} and wishing to know whether the world the presence of all the faithful; and the was eternal or had been created-he said to him, "Fail not to write to m brother James as soon as I am dead.” This letter seems to prove, that it wa not then believed that St. Peter had suf fered martyrdom, since it is probable the this letter, attributed to St. Clemen {would have mentioned the circumstance It also proves, that Cletus and Anacletu were not reckoned among the bishops Rome. whether there were a Tartarus and a Phlegethon, an Ixion and a Tantalus, &c., resolved to go into Egypt to learn necromancy; but having heard of St. Bartholomew, who was preaching Christianity, he went to him in the East, at the time when Barnabas was celebrating a Jewish feast. He afterwards met St. Peter at Cæsarea with Simon the magician and Zachæus. They disputed together, and St. Peter related to them all that had passed since the death of Jesus. Clement turned Christian, but Simon remained a magician. XXIV. St. Clement's Homilies, to the numbe of nineteen. He says in his first homily what he had already said in his con fessions-that he went to St. Peter and St. Barnabas at Cæsarea, to know whethe the soul was immortal, and the worl In the second homily, No. xxxviii. w find a much more extraordinary passage St. Peter himself, speaking of the Ol Testament, expresses himself thus Simon fell in love with a woman named Luna; and, while waiting to marry her, he proposed to St. Peter, to Zachæus, toeternal. Nicodemus, to Dositheus, and to several others, that they should become his disciples. Dositheus answered him at once with a blow from a stick; but the stick having passed through Simon's body as if it had been smoke, Dositheus worshipped him and became his lieutenant; after which Simon married his mistress, and declared that she was Luna herself, descended from heaven to marry him. But enough of the Confessions of St. Clement. It must however be remarked, that in the ninth book the Chinese are spoken of under the name of Seres, as the justest and wisest of mankind. After them come the Brahmins, to whom the author does the justice that was rendered them by all antiquity, He cites them as models of soberness, mildness, and jus tice. XXIII. "The written law contains certa false things against the law of God, the Creator of heaven and earth: the devi has done this, for good reasons; it ha also come to pass through the judgment: of God, in order to discover such as would listen with pleasure to what is written against him," &c. &c. In the sixth homily, St. Clement meets with Appian, the same who had written against the Jews in the time of Tiberius He tells Appian that he is in love with an Egyptian woman, and begs that he will write a letter in his name to his pretended mistress, to convince her, by the example of all the gods, that love is a duty. Appian writes a letter, and St. Clement an XXV. St. Peter's Letter to St. James, and St.swers it in the name of his pretended Clement's Letter to the same St. James, mistress; after which they dispute on the brother of the Lord, governor of the Holy nature of the gods. Church of the Hebrews at Jerusalem, and of all churches.-St. Peter's Letter contains nothing curious, but St. Cle-Corinthians. ment's is very remarkable. He asserts that Peter declared him Bishop of Rome before his death, and his coadjutor; that he laid his hands upon his head, and made him sit in the episcopal chair, in Two Epistles of St. Clement to the It hardly seems just to have ranked these epistles among the apocryphal writings. Some of the learned may have declined to recognise them because they speak of "the Phoenix of Arabia, which lives five hundred years, "All the things which you have learned and burns itself in Egypt in the city of Heliopolis." But there is nothing extra-from John are true: believe in them; ordinary in St. Clement's having believed this fable which so many others believed, nor in his having written letters to the Corinthians. It is known that there was at that time a great distance between the church of Corinth and that of Rome. The church of Corinth, which declared itself to have been founded the first, was governed in common: there was scarcely any distinction between the priests and the seculars, still less between the priests and the bishop; all alike had a deliberate voice; so, at least, several of the learned assert. St. Clement says to the Corinthians in his first epistle-"You have laid the first foundation of sedition; be subject to your priests, correct yourself by penance, bend the knees of your hearts, learn to obey." It is not at all astonishing that a bishop of Rome should use these expressions. persevere in your belief; keep your vow of Christianity. I will come and see you with John, you and those who are with you. Be firm in your faith; act like a man; let no severity and persecution disturb you; but let your spirit be strengthened and exalted in God your Saviour. Amen." It is asserted that these letters were written in the year 116 of the Christian era, but they are therefore not the less false and absurd. They would even have been an insult to our holy religion, had they not been written in a spirit of simplicity, which renders everything pardonable. XXVII. Fragments of the Apostles. We find in them this passage-" Paul, a man of short stature, with an aquiline nose and an angelic face, instructed in heaven, said In the second epistle we again find that to Plantilla, of Rome, before he died, answer of Jesus Christ, on being asked Adieu, Plantilla, thou little plant of when his kingdom of heaven should come eternal salvation; know thy own nobility; When two shall make one, when thou art whiter than snow; thou art rethat which is without shall be within,gistered among the soldiers of Christ; when the male shall be female, when thou art an heiress to the kingdom of there shall be neither male nor female." This was not worthy to be re devoted Ignatius. "You should console me, a neophite, and a disciple of your John. I have heard several wonderful things of your Jesus, at which I have been much astonshed. I desire with all my heart to be informed of them by you, who always lived in familiarity with him, and knew all his secrets. Fare you well. Comfort the neophytes, who are with me from you and through you. Amen." "The Holy Virgin's Answer to her dear Disciple Ignatius. "The humble servant of Jesus Christ. heaven.'" XXVIII. Eleven Apocalypses, which are attributed to the patriarchs and prophets, to Stephen the first martyr, two to St. John, St. Peter, Cerinthus, St. Thomas, St. differing from the canonical one, and three to St. Paul. All these apocalypses have been eclipsed by that of St. John. XXIX. The Visions, Precepts, and Similitudes of Hermas. Hermas seems to have lived about the close of the first century. They who regard his book as apocryphal, are nevertheless obliged to do justice to his morality. He begins by saying, that his foster-father had sold a young woman at Rome. Hermas recognised this young woman after the lapse of several years, and loved her, he says, as if she had been his sister. He one day saw her bathing in the Tiber: he stretched forth his hand, drew her out of the river, and said in his heart, "How happy should I be, if I had a wife like her in beauty and in manners." Immediately the heavens opened; and he all at once beheld this same wife, who made him a curtsey from above, and said, "Good morning, Hermas." This wife was the Christian Church; she gave him much good advice. A year after, the spirit transported him to the same place where he had seen this beauty, who nevertheless was old; but she was fresh in her age, and was old only because she had been created from the beginning of the world, and the world had been made for her. The Book of Precepts contains fewer allegories; but that of similitudes contains many. 6 mandments without these maidens, who, it is plain typify the virtues. This list would become immense if we were to enter into every detail. We will carry it no further, but conclude with the Sibyls. XXX. The Sibyls. What is most apocryphal in the primitive church is, the prodigious number of verses in favour of the Christian religion attributed to the ancient { sibyls. Diodorus Siculus knew of only one, who was taken at Thebes by the Epigoni, and placed at Delphos before the Trojan war. Ten sibyls-that is, ten prophetesses, were soon made from this one. She of Cuma had most credit among the Romans, and the sibyl Erythrea among the Greeks. As all oracles were delivered in verse, none of the sibyls could fail to make "One day," says Hermas, "when I verses; and to give them greater authowas fasting and was seated on a hill, giv-rity, they sometimes made them acrosing thanks to God for all that he had donetics also. Several Christians, who had for me, a shepherd came, sat down be- not a zeal according to knowledge, not side me, and said, 'Why have you come only misinterpreted the ancient verses here so early? Because I am going supposed to have been written by the sithrough the stations,' answered I. What byls, but also made some themselves,is a station?' asked the shepherd. It is but, which is worse, in acrostics, not a fast.' And what is this fast?" It is dreaming that this difficult artifice of my custom.' 'Ah!' replied the shepherd, acrosticising had no resemblance what'you know not what it is to fast; all this ever to the inspiration and enthusiasm of is of no avail before God. I will teach a prophetess. They resolved to support you that which is true fasting and pleasing the best of causes by the most awkward to the Divinity. Your fasting has nothing fraud. They accordingly made bad to do with justice and virtue. Serve God Greek verses, the initials of which signiwith a pure heart; keep his command- fied in Greek-JESUS, CHRIST, SON, ments: admit into your heart no guilty de- SAVIOUR; and these verses said, that signs. If you have always the fear of with five loaves, and two fishes, he should God before your eyes-if you abstain feed five thousand men int he desert, and from all evil, that will be true fasting, that with the fragments that remained he that will be the great fast which is accept- should fill twelve baskets. able to God.'” The millenium, and the New Jerusalem, which Justin had seen in the air for forty nights, were, of course, foretold by the sibyls. In the fourth century, Lactantius collected almost all the verses attributed to the sibyls, and considered them as convincing proofs. The opinion was so well authorised and so long held, that we still sing hymns, in which the testimony of the sibyls is joined with the predictions of David: Solvet saecium in favilla, This catalogue of errors and frauds has been carried quite far enough. A hundred might be repeated-so constantly philosophers, who were of the ancient religion of Rome. It is very probable that he professed that of his uncle Constantius only to avoid assassination. Julian was obliged to conceal his mental powers, as Brutus had done under Tarquin. He was the less likely to be a Christian, has the world been composed of deceiv-as his uncle had forced him to be a monk, ers, and of people fond of being deceived. and to perform the office of reader in the But let us pursue no further so dange- of his persecutor, especially when the church. A man is rarely of the religion latter wishes to be ruler of his conscience. Another circumstance which renders rous a research. The elucidation of one great truth is worth more than the discovery of a thousand falsehoods. of apocryphal books, have been sufficient to injure the Christian religion, because, as we all know, it is founded upon immutable truths. These truths are supported by a church militant and triumphant, to which God has given the power of teaching and of repressing. In several ritual authority. Prudence, strength, countries, it unites temporal with spiis divided, and its divisions have somewealth, are its attributes; and although it times stained it with blood, it may be compared to the Roman commonwealth constantly torn by intestine dissensions, but constantly triumphant. Not all these errors-not all the crowd { this probable is, that he does not say, in any of his works, that he had been a Christian. He never asks pardon for it of the pontiffs of the ancient religion. had always been attached to the worship He addresses them in his letters, as if he of the senate. It is not even proved that he practised the ceremonies of the Taurobolium, which might be regarded as a sort of expiation, and that he desired to wash out with bull's blood that which he so unfortunately called the stain of his baptism. However, this was a pagan sort of devotion, which is no more a proof Ceres. In short, neither his friends nor than the assembling at the mysteries of his enemies relate any fact, any words, which can prove that he ever believed in Christianity, and that he passed from that sincere belief to the worship of the gods of the empire. APOSTATE. 17 is still a question among the learned, whether the Emperor Julian was really an apostate, and whether he was ever truly a Christian. he was If such be the case, they who do not speak of him as an apostate, appear very Emperor Constantius, still more barba-excusable. He was not six years old when the rous that Constantine, had his father, his Sound criticism being brought to perbrother, and all the world now acknowledges dered. He and his brother Gallus with that the Emperor Julian was a hero and difficulty escaped from this carnage; but a wise man-a stoic, equal to Marcus always very harshly treated by Aurelius. His errors were condemned, Constantins. His life was for a long but his virtues are admitted. He is now time threatened; and he soon beheld his regarded as he was by his contemporary the tyrant's order. The most barbarous flores martyrum. only remaining brother assassinated by Prudentius, author of the hymn Salvete of the Turkish sultans have never, I am sorry to say it, surpassed in cruelty nor in villainy the Constantine family. From his tenderest years, study was Julian's only consolation. He communicated in secret with the most illustrious of the He says of Julian— Ductor fortissimus armis, Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manuque Though great in arms, in virtues, and in laws, Though ably zealous in his country's cause, Some have dared to brand Julian with the epithets intolerant and persecutingthe man who sought to extirpate persecu His detractors are reduced to the mise- with anger. You have been guilty of the rable expedient of striving to make him same excesses with which you reproach appear ridiculous. One historian, on the your enemies! George deserved to be so authority of St. Gregory Nazianzen, re-treated, but it was not for you to be his proaches him with having worn too large executioners. You have laws; you should a beard. But, my friend, if nature gave have demanded justice," &c. him a long beard, why should he wear it short? He used to shake his head. Carry thy own better. His step was hurried. Bear in mind that the Abbé D'Aubignac,tion and intolerance! Peruse his fiftythe king's preacher, having been hissed at the play, laughs at the air and gait of the great Corneille. Couldst thou hope to turn Marshal De Luxembourg into ridicule, because he walked ill and his figure was singular? He could march very well against the enemy. Let us leave it to the ex-jesuit Patouillet, the ex-jesuit Nonotte, &c., to call the Emperor Julian-the Apostate. Poor creatures! His Christian successor, Jovian, called him Divus Julianus. Let us treat this mistaken emperor as he himself treated us. He said, "We should pity and not hate them: they are already sufficiently unfortunate in erring on the most important of questions." second letter, and respect his memory. Is he not sufficiently unfortunate in not having been a Catholic, and consequently in being burned in hell, together with the innumerable multitude of those who have not been Catholics, without our insulting him so far as to accuse him of intolerance? On the Globes of Fire said to have issued from the Earth to prevent the re-building of the Temple of Jerusalem under the Emperor Julian. It is very likely that, when Julian resolved to carry the war into Persia, he wanted money. It is very likely that the Jews gave him some for permission to rebuild their temple, which Titus had partly destroyed, but of which there still remained the foundations, an entire wall, and the Antonine tower. But is it as likely that Is there not a palpable contradiction in what the historians relate? Let us have the same compassion for him, since we are sure that the truth is on our side. He rendered strict justice to his sub-globes of fire burst upon the works and jects; let us then render it to his memory. the workmen, and caused the undertaking Some Alexandrians were incensed against to be relinquished? a bishop, who, it is true, was a wicked man, chosen by a worthless cabal. His name was George Biordos, and he was the 1. How could it be that the Jews began son of a mason. His manners were lower by destroying (as they are said to have than his birth. He united the basest per-done) the foundations of the temple, which fidy with the most brutal ferocity, and it was their wish and their duty to rebuild superstition with every vice. A calum- on the same spot? The temple was neniator, a persecutor, and an impostor-cessarily to be on Mount Moriah. There avaricious, sanguinary, and seditious, he was detested by every party, and at last the people cudgelled him to death. The following is the letter which the Emperor Julian wrote to the Alexandrians, on the subject of this popular commotion. Mark, how he addresses them, like a father and a judge : "What !" said he, "instead of reserving for me the knowledge of your wrongs, you have suffered yourselves to be transported it was that Solomon had built it. There it was that Herod had rebuilt it, with greater solidity and magnificence, having previously erected a fine theatre at Jerusalem, and a temple to Augustus at Cæsarea. The foundations of this temple, enlarged by Herod, were, according to Josephus, as much as twenty-five feet broad. Could the Jews, in Julian's time, possibly be mad enough to wish to disarrange these stones, which were so well |