The pilgrim members of the Greek Church who make their way to Jerusalem frequently buy in the holy city a tract printed for their special benefit. It professes to be a letter which fell from heaven on the tomb of the Virgin at Gethsemane, and declares itself to have been written by the hand of Christ. This document, in various editions, has a wide popularity throughout the Slavonic world,—in Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Bulgaria, and Roumania. The “heavenly letter” has a long and curious history, and furnishes an object-lesson of credulity, superstition, and “pious fraud.”
Toward the close of the sixth century, Licinianus, Bishop of Carthagena, wrote to another bishop, Vincentius by name, dissuading him from a belief in the genuineness of an alleged letter of Christ. This document he thus describes:—
“In principio ipsius epistolae legimus ut dies dominicus colatur. Quis enim Christianus non propter ipsum diem sed propter resurrectionem domini nostri Jesus Christi, eo quod in ipso a mortuis resurrexit, reverendissimum non habeat? Sed quantum sentio, ideo novus istae praedicator hoc dicit, ut nos judaizare compellat, ut nullus sibi in eodem die necessaria victus praeparet aut viam ambulet. Sed hoc quam pessimum sit, sanctificatas tua perpendat. Utinam populus Christianus si die ipso Ecclesiam non frequentat, aliquid operis faceret et non saliaret. Absit ergo a sanctitate tua hoc credere ut epistolae nunc nobis mittantur a Christo. Sufficiat enim quod locutus est in prophetis per seipsum et per suos apostolos. Nam et his non litteras transmittit e caelo, sed spiritu sanctum eorum cor da replebat. Exceptis enim decem praeceptis, quae in tabulis mirabiliter data sunt, ad nullum Prophetarum aut Apostolorum epistolae missae sunt de coelo. Non igitur credas quae numquam facta leguntur, quae etsi facta essent, post praedicationem Evangelii jam necessaria non sunt. Et si forte ipsum nomen novum te delectavit, quia ipsa epistola, sicut simulator scripsit, de caelo descendit super altare Christi in memoria S. Petri apostoli, scito diabolum esse figmentum.”
Altho there are no quotations from the Christ-letter, the description given by Licinianus clearly identifies it as one in which Sunday observance is strictly enjoined as a divine command, and in which the first day is described as having the place and authority of the Hebrew Sabbath.
The Second Instance.
We next hear of a “heavenly letter” in the year 745, when Pope Zacharias held a council in the Lateran. On this occasion Denardus denounced as heretical the teaching of Clement and Aldebert, and produced a letter which the last-named had widely circulated. This was said to have fallen from heaven, and to have been found by Michael the Archangel at the “Effrem” gate of Jerusalem. A copy was sent by Icore, a priest of “Geremiam civitatem,” who, in his turn, sent a copy to Leoban, a priest of “Arabiam civitatem,” and he sent it to “Vetfaniam civitatem,” where it was received by Macrius, a priest of God, who sent it to the holy mountain of the Archangel Michael. And then, we are told, angelic hands brought it to Rome and placed it “on the tomb of St. Peter, where are the keys of heaven.” Twelve papati, who were in Rome for three days, watched, prayed, and fasted day and night. At this point the quotation made by Denardus breaks off.
Aldebert had an immense following, and claimed to be the “servant of God.” He was raised to the episcopal rank, but excited the suspicion of his colleagues, and was deposed and imprisoned as a heretic. He claimed to know the secrets of those who came to him to confess, and gave absolution without hearing them—a summary process, which, if effective, saved time to both priest and penitent. The pope regarded Aldebert as a madman. Another condemnation of the “heavenly letter” occurs in a capitulary of Charlemagne of the year 789. This refers to the circulation of pseud-epigraphic writings and dubious narratives, and among them is the “letter fallen from heaven,” which, it is declared, should not be believed or read, but rather be burnt. But while some might condemn it as a doubtful document, or even as a forgery, it continued to circulate.
Version III.
A version published by Baluze, but copied by Marca from a MS. at Tarragona, makes the letter to have fallen in Jerusalem, and to have been carried by Michael to the Effrem gate, where fifteen bishops watched, fasted, and prayed. It insists upon the sanctification of Sunday, and the payment of tithes, in order to escape from the coming anger of the Lord. This copy is assigned to the Carolingian period by Baluze, but Delehaye and others hold it to be later.
In the English Church, before the Norman conquest, the “heavenly letter” must have had a considerable vogue. It is incorporated in more than one of the homilies formerly attributed to Wulfstan, but of which recent criticism is disposed to deny him, for the most part, the credit. In Anglo-Saxon the “heavenly letter” exists, as Dr. Priebsch has shown, in three differing editions. In the first the letter is said to have fallen from heaven at a gate of Jerusalem, where it was found by a priest, Achorius, and was finally placed on the altar of St. Peter at Rome. In the second, a certain deacon, Nial, dies, but comes to life again, and announces that fire is to fall upon the earth because men will not accept the “heavenly letter,” which is said to have been found on St. Peter’s altar when Florentius was pope and Petrus bishop of Rome. In the third, Peter, bishop of Antioch, is the recipient.
Prof. Napier prints an Anglo-Saxon version from an eleventh century MS. belonging to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. “It is noteworthy,” he says, “that in both the Old English representatives of this group (and therefore in their Latin original), it is an angel who is the actual writer and bearer of the letter, while in the other non-English versions no mention whatever is made of an angel.”
(1) Anglo-Saxon versions differ, to some extent, from such, but they agree in their main object, of enforcing the ecclesiastical restrictions on the first day of the week by the authority of a direct message from heaven.
(2) A curious proof of the popularity of the “Christ letter” is the fact that it was written in shorthand in the tenth century. The use of Tironian notes continued in the Middle Ages, and in the Vatican there is a MS. in which the rubric “Incipit epistola Salvatoris Domini” remains, altho the original text has been effaced, and a fresh one written over it.
