PART 11. CENr. XIII. the custom that still prevails, of carrying about this divine bread in solemn pomp through the public streets, when it is to be administered to sick or dying persons, with many other ceremonies of a like nature, which are dishonourable to religion, and opprobrious to humanity. But that which gave the finishing touch to this heap of absurdities, and displayed superstition in its highest extravagance, was the institution of the celebrated annual festival of the holy sacrament, or, as it is sometimes called, of the body of Christ, whose origin was as follows; a certain devout woman whose name was Juliana, and who lived at Liege, declared that she had received a revelation from heaven, intimating to her, that it was the will of God, that a peculiar festival should be annually observed in honour of the holy sacrament, or rather of the real presence of Christ's body in that sacred institution. Few gave attention or credit to this pretended vision, whose circumstances were extremely equivocal and absurd,' and which would have come to nothing, had it not been supported by Robert, bishop of Liege, who, in the year 1246, published an order for the celebration of this festival throughout the whole province, notwithstanding the opposition which he knew would be made to a proposal founded only on an idle dream. After the death of Juliana, one of her friends and companions, whose name was Eve, took up her cause with uncommon zeal, and had credit enough with Urban IV. to engage him to publish, in the year 1264, a solemn edict, by which the festival in question was imposed upon all the christian churches, without exception. This This fanatical woman declared, that as often as she addressed herself to God, or to the saints in prayer, she saw the full moon with a small defect or breach in it; and that, having long studied to find out the signification of this strange appearance, she was inwardly informed by the spirit, that the moon signified the church, and that the defect or breach was the want of an annual festival in honour of the holy sacrament. PART II. edict however did not produce its full and proper CENT. XIII. effect, on account of the death of the pontiff, which happened soon after its publication; so that the festival under consideration was not celebrated universally throughout the Latin churches, before the pontificate of Clement V. who, in the council held at Vienne in France, in the year 1311, confirmed the edict of Urban, and thus, in spite of all opposition, established a festival, which contributed more to render the doctrine of transubstantiation agreeable to the people, than the decree of the council of the Lateran under Innocent III. or than all the exhortations of his lordly successors. jubilee added the church. III. About the conclusion of this century, Boni- The year of face VIII. added to the public rites and ceremonies to the rites of of the church, the famous jubilee, which is still celebrated at Rome, at a stated period, with the utmost profusion of pomp and magnificence. In the year 1299, a rumour was spread abroad among the inhabitants of that city, that all such as visited, within the limits of the following year, the church of St. Peter, should obtain the remission of all their sins, and that this privilege was to be annexed to the performance of the same service once every hundred years. Boniface no sooner heard of this, than he ordered strict inquiry to be made concerning the author and the foundation of this report, and the result of this inquiry was answerable to his views; for he was assured, by many testimonies worthy of credit," say the Roman catholic histori See Barthol. Fisen, Origo prima Festi Corporis Christi ex Viso Sanctæ Virginis Juliane oblato, published in 8vo. at Liege, in the year 1619. Dallæus, De cultus religiosi objecto, p. 287. Acta Sanctor. April. tom, i. p. 437, 903. And above all Benedict. Pont. Max, de Festis Christi et Mariæ, lib. i. c. xiii. p. 360, tom. x. opp. These testimonies worthy of credit have never been produced by the Romish writers, unless we rank in that class, that of an old man, who had completed his one hundred and seventh year, and who, being brought before Boniface VIII. declared, if we may believe the Abbe PART II. CENT. XIII. ans, that, from the remotest antiquity, this important privilege of remission and indulgence was to be obtained by the services abovementioned. No sooner had the pontiff received this information, than he issued out an epistolary mandate, addressed to all christians, in which he enacted it as a solemn law of the church, that those who, every hundredth or jubilee year, confessed their sins, and visited, with sentiments of contrition and repentance, the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome, should obtain thereby the entire remission of their various offences." The successors of Boniface were not satisfied with adding a multitude of new rites and Fleury, that his father, who was a common labourer, had assisted at the celebration of a jubilee, an hundred years before that time. See Fleury Hist. Eccles. toward the end of the twelfth century. It is however a very unaccountable thing, if the institution of the jubilee year was not the invention of Boniface, that there should be neither in the acts of councils, nor in the records of history, nor in the writings of the learn ed, any trace, or the least mention of its celebration before the year 1300; this, with other reasons of an irresistible evidence, have persuaded some Roman catholic writers to consider the institution of the jubilee year, as the invention of this pontiff, who, to render it more respectable, pretended that it was of a much earlier date. See Ghilen. and Victorell, apud Bonanni Numism. Pontif. Rom. tom. i. p. 22, 23, w So the matter is related by James Cajetan, cardinal of St. George, and nephew to Boniface, in his Relatio de Centesimo seu Jubilæo anno, which is published in his Magna Bibliotheca Vet. Patrum, tom. vi. p. 426, 440, and in the Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum, tom. xxv. p. 267, Nor is there any reason to believe that this account is erroneous and false, nor that Boniface acted the part of an impostor, from a principle of avarice, upon this occasion. N. B. It is not without astonishment, that we hear Dr. Mosheim deciding in this manner with respect to the good faith of Boniface and the relation of his nephew. The character of that wicked and ambitious pontiff is well known, and the relation of the cardinal of St. George has been proved to be the most ridiculous, fabulous, motley piece of stuff that ever usurped the title of an historical record. See the excellent Lettres de M. Chais sur les Jubiles, that are mentioned more at large in the following note, tom. i. p. 53. PART II. inventions, by way of ornaments, to this supersti- CENT. XIII. tious institution; but finding by experience that it added to the lustre and augmented the revenues of the Roman church, they rendered its return more frequent, and fixed its celebration to every five and twentieth year.x * The various writers, who have treated of the institution of the Roman jubilee, are enumerated by Jo. Albert Fabricius in his Bibliogr. Antiquar. p. 316. Among the authors that may be added to this list, there is one whom we think it necessary to mention particularly, viz. the reverend Charles Chais, whose Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques sur les Jubiles et des Indulgences, were published at the Hague in three volumes 8vo. in the year 1751. These letters of Mr. Chais, minister of the French church at the Hague, and well known in the republic of letters, contain the most full and accurate account that has been ever given of the institution of the jubilee, and of the rise, progress, abuses, and enormities of the infamous traffic of indulgences. This account is judiciously collected from the best authors of antiquity, and from several curious records that have escaped the researches of other writers; it is also interspersed with curious, and sometimes ludicrous anecdotes, that render the work equally productive of entertainment and instruction. In the first volume of these Letters, the learned author lays open the nature and origin of the institution of the jubilee; he proves it to have been a human invention, which owed its rise to the avarice and ambition of the popes, and its credit to the ignorance and superstition of the people, and whose celebration was absolutely unknown before the thirteenth century, which is the true date of its origin. He takes notice of the various changes it underwent with respect to the time of its celebration, the various colours with which the ambitious pontiffs covered it in order to render it respectable and alluring in the eyes of the multitude; and exposes these illusions by many convincing arguments, whose gravity is seasoned with an agreeable and temperate mixture of decent raillery. He proves, with the utmost evidence, that the papal jubilee is an imitation of the secular games, that were celebrated with such pomp in pagan Rome. He points out the gross contradictions that reign in the bulls of the different popes, with respect to the nature of this institution, and the time of its celebration. Nor does he pass over in silence the infamous traffic of indulgences, the worldly pomp and splendour, the crimes, debaucheries, and disorders of every kind, that were observable at the return of each jubilee year. He lays also before the reader an historical view of all the jubilees that were celebrated from the pontificate of Bon CHAPTER V. CONCERNING THE DIVISIONS AND HERESIES THAT TROUBLED THE CENT. XIII. and jacobites. 1. We have no account of any new sects that arose among the Greeks during this century. Nestorians Those of the nestorians and jacobites, which were settled in the remoter regions of the east, and who equalled the Greeks in their aversion to the rites and jurisdiction of the Latin church, were frequently solicited, by the ministry of franciscan and dominican missionaries sent among them by the popes, to receive the Roman yoke. In the year 1246, Innocent IV. used his utmost efforts to bring both these sects under his dominion; and in the year 1278, terms of accommodation were proposed by Nicolas IV. to the nestorians, and particularly to that branch of the sect which resided in the northern parts of Asia." The leading men both among the nestorians and jacobites seemed to give ear to the proposals that were made to them, and were by no means averse to a reconciliation with the church of Rome; iface VIII. in the year 1300, to that of Benedict XIV. in 1750, with an entertaining account of the most remarkable adventures that happened among the pilgrims who repaired to Rome on these occasions. The second and third volumes of these interesting Letters treat of the indulgences that are administered in the church of Rome. The reader will find here their nature and origin explained, the doctrine of the Roman catholic divines relating to them stated and refuted, the history of this impious traffic accurately laid down, and its enormities and pernicious effects circumstantially exposed with learning, perspicuity, and candour. y Odor. Renaldus, Annal. Eccles. tom. xiii. ad A. 1247, § xxxii. and tom. xv. ad A. 1303, § xxii. and ad A. 1304, § xxiii. Matth. Paris, Hist· Major, p. 372. |