522 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



them like a mimic battle-field, they were the first to declare that the profes- 

 sion of barrister was a noble one, and they soon sought to obtain admission to 

 it, by asking to be given the title of advocate, or aimi^, to the churches and 

 monasteries offices which compelled them not only to defend by force 

 ecclesiastical territory and privileges, but also to protect them, when necessary, 

 by word of mouth, at the pleas wherein were publicly debated questions at 

 issue, in presence of the leudes, or of the richest and most influential freemen 

 of the district. This is all we know on the subject, and even when we come 

 down to Charlemagne's reign there is nothing extant except a few capitularies 

 which regulate the administration of justice, but which make no allusion to 

 the speeches of the barristers. In fact, the doings of the French bar (to use 

 a modern term) are involved in complete obscurity until the reign of St. Louis, 

 though we are told that the advocates of the Church were enjoined to be 

 conversant with the law, to be gentle and peaceable, to fear God, and to love 

 their country. 



This decadence was the natural consequence of the promulgation of the 

 barbarian laws which took the place of the Roman Code. The accused had no 

 need of an advocate when, in order to prove their innocence, they had to 

 submit to the ordeal of fire, red-hot iron, or boiling oil. Speech was of no 

 use in quarrels and disputes which were decided by duel. The best advocate 

 was the man who could wield the sword with the greatest skill, and it was not 

 until after the abolition of the duel and of the ordeals by fire that the bar 

 resumed its normal existence. We must, therefore, look back through many 

 centuries of barbarism, in order to behold the triumph of Christian eloquence 

 in Europe (Fig. 393). 



It would be interesting to read the speeches and sermons of the first 

 apostles of Christianity in the West, but they were not preserved until the 

 end of the fourth century, when the edicts of Constantine enabled the 

 Christian Church to raise its voice against the then expiring paganism. It is 

 in this fourth century that is to be found the cradle of Christian eloquence, 

 delivered in Greek by St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of 

 Nyssa, St. Epiphanius, St. Dionysius, St. John Chrysostom ; in Syriac by St. 

 Ephrem ; and in Latin by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome. " The 

 sublime proportions of Christian oratory," says Villemain, " seem to increase 

 as the other kinds fade away." And after citing the orators named above, 

 he adds, " Their genius alone remains erect amidst the decay of the empire. 



