History of Christianity

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image (Hebrew פסל) or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."

"God is spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images (εἰκόνος) resembling mortal man."

"What avails, then, the folly of the painter, who from sinful love of gain depicts that which should not be depicted—that is, with his polluted hands he tries to fashion that which should only be believed in the heart and confessed with the mouth? He makes an image and calls it Christ."

"If anyone shall endeavor to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colors which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, let him be anathema!"

"It is customary for a certain class of men to assert at all times and places, that this continent is indebted entirely to the Saxon or Anglo-Saxon race for its population, its civilization and its progress. ...The world forgets too often that it was a child of the Latin race, a stanch Catholic, a pious hero, who conceived the idea of the Western continent, and it was a Spanish Sovereign, a stout Catholic, Isabella surnamed "the Catholic" who placed at his disposal the means necessary to pursue his researches in the pathless and unknown Western Ocean."

"Soon after the death of Montezuma, the last of the Incas, the Spaniards were attracted towards what is now New Mexico, by the wonderful tales they heard from the Indians, of its great riches in gold and silver."

"When Cortez conquered Mexico in 1521, he came across traditions among the Aztecs, who had founded the city of Mexico in 1325—traditions which still exist among the Pueblos of New Mexico, as well remarks Hon. W. G. Ritch ex-Secretary of New Mexico, in his "Chronological Annals of New Mexico," that they came originally from Salt Lakes, Lagunas Saladas, far to the north, and that Montezuma, mounted upon an eagle, subsequently led them from Pecos, where he was born, or at least where he dwelt, to the city of Mexico. They called what is now New Mexico, the "Seven Cities," relating in glowing terms the wealth and greatness, as well as the beauty of that country."

"Among these Seven Cities was one, pre-eminent even in those remote times, called Tiguex or Tegua, now Santa Fé. That it was renowned at the time of the founding of the Aztec Confederacy in 1426, is very plain from the taxes it had to pay toward the general government, an account of which I have read but cannot now find. It belonged to the Province of the Tarnos (or Tanos) which contained forty-thousand inhabitants. Tiguex played a prominent part at the time of the expedition of Caronado in 1541."

"More than one writer doubts the identity of Tiguex with Santa Fé. But so far nothing has been brought forward, but mere assertions. On the other hand many others are of the opinion which I follow. I regret the loss of the "List of taxes imposed upon the various pueblos," as it was a document of real value which would go far towards proving my opinion."

"The land of the "Seven Cities" was called also by the name of Cibola. Under this name, the origin of which is uncertain, it was known by the Spaniards, ten years before the expedition of Caronado. Davis says it means "The Buffalo," but searching Spanish lexicons he finds it translated "a quadruped, called the Mexican bull;" Mexico was then known as the country of the buffaloes."

"It would carry us too far back to speak in detail of the various expeditions sent from Mexico to Cibola. Nuno de Gusman was the first to start but he never reached it and after numberless difficulties he founded the Kingdom of New Galicia establishing the seat of his Government at Xalisco and Tolona."

"Marcos and his little army set out from Culiacan, Friday, 7th of March, 1539. He went no further than Cibola; deterred as he was by the dangers surrounding him, for be had been threatened by the Indians, if he proceeded on his journey. He planted a cross and took possession of the country, "In the name of Mendoza, for his Majesty the Emperor," and called the country, El Nuevo Reyno de San Francisco—The new kingdom of St. Francis."

"A number of priests joined Caronado, and Castaneda, the historian of the expedition, was probably one of them. In any case, he was a man of education and accustomed to writing, and his narrative is far superior to most of the histores composed at that period. His book was translated into French by Ternaux Campans, in 1838."

"Soon Caronado quartered his troops at Cibola, and sent before him Hernando Alvarado, who with twenty men was to accompany some Indians who had come from Tiguex and Cicuye, to invite them to visit their pueblos. Alvarado treated the pueblo of Tiguex, in a very harsh manner, compelling them to leave their houses, and forbidding them to take anything with them; he sent word to Caronado to come there to make his winter quarters. This action of Alvarado, was the commencement of that terrible hatred of the Indians for the Spaniards, which after centuries of suffering, culminated in the overthrow of the Spanish rule at Tiguex and of the whole of the territory."

"Many soldiers and even officers, unwilling to return to Mexico, deserted the service and remained at Tiguex, and formed the first white settlement in that renowned place. These events happened at the beginning of April 1543, a date to which we can well assign the foundation of Santa Fé as a Mission, although it was not called by that name until 1598, when we see it called so by Juan de Onate in his Discurso de las jornadas que hizo el Capritan de su Magestad desa de la Nueva Esperna, a la provincia de la Nueva Mexico, September 9, 1598; a la ciudad de San Francisco de los Espanoles que al presente se Edifican. (Discourse of the journeys made by the Captain of His Majesty from New Spain to the Province of New Mexico, September 9, 1598, [to] the city of Saint Francis of the Spaniards, which they are now building.) It was then that the city took the name of Santa Fé."

"It is possible that in 1543 was built the celebrated church of San Miguel, which stands to-day, at least as far as the lower walls are concerned, for it was destroyed by the Indians in 1680."

"The desertion of officers and soldiers became almost a stampede, and Caronado had not a hundred men to return to Mexico, which he reached only to find the Viceroy much displeased with the manner in which he had conducted the expedition. Soon afterwards he was deprived of his province [Kingdom of New Galicia, with seat of government at Xalisco or Tolona] and fell into disgrace."

"Caronado left with the deserters Fathers Juan de Padilla and Juan de la Cruz, with a Portuguese named Andres de Campo, to wait on them. Father Juan de la Cruz went on a mission to Cibola, and was killed by the Indians. Juan de Padilla remained for some time at Tiguex; soon he extended the sphere of his missions, and hearing of the good disposition of the Indians of Quivira, he went to visit them; but he was killed by Tejas Indians while on his knees at prayer. The Tejas did not wish him to go to Quivira, because they were at war with that pueblo."

"Father Juan de Padilla was afterwards buried in the church of the Pueblo of La Isleta. ...It is said that no matter how deep he is buried, he always rises in his coffin to the very surface of the ground. ...there is but little doubt that he died the death of a martyr."

"The Spanish deserters and new settlers, the first Catholic mission at Tiguex, and for all that, in the whole of New Mexico... were not long without priests. The Franciscan Order sent more Religious to search for the lost Spaniards and to convert the Indians. Among many others are named Fathers Augustine Ruiz, Francisco Lopez, and Juan de Santa Maria. They were accompanied by twelve soldiers who came with them as far as the pueblo of Sandia, near Bernalillo. ...Father Juan de Santa Maria came to Tiguex... He succeeded so well that he set out for Mexico to call more priests, and to give an account of his mission; but he was killed by the Teguas Indians near a pueblo called San Pablo, in the neighborhood of El Paso. Father Lopez also was killed while at his devotions outside of the pueblo of Paruay, on the Rio Grande, and Father Ruiz remained alone mourning the loss of his companions. ...The governor of Paruay, much affected by the death of Lopez, resolved to to save Ruiz by removing him to pueblos farther up on the river; but... He was killed a few days afterwards and his body thrown into the river, then in flood, as food for the fishes. Thus, the Teguas Indians completed their bloody and unholy work..."

"Here is the time for saying, "Fear not little flock, for it is well known that the blood of martyrs is the seed of salvation." The work of saving souls was progressing everywhere, and priest suceeded priest in this arduous work."

"Old chroniclers tell us that by the year 1629, there were baptized, thirty-four thousand six hundred and fifty Indians, and many others were in a state of conversion, and at that time there were already forty three churches in New Mexico, all built by the Indians, except San Miguel, in Santa Fé... and Our Lady of Guadalupe, also in Santa Fé, which may have been built by the Spaniards about 1598, as also other churches now forgotten."

"A sure fact is that in February 1614, the body of Lopez was disinterred and solemnly deposited in the church of the pueblo of Sandia, with great ceremonies."

"The Franciscan Order, alarmed at the return of the soldiers to Mexico, knowing well that their priests were without help in a heathen country, immediately appealed to men of good will to go out and rescue them. Antonio de Espejo, a man of courage and faith, offered his services to the Franciscans ... and ...an army was fitted out which left San Bartolomeo, in Mexico, on the 10th of December, 1582."

"Espejo everywhere pacified the Indians; everywhere the numerous priests, who accompanied him, made conversions. He destroyed no property, and persuaded all of the Indians to stay in their houses and be friendly with the Spaniards. All over he built churches, erected crosses, and formed settlements of white people, alongside of the Indian settlements. ... He returned to Mexico in the beginning of July, 1584. He there wrote the relation of his journey for Conde de Caruna, the Viceroy who forwarded the same to the King of Spain and the lords of the council for the Indians. These documents, with many others before and after, were deposited in the royal library of Seville, and I understand that the government of Spain is about to publish the whole, with magnificent charts, under the name of Cartas de la Indias."

"It would be out of my purpose to write in detail the successive expeditions of Humana, who on account of his cruelty, had his army almost annihilated by the Quiviras; of Juan de Onate, who brought over three hundred families to settle them in the territory, and established most of them in the country about Santa Cruz and Santa Fé, but obtained permission to reduce "the natives to a state of obedience, which he interpreted by reducing them to slavery." All these facts were written by Padre Geronimo de Yarate Salmeron, a Franciscan who remained eight years in New Mexico..."

"In a few years the Spaniards began to assume the prerogatives of masters; a rule of tyranny and slavery was established. Instead of letting the priests alone to see to the conversion of the Indians, fanatical Spaniards tried to convert them with the sword. In a short time they looked upon the Spaniards with intense hatred; low murmurs followed, and then open revolt. They were arrested and severely punished, but never resigned. Thus it went on for centuries; the Church suffered much in those times, and the conversion of the Indians was greatly retarded. Finally it culminated in the great Rebellion of 1680..."

"In the year 1680, Popé, a native of the pueblo of San Juan, a man of decided ability and great eloquence, visited all the pueblos of New Mexico and pictured to them the wrongs they were suffering, and roused them to a desire of throwing off the yoke. ...San Juan, however, remained faithful to the Spaniards, and was on that account called San Juan de los Caballeros—The gentlemanly San Juaners. Nicholas Bua, governor of San Juan, Popé's son-in-law, was put to death at the hand of Popé himself for fear he would betray him to the Spaniards."

"Popé visited Bua at night, and under the pretext of communicating to him important secrets, drew him out of the pueblo into a dark spot, and while speaking to him, plunged a knife in his heart. Bua did not expect such a treatment, and was unarmed. He fell with a faint cry, and was soon dispatched and buried secretly by the treacherous Popé."

"All Christians, priests and seculars, women and children, fell under their blows, except a few of the handsomest maidens whom the warriors reserved for wives. General Otermin, the governor, was unprepared and paralyzed with fear; the capital was besieged by an army, and Otermin with a few followers, unable to defend Santa Fé, resolved to leave it to its fate, and with all the Spaniards fled, and never rested till he reached El Paso, where the Franciscans supported him and his followers for a whole winter. Some of the Spaniards settled in Socorro, desiring to return to Santa Fé in a short time."

"Santa Fé was given up to pillage. The churches were desecrated and partly pulled down. ...The Indians, putting on priestly vestments, were seen riding about the city, drinking from sacred vessels... In other pueblos and villages, the priests and Spaniards, not being aware of the rising, remained quietly in their houses, and were all massacred... then the churches were razed to the ground; the worship of the serpent, with its dances, including the indecent cachina, were prescribed anew to all good Indians, the estufas were reopened, and they were ordered to abandon even the names of their baptism, and take new ones. It was decreed in solemn council that "God, the Father, and Mary, the Mother of the Spaniards were dead, and that the Indian gods alone remained." They made offerings of flour, feathers, corn, tobacco and other articles... After this, all those grim warriors repaired to the little Santa Fé river, and there, divesting themselves of their scant clothing, washed their whole bodies with amole or soap-weed, to "Wash off their baptism.""

"On the 5th of November of the following year, Otermin, equipped by the Franciscans of El Paso, started with an army to reconquer New Mexico. All the old inhabitants of Santa Fé, eager to recover their property, went with him. They suffered greatly while crossing La Jornada del Muerto, where for a distance of ninety miles, water is not to be found, except what collects in holes after a rain. ... It has been named the "Journey of Death," on account of the number of persons killed, either by Mescalero Apache Indians, by want of water, or by storms while crossing it. To-day the A.T.S.F. railroad passes through it, and water has been found in about its center. ... the priests, and in particular, Father Ayeta, of El Paso... baptized many at La Isleta and Sandia, but when the army reached the Pueblo of Cienegilla, near Santa Fé, Juan, a Tozuque Indian, advised them of a plot to destroy them. Afraid of remaining any longer in the country, they set out on their homeward journey and reached El Paso on the 11th of February, 1582."

"Several other attempts at conquest were made in 1685 by Domingo Jeronza Petrez de Cruzate, the newly appointed governor. ...he was governor until 1689, but never reached his capital."

"In 1692, a new expedition was entrusted to Don Diego de Vargas Zapate Lujan, by the Viceroy, Count Galvas. ...Diego de Vargas deserves more than a passing notice. It has been said that he was an avaricious and ambitious man. It is true that later on, when he had conquered all the Pueblos, and placed them under the Spanish rule, he seemed to incline to those vices, but he was a man of faith, feared by the Indians who remained his enemies, but kind and generous to those who acknowledged his rule. ...Vargas carried everywhere with him a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and wherever he stopped, a little sanctuary was built, and devotions were offered by the army. We may meet yet several of those places, called by the people los palacios, among others one near Agua Fria, five miles west of Santa Fé. He entered the city by the road called El camino de Vargas, and stood with his troops near the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Thence crossing the Rio Santa Fe at a place called yet—Puente de Vargas, he went to the very spot where now stands the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, and there he erected a palacio. On the next day... Vargas with his small troop, attacked the Indians, who were centered on a waste which is now the beautiful plaza of Santa Fé; they had fortified themselves, and were reinforced by the neighboring pueblos, to the number of ten thousand. The battle raged with great ardor on both sides from four in the morning until nightfall, without apparent result. Then Vargas, in the name of his troops on their bended knees, before the statue of Mary, made the solemn vow, that should he take the city, every year that same statue should be brought in solemn procession from the principal church in the city to the spot on which they were camping, where he should build a sanctuary, and there be left for nine days, the people flocking to the chapel to thank Mary for this victory, attributed to her. On the dawn of day, the next morning, he attacked with impetuosity the fortified Indians, and drove them from the plaza; at eight o'clock they retired upon the loma, north of the city where he attacked them, and by noon not an Indian was seen in the neighborhood."

"Faithful to his promise, Vargas built the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary, and the fulfilment of the vow, commenced then, still continues every year on the Sunday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, by carrying what is most probably the identical statue possessed by Vargas, and called by the people Nuestra Senora de la Victoria, "Our Lady of the Victory," in great pomp, with music and pious chanting, from the Cathedral of St. Francis to the Chapel of the Rosary, and for nine days mass is chanted there, all the people making daily pilgrimages in thanksgiving for the favor received."

"Soon universal peace reigned in New Mexico. Vargas then repaired the churches, and among the first the old church of San Miguel, but did not complete it, and it remained in that state until 1710, when the front tower was built by the Marquez de la Penuela... He built the Rosario, and no doubt, repaired the old Castrense, for his own use. This church was on the spot occupied now by the great merchant houses of Spiegelberg and Don Felipe Delgado. The Cathedral of San Francisco was re-built somewhat later, I think about 1730, long after the removal of Vargas. The church of Guadalupe... being somewhat out of the city, seems to have suffered less than the other churches at the time of the Rebellion."

"The conquest of New Mexico terminated there... At that epoch, the authority of the Spaniards both ecclesiastical and civil, was acknowledged in all the pueblos."

"The Pueblos, then as now, were a distinct people... They lived in villages, cultivated the soil, and had trades and manufacture. The Navajoes and Apaches of to-day are as easily distinguished from the Pueblos as in the time of the earliest conquerors of New Mexico."

"Learned treatises have been written on the subject; some contending that the Pueblos are of Aztec, others that they are of Toltec origin. ...Their traditions say that they came from the north. ...I think the opinion which says that they are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, mixed with some Tartars, is not at all improbable. I lately saw a work in which the author tries to prove they were Phonicians and not Jews."

"Classed by dialects, the pueblos of New Mexico, at the period of the arrival of the Spaniards, spoke four separate and distinct languages, called the Tegua, the Piro, the Queres and the Tagnos. This classification has passed away, and today all the Pueblos of New Mexico are divided, as to dialect, into five classes: 1, Sandia, Isleta, Picuris and Taos; 2, Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana, Laguna and Acoma; 3, Jemes; 4, Zuni; 5, San Juan, Santa Clara, Nambe, San Ildefonso, Pojuaque and Tezuque. Thus by language, these Indians are nearly all cut off from verbal communication, not only with Mexicans, but with Pueblos of a different dialect."

"I have visited several pueblos in New Mexico; everywhere you find a square, small or large, according to the size of the village; around the "plaza," the dwellings are erected close together, so as to present outwardly an unbroken line of wall to the height of two or three stories. Viewed from the inner square, it presents the appearance of a succession of terraces with doors and windows opening upon them. To go to the house of the governor of Tezuque, for instance, you go up a ladder of about ten feet. There you meet a terrace about six feet wide, and the door of the sleeping apartment opens on that terrace, which has another ladder to go higher. To go to the lower apartments, you place the ladder and descend through a hole; these apartments have no windows, and this hole is the door and the chimney. This description, with slight variations, is applicable to all the pueblo villages..."

"Time, decay and want of proper care, are rapidly carrying off forever many documents of great importance, sole survivors of many more, which formed a part of the archives of Santa Fé. Papers of value... have disappeared; many others are in a perishing condition, and it is said that in 1846, Governor Armijo used up a large quantity of them for cartridges; and alas! he was not the only one that did it."

"Under the Spanish governments the whole military, civil and ecclesiastical administration was admirably carried out, and the official reports are models of completeness and brevity."

"Many stories are told of what passes in their Estuva, but all this is exaggeration. However, it must be acknowledged that they have... among them many secret societies that no one outside of the pueblo can ever penetrate. They are good tillers of the ground, and some pueblos have great herds of cattle and horses; their principal manufacture consists of pottery. The vases and other article's they make are all of classic and Biblical shapes. These vases are extensively used through the territory."

"In the year 1600, Pedro de Peralta was governor, and probably the first who used that title. During that period, according to Shea's Catholic Missions, the country was nearly abandoned by the Spaniards. Still we find General Arguello as governor in 1640, and he defeated the first great insurrection of the Indians. In 1650, General Concha was governor, and he was called upon to quiet the second revolt of the pueblos. He administered the Territory till 1656, when he was relieved by Enrique de Abilu y Pacheco, of whom little is known. General Villanueva administered after him, and his administration which lasted to the year 1675, was disturbed by constant uprisings of the Indians who had found refuge with the Apaches in the Magdalena Mountains. In the year 1675, Juan Francisco Frecenia... had still greater difficulties to contend with than his predecessor. He left the government in the hands of Antonio de Otermin [who was] forced... to return to El Paso in 1680..."

"From 1692 to 1694, and again in 1703, New Mexico was ruled by General Don Diego de Vargas Zapatoz Lujan Ponce de Leon, who signs himself, Marquez de la naba de Brazinas, gobernado, capitan, restorador, conquistador, a sa Casta, reconquissador y poblador castellano, por sa Majestad, etc., etc. (Marquis of the root of Brazinas, governor, captain, general, restaurer, conqueror at his cost, reconquerer, Castilian and Castilian founder for His Majesty, etc. etc.)"

"Don Gaspar de Sandaval Zerda Silva y Mandoza succeeded Vargas in 1694; he was succeeded himself in 1697 by Don Pedro Rodriguez Cubero, who gave way for the second term of Vargas in 1703. From 1704 to 1710 the Duke of Albuquerque governed the Territory; but during an absence of the Duke of Albuquerque in 1705 we find a governor ad interim in the General Francisco Cuerbo y Valdez. The Marquis de la Penuela was another governor ad interim in 1708, and succeeded the Duke of Albuquerque in 1710 to 1712. He was the first to use the word Nuevo Mexico; all the documents so far give the name feminui la Nueva Mexico. Juan Paez de Hurnado was governor for a short time in 1712, and was ad interim at different other periods. In 1712 Don Fernando de Alencaster Morena y Silva, etc, etc., the Viceroy of New Spain, administered the Territory and visited New Mexico, when he confirmed, as governor, the appointee of King Phillip himself. Juan Ignacio Flores Magallon; who governed five years, entering into office October 5, 1712. In 1721, he was tried at Santa Fé for malfeasance in office, and condemned to pay one hundred dollars costs, but no effects were found wherewith to satisfy the bill of costs, and as the document says: "The governor himself non est inventus [not found]; supposed to be absent in the city of Mexico."

"The following, who was a Capuchin Friar, Don Thomas Velez, was three times governor, during the years from 1749 to 1773, at intervals."

"Still in 1811, we see as governor with headquarters at Chihuahua, Nemecio Salcedo; in 1815 Alberto Maynez, and in 1816, Pedro Maria de Allande."

"Finally, from 1818 to 1822, Facundo Melgares governed the Territory. He is the last governor under the Spanish rule. He is represented by Pike, whom he [under Alencaster]... imprisoned for being an officer, as a "gentleman and gallant soldier.""

"Although Facundo Melgares remained in the Territory till 1822; the New Mexican government sent as "Commanding and political chief," (gefe superior politico) Don Alejo Garcia Conde, in the commencement of the year 1821. He was succeeded as political chief by Antonio Viscarra, who was removed at the end of 1823, and in 1824 Bartolome Baca took the gubernatorial chair to September 13, 1825; when Antonia Narbona, a Canadian by birth, took the chair, followed by Manuel Armijo in 1827; Jose Antonio Chavez in 1828; Santiago Abreu, 1831; Francesco Sarracino, 1833; Mariano Chavez, 1835; Albino Perez, 1837; In January of that year, New Mexico, until then a Territory, was made a department of the Republic [of Mexico], and Perez confirmed as governor. He was assassinated in Santa Fé by the Pueblo Indians on the 9th of August 1837, and on the following day Jose Gonzales, a Pueblo Indian, was proclaimed governor of New Mexico by the insurgents, and as such placed in possession of the "Palace," in Santa Fé. Manuel Armijo, at the head of the military, had him executed on the 27th of January, 1838. Armijo then took the power in his hands, but was subsequently confirmed by the national government of Mexico. He remained governor till 1844, when in January of that year he was suspended from office by the Inspector-General, and Mariano Martinez acted as governor to September 18th, when Jose Chavez superseded him to December, at which epoch Manuel Armijo was again chosen governor."

"Gabino [Albino] Perez... was a native of the city of Mexico; a man of education, he established schools everywhere. He never missed church on Sunday, going as military commander to the Castrense, or military chapel, and as political chief to the church of San Francisco, now the Cathedral. It is known that the garrison who lived in the Garita near the palace, said their Rosary every day. In order to sustain his schools, he established a commission to levy taxes to pay half of the salary of the teachers, the general government paying the other half. This angered some men of weight in the Territory, and they formed a plot against him in Taos and Rio Arriba. They roused all the Pueblos, of the north, persuading them that the Governor desired all to learn the language of the Americans, in order to deliver them to the strangers. In a short while a thousand men were under arms, massed at Santa Cruz. They marched upon Santa Fé; Perez with twenty-five soldiers went to meet them, and he had the courage to attack them at a place called Puertecito. Two of his officers and some soldiers fell on the field; Perez fled to Santa Fé with some of his officers, closely pursued by the rebels. They at once mounted horses, and started for Mexico on the large road called Camino de Vargas, but the Indians of Santo Domingo were awaiting them, lying in ambuscade."

"Manuel Armijo is the last governor under the Mexican rule. He remained in office till August 18, 1846, when the United States troops took formal possession of New Mexico. By proclamation from General S. W. Kearny, who commanded the troops, Charles Bent was duly appointed the first U. S. Governor of New Mexico."

"Charles Bent was assassinated at Taos, July 17, 1847, and Donaciano Vigil was confirmed in his place; the following years to March, 1851, were without a civil governor, the Territory being successively under the command of J. M. Washington and John Monroe, commandants of the Department."

"This list [of governors]... could be found in the office of the Surveyor General H. M. Atkinson when he was in office."

"Napoleon had passed away, pining on the "Forlorn rock," amid the billows of the Mediterranean, the Bonapartes of Spain had quickly descended the steps of the throne, and the treaty of Paris had restored to the Bourbons the throne of Isabella, the "Catholic," but—oh ! what ruins ! what weakness !"

"Now was the time. The Mexicans assembled in ayuntamientos and ordered away all Spaniards from Mexican soil, and on September 28th, 1821, Mexico published her Declaration of Independence of the Spanish rule. The rising succeeded at once... It was not a bloody revolution, although a few lives were lost here and there, and many a Caballero [Spanish gentleman] returned penniless to the mother country. Even before the uprising of 1821, New Mexico had felt the commotions of the volcano upon which the country stood. In 1812, [Robert Mc]Knight, [James] Baird and [Samuel] Chambers brought merchandise overland [from St. Louis], but were treated as spies [being imprisoned in Chihuahua] and their goods were confiscated. No serious troubles were felt, however, owing to the strength of the governor Joaquin del Real Alencaster."

"One of the first acts of the new Republic was from the Legislature, called "Provincial deputation," April 27th, 1822, which issued a decree to establish public schools, as follows: Resolved, "That the said ayuntamientos [municipalities] be officially notified to complete the formation of primary public schools, as soon as possible, according to the circumstances of each community.""

"On April 5th [1822], Francis Xavier Chaves reached Santa Fé as political chief, and with him a government was inaugurated. The overland trade with the United States virtually dates from the same year."

"In the year 1824, Bartolome Baca was sent as political chief, with the instruction of forming one State of Durango, Chihuahua and New Mexico. Baca resided at Chihuahua for a short time. New Mexico became dissatisfied about the new arrangement, and lent an ear to overtures made by the United States to join the American Union."

"From its first settlement, the Province of New Mexico had been under the Bishop of Guadalajara. But about 1730, the See of Durango having been erected by the Holy See, all the churches of New Mexico were placed under the care of its Bishop, who for the first time in 1737 visited this vast Province, the northern part of his diocese. From that time, for nearly one hundred years, hardly any Bishop visited this country, till the Most Rev. Zubiria who at great peril and hardship visited the New Mexican part of his diocese."

"After the Mexican Revolution of 1821 and the expulsion of the Spanish Franciscans, the wants of the parishes at first so flourishing under the saintly Friars, were supplied by secular priests sent from Durango. It is easy to understand that all the missions could not be supplied, and that living thousands of miles away from the bishops of the diocese, the discipline must have considerably relaxed."

"New Mexico suffered greatly from the frequent revolutions and pronunciamientos, issued in the mother country. The provincial deputation had given way as a power; a President of the Republic was created in 1825 and Guadalupe Victorio was inaugurated April 1. He was succeeded by Santa Anna in 1833, who himself was overthrown in 1835 and a new constitution adopted. All these revolutions were felt in New Mexico both by the Church and the State, and religious as well as civil progress was retarded."

"Much dissatisfaction was felt with the new constitution and it culminated in a conspiracy by the Indians in 1837, against the governor Albino Perez, and he was assassinated by them... and the half breed Indian Jose Gonzalez, proclaimed provisional governor."

"It was this dissatisfaction of a part of the people of New Mexico, which gave rise to the famous Texas-Santa Fe expedition, which terminated so disastrously for the Texans. ...Many of those who composed it had nothing else in view than trading, and brought a great amount of merchandise. But this was not the view of General Lamar, the President of the "Lone Star republic." Texas claimed the Rio Grande as her western boundary; many in that eastern half of New Mexico, seemed to desire their coming and throw off the galling yoke of Mexico, and Lamar with his associates, who kept their secret, wished these young men to reduce Santa Fé under the rule of Texas. All know how they were roughly handled by General Armijo, when, after untold hardships, they were met at Apache Canon, made prisoners, and, tied together like cattle, sent to the city of Mexico."

"August 18, 1846, brings us to the American occupation of New Mexico, by General S. W. Kearny, and to an era of prosperity, both religious and political, for the Territory. New Mexico was so far back, on that year, that it is asserted that "adobe palaces," alone in the Territory had window glass."

"Eleven years were thus spent for the Lord, when in 1850, Father Lamy was created by the Holy See, Bishop of Agathon in part. inf. and Vicar Apostolic of New Mexico. No time was to be lost, and so with his usual energy, the young Bishop, only thirty-six years of age, repaired to Cincinnati, was consecrated by Dr. Purcell on the 24th of November, 1850, and immediately after set out to "conquer" his See... Leaving his sister at the hospital of the Sisters of Charity, and his niece, Mother Francisca, then a young lady, at the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans, he embarked alone on a vessel sailing for Galveston..."

"Once, while a guest of Dr. Lamy, I espied some volumes in his library, that seemed to have received a thorough soaking, and looked like veterans battered in war, amid new recruits. I inquired of the venerable Archbishop the meaning of it. His eyes sparkled; a smile lit up his kindly face, and he told me that they were fished out of the waters of the Gulf. With great kindness, and even joy at the remembrance, he described to me his shipwreck, his desolation at having lost everything, till spying quite near the shore one of his trunks drifting seaward, he offered a small sum of money to a young negro boy, who swam to the trunk, and, pushing it before him as he swam shoreward, brought it to land. It was opened. Oh ! in what condition ! The books in my hands were of those saved in that one trunk, all else was lost."

"In Santa Fé, old persons relate a fact which shows their faith. The ground was parched for want of water, all the water courses and ditches were dried up, sheep and cattle were in a dying condition, and poverty was staring in the face of the people. But on the day of the Bishop's arrival, a bountiful rain fell, animate and inanimate nature was refreshed, grass sprung up, and the year was one of plenty."

"Though arrived at his destination, the Bishop soon found himself surrounded by great difficulties. Both the clergy and the people were unwilling to acknowledge the new prelate's authority. ...before its annexation to the United States, New Mexico being under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Durango, in Mexico... The saintly Bishop of Durango, Dr. Zubiria, had been advised in time, and had immediately set out for New Mexico, visiting every mission of the diocese, and performing everywhere his episcopal duties. But he had not been consulted in the dismemberment of his diocese, and he felt quite unwilling to quietly stand by it. The clergy had another reason, they had been living at ease twelve hundred miles from their Bishop, and they dreaded the presence of the new prelate among them; I might add, that many of them were utterly opposed to American rule, either civil or ecclesiastical."

"The indefatigable Dr. Lamy set out on horseback, with a solitary guide, for the city of Durango; he had an interview with its Bishop, and everything was settled amicably. Without taking time for rest, he returned, having performed a journey of three thousand miles on horseback."

"In his new diocese he found but few priests, while it was destitute of educational establishments of any kind. The young bishop put his hand to the grand work of building up Catholicity... His adventures and long journeys over the vast plains extending from Kansas City to Fort Union, plains with no inhabitants, then, save wild beasts and roving Indians, border on romance. Though about nine hundred miles in extent, Dr. Lamy crossed these plains twelve times for the welfare of his vast diocese."

"Bishop Lamy, ever anxious for the good of his diocese, desired to enrich it with devoted Sisters, to teach the young, knowing well that this was the best way to reach the people. Having heard of the self-denial of Father Nerinckx's spiritual children, and of the severe training they had gone through, he concluded that they were the very ones whom Divine Providence had designed for the laborious missions which the Holy See had confided to his care. He applied for a colony of Sisters, and his request was cheerfully granted. Faithful to its traditions, and to the injunctions of its founder, Loretto could not refuse a mission which seemed to promise nothing but hardships and privations."

"As soon as they heard of the Bishop's return from New Orleans, they joined him at St. Louis and on the 10th of July left by the steamer "Kansas," which was to convey them as far as Independence. ...There had already been some cases of cholera on board, when, on Friday, the 16th... Mother Mathilda was attacked... she gave her soul into the hands of her Maker... Two hours later the steamer landed at Todd's Warehouse, six miles from Independence. In the meantime Sister Monica had also contracted the disease, and the landing was truly affecting, the Sisters following the couch of their dying Sister and the coffin of their dear Mother. The inhabitants stood in such dread of the cholera that the Sisters were not allowed to enter their houses, and were therefore obliged to remain in the warehouse. The next morning, July 17th, three of the Sisters, with the Bishop and some other persons, accompanied the carriage which conveyed the corpse of Mother Mathilda to its last resting place, in the graveyard of Independence. But on the way they were met by a Sheriff who had been deputed by the authorities to forbid entrance into the town, for fear of contagion. However, the Bishop's firm attitude, and perhaps, too, compassion for the sad spectacle, caused this official to relent. They continued their way to the graveyard, and there they saw the cold earth receive into its bosom the remains of her whom they had loved and reverenced. The Bishop... now took the three Sisters, Catherine, Hilaria and Roberta, to the town and left them there, whilst Sister Magdalen remained in the warehouse with Sister Monica. But... Sister Magdalen herself was attacked with the cholera, and made what she believed to be her last confession. ...the Bishop, unable to make better arrangements, had the two dying sisters removed to tents about two miles from the town... After a few days, Sister Magdalen began to recover. ...It was impossible for Sister Monica to proceed any further, her recovery being doubtful, and in spite of her great desire to pursue the journey to New Mexico, she returned to Independence... As Sister Magdalen could travel in a carriage, although very weak, they left Independence on Saturday, July 31st, to go into camp some four miles distant, where the Bishop and part of his Suite... had already encamped."

"After the death of Mother Mathilda, Sister Magdalen was chosen to fill the office of Superior, and this election was promptly approved and confirmed at Loretto. Thus was Mother Magdalen chosen in the designs of Providence to guide this young colony of Sisters to Santa Fé; to protect them against all the blasts of trials and difficulties; to build for them the material and spiritual edifice of their order in Santa Fé; to create schools and academies to the honor of Our Lady of Light..."

"On the evening of August 1st they reached Willow Springs, a fine watering place a few miles from Westport, and there found the other party, ready to start. ...but they had proceeded only a few miles when one of the wagons broke down, and there they were obliged to camp in order to repair the wagon."

"On the 7th of September they passed the then existing Fort Atkinson, and encamped some miles beyond, but still in Kansas, when a party of Indian warriors four hundred strong fell upon them and surrounded them. All were terrified, particularly the ladies. This was the Indians hunting ground, and whenever they could do so with impunity, they would attack caravans. On this occasion they seemed peaceable; the Bishop was even enabled to baptize the child of a captive Mexican woman. Still ...the Bishop thought prudent not to make any move, hoping they would retire; but as they seemed disposed to remain, he ordered his company to march in the evening, and the caravan traveled all night, as the Indians do not generally make their attacks in the dark."

"... and no mass was said until they reached Pawnee Fork, on the spot where now stands the town of Larned, at the junction of the Pawnee river and the Arkansas. For the first time, buffaloes were killed by the party, and fresh meat enjoyed."

"Las Vegas was reached on the 18th. This was the first Mexican town reached. The next morning the Bishop... sent Father Machebeuf with the Sisters to what was then called the Bishop's rancho or farm, a little over fifteen miles from Santa Fé."

"During the journey he [Father Lamy] said mass and preached every Sunday but one, when it was absolutely impossible, but prayers were said in common."

"The Bishop set out from Las Vegas on Wednesday, and on Thursday, 23d of September, quietly entered his episcopal city to prepare the way for the coming caravan... On Sunday, 26th, the party... started for Santa Fe where they arrived at four P.M. The people, led by Father Ortiz, and other Mexican priests, went several miles to meet them. As they approached the city, the crowd increased so much that the carriages could scarcely pass through the streets of the ancient metropolis. Triumphal arches had been erected, and the bells of the different churches were pealing. They were received at the door of the cathedral, presented with holy water, and led to the foot of the altar. The Te Deum was sung, accompanied by Mexican music, violin, guitars, etc., and the ceremony terminated with the episcopal blessing. Thence the Sisters were conducted by the Bishop, Vicar-General and clergy to the house prepared for them... and thus ended this long and painful journey, full of accidents and dangers. All felt glad at being finally at home in Santa Fé."

"Afterwards the Sisters obtained, on very reasonable terms, a piece of property in a secluded part of the city, and containing the best looking house in town, and called La Casa Americana, the American house, because it had a shingle roof, all the other roofs in town being flat and covered with earth. An orchard and grounds were laid out, and the Sisters began to occupy their new home in September, 1855."

"Since then the new province has prospered beyond all human expectations, and besides the house of Santa Fé, in which is the novitiate, and which has been called the Convent of Our Lady of Light, it possesses the following houses: The Convent of the Annunciation, in Mora, was established in 1854, whilst Father J. B. Salpointe, now Archbishop of Santa Fé, was parish priest at that place. In 1853 the Convent of St. Joseph was established in Taos, under the care of the Rev. Gabriel Ussel, the parish priest of Taos. The Convent of Our Lady of Guadalupe was first established in Albuquerque in 1866, but that mission was given up in 1869. In the same year was established the Convent of the Immaculate Conception, in Las Vegas. In 1870 the Visitation Academy was established at Las Cruces, through the generosity of the Rt. Rev. J. B. Salpointe, then Vicar Apostolic of Arizona, in whose diocese Las Cruces was included. The Convent of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was established in 1875 in Bernalillo. Later, in 1879, the Convent of Mount Carmel was established in Socorro. In 1864 the Convent and Academy of Denver was established. The zealous and untiring Father Machebeuf, the pastor of that rising city, and now its worthy Bishop, came himself to Santa Fé, and brought a colony of Sisters to the capital of Colorado. Since then the novitiate of Santa Fé, being unable to supply them with a sufficient number of Sisters, they are supplied from Loretto, and have themselves formed missions at Pueblo, Conejos and elsewhere, spreading everywhere the light of the knowledge of God and the sweet odor of the most exalted virtues."

"I could not pass over in silence the fine chapel and the Academy of Our Lady of Light, built entirely by the energy of Mother Magdalen and the self-abnegation of the Sisters, who many times deprived themselves of the necessary wants of life, in order to be able to erect a suitable temple to the Almighty and an Academy worthy of the high renown of the sister institution of Our Lady of Light. The chapel, commenced in 1873, is built of stone, with veins and arches of the purest Gothic style, constructed entirely of native material. This chapel... is a monument to the devotion of all interested in that great enterprise—a chapel which can compare favorably with the finest in the largest cities of the land. The Academy was commenced in the spring of 1880."

"In the fall of 1853 the energetic young Bishop set out from Santa Fé with a caravan to cross those formidable plains, the American Desert, the home of the Indian and coyote, a desert extending nearly nine hundred miles in breadth, from New Mexico to the Missouri river. ...he made a flying visit to Loretto... to petition for more Sisters. ...The Bishop... embarked at New York, soon reached France, and at once visited Monsignor Ferron, the old bishop of Clermont, who had ordained him priest and had blessed his vocation to the missions of Cincinnati. From him also he received warm and fair promises to permit young apostles from his diocese to help him in his missions of New Mexico. ...In the meanwhile, the Bishop... set out for Rome where he was kindly received by Pius IX and Cardinal Barnabo, Prefect of the Propaganda. ...He soon afterward left Rome... and early in the spring of 1854 reached the city of Clermont. A number of young levites presented themselves to him, and to him expressed their willingness to cross the ocean and work under his careful direction."

"Among the saintly men who heard the voice of God in their hearts were the Reverends Taladrid, a priest from Madrid, Spain, whom the Bishop had met in Rome, Martin of the diocese of St. Flour, France, an old missionary in Africa, met also at Rome; Anthony Galiard, from Clermont, who stayed three years and then returned to France, where he soon died; Stephen Abel of Clermont, who subsequently died parish priest of Moro; Peter Eguillon, the actual Vicar-General of Santa Fé and parish priest of the cathedral, also a priest from the diocese of Clermont. Among the Seminarians were the Reverend Joseph Guérin, who died recently, parish priest of Mora. He was then deacon, and was ordained priest on the 23d of December of the past year, at Santa Fé, by Bishop Lamy; Eugene Pallet, parish priest of Belen, then a Subdeacon; and X. Vaure, a cleric in minor orders, who became sick with dysentery on the plains of Kansas, and died on the day of their arrival at Santa Fé. Forming the caravan were also the Reverend Eulogio Ortiz, a priest from New Mexico, who had accompanied the Bishop to Europe; Messrs. Jesus M. Ortiz and Florencio Gonzalez, who had been sent previously to France for a course in the Seminary of Clermont; an Irish family named Covington; and Mr. Macarthy, a lawyer, wbo acted as major domo for the Bishop on the journey."

"Dr. Lamy and his band of priests and levites arrived at Louisville, Kentucky, towards the end of May, 1854. Without going to Loretto, they reached Cincinnati, thence by boat to St. Louis, and in the summer arrived at Kansas City and Westport, being thence directed to camp at Willow Spring, a romantic spot, with a fine spring of icy water gushing from under a huge boulder surrounded by trees, particularly willows of good size, with an abundance of grass for the animals. There they remained for six weeks waiting for the colony of Sisters who were to come and join them. In this, however, the Bishop was disappointed, as the Sisters were unable to send any of their number to the missions of New Mexico. The Bishop had his hands full buying animals, wagons and provisions, and perfecting all arrangements for a speedy departure."

"During their stay at Willow Spring... while waiting for the arrival of the Bishop... the party in camp had more than once been obliged to supply their larder by hunting for game, which was then abundant in Kansas. Father Equillon, with the rest, strove to do his best for the common good. But, alas ! one day, after returning from a successful hunt, while putting his gun into the wagon, it slipped through an opening in the bed, exploded, and the unfortunate priest received the entire discharge in his right hand."

"Another incident.. during their stay at Willow Spring... One day they were surprised by the arrival in the camp of a lonely stranger, with beard unshaven, wearing a summer linen coat and carrying a gun upon his shoulder. The Stranger was tall and muscular, and there is no denying that they felt ill at ease. He spoke French to them, and they were glad to find an American with whom they could converse. ...He asked them many... questions and thus rendered them more uneasy. They told him all. He finally smiled and told them he was acquainted with their Bishop. "Who are you," they said, Smiling still more, he said, "I am Bishop Miège, the Vicar Apostolic of these Territories." Oh ! the joy then ! the petition for blessings ! the kissing of the ring ! Bishop Miège at that time was purely a missionary bishop, without any fixed residence... He was on his way from the Osage Mission to that of the Pottawattomies, and having heard of our party, had left the ambulance with its solitary driver to go to camp, while he made a little turn to see the young levites and cheer them in their dreary solitude. Of course he had no other means to provide for his evening meal than his gun. Thence the surprise of the party at seeing a Bishop in that accoutrement and engaged in such a work."

"The caravan consisted of four wagons and three carriages, and strange to say, as soon as they had left Willow Springs, Father Equillon, who was very sick and whose hand had been in such a terrible condition that the physicians had nearly resolved to amputate it, felt at once better. ...So, a mattress was brought, and the future Vicar-General was stretched upon it in a carriage, as a victim for the sacrifice. They left Willow Springs on the 18th of September, 1854. ...They suffered greatly for want of provisions, much of what they had having spoiled, and also from want of water, and later in the season from snow and from cold winds... Finally they entered Santa Fé... on the 15th of November, 1854, having spent two months in crossing the plains. On that evening young Vaure died... and the next day the young travelers laid their late companion in his grave. ...The priests were soon placed on missions, and the levites, after completing their theological studies, followed, and have worked most faithfully for years."

"The greatest trouble for the young Bishop and his faithful Vicar was the great necessity of schools. The girls were provided for in Santa Fé, but the boys! oh, in what ignorance were they growing! Something must be done to remedy the evil."

"Schools had been established in New Mexico by the early missionaries among the descendants of the first Spanish conquerors and the children of the converted Pueblo Indians. It was the holy practice of the Franciscans to establish schools along side of the churches they erected. But, alas! during the Mexican rule, every vestige of school had vanished; churches and school houses were in a crumbling state, and ignorance reigned in the land. ...This could not last under the rule of the active and zealous Dr. Lamy. ...He cast his eyes upon the learned and pious Congregation of the Christian Brothers."

"There was then in existence on the plaza of Santa Fé, the church of the Castrense... This church, which had been used by the governors and troops of Spain, as well as those of Mexico, had been closed to public worship since 1846. It had been for a long time the only church opened in Santa Fé, particularly under the Mexican rule. But Father T. J. Ortiz, in 1846, after the annexation to the United States, opened the Church, now Cathedral, of San Francisco and it [instead,] became the parish church. The Bishop obtained from the Holy See permission to sell the Yglesia Castrense, and in the year 1859 he conveyed it in a legal form to Don Simon Delgado and his mother, Doña Maria de la Luy Baca de Delgado, for the consideration of one thousand dollars and a parcel of land with building thereon, adjoining the old church of San Miguel. The land had a frontage of three hundred and twenty-eight feet on what afterwards became College street, and six hundred and twenty four feet upon the Camino Real, or Alto street. Having by this transaction secured a spacious house, well adapted by its situation for a college, his next step was to procure the necessary teachers."

"In the summer of 1858, the Very Re. Peter Equillon, who had succeeded as Vicar-General to the Very Rev. P. J. Machebeuf, then in Arizona, was sent to France with orders to treat with the Superior-General of the Christian Brothers the venerable Brother Philip... He at first met with very little encouragement, but finally, through the influence of Brother Artème... several brothers were found willing, with their superior's permission, to go on the far-distant mission. The brothers were appointed by Brother Artème, subject to the Superior's approval. He chose the following: Brothers Hilarien, Director of the schools at Billom; Gondulph, Director of that at Ramagnat; Geramius, teacher of the school of the Clermont Cathedral; and Galmier-Joseph, teacher in the Orphanage of that city. They set out in the summer of 1859 with Father Equillon and nine priests and ecclesiastics. Without accident they arrived in New York, where they were given another companion in Brother Optatien, belonging to the Second Street Community. Making haste, they reached Kansas City, then the outpost of civilization. They crossed the plains in caravans, exposed to every kind of danger, and after untold wants and sufferings, reached Santa Fé on the 27th day of October, 1859."

"Brother Hilarien was unwilling to assume the responsibility of debts in establishing a boarding school, as furniture and almost all kinds of provisions were of exorbitant price, owing to the remoteness of Santa Fé from all commercial centers, and also owing to the failure of crops in that year. The Bishop, with his ordinary kindness, assumed all the responsibility, paying the five Brothers eight hundred dollars per annum; furnishing them with board, lodging, washing of linen, etc. ...The Brothers, on their side, were to work for the Bishop as if it were on their own account, and this agreement was made for two years. The day school was opened December 22, 1859. The number of day scholars varied from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty from 1859 to 1869. The boarders for the first year were thirty... the number reached, with slight variations, as far as fifty to 1868."

"In 1863, Brother Gondolph had an adobe class-room put up, erected porticos around the inner court, repaired the roofs of the houses, and laid a floor in San Miguel Church. Brother Geramius was appointed to succeed him September 10, 1867. Under Brother Geramius the boarding school of San Miguel took the title of San Miguel College. ...It was under the wise direction of Brother Botulph that the College took rapid strides and became an establishment of much note in the West. ...The College has continued to prosper, and new additions became necessary. The number of boarders for the year 1883 was ninety-four, and that number was increased in the two following years."

"In the year 1879 there were twenty-two Pueblo Indians attending school in a separate department of the College. I have examined them myself, and like many others who had visited them, was astonished at their remarkable proficiency in reading and writing English and Spanish. Their progress in arithmetic was astonishing. I mention this because it is thought and said by many who know not what they say that the Indian is sluggish and slow in learning, whereas the reverse is the case, and this can be proved conclusively by every Catholic school established in pueblos throughout the Territory."

"If, instead of insisting on sending these boys and girls to Carlisle and Albuquerque, under the special direction of Presbyterians and Methodists, where they are made to forget their faith, the Government would help the Church to form schools in every pueblo, the race would in a short time possess the requirements of civilization. I will mention one case in point, that of the Pueblo of Tezuque, where Father Equillon, V. G., has kept a teacher at his own expense for two years, against the commands and threats of the pliant tools who abuse their little authority. The children in so short a time could spell and read well the Spanish second and third books."

"Since their establishment in Santa Fé, the good Brothers have established several schools through the Territory. As early as 1864 Rev. Gabriel Ussel, then Pastor of Taos, visiting France, was authorized by the Bishop to bring priests and Brothers for the missions of New Mexico. ...Brother Domitian being appointed Director of the school of Mora, and Brother Osmund of that of Taos. Many difficulties obliged the Brothers to close this latter school in the year 1867; that of Mora still continued doing good for years, although much cramped owing to the hard times and to the monetary crisis of the few past years, and finally closed in September 1884. Later, in 1872, was founded the Brothers' school at Bernalillo, and Brother Galmier-Joseph was appointed its first Director. It has continued to prosper under the directorship of Brother Gabriel, and the fostering care of the good pastor of Bernalillo, Father Stephen Parisis, and promises to have a bright future in a few years. Thus boys were given a splendid chance for learning, of which the youth of many other localities are deprived. ...both the Sisters' and Brothers' establishments in Bernalillo owe a great debt of gratitude to the late Don Leandro Perea and his family."

"Many who claim Saint Michael as their Alma Mater have been heard in the halls of our Legislature; others are prominent in different callings, and others, though following humbler vocations have honored the Territory by their integrity and staunch virtues."

"In the year 1859 the missions of Arizona were annexed by the Holy See to the diocese of Santa Fé. ...What I call Arizona missions are those contained within the Territory of that name, which, before the treaty of Guadalupe, in 1848, formed a part of the province of Sonora in Mexico. The history of these missions, as of those of New Mexico, is naturally divided into three different epochs, according to the different civil governments which have succeeded one another—the Spanish, the Mexican and the American."

"While what is now northern Texas and New Mexico received the light of faith as early as the expedition of Coronado, but more strongly [eight years later] in 1550, Arizona does not seem to have been taken possession of by the missionaries until 1682. The difference between these two dates is explained by the progressive march of the government after the conquest of Mexico. The march of the victorious armies took place first on the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre, as it was by far the more settled, from south to north, and it was over a century later when it reached the western slope, to the banks of the Gila river."

"At this time Arizona was inhabited solely by Indians and a few Mexican families, who had settled here and there upon the lands of the old missions. However, the discovery of gold in California brought many people from Mexico, who in their emigration, had to cross Arizona, many of whom, later, when tired of mining or despairing of rich finds, came back to settle there. ...in 1859, Vicar General Machebeuf, came to take formal possession in the name of the Bishop of Santa Fe, of the Arizona missions, recently annexed to the diocese of Santa Fé..."

"There was then no church in Tucson, that of the old mission having long since fallen into ruins, but the good missionary [Machebeuf] knew how to improvise a church, at least for the present. A good Mexican Catholic offered for that purpose a lot on which there was a house with two rooms, each of about twelve by fifteen feet. It was a beginning, and one day after mass he invited the congregation to go with him to a neighboring wood, the men to cut and the women to carry the material for the construction of a jacal or Indian hut. The same day saw the completion of the new addition. ...It was a modest edifice, it must be acknowledged, and yet it had the honor of being the only church in Tucson till the year 1866. ...at these times the houses of the people were of very simple construction, and they did not think much of adorning the house of God in any better manner."

"The San Xavier Indian mission was the object of the particular care of the Vicar General during his stay in Tucson. He... caused the exterior of the grand church to be repaired in the places which had suffered most injury by winds and rains. He was on the point of starting for a complete journey through all the missions in the different pueblos upon the Gila, when he was recalled to Santa Fé by his Bishop."

"At his return... it was determined not to leave these missions without priests. Father Manuel Chavez was sent there... Father Donato, an Italian Franciscan friar, succeeded him, and laid the foundation of the present cathedral of Tucson. The Jesuit fathers, Luis Bosco and Carlos Mesea, succeeded him on the 5th of April, 1863. In March, 1864, Bishop Lamy... went to Tucson on a pastoral visit and celebrated the offices of Holy Week and of Easter within the walls of the new church adorned with evergreens and with an impromptu roof only over the sanctuary. ...Probably on account of the bad health of Father Bosco, both Jesuit fathers left their missions on the 8th of August, 1864."

"The good Bishop of Santa Fé was alarmed for that portion of his flock left thus so long without shepherds. He made a new appeal to the good will of his clergy; three presented themselves were accepted, and left Santa Fé on January 7, 1866... This time measures were agreed upon with General Carlton, post commander at Santa Fé, who had them conveyed as far as Camp Bowie, the limit of his department. At Camp Bowie Major McFarland, post commander, offered the missionaries his services, and under his escort they reached Tucson safely on the 7th of February, one month after their leaving Santa Fé. ...The three heroes, who had thus left New Mexico for the wilds of Arizona, were the now Most Rev J. B. Salpointe, D. D., and Fathers Boucart, and Birmingham. ...Father Salpointe was given the mission of Tucson with the title of Vicar, Father Boucard went to San Xavier, and Father Birmingham to Yuma."

"In 1867 a house was built with the intention of obtaining Sisters to teach the girls of Tucson. The building of the walls was accomplished without difficulty, but a roof was necessary... The school became the help of the church... The people, anxious to have Sisters in their midst as soon as possible, collected some money which they gave to the priest to have wood cut and hauled for the roofs of both the schoolhouse and the church. Father Salpointe hastened to send a number of men into the mountains of Huachuca, sixty five miles from Tucson. The timbers were cut and hewed, but... no cars could be found to haul them, and the Apaches were lying in wait to bum them, should the wood cutters abandon their post. ...The lumber reached Tucson in the fall of 1868, and work was soon commenced upon both church and school."

"The States of Sonora and Sinaloa, along with Arizona, had formed the diocese of Sinaloa, that episcopal see being then occupied by the saintly Dr. Losa, and Father Machebeuf had to communicate to him the decree of the Propaganda annexing Arizona to the diocese of Santa Fé. ...All the documents necessary for the cession of the Arizona missions to the diocese of Santa Fé were placed by Bishop Losa in the hands of Father Machebeuf. ...the Vicario resolved at first to continue his journey by the means of the boat waiting for him at the mouth of the Santa Cruz in order to reach Mazatlan, but ...navigation by sail being very slow up the Gulf of California, owing to the strong current caused by the influx of the great Colorado river, it was resolved that he should leave the boat, give up his commission as captain, and go by land, crossing the magnificent valleys of the Rio Mayo and Yaqui, occupied almost entirely by Catholic Indians. ...Forming ...a caravan, they bade adieu to their kind hosts, and started on their journey. When at some distance from the Rio Mayo, the guide started ahead to announce the arrival of the Vicario of Santa Fé. ...twenty Indians on horseback came to meet the travelers five miles from the place The chief, and after him all the Indians, leaped from their horses and begged the blessing of the venerable Vicar, after which each one kissed his hand, and, re-mounting, escorted him to the village. There the whole population were assembled, and all fell on their knees and received the Father's blessing. The old chief, or governor, invited him into his house, and the greatest joy reigned in the pueblo."

"The officer and the guide, accompanying the Vicario and his men, reached on a Saturday evening the banks of the Yaqui river, and soon afterwards, arrived at the village of Torin. The governor came to meet them with his Indians, and the reception was of the kindest nature. Mass was said on Sunday morning, and the governor insisted on waiting on the padre at his meals, which consisted chiefly of milk and dried fish. The journey through these populations took two weeks."

"Colorado was contained within the Vicariate East of the Rocky Mountains, a limitless expanse of territory wisely ruled over by the Right Reverend J. B. Miège, S. J. ...In the Summer of 1860, Bishop Miège made a long and tedious journey to the gold diggings of Pike's Peak and the newly laid out town of Denver. On account of the immense distance from Leavenworth, the difficulties of travel over the plains, the vast deserts that separated Bishop Miège from the new populations, the scarcity of priests in his own Vicariate, Colorado was annexed to the Diocese of Santa Fé by order of the Holy See..."

"Already Vicar-General Machebeuf had made a journey to Colorado, immediately after his return from Arizona, and as soon as Colorado was annexed to Santa Fé he was sent to open missions in that Territory. ...he at once started... and taking with him only one companion, in the person of his worthy Vicar-General, Father J. B. Raverdy he, set out for his far-distant charge... In a very short time Colorado saw numberless mining camps arising suddenly within her Territory; Denver also grew in population. The indefatigable Vicar-General was everywhere, preaching hearing confessions, saying mass, and administering the Sacraments. Thus passed the years 1861 and 1862."

"In the Summer of 1863, Bishop Lamy received a letter from his Vicar-General... It related a terrible accident of a fall on precipitous rocks from a carriage drawn by fiery steeds. ...and left the good Bishop in mortal fear that Father Machebeuf was no more. ...he set out from Santa Fé at once to bring help to his missionary, in the hope he could yet find him alive. The prelate went directly to Mora, to invite the Pastor there, now the Most Rev. J. B. Salpointe, to accompany him... in those times all journeys were made in a being primitive manner, were very slow, and attended with many dangers. No time was to be lost. The next day after his arrival, with his traveling companion, the Bishop set out from Mora, forgetting that the country he was to travel through was almost uninhabited, and without taking provisions, which were most necessary for such a long journey. From the evening of the first day it was easy to see that their supper had not the proportions of what Americans call a square meal. ...In the afternoon of that day the Bishop and his companion, with a servant... reached the distance of four or five miles from the village of Rayado. There the travelers halted, and it was voted by acclamation that the servant should go to the nearest houses and procure the necessary provisions, the Bishop being unwilling to derogate from the established custom of travelers in those countries where the hostelries were few and far between—that is, camping out, cooking your own victuals, and sleeping under the wagon. The servant said a word for Don Jesus Abreu, and it required no more. Soon after the little camp was furnished with all the provisions necessary to bring the travelers as far as the Rio de las Animas, to-day the city of Trinidad."

"The travelers reached the Huerfano River, and stopped at the rancho of Mr. Doyle. There the Bishop and his companion learned with unspeakable joy that the life of Vicar-General Machebeuf was out of danger, although it was almost certain, according to the opinion of the physicians, that he would remain a cripple for the balance of his days. Alas that opinion was but too true... But his natural activity and his great mental energy make one forget that he is crippled... From that time Bishop Lamy, reassured upon the actual state of his Vicar-General, took more leisure in his rapid march."

"Leaving Doyle's rancho, it was agreed that the travelers on that day would go no further than Pueblo, about twenty five miles. "We had promised ourselves," continues Archbishop Salpointe, "to take a good view of that city, so recent and already so much talked of. We had a map of the city, a second New York, with splendid streets and blocks, banks and public buildings, parks and public gardens, all with high sounding names. Eager to see the wonderful city, we hasten our march. What deception! What do we see? A few miserable huts of frame. On one of them was written in large letters, with charcoal, upon a board, the word Saloon. ...So we left the city behind us and went about two miles further and for the night camped in a cool place on the low and grassy banks of the Fontaine-qui-bouille, a limpid little river which rises north of Pike's Peak, forms the Ute Falls, just above Manitou, and rushes madly over its pebbly bed until it loses itself in the Arkansas River east of Pueblo. The place was indeed very beautiful, and far better than the city we had just left.""

"The journey was continued the next day, but no habitation was to be found before reaching Cherry Creek, close to Denver. All was a waste where now stands Colorado Springs... The travelers, although in constant fear of robbers and Indians who then infested that country, nevertheless met with no accidents, and were subject to no inconveniencies excepting the trials incident to their laborsome mode of travel, the crudeness of camp cooking, and sleeping under the stars of heaven. After several days of travel they reached safely the end of their journey and knocked at the house of their sick friend."

"The travelers remained five days with the sick Vicar and then thought of their return journey, This was made more at leisure than in going. They took time to visit Ute Pass, the Fontaine qui Bouille, or as it is now called, Fountain river, they saw Monument Rock and the Garden of the Gods. Nothing disturbed them but the reports about Indians, which all proved false, but still deprived them of sleep. ...provisions were scarce; the gun was then put into requisition and the hares and rabbits of the neighborhood had to make up the dificiency in provender."

"I never shall forget," says Archbishop Salpointe, "how the Bishop seemed to enjoy those meals consisting only of a rabbit roasted at the end of a stick, eaten without salt or pepper. I thought this mode of life exceedingly hard, because I was still young in the missions, whereas they seemed of familiar occurrence to my Bishop."

"On the 26th day of September, 1863, Bishop Lamy left his Episcopal city with his traveling companion and secretary, the Rev.J. M. Coudert. They started on horseback; two servants followed with covered wagon for provisions. Their first stay was at La Isleta, where the Bishop administered the sacrament of confirmation to a number of Indians. This excellent parish was then in charge of the Rev. Felix Jovet, who died there in 1865. From Isleta, the Bishop and suite went to Ciboyeta, and there also on October 1st, he administered confirmation, the Parish Priest being Rev. Augustine Redon, at present Rector of Antonchico. Six days afterwards he left Ciboyeta for the Fort of El Gallo, subsequently changed to San Rafael. Don Francisco Chaves was then in command of the Fort, as Lieutenant-Colonel. The Bishop and suite remained the guests of the commanding officer for several days, awaiting the departure of three companies for the west, to accompany the Bishop. ...Don Francisco Chaves did all in his power to receive and entertain the travelers with becoming dignity. The three companies of soldiers were placed under the command of Major Willis, and thus escorted the travelers set out on their long journey."

"The travelers reached a large and beautiful spring called El Oyo Del Pescador, which is situated at the head of the great valley of Zuni and forms the head of the fine, though small river that waters the valley. Close by on each side are the well preserved ruins of two ancient Pueblos, probably of those which formed the famous seven cities of Ciboya, of which the capital was undoubtedly Zuni, where it is, and as it is."

"The next day the Bishop... escorted by four soldiers, started for the Pueblo of Zuni, six miles distant. There he was received with great demonstrations of joy by the Indians... The travelers were received in the house of one of the Chiefs named Juan Septimo. ...who was very rich, had a large mansion in which was an extensive hall paved with flagstones, which he put entirely at the disposal of the Bishop and Secretary. ...these were to be their only bed for the seven or eight days they remained at Zuni. Spreading upon them their buffalo-robes, wrapping themselves in their blankets there they had to sleep on a hard and cold bed which brought on the pains of rheumatism. Their stay at the Pueblo was occupied in administering the sacraments. One hundred children were baptized, about three hundred were instructed and confirmed, for the Pueblo of Zuni was very much populated."

"The party... reached the Little Colorado River. There the good Bishop, meeting a train of provisions belonging to Don Prefecto Armijo, of Albuquerque, bought a wagon with its mules, and all its merchandise, for the purpose of procuring funds for the journey, but particularly in order to travel with more celerity, as the soldiers... caused the Bishop much delay... Of course, the drivers of the wagon entered the service of the Bishop. They therefore left the soldiers on the banks of the Little Colorado, and proceeded with two saddle horses, an ambulance with two mules, a wagon with eight mules, two men also with mules... A tent had been added to their baggage. "There," says the good Bishop, with a laugh, "we commenced to travel in good style.""

"The spot where the travelers stood opened before them the magnificent vista of a beautiful valley, watered by the Little Colorado. ...The next day the party reached the foot of the valley, where they were to bid adieu to the Little Colorado and turn to the northwest. Before leaving it they resolved to give a rest to their jaded animals and repair the wagon and ambulance. The spot was delightful and comfortable; shaded by fine alamos [poplars] and other trees, with an abundance of water and grass. There was only one drawback to all this—from one end of the country to the other, over all the lomas [hills] and mesas, as in the most shady nook, the Indian war-cry had been heard, and should they surprise a party, all were cruelly put to death and scalped, their provisions stolen and beasts stampeded. It became an absolute duty, therefore, to have a constant watch kept, with arms in readiness at all times."

"They met a small caravan of Mexicans bound for Cañon del Diablo. As this was their route, they joined the caravan for the sake of having more security against Indian attacks. ...This cañon, which is now crossed by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, was then a totally unexplored region. It is a deep chasm of several hundred feet, narrow, with a dry, sandy bed, without a tree or a shrub... How the waters ever cut such a bed in the rock is a mystery, for by the configuration of the land about it, it could never have been a great water-course. A probable theory is that it never was a water-course, but a crack in the soil and rocks after the cooling of the immense volcanos, now extinct, of the Rocky Mountains."

"I remember well the encampment near the Cañon del Diablo," says F. Coudert, "for the good Bishop suffered so much from cold that he could not sleep, and had to walk about in order to warm his frozen feet, Fire, we had none. The wind was terrific; the storm lasted the whole night. I slept quite comfortably by the means of a little ingenuity. I had on furred boots; I drew a box under the wagon, placing the bottom towards the wind; I put myself in it, so that it covered my head and shoulders; I put both feet in one boot, and suffered little from the storm. It was not Diogenes in a barrel, but Father Coudert in a box. I have kept a vivid remembrance of that night on the brink of the Cañon del Diablo."

"The church of Notre-Dame de Paris is still no doubt, a majestic and sublime edifice. But, beautiful as it has been preserved in growing old, it is difficult not to sigh, not to wax indignant, before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer, without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, or for Philip Augustus, who laid the last. On the face of this aged queen of our cathedrals, by the side of a wrinkle, one always finds a scar. Tempus edax, homo edacior; which I should be glad to translate thus: time is blind, man is stupid."

"The echoes of our glory and our losses, of our victories and our disasters, have always resounded under those vaults. We have always tolled the bells for our dead, sounded the tocsin of our anger and the carillon of our joys with the bourdon of its towers. Atheists and believers may share there the same memories, for they are France’s memories."

"'Europe' in anything other than the geographical sense is a wholly artificial construct. It makes no sense at all to lump together Beethoven and Debussy, Voltaire and Burke, Vermeer and Picasso, Notre Dame and St Paul's, boiled beef and bouillabaisse, and portray them as elements of a 'European' musical, philosophical, artistic, architectural or gastronomic reality. If Europe charms us, as it has so often charmed me, it is precisely because of its contrasts and contradictions, not its coherence and continuity."

"Notre-Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicenter of our lives..."

"Let's be proud, because we built this cathedral more than 800 years ago, we've built it and, throughout the centuries, let it grow and improved it. So I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together"

"What is an apostle really? Frankly, the impression we get from the New Testament hardly permits us to claim that these men were great or ingenious in the worldly sense. It is difficult to count them even 'great religious personalities,' if by this we mean bearers of inherent spiritual talents. John and Paul were probably exceptions, but we only risk misunderstanding them both by overstating this. On the whole we do the apostle no service by considering him a great religious personality. This attitude is usually the beginning of unbelief. Personal importance, spiritual creativeness, dynamic faith are not decisive in his life. What counts is that Jesus Christ has called him, pressed his seal upon him, and sent him forth."

"Where is that fire which once descended On thy Apostles? thou didst then Keep open house, richly attended, Feasting all comers by twelve chosen men. […]The sun, which once did shine alone, Hung down his head, and wish'd for night, When he beheld twelve suns for one Going about the world and giving light."

"Polycarp replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Do you know me?" "I do know thee, first-born of Satan." Such was the horror of the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth."

"I have learned by experience that there is but one God that pertains to this people, and He is the God that pertains to this earth-the first man. That first man sent his own Son to redeem the world, to redeem his brethren; his life was taken, his blood shed, that our sins might be remitted. That Son called twelve men and ordained them to be Apostles, and when he departed the keys of the kingdom were deposited with three of those twelve, viz.: Peter, James, and John. Peter held the keys pertaining to that Presidency, and he was the head."

"A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out."

"I was born Jewish. I received the name of my paternal grandfather, Aaron. Having become Christian by faith and baptism, I have remained Jewish. As did the Apostles."

"Since the first ordained Lutheran pastors were ordained by pastors who had been ordained in the Roman Catholic church and so on through the generations, we could claim historic succession as plausibly as can Roman Catholic priests if it simply were dependent on being ordained in a line of pastors. But for the historic succession to be considered legitimate by Rome or the Orthodox or Anglicans it must be mediated through the correct bishops. Rome does not recognize as legitimate even the ordinations done by bishops in historic succession as in the Church of Sweden and the Church of England. Only through bishops connected to the pope is the historic succession legitimate in their eyes."

"God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things."

"Today it is almost a distinguishing mark of Catholics that they see a real function for the Apostles. In non-Catholic writing, no more important function can be found for them than to be foils to the brilliancy of their Master, which is to say fools asking their foolish questions to bring out the wisdom of His answers, very much the function of in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Yet they meant something very important to Our Lord—"You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you." [John 15:16] And even if we hold it not surprising that those Christians who have lost the sense of the divinely-founded hierarchical structure of the Church should not see the function of the Apostles as the first members of that hierarchy, it is still surprising that any Christian should overlook this other function to which we have been leading up. For these were the men who knew Christ before they knew He was God. Had they known from the beginning, they might simply have feared Him, and fear might have made a bar to any progress in intimacy. But by the time that they knew beyond the possibility of uncertainty that He was God, it was too late to have only fear. For by the time they knew He was God, they had come to know that He was love. If they had known that Christ was God first, then they would have applied their idea of God to Christ; as it was, they were able to apply their knowledge of Christ to God. The principal fruit for them and for us of their three years of companionship with Him was the unshakeable certainty of His love for men; and it was St. John, the Apostle He loved best, who crystallized the whole experience for us in the phrase of his first Epistle, "God is Love." (iv. 8)"

"We believe it would not be right for us to administer either Baptism or the Lord's Supper unless we had a commission so to do from those Bishops whom we apprehend to be in a succession from the Apostles."

"Ταπεινοφρονούντων γάρ ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός, οὐκ ἐπαιρομένων ἐπὶ τὸ ποίμνιον αὐτοῦ."

"καταμάθετε δὲ τοὺς ἑτεροδοξοῦντας εἰς τὴν χάριν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τὴν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐλθοῦσαν, πῶς ἐναντίοι εἰσὶν τῇ γνώμῃ τοῦ θεοῦ. περὶ ἀγάπης οὐ μέλει αὐτοῖς, οὐ περὶ χήρας, οὐ περὶ ὀρφανοῦ, οὐ περὶ θλιβομένου, οὐ περὶ δεδεμένου ἢ λελυμένου,οὐ περὶ πεινῶντος ἢ διψῶντος."

"For the first 250 years following the birth, ministry, and death of Christ, the Roman Empire was not an especially nice place to be a Christian. Romans had traditionally been enthusiastic collectors of gods, including the Olympian pantheon and various mystery cults from the east. So to begin with, there was little enthusiasm for this odd Jewish sect, whose members sought to keep alive the memory of the carpenter’s son who had caused a brief stir in Jerusalem during the governorship of Pontius Pilate. The first generations of Christians were scattered among the cities of the Mediterranean, in sporadic communication with one another but in no position to grow their numbers. Ardent believers like the apostle Paul (Saint Paul) traveled far and wide, preaching and writing famous letters to all who would listen (and some who would not), describing the miracle of Christ’s sacrifice. But in an empire that made gods of everything from the sun and planets to its own emperors, and liberally borrowed from the religious practices of those whom it conquered, men like Paul were nothing new; there was little indication during his lifetime in the first century A.D. that his enthusiastic wanderings and writings would eventually plant Christ’s name in the hearts of literally billions of people during the next two thousand years of world history. In A.D. 112, Pliny the Younger wrote to the emperor Trajan to describe a legal investigation he had undertaken in Bithynia (modern Turkey) following complaints against local Christians. Having tortured a number of them, including young girls, Pliny wrote, he had only really been able to establish that they followed a “bad . . . and extravagant superstition” that “is spread like a contagion.”"

"The apostles ... did not seek excessive gain by exploiting each other. ... One was not rich while another was destitute, nor did one overeat while another starved. The generosity of those who were well off made good what others lacked, this willingness to share eliminating every anomaly and establishing equality and fairness. ... Inequality still existed, produced not as it is now by the mad struggle for social status, but by a great desire to live more humbly than others. Envy, malice, arrogance and haughtiness were banished, along with all that leads to discord."

"The name [Christians] was derived from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, suffered under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judæa. By that event the sect, of which he was the founder, received a blow, which, for a time, checked the growth of a dangerous superstition; but it revived soon after, and spread with recruited vigour, not only in Judæa, the soil that gave it birth, but even in the city of Rome, the common sink into which every thing infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world."

"Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that they have successfully reestablished first-century Christianity, the form of Christianity that Jesus’ apostles practiced."

"For the early Church, "church" and "world" were visibly distinct yet affirmed in faith to have one and the same lord. This pair of affirmations is what the so-called Constantinian transformation changes (I here use the name of Constantine merely as a label for this transformation, which began before AD200 and took over 200 years; the use of his name does not mean an evaluation of his person or work). The most pertinent fact about the new state of things after Constantine and Augustine is not that Christians were no longer persecuted and began to be privileged, nor that emperors built churches and presided over ecumenical deliberations about the Trinity; what matters is that the two visible realities, church and world, were fused. There is no longer anything to call "world"; state, economy, art, rhetoric, superstition, and war have all been baptized."

"In considering the spiritual significance of icons and other kinds of religious art, it is helpful to observe that theological reflection on art has often lagged behind practice. Early Christian murals, mosaics, catacombs and sarcophagi receive little theological comment in their time. Yet, especially after the fourth century such art was more extensive than anything one might expect on the basis of certain attacks on images by Church Fathers - attacks that we now realize ere intermittent in any case."

"Between 50 and 400 AD, and out of this same circumstance the Fathers of the Christian Church-and in this case the usually inheralded Mothers of the Church as well-crafted a new sexual order. Procreative marriage served as its foundation. Importantly, they also built this new order in reaction to the Gnostic heresies which threatened the young church; and perhaps even human life itself. The Gnostic idea rose independent of Christianity, but successfully invaded the new movement. The Gnostics drew together myths from Iran, Jewish magic and mysticism, Greek philosophy, and Chaldean mystical speculation. They also appealed to an exaggerated freedom from the law, in this case said to be proclaimed by Jesus and Paul. In this sense, they were antinomians; that is, they believed that the Gospel freed Christians from obedience to any law, be it scriptural,, civil, or moral. The gnostics claimed to have a special “gnosis”, a “secret knowledge” denied to ordinary Christians. They appealed to unseen spirits. They denied nature. While they developed a mélange of moral and doctrinal ideas, most gnostics shared two views: they rejected conventional marriage as a child-centered institution; and they scorned procreation. This heresy posed a grave challenge to the early Christian movement Ineed, the Epistles are full of warnings against Gnostic teachings. In 1 Timothy 4, for example, Paul write that “some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons….who forbid marriage.” In Jude 4 we read that admission into the Christian community “has been secretly gained by…ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness.” 2 Peter tells of false prophet corrupting the young church, “irrational animals, creature of instinct,…reveling in their dissipation, carousing with you They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable souls.” Relative to sex, it appears that Gnosticism took two forms One strand emphasized total sexual license. Claiming the freedom of the Gospel, these Gnostics indulged in adultery and ritualistic fornication. The Church Father Irenaeus pointed to those who “introduced promiscuous intercourse and marriages…, [saying] that God does not really care about these matter.” The Church Father Clement described abuse of the eucharist by the Gnostics in the church at Alexandria, Egypt: There are some who call Aphrodite Pandemos [physical love] a mystical communion….[T]hey have impiously called by the name of communion any common sexual intercourse."

"Pagan religions had a calm acceptance of abortion and contraception, including the use of barrier methods, coitus interruptus, and various medicines that prevented contraception or caused abortion. Early Christian leaders, distinguishing Christianity from pagan beliefs, developed ideas about contraception and abortion, marriage and procreation, and the unity of body and soul. They taught that sex even for reproduction was bad and sex for pleasure heinous. Chastity became a virtue in its own right."

"Early Christians condemned abortion, but did not view the termination of a pregnancy to be an abortion before "ensoulment", the definition of when life began in the womb. Up to 400 AD., as the relatively few Christians were widely scattered geographically, the actual practice of abortion among Christians probably varied considerably and was influenced by regional customs and practices."

"The beginnings of an identifiable Christian art can be traced to the end of the second century and the beginning of the third century. Considering the Old Testament prohibitions against graven images, it is important to consider why Christian art developed in the first place. The use of images will be a continuing issue in the history of Christianity. The best explanation for the emergence of Christian art in the early church is due to the important role images played in Greco-Roman culture. As Christianity gained converts, these new Christians had been brought up on the value of images in their previous cultural experience and they wanted to continue this in their Christian experience. For example, there was a change in burial practices in the Roman world away from cremation to inhumation. Outside the city walls of Rome, adjacent to major roads, catacombs were dug into the ground to bury the dead. Families would have chambers or cubicula dug to bury their members. Wealthy Romans would also have sarcophagi or marble tombs carved for their burial. The Christian converts wanted the same things. Christian catacombs were dug frequently adjacent to non-Christian ones, and sarcophagi with Christian imagery were apparently popular with the richer Christians."

"The public veneration of saints in the Christian Church is known to have existed in the 2nd century. As will be shown below, it developed in local communities; it was based on the saint's tomb; it was a consequence of the general belief that a martyr who shed his blood for Christ was certainly in Heaven and able to exercise intercessory prayer on behalf of those who invoked him. It has often been asserted that the cult of saints was both a borrowing from and a substitute for the polytheistic cults of the ancient Graeco-Roman world. In its crude form the theory is completely unconvincing, especially when the nature of the cults is considered and placed in its context of Christian doctrine, worship, and life. But it can readily be conceded that many eternal elements such as anniversaries, shrines, incubation, and iconography have all been at the very least deeply influenced by pagan Mediterranean models. Nevertheless, the cults of saints originated in the beliefs and practice of Jewry and early Christianity."

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the faith. ... If a man is an actor or pantomimist, he must be rejected. ... A gladiator or a trainer of gladiators, or a huntsman, or anyone connected with these shows ... must desist or be rejected. ... A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. ... If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"The early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide, and gladiatorial contests.Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are."

"Leaving his beloved teacher Origen behind in Caesarea Maritimma about the year 240, bound for his distant home in the province of Pontus, Gregory of Neocaesarea (Niskar) turned to a catastrophic flight of rhetoric: I may be going to prosecute no safe journey, as it sometimes fares with one who quits some safe and peaceful city; and it is indeed but too likely that, in journeying, I may fall into the hands of robbers, and be taken prisoner, and be stripped and wounded with many strokes, and be cast forth to lie half-dead somewhere. Many miles of road lay ahead of him. Edward Gibbon would say of the Roman roads of the Antonine age that they 'united the subjects of the most distant provinces by an easy and familiar intercourse'; but however 'easy and familiar' these roads supposedly were, cities were much safer. For the modern historians of the early churches cities have had a similar appeal. Christianity, Thomas A. Robinson notes, 'was, supposedly an urban religion'. Noting how widespread this view is ('almost every recent scholar of the early church' had held it), Robinson cites powerful names - Ramsay MacMullen and W.H.C. Frend - before naming Wayne A. Meeks (in The First Urban Christians) as the historian 'primarily responsible for the now near-universal assumptions of the urban character of early Christianity'."

"Robinson has snatched away the comfort of the urban thesis. The idea that at the time of the Edict of Milan (313) some 10 per cent of the population of the Roman empire was Christian, 6 million persons out of a population of 60 million, has been (he observes) commonly put forward as a working assumption for the size of the Christian movement. But the Roman empire was largely rural with as few as 10 per cent of the population living in cities. If the rural Christian population approximated to zero, the cities would then have to be thought to be (at least) largely Christian - which ample evidence shows that they were not. Therefore, the numbers usually cited in recent work for the size of the Christian population cannot stand; and neither can the claim of no substantial number of Christians in rural areas. The model normally drawn on in studying the growth of early Christianity, therefore, is no longer plausible. Like Gregory, the historian must leave the 'safe and peaceful city' behind."

"What happened to biblical law when it was transferred into the new world of late antiquity? How was it understood, and what were the reasons for this particular interpretation? Answering these questions can provide a paradigm to help explain the development of late antique Christian legal traditions and discourse in their Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts. Accompanying the rise of Christianity in the first centuries of the Common Era, Christian legal discourse and traditions began to evolve. These embryonic legal traditions combined Roman law, Greek legal traditions, biblical law, and rabbinic halakha, interweaving them with their own ethical stances. Scholars tend to study the development of Christian legal traditions, especially matrimonial law, from one of two perspectives: either in relation to Roman law, mainly focusing on Christian sources from the second century onward, or in connection to biblical and early halakhic traditions, largely concentrating on the Old and New Testaments and Qumranic sources. In this article, I seek to portray a less dichotomous and more nuanced picture of the Christian approach to biblical and Jewish legal traditions, on the one hand, and Roman and Greek legal traditions, on the other. I address the different ways in which Christians adapted a biblical legal institution by using legal concepts drawn from the Greco-Roman world, yet not directly taking part in the Greco-Roman legal discourse, and compare this phenomenon to the rabbis’ understanding and alteration of this same biblical legal institution in the Tannaitic and Amoraic literature."

"In this article, I have sought to re-contextualize the Roman and Christian ban on levirate marriage, positioning this legal tradition as it was viewed by the Christians of the first centuries CE. I have demonstrated the transfer of a legal tradition from its biblical origin to a new Greek and Roman setting, which reshaped it and repositioned it within a larger legal context. However, revealing the Christian remodeling of this biblical inheritance also changes our understanding of the Roman and Christian prohibition on levirate marriage, revealing the differences between the legal discourse and the theological discourse and between the legal discourse and interreligious discourse. The story of the rise of Christian legal traditions in late antiquity, following the New Testament, and their relation to the biblical inheritance, rabbinic surroundings, and Greco-Roman environment is yet to be told. In this case, the story is not one of a polemic with contemporaneous Jews who observed halakha, Jewish-Christian groups, or Christians preserving biblical law. Rather, it is the story of an inherited legal tradition that was transferred to a new world. It was restructured according to contemporaneous Greek and Roman legal concepts and used in theological discourse, even though it did not fully correlate with other Christian legal discourse or with the new laws of the empire. As such, it is a significant fragment in chronicling the rise of a unique Christian legal tradition in a world of inherited biblical traditions and contemporaneous Greek and Roman legal concepts and rulings."

"This analysis demonstrates the disparity between the rabbinic discourse, the Christian and Roman rulings, and the theological and exegetical discourse. It shows how Christians remodeled their biblical heritage according to Greek and Roman legal concepts, namely the Roman adoption and the Greek epiklerate, and treated it as part of inheritance law and child-parent relationships, whereas the rabbis used different adaptations and treated it as part of matrimonial law and sexual relationships. This discussion therefore recontextualizes the legal discourse, positioning the Christian approach to levirate marriage as a complex case of legal transplant and adaptation of a legal heritage."

"More to the point, what was the lesson that the first Christians drew from the crucifixion? Today such a barbarity might galvanize people into opposing brutal regimes, or demanding that such torture never again be inflicted on a living creature. But those weren’t the lessons the early Christians drew at all. No, the execution of Jesus is The Good News, a necessary step in the most wonderful episode in history. In allowing the crucifixion to take place, God did the world an incalculable favor. Though infinitely powerful, compassionate, and wise, he could think of no other way to reprieve humanity from punishment for its sins (in particular, for the sin of being descended from a couple who had disobeyed him) than to allow an innocent man (his son no less) to be impaled through the limbs and slowly suffocate in agony. By acknowledging that this sadistic murder was a gift of divine mercy, people could earn eternal life. And if they failed to see the logic in all this, their flesh would be seared by fire for all eternity. According to this way of thinking, death by torture is not an unthinkable horror; it has a bright side. It is a route to salvation, a part of the divine plan. Like Jesus, the early Christian saints found a place next to God by being tortured to death in ingenious ways. For more than a millennium, Christian martyrologies described these torments with pornographic relish."

"The early Christians also extolled torture as just deserts for the sinful. Most people have heard of the seven deadly sins, standardized by Pope Gregory I in 590 CE. Fewer people know about the punishment in hell that was reserved for those who commit them: "Pride: Broken on the wheel. Envy: Put in freezing water. Gluttony: Force-fed rats, toads, and snakes. Lust: Smothered in fire and brimstone. Anger: Dismembered alive. Greed: Put in cauldrons of boiling oil. Sloth: Thrown in snake pits." The duration of these sentences, of course, was infinite. By sanctifying cruelty, early Christianity set a precedent for more than a millennium of systematic torture in Christian Europe. If you understand the expressions to burn at the stake, to hold his feet to the fire, to break a butterfly on the wheel, to be racked with pain, to be drawn and quartered, to disembowel, to flay, to press, the thumbscrew, the garrote, a slow burn, and the iron maiden (a hollow hinged statue lined with nails, later taken as the name of a heavy-metal rock band), you are familiar with a fraction of the ways that heretics were brutalized during the Middle Ages and early modern period."

"There were three main movements within early Christianity. Two did not succeed: Jewish Christianity -- centered in Jerusalem and founded by Jesus' disciples -- and Gnostic Christianity. The third, Pauline Christianity, flourished and evolved into the Christian Church. It was surrounded by a mosaic of other competing religions within the Roman Empire, including Judaism, the Greek state religion, Mithraism, the Roman state religion, and various Mystery religions. With the exception of Judaism, most or all of the competing religions allowed women to have abortions and allowed parents to kill new-born babies by strangulation or exposing them as methods of population control. There are many writings, letters and petitions of early Christian philosophers and Church Fathers which equated abortion with infanticide and condemned both as murder."

"Early Christianity was primarily an urban movement. The original meaning of the word pagan (paganus) was "rural person," or more colloquially "country hick." It came to have religious meaning because after Christianity had triumphed in the cities, most of the rural people remained unconverted."

"[I]n the words of Friedrich Engels, "Christianity was originally a movement of oppressed peoples: it first appeared as the religion of slaves and emancipated slaves, of poor people deprived of all rights, of peoples subjugated or dispersed by Rome" After all, the Bible often directly addresses the poor and downhearted and promises that they will be compensated in heaven, where the "first shall be last, and the last, first." Despite this 'evidence', a consensus has formed among historians of the early church that regardless of biblical assurances to the lower classes, the early Christians were drawn mainly from the ranks of the privileged. E.A. Judge identified the early Christians as recruited mainly from among "a socially pretentious section of the population of big cities." and Abraham Malherbe concluded that the language used by early Christian writers clearly reflects a literate, educated audience. In his detailed study of the church in Corinth in the first century, Gerd Theissen identified wealthy Christians, including members of the "upper classes." Many other historians of the early church have expressed similar views."

"A number of books and articles deal with issues related to the question of children and childhood in the early church, for examples on expositio (exposure of children), orphans, infant baptism and upbringing . However, only a few publications focus on the way in which children were understood and how they were treated in general. The fact that nearly all these studies were published in the last decade is a clear indicator, as suggested above, of growing scholarly interest in this subject."

"While Strange’s study is the only monograph published on children in the early church, there is also an unpublished doctoral thesis from 1993 by Sarah Currie, which deals with certain aspects of children in early Christianity. Currie states that the “thesis is a study of the interaction between children and ritual practices of antique Christianity” and concludes by stating that “the child” was placed “at the centre of Christian practice, both in its making of symbols and in its everyday reproduction of a community.” A significant part in her argumentation is the way the church fathers used the gospel commands to present children as symbols for appropriate Christian behavior, and how the early church used the metaphor of children in Christian formation and in the construction of Christian identity It is, however, questionable whether Currie’s conclusions are adequately supported by the metaphorical use of children, and of children as examples for adults."

"As the history of research shows, studies on children and childhood in early Christianity are beginning to see the light of day. However, though the studies published up to now provide illuminating discussions of various aspects of this topic, only the work by William A. Strange, and partly the essay by Gillian Clark combine several perspectives, and thus seek to give a general account of how Christians in the early church thought about children and how children were treated. I have already expressed my substantial agreement with these finding, but I have pointed out that many important aspects related to children and childhood receive only a superficial treatment, while some go virtually unmentioned in these work; besides this, only a relatively brief section of Strange’s book deals explicitly with the post-New Testament period. This means that we still need a book offering a comprehensive examination of children and childhood in early Christianity."

"Given the general attitudes toward children and their place in society in the cultural environment of Christians in antiquity, it should have been remarkable if the church fathers in general had had a heavy focus on children in their writing. There are, in fact, no writings that introduce concern for children and their needs as a subject on the theological agenda. John Chrysostom’s treatise, De Inani Gloria, comes closest to having children and their needs as a main theme. Chrysostom provides advice on child rearing, emphasizing the parents’ grave responsibility to bring up their children in the Christian faith and socialize them into a proper, Christian way of life. However, this treatise, together with sections of a couple of other writings by the same author is almost unique in its focus on children. As a rule, we have to make use of incidental comments about children and childhood in material from this period. In this respect, research on children in the early church faces the same challenges that confronted studies about women in early Christianity. Neither the role of women nor children’s place in society and the church were topics discussed on their own. Because no systematic accounts are provided by ancient sources, modern scholars have to rely on more or less accidental references in the literature."

"Our source material is far from furnishing a complete picture of how Christians in late antiquity viewed children’s nature, characteristics, and qualities, but we can reconstruct certain aspects of this picture. We have seen how Jesus’ saying about the child as paradigmatic citizen of the kingdom of God was interpreted. According to the fathers, Jesus used small children as examples because they are simple, innocent and pure in a moral sense. This means that they are not sexually active; they have not yet developed sexual desire; they are not plagued by anger and grief; and they are indifferent to the wealth and positions that are associated with honor and status in this world. Besides this, children obey their parents. It is primarily in the Eastern fathers-Origen, John Chrysostom, and especially Clement of Alexandria-that we find such ideas, but we also find in Tertullian the idea that the child is taken as a model because it is not plagued by sexual desire."

"As Christianity gradually took root and became better known, tensions arose in relation to the pagan environment partly because Christian circles consciously broke with pagan religiosity and behavior, and partly because the new religion was misunderstood. In order to counter the criticism and accusation leveled by the society in which they lived, a number of apologetic writings were composed from the mid-second century onward."

"Indeed, early Christian texts such as the Didache and Barnabas incorporate the Jewish tradition about the “two ways” where abortion and expositio are condemned as murder. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the fact that the doctrine of the “”two ways” condemned abortion, expositio, and infanticide: this tradition became an integral part of catechetical instruction and thus helped form early Christian attitudes. We can therefore say that by the beginning of the third century, there was a well established critical attitude to all forms of the murder of children-whether abortion, expositio, or other methods of killing. “Critical” is really too mild a word: these practices were utterly condemned. There already existed a certain measure of opposition to these practies among Roman moral philosophers, and some forms of the limitation of the number of children (including expositio) were rejected by the ruling authorities in some Italian cities, as reflected in the alimenta program mentioned above. Nevertheless, the early Christian attitude represents a considerable intensification of this criticism. The Christian writers go much further in backing up their arguments by means of fundamental principles; we also perceive a greater zeal and commitment, since they understood this question, theologically and ethically, as a matter of living in accordance with the will of God. On the deepest level, the question of refraining from murder was a question of salvation or damnation. I therefore find it difficult to see the Christian critique of expositio as nothing more than an echo and development of other critical voices in contemporary society. The intensity and extent of the Christian critique represents an intensification of existing criticism of Roman praxis and legislation in these fields."

"If Christians had in fact practiced expositio to any great degree, this would have been so well-known in local society that the apologists’ argument would have been completely implausible; and the fact that the exposure of children does not feature in polemic within the church indicates, to the very least, that this was not very widespread practice. No source in the time before Constantine tells us that Christians practiced the exposure of children. This does not allow us to infer that it never happened, but it suggests that it was a rare occurrence. The situation with regard to abortion was somewhat different. Abortion is more hidden, and this means that it can be employed by the apologists without there being any necessary agreement between the text and the societal reality. And, in fact, we possess Christian texts addressing members of the church from the first half of the third century that indicate that Christians did practice abortion."

"Students and scholars of the New Testament of Late Antique religion have consequently been on their own in constructing a framework that links historical interpretation with archaeological practice. The reader has much to gain from W. H. C. Frend's historical overview of early Christian archaeology (1996), Grayson Snyder's compilation of archaeological sources before the reign of the emperor Constantine (2003), and the growing studies of specific periods (e.g., Charlesworth 2006; Horsley 1996; Magness 2011) and cities and regions (e.g., Burns and Jensen 2014; Magness 2012; Nasrallah, Bakirtzis, and Friesen 2010). The steady output of a generation of historians of art and architecture had led to foundational treatments of Christian buildings and visual culture (e.g., Jensen 2000; Krautheimmer 1965; Mathews 1999; White 1996; Yasin 2012b), as well as a comprehensive encyclopedia of Christian Art and Archaeology (Finney 2017). The development of medieval archaeology in the West, Byzantine archaeology in the Levant and Near East, and Late Antique archaeology has likewise produced a sizable corpus of publications that establish the broader social, religious, political and economic contexts of Late Antiquity and early Byzantium from material evidence (see, e.g., the Late Antique Archaeology series edited by Luke Lavan and Rutger et al. forthcoming). Regional approaches shaped by sectarian, national, colonial, and disciplinary interests have also contributed to our understanding of the early Christian world. Despite a strong academic and popular interest in the archaeology of early Christianity, there exist no comprehensive handbooks that synthesize archaeological evidence specifically related to early Christianity and survey debates in the field."

"The academic field known as early Christian archaeology had its roots in Italy in the wake of the Renaissance (Frend 1996, 11-22), although the goal of unearthing the relics of saints and Christian holy sites in an ancient and medieval tradition (se, e.g., Chabarria Arnau, Chapter 29). The first explorers of the Christian monuments of Rome in the late fifteenth century were guided by the antiquarian pursuit of the ancient world, which included classical remains as much as early Christian monuments (Schuddenboom 2017). While competing national drives to collect antiquities fueled Classical archaeology in Europe, the Protestant Reformation infused the archaeology of early Christian remains with a more burdensome, apologetic role: assessing the Catholic version of Christian history through the material culture of its early believers. In 1632, for example, the Catholic priest Antonio Bosio published his exploration of the Christian communities in Rome and to challenge Protestant attacks on the Roman church's ancient pedigree. While both polemic and curiosity guided these initial explorations, the first investigators forged a relationship between Christian material remain and the theology, history, and institutions of the early church."

"Objects, art, and architecture of an explicitly "Christian" character appear for the first time in the archaeological record in the second and third centuries. While the corpus of known artifacts from this era remains very small and has not increased appreciably in recent decades (e.g. Snyder's 2003 compendium of pre-Constantinian remains is hardly different from the original edition in 1985), Longnecker's recent study of the ubiquity and significance of the cross before Constantine (2015) highlights the potential value in reexamining older material. The paucity of material reflects real demographic factors such as the small number of Christians in this period as well as the relatively limited group of Christian elite who might produce the sort of material signature that archaeologists typically detect. But the absence of evidence may also point to the nature of representation in these early communities, their adherence to Mosaic proscriptions against iconic art, and their blending with the social worlds they inhabited (Finney 1997; Jensen 2000). Indeed, the creation of a distinctly Christian iconography (Bisconti 1999; Rutgers 2000, 82-117; Snyder 2003, 2) and purpose-built places of worship often involved very minor or subtle changes to existing forms (Bisconti, Chapter 11; Britt, Chapter 15). That Christians appear at all in the material culture of this period points to the numerical and material growth of the church, as the catacombs and burial sites in Rome and other places attest (Fiocchi Nicolai, Chapter 4). While it remains very difficult to discern religious identity in the material culture of this period, the emergence of distinctly Christian art or objects nonetheless speaks to common patterns of belief, community, and liturgy."

"Texts number among the earliest extant Christian artifacts and reveal important details about the authors and communities that produced them. Even the physical features of manuscripts themselves can reveal in their material, form, and symbols a wealth of information (Hurtado 2005). Early Christian texts, however, have frequently appeared without substantive archaeological context or provenience, and are regularly the subject of forgery. Scholars have often had to date major discoveries such as the Oxyrhynchus Logia, the well-known Nag Hammadi codices, and numerous new papyrus fragments from Egypt to the first two centuries of Christianity on the basis of evidence internal to the texts (Brooks Hedstrom, Chapter 34). A similar lack of stratigraphic context bedevils the study of inscriptions from Christian burials and catacombs. Letter forms and language date a series of Christian funerary inscriptions in Phrygia and Lycaonia in Asia Minor to the second century indicating that Christian communities felt sufficiently secure to identify with their faith publicly (Talleon, Chapter 26)."

"Mortuary contexts also provide some of the earliest evidence for a Christian visual culture. From the first part of the third century, Christian catacombs featured art depicting biblical scenes of resurrection, salvation, and redemption (Lazarus, Susanna, Daniel in the lions' den, the sacrifice of Isaac), alongside both Christian symbols and pagan images that could convey new meanings (Bisconti, Chapter 11; cf. Bisconti 1999, 100-30 for an overview of common themes). Scholars have likewise long recognized the link between earliest Christian sculpture and themes present in funerary contexts (Kristensen, Chapter 18; Jensen 2000). Parani (Chapter 17) discusses how the earliest lamp forms of the third century with scenes of Noah, Jonah, and the Good Shepherd paralleled funerary art in other media and evoked the Christian concept of redemption and resurrection. Perhaps these mortuary contexts account for the appearance of Christian imagery in other media, although the emergence of amulets with Christian imagery as early as the third or even second centuries seems to indicate a somewhat different purpose; harnessing the power of the Christian god in their daily affairs (Cline, Chapter 19). Despite the troubling absence of secure archaeological contexts, the evidence does point to distinct forms of Christian material culture emerging by the third century that often point to the theological reflection on Christ's victory over death."

"The scientific work of archaeologists adds a significant piece to our reconstruction and understanding of these early Christian martyria. Material culture fills in numerous gaps left by the literary record and provides a necessary corrective to analysis based wholly on the textual record. Indeed, the best work in early Christianity integrates archaeology with other forms of evidence. Archaeology thus contributes a critical piece to a holistic view of the early Christian cult of the martyrs and the means by which Christians created sacred spaces for venerating these martyrs."

"The contextual studies of human skeletal remains in the eastern Mediterranean offer a significant avenue for understanding early Christians and their burial practices. Early Christian cemeteries found in association with churches and basilicas demonstrates definite change in burial practice from the preceding era. The body was positioned in a regular manner in this period burials were single or multiple, and the practice of secondary burial was observed. Unusual funerary deposits point to war, epidemic disease such as plague, or changing cultural practices associated with the treatment of deceased newborn or stillborn infants. While demographic data shows some local variation, there are also many similarities in Christian populations such as the relative ages at death of males and females (28.5 years and 30.7 years, respectively), disease patterns, and chronic health conditions."

"If late Roman amulets are to be believed, than the dangers talking early Christians and their neighbors were manifold and omnipresent. The texts and images on amulets offer protection from disease, pain, aggressive magic, physical attack, and demonic onslaught, as well as other threats to body and soul. Such apotropaic objects were particularly employed when the dangers were beyond the control of individuals, states, or institutions, and when the precise threat was as yet unknown. The texts, forms, and images employed on amulets give shape on the thoughts and concerns that occupied the waking hours and anxious nights of early Christians - subjects that rarely appear in more public artistic media. Importantly for the study of early Christianity, protective amulets display what are thought to be some of the earliest appearances of distinctively Christian symbols, some dated as early as the late second to third century, where they appear alongside Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Jewish names and symbols. The appearance of Christian symbols among other ritually potent, religiously diverse symbols suggests the gradual emergence of a popular perception that the Christian God and associated celestial beings, saints, names, and symbols were effective when deployed for defense against maleficent forces."

"When we reflect, that the Inquisition, by its restrictions, and authority, would have prevented the French revolution,—it is hard to say, whether the Sovereign, who, wholly, and without reserve, gave up this instrument, would not, in reality, be doing an injury to humanity."

"During the last three centuries, there has been, by virtue of the Inquisition, a greater enjoyment of peace, and happiness, in Spain, than in the other nations of Europe."

"It was after the time of Origen’s disciples that the false religion of the priesthood began to spread."

"In the name of Christ great crimes have been committed. Therefore, Christ nowadays clothes Himself in other garments. One must discard all the exaggerations. We are not speaking of slightly embellished works only, as even through the volumes of Origen corrections were slipped in. Therefore, it is time to change conditions in the world."

"In antiquity, when communicating the commandments of God it was customary to cover the face. Later, people tried to overcome matter by proclamation of powers they had not yet mastered. Of course, this gave birth to the Inquisition. The essence of the Inquisition was persecution of the unusual."

"Two signs of the authenticity of the Teaching are: first, striving for the Common Weal; second, acceptance of all previous Teachings which are congruous with the first sign. It must be noted that the primary form of a Teaching does not contain negative postulates. But superstitious followers begin to fence in the Covenants with negations, obstructing the good. There results the ruinous formula: “Our creed is the best,” or, “We are the true believers; all others are infidels.” From this point it is a single step to the Crusades, to the Inquisition, and to seas of blood in the name of Those Who condemned killing. There is no worse occupation than forcible imposition of one’s creed."

"By sanctifying cruelty, early Christianity set a precedent for more than a millennium of systematic torture in Christian Europe. If you understand the expressions to burn at the stake, to hold his feet to the fire, to break a butterfly on the wheel, to be racked with pain, to be drawn and quartered, to disembowel, to flay, to press, the thumbscrew, the garrote, a slow burn, and the iron maiden (a hollow hinged statue lined with nails, later taken as the name of a heavy-metal rock band), you are familiar with a fraction of the ways that heretics were brutalized during the Middle Ages and early modern period. During the Spanish Inquisition, church officials concluded that the conversions of thousands of former Jews didn’t take. To compel the conversos to confess their hidden apostasy, the inquisitors tied their arms behind their backs, hoisted them by their wrists, and dropped them in a series of violent jerks, rupturing their tendons and pulling their arms out of their sockets. Many others were burned alive, a fate that also befell Michael Servetus for questioning the trinity, Giordano Bruno for believing (among other things) that the earth went around the sun, and William Tyndale for translating the Bible into English. Galileo, perhaps the most famous victim of the Inquisition, got off easy: he was only shown the instruments of torture (in particular, the rack) and was given the opportunity to recant for “having held and believed that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves.”"

"Institutionalized torture in Christendom was not just an unthinking habit; it had a moral rationale. If you really believe that failing to accept Jesus as one’s savior is a ticket to fiery damnation, then torturing a person until he acknowledges this truth is doing him the biggest favor of his life: better a few hours now than an eternity later. And silencing a person before he can corrupt others, or making an example of him to deter the rest, is a responsible public health measure. Saint Augustine brought the point home with a pair of analogies: a good father prevents his son from picking up a venomous snake, and a good gardener cuts off a rotten branch to save the rest of the tree. The method of choice had been specified by Jesus himself: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” Once again, the point of this discussion is not to accuse Christians of endorsing torture and persecution. Of course most devout Christians today are thoroughly tolerant and humane people. Even those who thunder from televised pulpits do not call for burning heretics alive or hoisting Jews on the strappado. The question is why they don’t, given that their beliefs imply that it would serve the greater good. The answer is that people in the West today compartmentalize their religious ideology. When they affirm their faith in houses of worship, they profess beliefs that have barely changed in two thousand years. But when it comes to their actions, they respect modern norms of nonviolence and toleration, a benevolent hypocrisy for which we should all be grateful."

"No little group has ever faced greater odds. The Wall Street Journal, in an article critical of the strategy of the opponents, described the forces arrayed against us as: "The full force of an administration whose southern chief needed to establish his civil credentials; and the combined pressure of powerful unions, numerous women's groups, scores of civil rights organizations, and for the first time, intensive lobbying by organized religion." That last line does not apply to all of the men of cloth in this country, nor to those of any one creed or faith. Thousands of them did not permit themselves to have their vestments dragged in the mire of political turmoil. All religious faiths have some expression of peace and good will in their creeds and support the rights of property. But there were many ministers who, having failed completely in their effort to establish good will and brotherhood from the pulpit, turned from the pulpit to the powers of the federal Government to coerce the people into accepting their views under threat of dire punishment. While there is a great deal of difference in the methods applied, the philosophy of coercion by the men of cloth in this case is the same doctrine that dictated the acts of Torquemada in the infamous days of the Spanish Inquisition."

"Today, we experience a dreadful spiritual crisis, a terrible, all-corrupting atheism, which results from narrow, lifeless sectarianism and from choking dogmatism, as well as from the fall of morality among the representatives of churches. We have never spoken, nor will we speak against any religion or church, as it is better to have some religion or church than none at all. But we will always protest against lack of tolerance, morality and knowledge. Priests are necessary, but they should be real spiritual leaders and should be progressive and not continue to exist in the chains of the dark ignorance of the Middle Ages. The spirit of the Inquisition is still very strong. Do you think that if Christ came again on earth now He could avoid crucifixion? At best, would He escape lynching, or imprisonment for life, with the title of Antichrist?"

"The Inquisition was established not just for the persecution of pitiful witches and sorcerers (mostly mediums), but for the annihilation of all the differently minded people, and all personal enemies of the representatives of the church, the latter having decided to obtain absolute power. First of all, among the so-called enemies of the church were the most enlightened minds, those who were working for the General Welfare, and the true followers of the Testaments of Christ. Indeed, the easiest way to destroy the enemy was by accusing him of being in league with the devil. This devilish psychology the so-called "Guardians of the purity of Christian Principles" attempted to instill into the consciousness of the masses in every possible way. Small wonder that in those days the visions of the nuns and monks had the stamp of the Satanic influence, as they were full of devilish images and all sorts of ugly temptations."

"I cannot agree with your statement: "The merit of the Inquisition was that by burning about ten million witches and sorcerers it prevented the masses from participating in black magic and nocturnal orgies dedicated to Satan," etc. Indeed not! By killing millions of its victims the Inquisition created a most dreadful evil obsession... No, the Inquisition was established not just for the persecution of pitiful witches and sorcerers (mostly mediums), but for the annihilation of all the differently minded people, and all personal enemies of the representatives of the church, the latter having decided to obtain absolute power. First of all, among the so-called enemies of the church were the most enlightened minds, those who were working for the General Welfare, and the true followers of the Testaments of Christ. Indeed, the easiest way to destroy the enemy was by accusing him of being in league with the devil."

"The persecution of the miserable witches and sorcerers, the mediums and the obsessed, was a mere screen. The Inquisition was created to establish unrestrained rule over the poor, frightened population. The most effective means of achieving this was robbery and the annihilation of all those who aspired to bring light into the darkness of the Middle Ages—those who were too independent, who dared to talk about the General Good, who protested against this kingdom of the devil, personified in the representatives of the Inquisition. The establishment of the Inquisition was a horrible caricature of Divine Justice."

"Thus, we should find that the law of Reincarnation was rejected by the Council of Constantinople in the sixth century A.D., in spite of the fact that the Gospel itself contains words of Christ that have obvious reference to the law of Reincarnation. If people would take the trouble to study seriously the fundamental Teaching of Christ, and if possible in the original language of the Gospels instead of being satisfied with the school textbooks, they would discover a new meaning in the words, and the true, great Image of Christ would be revealed to their spiritual sight. Long ago it was said by all the Great Teachers that ignorance is the worst crime. And so it really is. What if not the darkness of ignorance bred the Inquisition? The Inquisition is the most frightful, ineradicable stain on the golden vestments of the Christian Church."

"Let us think of all those great ones who suffered under the Inquisition, or who had to conceal their luminous knowledge under the mask of folly or under the most complicated symbols, the key to which—unfortunately for humanity—is almost lost. Let us remember also about those numerous great books, full of light and goodness, the loss of which is irreparable and was considered by the best minds of all later epochs as the greatest misfortune. It is an accepted thing to be indignant about the burning of the Alexandrian Library, but many hypocrites will prefer to be silent about the string of fires lit by the Inquisition which through centuries steadily consumed at the stake the pearls of human genius!... Believe me, the spirit of the Inquisition is still strong. If Christ appeared on Earth today, possibly he would escape crucifixion and the stake, but He would hardly escape severe life imprisonment, with the stamp of Antichrist upon Him. I suggest that you reread Dostoevsky's "The Grand Inquisitor.""

"The following extract is a cutting satire on modern theology generally and the Roman Catholic religion in particular. The idea is that Christ revisits earth, coming to Spain at the period of the Inquisition, and is at once arrested as a heretic by the Grand Inquisitor."

"Nobody knows the exact figure because records were not kept, but it seems certain that during a three hundred year period between three and five million women were tortured and killed by the “Holy Inquisition,“ an institution founded by the Roman Catholic Church to suppress heresy. This sure ranks together with the Holocaust as one of the darkest chapters in human history. It was enough for a woman to show a love for animals, walk alone in the fields or woods, or gather medicinal plants to be branded a witch, then tortured and burned at the stake. The sacred feminine was declared demonic, and an entire dimension largely disappeared from human experience. Other cultures and religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and even Buddhism, also suppressed the female dimension, although in a less violent way. Women's status was reduced to being child bearers and men's property. Males who denied the feminine even within themselves were now running the world, a world that was totally out of balance. The rest is history or rather a case history of insanity... The female form is less rigidly encapsulated than the male, has greater openness and sensitivity toward other lifeforms, and is more attuned to the natural world... If the balance between male and female energies had not been destroyed on our planet, the ego's growth would have been greatly curtailed. We would not have declared war on nature, and we would not be so completely alienated from our Being."

"He comes silently and unannounced; yet all--how strange--yea, all recognize Him, at once! The population rushes towards Him as if propelled by some irresistible force; it surrounds, throngs, and presses around, it follows Him.... Silently, and with a smile of boundless compassion upon His lips, He crosses the dense crowd, and moves softly on. The Sun of Love burns in His heart, and warm rays of Light, Wisdom and Power beam forth from His eyes, and pour down their waves upon the swarming multitudes of the rabble assembled around, making their hearts vibrate with returning love."

"He pauses at the portal of the old cathedral, just as a wee white coffin is carried in, with tears and great lamentations. The lid is off, and in the coffin lies the body of a fair-child, seven years old... 'He will raise the child to life!' confidently shouts the crowd to the weeping mother. The officiating priest... looks perplexed, and frowns... The procession halts, and the little coffin is gently lowered at his feet. Divine compassion beams forth from His eyes, and as He looks at the child, His lips are heard to whisper once more, 'Talitha Cumi'--and 'straightway the damsel arose.' The child rises in her coffin...and, looking round with large astonished eyes she smiles sweetly..."

"A terrible commotion rages among them, the populace shouts and loudly weeps, when suddenly, before the cathedral door, appears the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor himself... He pauses before the crowd and observes. He has seen all. He has witnessed the placing of the little coffin at His feet, the calling back to life. And now, his dark, grim face has grown still darker; his bushy grey eyebrows nearly meet, and his sunken eye flashes with sinister light. Slowly raising his finger, he commands his minions to arrest Him..."

"The Grand Inquisitor...addresses Him in these words: "'It is Thou! ... Thou!' ... Receiving no reply, he rapidly continues: 'Nay, answer not; be silent! ... And what couldst Thou say? ... I know but too well Thy answer.... Besides, Thou hast no right to add one syllable to that which was already uttered by Thee before.... Why shouldst Thou now return, to impede us in our work?... But art Thou as well aware of what awaits Thee in the morning?...to-morrow I will condemn and burn Thee on the stake, as the most wicked of all the heretics..."

"...his words mean, in short: 'Everything was given over by Thee to the Pope, and everything now rests with him alone; Thou hast no business to return and thus hinder us in our work.' In this sense the Jesuits not only talk but write likewise."

"He [the Grand Inquisitor] seriously regards it as a great service done by himself, his brother monks and Jesuits, to humanity, to have conquered and subjected unto their authority that freedom, and boasts that it was done but for the good of the world... Man is born a rebel, and can rebels be ever happy?..."

"Having disburdened his heart, the Inquisitor waits for some time to hear his prisoner speak in His turn... The old man longs to hear His voice, to hear Him reply; better words of bitterness and scorn than His silence. Suddenly He rises; slowly and silently approaching the Inquisitor, He bends towards him and softly kisses the bloodless, four-score and-ten-year-old lips. That is all the answer."

"It is difficult to realize that three years have elapsed since Your Holiness announced that you planned to convene an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church--the first in almost a hundred years. During these three fateful years, millions of my fellow citizens in the United States, including many who do not belong to the Catholic Church, have followed with lively and sympathetic interest the work of the various preparatory Commissions appointed by Your Holiness to draw up the agenda for this extraordinarily important Council. They have also read, with particular interest and with genuine admiration for your all-embracing concern for the welfare of humanity, the several inspiring statements issued by Your Holiness on the background and purposes of the Council."

"In the face of staggering problems which, from the human point of view, seem at times to be almost insoluble, people all over the world have found reason for renewed confidence and courage in the welcome thought that the Fathers of the Council, as Your Holiness indicated in your Radio Message of September 11, will give special attention to the grave economic and social problems which daily press upon suffering humanity in almost all parts of the world but, more particularly, in the economically underdeveloped nations. It is very heartening to know that the Council, in the words of Your Holiness, will strive to deepen the fellowship and love which are "the natural needs of man" and "are imposed on the Christian as rules for his relationship between man and man, and between people and people." We hope that the Council will be able to present in clear and persuasive language effective solutions to the many problems confronting all of us and, more specifically, that its decisions will significantly advance the cause of international peace and understanding."

"We have never said that the Council had directly professed heresies. But the wall of protection against error was removed and thus error was allowed to manifest itself. The faithful need protection. This is what the constant struggle of the militant Church to defend the faith consists of. (Bernard Fellay)"

"I was a member of the preparatory commissions appointed by Pope John XXIII, and together with the other members—distinguished cardinals and good theologians—we prepared the preliminary outlines that were to serve as a basis for the scholars of the assembly. The preparation of these outlines, which were to be approved and promulgated as authoritative documents of the Church's teaching, required time, reflection, and consultation of ecclesiastical sources and documents. All this had to be taken into account. But then, in the first session of the Council, a group of bishops and cardinals, using modern techniques of pressure, managed to remove the exhaustive work that had been done. Thus, being subject to time constraints and internal regulations, new discussion outlines had to be prepared in other commissions set up in a completely arbitrary manner. Imagine the difficulties this entailed and bear in mind the decisive activity of certain cardinals and bishops, those who were called “coming from the banks of the Rhine,” gathered in the Idoc group, all imbued with modernism and liberalism and who, in addition, could count on a well-financed superstructure of offices, press, distribution, etc."

"Interviewer: By saying this, aren't we running the risk of undermining the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Council? Mgr. Lefebvre: I said that Vatican II was a purely pastoral council, and for this very reason it is clear that the two popes who presided over its sessions did not intend to commit the dogmatic Magisterium of the Holy Church to the even. It is therefore in this perspective that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the documents produced by the Council must be considered. The liberal orientation of the Council cannot be attributed to the Holy Spirit; it would be blasphemous, sacrilegious."

"Interviewer: You have a certain tendency to see conspiracies everywhere. Five days before being suspended a divinis, in a letter to Paul VI, you denounced ‘a secret agreement between high-ranking ecclesiastical dignitaries and Freemasons, established before the Council. Mgr. Lefebvre: But all the American newspapers wrote that, before the Council, Cardinal Bea, founder of the Vatican Secretariat for Ecumenism, had met with the leaders of the most influential Jewish-Masonic lodge at the Astoria Hotel in New York and asked them what they expected from the Council. And they replied: "A declaration on religious freedom" ."

"Lately, I have been given documents that appear to be completely true, documents that show the correspondence between Monsignor Bonini and the Grand Master of Freemasonry on the entire liturgical reform. The Grand Master of Freemasonry asks Bonini to apply the reform of the apostate priest Roca, who had already predicted everything that had to be done when the Vatican was occupied by Freemasonry. [...] The Grand Master asks Bonini to apply the principle of “naturalization,” the naturalization of the Incarnation, that is, to de-supernaturalize the Incarnation, and thus we arrive at naturalism, and therefore we must apply the principles of local languages, the multiplicity of rites, the multiplicity of the liturgy, and to make the liturgy totally confused, to instill confusion everywhere, and opposition between the different rites. And Bonini replies that he is in complete agreement, and that it will take some time, perhaps ten years. But that at the end of the ten years we will get there. And that with the trust placed in him by Cardinal Lercaro and Pope Paul VI, he is sure of success, and he names all those in the Curia who are affiliated with Freemasonry. He names them and says he will be able to work with them. But some of them must be placed in certain congregations so that [...], in order for the work to be successful, all the congregations must be infiltrated with members of Freemasonry, whom he names: so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so... “We must get rid of that one because he is against us... we must get him out...” "the Congregation of the Sacraments must be suppressed," and he managed to put everything under the Congregation of Rites, he managed to put everything under his authority. Everything he says in the letter to the Grand Master of Freemasonry. So what should we do? We certainly want to obey. We are the most obedient to the Church, to everything the Church has always taught and wanted. But not to men who want the destruction of the Church. (at min. 6:17-9:00)"

"The Catechism so often refers to it that it might well be called the Catechism of the Second Vatican Council. The conciliar texts constitute a sure "compass" for the believers of the third millennium."

"After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not "manufactured" by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. ... The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition... . The greatness of the liturgy depends - we shall have to repeat this frequently — on its unspontaneity."

"I would like us to renew today our full commitment to the path that the universal Church has been following for decades now in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis has masterfully recalled and updated its contents in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, from which I would like to highlight some fundamental points: the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation, the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community, growth in collegiality and synodality, attention to the sensus fidei, especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety, loving care for the least, the rejected, and courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities."

""We suffer because we have no love. Whoever does not love does not have peace, even if he was placed in Paradise," said an elder."

"An elder said: "He who loves God does not only love his fellow man, but also all of nature: trees, grass, flowers. Everything with the same love.""

"Living in a state of high spirituality, and of perfect possessionlessness – we do not know if they are still alive – were seven, or twelve according to others, hermits in the virgin forests of the Holy Mountain. Totally naked, living like the birds of the air on wild greens, on roots, on chestnuts, on pine cone seed etc. It has been said that they would go and receive Holy Communion at the cave of St. Peter from the eminent hesychast Father Daniel. The learned Lavriotan and physician, monk Spyridon Kambanaos wrote concerning these earthly angels and heavenly men: "And what can we say of those who live in the area of Krya Nera, where only the all-seeing eye of God knows their way of life.""

"The elders of Mount Athos say: "Not where you live but the way you live is going to save you.""

"Εΐπεν ένας γέρων μοναχός:"

""Elder, is monastic life difficult?" we asked a wise monk. "It is not difficult. There comes a time when you forget yourself entirely and you realize that it is the lightest burden to carry," he replied."

"An elder said: "To the monk, the world is a charcoal-maker" (that is, the world dirties one's soul, like one who handles charcoal)."

"An elder said: "The spiritual life of a monk begins when he distances himself from all visible and invisible things, save God." And he also said: 'When I was in the world everyone would say: 'The monk, the monk.' So I said to myself, 'If you're a monk, then, what are you still doing in the world?'""

"An elder said: "I am unable to describe to you, my son, the joy I felt in my heart every time I was unjustly treated by others. I felt that I was clothed in the cloak of injustice also worn by Christ.""

"A virtuous monk advised: "Show love to all, but have no particular friendship with anyone.""

"A contemporary hermit would say: "Today there is plenty of dough, but there is no yeast...""

"Elder Modestos the Konstamonitan would say: "Act as if you can't see. Do not look at another's faults.""

"Another said: "Why don't we have many saints in our times? Because we have put aside prayer and stillness.""

"Geronda D... you are poor and have no money," I once said to a truly poor Skete-dweller. And he replied: "Only the devil is poor!..."

"An elder used to say: "A monk resembles a small, clever fish. He knows how to escape the world like the fish which avoids the bait that hides the deadly hook.""

"After the daily liturgy, the great hesychast father Daniel the Hosiopetritan would withdraw into his cell for an hour for silence. It was an hour dedicated to tears and compunction. He would say: "While the lantern indeed gives light to many, its wick holder is usually burned...""

"The famous father Dionysius, one of the Kartesonians, once advised monk Daniel saying: "My son, from the things you hear against someone, you should not believe anything, and out of what you see, believe half. And not even half, for many pretend to be fools. Do not judge anyone.""

"A brother asked an elder whose hair had grown white over many years which he had spent in ascesis: "How old are you, Geronda?" The elder replied: "One does not count age by the passing of years but by one's pure thoughts and pure way of life.""

"A great contemporary hesychast who had to go out into the world for medical reasons for a few days said to me: "When I returned to the Holy Mountain, a month had to pass before I was able to gather my mind from its roaming and wandering during prayer.""

"A monk asked another elder, who was over one hundred years old: "Now that you will depart from this temporary life, what do you feel?" "I feel so joyful and peaceful, as if I am going to a wedding," he replied."

"A good and virtuous priestmonk from the holy Monastery of St. Paul reposed outside the Monastery while sitting on a small rock, blessing with his right hand."

"A cheeky young man said to an elder: "God does not exist. I don't believe that there is a God!" "Come closer," the monk said. "Don't you know that the cicada chirping now is talking about God? Can't you see this little kitten that I've got here, the fur it has? Not even Queen Frederika owned a coat like this." The young man was moved by the elder's words. The hardness of his unbelief left him."

"An elder said: "Many saints would have liked to be living and struggling in our times.""

"When St. Akakios of Kafsokalyvia stood in prayer, he resembled a steadfast pillar; and when seated he was unaware of his body, as it were, because he was in an elevated state of being, filled with grace and divine, uncreated light."

""Many possess a neptic prayer but they do not even realize it," a hermit used to say."

"A monk used to say: "The prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me; this is the foundation of monastic life.""

"An elderly monk, a worker of noetic prayer, said: "We should always say the Jesus Prayer. With every opportunity we should say it. Our mind should not wander on vain things. In saying the Jesus Prayer one's mind finds rest and joy. Just like small children. They run around all day, shouting, playing, hitting each other. But the one thing that gives them rest and great joy is when at night they find themselves beside their mother. This is how it is with our mind also. It should not wander on vain things. It should be occupied with the Jesus Prayer.""

"An elder said: "We are like nettle plants. From a distance they appear green and fresh as in a field or garden, but when you go close and touch them, that is when you see their ugliness and feel their sting.""

"And he said again: "Saints sense themselves to be truly unworthy and sinful.""

""Patience must be acquired, it cannot be bought," an ascetic used to say."

"An elder said: "The spiritual life requires patience, steadfast patience. Man undergoes all sorts of changes even from one day to the next.""

"An elder said: "Illness is a divine visitation. Illness is a great gift from God. The only thing that man can give to God in return is his pain.""

"A hermit said: "A monk is one who stands continually before the invisble God, as if He were visible.""

"St. Savvas from Kalymnos was a Hagiorite. He was from St. Anne's. He had absolutely no love of money. He did not even want to hold it in his hands."

"Later, when I had heard that there are twelve anchorites at the peak of Athos – some said seven – I got to thinking, so I related the incident to some experienced Elders, who told me: “That would have been one of the righteous anchorites who live invisibly at the peak of Athos”!"

"Christianity spreads in two ways: through conversion and through secularisation."