Saint Abercius of Hierapolis

However, Abercius was sitting quietly in his house, surrounded by his disciples, to whom, according to his custom, he was addressing his morning exhortations. His face and his speech had their usual calm and serenity. Some Christians entered this assembly and warned the bishop of the storm that was brewing outside. They all implored him to escape the popular vengeance by fleeing. "No," he said. "I hold from the Apostles this maxim that a Christian must know how to die for his God. It is true that Jesus Christ Our Lord prescribed for us to flee those who persecute us. I will know how to reconcile this double duty." Speaking thus, he left his house, followed by his disciples, and came to the middle of the Forum to sit on the benches of the Fragellion, where he resumed and continued his interrupted preaching. The crowd, soon warned, rushed in a mass toward this place. "What!" they said, "it is not enough for him to hold his impious speeches in his dwelling. He dares to deliver them in the middle of the Forum!" The most bitter promised themselves to tear the body of the holy bishop to pieces with their teeth. Savage clamors resounded in the adjacent streets. The crowd finally arrived at the Forum like an overflowing torrent. At this moment, a frightening spectacle stopped its fury. Three young men, long possessed by demons and known to the whole city, rushed forward, their clothes torn, twisting in horrible convulsions, lacerating the shreds of their flesh with their teeth. Addressing the holy bishop: "In the name of the true God whom you preach," they said to him, "we implore you, cease to torment us before the time." All eyes were fixed on Abercius. His gentleness and the majesty of his noble figure struck the astonished pagans. Praying aloud, he said: "Almighty God, Father of Jesus Christ Our Lord, You whose mercy infinitely exceeds the malice of men, I beseech You, deliver these three unfortunate young men from the chains of Satan, so that all this people may recognize You as the one and true God!" Then approaching the young men, he touched their heads with the staff he held in his hand: "In the name of Christ, my Lord and my God," he said, "cruel demons, I command you, come out of the bodies of these young men, and torment them no more in the future." Scarcely were these words pronounced than the demons left their victims, uttering frightful howls. The three young men, as if they had awakened from a long sleep, cast an intelligent look around them for a moment, then they fell inanimate at the feet of the holy bishop. They were thought to be dead. But Abercius, taking their hands, made them rise. They were restored to the health of body and soul. Ashamed of their nakedness, they hastened to adjust the shreds of their clothes, and, surrounding the holy bishop, would no longer leave him. The crowd cried out with a unanimous voice: "The God of Abercius is the only true God!" The miracle had been so manifest that, of all this multitude, there was not one who did not ask for baptism. Thinking of their blindness and their recent furies, they said to the thaumaturge: "We are too burdened with crimes to hope for our pardon. Do you believe that your God would deign to show us mercy? We tremble before His justice, and our iniquities terrify us!" — "Brothers," Abercius said to them, "this God who reveals Himself to you today is the same who said in Judea: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." The holy bishop continued to speak to them of the mercy of the incarnate Word until the ninth hour of the day (three o'clock in the afternoon). At this moment, he laid his hands upon them, blessed them, and wished to withdraw to go to his dwelling to perform his customary prayer. But they all surrounded him, asking him for baptism. He made them understand that the hour was too late and postponed the administration of this sacrament until the next day. The crowd followed him to his house, and such was their impatience that a great number spent the night near the humble dwelling, awaiting the grace of regeneration. The holy bishop, touched by their faith, believed he should yield to their ardent desires. After having thanked the sovereign pastor of souls for so many signal favors, he left his house at midnight, and leading these generous neophytes into the church, he conferred baptism upon five hundred of them.

The miracle at Hierapolis had an immense impact throughout all of Asia. People flocked to the wonder-worker from the neighboring provinces of Greater Phrygia, Caria, and Lydia. To satisfy the eagerness of the people, Abercius was compelled to go to a nearby plain, where his immense audience could hear his words. There, surrounded by priests, deacons, and other brothers, he would sit on an elevation and distribute the bread of the heavenly word to the eager crowd. One day, an illustrious matron, Phrygella, mother of the city's governor Euxenianus Poplio, had herself led into the midst of the assembly; she was blind. When her servants had brought her near the holy bishop, she fell to her knees and, kissing his feet, said: "Man of God, have pity on me; restore my sight." — "Woman," replied Abercius, "I am but a sinner, who has need, like you, of divine mercy; yet if you believe firmly in the God whom I adore, He is powerful enough to heal you, He who once opened the eyes of a man born blind." — "I believe in Christ our Lord and true God!" said Phrygella; and, bursting into tears, she continued: "Do not refuse to touch my eyes and I shall recover my sight." The holy man then raising his eyes toward heaven: "Light of the world," he said, "Jesus, my Master, come and open the eyes of this woman." Then, turning toward the infirm woman, he touched her eyes saying: "Phrygella, if you sincerely believe in Christ, see." At these words, the blindness disappeared completely, and the extinguished eyes of the blind woman opened to the light of day. Fixing then upon Abercius a look full of gratitude: "Father," she cried, "I take this crowd that surrounds us as witness; I give you half of all that I possess, accept it to distribute to the poor." Meanwhile, the multitude burst into enthusiasm. "The God of the Christians is great!" they said on all sides. When silence was restored, Abercius said to Phrygella: "You have experienced this day the power of the God who rewards so magnificently the trust of His servants; go in peace, be faithful to the double duty of the Christian faith and gratitude." The noble matron withdrew, but only to return later to be initiated by the holy bishop into the religion of Jesus Christ; and from then on she never ceased to surround the man of God with marks of her veneration and devotion. The governor, Euxenianus Poplio, touched by the healing of his mother, came to thank the holy bishop. "I would like," he said to him, "to be able to show you all our gratitude, but you show such contempt for the goods of this world that I do not hope to be able to offer you anything worthy of you." — "Indeed," replied Abercius, "I esteem so little the honors and fortune of this world that I would rather see you poor and obscure, but a Christian, than governor of Hierapolis, of patrician origin, enjoying imperial favor and credit, but a pagan, as you are." The conversation continued for some time on this subject; Poplio highly admired the wisdom of the old man. It is not seen, however, that he converted; so difficult is it for a soul to detach itself from the bonds of human vanity, greatness, and wealth.

Now Lucilla, daughter of Emperor Marcus Aur Marc-Aurèle Roman emperor marking the chronological limit of Hegesippus's work. elius, suddenly found herself invaded by a demonic obsession. She had just reached her sixteenth year. Her parents had betrothed her to Lucius Verus; they took pleasure in seeing this noble child grow before their eyes and surpass all her companions in beauty, when suddenly the demon took hold of her. In fits of fury and rage, she would tear her flesh with her bloodied nails, roll on the ground, and gnaw at her hands. Empress Faustina, her mother, and her father, Marcus Aurelius, were in despair. This accident occurred at the very time they had agreed to take their daughter to Ephesus, where Lucius Verus, her fiancé, then detained in the East by the war against the Parthians, was to go himself. The famous temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world, had been chosen as the theater for this imperial alliance. The preparations were finished; the whole world awaited this happy event. It had to be abandoned, and Lucius, already arrived in Ephesus, was warned that the solemnity was delayed. The revolt of the Marcomanni, which had just broken out in Germania, served as a pretext for Marcus Aurelius, who did not wish to inform his colleague of the true state of his daughter, in the hope that health might be restored to young Lucilla. Meanwhile, Faustina, in concert with him, questioned the haruspices and the augurs of Etruria, and consulted all the oracles of the Italian temples, without their daughter's situation improving. In the midst of her convulsions, she was heard repeating incessantly these words: "I will not leave here except by the order of Abercius, the bishop of Hierapolis!" The demon placed this exclamation on her lips, of which the young girl was not conscious, for Abercius and even Hierapolis were equally unknown to her. The emperor wished to inquire about this Abercius, whose name was revealed to him in such sad circumstances. He was told of the miracles performed by the holy bishop; a glimmer of hope penetrated the heart of the unfortunate father. He immediately sent two officers of his palace, Valerius and Bassianus, to Hierapolis, with a letter for the governor Poplio and the order to bring the wonder-worker honorably to Rome. Before the arrival of this message, Abercius had had a divine revelation. The Lord said to him: "You shall go to Rome; it is I who will lead you there, to make the power of my name shine forth. Fear nothing, my grace will be with you." — "May your will be done," replied the Saint; and that same day he announced to the brothers that Providence would not delay in calling him to Rome. Meanwhile, Valerius and Bassianus had embarked at Brindisi, on a ship that the prefect Cornelian had placed at their disposal. The wind was favorable to them; they crossed the Ionian Sea and landed, on the seventh day, on the coasts of the Peloponnese. Taking then the land route and the imperial relays, they arrived on the fifteenth day at Byzantium, from where, without stopping, they headed through Nicomedia toward Synnada, the metropolis of Little Phrygia. The governor, Spinther, provided them with guides who led them to Hierapolis, where they arrived at the ninth hour of the day (three o'clock in the afternoon). At that moment, Abercius was returning to the city after his customary conference. The strangers, meeting him on their way, asked him for the residence of Poplio. The holy bishop offered to lead them there. Scarcely had the governor read the imperial letter than he handed it to the man of God, begging him to yield to the emperor's desire. "I will go all the more willingly," said Abercius, "as the Lord has already manifested his will to me on this subject."

Forty days later, the Saint disembarked at Porto and arrived in Rome, where the two officers presented him to the prefect of the palace, Cornelian. Emperor Marcus Aurelius had left the capital to organize the expedition against the Marcomanni, who had themselves crossed the Rhine. Abercius was immediately led to Empress F austina. Faustine Wife of Marcus Aurelius and mother of Lucilla. At the sight of this venerable old man, whose face was imbued with a holy majesty, Faustina felt moved. "I know," she said, "that you serve a very good and very powerful God; the officers who bring you have confirmed to me all the wonderful things that have been told to me about you; use, I pray you, your power in our favor, restore health and life to our unfortunate daughter. We will know how to reward you by showering you with honors and goods." Thus she spoke, add the Acts, and her voice was full of affection and respectful sympathy. It is that necessity made it a law for her, and forced her to implore the help of the God whom the Caesars pursued gratuitously with their hatred, and whom they did not permit to be worshiped. The wonder-worker replied: "I thank you for these favorable intentions, but the honors of the world do not touch us, and the power that God gives us gratuitously to do good, we use gratuitously. Where is your daughter?" Faustina rushed into Lucilla's apartment and wanted to bring her to the holy bishop. But the demon, who obsessed the young girl, resisted; Lucilla rolled on the ground in a fit of appalling rage; at times her face took on the pallor and rigidity of marble, at times a convulsive shiver agitated all her muscles. Finally, the demoniac articulated while howling these words: "So there you are, Abercius! I told you I would bring you to Rome!" — "It is true, cruel demon," replied the Saint, "but you will not have to congratulate yourself for it." He then ordered Lucilla to be transported into the open air. They obeyed, and the young girl was deposited in the courtyard of the palace adjoining the hippodrome. Officers and guards lined up in a circle around this improvised arena. Meanwhile, the demon continued to torment his unfortunate victim, who vomited a thousand insults against the holy bishop. Abercius, lifting his eyes, addressed a fervent prayer to God. After which, fixing a sovereign gaze on the demoniac, he said:

"Spirit of evil, come out of this young girl. Jesus Christ, my God, commands you." At these words, the demon came out trembling, and the young girl fell inanimate at the feet of the wonder-worker. All the assistants thought her dead and Faustina cried out: "What have you done? The demon has fled, but he has killed my daughter!" Without answering, Abercius reached out his hand to Lucilla, who seemed to wake from a deep sleep. She stood up and the man of God led her to her mother, saying: "Your daughter is not dead, but she is delivered from the demon." Faustina rushed, melting into tears, upon this dear child, and held her long embraced in a maternal hug, covering her face with kisses. It seemed that she had wanted to incorporate this cherished being, to better convince herself that she was returned to her tenderness. In the intoxication of her joy, she no longer had consciousness of what she was doing; finally, when this first emotion was calmed, sure henceforth of her daughter's health, Faustina begged the holy bishop to accept a testimony of her imperial gratitude. "What can you give to one who needs nothing?" said Abercius. "A piece of bread and a few drops of water are enough for me." She insisted, however, with such stubbornness that the man of God, forced to formulate a request, begged Faustina to grant the poor of Hierapolis a distribution of wheat, and to have an establishment built for the sick at the thermal springs of Agra, in Phrygia. The empress immediately gave the prefect of the palace, Cornelian, the order to register the city of Hierapolis for an annual and free distribution of three thousand measures of wheat. This imperial largesse was faithfully maintained until the reign of Julian the Apostate, who had it suppressed, in hatred of the Christians, at the time when he likewise abolished all their other privileges and confiscated all their properties. The bath establishment was also built at the designated place, which changed from then on for the name of Agra Thermorum that of Agra Potamii, which it bore previously.

Abercius remained for quite some time in Rome, edifying the assemblies of Christians with his salutary instructions and the example of his virtues. The empress kept him as long as possible, fearing that after his departure the demon might regain his baneful empire over Lucilla, her daughter. However, the holy bishop had a divine vision: "Abercius," the Lord said to him, "you must think of the needs of the faithful in Syria." The next day, he presented himself before Faustina, calmed her fears, and asked her permission to return to his homeland. As he expressed his intention to travel through the provinces of Syria, the empress placed a ship at his disposal which landed him at Seleucia, from where he went to Antioch. He then visited Apamea and the neighboring cities, soothing everywhere the dissensions that were arising between the Churches, and com bating the Marcion hérésie marcionite Heresy opposed by Abercius in the East. ite heresy, which was then spreading like a contagion among the Christian communities of the East. Crossing the Euphrates, he traveled through Mesopotamia, visited the city of Nisibis and the churches of that region, proclaiming the true doctrine everywhere along his path. In their gratitude for the man of God, these Christian communities wished to give him a significant sum, the fruit of a spontaneous collection to which all had unanimously contributed. Abercius refused. "The wife of Caesar," he said, "opened the treasures of the empire to me, and I accepted nothing; allow me to do the same with you." This response saddened the brethren without persuading them, and they renewed their entreaties. At that moment, a Christian of illustrious birth, Barcksan, spoke up: "Brethren," he said, "it is not fitting to do violence to this man of God; our money is unworthy of him; but he cannot prevent us from rendering to his virtue the homage it deserves. Let it suffice for us to proclaim it: Abercius is the equal of the Apostles!" The entire assembly burst into applause.

Upon leaving these distant regions, Aberci Aberce Bishop of Hierapolis in the 2nd century, famous for his miracles and his epitaph. us traveled through the two provinces of Cilicia, Lycaonia, and Pisidia. He arrived at Synnada, the metropolis of Lesser Phrygia, rested there for a few days among the Christians, who vied for the honor of offering him hospitality, and then headed toward his episcopal city. News of his imminent return had preceded him there. A vast multitude, eager to behold his features and hear the accents of his blessed voice, ran to meet him. The man of God, in the presence of this crowd that filled the entire city, extended his hands and blessed his people. He then resumed his accustomed life, traversing the city each day, preaching the word of salvation in freedom, administering baptism, exorcising the possessed, healing the infirm, and manifesting the power of the Holy Spirit through miraculous works. He composed a book, titled Adornitis, Doctrine, which he Adornitis Book of doctrine left by Aberce to his Church. left to the priests and deacons of his Church, so that even after his death he might continue to instruct his people through the mouths of his successors. Some time later, he had a final vision: "Abercius," the Lord said to him, "the hour approaches when I shall grant you rest, after so many labors." The holy bishop then designated the place where he wished to be buried and had the inscription engraved there that we shall report shortly. Then, gathering around him the priests, deacons, and some of the faithful of Hierapolis, he said to them: "My little children, the end of my life has arrived; beloved flock, I am going to separate from you, to go and consummate, with the God who gladdened my youth, an eternal union. I go to Him whose divine love fills my heart. Now, you must think of choosing from among you a bishop who, after me, will lead you in the pastures of the Lord, and whose voice the sheep will hear and respect." When he had spoken thus, those present gathered themselves in prayer, and after a few moments of deliberation, they unanimously elected the eldest of the priests of Hierapolis, who was named Abercius, as their holy bishop. The illustrious old man gave his own vote, and extending his venerable hand, he blessed him, saying: "Abercius, be bishop, by the authority of God, and, as much as I am able, by mine!" Then he raised his eyes and hands to heaven and prayed in silence. In this attitude, he rendered his blessed soul to Christ. The angels escorted to heaven him who had led an angelic life here below. Meanwhile, the people ran from all over the city to surround the body of the holy bishop. After the singing of sacred hymns, his precious remains were carried, with great pomp, to the place he had marked for his burial, and deposited like an inestimable treasure under the marble where he had had his epitaph engraved.

## HAGIOGRAPHICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTE

### THE FAMOUS AUTUN INSCRIPTION.

Among the hagiographical monuments concerning the fourth general persecution, the Acts of Saint Abercius occupy the first rank in chronological order. 18th-century criticism, through the voice of Tillemont, had declared that these Acts were merely a tissue of fables, invented at will by Simeon Metaphrastes, and reproduced without discernment by Surius. This summary judgment was adopted without protest. A recent historian of the Church (Henrion) wrote in 1836: "The history of Saint Abercius, which Surius inserted in his collection of the *Lives of the Saints*, deserves no belief." The most illustrious heir to the science and erudition of our Benedictines, Dom Pitra, now a cardinal, had nevertheless already made his reservations in the *Spicilegium Solesmense*. "I know," he said in 1855, "that the Byzantine imagination, so fertile in rashness, not to say ineptitudes, has largely embroidered on the theme of the primitive Acts of Saint Abercius, so that, since Baronius, most historians have thought it best to refrain from citing a disfigured monument. However, beneath the posthumous accretions, it is easy to distinguish the vestiges of the ancient edifice, and to recognize the hand of a skillful architect. I like to hope that the new Bollandists, who are perhaps working at this moment on this interesting subject, will not fail to sort them out, restoring the ancient parts of the work and pointing out the apocryphal additions of more recent date." Dom Pitra's hope was not frustrated. The new Bollandists purged the Acts of the holy bishop of Hierapolis and proved, in a thorough and victorious dissertation, that Tillemont had been wrong to relegate them among the apocryphal fables. It is this purged text that we have just offered to our Catholic readers.

"May they forgive me," he added, "for offering them here an isolated stone to serve in the reconstruction of the edifice. I have not had their proverbial science to polish it; but, such as it is, this monument, freed from the travesty of Byzantine ignorance, shines with the most brilliant characteristics of Christian antiquity and the most incontestable authenticity." The precious stone, a true diamond, which the eminent Benedictine extracted from the Acts of Saint Abercius, is the epitaph, in hexameter verse, of this bishop of Hierapolis. The Byzantine compilers do not appear to have suspected that this piece was rhythmic. They transcribed it carelessly into their collection, without regard for the scansion of the verses, omitting here and there, through negligence or ignorance, particles, and entire words, which break the poetic measure. With the famous Autun inscription, of which we shall soon have occasion to speak, it is one of the most precious monuments of Christian archaeology of the 2nd century. Here is a translation as exact as we have been able to render it: "Citizen of this illustrious city, I had this tomb built during my lifetime, so that my body might one day rest there. Abercius is my name; I am the disciple of the immaculate Shepherd, who leads the flock of his spiritual lambs through the plains and valleys, and whose sovereign eye beholds all things. He deigned to teach me the sacred words of life. It is he who made me undertake the journey to Rome; I saw the queen city; the august spouse of Caesar with the golden robe and shoes; I saw this powerful people who wear splendid rings on their fingers. On the return, I traveled through the countryside of Syria and its many cities; Nisibis and the regions situated beyond the Euphrates. Everywhere I encountered the unanimity of spirits and hearts. Faith presented to each of the faithful and distributed the same heavenly food, the *Ichthus* from the sacred spring, an august and divine fish which a spotless Virgin received first, and which offers itself to the beloved of the Father to be consumed forever, in the participation of the delectable wine, mixed with pure wheat. Such are the words that I, Abercius, in the seventy-second year of my age, have had engraved on this marble. Whoever reads these lines and shares my belief, will pray for me. Let no one be so rash as to usurp my tomb for another burial. The violator would be condemned to pay two thousand pieces of gold to the Roman treasury, and one thousand to my sweet homeland, the city of Hierapolis." This last clause was an official formula generally used in tomb inscriptions. It recalled the fine imposed by Roman laws on desecrators of graves. The truly interesting part of the epitaph is that which constitutes the autobiography of the holy bishop, and his profession of faith. We must place alongside the inscription of Abercius that which was recently discovered at Autun, and which dates from the same period. Faith in the Eucharistic mystery spoke the same language on the land of Gaul and in the plains of Phrygia.

On June 24, 1839, Mgr d'Héricourt, Bishop of Autun, accompanied by M. Devoucoux (now Bishop of Évreux), was walking through the ruins of the po lyand Autun Burgundian diocese associated with the saint's burial. rium of Saint-Pierre l'Estrier, that famous cemetery of the ancient Aeduan city. The thoughts of the two visitors turned to the time of the persecutions, when the faithful gave burial in this place to the bishop and martyr Saint Beverius, who had come from Rome to bring to the land of Gaul the double testimony of word and blood. These glorious memories hovered over the now desolate field, where the unintelligent pickaxe of the workers came, as in a quarry, to tear from the tombs of the ancestors materials to serve for new constructions. Among the accumulated debris, the gaze of the illustrious pilgrims fixed on a broken marble, where Greek characters of the finest period seemed to solicit the attention of a last reader, before disappearing forever under the trowel of a 19th-century mason. The precious fragment was immediately collected; but it was worn. By searching among the surrounding rubble, the avid pickaxe of the visitors was able to find five other fragments whose juxtaposed fractures reconstituted a marble table fifty centimeters high, by fifty-two wide. Mgr d'Héricourt had them transported to the minor seminary of Autun. There was a young professor there, who bore the name still unknown and since so famous of Pitra. At the sight of this marble, with its pure and polished grain, similar to those of Italian origin, of which the excavations carried out at Autun had already offered him so many examples, at the sight above all of these Greek characters which already had no secrets for him, the future cardinal recognized a Christian monument from the end of the 2nd, or at the latest the beginning of the 3rd century. But the six fragments he had before his eyes did not complete the entire text of the inscription in Greek verse, of which the first two lines were interrupted by a gap of nine letters, and the last seven by another more considerable one of ninety letters. "I ran immediately," he said, "to the place where this magnificent discovery had just occurred. I had the heap of debris turned over in every direction, to a depth of four feet; I examined every stone; and finally I had the joy of finding the seventh fragment, the narrowest of all, but the one that gave the key to all the others, and bore the name of the Christian in whose honor the inscription had been traced." A few months later, all learned Europe was concerned with the Autun marble. The inscription was engraved, translated, and commented upon in all languages. Here it is in its integrity, henceforth imperishable: "Divine race of the heavenly Ichthus, with a sacred heart, embrace, with ardor, the immortal life among mortals. O beloved, rejuvenate your soul in the divine waters, by the eternal floods o f wisdo Ichthus A central Christological and Eucharistic symbol in ancient inscriptions. m that surpasses all treasures. Receive from the Savior of the Saints the food sweet as honey; take, eat and drink; your hand carries the Ichthus. Divine Ichthus, hear my prayer. I conjure you, Master and Savior, may my mother rest in peace! Light of the dead, it is to you that I address my vows. Aschandius, my father, you whom I cherish with a filial heart, with my sweet mother and all my own in the peace of the divine Ichthus, remember Pectorius, your child."

To better explain the importance of this discovery, it is not out of place to indicate the dogmatic points to which the Autun inscription brought its irrefutable testimony. The divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ was first of all attested by the very meaning of the symbolic term Ichthus, of which Tertullian, Saint Optatus of Milevis, and Saint Augustine had long since revealed the mysterious arcane to us. The titles of Savior, Christ, Jesus, Son of God, implicitly contained in this ancient anagram, are explicitly confirmed by those of Lord, Savior of the Saints, Light of the dead. Modern rationalism, which asks where the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ was in the 2nd century, can inform itself in the Autun inscription and in that of Abercius. We have not invented these two monuments for the need of a preconceived cause; one was exhumed on our land of France, as an anticipated reprobation of the sophisms currently in circulation in our fatherland; the other was torn by philology from the midst of the rubble of Byzantine literature; both, miraculously escaped from the vandalism of the pickaxe and that of ignorance, attest that the East and the West believed, in the 2nd century of our era, the fundamental dogma of the divinity of Jesus Christ. The Gospel, as we read it today, had therefore already traveled around the world. It did not, therefore, await from time or popular legends this late complement, which would have fixed its definitive drafting only in the 11th or 12th century. The Gallicanism of Launoy and Baillet, tracing back to the year 250, under the empire of Decius, the arrival of the first missionaries of the faith into the interior of Gaul, received there one of those lapidary denials that overturn the theses of prejudice forever. Its younger brother, Jansenism, had used the last breaths of its dying life against the Roman idolatry of the worship rendered to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The first verses of the Autun inscription were precisely a homage to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. It is thus that the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin and her most pure maternity, these Catholic dogmas against which Protestantism and rationalism have risen in concert, were proclaimed, in the year 166, in the inscription of the holy bishop of Hierapolis. The baptismal pool, this name derived in our liturgical language, as Saint Optatus of Milevis teaches us, from the mysterious Piscis, Ichthus, under the symbolism of which the persecuted Christians veiled from the gaze of paganism the whole of their religious faith, appears to us in the Autun inscription as the unique source of the regeneration of souls through Jesus Christ. From then on, the unity of baptism, its efficacy, its absolute obligation were, in the year 166, dogmas as well known to the faithful of Augustodunum as they are to the Catholics of our day. But it is especially from the point of view of the august sacrament of the Eucharist that the Autun inscription and that of Abercius offer the most interest. From the banks of the Thames to the shores of the Oder, from Geneva to Berlin and from London to Copenhagen, all the scattered fractions of the Protestant heresy have shuddered, upon learning that the dogma of the Real Presence was written on a marble of the 2nd century, in the middle of the land of Gaul and in the epitaph of a Phrygian bishop who died at more than seventy-two years of age, under Marcus Aurelius, without making mention of any spouse whose devotion would have helped him cross the path of life. An unmarried bishop in Hierapolis, in the year 166, and believing in transubstantiation! There was enough to make all those Anglican bishops shudder, under the tombs of Westminster, whose lapidary eulogy invariably ends with the banal formula: *Conjugi marentissimo uxor marentissima*. Since the Catholic truth thus shines forth, through all the paths of the past, and the very stones echo it eighteen centuries later, Protestantism is collapsing under a failure bordering on agony. The souls it held captive for so long are thirsty for tradition, love, prayer, and truth. The sacrament of the Eucharist, the antiquity and efficacy of the sacramental words, communion under one species, prayer for the dead, the intercession of the Saints, all these dogmas that Luther and Calvin had denied emerge from the lapidary monument of Autun, as a striking confirmation of the purity of the Catholic symbol. We cannot, therefore, be surprised at the repercussions that the unexpected discovery of the Aschandius marble has had throughout Europe. And would to God that the multitudes still lost in the paths of error were not, by their very ignorance, in the impossibility of understanding, like the scholars, the two inscriptions of Autun and Abercius!

We are indebted for this magnificent hagiographical monument, and one that is pulsating with interest for our rationalist era, to M. l'abbé Darras, General History of the Church, Volume VII, pages 261-264.