Germanus of Auxerre

“ The orthodox pillars of the British Church were alarmed, and they sent pressing messages [51] across the sea to invite their Gallic brethren to send able champions over to overcome the heresy. It was probably to Auxerre and Troyes, in the first instance, that they made their appeal, and it is recorded that at a synod held at Troyes it was decided that Germanus should proceed to Britain along with Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, who had been formerly a monk of Lérins. Whatever may be the truth about this alleged Gallic synod, Germanus went with higher authority and prestige ”

“ Presumptious shaveling! what thinkest thou I care for thy preachments?"
"O Gwrtheyrn, egregious sinner!" said Germanus. "Know that we have power behind us. Ambrosius, who is near at hand with his army, will soon be here, to punish or to break thee. Who will comfort thee with the rites of holy Church if we proclaim thee outcast? Fortunate art thou if thou escape so easily. Lupus and I will fast upon the Lord God until He grant our demands concerning thee. Ere many days, heaven will pour down fire upon thee, to shrivel up thee and thine and all thine ill-famed land!" ”

“ The pious soldiers of the Church would fall upon the Lutherans and put them to death. The city would be purged of all those seeds of the gospel and liberty which were choking, within its walls, the ancient and glorious plants of feudalism and popery. Finally to complete their work, the conquerors would share the property of the vanquished, which the bishop had in anticipation confiscated for their benefit, and Geneva, forever bound to Rome, would thus become its slave and never its rival. ”

“ Germain is famous for its antiquity, and also because it contains, besides the tombs of 107 sainted bishops, those of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, father of Hugues Capet of France, as well as of other dukes of Burgundy, and counts of Auxerre; (for the county of Auxerre belonged by turns to France and her turbulent province.) It was united to the crown in Charles the Fifth’s reign, ceded to the duchy by Charles the Sixth, and became finally French when Charles the Téméraire, last sovereign of Burgundy, was killed before Nancy. ”

“ On the third night, at the third hour, fire fell suddenly from heaven, and totally burned the castle. Vortigern, the daughter of Hengist, his other wives, and all the inhabitants, both men and women, miserably perished: such was the end of this unhappy king, as we find written in the life of St. Germanus.
§ 48.Others assure us, that being hated by all the people of Britain, for having received the Saxons, and being publicly charged by St. Germanus and the clergy in the sight of God, he betook himself to flight ”

“ Luther had burnt the bull from Rome; he had said before the Diet of Worms, I cannot do otherwise. The Reformation was advancing with great strides at Wittemberg, and was spreading over all Germany. And yet it was just at this time that Geneva received a Roman bishop almost with enthusiasm; but if the energetic city should be 293 disappointed in its expectations, we shall see it rise up against all the framework of Rome and overthrow it without leaving a single piece in its place.
For the moment men indulged in the most flattering hopes. ”

“ At the period of the Burgundian conquest Geneva possessed a bishop, and the invasion of the Germans soon gave this prelate considerable power. Gifted with intelligence far superior to that of the men by whom they were surrounded, respected by the barbarians as the high-priests of Rome, knowing how to acquire vast possessions by slow degrees, and thus becoming the most important personages in the cities where they resided, the bishops laboured to protect their city from 17 abroad and to govern it at home. ”

“ Germanus was a staunch supporter of image worship, and in the case of this bold bishop we have a rare instance of independence on the part of the head ecclesiastic of the Greek Church at Constantinople in opposition to the emperor, which is in marked contrast to the too common subservience of the Constantinople patriarchs. But that fact makes it all the more remarkable that Leo should have so acted as to stir up a hornets' nest just when he was consolidating his power for the security of the empire. ”

“ The Spaniards were filled with a desire of avenging Charles the Fifth, and the Germans were overflowing with hatred against the Pope: all exulted in the hope of receiving their pay and of having their labours richly recompensed at last by the treasures of Christendom that Rome had been accumulating for ages. Their shouts re-echoed beyond the Alps. Every man in Germany thought that the last hour of the Papacy had now come, and prepared to contemplate its fall. "The Emperor's forces are triumphing in Italy," wrote Luther; "the Pope is visited from every quarter. ”

“ Amator assembled his people, told them of his end, and bade them choose a successor and repair to the church. When they were there, he ordered the doors to be locked; and collecting a crowd of clergy and nobles, they seized Germanus by force, cut off his hair, and stripped him of his secular garments, clothed him as a deacon, and told him he was to be next bishop after St. Amator. St. Amator died a few days afterwards, and the clergy and people elected Germanus, and he was obliged to act, though very reluctant. When elected, however, he became another man. He embraced a life of poverty ”

“ And thus it becomes intelligible how the Pope should first combine with Austria for the destruction of heresy, and then conspire with these very heretics for the destruction of Austria. Strangely blended are the threads of human affairs! What would have become of the Reformation, and of the liberties of Germany, if the Bishop of Rome and the Prince of Rome had had but one interest?
France had lost with its great Henry all its importance and all its weight in the political balance of Europe. A turbulent minority had destroyed all the benefits of the able administration of Henry. ”

“ A free city, lying on the confines of the Germanic and Roman world,—a city at war with its bishop, in alliance with the Protestants, and which passes for reformed even before really being so, has been suddenly attacked. A courier from Strasburg brings this news to Augsburg, and it circulates throughout the town with the rapidity of lightning. Three days after Michaelmas, some armed men, sent by the Duke of Savoy, pillaged the suburbs of Geneva, and threatened to take possession of the city, and put all to the edge of the sword. Every one in Augsburg was amazed. ”

“ There was, indeed, in the struggle for the renewal of Christendom, one will which conceived, one personality which acted, one voice which resounded with a force till then almost unknown, and in a thousand directions: it was, next to Luther’s, that of Calvin. But while a great general is indispensable in the day of battle, so also is an army trained by him for energetic conflict. The part which Geneva played in the sixteenth century is not explained by the character of one man alone, but by many concurrent circumstances both moral and political. ”

“ So prominent did he become, that he was specially mentioned by name in the condemnatory decree of the synod which Damasus, bishop of Rome, urged by Athanasius, convened in defence of the Nicene doctrine (A.D. 369) . When the orthodox emperor Valentinian ascended the throne, Auxentius was left undisturbed in his diocese, but his theological doctrines were publicly attacked by Hilary of Poitiers. ”

“ It was the autumn of 1530, and as the chiefs of German catholicism had assembled at Augsburg to deliberate upon the means of destroying protestantism in the empire, the duke and the bishop, the two great enemies of Geneva, appointed a meeting at Gex, at the foot of the Jura, to deliberate on the means of expelling {555} both liberty and the Gospel from the city of the Leman. 'Lutheranism is making considerable progress in Geneva,' said the bishop to the duke; 'attack the city ”

“ Seldom had so many deaths made so many people happy. [728]
The sack of Rome had more important results for Geneva and the protestant nations. When they saw the ruin of that city, it appeared to them that the papacy had fallen with it. The huguenots never grew {422} tired of listening to the wonderful news and of commenting upon it. Struck with the example set them by Charles V., they thought to themselves that 'if the emperor had set aside the bishop and prince of Rome, they might well abandon the prince and bishop of Geneva.' Their right to do so was far clearer. ”

“ But there were politicians also among them, lawyers for the most part, who founded their pretensions on a legal basis. The bishops and princes of Geneva ought by right, as we have seen, to be elected at Geneva and not at Rome, by Genevans and not by Romans. The issue of the struggle was not doubtful. How could the bishop make head against magistrates and citizens relying on positive rights, and against the most powerful aspirations of liberty that were awaking in men's hearts? How could the Roman doctrine escape the floods of the Reformation? ”

“ Are all the Germans bad? Do you not know that the august emperor is a German? Will you say that you mean only the theologians? What noble theologians there are in Germany! But though your accusations are unmeaning in appearance, there is a sting lying under them. I know the venom they contain.... The Germans that you mean are Œcolampadius, Erasmus, Melancthon, Luther, Pomeranus, Bucer, and their friends. But is there a single theologian in Italy so stupid as not to know that there are many things worthy of praise in the works of those doctors?... ”

“ While the Emperor Charles, surrounded by a numerous train of princes, was approaching the banks of the Rhine sad and dispirited, the Evangelical Christians were returning in triumph to their homes. Luther was the herald of the victory gained at Augsburg by Faith. "Though our enemies should have around them, beside them, with them, not only that puissant Roman Emperor, Charles, but still more the Emperor of the Turks and his Mahomet," said he, "they could not intimidate, they could not frighten me. It is I who in the strength of God am resolved to frighten and overthrow them. ”

“ A holy fear took possession of men's souls. They saw Antichrist seated on the pontifical throne. This new idea, an idea which derived great force from the prophetical description, being thrown by Luther into the midst of his age, gave Rome a dreadful shock. Faith in the divine Word was substituted for that, which, till then the Church alone had obtained, and the power of the pope, which had long been adored by the people, became the object of their hatred and terror.
Germany replied to the papal bull by surrounding Luther with acclamation. ”

“ The German princes, who had always sought to diminish the power of Rome in the empire, trembled at the alliance between the emperor and the pope, and feared that it would terminate in the destruction of their liberty. Accordingly, while Charles in his journey through the Low Countries greeted with an ironical smile the burning piles which flatterers and fanatics kindled on the public places with Luther's works, these very writings were read in Germany with a continually increasing eagerness, and numerous pamphlets in favour of the reform were [8] daily inflicting some new blow on the papacy. ”

“ On his return to Syria he suddenly fell ill and died. Agrippina brought his ashes to Italy amid universal mourning; honors almost unexampled in Roman history were paid to his memory; and Piso, accused by the senate of having poisoned him, anticipated his condemnation by a voluntary death. Germanicus is the hero of the “Annals” of Tacitus, and is one of the noblest characters in the history of the Roman empire. ”

“ Then the rumors of the reconciliation of Gardiner with the pope might have alienated the king from him. The crafty man proceeded cleverly and killed two birds with one stone. 'The pope,' he said to the king, 'is doing all he can to ruin you.' Henry, provoked at the mission of Pole, had no doubt of that. 'You ought then, Sire,' continued the bishop, 'to do all that is possible to conciliate the Continental powers, and to place yourself in security from the treacherous designs of Rome. ”

“ The little Greeks won't dare to attack us! And if they really do come, the grandsons of Genseric will destroy the grandsons of Basiliscus just as Genseric destroyed him."
"But we are no longer Genseric's Vandals!" Gelimer lamented. "Genseric brought with him an army of heroes, brave, trained by twenty years of warfare with other Germans and with the Romans in the mountains of Spain, simple, plain in tastes, rigid in morals. He closed the houses of Roman pleasure in Carthage; he compelled all women of light fame to marry or enter convents." ”

“ This letter, which savoured so strongly of the absolute monarch, excited much astonishment in Geneva. The citizens did not deny that the emperor might claim a certain authority over them, since theirs was an imperial city. They have resisted the bishop-prince, they have resisted the duke: will they also resist this powerful sovereign? His demand was clear, and some of them said that to oppose so great a prince would be the height of madness, in a little city of merchants. ”

“ Geneva was about to have greater experience of such contests, and the agitation within her walls was to become fiercer from day to day. Combats without and combats within. The dawning Reformation and the ancient (yet new) liberty will see arrayed against them the bishop, the duke, the emperor, the gentry and their vassals, and the Savoyard troops, besides veteran Italian bands, commanded by some of the ablest captains of the age.... At the same time the battle will rage furiously within. ”