Janus

“ 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. ”

“ It is not a splendid copy, but perfect, save a leaf of Index.
I cannot but think the London drags heavily. I miss Janus. And O how it misses Hazlitt! Procter too is affronted (as Janus has been) with their abominable curtailment of his things—some meddling Editor or other—or phantom of one —for neither he nor Janus know their busy friend. But they always find the best part cut out; and they have done well to cut also. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Repente.—A play on the meaning of the English and the form of the Latin word repente is clearly intended.
Line 70. "Denarii dicti, quod denos æris valebant; quinarii, quod quinos" (Varro) .
Line 93. Janus is frequently, though not invariably, represented in mythology as guardian of the entrance to heaven; in which capacity he holds in his right hand a staff, and in his left a key, symbolical of his office (Ovid, Fast. i. 125) . The names of Jupiter and Janus were usually coupled in prayer, as the divinities whose aid it was necessary to invoke at the beginning of any undertaking. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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) . ”

“ To-day, she has come down to the sand, where, with base distended, as if in caricature of crinoline, she perambulates the crowded thoroughfare.
Here is a semi-twin, one base and two trunks. Shall I call it Janus, for its two faces? or will Chang-and-Eng best distinguish this dual unit? Sometimes, one, with tentacles in-tucked and mouth sealed, seems dozing; while his waking brother is busily waving his arms for food. At another time, you may see them both folded together in sleep, like the Babes in the Woods all bestrewn with leaves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Janus is generally represented with two faces, turned in opposite directions, because he was acquainted with the past and future as well as with the present, and because he is considered an emblem of the sun, which opens the day at its rising, and closes the day at its setting.
[Pg 206] In some statues he is represented with one white-haired and bearded face, and the other quite youthful in appearance, while others represent him with three and even four heads. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If he had chanced to meet the Rebel on the stairs, he would scarcely have thought the apparition a spectral manifestation, as the poor little twins had construed the encounter in the library, for old Janus, trembling and terrified, had detailed the significance of the scene in the dining room afterward, and the eagerness of Julius to get away, to be off, had been redoubled. ”

“ Latin, vinum; but do you think that Janus and janin are one?'
'Do I think? Don't the commentators say so? Does not Master Leo Abarbenel say so in his Dialogues of Divine Love?'
'But,' said I, 'I always thought that Janus was a god of the ancient Romans, who stood in a temple open in time of war, and shut in time of peace; he was represented with two faces, which—which—'
'He—he—he!' said the Rabbi, rising from his seat; 'he had two faces, had he? And what did those two faces typify? You do not know; no, nor did the Romans who carved him with two faces know why they did so ”

“ 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? ”

“ It was fabled that Janus daily threw open the gate of day whence janua was the Latin for a gate, and janitor means a keeper of the gate.
All men were supposed to be under the safeguard of Janus, and all women under that of Juno, whence the guardian spirit of a man was termed his genius and that of a woman her juno. The words genius and genie are evidently cognate with the Arabian jinn, meaning a spirit. In Ireland the fairies or “good people” are known as the “gentry” ”

“ Jānus, the most ancient king who reigned in Italy. He was a native of Thessaly, and son of Apollo, according to some. He came to Italy, where he planted a colony and built a small town on the river Tiber, which he called Janiculum. Some authors make him son of Cœlus and Hecate; and others make him a native of Athens. During his reign, Saturn, driven from heaven by his son Jupiter, came to Italy, where Janus received him with much hospitality, and made him his colleague on the throne. ”

“ The attempts which have been made for three hundred years, and more, to create a fictitious foundation for the present constitution of the Catholic Church, and to brand it with the specious appellation of forgery—these inglorious attempts, we say, have in our days been renewed by Janus and his deluded admirers. If Janus hoped to strengthen his position by a novel method, we dare assert his signal failure—indeed, our enemies have secured a poor and feeble leader. ”

“ Is it Janus, the founder of the Janiculum, and Saturn, the author of the Saturnian state? Is it Fauna Fatua, [1] the wife of Faunus, who is called the Good Goddess, but who is better and more deserving of praise in the drinking of wine? ”

“ We are utterly in the dark [1249] .
On this day the Rex sacrorum offered a ram (to Janus?) in the Regia. Ovid says [1250] that though the meaning of Agon is doubtful,
ita rex placare sacrorum
Numina lanigerae coniuge debet ovis. It is provokingly uncertain whether this ram was actually sacrificed to Janus: Varro does not say so, and Ovid only implies it [1251] . But we may perhaps assume it on the ground that once at least in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales [1252] the ram is mentioned as Janus’ victim. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Come, don't let us separate from each other with sarcasms, but rather let us allow that religion, like Janus, or, better still, like the Brahman god of death, Yama, has two faces, and like him, one very friendly and one very sullen. ”

“ But if they thought that the blessed life is begun in this world, and perfected beyond the world, and for that reason attributed to Janus, that is, to the world, only the power of beginnings, they should certainly have preferred Terminus to him, and should not have shut him out from the number of the select gods. Yet even now, when the beginnings and ends of temporal things are represented by these two gods, more honour ought to have been given to Terminus. For the greater joy is that which is felt when anything is finished ”

“ Such developments of the original Janus were no doubt as old as the State itself. In the Salian hymn he is already ‘deorum deus’ [1284] , and ‘duonus cerus’ [1285] , which Festus tells us meant creator bonus. But even in the State there are, as we have seen, sufficiently clear traces of his original nature to forbid us to attribute these titles to any lofty and abstract philosophical ideas of religion. ”

“ A trace of his relation to the oak may be found in the oak-woods of the Janiculum, the hill on the right bank of the Tiber, where Janus is said to have reigned as a king in the remotest ages of Italian history. ”

“ Therefore the body of the world alone is not God, but either the soul of it alone, or the soul and the body together, yet so as that it is God not by virtue of the body, but by virtue of the soul. If, therefore, Janus is the world, and Janus is a god, will they say, in order that Jupiter may be a god, that he is some part of Janus? For they are wont rather to attribute universal existence to Jupiter; whence the saying, "All things are full of Jupiter." ”

“ 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 ”

“ The inevitable conclusion which forces itself on every mind is, that Janus has developed the doctrine of infallibility to suit his own fancy, and consequently the arguments he brings forward, supposing them true for discussion's sake, would indeed undermine the position assumed by himself, but in no way affect the genuine one propounded by his opponents. ”

“ We have here an unconscious confession. 'Janus' is strictly an appeal from the light of faith to the light of history, that is, from the supernatural to the natural order; a process, as I have said again and again, consistent in Protestants and Rationalists: in Catholics, simply heretical. ”

“ No reasonable man, much less a theologian, could object to such a mode of proceeding. The authors of Janus, wishing to cede to none in their loyal devotion to Catholic truth, could make ample use of that liberty of scientific discussion and historical investigation for or against the question of infallibility, and no charge of "radical aversion," as they seemed to apprehend, could be brought against their work. ”

“ 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 ”