The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

which Veronica is a dunce-like corruption of the 'Vera icon,' which this saint brought into the church. I wish it may not be as unreal as the donor, Or as the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne, who were but a couple.”

Clement interrupted him to inquire what he meant. “I have spoken with those have seen their bones.”

“What, of eleven thousand virgins all collected in one place and at one time? Do but bethink thee, Clement. Not one of the great Eastern cities of antiquity could collect eleven thousand Pagan virgins at one time, far less a puny Western city. Eleven thousand Christian virgins in a little, wee, Paynim city!

'Quod cunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.'

The simple sooth is this. The martyrs were two: the Breton princess herself, falsely called British, and her maid, Onesimilla, which is a Greek name, Onesima, diminished. This some fool did mis-pronounce undecim mille, eleven thousand: loose tongue found credulous ears, and so one fool made many; eleven thousand of them, an' you will. And you charge me with credulity, Jerome? and bid me read the Lives of the Saints. Well, I have read them, and many a dear old Pagan acquaintance I found there. The best fictions in the book are Oriental, and are known to have been current in Persia and Arabia eight hundred years and more before the dates the Church assigns to them as facts. As for the true Western figments, they lack the Oriental plausibility. Think you I am credulous enough to believe that St. Ida joined a decapitated head to its body? that Cuthbert's carcass directed his bearers where to go, and where to stop; that a city was eaten up of rats to punish one Hatto for comparing the poor to mice; that angels have a little horn in their foreheads, and that this was seen and recorded at the time by St. Veronica of Benasco, who never existed, and hath left us this information and a miraculous handkercher? For my part, I think the holiest woman the world ere saw must have an existence ere she can have a handkercher or an eye to take unicorns for angels. Think you I believe that a brace of lions turned sextons and helped Anthony bury Paul of Thebes? that Patrick, a Scotch saint, stuck a goat's beard on all the descendants of one that offended him? that certain thieves, having stolen the convent ram, and denying it, St. Pol de Leon bade the ram bear witness, and straight the mutton bleated in the thief's belly? Would you have me give up the skilful figments of antiquity for such old wives' fables as these? The ancients lied about animals, too; but then they lied logically; we unreasonably. Do but compare Ephis and his lion, or, better still, Androcles and his lion, with Anthony and his two lions. Both the Pagan lions do what lions never did' but at the least they act in character. A lion with a bone in his throat, or a thorn in his foot, could not do better than be civil to a man. But Anthony's lions are asses in a lion's skin. What leonine motive could they have in turning sextons? A lion's business is to make corpses, not inter them.” He added, with a sigh, “Our lies are as inferior to the lies of the ancients as our statues, and for the same reason; we do not study nature as they did. We are imitatores, servum pecus. Believe you 'the lives of the saints;' that Paul the Theban was the first hermit, and Anthony the first Caenobite? Why, Pythagoras was an Eremite, and under ground for seven years; and his daughter was an abbess. Monks and hermits were in the East long before Moses, and neither old Greece nor Rome was ever without them. As for St. Francis and his snowballs, he did but mimic Diogenes, who, naked, embraced statues on which snow had fallen. The folly without the poetry. Ape of an ape—for Diogenes was but a mimic therein of the Brahmins and Indian gymnosophists. Natheless, the children of this Francis bid fair to pelt us out of the Church with their snowballs. Tell me now, Clement, what habit is lovelier than the vestments of our priests? Well, we owe them all to Numa Pompilius, except the girdle and the stole, which are judaical. As for the amice and the albe, they retain the very names they bore in Numa's day. The 'pelt' worn by the canons comes from primeval Paganism. 'Tis a relic of those rude times when the sacrificing priest wore the skins of the beasts with the fur outward. Strip off thy black gown, Jerome, thy girdle and cowl, for they come to us all three from the Pagan ladies. Let thy hair grow like Absolom's, Jerome! for the tonsure is as Pagan as the Muses.”

“Take care what thou sayest,” said Jerome sternly. “We know the very year in which the Church did first ordain it.”

“But not invent it, Jerome. The Brahmins wore it a few thousands years ere that. From them it came through the Assyrians to the priests of Isis in Egypt, and afterwards of Serapis at Athens. The late Pope (the saints be good to him) once told me the tonsure was forbidden by God to the Levites in the Pentateuch. If so, this was because of the Egyptian priests wearing it. I trust to his holiness. I am no biblical scholar. The Latin of thy namesake Jerome is a barrier I cannot overleap. 'Dixit ad me Dominus Dens. Dixi ad Dominum Deum.' No, thank you, holy Jerome; I can stand a good deal, but I cannot stand thy Latin. Nay; give me the New Testament! 'Tis not the Greek of Xenophon; but 'tis Greek. And there be heathen sayings in it too. For St. Paul was not so spiteful against them as thou. When the heathen said a good thing that suited his matter, by Jupiter he just took it, and mixed it to all eternity with the inspired text.”

“Come forth, Clement, come forth!” said Jerome, rising; “and thou, profane monk, know that but for the powerful house that upholds thee, thy accursed heresy should go no farther, for I would have thee burned at the stake.” And he strode out white with indignation.

Colonna's reception of this threat did credit to him as an enthusiast. He ran and hallooed joyfully after Jerome. “And that is Pagan. Burning of men's bodies for the opinions of their souls is a purely Pagan custom—as Pagan as incense, holy water, a hundred altars in one church, the tonsure, the cardinal's, or flamen's hat, the word Pope, the—”

Here Jerome slammed the door.

But ere they could get clear of the house a jalosy was flung open, and the Paynim monk came out head and shoulders, and overhung the street shouting,

“Affecti suppliciis Chrisitiani, genus hominum Novas superstitionis ac maleficae,'”

And having delivered this parting blow, he felt a great triumphant joy, and strode exultant to and fro; and not attending with his usual care to the fair way (for his room could only be threaded by little paths wriggling among the antiquities), tripped over the beak of an Egyptian stork, and rolled upon a regiment of Armenian gods, which he found tough in argument though small in stature.

“You will go no more to that heretical monk,” said Jerome to Clement.

Clement sighed. “Shall we leave him and not try to correct him? Make allowance for heat of discourse! he was nettled, His words are worse than his acts. Oh 'tis a pure and charitable soul.”

“So are all arch-heretics. Satan does not tempt them like other men. Rather he makes them more moral, to give their teaching weight. Fra Colonna cannot be corrected; his family is all-powerful in Rome, Pray we the saints he blasphemes to enlighten him, 'Twill not be the first time they have returned