Volume II Part 50 (1/2)

673 A little book has been written on these legends by M. Charles de Bussy, called _Les Courtisanes saintes_. There is said to be some doubt about St. Afra, for, while her acts represent her as a reformed courtesan, St. Fortunatus, in two lines he has devoted to her, calls her a virgin. (Ozanam, _etudes german._ tome ii. p. 8.)

674 See the _Vit. Sancti Joannis Eleemosynarii_ (Rosweyde).

675 Tillemont, tome x. pp. 61-62. There is also a very picturesque legend of the manner in which St. Paphnutius converted the courtesan Thais.

676 See especially, Tertullian, _Ad Uxorem_. It was beautifully said, at a later period, that woman was not taken from the head of man, for she was not intended to be his ruler, nor from his feet, for she was not intended to be his slave, but from his side, for she was to be his companion and his comfort. (Peter Lombard, _Senten._ lib. ii.

dis. 18.)

677 The reader may find many pa.s.sages on this subject in Barbeyrac, _Morale des Peres_, ii. -- 7; iii. -- 8; iv. -- 31-35; vi. -- 31; xiii.

-- 2-8.

678 ”It is remarkable how rarely, if ever (I cannot call to mind an instance), in the discussions of the comparative merits of marriage and celibacy, the social advantages appear to have occurred to the mind.... It is always argued with relation to the interests and the perfection of the individual soul; and, even with regard to that, the writers seem almost unconscious of the softening and humanising effect of the natural affections, the beauty of parental tenderness and filial love.”-Milman's _Hist. of Christianity_, vol. iii. p.

196.

679 ”Tempus breve est, et jam securis ad radices arborum posita est, quae silvam legis et nuptiarum evangelica cast.i.tate succidat.”-_Ep._ cxxiii.

680 ”Laudo nuptias, laudo conjugium, sed quia mihi virgines generant.”-_Ep._ xxii.

681 See Ceillier, _Auteurs eccles._ xiii. p. 147.

682 Socrates, iv. 23.

683 Palladius, _Hist. Laus._ cxix.

_ 684 Vit. S. Abr._ (Rosweyde), cap. i.

685 I do not know when this legend first appeared. M. Littre mentions having found it in a French MS. of the eleventh century (Littre, _Les Barbares_, pp. 123-124); and it also forms the subject of a very curious fresco, I imagine of a somewhat earlier date, which was discovered, within the last few years, in the subterranean church of St. Clement at Rome. An account of it is given by Father Mullooly, in his interesting little book about that Church.

_ 686 De Virgin._ cap. iii.

687 Greg. Tur. i. 42.

688 The regulations on this point are given at length in Bingham.

689 Muratori, _Antich. Ital._ diss. xx.

690 St. Greg. _Dial._ i. 10.

691 Delepierre, _L'Enfer decrit par ceux qui l'ont vu_, pp. 44-56.

692 Val. Max. ii. 1. -- 3.

693 ”Ille meos, primus qui me sibi junxit, amores Abstulit; ille habeat sec.u.m, servetque sepulchro.”

_aen._ iv. 28.

694 E.g., the wives of Lucan, Drusus, and Pompey.

695 Tacit. _German._ xix.