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 CARMELITE

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CARMELITE

taken from canon law, not from history, was declared victorious and the members of the university were forbidden to question the antiquity of the Carmelite < trder. Towards the end of the fifteenth century this was : i u ■ » i ' i ably defended by Trithemius (or whoever wrote under his name), Bostius, PaUeonydorus, and many others who with a great display of learning strove to strengthen their thesis, filling in the gaps in the history of the order by claiming for it numerous ancient saints. Sts. Eliseus and Cyril of Alexandria (1399), Basil (1411), Hilarion (1490), and Klias (in some places c. 1480, in the whole order from 1551) had already been placed on the Carmelite calendar; the chapter of 1504 added many more, some of whom were dropped out twenty years later on the occasion of a revision of the Liturgy, but were reintroduced in 1609 when Cardinal Bellarmine acted as reviser of i ii Mii-lit e legends. He, too, approved with certain reservations the legend of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Hi July, which had been instituted between lo76 and 1386 in commemoration of the approbation of the rule by Honorius III; it now (1609) became the "Scapular feast", was declared the principal feast of the order, and was extended to the whole Church in 1726. The tendency of claiming for the order saints and other renowned persons of Christian and even classical antiquity came to a climax in the "Paradisus Carmehtici decoris" by M. A. Alegre de Casanate, published in 1639, con- demned by the Sorbonne in 1642, and placed on the Roman Index in 1649. Much that is uncritical may also be found in the annals of the order by J.-B. de 1645-56) and in "Decor Carmeli" by Philip of the Blessed Trinity (1665). On the publication, in 1668, of the third volume of March of tin- Bolland- ists, in which Daniel Papebroch asserted that the ( larmi lite I )rder was founded in 1155 by St. Bert hold. there arose a literary war of thirty years' duration and almost unequalled violence. The Holy See, ap- pealed to by both sides, declined to place the Bol- landists on the Roman Index, although they had been i t he Spanish Index, but imposed silence on both

parties (1698). 'hi the other hand it permitted the erection of a statue of St. Elias in the Vatican Basi- lica among the founders of orders 1 1 72."> i, towards the cost of which (4064 scudi or $3942) each section of the

order contributed one fourth part. At the present time the question of the antiquity of the Carmelite Order has hardly more than academical interest. Foundations in Palestine. — The Greek monk John

Phocas who visited the Holy Land in lis.", relates

thai he met on Carmel a Calabrian (i.e. Western) monk

who Some time previously, on the strength of an ap-

nn of 1 he Prophet Klias, had gathered around

him about ten hermits with whom he led a religious

life in a small monastery near the grotto of the

prophet. Rabbi Benjamin de Tudela had already in

111'.:; reported that the Christians had built then chapel in honour of Klias. Jacques de Vitry and

several other writers of the end of the 1 welfth and the

beginning of the thirteenth centuries give similar

accounts. Tl xad date of the foundation of the

hermitage may be gathered from the life of Aymeric,

Patriarch of Antioch. a relative of the "Calabrian"

monk. Berthold; on the occasion of a journey to

.in m 1 1 .". I or- t he follow ing year hi- app

have visited t he latter and assisted him in tin- estab- lishment of the small community; it is further re- port eil t hat oil his return to \lltioeh le. 1 I 111 I I he took

with him some of t he hermits, who founded a convent in that town and another on a neighbouring moun- tain; both were destroyed in 1268. Under Berthold's

doubts .-irose as to t he pro|>er form of life of the ( 'armolitc hermits. The Pa- triarch of Jerusalem, Albert de Veroelli, then residing at Tyre, settled the difficulty by writing a short rule, part of which is literally taken from that of St. Au-

gustine (c. 1210). The hermits were to elect a prior to whom they should promise obedience; they were to live in cells apart from one another, where they had to recite the Divine Office according to the Rite of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, or, if unable to read, certain other prayers, and to spend their time in pious meditation varied by manual labour. Every morn- ing they met in chapel for Mass, and on Sundays also for chapter. They were to have no personal prop- erty; their meals were to be served in their cells; but they were to abstain from flesh meat except in cases of great necessity, and they had to fast from the middle of September until Easter. Silence was not to be broken between Vespers and Terce of the fol- lowing day. while from Terce t ill Vespers they were to guard against useless talk. The prior was to set a good example by humility, and the brothers were to honour him as t lie representative of Christ.

Migration to Europe. — As will be seen from this short abstract no provision was made for any further organization beyond the community on Carmel itself, whence it must be inferred that until 1210 no other foundation had been made except those at and near Antioch. which were probably subject to the patri- arch of that city. After that date new communities sprang up at Saint Jean d'Acre, Tyre, Tripoli, Jeru- salem, in the Quarantena, somewhere in Galilee (rnonasterium Valini), and in some other localities which are not. known, making in all about fifteen. Most of these were destroyed almost as soon as they were built, and at least in two of them some of the brothers were put to death by tin- Saracens. Several

times the hermits were driven from Carmel, but they always found means to return; they even built a new monastery in 1263 (in conformity with the revised rule) and a comparatively large church, which was still visible towards the end of the fifteenth century. However, the position of Christians had become so precarious as to render emigration necessary. Ac- cordingly colonies of hermits wen sent out to Cyprus. Sicily. Marseilles, and Valenciennes (c. 1238). Some brothers of English nationality accompanied the Barons de Vescy and Grey on their return journey from the expedition of Richard. Karl of Cornwall (1241 I, and made foundations at llulue near Alnwick in Northumberland, Bradmer (Norfolk), Aylesford, and Newenden (Kent). St. Louis, King of France. visited Mount Carmel in 1254 and brought six French hermits to Charenton near Paris where he gave them a convent. Mount ( iarmel was taken by I he Saracens in 1291, the brothers, while singing the Salve Regina, were put in the -v.onl. and the convent was burnt.

Character and Name. — With the migration of the Carmelite-: to Europe begins a new period in the his- tory of the order. Little more than the bare names of the superiors of the first period has come down to us: St. Berthold, St. Brocard, St. Cyril, Berthold (or Bartholomew), and Alan (1155-1247). At the lirst chapter held at Aylesford, St. Simon Stock was elected

general (1247-65). As the oldest biographical notice

eoi ruing him dates back only to 1430 and is not

very reliable, we must judge the man from his works. H found himself in a difficult position. Although the rule had been granted about 1211) and had re- ceived papal approbation in 1226, many prelates re- fused to acknowledge the order, believing it to be

founded in contravention of the Lateran Council (1215) which forbade the institution of new orders. In fact (he Carmelite Order as such was only ap- proved by the Second Council of Lyons (1274 i, but St. Simon obtained from Innocent IV an interim ap- probation, as well a- certain modifications of the rule (12 17). Henceforth foundations were no longer re- stricted to deserts but might be made in cities and the suburbs of towns; the solitary life was abandoned for community life; meals were to be taken in com- mon; the abstinence, though not dispensed with, was