Alexander Jannaeus

“ In this congregation Jansenius was condemned, and the bull of condemnation published, May 31, 1653. After its publication at Paris, the pulpits were filled with violent outcries and alarms against the heresy of the Jansenists. The year 1656 produced the famous “Provincial Letters” of M. Pascal, under the name of Louis de Montalte, in defence of Messieurs de Port Royal, who were looked upon as the bulwark of Jansenism. The same year, Pope Alexander VII. issued another bull, in which he condemned the five propositions of Jansenius. ”

“ The Jansenists indignantly denied that such propositions were to be found in the Augustinus, and that they expressed the sense attributed to them; but Alexander VII., who was now the reigning Pope, declared, by a bull, that the propositions were really to be found in Jansenius’ book. Of all the extravagant pretensions of the Roman See, this was assuredly the greatest. The Jansenists, in their defence, while they declared themselves good and devout Catholics, asserted, nevertheless, that the Pope’s infallibility did not extend to matters of fact. “Why make such a noise?” ”

“ If there is any truth in this conjecture, it may explain very simply the origin of the double head of Janus, which has so long exercised the ingenuity of mythologists. When it had become customary to guard the entrance of houses and towns by an image of Janus, it might well be deemed necessary to make the sentinel god look both ways, before and behind, at the same time, in order that nothing should escape his vigilant eye. For if the divine watchman always faced in one direction, it is easy to imagine what mischief might have been wrought with impunity behind his back. ”

“ At first Jannæus met with much success, but on endeavouring to come to terms with his subjects, they declared that nothing would satisfy them short of his death, and even invoked the aid of Demetrius Euchærus, king of Syria, and in a battle near Shechem utterly routed the priest-king, with the loss of all his mercenaries. Thereupon he fled to the mountains, rallied fresh troops, drove Demetrius from the country, and took the majority of his rebellious subjects prisoners in the fortress of Bethone. ”

“ Quesnel, on hearing of the decree condemning it, exclaimed: "The Pope has proscribed one hundred and one truths!" The whole party echoed this exclamation, and our Netherland sectaries followed the impulse given by the patriarch of Jansenism. This, then, in two words, is the attitude of Jansenism in Holland: it refuses to condemn the sense of Jansenius by signature to the formulary of Alexander VII.; it refuses adherence to the bull Unigenitus. All the efforts made by the Holy See to bring back the Jansenists of Utrecht to Catholic unity have failed, from a persistence in this double refusal. ”

“ Young, spirituelle, very much sought after and the idol of brilliant companions, at the age of twenty-six she abandoned the world to devote herself to God. At thirty-six years of age she died of sorrow and remorse for having signed an equivocal formulary of Pope Alexander VI., "through pure deference to the authority of her superiors." The papal decision concerning Jansenius's book, already mentioned, was drawn up in a formula "turned with some skill, and in such a way that subscription did not bind the conscience; however, the nuns of Port-Royal refused to sign." ”

“ Should Janus not have given up his pleasure to stay and examine into the cause which he had laughed away as a mere nothing—a jest of some discontented courtier of one of the old Greek families who had been in Cyprus before the days of the Lusignans; and all the more if they were always alert for fancied slights?
"If he is discontented and it is a mere nothing, why should he not be summoned to state his grievance?" she had persisted, with a trace of pleading in her attitude that fretted the King. ”

“ His two chief works are the Chronicon januense and the Golden Legend or Lombardica hystoria. The former is partly printed in Muratori (Scriptores Rer. Ital. ix. 6) . It is divided into twelve parts. The first four deal with the mythical history of Genoa from the time of its founder, Janus, the first king of Italy, and its enlarger, a second Janus “citizen of Troy”, till its conversion to Christianity “about twenty-five years after the passion of Christ.” Part v. professes to treat of the beginning, the growth and the perfection of the city ”

“ Consider Janni, Olimpia, if you will not consider yourself.”
“I am considering myself,” she said quickly; “or rather, I am considering the dignity of your wife. The Princess of Emathia may be pardoned a little pride, Romanos—may she not? But Janni is in danger, you say? Well, then, I well yield as far as this. You may post your guards round the house at night. Arrange matters with Despina, and let me hear nothing of them. They must be gone before I come out of doors in the morning, and they must only arrive after dark—I will not walk in the garden late. ”

“ They are men of one mind and both creatures of that treacherous King of Naples. If Janus had had more wit, he would have left Gioan Peres Fabrici to this day, bargaining for his cargoes of grain, instead of naming him to the Council of the Realm and lavishing the honors of the kingdom upon this faithless favorite. ”

“ At least this appears to be a more probable theory than the opinion, which has found favour with some modern scholars, that Janus was originally nothing but the god of doors. That a deity of his dignity and importance, whom the Romans revered as a god of gods and the father of his people, should have started in life as a humble, though doubtless respectable, doorkeeper appears very unlikely. So lofty an end hardly consorts with so lowly a beginning. ”

“ At length, by representing that his life was in danger, he succeeded in persuading him to fly with himself to the court of Aretas, king of Arabia, whom he induced, by promising to restore twelve frontier cities which Jannæus had taken and united to Judæa, to espouse his cause. At the head of 50,000 men Aretas marched into the country, and being joined by the partisans of Hyrcanus, defeated Aristobulus, and closely besieged him in the Temple-fortress at Jerusalem59. ”

“ Januarius,” who always comes in for a large share of their veneration; and this morning having heard that the Neapolitans still present each other with a cake upon New-year’s day, I began to hug my favourite hypothesis closer, recollecting the old ceremony of the wheaten cake seasoned with salt, and called Janualis in the Heathen days. All this however must still end in mere conjecture; for though the weather here favours one’s idea of Janus, who loosened the furrow and liquefied the frost, to which the melting our martyr’s blood might, without much straining of the matter, be made to allude ”

“ Janus, who looked to the past and to the future, was the god whose temple stood always open during war, that he might bring peace upon earth. And in our day it is only the view of the past and the future which can warn us of evils to come, and save us from violence and confusion. ”

“ What, then, is the result the writers of Janus arrive at as to their own position? "Inwardly a great gulf separates" them from such a church and its chief pastor—that is, from Pius IX. and the episcopacy. For in another place (p. 3) he affirms that the doctrines he attacks are "identical with those of the chief head." Does it not follow from these premises that Janus excludes himself from this "centre of unity," as the see of Rome has been called by St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage? ”

“ For the galleys of Cyprus had hitherto been kept armed by force, but recently their crews had been disbanded, in obedience to a strange clause in the will of King Janus. Now, as Mutio di Costanzo went on his way, wrapped in meditations that were not cheering, the question came to him—"Why?"
Janus, whatever his gifts, had been no judge of men—possibly from too strong reliance in his own power to conquer them by his personal charm. Had this disbanding been deftly suggested to the facile King by his friend, the arch-schemer of Naples? ”

“ If Janus and his friends are right, no paradox of the Christian faith is half as great as theirs, which maintains that the true infallibility of the church has not only lain perdu for centuries, but has been impersonated by a growth of falsehood without any interposition on the part of the divine source of infallibility. That, we confess—with all our respect for the wish of Janus to enter a protest on behalf of liberty and civilization—we do find a hypothesis somewhat hard even to listen to. ”

“ The court was full of armed men, amongst whom was Janibas in black armour, riding on a coal black steed. He murmured magic words, and lions rushed out on the heroes. These great beasts were slain, and so were the men-at-arms who followed them. Janibas alone escaped.
Dietrich and his followers entered the castle, where they found three of the queen’s maidens cooped up for fattening, and set them free. After which, they burnt the magician’s fortress, that it might not serve as a refuge to Janibas if he returned to that part of the country. ”

“ This passage, frequently termed a temple, contained a statue of the god, and had two entrances, which were always kept open in time of war and closed in time of peace. They were closed only once during the republic, at the end of the first Punic war, and twice by Augustus. Janus was sometimes represented with two, and sometimes with four faces, and was accordingly styled Bifrons and Quadrifrons. In works of art he frequently has a staff or sceptre in his right hand and a key in his left. ”

“ The known cult-titles of Janus are for the most part explicable in the same way. Geminus, Patulcius, Clusius, and Matutinus, speak for themselves. Junonius probably arose from the concurrence of the cults of Janus and Juno on the Kalends of each month, as Macrobius tells us [1286] . Consivius [1287] is explained by Roscher as connected with serere, and used of Janus as creator (beginner of life: cf. duonus cerus) . ”

“ The little building, half arch, half shrine, which you observe standing free where the roads converge upon the Forum, is the famous sanctuary of Janus, of which the doors are never shut unless there is complete peace throughout the Roman world. So long as Rome is anywhere engaged in a great or little war, the open doors of Janus tell the fact to a people which might otherwise be unconscious of so slight or remote a circumstance. ”

“ She replied that for some years past they had been so questioned about this Jansenius that, even if they had not possessed his works, they would have tried to procure them, as it is against all conscience to speak evil of a person unless you are certain that he deserves it; and that it could only be the obligation under which they were to answer questions which made them read works so far from entertaining as those of Jansenius. ”

“ And I can’t talk your mincing foreign Greek? You will find before very long that I can! I make my bow to you, my Lady. You will know me better when I bring my Jannaki to the window of your dungeon, and teach him to spit upon you!”
Danaë could not have explained why her mistress’s indifference wounded her more than active dislike would have done, but so it was. The company of the two old women, with their taunts and nods of triumph, was equally intolerable, and she never rested until she had found a hiding-place for herself and Janni where they could be by themselves. ”

“ O'er all his bosom secret transports reign, And a glad horror shoots through every vein: 580 To heaven he lifts his hands, erects his sight, And thus invokes the silent queen of night: 'Goddess of shades! beneath whose gloomy reign Yon spangled arch glows with the starry train; You who the cares of heaven and earth allay Till nature, quicken'd by th' inspiring ray, Wakes to new vigour with the rising day: O thou who freest me from my doubtful state, Long lost and wilder'd in the maze of fate, Be present still, O goddess! ”

“ Many of the Jansenists were distinguished for their strict piety, and severe moral discipline. They complained of the corruptions of the church of Rome, censured the licentiousness of the monastic orders, and insisted upon the necessity of reforming their discipline, according to the rules of sanctity, abstinence, and self-denial, that were originally prescribed by their respective founders. The celebrated Pascal, and Quesnel, men eminently distinguished for talents and piety, are ranked among the followers of Jansenius. ”

“ That Prince Theophanis should be proclaimed regent during the illness of Prince Romanos was not to be thought of. Since there was no question of a hereditary dynasty, Janni had no rights that needed protection, and if it was simply a matter of appointing a guardian for him, it would be most incorrect to choose a person who had made himself so prominent in politics. As for the maintenance of government and tranquillity in Emathia, that might safely be left to the Powers. ”

“ But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove One action conduct; one, heroic love. 'Tis from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn; A judge is just, a chancellor juster still; A gownman, learn'd; a bishop, what you will; Wise, if a minister; but, if a king, More wise, more learned, more just, more everything. Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate, Born where Heaven's influence scarce can penetrate: In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like, They please as beauties, here as wonders strike. ”

“ Here, then, we have given another specimen of the "historical fairness" and "canonical erudition" of Janus and associates; and if our authors imagined that it was enough to impose on their readers by the mass of "original authorities," they have indeed succeeded to some extent, and we have but one restriction to make, that is, that they cannot be saved from the charge of deliberate falsification. For, singularly enough, and much to the credit of the historical erudition of Janus, let it be remarked that there is always something in the authorities quoted bearing on the point under discussion. ”