SIXTIETH SERMON
ON THE HONOR WHICH THE PEOPLE OF TREVES DERIVE FROM THEIR HOLY MARTYRS.
Subject.
The people of Treves derive the greatest renown from their holy forefathers and martyrs: 1. In the sight of heaven; 2. In the sight of men. Therefore they owe them a debt of all possible gratitude, devotion, honor, and love. Preached on the feast of the Martyrs of Treves.
Text.
"Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation." (Ecclus 44:1)
Introduction.
If ever the chief cities of the world showed honor to any one they did so to their founders from whom they acknowledge to have sprung, and from whom, as from parents, they have received life. Therefore the city of Rome honored Romulus, not only by beautiful statues, but also by placing him in the number of the immortal gods. This special gratitude and honor which cities owe their founders cannot be required of thee, city of Treves, for thou art not so new and young in the world as to know for certain who was the founder to whom thou may- est trace thy beginning. All historians acknowledge this to be doubtful. Some, with Masenius, date the origin of Treves from Trebeta; others, with Brower, attribute the origin, not to him, but to Gomer, the son of Japhet; others among the old heathens trace its origin to Dis, or Mercury; others, to Vesta, whom they then adored as their mother. The time also at which Treves was built is unknown; some say it was built at the time of the Patriarch Abraham; others make it still older, and date its origin back to the days of Noe, after the deluge. Be this as it may, if, city of Treves, thy great antiquity is lost in the mist of ages, so that thou canst not know who placed the first stone in thee, and gave thee life, and so thou hast no opportunity of showing thyself grateful to him, yet it cannot be unknown to thee that thou hast reared brave inhabitants, children, and sons, who fought heroically for God and their faith; I mean the in numerable martyrs of Treves, whose yearly commemoration we now celebrate. These are the glorious men, the men of renown, thy forefathers, who have given thee a far better life, and gained far greater honor and glory for thee than all thy former founders who in the beginning surrounded thee with walls and made thee famous. And for that very reason thou owest these holy martyrs a far greater honor, love, and gratitude, as I now mean to show, to the furthering of thy devotion towards them.
Plan of Discourse.
Thy greatest renown and glory, city of Treves, thou hast from thy holy forefathers and martyrs: thy greatest glory in the sight of heaven; thy greatest glory in the sight of the world. Such is the subject and division of this panegyric. Therefore thou owest them all possible gratitude, devotion, love, and honor. Such shall be the conclusion.
To enable us to fulfil our duty in this respect, do Thou encourage us, King and Crown of martyrs, Christ Jesus, through their intercession and that of Mary, Thy virginal Mother, and of the holy angels.
What glory before heaven and earth that is, what honor in the sight of God and men thou, city of Treves, hast inherited from thy holy forefathers I cannot better describe than by recalling to thy mind and memory the shall I say troublous and miserable, or rather joyous and happy condition in which thou then wert when the holy martyrs began their combat, and terminated it victoriously in the very place in which we now are? I must call it a happy and joyous condition on account of the glorious result, which we have just reason for admiring, and a troublous and anxious one when I consider its sorrowful circumstances and great danger. . For the question was whether the city would remain faithful to the one true God, to whom it had once for all sworn fidelity, or would perjure itself, turn from Him, and adore stocks and stones, and the demons who resided in those graven images. The question was whether it would retain and defend the faith it received in the time of St. Peter from Eucharius, his disciple, and acknowledge itself Christian, or by a hateful apostacy deny that faith, and go back to its former heathendom and the worship of false gods. Every motive that could urge it to adopt this last desperate resolution was at hand, while to induce it to keep faith with God there was no motive beyond the fortitude of a Christian mind, supported by the mighty arm and the special helping grace of God. Such was thy condition, Treves, in the year of Our Lord 286, so that thou wert then in the utmost extremity.
Hardly had the tyrant Riccius Varus entered the city with his heathenish and bloodthirsty soldiers when the inhabitants, with sorrowing eyes, had to behold the images of the gods erected in every street and lane. The magistrate and all the citizens were commanded at the first order to abjure Christianity, and to offer sacrifice after the manner of the Roman heathens; if they refused they were threatened with the most terrible and cruel instruments of torture chains, rods, scourges, swords, spears, gallows, wheels, burning torches, frying-pans, boiling oil, molten pitch, and all the implements of cruelty that the rage of the tyrant could invent; such were the tongues which were to persuade them to accede to his commands or else the punishments to chastise their disobedience. What a dangerous time for thee, city! How difficult for thee to save thy honor, thy faith!
I know well that when in former times this city was assaulted in grievous wars it was not wanting in brave men, who, with an heroic contempt for life, sacrificed all they had for the sake of freedom, and for the general welfare; but they were not unavenged, for on both sides wounds were repaid with wounds, blood with blood, life with life. But now there was question of going deliberately to a violent and painful death, in a far different manner in a manner which, according to the judgment of the world, is dishonorable: offering one's self to the slaughter without any effort at defence, without even opening one's mouth. In other times brave men fought who were accustomed to blood shed and the roughness of the soldier's life; but now all, young and old, great and small, strong and weak, rich and poor, master and servant, lord and lady, boy and girl all, without distinction, had to enter the arena; all had to make their choice of suffering a cruel martyrdom or sacrificing to the gods. Then the father had to look on at his son, the son at his aged father, the mother at her daughter, the daughter at her dear mother, the husband at his wife, the bridegroom at his spouse, while they were suffering the most exquisite tortures, having their bones broken, their limbs cut off, their bodies stretched on the rack; parents were obliged to carry their little children in their arms to the rack, the torture, the stake, and to be butchered with them; all, without exception, had to abandon whatever they had in the world, and to give themselves up to torments and death. The mere recollection of such a time of anxiety and cruelty is enough to make us shudder.
My dear brethren, how should we have behaved in such circumstances? I hardly dare say that in all of us who are here there would have been constancy enough to withstand such a severe trial. There was indeed question of defending the faith, and in that case no true Christian should hesitate to give up his life if necessary, for heaven is infallibly promised as the immediate reward of martyrdom; even the mere thought of dying for Christ, of being a martyr, is wont to excite a secret joy, desire, and longing in the mind of the Christian. But it is one thing to think of this, and another to fulfil it in reality; it is one thing to wish and desire to be martyred, when we are still far away from the chance of such a death, and another to have the actual experience of it. How it hurts us to have a needle prick our hand, to have a spark of fire fall on the bare skin! and what contortions we make with the pain thus caused! But what am I talking of? Does it not cost a deal of trouble to bear an angry look with patience, to overcome the love, fear, or respect for a mere mortal, to hold our own passions in check, so that they may not go too far? Ah, even lesser difficulties are sometimes powerful enough to take from us all strength and courage, so that we forget the laws of our faith, God, and heaven. What resolution, then, should we come to if we saw the instruments of torture ready, displayed before our eyes, and a painful death awaiting us? I, for my part, would not dare to promise that I should be constant under such circumstances; I should think that I would creep away somewhere, and hide myself through fear of such dreadful torments.
But in those days, city of Treves, to thy undying renown, those heroic souls were created and chosen in the special designs of Divine Providence for this difficult combat. And if it not been for them, what would have become of thee? Of what use to thee would have been thy ancient descent, thy power, thy pomp and splendor? Imagine that those ancestors of thine had given up their faith, terrified by the torments threatened by the tyrant; that they obeyed his will and sacrificed to the gods; then unhappy would have been thy fate, Treves; deplorable thy condition in being descended from such ancestors! What a legacy they would in that case have bequeathed thee, such as in olden times parents left their children, namely, blind heathenism, involved in all sorts of errors and vices, thus entailing the eternal ruin of souls! Should we then have seen so many magnificent temples built all over the land to the true God, and not rather instead of them a stone Jupiter, an iron Mars, a wooden Apollo, a marble Venus, to whom thou wouldst then have offered sacrifice with all kinds of uncouth ceremonies? Where, then, would have been thy precious and glorious relics and shrines? What else wouldst thou have done with them but made sport of them, after the manner of heathens? And if with the lapse of time and the cessation of persecution it had pleased God to restore to thee the light of faith, the stain incurred would have been so deeply branded on thee that all the waters of the Moselle would not have sufficed to wash it out. Hadst thou once given up thy faith by a hideous apostasy, thy disgrace would have been ever lasting.
But I must not continue this supposition, lest some should form unworthy thoughts of our heroic ancestors. Truly, they showed themselves quite different in reality, and they have left to you another legacy for your greater glory! Scipio boasted in olden times that he had in his army three hundred soldiers who would have cast themselves into the sea at a single command from him. Oh, far greater, nay, countless, was the number of the heroic and truly Christian soldiers whom Treves could then point to as being quite ready, without even a word of command, to cast themselves into a torrent of blood for God and their faith, who were not to be overcome by any cruelty, who made a feast and a triumph of pains and torments. Heroes were they whom Treves could then point to. What kind of heroes? Old men, weak women, little children. What did they dare to do? To triumph over cuts and wounds, torture and butchery, fire and flame. And how did they meet those things? Even with smiling countenances, singing, exulting, and blessing God. The executioners were not so ready to cat and strike as the Christians of Treves were to receive the blows; the former were tired with tormenting before the latter were tired of suffering. As Tertullian says of the first Christians, they were tortured, and they increased in number; J the more they were tortured, burnt, slain, the greater the number of those who presented themselves to undergo martyrdom; if a hundred were put to death, a thousand stood up in their place, ready to suffer death; if one had lost an arm, a leg, by the sword, he stretched forth the other to be completely maimed for the sake of the faith. The day was spent in butchery; swords and spears were blunted; the butchers themselves were wearied and required rest; the streets and lanes ran with blood; and yet the torturers could not prevail on one man, woman, or child to stretch forth even a finger in honor of the false gods. The only fear of the Christians was lest any of them should be left out of the number of the martyrs, through the shortness of the day.
See, O city of Treves, how thy forefathers acted! Could they well have made thee more glorious, renowned, triumphant before God and the whole court of heaven than when they thus shed for their Creator the blood they had received from Him, and filled heaven with their souls? And from this judge for thyself what gratitude, honor, love, and confidence thou dost owe them. If they had been strangers and foreigners, who had nothing to do with thee; if there had been but a few who thus gloriously suffered death in this city for Christ even that would have been a great honor for thee, and thou wouldst have been in duty bound always to celebrate their feast with a most tender devotion. Thus the city of Ravenna honors St. Vitalis; Messina St. Placidus; Rome St. Sebastian; Cologne the eleven thousand virgins, for no other reason than because they were bedewed by the blood of those martyrs. How great is not then thy obligation towards thy holy martyrs, of whom there were not merely one or two, but countless numbers; and who were not foreigners, but thy own forefathers, born and brought up in thy walls, and who not only in thee, but for thee and the salvation of all thy posterity gave up their lives! These thou hast to thank for thy ancient, true, and only saving faith, which, witnessed and confirmed by their blood, thou hast hitherto preserved incorrupt.
Thus they have brought thee forth in the spirit, after having generated thee according to the flesh, as St. Gregory says of St. Felicitas; from them thou hast received that glorious name which is
thy boast even at the present day: Holy Treves; so that we may
apply to thee and thy inhabitants the words of St. Paul to the
Ephesians: " Therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow-citizens," blood-relations and descendants
of "the saints." By their means heaven has, as it were, made
a compact with thee to regard thee on their account and by their
intercession as its city and fortress. St. Chrysostom looks on
that city as fortunate which has even one martyr buried within
its walls, "for the body that suffered for Christ still cries out,
and is heard in favor of the citizens." What a happiness is
thine, then, Treves! and how high must thou not stand in the
sight of heaven! For thou hast brought forth not merely one,
but many thousands of martyrs, and hast had in thy possession
up to the present those whose prayers for thee are always ascending to the throne of God.
And if we think there is any importance to be attached to the praise and esteem of men, what could have brought thee greater honor than was earned for thee by the constancy of thy holy martyrs? If there had been a place in the world where Treves was unknown, the bravery of the holy martyrs would alone have sufficed to bring its fame thither. It is true that in olden times and who can deny it? the fame of thy greatness and widespread dominion, the beauty of thy buildings and palaces, the number of thy inhabitants was spread throughout all Europe; bat later on thou didst draw to thee far distant nations, who left their own countries and came here in crowds to see with their own eyes the place of which they had heard so much, and to render the tribute of humble homage to the ground bedewed by the blood of so many martyrs. This fame of thine drew hither not only crowds of the common people, but even the crowned heads of the world popes, cardinals, emperors, kings, princes, nobles. Among the popes who came from Rome was Innocent III., with seventeen cardinals; amongst the emperors was Maximilian I., with a large retinue, who came in the year 1517; amongst the kings, to say nothing of many more, was Theodobert, king of Austrasia, in the year 538, who, having laid aside his crown and bared his head, went to honor the relics and shrines of the martyrs, and to implore their help on bended knees. And what else brings so many people in procession, even in our own days, from far-off lands, except their desire to show their devotion to these and other holy relics, and thus to fulfil their vows?
You may say that in former times kings, emperors, and other great ones dwelt in the city of Treves; that it was nothing new then to see crowned heads here. I know well that such was the case; but what was their object in dwelling here? Was it to honor thee, city? Not at all; but rather to bring thee under their yoke and bondage; to rule thee and be served by thee. And if thou dost look on that as an honor, how far great er the glory that redounds to thee from the fact that those crowned heads came afterwards, not to receive service from thee, but to worship thee and the ground on which thou art built as a sacred thing, as the dwelling-place of saints! In short, I may well use with regard to thee the words spoken by St. Chrysostom about the city of Rome: " I love Rome on this account, although I might praise her for other reasons also; but I look on her as especially praiseworthy in this, that Paul ended his life amongst those who now possess his sacred body, a fact which in itself alone is more admirable than all the other wonders of Rome put together." The same I might say of Treves: I love, praise, and extol thee, city of Treves! and am moved to do so, not by thy ancient descent, thy greatness, thy glory, thy power, thy wealth, thy valor in war, in which thou didst surpass almost all the cities of the world; I admire thee, not on account of the magnificent buildings, palaces, columns, bridges, amphitheaters, capitols with which thou wert adorned (where can we see a sign of those things now? They are all laid waste); not on account of the great heroes, princes, and emperors who dwelt and died in thee (where are now their graves, their ashes? Who thinks of them any longer?). For this reason, then, alone I praise thee, city, and call thee fortunate; for this reason alone undying praise belongs to thee, because so many nay, such countless numbers of thy inhabitants exposed their lives within thy walls for their God and faith, and have left us their sacred relics as a perpetual memorial for our veneration. This is in itself enough to make other towns view thee with a holy envy. Oh, what a glorious triumph will one day be that of Treves, when, in the sight of all angels and men, Palmatius and the councillors of the city, crowned with the palm of victory, will come forth from their graves, and bringing with them a whole host of martyrs, crimsoned with their own blood, will stand before the Judge, and after having been praised for their bravery and virtue, will enter gloriously into heaven! These and similar thoughts suggest ed by the subject I leave to your pious consideration, as time does not permit me to dwell on them.
Judge now for yourselves what honor, service, devotion, and love are deserved from you by those happy souls now reigning in heaven, who by their glorious death on earth have earned for you such great renown and fame before heaven and earth. What a disgraceful thing it would be for the people of Treves to have to be exhorted by strangers to show reverence to their own saints and ancestors! Many come still from foreign lands, over mountain and valley, by land and water, with much difficulty and hardship, and often hungry and thirsty, to the shrines and churches of these glorious martyrs, singing and praying at their graves, honoring and kissing on bended knee their holy relics; while they who live in the midst of these shrines, they whom the martyrs are most closely connected with, their own children and descendants, who have the sacred remains always at hand, and can visit them without difficulty daily, almost hourly, without having to go further than a few steps from their doors while they, I say, are cold and tepid in venerating those holy martyrs, and seldom or never think of them. Have not the martyrs of Treves just cause for complaining that they receive more honor, love, and homage from strangers than from their own fellow-citizens and countrymen? that they are more loved and praised by foreigners than by their own relations? that they are visited and called upon with more confidence by pilgrims from far-off lands than by their own descendants?
But I hope that no such cause for complaint has been given as yet. Continue, then, city of Treves, as far as possible, to further the honor of thy holy martyrs, for in doing so thou wilt add to thine own! "Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation." Let us always praise and invoke those holy martyrs, and appeal to them in all our wants as children to their parents; let us lay our petitions here before their shrines, and so we may trust that you, glorious ancestors, will also show us constantly that you are with God powerful and faithful protectors and guardians of this city, wherein you are especially interested, that you are, as St. Ambrose says, the princes and preservers of our faith, the guardians of our souls, the patterns and models of the Christian life for us; so that when one day your sacred bodies shall arise from this place, we, as your children, shall be associated with you in the blessed company of the elect in eternal glory. Amen.