The Other World: Glimpses of the Supernatural. Various Authors

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ head, was the most remarkable event in the early pages of Christian history. “Constantine’s submission of his power to the Church,” writes Dr. Newman, “has been a pattern for all Christian monarchs since, and the commencement of our state establishment to this day; and, on the other hand, the fortunes of the Roman Empire are in prophecy apparently connected with her in a very intimate manner, which we are not yet able fully to comprehend. If any event might be said to call for a miracle it was this; whether to signalize it, or to bring it about. Thus it was that the fate of Babylon was written on the wall of the banqueting-hall; also portents in the sky preceded the final destruction of Jerusalem, and are predicted in Scripture as forerunners of the last great day. Moreover our Lord’s prophecy of ‘the Sign of the Son of Man in Heaven’ was anciently understood of the Cross. And further, the sign of the Cross was at the time, and had been from the beginning, a received symbol and instrument of Christian devotion, and cannot be ascribed to a then rising superstition. Tertullian speaks of it as an ordinary rite for sanctifying all the ordinary events of the day; it was used in exorcisms; and, what is still more to the point, it is regarded by S. Justin, Tertullian, and Minucius as impressed with a providential meaning upon natural forms and human works, as well as introduced by divine authority into the types of the Old Testament.”[22]

      The supernatural manner in which the Emperor’s conversion was accomplished may be thus recorded. Marching from the border of the Rhine, through Gaul and part of Italy by Verona to Rome, against the tyrant Maxentius, who had declared war against him, and was already near Rome with a largely superior force, Constantine solemnly and earnestly invoked the One True God, the God of the Christians, for assistance and victory. At that period he was not a Christian himself, though he had no doubt accurately enough measured the true character of Roman paganism. A short time after midday, upon his march, there appeared in the heavens[23] a large luminous Cross in sight of himself and the whole of his army, with the inscription surrounding it, “In this conquer.” On the following night it is recorded that our Blessed Lord appeared to him in a dream, or, as some say, a vision, and commanded him to have a representation of the sign made, and to use it henceforth as his chief standard in battle. The Emperor, rising early the next morning, announced this vision and message to his confidential friends, and at once gave orders for the making of the imperial standard.[24] This being done, fifty men of the stoutest and most religious of his guards were chosen to carry it. And, surrounded by these, it was borne immediately before the Emperor himself. The Christian soldiers were full of faith and hope. They saw the Finger of God, and looked for victory.

      On the other hand the army of Maxentius, consisting of three divisions of veteran soldiers, esteemed the most efficient in the empire, engaged Constantine in the Quintian fields near the bridge Milvius. The attack was fast and furious. But the aggressors were at all points met with vigour and bravery, and soon succumbed and were in retreat. Constantine, with far fewer numbers than those opposed to him, was completely victorious; the legions of Maxentius were scattered or slain, and on the same day, with the sacred Labarum (as the imperial standard in question was termed) borne before him, he entered Rome in triumph. His conversion to Christianity soon followed upon his victory. In his triumph he dropped the old customs of his Pagan predecessors. He neither mounted the Capitol, nor offered sacrifices to the deities of Rome, but by suitable inscriptions recorded his belief in the power of Christ’s saving Cross. In his palace at Constantinople, as well as in the chief square of that city, the sacred sign was at once set up; and medals were struck, with representations of the symbol in question upon them, to commemorate both the victory and his own religious change. This occurred about A.D. 312.

      Here then we find the record of a distinctively supernatural intervention. No known physical cause could have formed a sentence of Greek or Latin in the air. Nor could a whole army have mistaken a Cross, with its corresponding and appropriate inscription, for a halo of light, or a mere natural phenomenon. Moreover: three years after the event, Constantine erected his triumphal arch at Rome, with an inscription, which still remains, testifying that he had gained the victory “instinctu divinitatis, mentis magnitudine.” Lactantius, likewise, in his treatise “De mortibus Persecutorum” (if it be his book, though some attribute it to Cæcilius), asserts the main facts of the case as regards the dream, describing the “heavenly sign of God;” and this in a treatise certainly written within two years of its occurrence. Seven years later, Nazarius, a Pagan orator, in a panegyric on the Emperor, also puts upon record his solemn conviction that celestial aid was miraculously rendered to Constantine in his defeat of Maxentius. Thus far those who were not Christians testify to the fact under consideration. On the other hand, Eusebius, who received the account from Constantine himself (who is known to have confirmed it with an oath), gives that record of the occurrence which has been already set forth—and he was notoriously an historian who had small leaning towards over-belief. While the reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that so many independent writers and records of the fact could not have been made to conspire in disseminating a falsehood; the action of the Emperor which followed the event was in perfect harmony with that which might have been looked for under the circumstances narrated—the supernatural appearance of a luminous Cross, heralding a change, even the triumph of the Religion of Christ over the effete systems of a decaying and decayed idolatry.

      The principle which was manifested in these cases is, through the study of history, likewise seen to have existed and energized in every part of the Church. Everywhere, from time to time, the proximity of the unseen world and the existence of the Supernatural were made manifest: while, here and there, examples of special miraculous interventions evidently stood forth to show that neither the Arm of the Most High was shortened nor the faith of the followers of our Blessed Lord stunted in its growth. In fact miracles of the most remarkable character have been performed from the age of the apostles to the present time: while Glimpses of the Supernatural have been granted to many as partially unfolding the mysteries of the Unseen World to those who longed and prayed for the same; by which glimpses or visions their faith has been deepened and their conviction of the truths of Christianity most surely strengthened. Just as our Blessed Saviour, following Moses, constantly appealed to the prodigies He wrought in attestation of His divine mission and in support of His doctrine; so was it with His followers who came after Him. For to them He had promised as much. So far therefore from confining the power of working miracles to His own person and time, He expressly pledged himself and promised that His servants and ambassadors should receive power to work still greater works.[25] Just as under the laws of Nature and the written law given by Moses, the Almighty was pleased to illustrate the society of His chosen servants with frequent miracles, so we are led to expect that the One Family of God should be for ever distinguished by occasional miracles wrought in and through her, as a standing proof of her divine origin and as a guide to the wanderers beyond the confines of her fold. And thus it comes to pass that the Fathers and Teachers of the Church, amongst other proofs of her favour, have constantly appealed to the miracles by which she is illustrated as a proof of her heavenly mission, and as marking her off, at the same time, from the various hereticks and schismaticks who, going out from her, were not of her. For example S. Irenæus, a disciple of S. Polycarp, himself a disciple of S. John the Evangelist, reproaches the Hereticks against whom he writes in his well-known treatise,[26] that they could neither give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, cast out devils, nor raise the dead to life again, as he maintains was frequently done in the Church. Tertullian, a contemporary of his, writing of the hereticks, asks, “I wish to see the miracles which they have worked.” S. Pacian, in the fourth century, opposing Novatus, and considering his claims, scornfully inquires, “Has he the gift of tongues, or of prophecy? Has he restored to life the dead?” S. Augustine of Hippo, in numerous passages of his works, refers to the miracles wrought by and through and in the Church as most important if not conclusive evidence of her heavenly character and veracity.

      Again: In the middle of the fourth century occurred that most wonderful miracle, when the Emperor Julian deliberately attempted to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, with the express intention of disproving the prophet Daniel’s[27] utterance concerning it. Then tempests, whirlwinds, earthquakes, and fiery eruptions convulsed the scene of the undertaking, maiming and alarming the persistent workmen, throwing down buildings in the neighbourhood, as Rufinus testifies, and rendering the carrying on of the work a sheer physical impossibility. СКАЧАТЬ