USEFUL REFLECTIONS BY WHICH. WE MAY DERIVE GREAT FRUIT FROM THE READING OF THE COMBATS AND THE VICTORIES OP THE MARTYRS.
Virtues Practised by the Holy Martyrs in the Combats that they had to Sustain against their Persecutors.
IF the reading of the Lives of the Saints is a great means to preserve piety, as is said by St. Philip Neri,' and as is taught by all the masters of spiritual life, we shall find it yet more useful to read about the victories that the holy martyrs gained by sacrificing their lives amid torments. Hence, before relating their individual triumphs, we shall consider, to our spiritual advantage, the principal virtues of which they gave proofs in their combats.
There is no doubt that the martyrs are indebted for their crown to the power of the grace which they received from Jesus Christ; for he it is that gave them the strength to despise all the promises and all the threats of tyrants, and to endure all the torments till they had made an entire sacrifice of their lives. So that all their merits, as St. Augustine writes,' were the effects of the grace that God in his mercy imparted to them. But it is also certain, and even of faith, that on their part the martyrs co-operated with the grace which enabled them to obtain their victory. Innovators have blasphemed against this truth, saying that all the crimes of the wicked and all the good works of the just are the offspring of necessity; but the same St. Augustine gives them the lie when he says that in this case no reward or punishment would be just.
The martyrs, therefore, acquired great merits, because the virtues of which they gave proofs in their combats were great and heroic. We shall briefly describe these virtues in order that we may imitate them in the tribulations to which we may be exposed in this life.
Weat first remark that the martyrs were firmly attached to all the dogmas of the Christian faith. In the first ages of the Church two false religions specially opposed ours: these were the religion of the Gentiles and that of the Jєωs. The religion of the Gentiles, by admitting several gods, furnished itself the proof of its falsity; for if the world had been under the dominion of several masters, it could not have maintained that regular and constant order which we see has been preserved for so many centuries up to the present time. This is evident even to the eyes of natural reason; for every kit/gt?om di71idedagninstitseZfshallbedesfroyed.' Moreover, the very words of the idolatrous priests clearly demonstrated the falsity of their worship, since the actions that they attributed to their gods represented the latter as filled with passions and vices. This was the way in which the holy martyrs reproached the tyrants when the latter exhorted them to sacrifice to their idols: " How can we," they said, "adore your gods, if, instead of offering us models of virtue, they exhibit us only examples of vice ?" The religion of the Jєωs, although formerly holy and revealed by God, was at that time not less manifestly obsolete and false. In fact, in the Scriptures themselves which they had received from God, had preserved with so much care, and had transmitted to us, it was predicted that at a certain time the Son of God was to come down upon earth, to become man, and to die for he salvation of the world; that they themselves would put him to death on the Cross.as they actually did, and that in punishment of this impiety they would be driven from their own kingdom, and without a king, without a temple, without a country, they would live scattered, and be vagabonds ' throughout the world, abhorred and despised by all nations. These were predictions that were manifestly realized in every particular after the death of the Saviour.
What rendered still more certain the truth of our faith was the formation of a new people of God by the conversion of the Gentiles: this was known to have been announced beforehand in the Scriptures, and this was seen to be realized as soon as the apostles spread through out the world in order to promulgate the New Law preached by Jesus Christ. This event was an evident proof of the protection that God gave to the Christian re. ligion; for how could these poor sinners or these publicans, such as the apostles were-men devoid of instruction, of wealth, of every human assistance, and even persecuted by the magistrates and the emperors, have induced, without divine assistance, so many Christians to renounce all their property, all their honors, and generously to sacrifice their lives amid tortures the most excruciating that the,power and the cruelty of the tyrants could invent?
But what was still more marvellous was to behold so many Gentiles embrace a religion difficult to believe and difficult to practise. It was difficult to believe on the part of the intellect, for this religion teaches mysteries beyond the reach of human reason; namely, the Trinity of one God in three distinct persons, who have but one nature, one power, and one will; the Incarnation of the Son of God come upon earth to die for the salvation of mankind; and many other articles regarding original sin, the spirituality and the immortality oi the soul, the sacraments, especially the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. It was difficult to practise on the part of the will, because it commands things contrary to the inclinations of nature corrupted by sin and repugnant to the libertinism in which the pagans were living, who were accustomed to follow their passions and to give themselves up to the pleasures of the senses. Notwithstanding these obstacles, the Christian religion saw itself embraced by so many nations ! From this universal consent of the nations St. Augustine argues the divinity of our religion, saying that had not God illuminated by his powerful grace so many people-civilized and barbarian, learned and illiterate, noble and plebeian, all immersed in the superstitions of their country, imbued from their earliest years with maxims so opposed to the sanctity of faithhow could th'ey have embraced it?
Besides the interior lights of grace, there were many other causes that induced the people to embrace Christianity and to remain firm in professing it. Miracles contributed much to inflame their zeal; for from the moment in which the apostles began to preach, the Lord caused miracles to abound in testimony of the faith, as St. Mark says: They preac/re~rverp~hert, fhe Lord working withal, and confirming the word with skns that followed.' It is certain that the great miracles that had been wrought by the apostles and their disciples contributed largely to the conversion of the world. In vain the adherents of idolatry tried to make believe that these prodigies were the effect of magical incantations: every one well understood that God would never permit them if they were to serve the purpose of giving support to diabolical agency or to a false religion. The proof of miracles was therefore a truly divine proof, by which the Lord confirmed the Christian religion and the faith of believers.
The faith became further strengthened by the constancy of martyrs of both spxes, of every age and condition : men and women, the aged and the young, the noble and the plebeian, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, married and single. They were seen to renounce their homes, their parents, their titles, their fortunes, and everything they possessed, to embrace scourges, racks, fire, torture, and to encounter death under its most horrible shapes; and all this not only with courage, but with joyfulness and thanksgiving to God, who made them worthy to suffer and die for his love. St. Justin, who was himself a martyr, confessed that this heroic virtue of the Christians had been to him a powerful stimulus to embrace the faith!
The martyrs received great courage in their sufferings from the desire of quickly arriving at the fruition of the promises made by Jesus Christ to his followers: 'Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you. . . . Be glad and rejoice, for your room is very great in heaven. Every one therefore that shall confess me before men I will also confess him before my Father who is in heavcn.'
But what above all filled the martyrs with courage and ardor and made them wish to die was their great love for their divine Master, whom St. Augustine4 calls the King of Martyrs, who wished to die on the Cross in pain and in desolation for the love of us, as St. Paul says: He loveth us, and hath delivered himself for us.' Actuated by this love, they went with joy to suffer and to die for Jesus Christ; so that, notcontent toendure the pains that were inflicted upon them, they besought, they provoked the executioners and the tyrants, to obtain from them an increase of torture, in order that they might show themselves more grateful to God who died for love of them.
Hence it came to pass, according to St. Justin, that in the course of three centuries the whole earth was filled with Christians and martyrs. "There is no nation, Greek or barbarian," writes the holy martyr to Trypllo, "that does not offer prayers and thanksgivings to the Creator of the universe by invoking the name of Jesus Christ."' St. Irenieus,' in like manner, attests that at his time the faith of Jesus Christ was extended over the entire world. Pliny, in his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan,' declared that the Christian faith was extended to such a degree that the temples of the gods were abandoned, and that victims were no longer offered to the idols. And Tiberian also wrote to the same emperor that it would be unwise to put to death all the Christians, since the number of those who were anxious to die for Jesus Christ was incalculable.
From these facts Clement of Alexandria' subsequently inferred, that if God himself had not uplleld the Christian faith, it never could have withstood the efforts of so many philosophers who endeavored to obscure it with sophisms, or the violence of so many kings and emperors who labored to extinguish it by persecution. The number of Christians, far from having been diminished by the slaughter of the saints, became so wonderfully increased, that Tertullian said: " Our number grows in the same measure that you decimate us; the blood of the Christians is a sort of seed." ' He used the word seed because the blood of the martyrs wes that which multiplied the faithful. Tertullian, indeed, boasted of this, and upbraided the tyrants with their impotency; since, notwithstanding all their endeavors to exterminate the followers of the Gospel, the streets, the forum, and even the senate, were filled with Christians. Ol-igen likewise writes: " It is a thing worthy to be observed, and eminently calculated to excite wonder. to behold the steady progress of the Christian religion, in spite of the most untiring persecution and continual martyrdoms." " Greeks and barbarians," continues this celebrated writer, "the wise and the unlearned, voluntarily embraced it; from which we may conclude that its propagation was due to a power superior to the human."
Before the end of the second century, we are assured by Tertullian, all nations (unizversregzntes) had embraced the faith of Jesus. He makes special mention of the Partliians, Medes, and Elamites, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, of Armenia, and of Phrygia, of Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Cirenasia, and Palestine; the Gethuli, the entire of Spain, many of the Gallic tribes, Bretagne, the Sarmatians, the Dacians, the Scythians, and many remote nations, provinces, and islands.' Arnobius,' who died a hundred years after Tertullian, adds to the list of those converted to the faith, the Indians, the Sarii, the Persians, and the Medes; Arabia, Syria, Gallacia, Acaja, Macedonia, and Epirus, with all the islands and provinces from the rising to the setting sun." Besides those regions enumerated by Tertullian, St. Athanasius, half a century afterwards, mentions others. Writing to the Emperor Jovinian, he says: " Know that this faith has been preaclied from the beginning, approved by the Nicene Fathers, and professed by all the Churches of the world-in Spain, in England, and in Gaul; throughout the entire of Italy, in Dalmatia, Dacia, Mysia, and Macedonia; in all Greece, and in all Africa; in Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete, Pamphylia, Lysia, and Isauria; in Egypt and Lybia, in Pontus and Cappadocia. With the exception of a few of the Arian faction, we may add all the nearer Churches, as well as those of the East."
Thus we see that, after the ten persecutions of the Roman emperors, which lasted for more than two hundred years, beginning from the first under Nero, the greater part of the human race, having abandoned the worship of false deities, had embraced the doctrines of Christianity. Finally, after so many struggles, it pleased the Almighty Disposer of events to grant peace to his Church under Constantine. This emperor was, after a miraculous manner, chosen by Heaven for the carrying out of the merciful dispensations of divine Providence. Having first overcome Maxentius, and afterwards Licinius, in the strong arm of the Lord,-for, as Eusebius relates, in whatever direction the Labarum, or standard of the cross, appeared. the enemy either fled or surrendered,- after peace had been established he forbade the Gentiles to sacrifice any longer to their idols, and caused magnificent temples to be erected to the honor of Jesus Christ. And oh, how glorious did not the Church then appear ! still more widely extending her blessed influence, and, with every new conquest, bringing additional joy to the hearts of her once persecuted children ! Then ceased the torments of the martyr, and with them the bitter calumnies of the idolater. Busy multitudes of zealous converts were to be seen in every city destroying the idols which they once adored, pulling down the ancient shrines of superstition, and erecting new altars to the wo.rship of the true God ! The confines of so vast an empire were too narrow a limit for the active zeal of the great Constantine. He labored to propagate' the saving doctrines of religion in Persia and among the barbafous nations he had subdued; nor would he, according to Eusebius' and Socrates,' grant them the amity of the Roman Empire, except upon the condition of their becoming Christians.
True it is that from time to time divers heresies have sprung up in the Church, which have been productive of much evil; but the hand of the Lordhath not been shortened.' Even in these latter days we have had authentic accounts of many considerable acquisitions made by the Church, both among heretics and pagans. A learned author writes that ten thousand Arians have recently been converted in Transylvania. In Prussia an additional number of Catholic churches have been erected. In Denmark the public profession of the Catholic religion is now tolerated. The missions in England are being carried on with very happy results. We have been assured by persons of authority and undoubted veracity, that in the East forty thousand Armenian and other oriental heretics have been received into the communion of our holy Church; that in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Chaldea the number of Catholics is every day increasing; and that during the last few several Nestorian Bishops have abjured the errors of that sect. Finally, during the present century a considerable number of Pagans have been converted in India and China."
But to return to the martyrs. The number of Christians who had received the crown of n~artyrdom, previous to tile accessiorl of Constantine, was almost incredible. Many authors calculate the number of those who had laid down their lives for the faith to have been nearly eleven millions! So that if this number were equally distributed in the course of one year, thirty thousand would be allotted to each day.
0h, the beautiful harvest of holy martyrs that paradise has reaped since the preaching of the Gospel ! But, 0 God ! what will be, on the day of general judgment, the confusion of the tyrants and of all the persecutors of the faith, at the sight of the martyrs once so despised and so maltreated by them, when these celestial heroes shall appear in glory, extolling the greatness of God, and armed with the sword of divine justice to avenge themselves for all the injuries and cruelties exercised against them, as was foretold by David : The high praises of God in their mouths, and two-edged swords in their hands to txecute vengeance upon the aations; to bind their Kings in fetters, and their nobles in manacles of iron.' Then shall the martyrs judge the Neros, the Domitians, and other persecutors, and shall condemn them; yea, as we read in the Gospel of St. Matthew, even to the extel-ior darkness, where there shrill be wtejing and gtiashing of teeth."
But it will be for us a subject of more profitable meditation to reflect upon another scene which the great day of general and irrevocable doom wi!l present-the despair of so many Christians who, having died in mortal sin, will behold with unavailing anguish the triumph of so many martyrs, who, rather than lose God, suffered themselves to be despoiled of all things, and underwent tlie most horrid torments that hell could suggest or tyrants inflict; while they, rather than yield a point of honor or forego a momentary gratification, despised tlie suggestions of divine grace, and lost their souls forever!
Topic: To Get Our Minds Right (Read 346 times)