A MAN REJECTED FROM THE CHURCH FOR HAVING REFUSED TO PAY t.i.tHES.
John Brompton, Abbot of Sornat in England,[502] says that we may read in very old histories that St. Augustin, the Apostle of England, wishing to persuade a gentleman to pay the t.i.thes, G.o.d permitted that this saint having said before all the people, before the commencement of the ma.s.s, that no excommunicated person should a.s.sist at the holy sacrifice, they saw a man who had been interred for 150 years leave the church.
After ma.s.s, St. Augustin, preceded by the cross, went to ask this dead man why he went out? The dead man replied that it was because he had died in a state of excommunication. The saint asked him, where was the sepulchre of the priest who had p.r.o.nounced against him the sentence of excommunication? They went thither; St. Augustin commanded him to rise; he came to life, and avowed that he had excommunicated the man for his crimes, and particularly for his obstinacy in refusing to pay t.i.thes; then, by order of St. Augustin, he gave him absolution, and the dead man returned to his tomb. The priest entreated the saint to permit him also to return to his sepulchre, which was granted him.
This story appears to me still more suspicious than the preceding one.
In the time of St. Augustin, the Apostle of England, there was no obligation as yet to pay t.i.thes on pain of excommunication, and much less a hundred and fifty years before that time--above all in England.
Footnotes:
[502] John Brompton, Chronic. vide ex Bolland. 26 Maii, p. 396.
CHAPTER XXVI.
INSTANCES OF PERSONS WHO HAVE SHOWN SIGNS OF LIFE AFTER THEIR DEATH, AND WHO HAVE DRAWN BACK FROM RESPECT, TO MAKE ROOM OR GIVE PLACE TO SOME WHO WERE MORE WORTHY THAN THEMSELVES.
Tertullian relates[503] an instance to which he had been witness--_de meo didici_. A woman who belonged to the church, to which she had been given as a slave, died in the prime of life, after being once married only, and that for a short time, was brought to the church. Before putting her in the ground, the priest offering the sacrifice and raising his hands in prayer, this woman, who had her hands extended at her side, raised them at the same time, and put them together as a supplicant; then, when the peace was given, she replaced herself in her former position.
Tertullian adds that another body, dead, and buried in a cemetery, withdrew on one side to give place to another corpse which they were about to inter near it. He relates these instances as a suite to what was said by Plato and Democritus, that souls remained some time near the dead bodies they had inhabited, which they preserved sometimes from corruption, and often caused their hair, beard, and nails to grow in their graves. Tertullian does not approve of the opinion of these; he even refutes them pretty well; but he owns that the instances I have just spoken of are favorable enough to that opinion, which is also that of the Hebrews, as we have before seen.
It is said that after the death of the celebrated Abelard,[504] who was interred at the Monastery of the Paraclete, the Abbess Heloisa, his spouse, being also deceased, and having requested to be buried in the same grave, at her approach Abelard extended his arms and received her into his bosom: _elevatis brachiis illam recepit, et ita eam amplexatus brachia sua strinxit_. This circ.u.mstance is certainly neither proved nor probable; the Chronicle whence it is extracted had probably taken it from some popular rumor.
The author of the Life of St. John the Almoner,[505] which was written immediately after his death by Leontius, Bishop of Naples, a town in the Isle of Cyprus, relates that St. John the Almoner being dead at Amatunta, in the same island, his body was placed between that of two bishops, who drew back on each side respectfully to make room for him in sight of all present; _non unus, neque decem, neque centum viderunt, sed omnis turba, quae convenit ad ejus sepulturam_, says the author cited. Metaphrastes, who had read the life of the saint in Greek, repeats the same fact.
Evagrius de Pont[506] says, that a holy hermit named Thomas, and surnamed Salus, because he counterfeited madness, dying in the hospital of Daphne, near the city of Antioch, was buried in the strangers" cemetery, but every day he was found out of the ground at a distance from the other dead bodies, which he avoided. The inhabitants of the place informed Ephraim, Bishop of Antioch, of this, and he had him solemnly carried into the city and honorably buried in the cemetery, and from that time the people of Antioch keep the feast of his translation.
John Mosch[507] reports the same story, only he says that it was some women who were buried near Thomas Salus, who left their graves through respect for the saint.
The Hebrews ridiculously believe that the Jews who are buried without Judea will roll underground at the last day, to repair to the Promised Land, as they cannot come to life again elsewhere than in Judea.
The Persians recognize also a transporting angel, whose care it is to a.s.sign to dead bodies the place and rank due to their merits: if a worthy man is buried in an infidel country, the transporting angel leads him underground to a spot near one of the faithful, while he casts into the sewer the body of any infidel interred in holy ground.
Other Mahometans have the same notion; they believe that the transporting angel placed the body of Noah, and afterwards that of Ali, in the grave of Adam. I relate these fantastical ideas only to show their absurdity. As to the other stories related in this same chapter, they must not be accepted without examination, for they require confirmation.
Footnotes:
[503] Tertull. de Animo, c. 5. p. 597. Edit. Pamelii.
[504] Chronic. Turon. inter opera Abaelardi, p. 1195.
[505] Bolland. tom. ii. p. 315, 13 Januar.
[506] Evagrius Pont. lib. iv. c. 53.
[507] Jean Mosch. pras. spirit. c. 88.
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF PERSONS WHO PERFORM A PILGRIMAGE AFTER THEIR DEATH.
A scholar of the town of Saint Pons, near Narbonne,[508] having died in a state of excommunication, appeared to one of his friends, and begged of him to go to the city of Rhodes, and ask the bishop to grant him absolution. He set off in snowy weather; the spirit, who accompanied him without being seen by him showed him the road and cleared away the snow. On arriving at Rhodes, he asked and obtained for his friend the required absolution, when the spirit reconducted him to Saint Pons, gave him thanks for this service, and took leave, promising to testify to him his grat.i.tude.
Here follows a letter written to me on the 5th of April, 1745, and which somewhat relates to what we have just seen. "Something has occurred here within the last few days, relatively to your Dissertation upon Ghosts, which I think I ought to inform you of. A man of Letrage, a village a few miles from Remiremont, lost his wife at the beginning of February last, and married again the week before Lent. At eleven o"clock in the evening of his wedding-day, his wife appeared and spoke to his new spouse; the result of the conversation was to oblige the bride to perform seven pilgrimages for the defunct.
From that day, and always at the same hour, the defunct appeared, and spoke in presence of the cure of the place and several other persons; on the 15th of March, at the moment that the bride was preparing to repair to St. Nicholas, she had a visit from the defunct, who told her to make haste, and not to be alarmed at any pain or trouble which she might undergo on her journey.
This woman with her husband and her brother and sister-in-law, set off on their way, not expecting that the dead wife would be of the party; but she never left them until they were at the door of the Church of St. Nicholas. These good people, when they were arrived at two leagues" distance from St. Nicholas, were obliged to put up at a little inn called the Barracks. There the wife found herself so ill, that the two men were obliged to carry her to the burgh of St.
Nicholas. Directly she was under the church porch, she walked easily, and felt no more pain. This fact has been reported to me by the sacristan and the four persons. The last thing that the defunct said to the bride was, that she should neither speak to nor appear to her again until half the pilgrimages should be accomplished. The simple and natural manner in which these good people related this fact to us makes me believe that it is certain.
It is not said that this young woman had incurred excommunication, but apparently she was bound by a vow or promise which she had made, to accomplish these pilgrimages, which she imposed upon the other young wife who succeeded her. Also, we see that she did not enter the Church of St. Nicholas; she only accompanied the pilgrims to the church door.
We may here add the instance of that crowd of pilgrims who, in the time of Pope Leo IX., pa.s.sed at the foot of the wall of Narne, as I have before related, and who performed their purgatory by going from pilgrimage to pilgrimage.
Footnotes:
[508] Melchior. lib. de Statu Mortuorum.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ARGUMENT CONCERNING THE EXCOMMUNICATED WHO QUIT CHURCHES.
All that we have just reported concerning the bodies of persons who had been excommunicated leaving their tombs during ma.s.s, and returning into them after the service, deserves particular attention.
It seems that a thing which pa.s.sed before the eyes of a whole population in broad day, and in the midst of the most redoubtable mysteries, can be neither denied nor disputed. Nevertheless, it may be asked, How these bodies came out? Were they whole, or in a state of decay? naked, or clad in their own dress, or in the linen and bandages which had enveloped them in the tomb? Where, also, did they go?
The cause of their forthcoming is well noted; it was the major excommunication. This penalty is decreed only to mortal sin.[509]
Those persons had, then, died in the career of deadly sin, and were consequently condemned and in h.e.l.l; for if there is naught in question but a minor excommunication, why should they go out of the church after death with such terrible and extraordinary circ.u.mstances, since that ecclesiastical excommunication does not deprive one absolutely of communion with the faithful, or of entrance to church?
If it be said that the crime was remitted, but not the penalty of excommunication, and that these persons remained excluded from church communion until after their absolution, given by the ecclesiastical judge, we ask if a dead man can be absolved and be restored to communion with the church, unless there are unequivocal proofs of his repentance and conversion preceding his death.
Moreover, the persons just cited as instances do not appear to have been released from crime or guilt, as might be supposed. The texts which we have cited sufficiently note that they died in their guilt and sins; and what St. Gregory the Great says in the part of his Dialogues there quoted, replying to his interlocutor, Peter, supposes that these nuns had died without doing penance.
Besides, it is a constant rule of the church that we cannot communicate or have communion with a dead man, whom we have not had any communication with during his lifetime. "Quibus viventibus non communicavimus, mortuis, communicare non possumus," says Pope St.
Leo.[510] At any rate, it is allowed that an excommunicated person who has given signs of sincere repentance, although there may not have been time for him to confess himself, can be reconciled to the church[511] and receive ecclesiastical sepulture after his death. But, in general, before receiving absolution from sin, they must have been absolved from the censures and excommunication, if such have been incurred: "Absolutio ab excommunicatione debet praecedere absolutionem a peccatis; quia quandiu aliquis est excommunicatus, non potest recipere aliquod Ecclesiae Sacramentum," says St. Thomas.[512]
Following this decision, it would have been necessary to absolve these persons from their excommunication, before they could receive absolution from the guilt of their sins. Here, on the contrary, they are supposed to be absolved from their sins as to their criminality, in order to be able to receive absolution from the censures of the church.