Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Conclusion and Vow of the Author to the Holy Prophets
We have heard the Prophets teaching and thundering; we have followed them step by step, investigating and explaining. We have reached the goal, with God as our guide; we have beheld Isaiah consoling and exulting, Jeremiah complaining and groaning, Ezekiel terrifying and threatening, Daniel proposing his symbols and the riddles of monarchies and kingdoms; we have examined them (as far as the Lord has granted), understood them, and expounded them. We have recognized the patience of the Prophets, we have seen the purpose of the Lord. The Prophets themselves sealed their prophecies with their own blood, and became martyrs. For a Prophet, both in life and in death, must be a martyr, that is, a witness, indeed a herald of truth even unto martyrdom. This is what the Prince of the Prophets, Christ the Lord, asserts: 'It is not fitting that a Prophet should perish outside Jerusalem,' Luke XIII, 33; and: 'Woe to you, Scribes, etc., who build the tombs of the Prophets, etc., and say: If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been their partners in the blood of the Prophets, etc., and you fill up the measure of your fathers,' that is, kill Me, Christ. 'Therefore behold, I send to you Prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some of them you will kill and crucify, etc. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the Prophets and stones those who are sent to you,' Matthew XXIII, 29. Therefore a Prophet is the same as a Martyr.
You therefore, O Isaiah, O Jeremiah, O Ezekiel, O Daniel! You were Prophets of the Lord, and equally you were martyrs; and you, O Daniel! in the lions' den were twice a martyr. O how bravely you confessed the good confession, kept the faith, finished the course! O how happily you received the crown laid up for you, both the doctoral and the agonal! This laurel was decreed by God from eternity as fitting for your prophecy, that you might deserve martyrdom through the doctorate, and by that confirm and adorn it. For the purple laurel, studding and embellishing the green, adorns and illuminates it. The reward of your teaching and preaching was purple, not of kings, but of martyrs. A reward truly exceedingly great, a prize immense and to be envied.
You have made me a sharer in the doctoral laurel of your prophecy: make me, I pray, a sharer also in your martyrdom, that I too may seal with my blood the truth which I have drawn from you, and taught others, and written down. For this doctorate of mine will not be perfected and consummated unless it is likewise sealed and confirmed with this seal. For nearly thirty years, with you and for you, I willingly and gladly undergo the continuous martyrdom of Religious life, the martyrdom of illnesses, the martyrdom of studies and writing; obtain for me, I beg, as a crowning achievement, also the fourth martyrdom, that of blood. I have poured out for you my vital and animal spirits; I shall pour out my blood as well. For all my labor endured over so many years, by which, through God's grace, I have explained you, illuminated you, and made you speak and prophesy in a new language, and have as it were prophesied with you — obtain for me from the Father of lights and of mercies your stipend as a Prophet, namely martyrdom, I say.
And You, O most holy Mother of God! ask the same of Your blessed Son, obtain the same for me. I nearly had it in hand at Louvain, when the city was repeatedly besieged on all sides by heretics, who, since it was stripped of all human defense, were on the verge of invading and occupying it; and especially at your church of Scherpenheuvel, so illustrious with miracles, when, living there, in order to assist pilgrims who came in throngs for devotion through confessions, sermons, and other sacred offices as best I could, in the year 1664, on the very feast of your Nativity, Dutch cavalry suddenly burst in upon it, laying waste everything with sword and flame, and I was surrounded, all but captured and slain. But by the most wondrous providence, I was saved by the most holy Eucharist, which I was carrying with me from your church (lest it be profaned by the heretics), and by your help, which I implored by a vow made to you; when you dispelled all danger from me as if by a miracle. I believe You freed and delayed me for greater labors by which this laurel was to be earned.
If that is so, increase my labors, double them, extend them, even until the completion of the biblical course, so that, when it is finished, I may obtain this crown: but nevertheless do not deprive me, I pray, of the same crown which You have taken from me for a time, but return and restore it intact, and enriched with greater merits, in its due time. For to You, as the Mother of eternal Wisdom and my own Mother, all this labor of mine is dedicated
of Wisdom, and my Mother, all this labor of mine sweats.
O eternal Father, who before the ages predestined us to be conformed to the image of Your Son; who in the time preordained by You called and adopted me into His holy Society, grant, I beseech You, that I may be continually conformed and configured to Him equally in the cross of suffering, and in the light of teaching and holy action. For He is the faithful witness, the Prince of Doctors, Prophets, and Martyrs. Impress upon me His likeness, which You showed me on Mount Calvary.
O Lord Jesus, our love! by the merits of Your most holy Mother and of the Prophets, grant me that very thing which I so earnestly ask: make me share in Your crowns and theirs, whose labors and office I share. You said and promised: 'He who receives a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophet's reward.' I have received Prophets, not just one Prophet; indeed I have run with them and prophesied: I have received You, the Prince of the Prophets, as the master and spouse of my soul: grant therefore also the laurel of martyrdom decreed by You for prophecy, which for so many years and with so many vows I have constantly demanded and continue to demand. In a thousand ways, which You keep stored in the treasures of Your providence, You can most easily grant it to me, even in the midst of Christians, as You have granted it to many. They were the times of Theodosius, when St. John Chrysostom, driven into exile and death by Eudoxia and rival bishops, received as the reward of his golden mouth and free reproof the prize of martyrdom; and compelled to die by a slow but cruel death through continual journeys night and day, hunger, thirst, the heat of the sun, fever, and other afflictions, not once but ten times a martyr, he gloriously triumphed over his enemies and over death itself. They were the times of Heraclius, when St. Martin the Pope, excommunicating Paul the Monothelite Patriarch of Constantinople, was by order of the Emperor Constans
treacherously seized by the Exarch Calliopas in the Lateran church, and sent to Constans, whom he most bravely resisted to his face: wherefore, having been banished by him to Cherson, worn out by hunger and hardships, he died joyfully and gloriously, achieving a noble martyrdom for Christ and the orthodox faith in the year of Christ 654, truly the steadfast and glorious happiness of his own unhappy times. They were the times of Justinian, not of Nero, not of Diocletian, when Pope Silverius, in a Christian city, among Christians, from Christians, won the palm of martyrdom. Similar events occurred when Popes John and Felix obtained the same, with You assuredly giving and providing it. Behold, You have called me to Rome, so that in Rome I might live among the prophets and martyrs. I daily tread the reddened earth, still almost dripping with the blood of St. Paul and of three hundred thousand martyrs; these I behold daily with my eyes, ears, and mind; these sharpen my thirst for their martyrdom; these cast the flames of their ardor upon me; so that I consider it shameful, among so many domestic doctor-martyrs, to be an external doctor and not a martyr. Therefore fulfill this vow of mine, You who fulfill the desire of Your servants with good things. Grant, O Lord, not an idle life; grant not a death in bed as my death; grant rather that I may die with Christ on wood or by iron, and seek a beautiful death through wounds. This one seal alone remains for this writing and teaching of mine; grant it, I pray, if not for my merits, then certainly for Your truth which I have written. You planted this desire in me long ago from the very moment of my entry into this holy Religious Order; therefore grant and accomplish in reality at the entrance of my life what You made me so ardently desire, for Your everlasting praise and the glory of Your Church, that by word and example I may confirm Your oracles, and that even after death, with the blood of Abel, I may cry out to posterity through all future ages: LIVE FOR GOD, LIVE FOR HEAVEN, LIVE FOR ETERNITY. For this is the whole of man.
Doxology of Eternal Wisdom from the Deeds and Visions of Daniel
I. In many ways and by many means You have spoken, O Lord, to the Prophets: but most recently through dreams and riddles You have spoken to Daniel, the wisest among the sons of men.
Daniel with his three companions abstained from meat and wine in Babylon: therefore You gave them wisdom, and to Daniel prophecy.
I confess to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and from those devoted to their belly: and You have revealed them to the little ones and to the abstinent.
Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing before You: thus it was fitting that the mother of wisdom be humility and abstinence, so that those who fast in the belly may be fed in the mind.
II. The king saw a statue of gold, silver, bronze, and iron: but a stone cut from the mountain shattered it.
Daniel sees four kingdoms foretold here, and with these overthrown, a fifth kingdom of kingdoms: which shall never be destroyed.
Therefore the king worshiped Daniel and exalted him on high: and he made him ruler over all the provinces of Babylon.
III. The king erected a golden statue and ordered it to be worshiped as a divinity: the three youths abominated the idol.
Let the idols of the nations perish: which are silver and gold, the works of men's hands.
For behold our God is in heaven, who made heaven and earth: He Himself can deliver us from the furnace of burning fire.
The raging king casts them into the blazing furnace: the martyrs pray, standing in the flames.
As in a holocaust of rams and bulls, and as in thousands of fat lambs: so let our sacrifice be in Your sight today: O Lord, let us become a living victim, pleasing to You.
Soon an angel was present with them, drove out the flame of fire: and made the middle of the furnace like a breeze of dew blowing.
The fire did not touch them at all: nor did it grieve them, nor bring any distress.
Therefore bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord: bless the Lord, you angels of the Lord.
Bless the Lord, you heavens: bless the Lord, every spirit of God.
Bless the Lord, fire and heat: bless the Lord, frost and cold.
Bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord: bless the Lord, you holy and humble of heart.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good: for His mercy endures forever.
IV. The proud king saw a lofty tree, and heard: Cut it down: let his heart be changed from a human one, and let the heart of a beast be given to him.
In the decree of the watchers it is determined: until the living know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men.
Daniel said: This is the interpretation: They will cast you out, O king, from among men, and your dwelling will be with the beasts and wild animals.
You will eat grass like an ox, and be drenched with the dew of heaven: seven times will be changed over you, until you recognize the kingdom of the Most High.
Soon the word was fulfilled, the king cast out ate grass like an ox for seven years: then, returning to himself, he proclaimed the great works of God.
For His power is an everlasting power: and all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing before Him.
There is none who can resist His hand: He who can humble those who walk in pride.
V. Belshazzar, drunk, praised his gods of gold and silver: soon he sees a hand writing on the wall: Mene, Tekel, Peres.
To whom Daniel said: The God who holds your life in His hand, and all your ways, you have not glorified: you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven.
Therefore Mene — God has numbered your kingdom and brought it to an end.
Tekel — you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Peres — your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
VI. Daniel worships God: therefore, by his rivals, with Darius vainly resisting, he is cast into the den of lions.
God sent His angel and shut the mouths of the lions; because justice was found in him before God.
VII. Daniel sees four monarchies, like beasts: a lioness, a bear, a leopard, and a monster with ten horns.
The Ancient of Days sat: His throne was a flame of fire, His wheels a burning fire.
His garment was white as snow, a river of fire rushed forth from before His face.
Thousands of thousands ministered to Him: and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him.
These are the myriads of Seraphim and Cherubim: the judgment sat, and the books were opened.
Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man: and He gave Him power, and honor, and a kingdom: all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him.
The Saints of God Most High shall receive the kingdom: and they shall possess the kingdom forever and ever.
The kingdom, and the power, and the greatness of the kingdom, which is under all heaven, shall be given to the people of the Saints of the Most High: whose kingdom is everlasting, all kings and creatures shall obey Him.
VIII. Daniel, under the figure of a goat striking down a ram, saw Alexander striking down Darius.
From Alexander descended Antiochus Epiphanes: who cast down the holy place, and took away the daily sacrifice.
How long, O Lord, shall the daily sacrifice, and the sanctuary, and the strength be trampled?
Until the evening and the morning, two thousand three hundred days, and the sanctuary shall be cleansed.
IX. When, O Lord and Master, shall the seventy years of the desolation of Jerusalem be fulfilled?
We have sinned, we have acted wickedly: to You, O Lord, belongs justice, but to us confusion of face.
Gabriel flies to Daniel: Hear, he says, O man of desires: seventy weeks have been shortened.
X. That the Holy of Holies may be anointed: that Christ may be slain, that sin may come to an end, that everlasting justice may be brought in.
Behold a man clothed in linen, girded with a belt of gold, His face like lightning, His eyes like a burning lamp, His arms and legs like glowing bronze: Understand, He said, O man of desires.
From the first day that you set your heart to understand, that you might afflict yourself in the sight of God: your words have been heard.
In this first year of Darius and Cyrus, the Jews shall be freed from Babylon.
But the prince of the Persians resisted me: and behold Michael came to my aid.
XI. Hear the wars between the kings of the North and the South, between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies.
From the Seleucids shall come forth Antiochus: who shall set up the abomination of desolation.
But the people who know their God shall prevail and act: and the learned among the people shall teach many.
Many of them shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by plunder for a time: that they may be refined, and chosen, and made white.
Antiochus, and his antitype the Antichrist, shall be exalted on high: he shall speak great things against the God of gods.
He shall be given to the lusts of women: he shall worship the god Maozim in his place.
He shall rule over the treasures of gold and silver, and all the precious things of Egypt: through Libya also and Ethiopia he shall pass.
He shall pitch his tent at Apadno between the seas, upon the glorious and holy mountain: there he shall be struck down, and no one shall help him.
XII. In that time Michael shall arise, who stands for the children of the people of God.
Then every faithful and patient one shall be saved, who shall be found written in the book of life.
For all who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to eternal life, others to eternal reproach.
But those who have been learned shall shine like the splendor of the firmament; and those who instruct many unto justice, like stars for all eternity.
Hear these things, O doctors; hear, O martyrs, strive for this glory, for these crowns, by teaching the world by word and example.
Daniel is amazed and prays: How long, O Lord, until the end of these wonders?
The angel raised his hands to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever: that it shall be for a time and times and half a time.
Blessed is he who waits and arrives at one thousand three hundred thirty-five days.
But you, go to the appointed end: and you shall rest, and you shall stand in your lot at the end of days.
XIII. Susanna, caught in a trap by the adulterous elders, groaned: I am beset on every side.
For if I do this, it is death for me: but if I do not, I shall not escape your hands.
But it is better for me to fall into your hands without the deed, than to sin in the sight of the Lord.
Weeping, she looked up to heaven: O eternal God, who are the knower of hidden things, You know that they have borne false testimony against me: and behold I die, though I have done none of these things.
God heard the voice of the innocent one, and raised up the spirit of the boy Daniel who judged them.
O you grown old in evil days, now your sins have come upon you: the angel of God will cut you in two.
You offspring of Canaan and not of Judah, beauty has deceived you
the angel of the Lord stands ready to cut you in two and destroy you.
One under a mastic tree, the other under a holm oak, each lied that he had seen her sinning.
Therefore the people stoned them, and freed the innocent Susanna.
XIV. Daniel overthrew Bel and killed the dragon; therefore the Chaldeans cast him into the den of lions.
He played with the lions as with lambs: they gave homage to the holy one.
An angel carried Habakkuk with his basket from Judea to Babylon: Daniel, he said, servant of God, take this meal, which God has sent you.
Let them confess to the Lord His mercies: and His wonders to the sons of men.
He who has power over all flesh, who kills and gives life; who leads down to the gates of death, and brings back.
Hope in Him, all you who fear Him: He is the protector of all who hope in Him.
He guards them as the pupil of His eye, and leads them unharmed through fire and water.
The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, my lot in the land of the living.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: As it was in the beginning, and now, and always, and forever and ever, Amen.
To the Most Holy Trinity: The Threefold Jubilee and Vow of the Prophets
I. Behold for You, O Holy Trinity, a new and numerous triad of groups of four Cherubim, with a threefold chorus, I say, of four voices celebrating You, and with a harmonious concert of diverse tongues continually acclaiming You with the Seraphim: "Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth." These are the twelve Prophets, Your heralds and musicians, namely twelve Apostles, Evangelists, and Choristers of the Old Testament, who, distributed into three groups of four, like three choirs of heavenly music, surround You, and ministering to You stand about You, and in a threefold Cherubic chariot carry the name and glory of the Holy Trinity throughout the whole world, spreading it in song. With these, by commenting on them, I sing in response with the alternating choir of the Seraphim: "Holy God, holy mighty one, holy immortal one: the whole earth is full of Your glory." Receive these my labors upon Your Prophets: receive my proclamations of Your Majesty, though they be poor. "For from my mother's womb You are my God: upon You I was cast from the womb." So "St. Ignatius," the third Bishop of Antioch after St. Peter, "saw a vision of angels praising the Holy Trinity with responsorial hymns, and he handed on the manner of the vision to the Church of Antioch; whence this tradition spread to all the Churches, and this is the origin of responsorial hymns," says Socrates, book VI of his History, chapter 8, namely: "Blessed is the leisure of happy minds; the constant business of pious doxology; and the soul that has once plunged into the divinity is fed on nothing but its delights and praises:" in the recitation and explanation of which, therefore, let all honor be to the Holy Trinity, beauty to the Church, savor to readers, and labor to me.
Let this therefore, O Most Holy Trinity, and threefold Unity, and one Deity, be a new jubilee, in which I jubilate before You with the twelve melodious voices of the Prophets, as with musicians, in this new Jubilee of the holy year, the third which in this life You have granted me to see and celebrate for the full remission of sins, for grace and sanctity: in which likewise we see, congratulate, and rejoice that the three enemies of Your Prophets and Your Church, by battles and triumphs almost unheard of since the beginning of the world, have been crushed or subdued through three kings under Your auspices. The innumerable forces and formidable strength of the Turks You have worn down through the Most Serene King of Poland, Sigismund III Jagiellon, great-grandson of St. Casimir, avenger of the Muscovites and Tartars, with so many defeats; that if the other princes had come to his aid, it would already have been the end of the Ottoman empire. Moreover, he willingly gave up his ancestral kingdom of Sweden, lest he lose the faith and God: this loss of a small dominion for Your sake, You compensated him a hundredfold with ample triumphs and dominions in Muscovy, Poland, Livonia, Wallachia, Russia, and Asia.
II. Moreover, You have bound the foremost kings together with the close bond of marriages, and have inspired in all of them the same zeal for extirpating seditious and rebellious heresy. For You gave them this wisdom, to clearly recognize that a kingdom is weak and unfit for war in which citizens fight among themselves over religion, where heretics fight to the death for their perfidy, and treacherously betray and destroy not only their fellow citizens but also their princes; for the dissent of faith and religion necessarily begets dissent in the Church and in the state, and that a mortal one, so that an orthodox king is not master and king of his own kingdom, so long as such heresy and heretics rage within it — heretics who are accustomed to stir up seditions, open the way for the Turk, and incite neighboring princes to war. For by what reason to their own king
can they be faithful, who are injurious to God, blasphemous, unfaithful? By what reason can they keep faith with their prince, who have violated the faith given to Christ and the Church, and continually and obstinately violate it, and who arm and defend their perfidy with rebellion? This is not the fault of their nature or their character, but of frenzy — I mean of seditious and faithless heresy. You have opened the eyes of kings, so that they might clearly see this, and therefore each one rose up against Calvinism as the plague of his kingdom. Thus You gave to the most Christian King of France, Louis XIII, heir and emulator of St. Louis, courage and strength beyond his age, so that he might wrest from the Huguenots by armed force the many cities and fortresses they had occupied, and compel nearly all the rest to surrender — something none of his predecessors had dared to conceive, let alone attempt; so that he is now king of all France, who three years before seemed to be only a halved and precarious king of part of it. Likewise You adorned the unconquered Emperor Ferdinand, the hope and pillar of Germany, with so many and such great victories, and those continuous, that with You manifestly fighting for him, he can rightly say that saying of Julius Caesar, or rather of his great-uncle Emperor Charles V: "I came, I saw, Christ conquered." And that of Deborah, Judges 5: "The Lord chose new wars, He Himself overthrew the gates of the enemy, etc. From heaven they fought against them: the stars remaining in their order and course fought against Sisera."
For like a thunderbolt his victorious army, under the Duke of Bavaria, as if a revived Judas Maccabeus, swept through and subdued Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Hungary, and both Palatinates, and from these expelled and routed the patriarchs of heretics the Hussites, and the torches of rebellion the Calvinists: in this matter distinguished commanders from Italy and Belgium also splendidly performed their parts, sent opportunely to his aid with strong forces by the excellent Catholic king; so that now Germany, freed from its rotten and pestilential members that have been cut away, can be restored, recover its strength, and gather its former vigor and power: which, once collected and strengthened, she may dare not only to resist the Turks, but also to provoke them to war and invade them, and to reclaim and recover Hungary, lost to the dissension of heresy, with the united arms of the Germans and their neighbors. This will be their eternal glory, these their immortal triumphs, these the trophies that will endure for all time. Onward, noble princes, continue with great hearts, finish the work begun under such happy auspices, with equal zeal uproot everywhere the rebellious heresy of Calvin, now nearly eradicated.
III. Wherefore let it be far from the Christian heart of the faithful to strive to help or support heretics rebelling against their orthodox prince. For whoever helps heretics helps and defends heresy, and attacks the very faith and Church of Christ. Whoever helps rebels helps and defends rebellion. Therefore by God's just judgment, retaliation shall be rendered to him, so that he is punished in the very thing in which he sinned, and is harassed by heretics with war, and by subjects with rebellion; so that what he unjustly did to others, he justly suffers from his own. Wisely does Thucydides say, book I: "No prince should be prevented from justly punishing his own subjects: and he who does so establishes an equal law against himself, that he too may not punish his own offenders." Thus Jehoshaphat, though otherwise a pious king of Judah, suffered not only severe censure but also the vengeance of God, when, rebuked by the oracle of Jehu, he heard: "You give aid to the wicked, and you are joined in friendship with those who hate the Lord; and therefore you would deserve the wrath of the Lord, but good works have been found in you, because you have removed the groves from the land of Judah, and have prepared your heart to seek the Lord" (2 Chronicles 19:2). And he received a graver rebuke from the prophet Eliezer, thundering against him: "Because you have made an alliance with Ahaziah, the Lord has destroyed your works, and your ships are broken and cannot sail to Tarshish" (2 Chronicles 20:37). And yet Jehoshaphat had helped Ahaziah not in impiety but only in a political matter, namely to sail to Tarshish.
Moreover, this is most true, though to some it seems paradoxical: "A victory gained by Christians over Christians falls defeated," as the very learned Christophorus Varsevicius clearly demonstrates in his Political Paradoxes. Wherefore wise counselors instill this principle in their princes: "To strengthen and enlarge your kingdom, cultivate with all zeal peace and alliance with neighboring Christian princes. For their friendship will be your wall and rampart." For as the wisest king says: "A brother who is helped by a brother is like a fortified city" (Proverbs 18:19). Indeed, the Attic Orator says: "The chief work of a good prince is to acquire friends. For there is no greater instrument of good government than good friends" (Pliny, Panegyric). Let Christians hear the most salutary counsel of Anchises in Virgil, dissuading the Romans from civil wars:
I beseech you, do not accustom your hearts to such wars, Nor turn the mighty forces of your country against its own vitals.
These therefore are the magnificent works of God, who alone does great wonders for the princes faithful to Him; for whom therefore all Germany, all France, all Poland, indeed the whole Christian world, on account of such great and such recent victories, should sing with thanksgiving a new canticle, and throughout this whole Jubilee should rejoice with Moses and the Hebrews: "Let us sing to the Lord; for He is gloriously magnified, the horse and its rider He has cast into the sea" (Exodus 15). Come, O Holy Trinity, with the three lances of Your power — Your might, I say, Your wisdom and Your grace — strike and wound the minds and hearts of Your three enemies and likewise of the Prophets' enemies, namely the Saracens, the Heretics, and the Schismatics, so that all may submit themselves to You, acknowledge, believe in, love, and glorify You: "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, and now, and always, and forever and ever. Amen."
Then with the jubilations of all nations, truly and exultantly, we shall sing to Your Majesty and clemency that oracle of the royal prophet: "All you nations, clap your hands, shout to God with a voice of exultation. Sing to our God, sing: sing to our King, sing: for God is the king of all the earth, sing wisely" (Psalm 47). "Shout joyfully to God, all the earth, sing a psalm to His name, give glory to His praise" (Psalm 65). "Bring to the Lord, O families of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honor: bring to the Lord glory to His name" (Psalm 95).
IV. You, the immortal, invisible, glorious King of the ages, who dwell in unapproachable light, through the incarnate Word deigned to reveal Yourself to the world, to appear and be seen, and to speak, live, and eat with us: through Him You reconcile and unite us to Yourself: in Him You show us the riches of Your glory, "so that, while we know God visibly, through Him we may be caught up into the love of things invisible." For when Christ assumed our flesh and deigned to become our kinsman and relative, indeed our brother, He incorporated us into God and made us kindred of the Holy Trinity. He therefore is our salvation, our honor, our love, our delight. Truly this "great indeed is the mystery of Your piety, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached to the nations, believed in the world, taken up in glory" (1 Timothy 3). This secret of Your divine counsel, unknown to former generations and hidden in eternal silence, You revealed to the Prophets, as to heavenly eagles, that they might foretell it to us with a discordant concord of voices.
This is the Word made infant, the wise Child, God nursing, Christ crucified, who became for us wisdom, justice, and redemption. He is the axis of our faith, the foundation of wisdom, the summit of holiness, the allurement of charity, the center of happiness. Micah thunders concerning Him in chapter 5: "And you, Bethlehem Ephrata, you are small among the thousands of Judah: from you shall come forth He who is to be the ruler in Israel: and His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity." Haggai resounds in chapter 2: "Yet one little while, and I will move heaven and earth, and the sea and the dry land; and I will move all nations. And the desired of all nations shall come." Malachi harmonizes in chapter 3: "Presently the Lord whom you seek shall come to His temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire. Behold, He comes, says the Lord of hosts. And who shall be able to think of the day of His coming? And who shall stand to see Him?" Zechariah chimes in, chapter 3: "I will bring My servant the Orient." And chapter 9: "You also, by the blood of Your covenant, have sent forth Your prisoners out of the pit."
In Christ therefore, O uncreated Holy Trinity, You expressed a living image of Yourself, and formed a created triad: at which St. John marvels, Epistle I, chapter 5: "There are three, he says, who give testimony (to the incarnate Word, Christ Jesus) in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And there are three who give testimony on earth: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three are one."
Blessed Bethlehem, blessed Judea, blessed Jerusalem, who were worthy not only to bring forth the Prophets, but also the incarnate Word Himself, to see and hear Him; you who, trodden by His divine feet, watered by His words, His sweat, His tears, His sighs, and indeed His precious blood, merited to have Him as your guest, indeed as your citizen and son, your redeemer and savior; that is, "His place was made in peace, and His dwelling in Zion. We sought a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. Behold, we heard of it in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of the forest. We will enter into His tabernacle: we will worship in the place where His feet have stood" (Psalm 131).
of Senir and Hermon (that is, of the mountains of Judea), from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards" (Song of Songs 4). Zechariah foretold the same in chapter 13: "In that day there shall be a fountain open (of grace and baptism) to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for the washing of the sinner and of the unclean. And it shall be in that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will destroy the names of the idols from the land, and they shall be remembered no more." And chapter 14: "His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem to the east. And it shall be in that day, living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, etc. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord shall be one, and His name shall be one." And Micah in chapter 4: "From Zion, he says, shall go forth the law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
There He Himself founded His Church, there the dawn of the new law shone forth in the splendors of the Saints, of the Virgin Mother of God, of the Apostles, of the Evangelists, and of the first faithful burning with faith and charity. Wherefore Christ the Bridegroom, loving this bridal chamber and thence alluring His bride the Church: "Come, He said, from Lebanon (from Jerusalem and Judea), my bride: come from Lebanon, come: you shall be crowned from the peak of Amana, from the summit of Senir and Hermon..."
Unhappy therefore and wretched are the Christians who are exiled from their cradle, who see and tolerate the holy city, made purple with the blood of Christ, which was the dawn of the Church and its first kingdom, being possessed, profaned, and sacrilegiously polluted by the Turks and Saracens. Emperor Constantine did not tolerate this, who restored the holy places to the Christians: at whose command and expense his mother St. Helena journeyed to Jerusalem, devoutly venerated the holy places in Bethlehem, on Mount Calvary and the Mount of Olives, and elsewhere built temples and basilicas with royal magnificence. Therefore pilgrimage began to be frequented by the faithful from that time, with Christians flocking from the whole world for devotion's sake. St. Jerome himself, leaving Rome, transferred himself to Bethlehem, to live and die at the cradle of Christ; St. Paula followed him, drawing after her a great train of the Roman nobility, and there built four monasteries, in which she herself with her daughter Eustochium, imitating the poverty, humility, and holiness of Christ, led a religious and heavenly life.
"Entering Bethlehem, says St. Jerome in the Epitaph of Paula, and entering the cave of the Savior, she would swear in my hearing that she could see with the eyes of faith the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, the Lord crying in the manger, the Magi adoring, the star shining above, the Virgin Mother, the shepherds coming by night to see the Word that had been made, and even then to inaugurate the beginning of John the Evangelist: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh; and mingling tears with joy she would say: Hail, Bethlehem, house of bread, in which was born that Bread which came down from heaven. Hail, Ephrata, most fruitful region, whose fertility is God."
Following Constantine, Emperor Heraclius in the year of the Lord 628, having gained heavenly victories over Khosrow, King of the Persians, brought back in triumph to Jerusalem the cross of Christ which had been taken from it, and laying aside his royal garments, removing his shoes, and putting on a common man's cloak, he carried it on his own shoulders to the mountain where the Savior had borne it; and he set it up in the same place on Calvary whence it had been carried off by the Persians. Thus Heraclius, avenging the injuries done to the Holy Trinity and Christ, exacted — or rather restored — these reprisals to Jerusalem. For Jerusalem is the chosen city of God, holy and glorious, founded on the holy mountains, the center and navel of the world, a city of perfect beauty, the joy of the whole earth, the paradise of the world, which shines among all cities like a royal palace, like the head in a body, like the sun among the stars; the Capitol, as it were, of the Church Militant, and the type and prelude of the Church Triumphant.
V. After Constantine and Heraclius, Pope Urban II won for himself eternal honor and glory (whence this eulogy was inscribed on his monument: "Urban II, author of the expedition against the infidels"), when, at the Council held at Clermont in the year of the Lord 1095, he so inspired the princes of France to recover Jerusalem, long occupied by the Saracens, that they did not hesitate to die for that city in which Christ died for us. Wherefore he brought it about that three hundred thousand men enrolled in the military service of Christ and took up the sign of the cross, and among them many princes, dukes, and counts: among whom Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon, stood out, a man of outstanding spirit, piety, and courage: who showed how easily the Holy Land could be recovered by Christians, when with the small remaining forces he stormed Jerusalem in the year of the Lord 1099, on Friday, at the hour at which Christ died, and he himself was the first to scale the walls and enter the city, and was then created the first Christian king of Jerusalem, like a new David, and extended the kingdom to his successors through six kings for eighty years, and this by the merit of his virtue, piety, and modesty, by which — to pass over other things — when the Christian princes were eager to crown him with a royal diadem in the customary manner, he resisted out of zeal for humility, declaring: "He was unwilling to be adorned with gold in a holy city in which Christ the Lord for our salvation had borne a crown of thorns: wherefore, content with it and showing it reverence, he declined the royal crown — the best of kings, the light and mirror of all others," says William Archbishop of Tyre, book IX of the Holy War, chapter 9. Your virtue and glory, Godfrey, shall live, and yours, Urban, as long as the ETERNITY of all ages shall live.
Moreover, William recounts the speech of Urban by which he inflamed all to the holy war at the Council of Clermont, in which among other things he says: "These cradles of our salvation, therefore — the homeland of the Lord, the mother of religion — a people without God, the son of the Egyptian handmaid, possesses by violence, and upon the free children of captivity he imposes the most extreme conditions, to which by a reversal of fortune he himself ought rightly to be enslaved: the impious race of the Saracens, which for many ages past has oppressed with violent tyranny the holy places where the feet of the Lord have stood, the faithful having been subjugated and condemned to slavery. Dogs have entered the sanctuary, the holy place has been profaned, the people that worship God have been humbled, the chosen race suffers unworthy forced labor, the royal priesthood serves in clay and brick, the city of God that was princess of provinces has been made tributary. The Temple of the Lord, from which the zealous Lord cast out the sellers, lest His Father's house become a den of thieves, has become the seat of demons. The Temple of the Lord, I say, as Mattathias said, is like an ignoble man, its vessels of glory have been led away captive. The City of the King of kings, which handed down to others the rules of inviolate faith, is compelled against its will to serve the superstitions of the nations; the holy church of the Resurrection, the resting place of the sleeping Lord, is defiled by their filth. The venerable places that received the Lord in the flesh as their guest, that saw His signs, that felt His benefits, have been turned into sheep pens, stables for beasts of burden. Gird yourselves therefore, and be mighty, O sons, to fight against the infidels; for it is better for us to die in battle than to see the evils of our nation and of the holy things."
Hear these things, O princes, hear them, O Christians — the laments, indeed the oracles, of your Supreme Pastor, the Vicar of Christ.
VI. The succeeding Popes in order constantly pursued what Urban had begun: Paschal II, Gelasius II, Callistus II, Lucius II, but especially Eugene III, who in the year of the Lord 1143, at the urging of King Louis of France and St. Bernard, stirred up an expedition to the Holy Land, and authorized St. Bernard to rouse all the peoples of France and Germany (who received him as a Prophet or an Apostle) to undertake it; therefore the following year, by universal consent, St. Bernard was chosen commander of the whole war and leader of the army. But it seemed sufficient to Eugene that Bernard should declare war with the priestly trumpet, and rouse the Christians to it by both words and letters: that he accomplished this most successfully, with innumerable signs and prodigies following, is attested by the Acts of his Life and the Epistles he wrote, as well as by Otto of Freising; but even more by the very outcome of events, since not only did King Louis, at a meeting held at Vezelay, take the cross — the emblem of the holy war — from St. Bernard himself, together with many princes and nobles of his kingdom, whom so great a multitude of people followed that cities and castles were emptied; but also, at his encouragement, Conrad, King of the Romans, having proclaimed a general assembly at Speyer, likewise took the cross together with his brother Henry, Duke of Bavaria, and many other princes and nobles (including Poles, and indeed Henry the brother of King Boleslaus, as Cromer attests in book VI of his Polish History): with whom also certain bishops were marked with the cross, and among others Otto of Freising himself, renowned for his virtues and merits.
Who finally adds that not only from the Roman Empire, but also from neighboring kingdoms — namely France, England, and Hungary — with innumerable peoples and nations moved by the fame of this expedition to take up the cross, suddenly almost the entire West fell silent, so that it was considered a crime not only to wage war but even for anyone to carry arms in public. Would that now again St. Bernard, or from heaven, might sound the same trumpet call to the faithful!
Louis and Conrad were emulated by St. Louis — shall I call him the glory of France, or its sanctity, or more truly both? — who not only sent troops to Palestine but himself, as their commander, leaving his ancestral land and kingdom, crossed over once and again through so many stretches of land and sea, with the greatest expenditures, labors, and efforts, to wrest it from the Saracens and preserve it for its former Christian heirs: but since, the sins of the faithful requiring it, he could not accomplish what he was attempting with such great effort, virtue, and spirit; yet he did not hesitate to meet death in so glorious an expedition in the year of the Lord 1270, and trustingly sang his swan song: "I will enter into Your house, O Lord, I will worship at Your holy temple, and confess Your name"; indeed, "virtue strives through hardships to the stars." O moreover, the honor of pursuing and completing so Christian a work he left to his son and posterity by his example, as well as by his will. Raise up, O Lord, this zeal of St. Louis in Catholic kings and princes, especially those bordering on and neighboring the Turk, that they may conspire unanimously for so great a work; but rouse also those more remote, that they may take part in so glorious a work, and
especially the followers, heirs, and namesakes of St. Louis, that they may transfer their victorious arms from heretics to Saracens, and occupy the French and others who know not how to be idle with so holy a work, lest their ardor, impatient of rest, break out into civil or Christian war, in which they would dash against one another and bring a shameful stain upon their glory and provoke the wrath of God upon themselves; but rather let it exert itself against the Turks, Tartars, and Saracens, sworn enemies of the Holy Trinity and of Christ, for the life and immortal glory of those princes. This most Christian name inherited by them, this their ancestor St. Louis, this their noble character and loftiness of spirit, this their love of Holy Church and ardor of faith, these victories and trophies against the enemies of Christ given from heaven — these things the prelates, the Popes, and all the faithful by right demand of them.
VII. Wisely did St. Catherine of Siena, taught by God (as Raymund, General of the Order of Preachers, reports, and from him Ambrosius Catharinus in her Life), sharply urge the Supreme Pontiffs, Gregory XI and Urban VI, in the year of the Lord 1375 and following, to wage war against the Turks. And when the Pope objected that this seemed inopportune amid so many internal dissensions of the princes of Italy and other regions, she insisted: "On the contrary, she said, now it is most opportune, and indeed no more effective remedy for removing these dissensions is available than if a holy alliance be formed, by which all may conspire with equal courage against the common enemies of Christ and of Christians: there they will pour out their passions and impulses, their ardors and angers for fighting, and by that means they will set aside their private quarrels and hatreds."
Thus, to pass over others, Roger and Bohemund, brothers and princes of Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria, who were continually fighting among themselves over the principality, were reconciled by Urban II through the holy alliance and war, and turned their fraternal arms against the Saracens. For Bohemund, having seized Melfi, kindled with desire for glory, set out for the Holy Land with twelve thousand of the chosen youth of Italy, and by this virtue and excellence of spirit so moved his brother Roger that, laying down his arms, he declared that henceforth all things would be shared with his brother, and immediately handed over his son Tancred, eager for battle, as a companion in war to his brother, says Platina in his account of Urban II. In like manner, Otto of Freising, book I of The Deeds of Emperor Frederick I, chapter 29, relates that the bitter dissensions of the Germans, Bavarians, Belgians, and Poles were settled by the expedition to the Holy Land under Emperor Conrad's leadership. Wisely says Livy, book II: "Foreign wars, he says, settle domestic seditions. External fear is a great bond of concord."
The Turk himself foresees and fears this very thing, and therefore by every means endeavors to tear the Christian princes from one another and to sow quarrels and wars among them: for this reason, while he attacks a neighbor, he forms an alliance with those more remote, indeed he incites them against the neighbor, and thus conquers him with Christian arms; which done, he gradually attacks, seizes, and subjugates the more remote peoples, circumvented by the same craft and fraud and abandoned by the others. For since he himself is a treaty-breaker, he breaks the treaty he has made whenever it suits him, finding an occasion; while conversely, Christians, ensnared more by the name of a treacherous treaty than by religion, dare not protect neighbors invaded by him, and thus expose them as his prey, soon to become his prey themselves. Those versed in history and Turkish affairs know that the Turk sometimes swears upon a fake book, and thus deceives the Christians and violates his oath, saying that he swore upon a fictitious book, not a true one, and therefore swore falsely, not truly. Therefore Christians rightly retort to him: "Let faith be broken to him who breaks faith."
Indeed, Bayezid was a treaty-breaker, who took from the Venetians, contrary to the agreements, Coron, Methone, and Naupactus. Bayezid was imitated by his grandson Suleiman, who in the year of the Lord 1537, was preparing to attack Italy with all his forces, but offended by the recklessness of a certain Venetian ship captain, poured out all his wrath and forces upon the Venetians who were his treaty allies, devastating their island of Corfu far and wide, plundering the Cycladic islands, and handing over Venetian merchants throughout the whole Turkish empire with all their goods and money as plunder; furthermore, he penalized them by the cession of Nauplia and Epidaurus, and two fortresses in Dalmatia, Nadino and Lubiana; for Suleiman's saying was: "So long as I reign, I care for nothing: just as in heaven one God, so on earth one Suleiman is to be worshiped." Selim, emulating his father Suleiman, violating the treaty confirmed by oath with the Venetians, wrested Cyprus from them; and indeed, insulting them: "The beard, he said, that the Venetians shaved off me at Naupactus has grown back; but I have amputated their right arm by taking Cyprus, which will never grow back." Is this not a leonine partnership?
In like manner the rest have done and will do. For since from the beginning they have been and are plunderers of the world, they covet with all their might the riches and kingdoms of the Christians by fair means or foul. Meanwhile the Christians, as if stupefied by lethargy, sleep deeply; because each one supposes that the Turk is far from him, and that he himself is far from his yoke.
In this matter they all err most gravely. The people of Constantinople, Trebizond, the Thracians, Bulgarians, Bosnians, Serbs, Hungarians, and the rest once thought the same; but now, captured by the Turk, they see their error, and grieve seriously — but too late. The Turk is at the threshold and almost in the very bowels of all Christians, and they keep saying he is far away from them? O blindness! O stupor! Recently, in the time of Pius V, he had designs on Crete, Venice, and all of Italy. He besieged Vienna once and again, coveting Augsburg and all of Germany. Three years ago he was boasting he would devour Poland in a single battle. He therefore threatens and practically looms over Italy, Germany, and Poland. Now he is silent, because he is occupied by domestic dissensions; but he awaits an opportunity, and once it is given, he will immediately in his usual fashion attack and overwhelm the unprepared Italians, Germans, and Poles. Would that Christians might see this danger as certain and present as it truly is, and, while matters are still whole, form a common alliance against him and dispel it! lest too late, with the rest already occupied by the Turk, they accuse and bewail their own torpor and their own dissensions.
Now, when he is shaken at home by a serious and varied rebellion; when he has sent all the strength of his army against Persia; when his ruler is a boy; when he is destitute of generals, counsel, and treasury; when the Catholic princes are invited to the holy war by so many victories given by God — this is the opportune time to invade and overthrow him: and if we neglect to seize it, we shall seek it again too late and with regret. For nothing is as fleeting as opportunity: nothing is weighed more lightly when it presents itself; nothing is more desired when it has passed; nothing is more dangerously lost; nothing is more difficult to recover.
Moreover, who can doubt that the Turk threatens Italy and the Christians, when we see the kingdom of Tunis which he has occupied separated from Sicily, Epirus and Macedonia from Dalmatia, and Friuli from Dalmatia by the thinnest strip of land; when we observe that from Apollonia, a Turkish town, one can sail to Otranto, a city of the Kingdom of Naples (itself formerly possessed by the Turks), in the space of a single night? What is more treacherous to the Spanish, Italians, and French than Algiers? What is more hostile than Fez, Morocco, Bizerta, and that whole fellowship of crafty Africans? Is France therefore exempt? By no means. The seas that wash both her coasts are so infested with Turkish piracy that no shore, no bay, no port seems safe from and unexplored by them. Wherefore that Count John Tarnowski, who often commanded Polish armies to victory, used to say that "all Polish assemblies ought to be a perpetual deliberation on the Turkish war." The same may be said of the German, French, Italian, and Spanish assemblies.
Famous is that saying of the Greeks in Pachymeres, book V of his History: "Let war be waged against the enemies of the Cross, where both victory is praiseworthy and to be conquered is salutary." Likewise: "Peace is to be cultivated where we do not suffer loss to God: war must be waged where religion and the whole commonwealth are in danger."
Wherefore, to return to the Popes as the heralds, indeed the trumpeters, of the holy war, the zeal of Eugene III for the Holy Land was emulated by Alexander III, Lucius III, Urban III, Gregory VIII, Clement III, Celestine III, Innocent III, Honorius III, Gregory IX; and soon succeeding him, Innocent IV, as Platina, Onuphrius, and others attest, sent legates throughout France and the other provinces to persuade the faithful to take up the military service of Christ and follow the standards and camps of St. Louis to the Holy Land. Alexander IV, Urban IV, Nicholas IV, and Innocent VI likewise urged the Christians to the same.
Eugene IV, entering the pontificate in the year of the Lord 1431, sent against the Turks a fleet by sea and an army by land under the legate Cardinal Julian Cesarini, and led by Ladislaus, King of Poland, killed thirty thousand Turks in a single battle between Adrianople and the Danube. At the same time John Hunyadi, appointed by Ladislaus as governor of Transylvania, destroyed many of Murad's armies, recovered Moldavia, and overran the greatest part of Serbia and Bulgaria with his victorious arms.
Nicholas V, succeeding Eugene IV in the year of the Lord 1447, pressed vigorously for war to be declared against the Turks by the common consent of all Christians, since he perceived they were already preparing arms against the people of Constantinople: and for that reason he had sent Cardinal Isidore of Ruthenia to Constantinople to promise aid to the emperor and citizens, if they were willing to return to the Catholic faith as they had promised at the Council of Florence; but since they persisted in schism, by the just vengeance of God the Turkish emperor Mehmed stormed Constantinople shortly afterward in the year of the Lord 1453, and having killed Emperor Palaeologus, most cruelly devastated the city with sword and flame, as Chalcondyles attests in book VIII, and others. While Nicholas strove to wipe away this stain inflicted upon his pontificate by gathering forces against the Turks, he was struck down by arthritic pains.
VIII. Following in the footsteps of Nicholas's efforts, his successor Callistus III, created Pope in the year of the Lord 1455, immediately
declared war against the Turks. There was found in his desk a vow concerning this matter, composed before his pontificate in these prophetically foreboding words: "I, Callistus, as Pope, vow to Almighty God and to the holy, undivided Trinity, that I will persecute the Turks, the most savage enemies of the Christian name, with war, with curses, with interdicts, with execrations, and finally by whatever means I can." For this reason he immediately sent preachers throughout all of Europe to rouse all Christians to arms against the Turks; moreover, through his legates he also stirred up Uzun Hasan, King of the Persians, against the same. He himself sent against the enemy sixteen triremes built at Rome under the command of Louis, Patriarch of Aquileia, who for three years harassed the maritime territories of the Asian enemies, captured certain islands, and inflicted great losses on the enemy. King Alfonso and the Duke of Burgundy, taking up the sign of the cross, declared that they too would march against the enemy, or at least send armed soldiers there.
Moreover, Callistus ordered the faithful to be reminded at noon by the sound of the bell, that they might assist with their prayers those who were fighting against the Turks. By this means that illustrious victory over them was won. For the Christians, under the command of John Voivode, with John of Capistrano, a Franciscan, as their exhorter, at Belgrade in the year of the Lord 1456, slew sixty thousand Turks, capturing one hundred and sixty pieces of artillery; the tyrant Mehmed, wounded, sought safety in flight. For this victory the Pope instituted the feast, that is, the solemn office, of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ on the sixth of August. The most cruel enemy would have been finished then, if the Christian princes, setting aside their internal hatreds and wars, had followed up so great a victory by land and sea, as Callistus urged and pressed them to do.
But while they conducted the matter sluggishly, the Turk, having recovered his strength, first captured Trebizond, killing the emperor, and then Bosnia, capturing and killing the king. Callistus foresaw these things from his watchtower and groaned, and did not cease to exhort the Christian princes by letters and messengers to open their eyes at last in the face of such great dangers, warning that they would seek remedies in vain afterward, once the enemy had grown strong: Platina, Onuphrius, Genebrardus, in their Chronologies; Suarez, volume I, On Religion, book II, chapter 5; Azor, volume II, book I, chapter 15. See here how continuous and almost hereditary was the concern of the Popes, as part of their office, for sanctioning a holy alliance against the Turks.
Wherefore Pius II, succeeding Callistus III, a man of great spirit, wisdom, eloquence, and zeal, having called an assembly of princes from all Europe at Mantua, with a vigorous and effective speech persuaded them to declare war against the Turks by a common decree of all. But this decree was soon broken by internal wars, in which the Germans, Hungarians, British, Spanish, and Italians turned their arms against one another. Yet the spirited Pontiff held to his resolution, and while he awaited at Ancona the fleet that had been built everywhere in the ports of the upper and lower sea for so great a war, and the Venetian commander as his ally in the war, he died, afflicted by a long and lingering fever, in the year of the Lord 1464, in his sixth year of pontificate, and was buried in the basilica of St. Peter, with this eulogy: "Pius II, Supreme Pontiff, Tuscan by nation, of Siena his homeland, sat for six years. Brief was his pontificate, but immense was his glory. He resisted the attackers of the Roman See both within and outside Italy. He held an assembly of Christians at Mantua for the faith. He enrolled Catherine of Siena among the Saints of Christ, etc. A devotee of justice and religion. Admirable in eloquence. Going to the war which he had declared against the Turks, he died at Ancona: there he had both a fleet prepared and the Doge of Venice with his senate as fellow soldiers of Christ."
Paul II succeeded Pius II in the year of the Lord 1464, who upon receiving the news that the Turks, having captured Epirus, were preparing to march on Illyricum, sent legates to the kings and princes, begging them that, having settled their own affairs, they would think of waging war against the Turks to repel the injury.
Sixtus IV succeeded Paul II in the year of the Lord 1471, who, in order to recall the Christian princes who were at odds with one another to harmony and unite them in a holy alliance against the Turks, sent Cardinal Bessarion of Nicaea to France, Rodrigo Borgia to Spain, and Marco Barbo to Germany and Hungary; he placed Oliviero Carafa in command of a naval fleet of 24 triremes; to these were added 50 triremes of the Venetians and 24 of King Ferdinand of Aragon, so that the Turks did not dare to come out from the Bosphorus into the Aegean to meet them. Smyrna in Asia was then captured and all its inhabitants carried off. There is a firm report that the Christians that year would have occupied a great part of Asia, if they by sea, just as Uzun Hasan the King of Persia by land, had continued to harass the Turks. Soon, when Shkodra, a town belonging to Venice, was besieged by the Turks, Sixtus supplied the people of Shkodra with provisions and money, and encouraged them to resist the enemy. Again, when the Turk, having suddenly captured Otranto in Salento by force, had filled all of Italy with incredible terror, Sixtus, having assembled a fleet, compelled the enemy to retreat. About that time Cyprus
was seized by the Venetians, lest it fall into the power of the Turks: Mehmed, attacking Rhodes with the greatest forces, was compelled to depart with nothing accomplished, since the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes bravely defended it.
Innocent VIII, appointed to the place of the dying Sixtus IV in the year of the Lord 1484, exhorted all Christian princes by frequent messengers that, having settled their mutual dissensions and wars, united by treaties, they might blunt the forces of the Turks, now formidable throughout the world. He received Prince Cem, the brother of Emperor Bayezid, and planned to use him to wage war against Bayezid: who, in order to avert this from himself, sent annually to Rome forty thousand gold pieces for the maintenance of his brother, and gave as a gift to the Pope the iron point of the lance with which the side of Christ was pierced on the cross, which is religiously preserved and venerated in the Vatican basilica of St. Peter.
Therefore to a man all the Popes in order, from Eugene IV to Alexander VI, devoted themselves with all the strength of their spirit to the holy alliance and war; namely Nicholas V, Callistus III, Pius II, Paul II, Sixtus IV, and Innocent VIII. In their footsteps followed Leo X, Adrian VI, Paul III, and Pius IV, by whose efforts Suleiman was compelled to lift the siege of Malta.
IX. And to pass over the rest, Pius V, heir and emulator both of the spirit and name of these Popes, and especially of Pius II and V, neglecting his own and his people's interests, turning all his cares to the public welfare, entered into an alliance with the Catholic king and the Venetians, and won that memorable victory over the Turks at Naupactus in the Gulf of Lepanto in the year of the Lord 1571, and would have wrested from them Greece and many other territories, if the concord of the commanders and nations had held, and they had constantly pursued the expedition so happily begun; but what happened to the Christians is what Maharbal said to Hannibal after the battle of Cannae: "Hannibal, you know how to conquer, but you do not know how to use a victory."
This therefore was the illustrious work, this the glory, of the distinguished Popes — the Urbans, the Eugenes, the Callistuses, the Piuses, and almost all the rest from Urban II to Gregory XIII: whose name and glory among men on earth, and equally in heaven before God and the Angels and Saints, shall endure for all time. For they remembered that they were shepherds not merely of the city, but of the whole world. They knew that the Pope's first concerns must be to propagate the faith, the Church, the worship, and the kingdom of Christ among all nations. They knew that the proper office of the apostolic prelate was to imitate St. Peter and the other Apostles, who either by themselves or through their followers subdued the whole world to Christ. They knew that the faithful, even those subject to infidels, were their sheep, entrusted to them by Christ and Blessed Peter, and that therefore it was their duty to feed them, protect them, and assert their freedom.
Wherefore they strove to fully satisfy this duty of theirs, although the outcome did not always correspond to their will and desire, whether because of the treachery of the Greek Emperors, or because a mixed, poor, and unwarlike crowd of the faithful, stirred by devotion, rushed to war; or because this same crowd was leaderless and lacking a suitable commander; or because concord among the commanders did not hold. For so great an expedition requires one supreme and distinguished commander, select and veteran soldiers, and a solid treasury: all three of which Christian kings at this time can easily provide. Then various provinces and nations will readily offer strong reinforcements.
Indeed the Christians who inhabit the provinces subject to the Turk and serve a harsh slavery; moreover, the Christian slaves of the Turks alone in many areas repeatedly outnumber the Turks themselves, as eyewitnesses report; and so this Turk possesses three, that one ten, another twenty slaves, who will fight to the death to shake off the tyrannical master's yoke; since Turkish slavery is more bitter to them than death itself. Let George Castriotus serve as an example, who in the year of the Lord 1443, throwing off the yoke of Murad, made himself prince of Epirus, and alone with his Epirots waged an endless war against the Turk throughout his whole life, and won many magnificent victories over him. Hence he was so formidable to the Turks that he was called by them Scanderbeg, that is, Alexander the Great; and indeed, at the mere hearing of his name — that he was approaching — they would immediately flee as if they had seen a thunderbolt: thirteen books exist about his plainly heroic deeds.
His comrade and, as it were, his colleague was John Hunyadi, whom I mentioned a little earlier, surnamed "the Thunderbolt," equally the terror and thunderbolt of the Turks, who in various battles easily killed a million Turks, and whose maxim was this: "The Turk must be pushed farther from the provinces of the Christians — from Italy, Germany, and Poland; nor should one wait until he himself invades the Christian regions, but Christians must cross over into Thrace and Turkey and fight with him there; just as Alexander the Great fought with Darius in Asia, Hannibal with the Romans in Italy, Scipio with
the Carthaginians fought in Africa." The followers, indeed the successors, of Hunyadi and Scanderbeg, and likewise of Ladislaus, are the kings and princes of Poland and Hungary, who, being neighbors of the Turks and Tartars and constantly waging war and triumphing over them, will almost by themselves accomplish this task, if someone supplies them with a portion of the money necessary for so great a work, or even merely advances it: for they will easily repay it afterwards from the spoils of their victories and the tributes of the provinces they will subjugate.
And God seems to have foreshadowed and indeed begun this very thing by their recent and so remarkable victory. Indeed, among the Turks it is fated, and is a virtually certain oracle, that their empire will be overthrown by the Poles. Wherefore this, above others, seems to wise men a straightforward plan for accomplishing this whole task without trouble, without envy, without the ambition and discord that usually arise among many: for a Polish prince will be followed of their own accord not only by the Cossacks, the terror of the Turks, but also by many nobles — Poles, Hungarians, Germans, Italians, Wallachians, Muscovites, etc. — at their own expense, lured by the hope of glory or plunder.
Indeed, from the Danube through Wallachia, which borders Poland, to Constantinople is only a ten-day journey. Wherefore Stephen Bathory, a wise and equally magnanimous King of Poland, had this very plan in mind, and for this reason had formed an alliance against the Turk with Philip II, King of Spain, declaring that he would be Philip's mercenary in this war: who, if he had lived, would certainly have routed the Turk single-handedly and stripped him of his empire, especially with the Persian invading him from the other side. For with the Pole and the Persian conspiring by treaty for the destruction of the Turk, the Turk cannot resist, but must fall and perish. Moreover, the Turkish war is almost necessary for the Poles, both to push the Turk farther from their borders, and to divert the perpetual and stealthy raids of the Tartars from themselves into Turkey, and there to engage both in open battle, as they recently did happily and gloriously.
The Poles and Germans, therefore, with the aid of the Supreme Pontiff and the Catholic king, will easily recover Wallachia, Hungary, and the other provinces recently wrested from them by Turkish treachery.
X. O shame! O crime! Christians fight against Christians with murderous hatreds and battles over a corner of land, over a trifling point of honor. Christian blood, redeemed by the blood of Christ, is shed by Christians: Christian hands are wet with Christian blood, and they tear apart, slaughter, and rend Christian flesh, flesh kindred to the flesh of Christ. Where is faith? Where is hope? Where is charity? Where is brotherly love and the love of fraternity? Christians, regenerated and nourished by one Father Christ, by one Mother the Church; united by one faith, one hope, one charity; bound by the bond and sacrament of one God, one religion — they strip, tear, and devour one another like wolves.
The Turk sees this and laughs to himself, and like a tiger seizes, snatches, and devours the fawns butting each other over a tuft of grass. For the dissensions of Christians have destroyed and betrayed to the Turks Asia, Greece, Hungary, and other most wealthy kingdoms. This is what Micah laments: "A son dishonors his father, etc., and a man's enemies are those of his own household." And Jeremiah: "All her friends have despised her and become her enemies." And the bride in Song of Songs 1: "The sons of my mother have fought against me."
The Prophets, each and every one, prophesy, grieve, and lament almost nothing else than the destruction of the Holy Land, because it must be handed over to the Chaldeans and other infidels on account of dissensions of faith, morals, and hearts; and they all exhort, pray, and beseech that, partly by correcting their lives, partly by praying, partly by fighting with arms, partly by conspiring in one faith and one mind, they might avert so great a disaster for the Church and the commonwealth. Hosea cries in chapter 5: "Blow the trumpet in Gibeah, the horn in Ramah, sound the alarm in Beth-aven." And Jeremiah in chapter 6: "Take courage, O sons of Benjamin, in the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal over Beth-haccherem."
They sound these words not only to the Jews but also to the Christians: for they wrote their prophecies more for Christians than for Jews; and the Holy Land has become more properly the Christians' own, and far holier, dearer, and more venerable through Christ, the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, the first believers, and the first Church, which was born there and grew, and spread and propagated itself throughout the whole world. What then are we hesitating about? Why do we delay? Let us obey the Prophets, let us emulate our ancestors: let us strive to claim the land of Christ for Christ; to restore to Him the first estates of the Church; to give back the dwelling place of the Holy Trinity, once its execrable sacrileges have been removed, and to consecrate it to His praises.
XI. Never has so great a hope of conducting the matter successfully shone forth as now. God seems to be offering it to the Christians of His own accord and placing it in their hands, when, to say nothing of other things, we see the Turks losing heart, diminishing in forces and strength, being shaken by murderous internal dissensions, fearfully awaiting the destruction of their kingdom and their sect;
while we see and congratulate ourselves that Christians, emboldened by all these things, are rising up and being strengthened, when we perceive Catholic princes, having crushed or suppressed the rebellious heresy, ruling, and being allied to each other by the close bond of marriages, and all being driven and kindled by zeal for religion. For what remains after the rebellious heresy has been almost defeated, except to subdue its remnants, and then to defeat its sister — the other form, I say, of rebellious infidelity — Mohammedanism? That religion now grows old and exhausted, and of its own accord rushes toward its destruction: it has completed its own century, lived out its own age — a great one indeed of a thousand years during which the impious law of Mohammed stood and flourished, and Mohammed himself once predicted that when those years had elapsed it would fall: now therefore, decrepit and near its sunset, let the Christians merely push the falling and collapsing thing, and with joined hands shove it over, and the matter is done; immediately they will see its ruin and exult.
And indeed we see it already begun, as we observe their constant and Vatinian mutual hatreds, tumults, and seditions: for the voice of eternal Truth cannot err and cannot fail: "Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate." The Turks cut each other down; let the Christians seize the fallen. Let them wake up, therefore, and take advantage of so favorable an opportunity. It was and is the ancient prediction of the wise that the power and untamable audacity of the Janissaries would destroy the Ottoman empire. This is already at hand. The Turks themselves, when they see themselves deprived of a prince, soldiers, counsel, money, concord, courage, and strength, openly declare that their empire is already doomed: they offer themselves voluntarily to the Christians and all but invite them. So many thousands of Christians miserably groaning under the Turkish yoke, with outstretched hands, by all that is sacred implore our help, and offer themselves and all their fortunes to shake off this yoke.
These very people, summoned from so dire a tyranny and from chains to the cap of liberty, if only arms are supplied to them and they see a leader who begins the war, will immediately follow, and almost by themselves will accomplish the task: because they will contribute to it the enormous tribute which they pay to the Turks. Many also among Christians, although heterodox in faith, yet because they are faithful to their princes and because they are professed followers of Christ, will gladly seize the present opportunity, so that, if invited, they may voluntarily join the alliance of war; both to conspire against the common enemy of the Christian name ("For a common danger must be repelled by concord," says Cornelius Tacitus), and to push his yoke as far as possible from themselves; both to defend and propagate the Christian empire, and to increase and enrich their territories and fortunes from the rich spoils of the Turks.
Moreover, what is at stake here is not only the occupation of the vast and wealthiest Ottoman empire, but also the eternal salvation of many thousands, indeed millions, of souls: which certainly cannot be neglected without impious and cruel negligence. For now more than ever it is easy and within reach for Christians to take from the Turk all the kingdoms wrested from their ancestors by the greatest crime, and to restore to the Church and to themselves Asia, Hungary, Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Armenia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Epirus, Cyprus, Bithynia, Pontus, Syria, Palestine (the very first provinces of the world converted to Christ by Saints Peter and Paul, and as it were the first estates and patrimony of the Apostles and the Church), Egypt, Africa, Ethiopia, and the entire East. Who would drowse here? Who would not immediately awaken? Who would not offer and contribute all their resources and strength, all their genius and counsel, to a work so great and of such moment?
But if the Persian (or some new Tamerlane, the terror of the world, warlike and fierce in arms) should seize those regions while we idle or sleep, as he has begun to do, he will indeed become a great terror to the Christians, and, being already twice as powerful, more practiced in arms, more insolent from so many victories, will threaten them more formidably than the Turk; so that we may not be able to drive from our cities and homes him who aspires to the monarchy of Europe, whom we were unwilling to keep from our neighbors. Indeed, God Almighty seems by clear signs of His mind to show that He wants us to undertake this holy war, since He now suggests and freely offers from all sides such evident opportunities for accomplishing it, the like of which He has not given in a thousand years: if we allow them to slip from our hands, they will never return: "The opportunities of affairs do not wait for our slowness and cowardice," says Demosthenes wisely in his First Philippic; but unless they are seized immediately when they present themselves, they flee away and are irrevocable: "Opportunity has hair in front, but is bald behind."
God, the just judge and avenger of all, will severely punish the neglect of these opportunities, and will give as a scourge upon our backs those very people whom He now freely offers into our hands to be subjugated. Thus He gave the Canaanites to the Jews as a perpetual scourge, because they had failed to subdue and destroy them, as the Lord had commanded, and had entered into peace treaties with them; as can be seen throughout the whole history of Judges: and Joshua, dying, had foretold this to them and warned them, chapter 23:13: "They shall be, he said, a pit and a snare for you, and a stumbling block at your side, and stakes in your eyes, until He takes you away and destroys you from this excellent land which He has given you."
With both arms, therefore, let us accept and embrace this present and so generous gift of God; let us use the opportunity which He places in our hands; let us subdue the Mohammedans to ourselves, lest we be compelled to bend our necks to them and have as masters — indeed as tyrants and torturers — those whom we can now have as subjects and suppliants; let us obey God Almighty, who calls us to this by such manifest signs, lest on the day of judgment Christ the Lord, the strict exactor of His gifts, as well as of opportunities and good works, demand from us a rigorous account for the neglect of so great an opportunity and of the salvation of so many thousands of souls.
If we obey, we shall honor the Prophets, fulfill the vows of the Prophets, carry out the oracles of the Prophets; and thus we shall restore, as exiles by right of return, the Prophets, Christ the Lord, the Mother of God, the Apostles, and their faith and religion to the Holy Land; we shall fill the holy Angels with wondrous joy, and gain for ourselves the favor of God and men, and eternal glory.
Money, the sinew of war, will not be lacking, if every city and province contributes even a modest amount. One St. Louis in the past furnished all the expenses of the holy war for many years; will not all the Christian princes together, far richer than he, now furnish them? Especially if military regulations are observed, so that soldiers are frugal in food and clothing, and fight not with gold or goblets but with iron and spears, as the Turks and Tartars do. Indeed, the hostile provinces themselves, being rich and vast, once subdued, will feed our armies, as they fed those of the ancient Romans.
Thus last year the Asian Pasha maintained his forces against the Ottomans from the very taxes and tributes of the Ottoman provinces, and that abundantly and splendidly. Thus in ancient times Alexander the Great, beginning the war with only seventy talents, enriched himself and all his soldiers with the spoils of the enemy and the treasury of Darius. Julius Caesar, Scipio, Pompey, Hannibal, Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, and recently Saladin, Tamerlane, Shah Ismail, and other great commanders did the same, enriching their own from the wealth of their enemies, and making themselves monarchs of Asia, or Europe, or the world. Almost the Cossacks alone, if this plunder is offered to them, will accomplish the task they have often attempted successfully, and will demand no other pay. The riches of Asia are offered, the spoils of the East; who would not hasten, indeed fly, to such opulent plunder?
Cardinal Bessarion recorded for posterity that Mehmed, who stormed two empires, twelve kingdoms, and three hundred cities including Constantinople itself, had only two million in annual revenue. Which of the Christian kings does not have far more? But Constantinople alone yielded him plunder worth sixteen million.
Moreover, it will be easy for the Supreme Pontiff to establish a solid treasury for the holy war for some years, if he collects from each Christian king and prince what each one will willingly and gladly contribute for a cause so pious, so useful, so necessary for himself and for the whole Christian Commonwealth. One Catholic king, out of his zeal for the faith, has already spent for 57 years, every year, many millions on the Belgian war — on one small province, I say; what will he not spend on the entire East, and on Jerusalem itself, whose king he designates himself by hereditary right? Let every king contribute a million, every prince or republic some portion of a million, and a treasury will arise that is not merely sufficient but even abundant.
I pass over the voluntary offerings of merchants and other wealthy men for so pious a war, the pensions from rich benefices, the alms to be proclaimed by the Pope for the faithful in a Jubilee for this purpose: from which a sum of many millions will be assembled. If every rich person contributes even one gold coin, from so many millions of wealthy people throughout the whole world, how many millions of gold coins will arise? I say nothing of the fines for dispensations, privileges, sins, and other penalties, which may piously be exacted and applied to so pious a work. Indeed, Pope Innocent III imposed upon all clerics a fortieth part of their revenues for the use of the holy war; and to the King of France and the King of England he writes and prescribes thus, book II, epistle 239: "You yourself should direct a suitable number of warriors at your own expense for the defense of the Holy Land, as if paying at least tithes to Christ, so that from this you may more fully merit divine grace." Again, he imposed on the Clergy for three years a twentieth part of their revenues for the same purpose, under penalty of excommunication. To those going to the holy war he remitted taxes, and even the interest owed to creditors: and throughout the whole world among Christians a general
peace to be observed for four years under pain of anathema he ordained. Paul III assigned to Charles V, when he was marching against the Saracens in Africa, the tithes of all benefices in Spain. Pius V contributed all the papal revenues for the use of the holy war and similar pious works, and for this reason won that illustrious victory over the Turks at Naupactus.
Now indeed there has never been less danger of dissension or discord among nations and princes than in this age. For God Almighty has given us kings and princes wonderfully Catholic, excellent, most pious, supremely devoted and dedicated to the Apostolic See (to say nothing of the fact that all are bound to one another by close kinship), whose distribution, arbitration, and judgment all will therefore promptly follow.
Thus in the past century Pope Alexander VI divided the boundaries of the Indies and established the proper territories of the Spanish and the Portuguese: hence their wonderful concord in those regions. This Apostolic See, therefore, as it has always been the arbiter and judge of this holy expedition, so also now it will be; indeed the patron, director, and moderator. It will assign to each their tasks and provinces. It will divide the spoils and profits. It will judge and settle all disputes. It will establish and create new princes and kings, if need be. And this is the special grace and felicity of this age, as most opportune and suitable for accomplishing this common business of the Church, so provided and granted by God for this purpose.
Finally, the path to concord is obvious, if each one separately attacks the common enemy in a place convenient to himself, and whatever he takes from him, he may seize and claim by the right of war. Achilles Tarducci, in his booklet That the Turk Can Be Conquered, demonstrates that the Turk can be conquered by the Hungarians alone, with fifty thousand Christians brought into the field. An anonymous author appended to him, On the State of the Turkish Empire, agrees, showing by arithmetic calculation that the war against the Turk can be waged and concluded each year for four million in gold; with an army of forty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, together with a fleet of one hundred triremes.
Again, Francesco Guicciardini reviews the alliance of Christian princes sanctioned by Pope Leo X against Selim, and the provinces assigned to each for invading and occupying, and from him Lazarus Soranzo in his Ottoman, chapter 118; who also adds that Leo had decreed that above all a very great quantity of gold was to be amassed, both from the ordinary contributions of the princes and also so that a certain tax should be imposed on every individual Christian in the name of this war.
Moreover, experience establishes that all the difficulty in conquering the Turk up to this point has consisted in the division and dissension of the Christian princes, and that the weakness of the Christian Commonwealth emerged and betrayed itself when monarchy passed into polyarchy; just as conversely the strength of the Turks shone forth when the Ottoman turned polyarchy into monarchy; wherefore, since the Turk as a monarch is more powerful than any individual king, the Christians cannot resist him unless they return to monarchy, so as to oppose a faithful monarch to an infidel monarch. And who is more suitable for this than the Supreme Pontiff?
The most wise Cardinal Bessarion used to assert that "the Turk is like a hare, which, being of uniform color, does not fear dogs of different colors, even if they be infinite in number; but upon seeing a few of uniform color, it prepares to flee." Just so, the Turk does not fear but laughs at the Christian princes, however numerous and powerful, if they are discordant; but if a few are concordant, he dreads them and flees. Indeed, Suleiman himself, the rival and antagonist of Charles V, in order to show himself more powerful than Emperor Ferdinand, the brother of Charles, insultingly told his legate that "he was a dragon of one head but many tails; while Ferdinand and the Christians were a dragon of many heads but one tail" — meaning: the Christian empire is polyarchic, and therefore discordant and weak: mine is monarchic, and therefore concordant and strong.
Therefore in this war let the Christian princes submit themselves, as they do, to the Roman Pontiff; and by this means they will restore the Christian monarchy, and establish it as far more powerful than the Turkish, and will invade the Turk by sea as well as by land: which Charles V judged absolutely necessary. Moreover, lest any faithful person or heretic should invade the territories of the princes at the time when they undertake the holy war, under whatever pretext, Eugene III provided against this under pain of anathema. Innocent III, whom I cited a little earlier, made the same provision. The allied princes also provide for this: for the first condition of the alliance is that, if anyone invades one of them, all the rest shall pursue him as a public enemy and traitor of Christ and the Christian Commonwealth, and strip and despoil him of his kingdom, principality, dominion, wealth, and all his possessions. May God grant that all may return completely to the original union and monarchy sanctioned by Him, in this Jubilee!
Wherefore the happiest outcome of the war is to be hoped for, and scarcely to be doubted, especially if, as
as Moses prayed and Joshua conquered Amalek, so let us too, together with the Maccabees, continually win for ourselves God's help through prayers, fasts, a holy life, and good works: for this Jubilee is the enticement, indeed the beginning and prelude, of these things. Indeed in these years many religious men, celebrated for their reputation of sanctity and prophecy, have predicted that the ruin of the Turkish empire is certainly at hand, and that Christians will soon possess the Holy Land.
Send forth, O Most Holy Trinity, from on high, through the most bitter sufferings, the cross, and the merits of Your incarnate Word, Your Holy Spirit, the spirit of wisdom, counsel, piety, and charity, that all the faithful and princes, united in Your faith, worship, and love, may strive to resist — indeed to bring under Your kingdom — all the Saracens, pagans, and infidels, so that all nations may acknowledge and celebrate Your name and glory; that all the earth may confess Your holy name.
You have loved, "O Lord, the gates of Zion above all the tabernacles of Jacob." Why then, "O God, have the nations come into Your inheritance, polluted Your holy name, made Jerusalem a place for guarding fruit?" The land in which our fathers praised You has been handed over to foreigners, who continually blaspheme with sacrilegious mouth Your name and that of Your Christ. The place in which Christ worked salvation in the midst of the earth is possessed by anti-Christians. Arise, O Lord, avenge Your reproach. Raise up Maccabees from among the Christians, who may unite and convert the nations, who may claim for You Your glory, for the Church its kingdom, for the Holy Land its ancestral faith and holiness, and restore them by right of return.
You recently raised up the unconquered King of Poland, who began these battles with such great courage and equal success that he alone not only sustained all the forces of the Turks but also wore them down, broke them, and compelled them to peace by constant battles; and he would certainly have crushed them entirely, if, supported by the auxiliary forces and resources of other princes, he had continued this war. Indeed, he alone, under God's auspices, led the way for the Christian kings and paved the road, and equally showed how easily that common enemy of the Church, hitherto formidable to all, can be subdued — indeed destroyed and exterminated — if the Christian princes, with united hearts, prefer to take up the war against him rather than be consumed by common conflagrations through idle laziness and regard for private affairs; if they attack him with common forces and invade him with diverse troops at diverse places, so as not only to keep him far from their borders but also to thoroughly rout and uproot him; if with concordant efforts each contributes what resources he can to the common cause in this common danger.
Thus the Christian cause shall be blessed, unconquered, and eternal through this concord. Therefore press this upon and persuade the other princes, and bind them with the holy alliance of faith and charity, that unanimously, joyfully, and eagerly they may constantly fight the battle of the Lord, the battle of Christ, the battle of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that everywhere on earth we may serve You with one shoulder, with one heart and mouth; everywhere we may sing to You; everywhere we may celebrate a Jubilee, when the Holy Land and the whole world returns to its former faith, to its former master and lord; everywhere we may jubilate to You in the jubilation of tongue and mind, with exulting spirits and voices: "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit."
This is the vow of the faithful, this is my one and only vow, which You, O Most Holy Trinity, have inspired in me from long ago and do not cease to inspire, that I may continually desire and beseech You for the destruction of Mohammedanism, heresy, and paganism. Would that it might be granted me to see before death the threefold ruin of these three enemies of Yours, so that throughout the whole world there may be one flock of Christ and one shepherd! Then indeed I would die happily, and I would sing and jubilate with St. Simeon: "Now You dismiss Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word in peace: for my eyes have seen Your salvation: which You have prepared before the face of all peoples: A light for the revelation of the nations, and the glory of Your people Israel."
Then likewise St. John will chant his words: "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, prepared by God, like a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21). Then Tobit will sing his words in chapter 13: "Jerusalem, city of God, you will shine with splendid light, and all the ends of the earth will worship you, etc. The gates of Jerusalem will be built of sapphire and emerald, and all the circuit of her walls of precious stone. All her streets will be paved with white and clean stone, and through her lanes Alleluia will be sung: Blessed be the Lord, who has exalted her, and may His kingdom be upon her forever and ever. Amen."
Then again the royal Psalmist will sing: "All nations, clap your hands, shout to God with a voice of exultation. He has chosen for us His inheritance, the beauty of Jacob which He loved" (Psalm 46). "Great is the Lord, and exceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, on His holy mountain. Mount Zion is founded for the exultation of the whole earth, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God will be known in her houses, when He shall receive her"
(Psalm 47). "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth exult, let the sea and all its fullness be moved" (Psalm 95). "The Lord reigns, let the earth exult, let many islands rejoice: worship Him, all you His angels; Zion has heard and was glad. The daughters of Judah have exulted because of Your judgments, O Lord" (Psalm 96). "All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God" (Psalm 97). "Praise Him with sounding cymbals, praise Him with cymbals of jubilation: let every spirit praise the Lord, Alleluia" (Psalm 150).
Then Isaiah will exult: "Praise, O heavens, for the Lord has shown mercy: shout for joy, O ends of the earth; resound, O mountains, with praise, and every forest and every tree thereof: for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and Israel shall be glorified" (chapter 44:23). "Behold, these shall come from afar (to Jerusalem), and behold those from the north and from the sea, and these from the southern land. Praise, O heavens, and exult, O earth; shout for joy, O mountains, with praise: for the Lord has consoled His people and will have mercy on His poor" (chapter 49:12-13). "Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. And the nations shall walk in your light, and kings in the splendor of your rising, etc." (chapter 60:1 and 3).
Then Zephaniah will sound his trumpet: "Praise, O daughter of Zion; shout for joy, O Israel: be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away your judgment, He has turned away your enemies: the Lord, the King of Israel, is in your midst: He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will be silent in His love, He will exult over you with praise" (chapter 3:14, 15, and 17).
Then Zechariah will jubilate: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold your king will come to you, just and a savior, etc., for the holy stones shall be lifted up over his land. For what is his good, and what is his beauty, but the grain of the elect and the wine that makes virgins blossom" (chapter 9:9, 16, and 17).
Make me the master of my vow — or rather of Yours — Jesus Christ our Savior, our love. "For this is," as You Yourself said, praying to the Father for us, "eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). And in turn the Father promised and said to You: "You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession" (Psalm 2:7 and 9).
You too, O holy Mother of God, daughter of the eternal Father, mother of the incarnate Word, spouse of the Holy Spirit, who alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world, destroy also those of our age. Claim for yourself the Holy Land, as your native soil; claim Hungary, once your client and suppliant, and therefore called the kingdom of the Virgin; claim the other provinces: for you are the Queen and Lady of all.
"For you (says St. Cyril, Homily 6 Against Nestorius) are the precious pearl of the world: you are the lamp of unquenchable light, the crown of virginity, the scepter of orthodox faith, the indestructible temple, containing Him who can nowhere be contained, Mother and Virgin. Through you the Trinity is sanctified, through you the precious cross is proclaimed. Through you heaven exults, angels and archangels rejoice, demons are put to flight, and man himself is called back to heaven; every creature held captive by the error of idols has been converted to the knowledge of the truth, and throughout the whole world Churches have been built. With your help, nations come to repentance. Through you the only-begotten Son of God, that true light, has shone upon those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. You the Prophets foretold, you the Apostles celebrated with the highest praises."
Guide therefore all, O illustrious star of the sea, amid the surging waves and storms of this world, on a straight course to the orthodox faith, virtue, holiness, and at last to the port of eternal salvation: Show yourself to be the mother of those who show they desire to be your children. Grant, through your powerful prayers to your Son, to all of us: TO LIVE FOR GOD, TO LIVE FOR HEAVEN, TO LIVE FOR ETERNITY: GRANT US TO ENJOY CHRIST, TO JUBILATE TO HIM THROUGH ALL AGES. For this is the whole of man. Amen.