Jean Louis de Lolme

“ Therefore, if the law of God forbad any cruel excess in the chastising of persons who were guilty of crimes, much more did it disapprove that Men should unmercifully lash and flay themselves with rods and whip-cords. Indeed, the modern practice of lashing and whipping one’s self to the effusion of blood, is by no means intitled to our admiration. ”

“ What sort of life do you lead?—I endeavour, answered Omri, to be a good subject, a good husband, a good father, and a good friend: I lend money without interest to the rich who want it, and I give it to the poor: I preserve peace among my neighbours.—But have you ever run nails into your backside, demanded the Brahmin.—Never, reverend Father.—I am sorry for it, replied the Father ”

“ Among the superstitious notions that may be hurtful to Society, it is difficult to imagine one of a worse tendency than that here mentioned, the immediate consequence of which is to render useless all the distinctions implanted in the human mind between evil and good, and, by making offenders easy with themselves, to take off the only punishment that is left for the greater number of crimes. ”

“ So many and so great works of sanctity and christian charity, in short, were then performed by both Men and Women, that it seemed as if an universal apprehension had seized Mankind, that the divine Power was preparing either to consume them by fire, or destroy them by shaking the earth, or some other of those means which divine Justice knows how to employ for avenging crimes. ”

“ It is well with me, said Hugh; but because I have refused, while I was alive, to receive discipline, there has hardly been a single Devil in the whole infernal empire, but who gave me a smart lash, as I was in my way to Purgatory.’
Others, in order to bring flagellations into still greater credit, have supposed that the Devils themselves were so sensible of the merit that was in them, that they would occasionally practise them upon each other. ”

“ Men who, upon particular solemnities, used to strip themselves stark naked; in this situation they ran about the streets, carrying straps of leather in their hands, with which they struck the Women they met in their way. Nor did those Women run away from them; on the contrary, they willingly presented the palms of their hands to them, in order to receive their blows; imagining, through a superstitious notion received among the Romans, that these blows, whether applied to their hands or to their belly, had the power of rendering them fruitful, or procuring them an easy delivery. ”

“ Perhaps it will be asked here, how Priests and Confessors have been able to introduce the use of such a painful practice as flagellation, among the persons who choose to be directed by them in religious matters, and how they can enforce obedience to the prescriptions they give them in that respect. But here it must be remembered, that Penance has been made a Sacrament among Catholics, and that Satisfaction, as may be seen in the Books that treat of that subject, is an essential part of it, and must always precede the Absolution on the part of the Confessor. ”

“ It really seems that, in our part of the world, where the Arts and Sciences have been promoted to so high a degree, and the powers of the human mind carried to their utmost extent, we have, in regard to the folly and ignorance of our superstitious notions and customs, been equal to any Nation upon earth, to any of those Nations whom we despise most: nay, perhaps it might be strictly proved that we have been worse. ”

“ In the first place, since Monks are so celebrated for their love of good dinners, and even entertain such high notions of the value of a plentiful table, as to have rated the hardship of living upon bread and water, at that of receiving a hundred lashes a day, we may naturally suppose, that, when their mess is served upon the table, their attention is so agreeably engaged by the presence of that object, that they presently run to it, wholly regardless of any trifling flagellation that may afterward be the consequence of such expedition. ”

“ Besides, if a Disciple is of such a mean disposition that he is not mended by censures, he will, like a bad Slave, grow equally insensible to blows. Lastly, if Masters acted as they ought, there would be no occasion for chastisement; but the negligence of Teachers is now so great, that, instead of causing their Disciples to do what they ought, they content themselves with punishing them for not having done it. Besides, though you may compel the obedience of a Boy, by using the rod, what will you do with a young Man, to whom motives of a quite different nature must be proposed? ”

“ I once saw a Gentleman flagellate a saucy young fish-women, with all the flounders in her basket. Among Saints, some, like Dominic the Cuirassed, have used besoms: others, like St. Dominic the Founder of the Dominican Order, have used iron chains; others, like Gualbert, have employed knotted leather-thongs; others have used nettles, and others thistles. A certain Saint, as I have read in the Golden Legend, had no discipline of his own, but constantly took, to discipline himself with, the very first thing that came under his hand, such as the tongs for the fire, or the like. ”

“ But besides these serious dangers into which a too curious examination of one’s-self may lead, there are others very well worth mentioning: I mean to speak of the acts of pride, vanity, self-admiration and complacency, to which the above curiosity may give rise. Vanity and a disposition to admire one’s-self, are dispositions that are but too general among Mankind; and there is hardly a time in life at which we may be said to be perfectly cured of such worldly affections. On this occasion I shall produce the following anecdote, which is related by Brantôme. ”

“ That unexperienced Nuns should be led, by their disciplines, into faults of a similar kind, are therefore very natural apprehensions. Being thoroughly engaged in the contemplation of those beauties which they expose to light, it is no wonder that all their thoughts of a religious kind should vanish: and they even may very well in the issue, inchanted as they are by what they are beholding, intirely forget and neglect those pious exercises which they have purposely retired to their cell to perform. ”

“ AS it was the constant practice of Priests and Confessors, to prescribe flagellation as a part of the satisfaction that was owing for committed sins, the opinion became at last to be established, that, receiving this kind of correction, was not only an useful, but even an indispensable act of submission: without it penitence was thought to be a body without a soul; nor could there be any such thing as true repentance. Hence the Church itself at large, became also in time to claim a power of imposing castigations of the kind we mention, upon naked sinners ”

“ Among other crimes the above Fulk had committed, he had killed with his own hand Conan, Duke of Britanny. He had performed three pilgrimages to the Holy Land; and on the last, meaning to render his penance complete and perfectly unexceptionable, he caused himself to be drawn naked upon a hurdle, with a halter round his neck, through the streets of Jerusalem. Men who had been directed so to do, lashed him by turns, with scourges; and a person appointed for that purpose, cried at certain intervals, Lord! have mercy on the traitor and forswearer Fulk. ”

“ In Summer, they may settle themselves in a cool place; in Winter, near a good fire; and have constantly by them some excellent liquor, to refresh themselves with, during the different pauses they think proper to make.
They may moreover use just what degree of severity they choose. They even may, like Sancho, who only lashed the trees around him, or like the Hermit mentioned by La Fontaine, content themselves with flagellating the walls of their apartment: nay, they may perform no flagellation at all, and yet make afterwards what boast they please. ”

“ All the above facts shew how much hardship, practice really may bring Men to bear: and the feats of the above Penitents are not, after all, much more surprising than the prowess of the illustrious Buckhorse, in this Country, who submitted to receive boxes upon any part of his body, and as stoutly applied as people chose to lay them on, for six-pence apiece: he only covered his stomach with his arms across it; and the whole was meant as an advantageous exercise for those who proposed to improve themselves in the art of boxing. ”

“ Tertullian observes, that ‘Nature has made either fear or shame, the attendants of every evil action.’ Now, if we judge from this rule, we shall become convinced of the truth of the observations we are making here. In fact, what Man or Woman could, without fear or shame, execute a lower discipline in company with other persons? who could without reluctance firk their loins and posteriors with rods, on an exalted place, and in the middle of a numerous Assembly of People? ”

“ It is true, every body looks with detestation upon the action of the Princess of Gonzaga, commonly called the fair Juliet, who caused a Gentleman to be assassinated, who had assisted her in making her escape from the Town of Fondi, which the celebrated Corsair Barbarossa had surprised during the night, with a view, as it is said, to seize upon her person, in order to make a present of her to the Grand-Signior,—being incensed at the remembrance of the Gentleman having seen her run in her shift, across the fields, by moon-light. ”

“ But now, behold what kind of favour the Divine Will is going to bestow upon him. He begins to vociferate, and, by purposely contrived lies, to upbraid and accuse himself in the same manner as if he had been guilty of having entertained bad designs against the mysteries of their holy Religion. He then proceeds to award a sentence of punishment against himself; and at the same time grasping his scourge, an instrument which those Priests [87] constantly wear about them, and which is made of twisted woollen cords armed with small bones, he lashes himself with repeated blows ”

“ On the other hand, the gloomy affectation of sanctity which is mixed with the festivity and pageantry of those disciplining solemnities, gives the whole an air of hypocrisy, which is in some degree disgusting, and the degree of real cruelty with which they are attended, cannot but compleat the aversion of such persons as use has not reconciled to the thought of them.
The festival of the Lupercalia that was performed in Rome, had indeed greatly the advantage of all the ceremonies of the kind that ever were instituted. ”

“ But while the persons we speak of have endeavoured to prevent dangers of one kind, they have incurred others which are still worse. By most of the antient Monastic Rules, religious persons were forbidden to inspect any part of their naked bodies, for fear of the wicked thoughts to which such indulgence might give rise: now, how is it possible for persons who strip intirely naked, in order to take discipline, to help, however great their piety may be, having a sight of those parts of themselves which they have been directed never to look on? ”

“ However, these stark-naked processions performed by the Cynic Philosophers, by the Adamites, the Turlupins, the Picards, and by Brother Juniperus, never met, we find, with any great and lasting countenance from the Public; and, as beatings without nakedness, that is mere bastinadoes, have generally been considered as being but dull and unmeritorious acts of penance, and accordingly never experienced any degree of encouragement, so, nakedness without beatings, has been but indifferently practiced or relished. ”

“ In the latter Country, in Spain, the flagellating Solemnities we speak of, have received a peculiar turn from the peculiar manners of the Inhabitants; and they are (which is certainly extraordinary) as well operations or scenes of gallantry, as acts of devotion. Lovers will frequently go, at the head of a procession of friends, and discipline themselves under the windows of their Mistresses: or, when they pass by chance under these windows, with a procession to which they belong, they redouble the smartness of their flagellations. ”

“ I will take this occasion to inform the Reader, that Monks, or persons of religious dispositions, do not always mean, in the penances they impose on themselves, to atone for their sins, which they do not by any means consider as being in proportion to the number of their flagellations. They practise mortifications of this kind, either for the good of other persons, or for delivering souls from Purgatory, or in order (as the Reader may see from the words above quoted) to increase their own merit, and, like the Fakir mentioned in a former place, go of course to the thirty-fifth Heaven. ”

“ However, notwithstanding the opinion of the Poet Lafontaine, it seems that an exhibition of charms and attractions, even superior to what takes place in the New World, is common in Russia; which is certainly a part of our Old World: the Reader may see in the accounts given by Travellers, that individuals of both Sexes, after some stay in the hot-baths and stoves in use in that Country, will rush out promiscuously together, stark-naked, playing, and delightfully rolling themselves in the snow. ”

“ How could it be possible [32] that an unhappy Friar, who lives in certain modern Monasteries, should not have his skin torn from head to foot, since it is a constant practice among them to discipline themselves three or four times every week, during the whole time that the Miserere, the De Profundis [9] , and the Salve Regina, are singing, with a melodious, though slow, voice; and that too so heavily, and in such earnest, that the rattling of the blows resounds on all sides? ”

“ As for the dreadful noise that was to be heard in the Saint’s room, it was the natural consequence of the hard struggle that took place between her and the Devil, while they were thus striving who should flog the other.
The Saints who inhabit Paradise have also been supposed to have occasionally recourse to flagellations; not, to be sure, to inflict them any longer upon themselves; but to chastise, at the request of their friends, those who persecuted them. ”

“ Carrying a discipline constantly about one, like the above Dominic, and making an ostentatious display of it, are among the number of those characteristical circumstances which are looked upon, in Catholic Countries, as marking hypocrisy: to this notion a frequent allusion is made both in Novels and Plays; thus, the first words of Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite, in the Play of Molière which bears that name, who makes his first appearance only when the Play is somewhat advanced, are to order his Man, with a loud affected voice, to lock up his hair-cloth and discipline. ”

“ Some apology, however, may be made in favour of the action of the Roman Consul. As himself observed upon the spot, the whole business of war would be at an end, if those whose duty it is to obey, were permitted to canvass the orders which they receive, and to set aside what part they please: besides that an allowance should be made for Men of a military life, and who are invested with military command; and some little indulgence, I think, ought to be shewn them, when they happen to inflict flagellations somewhat cavalierly. ”

“ Nay, several persons openly blamed the pious ceremonies in question, during the times of Cardinal Damian; for it was too alarming a practice, for Men not to be concerned at its sudden progress; it was an exercise of too ticklish a nature, for them to suffer themselves [212] to fall asleep on its introduction, or too interesting in its consequence, for them not to be roused by the rattling of the blows.
Among those who thus condemned voluntary flagellations, the most conspicuous was Peter Cerebrosus, a Monk who lived in those times, and was moreover a friend to Cardinal Damian. ”

“ He at last feigns to fall into a kind of phrenetic fit, pretending that he is replete with the spirit of the Goddess; as if the presence of the Gods ought not to make Men better, instead of rendering them disordered and weak. ”

“ That Gentlewoman having, in the course of the conversation she had with the Knight, dropped several reflections of a very bad kind on the Duchess and the fair Altisidora, who were at that very instant listening at the door, these two Ladies, though justly and greatly offended at the liberty that was thus taken with their character, recurred to no expedient of a coarse and rough kind to avenge the insult; but they immediately applied to the summary, yet smart,—genteel, yet effectual, mode of correction here alluded to, namely, a flagellation. ”

“ Painters, it seems, have not a little helped to establish and strengthen the practices we mention, by their pictures, of which Pope Gregory the Great says, in his Epistle to Serenus Bishop of Marseilles, that they were “the Libraries of ignorant Christians.” In [24] fact, we see they have never represented any of the antient Anchorites, without leaving some spare corner on their canvas, whereupon to place either whips or rods; instruments of which those holy Hermits had not probably made the least use during their lives, and about which they perhaps had never so much as entertained a thought. ”

“ And indeed since Confessors have been able to prevail upon Kings to leave their kingdoms and engage in perilous wars and croisades to the Holy Land, and to induce young and tender Queens to perform on foot pilgrimages to very distant places, it is not difficult to understand how they have been able gradually to prevail upon numbers of their Devotees of both Sexes, to follow practices which they had been so foolish as to adopt for themselves, and to practise, at their own choice, either the lower, or the upper, discipline. ”