ing always uncertain. He is surprised to see an earthquake or pestilence drive all to penance and to the font: though an apoplexy or other sudden death may as easily surprise men any night of their lives. He relates this frightful example. When the Nomades Scythians plundered those parts, Archias, a young nobleman of Comanes, whom he knew very well, and who deferred his baptism, fell into their bands, and was shot to death by their arrows, crying out lamentably, "Mountains and woods baptize me; trees and rocks แ give me the grace of the sacrament." Which miserable death more afflicted the city than all the rest of the war. His sermons Against Fornication, On Penance, On Alms, and On Pentecost, are in the same style. In that Against Usurers he exerts a more than ordinary zeal, and tells them: "Love the poor. In his necessity he "has recourse to you, to assist his misery, but by lending him on

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usury you increase it: you sow new miseries on his sorrows, and "add to his afflictions. In appearance you do him a pleasure, but "in reality ruin him, like one who, overcome by a sick man's importunities, gives him wine, a present satisfaction, but a real poison. Uury gives no relief, but makes your neighbour's want greater than it was. The usurer is no way profitable to the re"public, neither by tilling the ground, by trade, &c. ; yet idle at "home, would have all to produce to him: hates all he gains not "by. But though you were to give alms of these unjust exactions, they would carry along with them the tears of others robbed by them. The beggar that receives, did he know it, would refuse to "be fed with the flesh and blood of a brother; with bread extorted "by rapine from other poor. Give it back to him from whom you unjustly took it.-But to hide their malice, they change the name usury into milder words calling it interest or moderate profit, like "the heathens, who called their furies by the soft name Eumenides." He relates that a rich usurer of Nyssa, so covetous as to deny himself and children necessaries, and not to use the bath to save three farthings, dying suddenly, left his money all hid and buried where his children could never find it, who by that means were all reduced to beggary. "The usurers answer me," says 66 he, then we will not lend; and what will the poor do? I bid them give, and ex"hort to lend without interest; for he that refuses to lend, and he "that lends at usury, are equally criminal;" that is, if the necessity of another be extreme. His sermon On the Lent Fast displays the advantage of fasting for the health of both body and soul; he demands these forty days strenuous labour to cure all their vices, and insists on total abstinence from wine at large, and that weakness of constitution and health is ordinarily a vain pretence.

St Gregory's great Catechistical Discourse is commended by Theodoret, (dial. 2 and 3.) Leontius, (b. 3) Euthymius, (Panopl. p. 2.5) Germanus patriarch of Constantinople (in Photius, cod. 233, &c.) The last lines are an addition. In the fortieth chapter he expounds to the catechumens the mysteries of the Unity and Trinity of God, and the Incarnation: also the two sacraments of baptism and the body of Christ, in which latter Christ's real body is mixt with our corruptible bodies, to bestow on us immortality and grace.

In his book Upon Virginity he extols its merit and dignity.

St Gregory was much scandalized in his journey to Jerusalem to see contentions reign in that holy place; yet he had the comfort to find there several persons of great virtue, especially three very de vout ladies, to whom he afterwards wrote a letter, in which he says, (T. 3. p. 655, 6;6.) "When I saw those holy places. I was filled with a joy and pleasure which no tongue can express." Soon after his return, he wrote a short treatise on those who go to Jerusalem, (T. 3. app. p. 72) in which he condemns pilgrimages, when made an occasion of sloth, dissipation of mind, and other dangers; and observes, that they are no part of the gospel precepts. Dr Cave (p. 44) borrows the sophistry of Du Moulin to employ this piece against the practice of pilgrimages; but in part very unjustly, as Gretser (Not. in Notas Molinei) demonstrates. Some set too great a value on pil grimages, and made them an essential part of perfection: and by them, even many monks and nuns exchanged their solitude into a vagabond life. These abuses St Gregory justly reproves. What he says that he himself received no good by visiting the holy places, must be understood to be a Moisis, or extenuation, to check the monks too ardent passion for pilgrimages, and only means, the presence of those holy places, bately of itself, contributes nothing to a man's sanctification: but he does not deny it to be profitable by many devout persons uniting together in prayer and mortification, and by exciting hearts more powerfully to devotion. Movemur locis ipsis in quibus corum duos admiramur aut diligimus adsunt vestiga," said Atticus in Cicero. "Me quicem ille ipse nostræ Athenæ, non tam operibus magnificis exquisitisque antiquorum artibus delectant, quam recordatione summorum virorum, ubi quis habitare, ubi sedere, ubi disputare sit solitus, studi seque eorum sepulchra contemplor." Much more must the sight of the places of Christ's mysteries stir up our sentiments and love. Why else did St Gregory go over Calvary, Golgotha, Olivet. Bethleem? What was the unspeakable (spiritual certainly, not corporal) pleasure he was filled with at their sight? a real spiritual benefit, and that which is sought by true pilgrims. Does he not relate and approve the pilgrimages of his friend, the monk Olympius? Nor could he be ignorant of the doctrine and practice of the church. He must know in the third century that his countryman St Alexander, a bishop in Cappadocia, admonished by a divine oracle, went to Jerusalem to pray, and to visit the holy places, &c. as Eusebius relates, (Hist. lib. 6. cap. 11. p. 22.) and that this had been always the tradition and practice. Longum est nunc ab 66 ascensu Domini usque ad præsentem diem per singulas ætates cur"rere, qui episcoporum, qui martyrum, qui eloquentium in doc"rina ecclesiastica virorum venerint Hierosolyman, putantes se “minus religionis, minus habere scientiæ, nec summam ut dicitur manum accepisse virtutum, nisi in illis Christum adorassent locis "de quibus primum Evangelium de patibulo coruscaverat." (St Jerom, in ep. Paulæ et Eustochii ad Marcellam, T. 4. p. 550. ed. Ben.) As for the abuses which St Gregory censures, they are condemned in the canon law, by all divines and men of sound judg ment. If, with Benedict XIV. we grant this father reprehended the abuses of pilgrimages, so as to think the devotion itself not much to

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be recommended, this can only regard the circumstances of many who abuse them, which all condemn. He could not oppose the torrent of other fathers, and the practice of the whole church. And his devotion to holy places, relicks, &c. is evident in his writings, and in the practice of St Macrina and his whole family.

His discourse On the Resurrection, is the dialogue he had with his şister St Macring the day before his death. His treatise On the Name and Profession of a Christian, was wrote to show no one ought to bear that name, who does not practise the rules of this profession, and who has not its spirit, without which a man may perform exterior duties, bat will upon occasions betray himself, and forget his obligation. When a mountebank at Alexandria had taught an ape dressed in woman's clothes to dançe most ingeniously, the people took it for a woman, till one threw some almonds on the stage; for then the beast could no longer contain, but tearing off its clothes, went about the stage picking up its dainty fruit, and shewed itself to be an ape. Occasions of vain-glory, ambition, pleasure, &c. are the devil's baits, and prove who are Christians, and who hypocrites and dissemblers under so great a name, whose lives are an injury and blasphemy against Christ and his holy religion. His book On Perfection, teaches, that that life is most perfect, which resembles nearest the life of Christ in humility and charity, and in dying to all passions and to the love of crea tures that in which Christ most perfectly lives, and which is the best living image, which appears in a man's thoughts, words, and actions; for these shew the image which is imprinted on the soul. But there is no perfection which is not occupied in continually advancing higher.

His book On the Resolution of Perfection to the monks, shews perfection to consist in every action being referred to God, and done perfectly conformable to his will in the spirit of Christ. St Gregory had excommunicated certain persons, who, instead of repenting, fell to threats and violence. The saint made against them his sermon, entitled, Against those who do not receive chastisement submissively, in which, after exhorting them to submission, he offers himself to saffer torments and death, closing it thus: "How can we murmur to "suffer, who are the ministers of a God crucified? yet under all you inflict, I receive your insolences and persecutions as a father " and mother do from their dearest children, with tenderness." In the discourse On Children dying without baptism, he shews that such can never enjoy God; yet feel not the severe torments of the rest of the damned. We have his sermons On Pentecost, Christ's Birth, Baptism, Ascension, and On his Resurrection, (but of these last only the 1st, 3d and 4th are St Gregory's) and two On St Stephen, three On the forty Martyrs: the lives of St Gregory Thaumaturgus, St Theodorus, St Ephrem, St Meletius, and his own sister St Macrina: his panegyric on his brother St Basil the Great, the funeral oration of Pulcheria, daughter to the Emperor Theodosius, six years old, and that of his mother the Empress Flaccilla, who died soon after at the waters in Thrace. St Gregory was invited to make these two discourses, in 385, when he was at Constantinople. We have only five of St Gregory's letters in his works. Zacagnius has published fourteen others out of the Vatican library. Caraccioli of Pisa in 1731, has given us seven more with tedious notes.

St

St Gregory surpasses himself in perspicuity and strength of reasoning, in his polemic works against all the chief heretics of his time. His twelve books against Eunomius, were ever most justly valued above the rest. St Basil had refuted that heresiarch's Apology; nor durst he publish any answer, till after the death of that eloquent champion of the faith. Then the Apology of his Apology began to creep privately abroad. St Gregory got at last a copy, and wrote his twelve excellent books, in which he vindicates St Basil's memory, and gives many secret histories of the base Eunomius's life. He proves against him the Divinity and Consubstantiality of God the Son. Though he employs the scripture with extraordinary sagacity, he says, tradition, by succession from the apostles, is alone sufficient to condemn heretics. (Or. 3. contra Eunom. p. 123.) We have his treatise To Ablavius, that there are not three Gods. A treatise On Faith also against the Arians. That On common Notions, is an explication of the terms used about the Blessed Trinity. We have his Ten Syllogisms against the Manichees, proving that evil cannot be a god. The heresy of the Apollinarists beginning to be broached, St Gregory wrote to Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, against them, shewing there is but one person in Christ. But his great work against Apollinaris, is his Antirretic, quoted by Leontius, the sixth general council, &c. Only a fragment was printed in the edition of this father's works; but it was published from MSS. by Zacagnius, prefect of the Vatican Library, in 1698. He shews in it, that the Divinity could not suffer, and that there must be two natures in Christ, who was perfect God and perfect man. He proves also against Apollinaris, that Christ had a human soul, with a human understanding. book of Testimonies against the Jews is another fruit of his zeal.

His

St Gregory so clearly establishes the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, that some Greeks, obstinate in that heresy, erased out of his writings the word out of, as they confessed in a council at Constantinople in 1280. He expressly condemned Nestorianism before it was broached, and says, "No one dare call the holy Virgin and "mother of God, mother of man." (Ep. ad Eustath. p. 1093) He asserts her virginity in and after the birth of Christ. (Or. contr. Eunom. p. 108. & Serm, in natale Christi, p. 776.) He is no less clear for transubstantiation in his great catechistical discourse (c. 37. p. 534, 335.) for the sacrifice and the altar. (Or. in Bapt. Christi, p. 801.) Private confession of sins is plain from his epistle to Letoius (P. 954) in which he writes thus : "Whoever secretly steals another man's goods, if he afterwards discovers his sin by declaration to the priest, his heart being changed, he will cure his wound, giving what he has to the poor.' This for occult theft, for which no canonical penance was prescribed. He inculcates the authority of priests of binding and loosing before God, (Serm. de castig. 746. 747.) and calls St Peter" prince of the apostolic choir," (Serm. 2.de sancto Stephano edito a Zacagnio, p. 339.) and (ib. p. 343.) "the head of the apostles ;" and adds, "In glorifying him, all the members of the "church are glorified, and that it is founded on him." He writes very expressly and at length, on the invocation of saints, and says they enjoy the beatific vision immediately after death, in his sermons on St Theodorus, on the Forty Martyrs, St Ephrem, St Meletius, &c.

ST PACIAN, BISHOP OF BARCELONA, C.

THIS saint was a great ornament of the church in the fourth century. He was illustrious by birth, and had been engaged in marriage in the world. His son Dexter was raised to the first dignities in the empire, being high chamberlain to the emperor Theodosius, and præfectus-prætorii under Honorius. St Pacian, having renounced the world, was made bishop in 373. St Jerom, who dedicated to him his Catalogue of illustrious men, extols his eloquence and learning, and more particularly the chastity and sanctity of his life. We have his Exhortation to penance, and three letters to Sympronianus, a Novatian noblemen, on Penance, and on the name of Catholic; also a sermon on Baptism. See St Jerom, Catal. Vir. Illust. c. 106. p. 195. T. 4. Ceillier, T. 6. Tillem. T. 8.

Appendix on the Writings of St PACIAN of Barcelona,

WHEN he was made bishop of Barcelona, in 373, there lived in the neighbourhood of that city one Sympronian, a man of distinction, whom the bishop calls brother and lord, who was a Donatist, and al-` so engaged in the heresy of the Novatians, who followed the severity of the Montanists, denied penance and pardon for certain sins. He sent St Pacian a letter by a servant, in which he censured the church for allowing repentance to all crimes, and for taking the title of Catholic. St Pacian answers him in three learned letters.

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In the first, he sums up the principal heresies from Simon Magus to the Novatians, and asks Sympronian which he will choose to stand by intreats him to examine the true church with docility and candour, laying aside all obstinacy, the enemy to truth. He says, the name Catholic comes from God, and is necessary to distinguish the dove, the undivided virgin church from all sects, which are called from their particular founders. This name we learned from the holy doctors, confessors, and martyrs. My name," says he, "is Christian, my surname Catholic: the one distinguishes me, the other points me 16 out to others." "Christianus mihi nomen est; Catholicus vero cognomen illud me nuncupat, istud ostendit; hoc probor, inde significor." He says that no name can be more proper to express the church, which isall obedient to Christ, and one and the same through the whole world. "As to penance," says he, "God grant it be necessary to none of the faithful; that none after baptism fall into the pit

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