ASCETICAL THEOLOGY intermediate order of Christians between the clergy and the laity. As a general rule, they did not go out of the world, like anchorites and monks, but strove to live a perfect life in the world. Abuses after a time appeared, particularly in regard to the γυναῖκες συνείσακτοι, women who lived under the same roof with Ascetes for the benefit of their instruction and example. Modern life, especially when permeated with Baconian ideas respecting the true task of man in the world, is pointedly unascetic. If we turn over a series of pictures of eminent modern men, there is one common feature which we cannot fail to notice, whether the subject of the picture be artist, or literary man, or man of action, and whatever intelligence, power, or benevolence may breathe from the face -namely, the absence of an expression of self-mastery. A similar series of portraits of men who lived in the middle ages, when law was weaker than at present, but the sense of the necessity of self-control stronger, reveals a type of countenance in which the calmness of self-conquest, gained by the Christian doknois, is far more frequently visible than in later ages. ASCETICAL THEOLOGY. A name given to the science which treats of virtue and perfection and the means by which they are to be attained. Whereas mystical theology deals with extraordinary states of prayer and union with God, ascetical writers treat of the ordinary Christian life. The number of ascetical writers has at all times been great in the Church, but during the last three centuries special attention has been given to the life of secular, as distinct from religious, persons. St. Francis of Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori may be mentioned as modern saints whose ascetical works are most esteemed. ASH WEDNESDAY. The first day, according to our present observance, of the forty days' fast of Lent. But that it did not come within the quadragesimal period in primitive times we know from the testimony of Gregory the Great, who, in speaking of the fast, describes it as of thirty-six days' duration—that is, as extending over six weeks, from the first Sunday in Lent to Easter Day, omitting Sundays. Thirty-six days are nearly a tenth part of the year, and thus, by observing the fast, Christians were thought to render a penitential tithe of their lives to God. Lent, therefore, at the end of the sixth century, began on the first Sunday, and we know from the Sacramentary of Gelasius that the practice was the same at the end of the fifth century. At what time Ash Wednesday and the three following days were added to the fast has not been precisely ascertained. It is true that in the Sacramentary of Pope Gregory there is a Mass for Ash Wednesday, under the heading "Feria IV., caput jejunii" (beginning of the fast); whence it might be inferred that Pope Gregory, in spite of the words cited above, had himself before his death sanctioned the alteration in question. But this would be an unsafe conclusion, for one of the best MSS. of the Sacramentary does not contain this heading. However this may be, a Capitulary of the Church of Toulon (714) and the liturgical work of Amaury (about 820) describe the Lenten usage as identical with our own. There can be no difficulty in understanding the motive of the change; for by the addition of the four days preceding the first Sunday, the number of fasting days before Easter (the Sundays being omitted) becomes exactly forty, and accords with the fasts recorded of Moses and Elias, and with that of our Saviour in the wilderness of Judea. The office for Ash Wednesday opens with the solemn ceremony which has given the day its name.1 After an introit and four collects, in which pardon and mercy are implored for the penitent, the faithful approach and kneel at the altar rails, and the priest puts ashes on the forehead of each, saying, "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris" (Remember, man, that thou art dust, and shalt return to dust). The ashes are obtained by burning the palms of the previous year. The Lenten pas torals of Bishops, regulating the observance of the season, usually prescribe that the fast on Ash Wednesday shall be more rigorously kept than on any other day in Lent except the four last days of Holy Week. The administration of the ashes was not originally made to all the faithful, but only to public penitents. These had to appear before the church door on the first day of Lent, in penitential garb and with bare feet. Their penances were there imposed upon them; then they were brought into the church before the bishop, who put ashes on their heads, saying, 1 In French, Mercredi des Cend: es; in German, Aschermittwoche. besides the words "Memento," &c., "age | from corruption and it was united to her pœnitentiam ut habeas vitam æternam," soul in the kingdom of heaven. The Repent (or, do penance), that thou mayst Church signifies her belief in this fact by have eternal life. He then made them an celebrating the feast of her Assumption address, after which he solemnly excluded on the fifteenth of August. There is no them from the church. Out of humility distinct assertion of the corporal assumpand affection, friends of the penitents, tion in the prayers of the feast, but it is though not in the same condition, used to plain that the Church encourages and apjoin themselves to them, expressing in proves this belief from the fact that she their outward guise a similar contrition, selects for the lessons during the octave and offering their foreheads also to be a passage from St. John Damascene in sprinkled with ashes. The number of which the history of this corporal asthese persons gradually increased, until sumption is given in detail. This pious at length the administration of ashes was belief is recommended by its intrinsic extended to the whole congregation, and reasonableness, for surely it is natural to the rite took its present form. ("Dict. of suppose that our Lord did not suffer that Antiq." Smith and Cheetham; Kössing, sacred body in which he himself had in Wetzer and Welte.) dwelt and from which he had formed his own sacred humanity to become a prey to corruption. It is confirmed by the testimonies of St. Andrew of Crete, of St. John Damascene, and of many ancient Martyrologies and Missals, cited by Butler in his note on this feast. It is, moreover, a striking fact that, notwithstanding the zeal of the early Church in collecting and venerating relics, no relics of the Blessed Virgin's body have ever been exhibited. Much weight, too, must be given to the common sentiment of the faithful. "Admirable," says Petavius, "is the admonition of Paulinus of Nola, an author of the greatest weight, who bids us adhere to the common voice of the faithful, since the spirit of God breathes upon them all." 1 ASPERGES. A name given to the sprinkling of the altar, clergy, and people with holy water at the beginning of High Mass by the celebrant. The name is taken from the words, "Asperges me," "Thou shalt wash me, O Lord, with hyssop," &c., with which the priest begins the ceremony. During the Easter season the antiphon "Vidi aquam is substituted. This custom of sprinkling the people with holy water is mentioned in the Canon of a synod quoted by Hincmar of Rheims, who lived at the beginning of the ninth century. ASPERSION. [See BAPTISM.] ASSUMPTION. After the death of her divine Son the Blessed Virgin lived under the care of St. John. It is not quite certain where she died. Tillemont conjectures from a passage in a letter of the Fathers assembled in the General Council of Ephesus that she was buried in that city, but the common tradition of the Church represents her as having died at Jerusalem, where her empty tomb was shown to pilgrims in the seventh century. In any case, it is certain that she really died, and that her exemption from sin original and actual did not prevent her paying this common debt of humanity. The very fact that she had received a passible_nature rendered her liable to death. Except for the special gift of immortality which he received from God, Adam would have died in the course of nature, even if he had never sinned; and St. Augustine declares that our Blessed Saviour would have died by the natural decay of old age, if the Jews had not laid violent hands upon Him.1 Still, although the Blessed Virgin tasted of death, her body was preserved 1 Billuart, De Myster. Diss. xiv. a. 1. The corporal assumption is not an article of faith. Still Melchior Canus sums up the general teaching of theologians on this head when he says:-"The denial of the Blessed Virgin's corporal assumption into heaven, though by no means contrary to the faith, is still so much opposed to the common agreement of the Church, that it would be a mark of insolent temerity."2 The feast, according to Butler, was celebrated before the sixth century in the East and West. The Greeks called it κοίμησις or μετάστασις ; the Latins, dor mitio, pausatio, transitus, assumptio. ASTROLOGY. The doctrine of the Church on this matter is clearly laid down by St. Thomas. There is nothing contrary to the faith in holding that the stars affect the bodies of men, and so indirectly cause passions to which most men will give way. Taking this influence of the heavenly bodies for granted (and its ex 1 Petav. De Incarnat. xiv 2. 2 Melchior Canus, De Locis Theolog. xii. 10. ASYLUM istence or non-existence is a question of | physical science, not of theology), an astrologer may make probable guesses at the truth. But he cannot predict with certainty our future actions, for it is of faith that the will in all cases remains free. Astrology was forbidden to the early Christians. A law of the emperor Honorius condemned astrologers to banishment. The practice of astrology was condemned in 1586 by a bull of Sixtus V.1 ASYLUM. A place to which a criminal, pursued by the ministers of justice, may escape, and where so long as he remains he cannot be arrested. Such asylums, the inviolable character of which was nearly always connected with some notion of the religious sanctity of the spot, were common among the nations of antiquity. Rome, says the legend, grew out of an asylum for malefactors of every description; and Moses (Deut. xix. 2) appointed cities of refuge, whither men who had committed involuntary homicide might flee and be safe. The same privilege passed over to the Church, and was sedulously respected by the Christian emperors. Theodosius punished the violation of the protective sanctity of a church as a crime of lese-majesty. But the immunity from the consequences of crime arising from the extended assertion of the principle of sanctuary led to many abuses, and by the legislation of Justinian those guilty of certain specified crimes were to find no right of asylum in the churches. For particulars as to the immunities long enjoyed by certain famous English Banctuaries-e.g. St. Cuthbert's franchise, Beverley, and Westminster-see the article SANCTUARY. ATHANASIAN CREED. [See CREEDS.] GOD.] ATTRITION, as distinct from contrition, is an imperfect sorrow for sin. Contrition is that sorrow for sin which has for its motive the love of God whom the sinner has offended. Attrition arises from a motive which is indeed supernaturalthat is to say, apprehended by faith-but which still falls short of contrition. Such motives are the fear of hell, the loss of heaven, the turpitude of sin. By this 1 Summ. i. 115, 4; Fleury, Hist. vi. 20 ; xxii. 19; clxxvii. 66. last, we understand the turpitude of sin as revealed by faith. We may also, for the sake of clearness, exclude from our definition that kind of sorrow which theologians call serviliter servilis-the sorrow which makes a man renounce sin because he is afraid of hell, while at the same time he would be ready to offend God if he could do so without incurring the penalty. All Catholics are bound to hold that attrition, as explained above, is good and an effect of God's grace. This is clear from the words of our Lord, "Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell;" from the declaration of the Tridentine Council, that attrition which proceeds from considering "the baseness of sin or from the fear of hell and punishment, if it excludes the purpose of sinning and includes the hope of pardon,... is a true gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit; " and from subsequent pronounce ments of the Popes, particularly of Alexander VIII. The council put forward this Catholic truth against Luther, and succeeding Popes against the Jansen sists. 1 Further, the Council of Trent teaches that attrition does not of itself avail to justify the sinner. Sin which separates the soul from God is only annulled by love which unites it to bim. But a question was long keenly debated among Catholic divines, viz. whether if a man comes with attrition to the sacrament of penance and receives absolution, this avails to restore him to God's grace. The negative opinion was held by the French clergy in their assembly general of the year 1700, and prevailed in the universities of Paris and Louvain. On the other hand, the affirmative, according to which a sinner who receives absolution with attrition is justified through the grace which the sacrament confers, has always apparently been the commoner tenet in the schools. It rests on the strong argument that as perfect contrition justifies without the actual re ception of the sacrament of penance, it is hard to see why this sacrament should have been instituted, if perfect contrition is needed to get any good from it. Alexander VII. in 1667 forbade the advocates of either opinion to pronounce any theological censure on their opponents. But at present the opinion that attrition with 1 Concil. Trident. sess. xiv. cap. 4. De Penit. 2 Ibid. the sacrament of penance suffices is universally held. St. Liguori calls it "certain." AUDIANS or AUDEANS. [See ANTHROPOMORPHITES.] AUDITOR OF ROTA. [See ROTA.] AUGUSTINIAN CANONS. The pretensions to high antiquity made by this order, or on its behalf, have involved the history of its origin in much obscurity. Their commencement has been ascribed to some supposed resolution taken by the Apostles to renounce all private property and live in common. This being difficult of proof, the foundation of the order was at least confidently referred to St. Augustine of Hippo, whose rule, it was said, the regular canons had never ceased to follow. But it cannot be shown that St. Augustine ever composed a rule, properly so called. He did, indeed, write a treatise "De Moribus Clericorum," and he also wrote a letter (No. 109) in which he laid down a rule of life for the religious women under his direction, not binding them to strict enclosure, but requiring them to renounce all individual property. But when and by whom the injunctions contained in this letter were adapted to communities of men, are points which have never been cleared up. Moreover, it has been urged, that if St. Augustine promulgated a rule and founded congregations which have had perpetual succession ever since, it seems impossible to explain how St. Benedict should have been universally regarded for centuries as the founder of Western monachism. amended, and in particular the canons were bound to a community life and to the renunciation of private property (Fleury, "Hist. Eccl." Ixi.). Even after these councils, the canons of many churches lived in much the same way as before; those, therefore, who obeyed the rule prescribed, by way of distinction from the recalcitrants, were called regular canons. The rule itself after a time was commonly described as the rule of St. Augustine, apparently because it was held to be in conformity with his 109th letter and the general spirit of his teaching. The adoption of this rule facilitated the formation of independent bodies of regular canons, neither connected with cathedrals nor with collegiate churches, as had hitherto been the case; accordingly, soon after the beginning of the twelfth century, we read of the foundation of societies of canons, following the rule of St. Austin, in several countries of Europe. In England these canons-who were regarded as monks, not as friars--were very popular and had many houses; they were called Black Canons. At the time of the Dissolution there were about 203 of the houses in England; two out of their number, Waltham and Cirencester, were presided over by mitred abbots. Newstead Abbey, the birthplace of the poet Byron, was originally an Augustinian house. In Ireland this order was even more popular than in England, holding there, in fact, much the same prominent position that the Benedictines held among the English. D'Alton puts the number at 223 monasteries and 33 nunneries. The Augustinian priors of Christ Church and All Hallows, Dublin, and of the monasteries at Connell, Kells, Louth, Athassel, Killagh, Newtown, and Raphoe, had seats in the Irish parliament. (Hélyot, "Ordres Monastiques; " Dugdale's "Mon In one sense, indeed, the regular Canons of St. Austin may lay claim to an antiquity with which no other order can compete; for, as canons, they grow out of an institution and a way of life which reach nearly to the apostolic age. [CANON.] Considered, however, as a particular institution, the mode in which they arose has been thus explained. Discipline hav-asticon.") ing become much relaxed among the canons of the various cathedrals in the Frankish empire, a council held at Aixla-Chapelle in 816 drew up a rule for their observance. But as this rule did not absolutely prohibit the acquisition or enjoyment of private property, abuses again crept in; and the Popes Nicholas II. and Alexander II., strenuously assisted by St. Peter Damian, held councils at Rome in 1059 and 1063, by the decrees of which the rule of Aix-la-Chapelle was 1 Moral Theol. vi. n. 440. AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS. The remarks made in the foregoing article on the Canons apply equally to the pretensions to an historical descent from St. Austin made by the Hermits who bear his name. In point of fact the order originated in a union of several existing congregations effected in 1265 under the direction of Pope Alexander IV. Their houses soon became very numerous, and the usual variations in regard to the strict observance of their rule, followed by reformations of greater or less fame, made their appearance. They were regarded AUREOLE as friars, not as monks, and were expressly aggregated to the other orders of friars by Pius V. in 1567. Their house at Wittenberg had the dubious honour of counting Martin Luther among its members. In 1532, Father Thomas of Jesus, a Portuguese, instituted the Discalced (or Reformed) Friars, who are independent, having a vicar-general of their own at Rome. The Augustinian Hermits are said to have possessed in the sixteenth century three thousand convents with thirty thousand friars, besides three hundred nunneries following a similar rule. receives it has attained during his warfare upon earth. It is given, according to St. Thomas, to virgins, martyrs, and to doctors and preachers. Virgins have triumphed with special glory over the flesh; martyrs, over the world, which persecuted them to death; preachers, over the devil, whom they have driven, not only from their own hearts, but also from those of others. AUTOCEPHAΙΙ (αὐτοκέφαλοι). Α name given by Greek canonists to metropolitans who were not subject to a patriarch. Such were the metropolitans of Cyprus, who contrived to free themselves from subjection to the Patriarch of Antioch; or, again, the archbishops of Bulgaria, who were independent of Constantinople. AUXILIARY BISHOP.] BISHOP. In England, according to Tanner, there were about thirty-two houses of Augustinian Hermits at the Dissolution. The most celebrated was the friary at Oxford, which educated many dis- AUTO DA FÉ. [See INQUISITION.] tinguished men. Here Erasmus lodged [See with his friend Prior Charnock when he visited Oxford. A grey crumbling gateAVÉ MARIA. This familiar prayer, way in New Inn Hall Lane alone is left called also the Angelical Salutation, conto mark the spot. Capgrave, the well-sists of three parts-(1) the salutation of known hagiographer, was an Augustinian Hermit. At the present time there is one house of Augustinian friars in England (at Hoxton, London, N.), none in Scotland, and twelve in Ireland-viz., Drogheda, in the province of Armagh; Dublin, Rathfarnham, Callan, New Ross, Grantstown, Fethard, Cork, Limerick, Dungarvan, Ballyhaunis, and Galway. (Dugdale's "Monasticon.") The calced friars of this order were first introduced into the U. S. in 1790, when some friars from the Irish province established the priory and Church of St. Augustine's in Philadelphia. At Villanova, near Philadelphia, is situated the mother-house of the order in the U. S., which has also houses in the dioceses of Albany, Boston, and Ogdensburg. AUREOLE (from aureolus, golden, gilt, of golden colour). 1. In Christian art it is the gold colour surrounding the whole figure in sacred pictures, and representing the glory of the person represented. It is distinct from the nimbus, which only covers the head. The aureole (also called scutum, vesica, piscis, &c.) was usually reserved for pictures of the three divine Persons, of Christ, and of the Blessed Virgin along with the Holy Child. (Kraus, Archaeol. Dict.") 66 2. In theology, it is defined as a certain accidental reward added to the essential bliss of heaven, because of the excellent victory which the person who the Archangel Gabriel, Ave [Maria] gratia AZYMITES (à priv. (úun). By this term the Greek Schismatics designate Christians of the Latin Church, because the latter use unleavened bread in the administration of the Eucharist. In the Western Church the point has never been regarded as of vital importance; the priest is only enjoined sub gravi to use unleavened bread; and the Council of Florence declared (1439) that after consecration the 1 Supplem. qu. xcvi. |