Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/452

436 Apollo, was now attributed to Jehovah, and chroniclers tell us that fiery darts were seen flung from heaven into the devoted city; but finally, in the midst of all this horror, Gregory, at the head of a penitential procession, saw hovering over the mausoleum of Hadrian the figure of the archangel Michael, who was just sheathing a flaming sword, while three angels were heard chanting the "Regina Cœli." The legend continues that the Pope immediately broke forth into hallelujahs for this sign that the plague was stayed; and as it shortly afterward became less severe, a chapel was built at the summit of the mausoleum and dedicated to St. Michael; still later, above the whole was erected the colossal statue of the archangel sheathing his sword, which still stands to perpetuate the legend. Thus the greatest of Rome's ancient funeral monuments was made to bear testimony to this medieeval belief; the mausoleum of Hadrian became the castle of St. Angelo. A legend like this, claiming to date from the greatest of the early popes, and vouched for by such an imposing monument, had undoubtedly a vast effect upon the dominant theology throughout Europe* which was constantly developing a great body of thought regarding the agencies by which the divine wrath might be averted.

First among these agencies naturally were evidences of devotion, especially gifts of land, money, or privileges to churches, monasteries, and shrines—the seats of fetiches which it was supposed had wrought cures or might work them. The whole evolution of modern history, not only ecclesiastical but civil, has been largely affected by the wealth transferred to the clergy at such periods. It was noted that after the great plague in the fourteenth century, the black death, had passed, an immensely increased proportion of the landed and personal property of every European country was in the hands of the Church; well did a great ecclesiastic remark that "pestilences are the harvests of the ministers of God."

Other modes of propitiating the higher powers were penitential processions, the parading of images of the Virgin or of saints