The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER LXXIV

  The Cloister

  THE Dominicans, or preaching friars, once the most powerful order inEurope, were now on the wane; their rivals and bitter enemies, theFranciscans, were overpowering them throughout Europe; even in England,a rich and religious country, where, under the name of the Black Friars,they had once been paramount.

  Therefore the sagacious men, who watched and directed the interests ofthe order, were never so anxious to incorporate able and zealous sons,and send them forth to win back the world.

  The zeal and accomplishments of Clement, especially his rare mastery oflanguage (for he spoke Latin, Italian, French, high and low Dutch) soontranspired, and he was destined to travel and preach in England,corresponding with the Roman centre.

  But Jerome, who had the superior's ear, obstructed this design.

  "Clement," said he, "has the milk of the world still in his veins, itsfeelings, its weaknesses; let not his new-born zeal and his humilitytempt us to forego our ancient wisdom. Try him first, and temper him,lest one day we find ourselves leaning on a reed for a staff."

  "It is well advised," said the prior. "Take him in hand thyself."

  Then Jerome, following the ancient wisdom, took Clement and tried him.

  One day he brought him to a field where the young men amused themselvesat the games of the day; he knew this to be a haunt of Clement's latefriends.

  And sure enough ere long Pietro Vanucci and Andrea passed by them, andcast a careless glance on the two friars. They did not recognize theirdead friend in a shaven monk.

  Clement gave a very little start, and then lowered his eyes and said apater noster.

  "Would ye not speak with them, brother?" said Jerome, trying him.

  "No, brother: yet was it good for me to see them. They remind me of thesins I can never repent enough."

  "It is well," said Jerome, and he made a cold report in Clement'sfavour.

  Then Jerome took Clement to many death-beds. And then into noisomedungeons; places where the darkness was appalling, and the stenchloathsome, pestilential; and men looking like wild beasts lay coiled inrags and filth and despair. It tried his body hard; but the soulcollected all its powers to comfort such poor wretches there as were notpast comfort. And Clement shone in that trial. Jerome reported thatClement's spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak.

  "Good!" said Anselm; "his flesh is weak, but his spirit is willing."

  But there was a greater trial in store.

  I will describe it as it was seen by others.

  One morning a principal street in Rome was crowded, and even the avenuesblocked up with heads. It was an execution. No common crime had beendone, and on no vulgar victim.

  The governor of Rome had been found in his bed at daybreak,_slaughtered_. His hand, raised probably in self-defence, lay by hisside severed at the wrist; his throat was cut, and his temples bruisedwith some blunt instrument. The murder had been traced to his servant,and was to be expiated in kind this very morning.

  Italian executions were not cruel in general. But this murder wasthought to call for exact and bloody retribution.

  The criminal was brought to the house of the murdered man, and fastenedfor half an hour to its wall. After this foretaste of legal vengeancehis left hand was struck off, like his victim's. A new killed fowl wascut open and fastened round the bleeding stump; with what view I reallydon't know; but, by the look of it, some mare's nest of the poor deardoctors; and the murderer, thus mutilated and bandaged, was hurried tothe scaffold; and there a young friar was most earnest and affectionatein praying with him, and for him, and holding the crucifix close to hiseyes.

  Presently the executioner pulled the friar roughly on one side, and in amoment felled the culprit with a heavy mallet, and falling on him, cuthis throat from ear to ear.

  There was a cry of horror from the crowd.

  The young friar swooned away.

  A gigantic monk strode forward, and carried him off like a child.

  Brother Clement went back to the convent sadly discouraged. He confessedto the prior, with tears of regret.

  "Courage, son Clement," said the prior. "A Dominican is not made in aday. Thou shalt have another trial. And I forbid thee to go to itfasting." Clement bowed his head in token of obedience. He had not longto wait. A robber was brought to the scaffold; a monster of villainy andcruelty, who had killed men in pure wantonness, after robbing them.Clement passed his last night in prison with him, accompanied him to thescaffold, and then prayed with him and for him so earnestly that thehardened ruffian shed tears and embraced him. Clement embraced him too,though his flesh quivered with repugnance; and held the crucifixearnestly before his eyes. The man was garotted, and Clement lost sightof the crowd, and prayed loud and earnestly while that dark spirit waspassing from earth. He was no sooner dead than the hangman raised hishatchet and quartered the body on the spot. And, oh, mysterious heart ofman! the people, who had seen the living body robbed of life withindifference, almost with satisfaction, uttered a piteous cry at eachstroke of the axe upon his corpse that could feel nought. Clement tooshuddered then, but stood firm, like one of those rocks that vibrate butcannot be thrown down. But suddenly Jerome's voice sounded in his ear.

  "Brother Clement, get thee on that cart and preach to the people. Nay,quickly! strike with all thy force on all this iron, while yet 'tis hot,and souls are to be saved."

  Clement's colour came and went; and he breathed hard. But he obeyed, andwith ill-assured step mounted the cart, and preached his first sermon tothe first crowd he had ever faced. Oh, that sea of heads! His throatseemed parched, his heart thumped, his voice trembled.

  By-and-by the greatness of the occasion, the sight of the eager upturnedfaces, and his own heart full of zeal, fired the pale monk. He told themthis robber's history, warm from his own lips in the prison, and showedhis hearers by that example the gradations of folly and crime, andwarned them solemnly not to put foot on the first round of that fatalladder. And as alternately he thundered against the shedders of blood,and moved the crowd to charity and pity, his tremors left him, and hefelt all strung up like a lute, and gifted with an unsuspected force;he was master of that listening crowd, could feel their very pulse,could play sacred melodies on them as on his psaltery. Sobs and groansattested his power over the mob already excited by the tragedy beforethem. Jerome stared like one who goes to light a stick; and fires arocket. After a while Clement caught his look of astonishment, andseeing no approbation in it, broke suddenly off, and joined him.

  "It was my first endeavour," said he, apologetically. "Your behest cameon me like a thunderbolt. Was I?--Did I?--Oh, correct me and aid me withyour experience, brother Jerome."

  "Humph!" said Jerome, doubtfully. He added, rather sullenly after longreflection, "Give the glory to God, brother Clement; my opinion is thouart an orator born."

  He reported the same at headquarters, half reluctantly. For he was anhonest friar though a disagreeable one.

  * * * * *

  One Julio Antonelli was accused of sacrilege; three witnesses swore theysaw him come out of the church whence the candlesticks were stolen, andat the very time. Other witnesses proved an alibi for him as positively.Neither testimony could be shaken. In this doubt Antonelli was permittedthe trial by water, hot or cold. By the hot trial he must put his barearm into boiling water, fourteen inches deep, and take out a pebble; bythe cold trial his body must be let down into eight feet of water. Theclergy, who thought him innocent, recommended the hot water trial,which, to those whom they favoured, was not so terrible as it sounded.But the poor wretch had not the nerve, and chose the cold ordeal. Andthis gave Jerome another opportunity of steeling Clement. Antonelli tookthe sacrament, and then was stripped naked on the banks of the Tiber,and tied hand and foot, to prevent those struggles by which a man,throwing his arms out of the water, sinks his body.

  He was then let down gently into the stream, and floated a moment, withjust his hair above water. A sim
ultaneous roar from the crowd on eachbank proclaimed him guilty. But the next moment the ropes, whichhappened to be new, got wet, and he settled down. Another roarproclaimed his innocence. They left him at the bottom of the river theappointed time, rather more than half a minute, then drew him up,gurgling, and gasping, and screaming for mercy; and, after theappointed prayers, dismissed him, cleared of the charge.

  During the experiment Clement prayed earnestly on the bank. When it wasover he thanked God in a loud but slightly quavering voice.

  By-and-by he asked Jerome whether the man ought not to be compensated.

  "For what?"

  "For the pain, the dread, the suffocation. Poor soul, he liveth, buthath tasted all the bitterness of death. Yet he had done no ill."

  "He is rewarded enough in that he is cleared of his fault."

  "But, being innocent of that fault, yet hath he drunk Death's cup,though not to the dregs; and his accusers, less innocent than he, dosuffer nought."

  Jerome replied, somewhat sternly:

  "It is not in this world men are really punished, brother Clement.Unhappy they who sin yet suffer not. And happy they who suffer such illsas earth hath power to inflict; 'tis counted to them above, ay, and ahundredfold."

  Clement bowed his head submissively.

  "May thy good words not fall to the ground, but take root in my heart,brother Jerome."

  But the severest trial Clement underwent at Jerome's hands wasunpremeditated. It came about thus. Jerome, in an indulgent moment, wentwith him to Fra Colonna, and there "The Dream of Polifilo" lay on thetable just copied fairly. The poor author, in the pride of his heart,pointed out a master-stroke in it.

  "For ages," said he, "fools have been lavishing poetic praise andamorous compliment on mortal women, mere creatures of earth, smackingpalpably of their origin; Sirens at the windows, where our Roman womenin particular have by lifelong study learned the wily art to show theirone good feature, though but an ear or an eyelash, at a jalosy, and hideall the rest; Magpies at the door, Capre n' i giardini, Angeli inStrada, Sante in chiesa, Diavoli in casa. Then come I and ransack theminstrels' lines for amorous turns, not forgetting those which Petrarchwasted on that French jilt Laura, the slyest of them all; and I lay youthe whole bundle of spice at the feet of the only females worthy amorousincense; to wit, the Nine Muses."

  "By which goodly stratagem," said Jerome, who had been turning the pagesall this time, "you, a friar of St. Dominic, have produced an obscenebook." And he dashed Polifilo on the table.

  "Obscene? thou discourteous monk!" And the author ran round the table,snatched Polifilo away, locked him up, and, trembling withmortification, said, "My Gerard, pshaw! brother What's-his-name, had notfound Polifilo obscene. Puris omnia pura."

  "Such as read your Polifilo--Heaven grant they may be few!--will findhim what I find him."

  Poor Colonna gulped down this bitter pill as he might; and had he notbeen in his own lodgings, and a high born gentleman as well as ascholar, there might have been a vulgar quarrel. As it was, he made agreat effort, and turned the conversation to a beautiful chrysolite theCardinal Colonna had lent him; and, while Clement handled it, enlargedon its moral virtues: for he went the whole length of his age as aworshipper of jewels. But Jerome did not, and expostulated with him forbelieving that one dead stone could confer valour on its wearer, anotherchastity, another safety from poison, another temperance.

  "The experience of ages proves they do," said Colonna. "As to the lastvirtue you have named, there sits a living proof. This Gerard--I begyour pardon, brother Thingemy--comes from the north, where men drinklike fishes; yet was he ever most abstemious. And why? Carried anamethyst, the clearest and fullest coloured e'er I saw on any but noblefinger. Where, in Heaven's name, is thine amethyst? Show it thisunbeliever!"

  "And 'twas that amethyst made the boy temperate?" asked Jerome,ironically.

  "Certainly. Why, what is the derivation and meaning of amethyst? [Greek:a] negative, and [Greek: methyo] to tipple. Go to, names are but thesigns of things. A stone is not called [Greek: amethystos] for twothousand years out of mere sport, and abuse of language."

  He then went through the prime jewels, illustrating their moralproperties, especially of the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald, and theopal, by anecdotes out of grave historians.

  "These be old wives' fables," said Jerome, contemptuously. "Was eversuch credulity as thine?"

  Now credulity is a reproach sceptics have often the ill-luck to incur:but it mortifies them none the less for that.

  The believer in stones writhed under it, and dropped the subject. ThenJerome, mistaking his silence, exhorted him to go a step farther, andgive up from this day his vain pagan lore, and study the lives of thesaints. "Blot out these heathen superstitions from thy mind, brother, asChristianity hath blotted them from the earth."

  And in this strain he proceeded, repeating, incautiously, some currentbut loose theological statements. Then the smarting Polifilo revengedhimself. He flew out, and hurled a mountain of crude, miscellaneous loreupon Jerome, of which partly for want of time, partly for lack oflearning, I can reproduce but a few fragments.

  "The heathen blotted out? Why they hold four-fifths of the world. Andwhat have we Christians invented without their aid? painting? sculpture?these are heathen arts, and we but pigmies at them. What modern mind canconceive and grave so god-like forms as did the chief Atheniansculptors, and the Libyan Licas, and Dinocrates of Macedon, and Scopas,Timotheus, Leochares, and Briaxis; Chares, Lysippus, and the immortalthree of Rhodes, that wrought Laocoon from a single block? What princehath the genius to turn mountains into statues, as was done at Bagistan,and projected at Athos? what town the soul to plant a colossus of brassin the sea, for the tallest ships to sail in and out between his legs?Is it architecture we have invented? Why here too we are but children.Can we match for pure design the Parthenon, with its clusters of doubleand single Doric columns? (I do adore the Doric when the scale islarge), and, for grandeur and finish, the theatres of Greece and Rome,or the prodigious temples of Egypt, up to whose portals men walkedawe-struck through avenues a mile long of sphinxes, each as big as aVenetian palace. And all these prodigies of porphyry cut and polishedlike crystal, not rough hewn as in our puny structures. Even now theirpolished columns and pilasters lie o'erthrown and broken, o'ergrown withacanthus and myrtle, but sparkling still, and flouting the slovenly artof modern workmen. Is it sewers, aqueducts, viaducts?

  "Why we have lost the art of making a road--lost it with the world'sgreatest models under our very eye. Is it sepulchres of the dead? Why noChristian nation has ever erected a tomb, the sight of which does notset a scholar laughing. Do but think of the Mausoleum, and the Pyramids,and the monstrous sepulchres of the Indus and Ganges, which outside aremountains, and within are mines of precious stones. Ah, you have notseen the East, Jerome, or you could not decry the heathen."

  Jerome observed that these were mere material things. True greatness wasin the soul.

  "Well then," replied Colonna, "in the world of mind, what have wediscovered? Is it geometry? Is it logic? Nay, we are all pupils ofEuclid and Aristotle. Is it written characters, an invention almostdivine? We no more invented it than Cadmus did. Is it poetry? Homer hathnever been approached by us, nor hath Virgil, nor Horace. Is it tragedyor comedy? Why poets, actors, theatres, all fell to dust at our touch.Have we succeeded in reviving them? Would you compare our littlemiserable mysteries and moralities, all frigid personification and dogLatin, with the glories of a Greek play (on the decoration of which ahundred thousand crowns had been spent) performed inside a marblemiracle, the audience a seated city, and the poet a Sophocles?

  "What then have we invented? Is it monotheism? Why the learned andphilosophical among the Greeks and Romans held it; even their moreenlightened poets were monotheists in their sleeves.

  '[Greek: Zeus estin ouranos, Zeus te ge Zeus toi panta],'

  saith the Greek, and Lucan echoes him:

  'Jupiter est quod cunque vides quo c
unque moveris.'

  "Their vulgar were polytheists; and what are ours? We have not invented'invocation of the saints.' Our sancti answer to their Daemones and Divi,and the heathen used to pray their Divi or deified mortals to intercedewith the higher divinity; but the ruder minds among them, incapable ofnice distinctions, worshipped those lesser gods they should have butinvoked. And so do the mob of Christians in our day, following theheathen vulgar by unbroken tradition. For in holy writ is no polytheismof any sort or kind.

  "We have not invented so much as a form, or variety, of polytheism. Thepagan vulgar worshipped all sorts of deified mortals, and each had hisfavourite, to whom he prayed ten times for once to the Omnipotent. Ourvulgar worship canonized mortals, and each has his favourite, to whom heprays ten times for once to God. Call you that invention? Invention isconfined to the East. Among the ancient vulgar only the mariners weremonotheists; they worshipped Venus; called her 'Stella maris,' and'Regina caelorum.' Among our vulgar only the mariners are monotheists;they worship the Virgin Mary, and call her 'the Star of the Sea,' and'the Queen of Heaven.' Call you theirs a new religion? An old doubletwith a new button. Our vulgar make images, and adore them, which isabsurd; for adoration is the homage due from a creature to its creator;now here man is the creator; so the statues ought to worship him, andwould, if they had brains enough to justify a rat in worshipping _them_.But even this abuse, though childish enough to be modern, is ancient.The pagan vulgar in these parts made their images, then knelt beforethem, adorned them with flowers, offered incense to them, lighted tapersbefore them, carried them in procession, and made pilgrimages to themjust to the smallest tittle as we their imitators do."

  Jerome here broke in impatiently, and reminded him that the images themost revered in Christendom were made by no mortal hand, but had droptfrom heaven.

  "Ay," cried Colonna, "such are the tutelary images of most great Italiantowns. I have examined nineteen of them, and made draughts of them. Ifthey came from the sky, our worst sculptors are our angels. But my mindis easy on that score. Ungainly statue, or villanous daub fell never yetfrom heaven to smuggle the bread out of capable workmen's mouths. Allthis is Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had oriental imaginations,and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long,fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils ofTroy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and theirLatin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul trouble at Ephesus;'twas a statue of Diana that fell down from Jupiter: credat qui crederepossit."

  "What would you cast your profane doubts on that picture of our blessedLady, which scarce a century agone hung lustrous in the air over thisvery city, and was taken down by the Pope and bestowed in St. Peter'sChurch?"

  "I have no profane doubts on the matter, Jerome. This is the story ofNuma's shield, revived by theologians with an itch for fiction, but notalent that way; not being orientals. The 'ancile,' or sacred shield ofNuma hung lustrous in the air over this very city, till that piousprince took it down and hung it in the temple of Jupiter. Be just,swallow both stories or neither. The 'Bocca della Verita' passes for astatue of the Virgin, and convicted a woman of perjury the other day; itis in reality an image of the goddess Rhea, and the modern figment isone of its ancient traditions; swallow both or neither.

  'Qui Bavium non odit amet tua carmina, Mavi.'

  "But indeed we owe all our Palladiuncula, and all our speaking, nodding,winking, sweating, bleeding statues to these poor abused heathens: theAthenian statues all sweated before the battle of Chaeronea, so did theRoman statues during Tully's consulship, viz., the statue of Victory atCapua, of Mars at Rome, and of Apollo outside the gates. The Palladiumitself was brought to Italy by AEneas, and after keeping quiet threecenturies, made an observation in Vesta's Temple: a trivial one, I fear,since it hath not survived; Juno's statue at Veii assented with a nod togo to Rome. Anthony's statue on Mount Alban bled from every vein in itsmarble, before the fight of Actium. Others cured diseases: as that ofPelichus, derided by Lucian; for the wiser among the heathen believed insweating marble, weeping wood, and bleeding brass--as I do. Of all ourmarks and dents made in stone by soft substances, this saint's knee, andthat saint's finger, and t'other's head, the original is heathen. Thusthe foot-prints of Hercules were shown on a rock in Scythia. Castor andPollux fighting on white horses for Rome against the Latians, left theprints of their hoofs on a rock at Regillum. A temple was built to themon the spot, and the marks were to be seen in Tully's day. You may seenear Venice a great stone cut nearly in half by St. George's sword. Thishe ne'er had done but for the old Roman who cut the whetstone in twowith his razor.

  'Qui Bavium non odit amet tua carmina, Mavi.'

  "Kissing of images, and the Pope's toe, is Eastern Paganism. TheEgyptians had it of the Assyrians, the Greeks of the Egyptians, theRomans of the Greeks, and we of the Romans, whose Pontifex Maximus hadhis toe kissed under the Empire. The Druids kissed their High Priest'stoe a thousand years B. C. The Mussulmans, who like you, profess toabhor Heathenism, kiss the stone of the Caaba: a Pagan practice.

  "The Priests of Baal kissed their idols so.

  "Tully tells us of a fair image of Hercules at Agrigentum, whose chinwas worn by kissing. The lower parts of the statue we call Peter areJupiter. The toe is sore worn, but not all by Christian mouths. Theheathen vulgar laid their lips there first, for many a year, and ourshave but followed them, as monkeys their masters. And that is why, downwith the poor heathen! Pereant qui ante nos nostra fecerint.

  "Our infant baptism is Persian, with the font, and the signing of thechild's brow. Our throwing three handfuls of earth on the coffin, andsaying dust to dust, is Egyptian.

  "Our incense is Oriental, Roman, Pagan; and the early Fathers of theChurch regarded it with superstitious horror, and died for refusing tohandle it. Our holy water is Pagan, and all its uses. See, here is aPagan aspersorium. Could you tell it from one of ours? It stood in thesame part of their temples, and was used in ordinary worship as ours,and in extraordinary purifications. They called it Aqua lustralis. Theirvulgar, like ours, thought drops of it falling on the body would washout sin; and their men of sense, like ours, smiled or sighed at suchcredulity. What saith Ovid of this folly, which hath outlived him?

  'Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina coedis Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua.'

  Thou seest the heathen were not _all_ fools. No more are we. Not _all_."

  Fra Colonna uttered all this with such volubility, that his hearerscould not edge in a word of remonstrance; and not being interrupted inpraising his favourites, he recovered his good humour, without anydiminution of his volubility.

  "We celebrate the miraculous Conception of the Virgin on the 2nd ofFebruary. The old Romans celebrated the miraculous Conception of Juno onthe 2nd of February. Our feast of All Saints is on the 2nd of November.The Festum Dei Mortis was on the 2nd of November. Our Candlemas is alsoan old Roman feast: neither the date nor the ceremony altered onetittle. The patrician ladies carried candles about the city that nightas our signoras do now. At the gate of San Croce our courtezans keep afeast on the 20th August. Ask them why! The little noodles cannot tellyou. On that very spot stood the Temple of Venus. Her building is gone;but her rite remains. Did we discover Purgatory? On the contrary, all wereally know about it is from two treatises of Plato, the Gorgias and thePhaedo, and the sixth book of Virgil's AEneid."

  "I take it from a holier source: St. Gregory": said Jerome, sternly.

  "Like enough," replied Colonna, drily. "But St. Gregory was not so nice;he took it from Virgil. Some souls, saith Gregory, are purged by fire,others by water, others by air.

  "Says Virgil:--

  'Aliae panduntur inanes, Suspensae ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni.'

  But peradventure, you think Pope Gregory I. lived before Virgil, andVirgil versified him.

  "But the doctrine is Eastern, and as much older than Plato as Plato thanGr
egory. Our prayers for the dead came from Asia with AEneas. Ovid tells,that when he prayed for the soul of Anchises, the custom was strange inItaly.

  'Hunc morem AEnaeas, pietatis idoneus auctor Attulit in terras, juste Latine, tuas.'

  The 'Biblicae Sortes,' which I have seen consulted on the altar, are aparody on the 'Sortes Virgilianae.' Our numerous altars in one church areheathen: the Jews, who are monotheists, have but one altar in a church.But the Pagans had many, being polytheists. In the temple of PaphianVenus were a hundred of them. 'Centum que Sabaeo thure calent arae.' Ouraltars and our hundred lights around St. Peter's tomb are Pagan. 'Centumaras posuit vigilemque sacraverat ignem.' We invent nothing, not evennumerically. Our very Devil is the god Pan: horns and hoofs and all; butblackened. For we cannot draw; we can but daub the figures of Antiquitywith a little sorry paint or soot. Our Moses hath stolen the horns ofAmmon; our Wolfgang the hook of Saturn; and Janus bore the keys ofheaven before St. Peter. All our really old Italian bronzes of theVirgin and Child are Venuses and Cupids. So is the wooden statue, thatstands hard by this house, of Pope Joan and the child she is said tohave brought forth there in the middle of a procession. Idiots! arenew-born children thirteen years old? And that boy is not a dayyounger. Cupid! Cupid! Cupid! And since you accuse me of credulity, knowthat to my mind that Papess is full as mythological, born of froth, andevery way unreal, as the goddess who passes for her in the next street,or as the saints you call St. Baccho and St. Quirina: or St. Oracte,which is a dunce-like corruption of Mount Soracte, or St. Amphibolus, anEnglish saint, which is a dunce-like corruption of the cloak worn bytheir St. Alban, or as the Spanish saint, St. Viar, which words on histombstone, written thus: 'S. Viar,' prove him no saint, but a good oldnameless heathen, and 'praefectus Viarum,' or overseer of roads (would hewere back to earth, and paganizing of our Christian roads!), or as ourSt. Veronica of Benasco, which Veronica is a dunce-like corruption ofthe 'Vera icon,' which this saint brought into the church. I wish it maynot be as unreal as the donor, or as the eleven thousand virgins ofCologne, who were but a couple."

  Clement interrupted him to inquire what he meant. "I have spoken withthose who have seen their bones."

  "What of eleven thousand virgins all collected in one place and at onetime? Do but bethink thee, Clement. Not one of the great Eastern citiesof antiquity could collect eleven thousand Pagan virgins at one time,far less a puny Western city. Eleven thousand _Christian virgins_ in alittle, wee Paynim city!

  'Quod cunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.'

  The simple sooth is this. The martyrs were two: the Breton princessherself, falsely called British, and her maid Onesimilla, which is aGreek name, Onesima, diminished. This some fool did mispronounce undecimmille, eleven thousand: loose tongue found credulous ears, and so onefool made many; eleven thousand of _them_, an you will. And you chargeme 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 foundthere. The best fictions in the book are Oriental, and are known to havebeen current in Persia and Arabia eight hundred years and more beforethe dates the Church assigns to them as facts. As for the true Westernfigments, they lack the Oriental plausibility. Think you I am credulousenough to believe that St. Ida joined a decapitated head to its body?that Cuthbert's carcass directed his bearers where to go, and where tostop; that a city was eaten up of rats to punish one Hatto forcomparing the poor to mice; that angels have a little horn in theirforeheads, and that this was seen and recorded at the time by St.Veronica of Benasco, who never existed, and hath left us thisinformation and a miraculous handkercher? For my part, I think theholiest woman the world ere saw must have an existence ere she can havea handkercher, or an eye to take unicorns for angels. Think you Ibelieve that a brace of lions turned sextons and helped Anthony buryPaul of Thebes? that Patrick, a Scotch saint, stuck a goat's beard onall the descendants of one that offended him? that certain thieves,having stolen the convent ram, and denying it, St. Pol de Leon bade theram 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 oldwives' fables as these? The ancients lied about animals, too: but thenthey lied logically; we unreasonably. Do but compare Ephis and his lion,or, better still, Androcles and his lion, with Anthony and his twolions. Both the pagan lions do what lions never did; but at least theyact in character. A lion with a bone in his throat, or a thorn in hisfoot, could not do better than be civil to a man. But Anthony's lionsare asses in a lion's skin. What leonine motive could they have inturning 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 theancients as our statues, and for the same reason; we do not study natureas they did. We are imitatores, servum pecus. Believe you 'the lives ofthe saints;' that Paul the Theban was the first hermit, and Anthony thefirst Caenobite? Why, Pythagoras was an Eremite, and under ground forseven years: and his daughter was an abbess. Monks and hermits were inthe East long before Moses, and neither old Greece nor Rome was everwithout them. As for St. Francis and his snowballs, he did but mimicDiogenes, who, naked, embraced statues on which snow had fallen. Thefolly without the poetry. Ape of an ape--for Diogenes was but a mimictherein of the Brahmins and Indian gymnosophists. Natheless, thechildren of this Francis bid fair to pelt us out of the church withtheir snowballs. Tell me now, Clement, what habit is lovelier than thevestments of our priests? Well, we owe them all to Numa Pompilius,except the girdle and the stole, which are judaical. As for the amiceand 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 ofthose rude times when the sacrificing priest wore the skins of thebeasts with the fur outward. Strip off thy black gown, Jerome, thygirdle and cowl, for they come to us all three from the Pagan ladies.Let thy hair grow like Absalom's, Jerome! for the tonsure is as Pagan asthe Muses."

  "Take care what thou sayest," said Jerome, sternly. "We know the veryyear in which the church did first ordain it."

  "But not invent it, Jerome. The Brahmins wore it a few thousand yearsere that. From them it came through the Assyrians to the priests of Isisin Egypt, and afterwards of Serapis at Athens. The late Pope (the saintsbe good to him) once told me the tonsure was forbidden by God to theLevites in the Pentateuch. If so, this was because of the Egyptianpriests wearing it. I trust to his holiness. I am no biblical scholar.The Latin of thy namesake Jerome is a barrier I cannot overleap. 'Dixitad me Dominus Deus. Dixi ad Dominum Deum.' No, thank you, holy Jerome; Ican stand a good deal, but I cannot stand thy Latin. Nay; give me theNew Testament! 'Tis not the Greek of Xenophon; but 'tis Greek. And therebe heathen sayings in it too. For St. Paul was not so spiteful againstthem 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 theinspired 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 burnedat 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 hallowed joyfully after Jerome. "And _that_ is Pagan. Burningof men's bodies for the opinions of their souls is a purely Pagancustom--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, andthe Paynim monk came out head and shoulders, and overhung the street,shouting--

  "'Affecti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum Novae 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 tothe fair way (for his room could only be threaded by little pathswriggling among the antiquities), tripped over the beak of an Egy
ptianstork, and rolled upon a regiment of Armenian gods, which he found toughin 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? Makeallowance for heat of discourse! He was nettled. His words are worsethan 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. FraColonna cannot be corrected; his family is all-powerful in Rome. Pray wethe saints he blasphemes to enlighten him. 'Twill not be the first timethey have returned good for evil. Meantime thou art forbidden to consortwith him. From this day go alone through the city! Confess and absolvesinners! exorcise demons! comfort the sick! terrify the impenitent!preach wherever men are gathered and occasion serves! and hold noconverse with the Fra Colonna!"

  Clement bowed his head.

  Then the prior, at Jerome's request, had the young friar watched. Andone day the spy returned with the news that brother Clement had passedby the Fra Colonna's lodging, and had stopped a little while in thestreet and then gone on, but with his hand to his eyes, and slowly.

  This report Jerome took to the prior. The prior asked his opinion, andalso Anselm's, who was then taking leave of him on his return toJuliers.

  _Jerome._] "Humph! He obeyed, but with regret, ay, with childishrepining."

  _Anselm._] "He shed a natural tear at turning his back on a friend and abenefactor. But he obeyed."

  Now Anselm was one of your gentle irresistibles. He had at times a mildascendant even over Jerome.

  "Worthy brother Anselm," said Jerome, "Clement is weak to the very bone.He will disappoint thee. He will do nothing _great_, either for theChurch or for our holy order. Yet he is an orator, and hath drunken ofthe spirit of St. Dominic. Fly him, then, with a string."

  That same day it was announced to Clement that he was to go to Englandimmediately with brother Jerome.

  Clement folded his hands on his breast, and bowed his head in calmsubmission.