conquerors introduced their S. Leonards and S. Margarets of legendary fame, and the historic Gregory seems gradually to have been crowded out. His thirty ancient dedications are distributed throughout the country with tolerable impartiality from Northumberland to Devonshire, from Norfolk to Shropshire — Somersetshire, for some un- known reason, taking the lead with five such dedications, and Devonshire following closely with four. We know that in the first half of the tenth century Winchester possessed a church of S. Gregory, for it was in this very church that S. Dunstan nearly met his death from a falling brick (ch. xxi.), but it has long since disappeared. Almost equally early is the foundation of the still existing church of S. Gregory at Sudbury in Suffolk, which can be traced back as a monastery to some time prior to 970.'"* But earlier than either of these is the North Yorkshire church of Kirkdale, which was not founded but only rebuilt in the time of Edward the Confessor. In the churchyard is a curiously wrought stone dial supported by two inscribed stones, which tell in strange archaic English the past history of the ancient church : " Orm, son of Gamal," runs the inscription, " bought St. Gregory's Minster. Then it was all broken and fallen to. And he made build it new from the ground for Christ and St. Gregory in the days of Edward King, in the days of Tostig earl." | " Tostig," the brother of Harold ; " Orm " and " Gamal," the powerful Northern thanes— all these three names are well known to English history, and well known also to readers of Tennyson's "Harold." The Northumbrian church of S. Gregory at Kirk Newton is situated close to the Glen, a river in which one of Gregory's own missionaries, S. Paulinus, is recorded to have baptized many hundreds of converts.^ Is it unreasonable to please ourselves with the fancy that it was through this channel that the name of Gregory the Great became familiar in far-distant Northumberland ? But the English city where above all we should look to find some memorial of S. Gregory is Canterbury ; and we are not wholly disappointed, though here again the commemoration is singularly inadequate. A sculp- tured effigy of the great Pope above the south porch of the cathedral is scarcely to be distinguished from any other of the Canterbury benefactors ; * " Eng. Illus." t Bishop of Bristol's " Conversion of the Heptarchy." % Arch. Journal, vol. 42, chap. xx. BISHOPS OF ROME—S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 309 and while Augustine has his abbey, and the cathedral bears the Name that is above every name, S. Gregory is honoured only by one of the numerous parish churches that abound in the city. "We may be the more glad, however, of this memorial such as it is, since the monastery which Lanfranc dedicated in his name in Northgate (a.d. 1084) has long since disappeared. When we come to the City of London we shall be obliged, if we follow the skilled guidance of Mr. Loftie, to admit regretfully that S. Gregory's by S. Paul's is most probably " post-Conquest," — one, says he, of the ring of small churches round S. Paul's, built by the Dean and Chapter in the half- century succeeding the Conquest, for the use of the burghers, and doubt- less named by them.* The interesting, if purely accidental, juxtaposition of the two City churches of S. Gregory and S. Augustine which occurs close to S. Paul's is found in other cities, notably in Canterbury and in Norwich. In three instances at least, in small country parishes, there seems some hesitation whether the patron saint is S. Gregory or S. George. In all such cases we may unhesitatingly believe in S. Gregory's claim, inasmuch as his is by far the least familiar name of the two, and very liable, therefore, to be superseded in the Middle Ages by that universal favourite, S. George. Our only modern recognition of S. Gregory appears to be at Crakehall in the North Riding of Yorkshire, most properly so named from its con- nexion with the mother-parish of S. Gregory at Bedale. It has been the tendency of our English dedications, more especially in the last half -century, to glorify the faithful but unoriginal agent, Augustine, at the expense of his great master, S. Gregory. By this choice of ours we have suffered very real loss, for if we may be allowed to adapt an often- quoted phrase, we should end as we began by declaring, " It is Gregory, not Augustine, who is the Apostle of the English." f * " Historic Towns," London. Church:" "It is Aidan, not Augustine, t Lightfoot, " Leaders of the Northern who is the true Apostle of the English." CHAPTER XXL ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY. 310 322 323 323 338 345 NAME. DAY. S. Augustine, or Austin ... May 26 ... S. Laurentius February 2 cf. S. Laurence. 8. Justus November 10 of. S. Justus the Boy-martyr, ch. li. S. Dunstan ... S. Alphege, M. S. Anselm ... 349 S. Thomas of Canterbury, M. 362 | 8. Edmund of Pontigny May 19 ... April 19... April 21... December 29 trans. J uly 7 November 16 YEAR. CHURCHES. 605 . 57 619 ., ,. Doubtful 627 . . . Doubtful 988 ., 18 i 1012 .. 6 1109 . 3 1170 . 70 , 1242 ., .. Doubtful cf. S. Edmund, K M., ch. xxxix. S.Augustine, ^ N tne vei 7 7 ear of Augustine's memorable landing in or Austin. Thanet, in the very month that witnessed King Ethelbert's May 26, 605. i^p^g^ there passed away in the distant island of Iona one of the greatest lights of the Celtic Church, S. Columba the Abbot. Many circumstances have conduced to turn the attention of English Churchmen to the debt of gratitude which they owe to the Celtic branch of the Church. We have heard on high authority * the famous dictum that " Aidan, not Augustine, is the true Apostle of England." We are led back to Aidan's island home at Iona, and bidden to contrast the genius, the breadth, of Iona's first abbot, the loving-hearted Columba, with the supposed narrow- ness and timidity of the Roman Augustine. Such comparisons are con- tinually made, and it would be idle to dispute that the personality of Columba is a hundred times more attractive than the personality of Augustine ; and yet, for all that, the mission of Augustine has a living and present interest for ui which is wanting in the story of the missionary labours of his great contemporary. Iona may be to us still a place of pious pilgrimage, but Canterbury is to this day the symbol and centre of the Church in these islands. The abbots of Iona wielded a mighty power for good in their time, but their succession has failed long since, while the ninety-three Archbishops of Canterbury have followed one another in an unbroken line from the sixth century to the close of the nineteenth. The * Bishop Lightfoot. chap. xxi. ARCHBISHOPS OP CANTERBURY— S.AUGUSTINE. 3 1 1 story which begins with the coming of Augustine is still an unfinished story, and the names and incidents therein recorded link together the new and the old with a closeness that teaches many a striking lesson as to the continuity of our English Church history. "We may look back with thank- fulness to the great work done by men such as Columba, Kentigern, David, Aidan, but we cannot for a moment persuade ourselves that Iona, or Llan-Elwy, or St. David's, or even our own Lindisfarne, has the same precious associations for us as Canterbury. In a most true sense we may say that Canterbury is the cradle of our English Christianity. But not a few writers have complained that while the story is in itself so interesting and dramatic, it is marred by the weakness of the central figure : Augustine is felt to be unworthy of his setting. Now, it is just this very matter of Augustine's personal character with which we are most nearly concerned. It is not necessary for us to tell again here the oft-told story of his mission with its successes and failures, or to enter into the far-reaching controversies that surround his every act. Here as elsewhere our aim is to determine how far S. Augustine of Canterbury — it is sheer pedantry to deny him his accustomed title of " Saint," * even though he may never have been formally canonized — is worthy of the high place which he holds among the patron saints of our country. To some of us it seems that Augustine has been very hardly dealt with. Let us at once admit that when we come to take account of the mighty men, we must rank him among those who " attained not unto the first three ; " yet there is surely very insufficient justification for saying with the late Dean Stanley : " I must confess that what little is told of him " (Augustine) " leaves an unfavourable impression behind." | In the beginning of the same sentence, however, the dean observes that he has said little of Augustine " because so little is known of him." And this brings us to a very noticeable point in our estimate of the first Archbishop of Canterbury, for it suggests the thought that while we know the private lives of many of the Saints — know them as they were known to their most intimate friends — we know Augustine purely in his official capacity. We have the official letters and documents carefully stored up in the Eoman archives ; we have more or less imperfect records of his sermons and speeches, with full accounts of- the external aspects of the various ceremonies and meetings in which he took part ; but never once do we catch sight of the man out of his official relations. If we knew Augustine from his boyhood upwards as we know Dunstan, or Wilfrid, or Cuthbert, our impression might be wonderfully softened. And there is another point which is worth bearing in mind. It has * Mr. Surtees, for example, writing in Father ; " and he quotes the high authority the Journal of the British Archaeological of Wheatley, the Prayer-book commen- Association for 1884, protests strongly tator, who draws a careful distinction against the confusion that is engendered between "Austin the Monk" and " Saint by bestowing upon both Augustines the Augustin," the fifth-century Father, "title of canonization which alone of t "Canterbury." the two Augustines should belong to the 312 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xxi. been truly said that he suffers by being forced into comparison with his great chief Gregory,* but in some respects Augustine had a harder task than Gregory. It is comparatively easy for a master mind, imbued with high enthusiasm for a scheme of its own devising — a scheme of which every detail has been worked out with ablest forethought — to make light of all the difficulties of the way ; but such buoyancy of spirit is less easy for a deputy who has none of this inward enthusiasm to buoy him up, no grand ideal of the final end to which his painful efforts are tending, and who acts only in obedience to the instructions given by another. Throughout his career we recognize in Augustine the faithful deputy ; we feel that it is Gregory who is the real leader of the expedition. Augustine has not the boldness to accept responsibilities, to know when to make exceptions ; everything has to be referred to his chief at home, and this cripples his action to a lamentable extent. The Bishop of Bristol amusingly says, regarding these appeals for the minutest instructions : " We can imagine that behind the scenes Gregory was just a little cross with this corre- spondent of his, just a little impatient that he seemed so little able to go alone ; " \ but yet it may be doubted whether Gregory would have entirely wished during his lifetime to surrender into any other hands the manage- ment of this beloved infant Church, however much of national liberty he might be disposed to accord to it in the future. At any rate, whatever Augustine lacks in originality, no one can dispute his conscientiousness, his obedience, his noble perseverance. To this tribute his contemporaries would have been in haste to add — that none who saw him in the midst of his laborious work could dispute the reality of the miracles which accom- panied those labours, sealing them as it were with the Divine approval. Yet even these miracles, which once were Augustine's crown of honour, have been used as a weapon for his disparagement. More than enough has been made of Gregory's famous letter on this subject, bidding his " most dear brother " not to be unduly exalted by the wonderful gift entrusted to him. " I know, most loving brother," he begins, " that Almighty God, by means of your affection, shows great miracles in the nation which He has chosen. Wherefore it is necessary that you rejoice with fear, and tremble while you rejoice, on account of the heavenly gift." A warning, however, is not necessarily to be construed as implying a rebuke, and we can conceive that S. Gregory may have been exhorting himself almost as much as Augustine, for how must his heart have been lifted up within him as he wrote to his friend, the Patriarch of Alexandria, the glorious tidings of the baptism on one day of ten thousand of the English ! But we have gone too fast, and must turn back to the moment when we first become acquainted with the prior of S. Andrew's Monastery on the Caelian Hill, standing, with his band of monks, on the threshold of his unknown and arduous task. That first sight of Augustine shows him at a disadvantage ; depressed by the hitherto unrealized dangers of the way, distracted by the grumblings and dissensions of his fellow-travellers, * Montalembert. f " Augustine and his Companions." chap. xxi. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY— S.A UGUSTINE. 3 1 3 hesitating in his own mind whether under such adverse circumstances it were his duty to go forward or to go back. We all know the issue of the matter — how some of the party remained in the peaceful shelter of the monastery of Lerins, while Augustine returned to Rome to state the whole case and to get further instructions ; and how Gregory sent him forth anew, armed with fullest authority and with written orders in which encouragement and rebuke were so wisely intermingled that even the most half-hearted must have felt himself stirred to a nobler enthusiasm. Never again in the hard seven years that lay before him do we hear a whisper of Augustine's losing heart or seeking to be released from any hard duty ; but in men's judgments of him the impression of that one hour of weakness has never been forgotten. The common opinion among the travellers was that " it was safer to go back." The Bishop of Bristol, commenting on Bede's use of the word safer* says severely : " How many a noble work would never have been done, how many a triumph for Christ would never have been accomplished, if this unmissionary word had been found in the missionary's dictionary." Well, Augustine did consider very carefully — though whether for his own sake or that of his companions for whom he was responsible we know not — this question of safety. He was not by nature a hero ; dangers and discomforts had no attraction for him ; aud he had none of his chief's hopeful anticipations about the strange people to whom he was sent ; but yet is there not something truly heroic in the way in which duty is made to bear the part of inclination ? Augustine will not go forward into unknown paths upon his own responsibility, but once let him be assured that he is in the straight way of duty and he will not flinch. And so the missionary abbot with his forty companions f and his Frankish interpreters, "strengthened," as Bede tells us, "by the confirmation of the blessed Father Gregory, returned to the work of the word of God, with the servants of Christ, and arrived in Britain." As it happens so often, Augustine found the reality a thousand times better than his fears. He had been led to expect not idolaters only, but " savages of uncouth manners and barbarous speech." Even supposing he * Tutius. t The eleventh-century life by Gos- celin, a monk of S. Augustine's, puts the number at forty. From this source is derived our knowledge of Augustine's striking personal appearance and immense height, and some few other details which have become inseparable from our concep- tion of the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Undoubtedly many traditions concerning the famous missionary still lingered round Canterbury in Goscelin's time, but his elaborate versions of Augustine's ser- mons and speeches may be taken as re- presenting rather what the biographer thought the speaker should have said than what Augustine actually did say; and he is, moreover, a veritable legend- monger, filling up the most meagre out- lines with an unhesitating hand. The Bishop of Bristol, in speaking of the unlucky confusion that arose in the matter of the baptism of the ten thousand con- verts, between the Kentish Swale and the Yorkshire river of that name, says : " The mediaeval chroniclers and writers of lives had to take Augustine up into North- umbria, and to invent the details of his preaching and baptizing there. This they did very thoroughly while they were about it." It is this very " thoroughness," this determination to paint a complete picture with or without trustworthy materials, which marks so strikingly the difference between these mediaeval biographies and the sober narrative of Bede. 3H STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xxi. survived the perils of the journey, he had been warned of the likelihood of a cruel death waiting him at the end of it, and now what he actually found was a king already favourably inclined to his coming, willing himself to hearken to his message, ready to give him every facility for preaching the new Faith to the people at large. Surely when Augustine perceived the contrast between his anticipations and the happy reality, he must have felt called to thank God and take courage. Few scenes in English history are at once more familiar and more striking than that first memorable meeting between Ethelbert and Augustine in the Isle of Thanet. The leader of the mission on his side had left nothing undone that might add to the impressiveness of his entry into this new land, the land of which he sought to take possession in the name of Christ. The southern capacity for ordering a pageant shone forth con- spicuously in that procession with its choir, its silver cross, its pictured representation of the Truth which Augustine had come to declare. Eye and ear were arrested before the appeal to the understanding had begun. What would we not give for a trustworthy report of that all-important sermon ? But we can gather the general drift of it from the king's famous answer, and from what Bede says elsewhere as to the tenor of the missionary's ordinary teaching. The strangers' " words and promises were very fair," and they were free to win as many as they would to their own religion, seeing they had themselves made it plain that " the service of Christ ought to be voluntary, not by compulsion." But, after all F "the sweetness of the heavenly doctrine" which the new-comers expounded was not to the mind of our heathen forefathers their only, perhaps not even their strongest, argument. Then as now attention was eagerly turned upon the lives of the preachers themselves, and it was found that the witness of their daily lives was in harmony with their teaching. " As soon," says Bede, " as they entered the dwelling-place assigned them they began to imitate the course of life practised in the primitive Church ; applying themselves to frequent prayer, watching and fasting ; preaching the word of life to as many as they could ; receiving only their necessary food from those they taught ; living themselves in all respects conformably to what they prescribed to others, and being always disposed to suffer any adversity, and even to die for that truth which they preached." The tone of a mission must in large measure be given by its leader, and we may judge from the last sentence that Gregory's noble call to greater courage, greater faith, had not been thrown away upon Augustine. And so the " unspotted life of these holy men," combined with their pro- mises of eternal good, and with the sight of the miracles which they wrought each day, drew more and more into " the unity of the Church of Christ." Such was the fair beginning of that wonderful religious movement throughout the whole kingdom of Kent which resulted in the conversion and baptism of thousands, and which in many of its features — its ex- traordinary rapidity, its irresistible fervour — reminds us of the like movement going on in our own days out in Uganda. chap. xxi. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY- S.AUGUSTINE. 3 I 5 For some six years — broken only so far as we know by a single visit to Aries for the purpose of his consecration as bishop — Augustine remained in Kent, labouring as indefatigably as his master Gregory could himself have laboured. It is in these years that Augustine is seen at his very best. It is astonishing to think of the amount of work of permanent value that was crowded into the space between the king's baptism on the Whitsun Eve of 597 and Augustine's journey to the West in 603. The mere correspondence with Koine must have been no small item, when all the details great and small for the present and future government of an infant Church of indefinitely vast possibilities had to be arranged by letter. The principles of the grand undertaking were, it is true, laid down by S. Gregory, but it is obvious that he must have relied upon Augustine for all his knowledge of particulars, and we know that it was Augustine who was ultimately responsible for carrying out those principles. How much diligence in preaching is implied by the very fact of which Gregory so thankfully tells — the baptism of those ten thousand catechumens on Christmas Day ! Without for a moment imagining that it represents a tithe of the labour which a missionary of our time would have felt bound to bestow before admitting converts to baptism, we are certain that so wondrous an effect cannot have been produced without some corresponding toil. We do not desire to speak as though Augustine were labouring single- handed ; besides the companions he had brought with him, fresh reinforce- ments had now been sent to his help, yet the burden of leadership still rested on him, and to this burden Gregory added a weight, heavier than he himself perhaps realized, when he bestowed upon Augustine the " pall " which was the symbol of his metropolitan authority, not only over the bishops he should hereafter consecrate, but over the existing bishops of the British Church, driven back by the advancing tide of Saxon heathendom to the western regions of our island. There is, moreover, some reason for suspecting that in spite of the warm support of both king and queen, in spite, too, of the marvellous accession of converts, the reception of the missionaries was not always as friendly as might be supposed. Bede's statement that they were ready to " suffer any adversity, and even to die for that truth which they preached," seems to hint that there was a dark side to the glowing picture even here, and William of Malmesbury's and Goscelin's elaborate stories of personal insult and rough treatment, though disagreeing as to the locality where they occurred, may not improbably represent in distorted form some genuine tradition. But in addition to the direct evangelizing work — in addition to such momentous problems as those of Church government, unity with the Celtic branch of the Church, the toleration of heathen customs not in themselves blamable — Augustine had abundant occupation of a different, and perhaps we may fairly say, of a more congenial kind. It was at once his duty and his delight to reproduce in this barbarous land some likeness of his native Rome, the well-beloved home which he was never more to see. If the first Archbishop of Canterbury was not a great statesman, at least he 316 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICA TIONS. chap. xxi. was a great organizer, and under his guidance the work of church-building went on rapidly. The tiny church founded by Queen Bertha in honour of S. Martin could no longer supply the wants of the fast-multiplying population, and Augustine set himself to provide by every means in his power the needful places of worship, and upon each several building he bestowed some name that was endeared to him by association with his Eoman home. The monastery church, which with the help of King Ethelbert he built to be both the home and the burial-place of his monks, received its name of " SS. Peter and Paul " from the Eoman monastery of that name, which had sent forth one of their number ; the idol temple which, following Gregory's brave counsels, he reclaimed from its old evil uses for the worship of the living God, was dedicated to the Roman boy, Pancras, whose name was a household word among those who had been brought up under Gregory's care (ch. xvi.) ; and we can hardly doubt that when Augustine reclaimed to its proper use a nameless disused church, built in the Eoman period, and consecrated it afresh " in the name of our Holy Saviour, God and Lord, Jesus Christ," * his choice was dictated as much by the memory of a famous church in Eome so named as by the inherent appropriateness of the dedication. It is this "church of the Saviour," commonly called Christ Church, which we know in its present glorious form as Canterbury Cathedral ; and most cordially may we rejoice that, whether by accident or design, the metropolitan church of England is dedicated to none other than to our Saviour Himself. The same tendency to surround himself with the familiar Eoman names is seen in Augustine's later dedications, as to S. Andrew at Eochester, reproduced plainly from his own monastery of S. Andrew on the Cselian Hill, and to S. Paul in London, from another notable Eoman church of that name. A fuller account of the various dedication-names bestowed by Augustine and his fellow-workers, including one less familiar sounding than the rest in honour of " The Four Crowned Martyrs," f will be found under the names of the several saints. They have, as more than one writer % has pointed out, a peculiar value as offering an excellent illustration of the influences that govern the choice of Dedications ; but our present purpose is only to call attention to them as explaining a very marked and touching trait in Augus- tine's character — namely, his love of all things homelike and familiar. All these new churches required books and fittings, and it is easy to imagine the archbishop's delight when he received from the ever- thoughtful Gregory " all things that were necessary for the worship and service of the Church " — sacred vessels and gorgeous vestments, ornaments and precious relics, and, above all, " many books." These gifts and books — " the mother-books of England," as Dean Stanley quaintly calls them — were treasured in Canterbury for seven centuries at least ; and it is a thrilling thought that while the rest have slowly disappeared, each of our Universities still claims — and it is believed with good reason — to possess * Bede. t Ch. li. X Stanley's " Canterbury " and the Bishop of Bristol's " Augustine." chap. xxi. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY— S.AUGUSTINE. 3 I 7 a treasured copy of the very Gospels sent to England by Gregory close upon thirteen hundred years ago. So all went prosperously, and if Augustine had never travelled beyond his first happy sphere of influence, we should be disposed to reckon him among our greatest benefactors. But now there lay before him a task requiring something more than the self-devotion and pains which he gave so ungrudgingly ; requiring a delicacy of touch and a breadth of view which are no common endowments. From the first Gregory had set before his mind the importance of drawing closer the relations between the Roman Church and the ancient British Christians, to the double intent that the unity of the Church might be restored, and that the con- version of the heathen English might, by their joint endeavours, be pro- moted. It was a noble ideal, and it was for the carrying out of this ideal that Augustine, with the support of his good friend Ethelbert, undertook his fateful journey to the West to attend a pre-arranged conference of the " British bishops or doctors." In this, as in many another case, more perfect knowledge of the circumstances might greatly modify our judgment. The vigorous description in the pages of Bede of the two famous " Synods of the Oak " give us at first the sense that we know the whole matter from beginning to end ; it is only upon closer reflection that we perceive that, in spite of the extraordinary vividness of the picture, we are as far as ever from a comprehension of the hidden vital points of motive and principle on which the whole issue really depended. We are at fault even in such a purely external matter as the very place of meeting. We know that it took place under the shadow of a great forest tree, at a spot con- cerning which Bede could affirm that " to this day it is called Augustine's oak ; " but whether that place is, as generally supposed, to be identified with Aust in Gloucestershire, or, as has more recently been suggested, with Cricklade in Wiltshire," we know not. The precise locality, however, is of small account ; it is the men and the motives that concern us. We cannot repress a smile when we read the Bishop of Bristol's humorous description of the meeting between "the tall, gaunt, self-satisfied man from Italy " and " the thick-set, self-satisfied men from Wales ; " and yet we feel in our hearts that " self-satisfied " is not a just epithet for Augus- tine. The impression left on our minds by Bede's narrative is that Augustine came to the synod with an honest and prayerful desire for reunion, and with a full readiness to make all the concessions that he could conscientiously make ; but it is evident that he did not meet the British bishops with any feeling of equality, but that he was consciously acting throughout as the representative of a greater power ; that he had ever before his mind the authority entrusted to him over these British bishops, the duty laid upon him of " teaching the unlearned, correcting the erring and bringing them back to the rule of the right faith." The unhappy seeming breach of courtesy, which in the end wrecked the whole conference, the archbishop's failure to rise from his seat at the approach * See the Bishop of Bristol's striking arguments in favour of Cricklade. 3 18 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xxi. of the British, delegates, is all in keeping with his conception of his position as the ambassador of Eonie. He continued sitting " according to the Soman fashion, 1 ' as says a later chronicler, but the whole tenor of his after-speeches shows that he had no intention of giving offence. Far from it ; he even then, when passions had grown heated, declares his willingness, if agreement could be reached on the three vital points, " readily to tolerate all the other things you do, though contrary to our customs." A greater man might perchance have yielded to his natural instincts of courtesy, but here once more it is well to remember that Augustine was no Gregory, but only Gregory's deputy. As to the three points on which the archbishop finally took his stand, present-day opinion will differ as to their relative importance. The question of the right keeping of Easter was, as we know, bound up with the question of the visible Unity of the Church ; it seems possible that the second matter, of conforming the Celtic manner of administering baptism to the Eoman manner, involved much more than mere differences of ritual ; and as to the third condition, that the British Church should unite with the Roman in " preaching the word of God to the English nation," the refusal of the British to agree to that deprives them of much of our sympathy. There- upon the hapless conference broke up in bitterness of spirit ; broke up with Augustine's stern predictions of the evils that must surely befall the British Christians if they persisted in their refusal to preach the way of life to the English nation. And so a splendid opportunity was lost ; great possibilities dawned brightly only to -fade gloomily away. It is no consolation to say that there were faults and misunderstandings on both sides, and that both Churches alike may share the blame. Few who care for the " peace of Jerusalem " can read without sorrow the story of the Synod of Augus- tine's Oak, and it is pleasanter to follow Augustine as he returns into Kent, and once more patiently sets himself to all the work of internal Church organization of which he is such a master. In the brief space that remained much was effected. Due provision was made by the consecration of Mellitus as Bishop of London for the needs of the East Saxons who had newly " received the word of truth." Justus, another of Augustine's fellow-workers, was made Bishop of Rochester ; and lastly, the archbishop took the unusual step of conse- crating while he still lived his own chosen successor, Laurentius, in order that the yet unsettled Church might not be " tempted to falter " through finding itself " destitute cf a pastor, though but for one hour." Augustine's work was done. " The foundations of the Church," as Laurentius afterwards acknowledged, " had been nobly laid ; " it remained for others to complete what was well begun. His part ended with the conversion of all the kingdom of Kent, and the establishment of a missionary bishopric among the East Saxons. Of the grand ideal sketched out by S. Gregory, the greater portion remained unfulfilled ; but, says the Bishop of Bristol, defending \ugustine against the frequently repeated CHAP.xxi. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY— S. AUGUSTINE. 319 charge of having accomplished less than was to be expected of him : " Those who thus estimate the size of his work disregard the dominant fact of its shortness." " When," asks the bishop, " was a larger work done in a shorter time than his conversion of Ethelbert and of all the kingdom of Kent, the most powerful kingdom in this land ? He had in all about seven years in which to work, from his first landing to his death." The bishop goes on to enumerate all the labours crowded into that brief period, and thus concludes : " It is vastly easier for any of us to say how little he ever did, than to do more in the time," a conclusion which but few who have carefully followed his history will be found to dispute. Characteristically enough, the record of Augustine's life closes with the record of his latest public work. Bede tells us of the bishops whom he ordained to carry on and extend his work, of his care for the new Church of the East Saxons, and then briefly adds : " After this the beloved of God, Father Augustine, died." The day of his death was, as we know, the 26th of May, the day on which he is still commemorated in our Prayer-book Kalendar : as to the year, there is some doubt between 604 and 605, but at least it took place soon enough to spare him the knowledge of the storm that was about to burst upon the newly planted Church. We pass now from the man himself to the many memorials of him. As might be expected from the immense interest attaching to the subject, the whole question of Augustine's landing-place and all local traditions connected with it have been most carefully investigated. The pre- ponderance of evidence seems to point to Ebbs Fleet in the Isle of Thanet (in the parish of Minster), a spot already made famous as the landing-place of Hengist and Horsa. Some years ago. (1884) the late Lord Granville caused to be erected in this place a noble cross of highly finished workmanship, which bears a Latin inscription to the effect that it is placed there to keep in remembrance the fact that "Augustine, after so many labours on land and at sea, at a conference with King Ethelbert on this spot, delivered his first discourse to our people." This cross occupies the place of an ancient oak-tree under which, according to tradition, the meeting took place, a tradition which receives some further support from the existence in a field hard by of " Augustine's Well," " a pure spring which is said never to fail," and also from the farm called " Cotmanfeld," # a name which is " supposed to mean the Field of the Man of God, in reference to Augustine." But, indeed, the whole district is rich in memories of this eventful landing. At no great distance from Ebbs Fleet are the magnificent ruins of the Roman fortress of Richborough. Without pausing to offer any explanation of the mysterious cross within the castle which has puzzled so many archaeologists, and which is sometimes connected with the name of Augustine, we have the authority of Leland for claiming that at least * Cotmanfeld is now still further cor- lowing account of Ebbs Fleet, see rupted into " Cottington." For the fol- " Augustine and his Companions." 320 STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xxi. one undoubted memorial of the great missionary did in his time exist within the castle walls. When Leland visited the castle the " little paroche church of S. Augustine " was still standing, but every trace of it has now vanished. But though the church has vanished, one other memorial of Augustine may be seen to this day in those strange crossings and re-crossings in the adjoining cornfields which have been observed by so many generations. The prosaic modern explanation of them makes them the tracks of the Roman streets, but the more poetic imagination of our forefathers felicitously designated them " S. Augustine's Cross." * Among the churches bearing Augustine's name that stood nearest to this memorable scene were Stonar and Northbourne. Stonar, unfortunately, has fallen into decay and has had to be demolished ; but Northbourne was only very recently (on the occasion of the erection of a new lych- gate) recalling its proud associations with the birthplace of Kentish Christianity. But of all the memorials of Augustine none can approach in interest the monastery-church which he himself founded in his metropolitan city of Canterbury, and in which, according to his own desire, he was buried. This monastery was still unfinished and unconsecrated at the time of its founder's death, so we cannot be quite certain that he himself made choice of the dedication-name by which it was known for three hundred years, u SS. Peter and Paul." At the end of that time another Archbishop of Canterbury, S. Dunstan, substituted the name of its founder, S. Augustine, in place of the scriptural patrons, a change which has endured for another nine hundred years. We cannot complain of a change so rich in historical associations. Every one knows how the monastery ruins, after passing through many vicissitudes, have been converted into a centre of far-reaching evangelistic work as a training college for missionary students, and every one can feel the wonderful appropriateness of the place to its object. There are about twenty-seven pre-Eeformation churches dedicated in the name of S. Augustine, and the question suggests itself : Are any of these churches intended for the Father of the Church, S. Augustine of Hippo ? The point has been discussed elsewhere (p. 272), and it has been shown that the balance of probability is in favour of their having all been intended for the Archbishop of Canterbury ; but attention must be once more called to the number of Augustine churches which have some connexion with the great Augustinian Order, proving at any rate that if the Augustinian priories did not dedicate their churches to their own especial patron, they at least delighted in doing honour to him in- directly by making choice of his namesake. S. Augustine the Less at Bristol, adjoining the cathedral, which itself was originally dedicated to S. Augustine (though now under the invocation of the Holy Trinity), S. Augustine de Wick at Dodderhill in Worcestershire, Ashen in Essex, and Hedon in Yorkshire, all furnish examples of what has just been said. * Camden. chap. xxi. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY— S. A UGUSTINE. 32 I So does Alston in Cumberland, which belonged to the Augustinian Canons of Hexham ; but here, as though to demonstrate that the ostensible object was to do honour to the saint of Canterbury, not of Hippo, one of the yearly fairs was appointed to be kept on the last Thursday in May. Until we can find a pre-Reformation church of S. Augustine that keeps its feast on August 28, we fear we must ascribe them all to Augustine of Canterbury. Kent, as is right and fitting, leads the way with five parochial churches * dedicated to S. Augustine, not to mention the chapel of the missionary college which still makes his name a household word in Canterbury. Yorkshire follows next. The dedications in this distant northern county may possibly in part be accounted for by the popularity of the mediaeval narratives of the archbishop's journey to York and the miracles which he wrought there. This whole journey has been shown to rest on a mis- conception between the Kentish Swale and the Yorkshire river of the same name, but the later chroniclers also tell of another journey down into Dorsetshire, of which again Bede knows nothing. If it happened at all it must have been after the conference with the British bishops at the Synod of the Oak ; but considering the extreme slowness and difficulty of travelling in the less settled parts of England at this period, it is hard to see how Augustine could afford in the brief time at his disposal so serious a prolongation of his journey as must have been involved by the supposed visit to Dorsetshire. At any rate, the particulars of his visit are so manifestly untrustworthy that we may freely dismiss them. For the honour of Dorsetshire we may hope that the inhabitants of Cerne Abbas did not insult Augustine and his companions and fasten fishes' tails to their garments ; but at least we are certain that Augustine did not call down upon them the cruel supernatural chastisements which are said to have' brought them to a better frame of mind. A hasty conversion is reported to have ensued, and when water was lacking wherein to baptize the converts, a pure spring burst forth miraculously to supply the need. The spring bears to this day the name of S. Augustine's Well, and was doubtless regarded by many generations as a clear proof of the truth of the whole affair. The entire story is best forgotten, and may be dismissed in company with the highly circumstantial account of his visit to Oxford, and his apocryphal conversation at Cumnor on the subject of tithes. It is remarkable, by the way, what bold claims have been made on behalf of Oxford with intent to link her with all the great names of the past, but it must be owned that such stories were more to the taste of our ancestors than they are to ourselves, and it may be that they have influenced the West-country dedications in honour of S. Augustine in Devonshire, Somerset, Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire, though in the two last- named counties at least we can trace a different influence in the presence of the Augustinian Priories. The remaining pre-Reformation churches of S. Augustine — and the * Including the now demolished Stonar. VOL. I. ' Y STUDIES IN CHURCH DEDICATIONS. chap. xxi. total number is not large, far smaller than it would have been had he been a hermit instead of what in modern phrase we might call " a man of action " — are pretty widely distributed throughout England, in counties as far removed from direct Kentish influences as Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Berkshire, Staffordshire, Monmouthshire. London has been ungrateful to its benefactors ; its first bishop, Mellitus, is not remembered at all, and Augustine is commemorated only by a single church adjacent to S. Paul's Cathedral, known as " S. Augustine, Watling Street," or, more anciently, as " S. Augustine ad Portam," from its situation close to the gate of S. Paul's Churchyard. By a happy coincidence it stands at no great distance from the City church dedicated to the honour of his great chief, S. Gregory — a suggestive juxtaposition which we find also at Canterbury and at Norwich. In late years London's debt to Augustine has been in a measure discharged by the erection of some half-dozen churches in his honour in or near the metropolis. It is right that there should be such dedications in Kent and Middlesex, in the districts where the personal influence of the great arch- bishop made itself most felt ; but it is no less right that he sbould be honoured throughout the whole country — even in far Northumberland. Local and historical associations are very precious, but this is a case in which we must refuse to be bound by them, inasmuch as the entire length and breadth of England has reaped a blessing from the coming and the labours of S. Augustine of Canterbury. The early Archbishops of Canterbury would be well Feb a 2 r 6l9. MS represented amongst us if we could accept the statements which add both Laurentius, the immediate successor of Augustine, and Justus, fourth in the line, to the saints who have been chosen as pitrons of our English churches ; but in neither case does the assertion rest on any good ground. The Bishop of Oxford says with characteristic caution that "out of the two hundred and fifty churches in England which are dedicated to St. Laurence the Deacon, some few maybe held to commemorate the successor of Augustine, or to have been indebted for their names to the reverence inspired by the two conjointly ; " * but Murray's " Kent " goes much further than this, and says of the venerable Kentish parish of St. Laurence in Thanet that " the church was founded in 1062 and named after Lawrence the companion of Augustine, and second Archbishop of Canterbury," an assertion which is clearly shown to be erroneous by the fact that the parish feast in olden times was observed on August 10, the well-known feast of S. Laurence the Deacon. As a general rule it may be safely declared that the popular young Roman deacon is a much more probable patron than his not very famous or heroic namesake of Canterbury ; but if any case could be found of a church bearing the name of S. Laurence and keeping its feast on February 2, Ave should welcome it as a rare example of a genuine dedication to the arch- bishop. In Scotland, curiously enough, he seems to have been more honoured than in England. There is a late legend, originating possibly in * Stubbs in D. C. B. CHAP. XXI. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY— S. DUNS TAN. 323 his real endeavours to reconcile the Celtic Christians, which makes S. Laurence of Canterbury undertake a journey into " Pictland ; " and the learned Bishop Forbes was of opinion that Lawrencekirk in Kincardine owed its name to the church there dedicated " in honour of the English primate." * The scene of these legendary missionary labours is, however, more generally supposed to have been Northern Ireland.f The claims of S. Justus, first Bishop of Rochester and Nov M ?