"Their soldiery, composed of a variety of nations--ancient Mauritanians, ancient Numidians, Arabs, Turks, and even negroes, set sail, almost without provisions, in tight vessels carrying from eighteen to twenty guns, and infest all our seas like vultures seeking their prey. When they see a man of war, they fly; when they see a merchant vessel they seize it. Our friends and our relatives, men and women, are made slaves; and we must humbly supplicate the barbarians to deign to receive our money for restoring to us their captives.
"Some Christian states have had the shameful prudence to treat with them, and send them arms wherewith to attack others, bargaining with them as _merchants_, while they negotiate as _warriors_.
"Nothing would be more easy than to put down these marauders; yet it is not done. But how many other useful and easy things are entirely neglected! The necessity of reducing these pirates is acknowledged in every prince's cabinet; yet no one undertakes their reduction. When the ministers of different courts accidently talk the matter over, they do but illustrate the fable of _tying the bell round the cat's neck_.
"The order of the Redemption of Captives is the finest of all monastic institutions, but it is a sad reproach to us. The kingdoms of Fez, Algiers, and Tunis have no _marabous_ of the Redemption of Captives; because, though they take many Christians from us, we take scarcely any Mussulmans from them.
"Nevertheless, they are more attached to their religion than we are to ours; for no Turk or Arab ever turns Christian, while they have hundreds of renegadoes among them, who even serve in their expeditions. An Italian named _Pelegini_, was, in 1712, captain-general of the Algerine galleys. The miramolin, the bey, the dey, all have Christian females in their seraglios, but there are only two Turkish girls who have found lovers in Paris.
"The Algerine land force consists of twelve thousand regular soldiers only; but all the rest of the men are trained to arms; and it is this that renders the conquest of the country so difficult. The Vandals, however, easily subdued it; yet we dare not attack it."
ALLEGORIES.
Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury, travelling one day in Thrace, called on a certain king named Hyreus, who entertained them very handsomely. After eating a good dinner, they asked him if they could render him any service. The good man, who was past the age at which it is usual for men to have children, told them he should be very much obliged to them if they would make him a boy. The three gods then urinated on the skin of a new flayed ox; and from these sprang Orion, who became one of the constellations known to the most remote antiquity. This constellation was named Orion by the ancient Chaldæans; it is spoken of in the Book of Job. It would be hard to discover a rational allegory in this pretty story, unless we are to infer from it that nothing was impossible to the gods.
There were in Greece two young rakes, who were told by the oracle to beware of the _melampygos_ or _sable posteriors_. One day Hercules took them and tied them by the feet to the end of his club, so that they hung down his back with their heads downward, like a couple of rabbits, having a full view of his person. "Ah!" said they; "the oracle is accomplished; this is the _melampygos_." Hercules fell alaughing, and let them go. Here again it would be rather difficult to divine the moral sense.
Among the fathers of mythology there were some who had only imagination; but the greater part of them possessed understandings of no mean order. Not all our academies, not all our makers of devices, not even they who compose the legends for the counters of the royal treasury, will ever invent allegories more true, more pleasing, or more ingenious, than those of the Nine Muses, of Venus, the Graces, the God of Love, and so many others, which will be the delight and instruction of all ages.
The ancients, it must be confessed, almost always spoke in allegories. The earlier fathers of the church, the greater part of whom were Platonists, imitated this method of Plato's. They have, indeed, been reproached with having carried this taste for allegories and allusions a little too far.
St. Justin, in his "Apology," says that the sign of the cross is marked in the limbs and features of man; that when he extends his arms there is a perfect cross; and that his nose and eyes form a cross upon his face.
According to Origen's explanation of Leviticus, the _fat_ of the victims signifies _the Church_, and the _tail_ is a symbol of _perseverance_.
St. Augustine, in his sermon on the difference and agreement of the two genealogies of Christ, explains to his auditors why St. Matthew, although he reckons forty-two generations, enumerates only forty-one. It is, says he, because _Jechonias_ must be reckoned twice, Jechonias having gone from Jerusalem to Babylon. This journey is to be considered as the corner-stone; and if the corner-stone is the first of one side of a building, it is also the first of the other side; consequently this stone must be reckoned twice; and therefore Jechonias must be reckoned twice. He adds that, in the forty-two generations, we must dwell on the number _forty_, because that number signifies _life_. The number _ten_ denotes _blessedness_, and _ten_ multiplied by _four_, which represents the four elements and the four seasons, produces _forty_.
In his fifty-third sermon, the dimensions of matter have astonishing properties. Breadth _is the dilation of the heart_, length is _long-suffering_, height is _hope_, and depth is _faith_. So that, besides the allegory, we have four dimensions of matter instead of three.
It is clear and indubitable (says he in his sermon on the 6th psalm) that the number _four_ denotes the human body, because of the four elements, and the four qualities of _hot_, _cold_, _moist_, and _dry_; and as _four_ relates to the body, so _three_ relates to the soul; for we must love God with a triple love--with all our _hearts_ with all our _souls_, and with all our _minds_. _Four_ also relates to the Old Testament, and _three_ to the New. _Four_ and _three_ make up the number of _seven_ days, and the _eight_ is the _day of judgment_.
One cannot but feel that there is in these allegories an affectation but little compatible with true eloquence. The fathers, who sometimes made use of these figures, wrote in times and countries in which nearly all the arts were degenerating. Their learning and fine genius were warped by the imperfections of the age in which they lived. St. Augustine is not to be respected the less for having paid this tribute to the bad taste of Africa and the fourth century.
The discourses of our modern preachers are not disfigured by similar faults. Not that we dare prefer them to the fathers; but the present age is to be preferred to the ages in which they wrote. Eloquence, which became more and more corrupted, and was not revived until later times, fell, after them, into still greater extravagances; and the languages of all barbarous nations were alike ridiculous until the age of Louis XIV. Look at all the old collections of sermons; they are far below the dramatic pieces of the Passion, which used to be played at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. But the spirit of allegory, which has never been lost, may be traced throughout these barbarous discourses. The celebrated _Ménot_, who lived in the reign of Francis I., did more honor, perhaps, than any other to the allegorical style. "The worthy administrators of justice," said he, "are like a cat set to take care of a cheese, lest it should be gnawed by the mice. One bite of the cat does more damage to the cheese than twenty mice can do."
Here is another very curious passage: "The woodmen, in a forest, cut large and small branches, and bind them in faggots; just so do our ecclesiastics, with dispensations from Rome, heap together great and small benefices. The cardinal's hat is garnished with bishoprics, the bishoprics are garnished with abbeys and priories, and the whole is garnished with devils. All these church possessions must pass through the three links of the _Ave Maria_; for _benedicta tu_ stands for fat abbeys of Benedictines, _in mulieribus_ for _monsieur_ and _madame_, and _fructus ventris_ for banquets and gormandizers."
The sermons of Barlet and Maillard are all framed after this model, and were delivered half in bad Latin, and half in bad French. The Italian sermons were in the same taste; and the German were still worse. This monstrous medley gave birth to the _macaroni_ style, the very climax of barbarism. The species of oratory, worthy only of the Indians on the banks of the Missouri, prevailed even so lately as the reign of Louis XIII. The Jesuit Garasse, one of the most distinguished enemies of common sense, never preached in any other style. He likened the celebrated _Theophile_ to a calf, because Theophile's family name was _Viaud_, something resembling _veau_ (a calf). "But," said he, "the flesh of a calf is good to roast and to boil, whereas thine is good for nothing but to _burn_."
All these allegories, used by our barbarians, fall infinitely short of those employed by Homer, Virgil, and Ovid, which proves that if there be still some Goths and Vandals who despise ancient fable they are not altogether in the right.
ALMANAC.
It is of little moment to know whether we have the word _almanac_ from the ancient Saxons, who could not write, or from the Arabs, who are known to have been astronomers, and to have had some acquaintance with the courses of the planets, while the western nations were still wrapped in an ignorance as great as their barbarism. I shall here confine myself to one short observation.
Let an Indian philosopher, who has embarked at Meliapour, come to Bayonne. I shall suppose this philosopher to be a man of sense, which, you will say, is rare among the learned of India; to be divested of all scholastic prejudices--a thing that was rare everywhere not long ago--and I shall suppose him to meet with a blockhead in our part of the world--which is not quite so great a rarity.
Our blockhead, in order to make him conversant with our arts and sciences, presents him with a Liège almanac, composed by _Matthew Lansberg_, and the Lame Messenger (_Messager boiteux_) by _Anthony Souci, astrologer and historian_, printed every year at Basle, and sold to the number of 20,000 copies in eight days. There you behold the fine figure of a man, surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac, with certain indications most clearly demonstrating that the _scales_ preside over the _posteriors_, the _ram_ over the _head_, the _fishes_ over the _feet_, etc.
Each day of the moon informs you when you must take _Le Lièvre's_ balm of life, or _Keiser's_ pills; when you must be bled, have your nails cut, wean your children, plant, sow, go a journey, or put on a pair of new shoes. The Indian, when he hears these lessons, will do well to say to his guide that he will have none of his almanac.
So soon as our simpleton shall have shown the philosopher a few of our ceremonies, which every wise man disapproves, but which are tolerated in order to amuse the populace, through pure contempt for that populace, the traveller, seeing these mummeries, followed by a tambourine dance, will not fail to pity and take us for madmen, who are, nevertheless, very amusing and not absolutely cruel. He will write home to the president of the Grand College of Benares that we have not common sense; but that if _His Paternity_ will send enlightened and discreet persons among us, something may, _with the blessing of God_, be made of us.
It was precisely in this way that our first missionaries, especially St. Francis Xavier, spoke of the people inhabiting the peninsula of India. They even fell into still grosser mistakes respecting the customs of the Indians, their sciences, their opinions, their manners, and their worship. The accounts which they sent to Europe were extremely curious. Every statue was a devil; every assembly a sabbath; every symbolical figure a talisman; every Brahmin a sorcerer; and these are made the subject of never-ending lamentations. They hope that _the harvest will be abundant_; and add, by a rather incongruous metaphor, that _they will labor effectually in the vineyard of the Lord_, in a country where wine has always been unknown. Thus, or nearly thus, have every people judged, not only of distant nations, but of their neighbors.
The Chinese are said to be the most ancient almanac-makers. The finest of their emperor's privileges is that of sending his calendar to his vassals and neighbors; their refusal of which would be considered as a bravado, and war would forthwith be made upon them, as it used to be in Europe on feudal lords who refused their homage.
If we have only _twelve_ constellations, the Chinese have _twenty-eight_, the names of which have not the least affinity with ours--a sufficient proof that they have taken nothing from the Chaldæan Zodiac, that we have adopted. But though they have had a complete system of astrology for more than four thousand years, they resemble _Matthew Lansberg_ and _Anthony Souci_ in the fine predictions and secrets of health with which they stuff their _Imperial Almanac_. They divide the day into ten thousand minutes, and know, with the greatest precision, what minute is favorable or otherwise. When the Emperor Kamhi wished to employ the Jesuit missionaries in making the almanac, they are said to have excused themselves, at first, on account of the extravagant superstitions with which it must be filled. "I have much less faith than you in the superstitions," replied the emperor; "only make me a good calendar, and leave it for my learned men to fill up the book with their foolery."
The ingenious author of the "Plurality of Worlds" ridicules the Chinese, because, says he, they see a thousand stars fall at once into the sea. It is very likely that the Emperor Kamhi ridiculed this notion as well as Fontenelle. Some Chinese almanac-maker had, it would seem, been good-natured enough to speak of these meteors after the manner of the people, and to take them for stars. Every country has its foolish notions. All the nations of antiquity made the sun lie down in the sea, where for a long time we sent the stars. We have believed that the clouds touched the firmament, that the firmament was a hard substance, and that it supported a reservoir of water. It has not long been known in our towns that the Virgin-thread (_fil de la vierge_) so often found in the country, is nothing more than the thread spun by a spider. Let us not laugh at any people. Let us reflect that the Chinese had astrolabes and spheres before we could read, and that if they have made no great progress in astronomy, it is through that same respect for the ancients which we have had for Aristotle.
It is consoling to know that the Roman people, _populus late rex_, were, in this particular, far behind Matthew Lansberg, and the Lame Messenger, and the astrologers of China, until the period when Julius Cæsar reformed the Roman year, which we have received from him and still call by his name--the _Julian Calendar_, although we have no _calends_, and he was obliged to reform it himself.
The primitive Romans had, at first, a year of ten months, making three hundred and four days; this was neither _solar_ nor _lunar_, nor anything except barbarous. The Roman year was afterwards composed of three hundred and fifty-five days--another mistake, which was corrected so imperfectly that, in Cæsar's time, the summer festivals were held in winter. The Roman generals always triumphed, but never knew _on what day_ they triumphed.
Cæsar reformed everything; he seemed to rule both heaven and earth. I know not through what complaisance for the Roman customs it was that he began the year at a time when it does not begin--that is, eight days after the winter solstice. All the nations composing the Roman Empire submitted to this innovation; even the Egyptians, who had until then given the law in all that related to almanacs, received it; but none of these different nations altered anything in the distribution of their feasts. The Jews, like the rest, celebrated their _new moons_; their _phase_ or _pascha_, the fourteenth day of the moon of March, called _the red-haired moon_, which day often fell in April; their _Pentecost_, fifty days after the _pascha_; the _feast of horns_ or _trumpets_, the first day of July; that of _tabernacles_ on the fifteenth of the same month, and that of _the great sabbath_, seven days afterwards.
The first Christians followed the computations of the empire, and reckoned by _calends_, _nones_, and _ides_, like their masters; they likewise received the Bissextile, which we have still, although it was found necessary to correct it in the fifteenth century, and it must some day be corrected again; but they conformed to the Jewish methods in the celebration of their great feasts. They fixed their _Easter_ for the fourteenth day of the _red moon_, until the Council of Nice determined that it should be the Sunday following. Those who celebrated it on the fourteenth were declared heretics; and both were mistaken in their calculation.
The feasts of the Blessed Virgin were, as far as possible, substituted for the new moons. The author of the "Roman Calendar" (_Le Calendrier Romain_) says the reason of this is drawn from the verse of the Canticle, _pulchra ut luna_, "fair as the moon"; but, by the same rule, these feasts should be held on a Sunday, for in the same verse we find _electa ut sol_, "chosen like the sun." The Christians also kept the feast of Pentecost; it was fixed, like that of the Jews, precisely fifty days after Easter. The same author asserts that _saint-days_ took the place of the feasts of _tabernacles_. He adds that St. John's day was fixed for the 24th of June, only because the days then begin to shorten, and St. John had said, when speaking of Jesus Christ, "He must grow, and I must become less"--_Oportet ilium crescere, me autem minui._ There is something very singular in the ancient ceremony of lighting a great fire on St. John's day, in the hottest period of the year. It has been said to be a very old custom, originally designed to commemorate the ancient burning of the world, which awaited a second conflagration. The same writer assures us that the feast of the Assumption is kept on the 15th of August because the sun is then in the sign of the Virgin. He also certifies that St. Mathias' day is in the month of February, because he was, as it were, _intercalated_ among the twelve apostles, as a day is added to February every leap-year. There would, perhaps, be something in these astronomical imaginings to make our Indian philosopher smile; nevertheless, the author of them was mathematical master to the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV., and moreover, an engineer and a very worthy officer.
ALTARS, TEMPLES, RITES, SACRIFICES, ETC.
It is universally acknowledged that the first Christians had neither temples, nor altars, nor tapers, nor incense, nor holy water, nor any of those rites which the prudence of pastors afterwards instituted, in conformity with times and places, but more especially with the various _wants of the faithful_.
We have ample testimony in Origen, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Justin, and Tertullian, that the primitive Christians held temples and altars in abomination; and that not merely because they could not in the beginning obtain permission from the government to build temples, but because they had a real aversion for everything that seemed to apply any affinity with other religions. This abhorrence existed among them for two hundred and fifty years, as is proved by the following passage of Minutius Felix, who lived in the third century. Addressing the Romans, he says: _"Putatis autem nos occultare quod colimus, si delubra et aras non habemus. Quod enim simulacrum Deo fingam, quum, si recte existimes, sit Dei homo ipse simulacrum? quod templum ei exstruam, quum totus hic mundus, ejus opere fabricatus, eum capere non possit? et quum homo latius maneam, intra unam ædiculum vim tantæ majestatis includam? nonne melius in nostra dedicandus est mente, in nostro imo consecrandus est pectore?"_ "You think that we conceal what we adore, because we have neither temples nor altars. But what shall we erect like to God, since man himself is God's image? What temple shall we build for Him, when the whole world, which is the work of His hands, cannot contain Him? How shall we enclose the power of such majesty in one dwelling-place? Is it not better to consecrate a temple to Him in our minds and in our hearts?"
The Christians, then, had no temples until about the beginning of the reign of Diocletian. The Church had then become very numerous; and it was found necessary to introduce those decorations and rites which, at an earlier period, would have been useless and even dangerous to a slender flock, long despised, and considered as nothing more than a small sect of dissenting Jews.
It is manifest that, while they were confounded with the Jews, they could not obtain permission to erect temples. The Jews, who paid very dear for their synagogues, would themselves have opposed it; for they were mortal enemies to the Christians, and they were rich. We must not say, with Toland, that the Christians, who at that time made a show of despising temples and altars, were like the fox that said the grapes were sour. This comparison appears as unjust as it is impious, since all the primitive Christians in so many different countries, agreed in maintaining that there was no need of raising temples or altars to the true God.
Providence, acting by second causes, willed that they should erect a splendid temple at Nicomedia, the residence of the Emperor Diocletian, as soon as they had obtained that sovereign's protection. They built others in other cities; but still they had a horror of tapers, lustral water, pontifical habits, etc. All this pomp and circumstance was in their eyes no other than a distinctive mark of paganism. These customs were adopted under Constantine and his successors, and have frequently changed.
Our good women of the present day, who every Sunday hear a Latin mass, at which a little boy attends, imagine that this rite has been observed from the earliest ages, that there never was any other, and that the custom in other countries of assembling to offer up prayers to God in common is diabolical and quite of recent origin. There is, undeniably, something very respectable in a mass, since it has been authorized by the Church; it is not at all an ancient usage, but is not the less entitled to our veneration.
There is not, perhaps, a single ceremony of this day which was in use in the time of the apostles. The Holy Spirit has always conformed himself to the times. He inspired the first disciples in a mean apartment; He now communicates His inspirations in St. Peter's at Rome, which cost several millions--equally divine, however, in the wretched room, and in the superb edifice of Julius II., Leo X., Paul III., and Sixtus V.
AMAZONS.
AMAZONS.
Bold and vigorous women have been often seen to fight like men. History makes mention of such; for, without reckoning Semiramis, Tomyris, or Penthesilea--who, perhaps, existed only in fable--it is certain that there were many women in the armies of the first caliphs. In the tribe of the Homerites, especially, it was a sort of law, dictated by love and courage, that in battle wives should succor and avenge their husbands, and mothers their children.
When the famous chief Derar was fighting in Syria against the generals of the Emperor Heraclius, in the time of the caliph Abubeker, successor to Mahomet, Peter, who commanded at Damascus, took thither several women, whom he had captured, together with some booty, in one of his excursions; among the prisoners was the sister of Derar. Alvakedi's "Arabian History," translated by Ockley, says that she was a perfect beauty, and that Peter became enamored of her, paid great attention to her on the way, and indulged her and her fellow-prisoners with short marches. They encamped in an extensive plain, under tents, guarded by troops posted at a short distance. _Caulah_ (so this sister of Derar's was named) proposed to one of her companions, called _Oserra_, that they should endeavor to escape from captivity, and persuaded her rather to die than be a victim to the lewd desires of the Christians. The same Mahometan enthusiasm seized all the women; they armed themselves with the iron-pointed staves that supported their tents, and with a sort of dagger which they wore in their girdles; they then formed a circle, as the cows do when they present their horns to attacking wolves. Peter only laughed at first; he advanced toward the women, who gave him hard blows with the staves; after hesitating for some time, he at length resolved to use force; the sabres of his men were already drawn, when Derar arrived, put the Greeks to flight, and delivered his sister and the other captives.
Nothing can more strongly resemble those times called _heroic_, sung by Homer. Here are the same single combats at the head of armies, the combatants frequently holding a long conversation before they commence fighting; and this, no doubt, justifies Homer.
Thomas, governor of Syria, Heraclius's son-in-law, made a sally from Damascus, and attacked Sergiabil, having first prayed to Jesus Christ. "Unjust aggressor," said he to Sergiabil, "thou canst not resist Jesus, my God, who will fight for the champions of His religion." "Thou tellest an impious lie," answered Sergiabil; "Jesus is not greater before God than Adam. God raised Him from the dust; He gave life to Him as to another man, and, after leaving Him for some time on earth, took Him up into heaven." After some more verbal skirmishing the fight began. Thomas discharged an arrow, which wounded young Aban, the son of Saib, by the side of the valiant Sergiabil; Aban fell and expired; the news of his death reached his young wife, to whom he had been united but a few days before; she neither wept nor complained, but ran to the field of battle, with a quiver at her back, and a couple of arrows in her hand; with the first of these she killed the Christian standard-bearer, and the Arabs seized the trophy, crying, _Allah achar!_ With the other she shot Thomas in the eye, and he retired, bleeding, into the town.
Arabian history is full of similar examples, but they do not tell us that these warlike women burned their right breast, that they might draw the bow better, nor that they lived without men; on the contrary, they exposed themselves in battle for their husbands or their lovers; from which very circumstance we must conclude that, so far from reproaching Ariosto and Tasso for having introduced so many enamored warriors into their poems, we should praise them for having delineated real and interesting manners.
When the crusading mania was at its height there were some Christian women who shared the fatigues and dangers of their husbands. To such a pitch, indeed, was this enthusiasm carried that the Genoese women undertook a crusade of their own, and were on the point of setting out for Palestine to form petticoat battalions; they had made a vow so to do, but were absolved from it by a pope, who was a little wiser than themselves.
Margaret of Anjou, wife of the unfortunate Henry VI. of England, evinced, in a juster war, a valor truly heroic; she fought in ten battles to deliver her husband. History affords no authenticated example of greater or more persevering courage in a woman. She had been preceded by the celebrated Countess de Montfort, in Brittany. "This princess," says d'Argentré, "was virtuous beyond the nature of her sex, and valiant beyond all men; she mounted her horse, and managed him better than any esquire; she fought hand to hand, or charged a troop of armed men like the most valiant captain; she fought on sea and land with equal bravery," etc. She went, sword in hand, through her states, which were invaded by her competitor, Charles de Blois. She not only sustained two assaults, armed cap-à-pie, in the breach of Hennebon, but she made a sortie with five hundred men, attacked the enemy's camp, set fire to it, and reduced it to ashes.
The exploits of Joan of Arc, better known as the _Maid of Orleans_, are less astonishing than those of Margaret of Anjou and the Countess de Montfort. These two princesses having been brought up in the luxury of courts, and Joan of Arc in the rude exercises of country life, it was more singular, as well as more noble, to quit a _palace_ for the field than a _cottage_.
The heroine who defended Beauvais was, perhaps, superior to her who raised the siege of Orleans, for she fought quite as well, and neither boasted of being _a maid_, nor of being _inspired_. It was in 1472, when the Burgundian army was besieging Beauvais, that Jeanne Hachette, at the head of a number of women, sustained an assault for a considerable time, wrested the standard from one of the enemy who was about to plant it on the breach, threw the bearer into the trench, and gave time for the king's troops to arrive and relieve the town. Her descendants have been exempted from the _taille_ (poll tax)--a mean and shameful recompense! The women and girls of Beauvais are more flattered by their walking before the men in the procession on the anniversary day. Every public mark of honor is an encouragement of merit; but the exemption from the _taille_ is but a proof that the persons so exempted were subjected to this servitude by the misfortune of their birth.
There is hardly any nation which does not boast of having produced such heroines; the number of these, however, is not great; nature seems to have designed women for other purposes. Women have been known but rarely to exhibit themselves as soldiers. In short, every people have had their female warriors; but the kingdom of the Amazons, on the banks of the Thermodon, is, like most other ancient stories, nothing more than a poetic fiction.
For want of defining terms, and especially for want of a clear understanding, almost all laws, that should be as plain as arithmetic and geometry, are as obscure as logogriphs. The melancholy proof of this is that nearly all processes are founded on the sense of the laws, always differently understood by the pleaders, the advocates, and the judges.
The whole public law of Europe had its origin in equivocal expressions, beginning with the Salique law. _She shall not inherit Salique land._ But what is _Salique land_? And shall not a girl inherit money, or a necklace, left to her, which may be worth more than the land?
The citizens of Rome saluted Karl, son of the Austrasian Pepin le Bref, by the name of _imperator_. Did they understand thereby: _We confer on you all the prerogatives of Octavius, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius? We give you all the country which they possessed?_ However, they could not give it; for so far were they from being masters of it that they were scarcely masters of their own city. There never was a more equivocal expression; and such as it was then it still is.
Did Leo III., the bishop of Rome who is said to have saluted Charlemagne emperor, comprehend the meaning of the words which he pronounced? The Germans assert that he understood by them that Charles should be his master. The Datary has asserted that he meant he should be master over Charlemagne.
Have not things the most venerable, the most sacred, the most divine, been obscured by the ambiguities of language? Ask two Christians of what religion they are. Each will answer, _I am a Catholic_. You think they are both of the same communion; yet one is of the Greek, the other of the Latin church; and they are irreconcilable. If you seek to be further informed, you will find that by the word _Catholic_ each of them understands _universal_, in which case _universal_ signifies _a part_.
The soul of St. Francis is in _heaven_--is in _paradise_. One of these words signifies _the air_; the other means _a garden_. The word _spirit_ is used alike to express _extract_, _thought_, _distilled liquor_, _apparition_. Ambiguity has been so necessary a vice in all languages, formed by what is called _chance_ and by custom, that the author of all clearness and truth Himself condescended to speak after the manner of His people; whence is it that _Elohim_ signifies in some places _judges_, at other times _gods_, and at others _angels_. _"Tu es Petrus, et super hunc petrum ædificabo ecclesiam meam,"_ would be equivocal in a profane tongue, and on profane subject; but these words receive a divine sense from the mouth which utters them, and the subject to which they are applied.
"I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob; now God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." In the ordinary sense these words might signify: "I am the same God that was worshipped by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; as the earth, which bore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, likewise bears their descendants; the sun which shines to-day is the sun that shone on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the law of their children was their law." This does not, however, signify that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still living. But when the Messiah speaks, there is no longer any ambiguity; the sense is as clear as it is divine. It is evident that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not among the dead, but live in glory, since this oracle is pronounced by the Messiah; but it was necessary that He and no one else should utter it.
The discourses of the Jewish prophets might seem equivocal to men of gross intellects, who could not perceive their meaning; but they were not so to minds illumined by the light of faith.
All the oracles of antiquity were equivocal. It was foretold to Crœsus that a powerful empire was to fall; but was it to be his own? or that of Cyrus? It was also foretold to Pyrrhus that the Romans might conquer him, and that he might conquer the Romans. It was impossible that this oracle should lie.