Appendix B.

Extract from the Encyclical Letter of Gregory XVI. 'Mirari Vos,' August 15, 1832.

As we have learned that certain writings spread abroad among the people publish doctrines which destroy the loyalty and submission due to princes, and kindle everywhere the torch of civil discord, we have to take especial care that the nations may not be deceived thereby, and led away from the right path. Let all bear in mind, according to the words of the Apostle, that 'there is no power but from God, and those that are ordained of God; therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase to themselves damnation.'¹

Wherefore both divine and human laws cry out against those who, by basely plotting civil discord and sedition, abandon their allegiance to their princes and unite to drive them from their thrones.

For this reason, to avoid so base a crime, it is a well-known fact that the first Christians, in the midst of persecutions, rendered meritorious service to their Emperors and to the safety of the Empire. This they showed by the clearest proofs, not only in fulfilling with all loyalty and promptitude all that was commanded them not contrary to their religion, but by persevering therein even to shedding then blood in battle for them.

'Christian soldiers,' says St. Augustine, 'served an unbelieving Emperor, but when the cause of Christ was in question, they acknowledged only Him who is in Heaven. They distinguished between the Eternal Lord and a tem-

¹ Rom. xiii. 2.

page 187 poral lord, and were nevertheless subject to the temporal for the sake of their Eternal Lord.'¹

St. Maurice, the invincible martyr, the captain of the Theban Legion, had this before his eyes when, as St. Eucherius relates, he gave his answer to the Emperor:—'We are your soldiers, O Emperor, but nevertheless, we are free to confess, the servants of God. . . . And now we are not driven into rebellion, even to save our lives, for here we have arms in our hands, and we do not fight, because we have the will to die rather than to slay.'

This loyalty of the first Christians to their princes is the more conspicuous if we consider with Tertullian, that Christians at that time 'were not wanting in numbers and strength if they had wished for open war. We are but of yesterday, and we are found everywhere among you, in your cities, islands, strongholds, towns, public places, in your camps, your tribes, your companies, in your palaces, your senate, and your forum. . . . For what warfare should we not have been able and willing, even at great odds, who so readily offer ourselves to death, if our religion did not oblige us rather to die than to slay? ... If we, so large a number as we are, had broken away from you and gone to some distant corner of the world, the loss of so many citizens, even such as we are, would have put your empire to shame, nay, would have punished you by the very loss. Without doubt you would have been daunted in your solitude. . . . You would have asked over whom you were ruling: more enemies would have been left than citizens: but now you have fewer enemies, owing to the number of Christians.'²

These luminous examples of immovable loyalty to princes, which necessarily followed from the holy precepts

¹ St. August, in Psalm cxxiv. n. 7.

² Tertullian in Apolog. cap. xxxvii.

page 188 of the Christian religion, at once condemn the detestable pride and wickedness of those who, boiling with unbridled lust for an inordinate liberty, are wholly engaged in destroying and tearing to pieces all the rights of princes in order to reduce the nations to slavery under pretence of liberty.—See Recueil des Allocutions des Souverains Pontifes. Paris, Le Clère, 1865, pp. 165-6.