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 NICOLAITES

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NICOLAS

cal writings seems to have been to extol the dignity and glory of France and her lyings. Thus, he delivered in Rome in 162S a panegyric in honour of the victory of Louis XIII at La Rochelle and in 1661 composed a poem in honour of the son of Louis XI V. He was highly esteemed at the royal court and received a pension of 600 francs. He was buried in the chapel of the con- vent of St. James in Paris, and a marble stone beside the grave bears a long inscription recounting his vir- tues, his learning, and his services to his country.

Qu^TiF-EcH-^RD, SS. Ord, Prmd., II, 647; Journal des Savants, II, 340. 4S2.

Joseph Schroeder.

Nicolaites (Nicolaitans), a sect mentioned in the Apocalyp.se (ii, 6, 15) as existing in Ephesus, Perga- mus, and other cities of Asia Minor, about the charac- ter and existence of which there is little certainty. Irena;us (Adv. Hasr., I, xxvi, 3; III, xi, 1) discusses them but adds nothing to the Apocalypse except that "they lead lives of unrestrained indulgence". Ter- tuUian refers to them, but apparently knows only what is found in St. John (De Praiscrip. xxxiii; Adv. Marc, I, xxix; De Pud., xvii). Hippolytus based his narrative on Irenteus, though he states that the deacon Nicholas was the author of the heresy and the sect (Philosoph., VII, xxvi). Clement of Alexandria (Strom., Ill, iv) exonerates Nicholas, and attributes the doctrine of promiscuity, which the sect claimed to have derived from him, to a malicious distortion of words harmless in themselves. With the exception of the statement in Eusebius (H. E., Ill, xxix) that the sect was short-lived, none of the references in Epi- phanius, Theodoret etc. deserve mention, as they are taken from Irena>us. The common statement, that the Nicolaites held the antinomian heresy of Corinth, has not been proved. Another opinion, favoured by a number of authors, is that, because of the allegorical character of the Apocalypse, the reference to the Nicolaitans is merely a symbolic manner of reference, based on the identical meaning of the names, to the Bileamites or Balaamites (Apoc, ii, 14) who are mentioned just before them as professing the same doctrines.

HiLGENFBLD, Kctzergeschichte des Urchristentums (Leipzig, 1884); Seeseman, Die Nikolaiten. Bin Beitrag zur dlteren Haresi- ologie in Theol. Studien und Kritiken (1893).

P. J. Healy.

Nicolas, Armella, popularly known as "La bonne Armelle", a saintly French serving-maid held in high veneration among the people, though never canonized by the Church, b. at Campen^ac in Brit- tanny, 9 September, 1606, of poor peasants, George Nicolas and Francisca Neant; d. 24 October, 1671. Her earlv years were spent in the pious, simple life of the hard-working country folk. When she was twenty-two years of age her parents wished her to marry, but she chose rather to enter service in the neighbouring town of Ploermel, where she found more opportunity for her pious works and for satisfying her spiritual needs. After a few years she went to the larger town of Vannes, where she served in several families, and for a year and a half was portress at the Ursuline monastery. She here forined a special friendship with a certain sister, Jeanne de la Nativity, to whom she told from time to time many details of her spiritual life, and who noted down these com- munications, and afterwards wrote the life of Armella, who could herself neither read nor write. Even the lowly work at the convent did not satisfy her craving for toil and humiliation, and she returned to one of her former employers, where .she remained to the end of her life. To her severe trials and temptations she added many works of penance and was rewarded by the growth of her inner life and her intimate union with God. During the last years of her life a broken leg caused her great suffering, patiently borne. Many

recommended themselves to her prayers and her death-bed was surrounded by a great number of per- sons who held her in special veneration. Her heart was preserved in the Jesuit church, and her body was buried in the church of the Ursulines. Near her grave was erected a tablet to "La bonne Armelle"; her tomb is a place of pilgrimage. Armella has been claimed, but without good grounds, as an exponent of Quietism (q. v.). If some of her expressions seemed tinged with Quietist thought, it is because the con- troversy which cleared and defined many notions con- cerning Quietism had not yet arisen. On the other hand her simple, laborious life and practical piety make any such aberrations very unlikely.

JuNQMANN in Kirchenlexikon, s. v. Nicolas; Stoltz, Legende der Heiligen, 2Jf October; BussoN, Vie d' Armelle Nicolas etc. (Paris, 1844) ; Tehsteeqen, Select Lives of Holy Souls, I, 2nd ed. (1754).

Edward F. Gahesch:^.

Nicolas, AuGusTE, French apologist, b. at Bor- deaux, 6 Jan., 1807; d. at Versailles 18 Jan., 1888. He first studied law, was admitted as an advocate and entered the magistracy. From 1841-49 he was justice of the peace at Bordeaux; as early as 1842 he began the publication of his apologetical writings which soon made his name known among Catholics. When in 1849 M. de Falloux became minister of pub- lic worship he summoned Nicolas to assist him as head of the department for the administration of the temporal interests of ecclesiastical districts. He held this office until 1854 when he became general inspector of libraries. In 1860 he was appointed judge of the tribunal of the Seine and fanally councillor at the Paris court of appeals.

Nicolas employed his leisure and later his retirement to write works in defence of Christianity taken as a whole or in its most important dogmas. He showed his accurate conception of apologetics by adapting them to the dispositions and the needs of the minds of his time, but he lived in a period when Traditionalism still dominated many French Catholics, and this is re- flected in his works. He aimed no doubt at defending religion by means of philosophy, good sense, and arguments from authority; but he also often appeals to the traditions and the groping moral sense of man- kind at large. The testimonies, however, which he cites, are often apocryphal, and frequently also he interprets them uncritically and ascribes to them a meaning or a scope which they do not possess. Be- sides, his apologetics speedily grew out-of-date when ecclesiastical and critical studies were revived in France and elsewhere. His writings also betray at times the layman lacking in the learning and pre- cision of the theologian, and some of his books were in danger of being placed on the Index. Some bishops, however, among them Cardinals Donnet and Pie, in- tervened in his behalf and certified to the uprightness of his intentions. Otherwise the author addressed himself to the general public and especially to the middle classes which were still penetrated with Vol- tairian incredulity, and he succeeded in reaching them. His books were very successful in France and some of them even in Germany, where they were translated. Among his works may be mentioned: "Etudes philosophiques sur le Christiatiisinc" (Paris, 1841-45), a philosophical apology for the cliicf Chris- tian dogmas, which reached a twenty-sixth edition before the death of the author; "La Vierge Marie et le plan divin, nouvelles (Studes philosophiques sur le Christianisme" (4 vols., Paris. 18.52, 1853, 1S61), in which is explained the- rcMe of the Blessed Virgin in the plan of Kedi'inption, and which was triiii.slati'd into German, and rcai^hed the eighth edition during the author's lifetime; " Du protestanti-sme et de toutes les h6r6sies d,ans leur rapport avec le socialisme" (Paris, 1852, 2 vols., 8 editions); "L'Art de croire, ou prepa- ration philosophique au Christianisme" (Paris, 1866- 67), translated into German; "La Divinit6 de Jdsus-