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FORGED SAINTS, MARTYRS AND MIRACLES
“Throughout Church History there are miracles so well authenticated that their truth cannot be denied.” (CE. x, 345.)Look we for a moment ‘on this picture and on that, the counterfeit presentment, to slightly adapt Hamlet, of two modern Miracles, published to the world in the Metropolitan press,—a sort of study in what may be called Comparative Credulity. The 215 first, although they “read it in the paper,” no Christian or no Infidel will hesitate to laugh at or commiserate as a ridiculous superstition, taken advantage of by greedy priests to exploit their credulous dupes. Only benighted heathen Buddhists religiously believe the following:“ ... after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.” (2 Thess. ii, 9.)
“Peasant says Buddha Arose and Cured Him.The foregoing religious news item is found archived in the “Morgue” of the Great “Religious” Daily under the discrediting caption “Superstitions”; it will be noticed that the word “Miracle” in the headline is printed in quotes. No such skeptical note is to be found in its next—Christian—report.“Chinese Tale of a ‘Miracle' by Stone Image Causes Religious “Revival at Peking
“Peking, Sept. 7. A tremendous revival of religious superstition is being experienced by the Buddhists of Peking and vicinity, because an aged peasant vows that he was cured (last week) of a long-standing ailment when one of the stone images of the sitting Buddha at Palichwang Pagoda rose to its feet, stepped forward, and then raised its arm in sign of benediction.
“The old peasant, named Chang Chi-kuang, is a farmer, living near Palichwang Pagoda [a short distance from the Peking gate of the Great Wall]. Chang Chi-kuang, who, his neighbors say, has long suffered from lung trouble [passing by with a load of garden-truck which he was carrying afoot into the city], became exhausted, and stopped for rest and for refuge from the heat in the shade of an old tree near the Pagoda, which is thirteen stories high and was built 500 years ago, and in the days of the Ming emperors.
“Chang Chi-kuang, as he lay resting in the shade, found his gaze focused on the figure of the sitting Buddha, in the third story of the Pagoda. ... The figure rose, Chang says, took two steps, and raised its arms with a gesture of blessing. At this point, according to Chang, he nearly swooned. He then fell to his knees in devout worship, and when he raised his head after a long prayer the Buddha had gone back to the place and position of the last few hundred years.
“The story of this miracle has spread rapidly. Every day now thousands of pilgrims go to Palichwang from Peking and from the villages and farms in this part of the province.
“Both sides of the road from the Peking gate to the Pagoda are now lined with booths where incense is sold, and hundreds of Lama priests, with their begging bowls, now reap a rich gathering from the pious pilgrims. ... And old Chang swears that he is now in better health than he has enjoyed since he was a boy.” (Special Correspondence of the New York Times, October 14, 1928.)
Hundreds of millions of pious priest-ridden Christians do believe the following, testified under oath in a military court,—other hundreds of millions will regard it as they do the Buddhist tale above related,—and the Christian one below: 216
“Soldier's Story of a Miracle Saves Him at Court-Martial.It is not reported whether this episcopal pair of men of God were unfrocked for perjury and the perversion of justice, or even gently chided by His Holiness.“Croatian newspapers tell how a miracle figured as a determining factor in a court-martial trial. During the Austrian invasion of Upper Italy a Croatian soldier was suspected of having stolen a pearl necklace from a statue of the Holy Virgin in a pilgrims' church and was brought to trial. He admitted having taken the necklace. but insisted that it was a gift to him.
He said that he had gone into the church to pray, and had lamented before the statue of the Virgin the sad lot of his family, whom he had been compelled to leave destitute. Thereupon, he said, the Holy Virgin bowed her head, and took the pearls from her neck and handed them to him.
“The Court could not venture to reject this story offhand, as there was general belief in the miracle-working power of the statue. So it referred the matter to two Bishops, asking them whether such a miracle was within the domain of possibility.
“The Bishops were perplexed. If they answered ‘Yes,' they might be protecting a rascal. But if they said ‘No,' they would destroy the repute of that church for miraculous power and phenomena. Finally they answered that such a miracle was within the range of possibility; and in consequence the soldier was acquitted.
“But the Colonel of the regiment to which the soldier belonged was either skeptical or of a most prudent turn of mind, for after the verdict of the court had been announced he issued his order: ‘In future no soldier under my command is permitted, under heavy penalty, to accept a gift from anybody.”' (New York Times, Oct. 10, 1926.)
The “lying wonders” of saints, martyrs and miracles are so intimately related, and so inextricably interwoven the one form of pious fraud with the others, that they must needs be bunched together in this summary treatment of but few out of countless thousands, millions perhaps, of them recorded for faith and edification in the innumerable “Acts” and “Lives” and wonder-works of the Holy Church of God. Those which are here mentioned are picked at random from a turning of the pages of the fifteen ponderous tomes of CE., where they may be verified under the respective names of the Saints. With scarcely an exception they are soberly recounted as actual verities of the past and living realities of the present.
The degraded state of mind of the Faithful, and the moral depravity of the Church which for nearly two millennia, and yet into the twentieth century, peddles these childish fables as articles of Christian faith, may be known by the mere fact of the 217 existence in limitless numbers of these precious myths. Founded by Jean Bolland, of Belgium, in the early years of the 1600's, an important Church Society, known as the Bollandists, yet exists and industriously carries on its labors. “This monumental work, the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, has become the foundation of all investigation in hagiography and legend.” (CE. ix, 129.) For some three centuries its task has been and yet is, to edit and publish in official Acta Sanctorum the Lives and “Acts”—authenticated records—of every Saint in the Holy Roman Calendar. Arranged in order of dates of their “feast days,” so numerous is this heavenly mill-made host that up to the month of October over 25,000 officially authenticated Saints are recorded; the Saint-library of the Society has over 150,000 saintly volumes. As it costs about $50,000 to turn out one Saint by canonization, and “not less than $20,000” for beatification or the bestowal of the title of Blessed (CE. ii, 369),—the Church revenue from this single source is seen to have been considerable.
Holy Church is very careful and conscientious in its processes of certifying Saints; at least two allegedly genuine and fully authenticated miracles must be proven to have been performed by the candidate alive or worked by his relics after death, before final payment is required and the name certified as a Saint to the Calendar. A fairly modern instance showing this clerical scrupulosity may be cited, that of the Venerable Mary de Sales, who died in 1875 -- “Wishing to save the world over again, Jesus Our Lord had to use means till then unknown,” that is, “The Way” invented by Mary; but no miracles were satisfactorily proved to justify making her a Saint; however, her sanctity was proved, and she was decreed Venerable; some miracles must later have been proved up in her behalf, or the requisite $20,000 paid,—for in 1897 her Beatification was decreed. (CE. ix, 754.)
However, even Infallibility may be fooled sometimes, even if not all the time. The most notorious instance is that of the holy Saint Josaphat, “under which name and due to an odd slip of inerrant inspiration, the great Lord Buddha, “The Light of Asia,” was duly certified a Saint in the Roman Martyrology (27 Nov.; CE. iii, 297). More modernly, in 1802, an old grave was found containing a cadaver and a bottle “supposed to contain the blood of a martyr”; the relies were enshrined in an altar, and the erstwhile owner of the remains was duly and solemnly canonized as Saint Philomena; but this was “by mistake”; and thus were fooled two infallible Holinesses, Gregory XVI and Leo III. (CE. xii, 25.)
“SPECULA STULTORUM”
Before thumbing the wonder-filled pages of CE. to pick out from thousands, sundry examples of the inspired and truthful histories of Saints and Martyrs, recorded for the moral edification and mental stultification of the Faithful of the Twentieth Century,—when only the miracles of Science in benefit of humanity are recognized by many as real,—we may note the comment of that Exponent of “Catholic Truth” conscientiously questioning a case or two of the certified Saint- 218 records. With respect to one of the notable female Saints, St. Catherine of Alexandria, it is candidly explained: “Unfortunately these Acts have been transformed and distorted by fantastic and diffuse descriptions which are entirely due to the imagination of the narrators—[a notable one of whom was the great Bossuet of France],—who cared less to state authentic facts than to charm their readers by recitals of the marvelous.” (CE. iii, 445.) Speaking of another case, St. Emmeram: “The improbability of the tale, the fantastic details of the Saint's martyrdom, and the fantastic account of the prodigies attending his death, show that the writer, infected by the pious mania of his time, simply added to the facts imaginary details supposed to redound to the glory of the martyr.” (v, 406.) How often have we heard from this same exponent of “Catholic Truth” this same exculpation of priestly pious mendacity in wondermongering!
Questioning a few such instances, implicitly carries with it the moral assurance that all the others, related as unquestioned fact, are free from such taint of fraud,—are, indeed, among those “miracles so well authenticated that their truth cannot be denied.” Indeed, the reality and authenticity of very many, for example, the bubbling blood of the sixteen-hundred-year-old martyred St. Januarius, and its frequent efficacy in stopping eruptions of the Volcano Mt. Vesuvius, are explicitly affirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is now to be quoted. It may be suspected, however, that even these certified Saint-tales, like so many others, are fakes and “belong to the common foundation of all legends of saints” (CE. i, 40), the fraud of which is confessed.
Very portentous is this St. Januarius, “martyred” about 305: “His holy blood is kept unto this day in a phial of glass, which being set near his head, bubbles up as though it were fresh,” in the church of St. Januarius at Naples; a long article is replete with plenary proofs of this and other miracles of the Saint. He was thrown into a fiery furnace, but the flames would not touch him and his companions; his executioner was struck blind, but the Saint cured him. His holy remains were brought to Naples, and are famous on account of many miracles, as recorded in the official papal “present Roman Martyrology,” a longer account being given in the Breviary, as quoted in these words of assurance: “Among these miracles is remarkable the stopping of eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, whereby both that neighborhood and places afar off have been like to be destroyed. It is also well known and is the plain fact, seen even unto this day, that when the blood of St. Januarius, kept dried up in a small glass phial, is put in sight of the head of the same martyr, it is wont to melt and bubble up in a very strange way, as though it had but freshly been shed. ... For more than four hundred years this liquefaction has taken place at frequent intervals”; elaborate tests, the last reported in 1902 and 1904, have been unable to account for the phenomenon except as due to miracle. “It has had much to do with many conversations to Catholicism. Unfortunately, however, allegations have often been made as to the favorable verdict expressed by scientific men of note, which are not always verifiable. The supposed testimony of the great chemist, Sir Humphrey Davy, who is declared to have expressed his belief in the genuineness of the miracle, is a case in point.” (CE. viii, 295-7.) 219
This Holy Bottle of blood might well be borrowed to stop the present eruption of Mt. AEtna in Sicily, which (as this is written), is destroying several populous towns and “the most intensively cultivated land in Sicily,” by a torrent of lava a mile in width, against which the local Patron seems impotent: “The lava struck Mascali, a town of 10,000 inhabitants last night, just after the townsfolk had finished celebrating the feast of their patron, St. Leonardo, whose statue was carried on the shoulders of four old men.” (N.Y. Herald-Tribune, Nov. 8, 1928.) But such pious thaumaturgies do not seem to be overly potent this year. In this unguarded a priori surmise I find myself mistaken, and apologize to the gentle reader and to Holy Church. There is no need to borrow the Vesuvius-stopping Blood of St. Januarius; Sicily has its own local AEtna-stopper, the Holy Veil of St. Agatha, “which, according to tradition, has arrested the flow of lava toward Catania in the past.” This sacred and potent relic, a bit tardily, after several large towns have been wiped out, has now “been exposed in the cathedral by order of the Archbishop Cardinal Nava, who also issued an appeal for prayers by all in the diocese. He exhorted the population to remain calm and maintain their faith. On previous occasions prayers to St. Agatha were said when an eruption occurred, and the lava stopped short before Nicolosi and Linguaglossa, twenty-five miles north of Catania.” (N.Y. Sun, Nov. 13, 1928.) This tardy exposition of the Relics and order for prayers,—after scientific examinations and airplane explorations had shown that the fiery forces were about spent and “the lava showing signs of solidification and emissions from the smoking mountain lessening,”—is somewhat posthumous, or humorous; the devastation was already wrought. If St. Agatha's anti-volcano Veil had been gotten out of storage and waved or hung up on the first signs of eruption, some of this history, one way or another, would have been different. But if the Saint can stop volcanoes after the evil deed is done,—Well, one miracle of prevention is better than a larger number of miracles of cure,—which are ineffective to repair the havoc in such cases. Like miracles of ‘liquefaction of Holy Blood yet occur abundantly, as in the noted cases of “'Saints John the Baptist, Stephen, Pantaleone, Patricia, Nicholas, Aloysius,” et id omne genus; so with the bottled “Milk of our Lady” and the canned “fat of St. Thomas Aquinas,” on their respective Saint-days!. (CE. viii, 297.)
The sacred Council of Trent, in 1546, decreed: “That the saints who reign with Christ offer to God their prayers for men; that it is good and useful to invoke them by supplication and to have recourse to their aid and assistance in order to obtain from God His benefits through His Son and Our Savior Jesus Christ, who alone is our Savior and Redeemer.” (Session xxv.) But the sacred Council, in its preoccupation of combating the nascent outraged revolt and protest of Protestantism, which was filching its most plausible counterfeits for circulation in a hostile camp,—seems to have overlooked this scrap of forged Scripture: “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (I Tim. ii, 5.) The effect, however, of this multiplication of saintly mediators is picturesque; it is finely exemplified in the great painting “The Intercession of the 220 Saints,” in the Royal Gallery at Naples: In the background is the plague-stricken city; in the foreground the people are praying to the city authorities to avert the plague; the city authorities are praying to the Carthusian monks; the monks are praying to the Blessed Virgin; the Virgin prays to Christ; and Christ prays to his Father Almighty. The Holy Ghost, who “itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered,” is quite left out of the picture. Just how good and useful it is to invoke the Saints directly, saving Doctor's bills and other inconveniences, will be noticed in the catalogue of Saints below inscribed.
It was in the fifth century, says Dr. McCabe, that “Rome began on a large scale the forgery of lives of martyrs. Relics of martyrs were now being ‘discovered' in great numbers to meet the pious demand of ignorant Christendom, and legends were fabricated by the thousands to authenticate the spurious bits of bone.” (LBB. 1130, p. 40.) “Such,” says CE., “are the ‘Martyrium S. Polycarpi,' admitting, though it does, much that may be due to the pious fancy of the eye-witness”; also “the ‘Acta SS. Perpetuae et Felicitas.'”
The Saint-mill of Holy Church began operations very early, or reached for grist far back into antiquity for the beginnings of its Calendar of Saints. The first Saint who greets us among the countless hordes of canonized Holy Ones is no less a primitive personage that St. Abel, the younger son and second heir of our mythical Father Adam, of Eden, who was canonized by Jesus Christ himself, we are told, “as the first of a long line of prophets martyred for justice's sake,” as is the clerical interpretation of Matt. xxiii, 34-35, “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias,”—a bloody invocation in later centuries peculiarly appropriate to the Church of Jesus Christ. This is a genuine surprise, for no miracles wrought by St. Abel are recorded, and no generous canonization fees seem to have been paid for his account into the Treasury of the Lord in Rome.
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