# Post-Mediæval Preachers/Meffreth

​ According to a mediæval legend, an evil spirit once entered a monastery, passed his novitiate, and became a full brother. In preaching one Advent to the assembled friars, he spoke of the terrors of hell, and depicted them most graphically, being, of course, eminently qualified for so doing. His discourse produced a profound sensation among his audience, their blood curdled with horror, and some of the weaker brethren fainted away. When the true character of the friar was discovered, the Superior expressed to him surprise at his want of judgment in preaching a powerful sermon, calculated to terrify the hearers from ever venturing on the road which leads to the place described by the preacher with such fidelity: but the devil replied with a hideous sneer, “Think you that my discourse would prevent a single soul from seeking eternal damnation? Not so; the most finished eloquence and the profoundest learning are worthless beside one drop of unction,—there was no unction in my sermon.”
​Meffreth, the subject of this notice, was a preacher of great popularity in the fifteenth century; his sermons display great power of a certain order. He was undoubtedly an accomplished theologian, a good scholar, and a man of diversified reading; he could speak with force, and describe with considerable graphic power,—but for all this, in his two hundred and twenty-five sermons there is not one in which the unction necessary for the conversion of souls is to be discovered. It is quite impossible to read these sermons without feeling that the preacher’s great object has been the exhibition of his own ingenuity and learning, not the saving of the souls of his hearers.
Of the man himself but little is known, and that little we gain from his own title-page. From it we ascertain that he was a German priest of Meissen, and that he flourished about 1443.
His only work is the Hortulus Reginæ, seu Sermones Dominicales et de Sanctis, per totum annum, in Partes Æstivalem et Hyemalem distributos. Proderunt Norimbergæ, 1487, fol.; Basileæ, 1488, 2 vols. fol.; Coloniæ, 1645, 4to.; the same sermons, Pars Hiemalis; sine loco et anno, folio.
Sermones de Præcipuis Sanctorum Festivitatibus; Monachii, 1614, 4to.; Coloniæ, 1625, 4to.
Meffreth having stated boldly, in his Sermons on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, that she was born with the taint of original sin, his editors were put to some trouble in order to get a licence to publish; in the first edition there is an explanatory note by the publisher, in the second, a long preface by Fr. ​Joannes de Lapide, a Carthusian and Doctor of the University of Paris, refuting the opinion of Meffreth on this head, and stigmatizing it as heresy, not, however, on Scriptural and Patristic authority, but on the ground of the judgment of Sixtus IV., the decision of the University of Paris, and the decree of the Council of Basle.
The edition of 1625 contains another “Præmonitio ad lectorem, in tres sequentes sermones de gloriosæ Virginis Mariæ conceptione,” which, after giving an account of the indulgence decreed by Sixtus IV. to all those who should keep the octave of the feast of the Conception, concludes with these words: “Sixtus Popa IV. constituit, ut nec affirmantes, nec negantes Beatam Virginem sine originali peccato conceptam fuisse, hæreseos, vel peccati mortalis damnarentur, idque Concil. Trident, sess. 5 de peccato originali et Pius V. in quadam sua constitution confirmarunt: ceterum doctrina dicentium, B. Virginem cum peccato originali fuisse conceptam, pietati ædificationique populi minus videtur profutura. Quare quæ per tres sequentes sermones a Meffreth in hanc sententiam dicuntur, non sunt pro concione rudibus proponenda, sed Doctorum disputationi relinquenda: præsertim cum ex iis quædam admodum incerta et falso quam vero propriora sunt.”
Notwithstanding that a soupçon of heresy might be supposed to attach to Meffreth by vehement adherents of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the man is quite extravagant enough in his teaching about Our Lady to satisfy on all other points the most zealous ​Mariolater. For instance, with him, Mary is the garden of all delights (De Sanctis 3), by her name devils are put to flight (48), no one can be saved without her assistance (87 and 95), and she was conceived without earthly father (17). If Meffreth could swallow so many camels, he need not have strained at a solitary gnat. The sermons of Meffreth occupy 1412 pages of small, close print, in double columns, in the edition of Anthony Hierat, 1625; and they are furnished with three indices, one to each of the parts.
They are quite incapable of being reproduced in a modern pulpit, but they are nevertheless valuable, and worth the few shillings which they cost, for Meffreth was a man well versed in the mystical signification of Scripture, and he has carefully gathered together a vast amount of serviceable material, though he has been unable to build it together, with the wood, hay, stubble, which he has added, into a homogeneous mass.
His sermons open with a fact (?) from natural history, to which he gives an allegorical interpretation. This serves as an introduction. The body of the discourse is separated into two or three parts, and each part contains several heads; each head is again broken into divisions, and each division is subdivided. The sermons vary in length; those for Saints’ days are short, but the rest are of intolerable length. They are enlivened with anecdotes, sometimes good, generally pointless, occasionally absurd.
Those of Meffreth’s sermons which are intended as expositions of our Lord’s parables are better by far than the rest, and will be found useful by the theological ​student. As an example, take the following analysis of his exhaustive exposition of the parable of the Sower.
He explains it “anagogicè,” “allegoricè,” and “moraliter.” I shall give only the first two interpretations, as the moral signification has been given in the Gospel, and Meffreth does little else than repeat it.
I. Anagogicè—
1. God the Father sows seeds of two kinds:
A. Angelic nature, sown in the beginning,
α. On the way; i. e. on Christ, its true resting-place, from which some of the angels were snatched away by pride.
β. On the rock; i. e. on Christ. On this rock Satan fell and was broken. This is the rock which at the last day will fall on him and grind him to powder.
γ. Among thorns; i. e. envy and ambition.
δ. On good ground; this is the angelic nature, which rested unfallen on the good ground of God’s presence, and there ripened into the fruits of love, reverence, and obedience.
B. Human nature, sown on the sixth day of creation. This fell—
α. On the wayside of luxury: for the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasant to the eyes.
β. On the rock of pride: for Eve was tempted by the promise, “Ye shall be as gods.”
γ. Among the thorns of ambition: for the woman saw that the fruit was good to make ​ one wise, and she desired “to know good and evil.”
A. In the womb of the ever-blessed Virgin, that good ground where He would spring up and bear an hundredfold. In her womb He sowed—
α. His Divinity.
β. The humanity of Adam’s flesh.
γ. The human soul, which is the breath of God.
B. When He left the womb of Mary He went forth to sow—
α. The Gospel, which fell—
1. On the wayside of the impenitent.
2. On the rock of Pharisaic pride.
3. Among the thorns of worldliness and avarice.
4. On the good ground of the elect.
β. That He might sow His Divine grace.
γ. That He might sow His mercy, pardoning iniquity: and this fell—
1. On the wayside of luxury.
2. On the rock of despair.
3. Among the thorns of riches.
C. His own self did our Lord sow in His double nature, when He left earth for Heaven, there to sow the roses of martyrdom, the violets of confessors, and the lilies of virgins.
II. Allegoricè—
A. The sower is a preacher of the Gospel. The ​ seed is the word. The resemblances are sixfold.
α. The seed attracts the moisture of the earth, without which it is sterile.
β. The seed occupies the place of weeds.
γ. It generates seed in its own likeness.
δ. It contains within itself the principle of life.
ε. It is in a state of continual progression; first the seed, then the blade, then the ear, and afterward the full corn in the ear.
ζ. It multiplies itself.
B. The sower is a preacher; his characteristics should be—
1. Discretion as to where he sows.
2. Discretion as to when he sows.
3. Discretion as to how much he sows.
4. Discretion as to what quality he sows.
He must also go forth—
α. From evil communications.
β. From covetous desires, lest
1. His example injure.
2. His eye be darkened.
3. He forget his vocation.
γ. To contemplation.
C. The soil is fourfold in its quality.
1. It is trodden down by the continual passing to and fro of worldly and carnal lusts.
2. It is stony, without depth of conviction.
3. It produces thorn-like pleasures, riches, ease, ambition, and luxury.
4. It is good and deep.
​Perhaps one of the most striking of Meffreth’s sermons, and one free from his worst defects, is that on the text, “A certain man made a great supper, and bade many,” &c.; being part of the Gospel for the second Sunday after Trinity. It is divided into three parts, the first two of which I give in abstract, as they are suggestive and beautiful.
By way of introduction, Meffreth observes that Isidore in his Natural History asserts that the tiger is a beast swift as an arrow, marked and dappled with diverse colours, and when it approaches fire or water, or a looking-glass, it becomes so sluggish that it either falls into the fire and is burned, or tumbles into the water and is drowned, or remains in a brown study in front of the mirror till the hunters capture it.
Now this has its moral significance, observes the preacher, for all human beings are tigers, set like arrows to fly swiftly to their true end and aim, eternal happiness, which they would reach, were it not for certain fires and waters and mirrors which retard them, and allow them to fall into the hands of the devils, who are the hunters.
Meffreth having proved that man’s true end and aim is eternal beatitude, shows how that he is checked, and falls short of his aim, by the fires of evil concupiscence, the water of impure affections, and the mirrors of worldly felicity. It will be seen that there is some confusion in metaphor here.
Meffreth having settled the tigers, approaches the text.
The supper, he observes, has two significations; ​it is (A), the Blessed Sacrament, and it is (B), the beatitude of eternal fruition, the one being the earnest of the other.
And first, with regard to the Blessed Sacrament, he shows that the name of supper applies well to it for three reasons—the first being that it was instituted at the Last Supper; secondly, that cœna is derived from the Greek κενόν, “new,” and so exhibits it as a sacrament of the New Testament; and thirdly, because κενόν signifies shadow, the eucharistic symbols being shadows of the living realities they contain.
A certain man, in the parable, made a great supper: a great supper indeed is the Holy Eucharist; great because of the glorious nature of the food; great because of the abundance of meats it offers; these meats being remission of sin, mitigation of carnal desires, a revivification of good works by the destruction of sins, a fructification of virtues, an increase in grace, a mystical ingrafting into Christ, and a pledge of eternal life. Each of these seven meats is treated of at some length, and ramifies into collateral subjects. Great, too, is the supper of the Holy Eucharist, because of its durability. The feast of Ahasuerus, remarks Meffreth, lasted but seven days (Esther i.), whereas that of the Eucharist had lasted 1496 years, that being the date of his sermon. The preacher then, following St. Ambrose, shows who are those who come not to the Holy Table; they are the heathen, the Jews, and the heretics. The heathen, like him who had bought a piece of land, have set their affections on this earth, and sold all that they might secure it. The Jews, ever ploughing with ​the five yoke of the Pentateuch, never sow in the seed of the Word. The heretic, wedded to a sect of his own choosing, deserts the Catholic Church, which is the Bride of Christ. None of these men, says our Lord, shall taste of My supper.
But secondly (B), the supper signifies the beatitude of celestial glory. The whole of this division is worked out, I think all will agree, with singular felicity.
A supper, to be really great, says Meffreth, must have ten properties or requisites:
1st. It must take place at a suitable time, neither too early nor too late. That of Ahasuerus was made in the third year of his reign, and that of Christ in the third age, the age of grace.
2nd. It must take place in a spacious, and suitable, and secure spot. That of Ahasuerus was made “in the court of the garden of the king’s palace: where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble.” And the preacher shows how that the place of the heavenly banquet excels that of Sushan in spaciousness, suitability, and security.
3rd. There must be great liberality and hilarity of the host. Of Ahasuerus it is said, “The heart of the king was merry with wine, and he commanded—to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on.” Christ also shows His liberality and hilarity by making His feast known to all; by the greatness of His preparation; by His ​inviting many; by His distress at the refusal of those first invited, and His sending into the streets and lanes of the city; by His compelling men to come in from the highways and hedges.
The fourth requisite of a great supper is the abundance and the variety of the dishes. King Ahasuerus gave drink “in vessels of gold (the vessels being diverse one from another), and royal wine in abundance, according to the state of the king.” In like manner has Christ prepared abundance of good things for His marriage supper. And chief among these are the twelve refections of the just, each of which Meffreth comments upon with great beauty. I can but name them.
1. Health without infirmity. (Ps. ciii. 3. Isa. lx. 18.)
2. Youth without age. (Ps. ciii. 5.) This is fol-lowed by a dissertation on the apparent age which the resurrection body will have.
3. Satiety without distaste. (Isa. xlix. 10. Eccles. i. 8.) Followed by a proof that the soul can be satisfied with nothing short of God.
4. Beauty without deformity. (Matt. xiii. 43, Wisd. iii. 7.) Followed by a dissertation on the degrees of glory hereafter.
5. Impassibility with immortality. (Isa. xxv. 8; xlix. 10.)
6. Abundance without want; to this the preacher applies very beautifully the text, Judges xviii. 10.
7. Peace without break.
8. Safety without fear. (Ps. cxlvii. 14.)
​9. Knowledge without ignorance. (1 Cor. xiii. 12.)
10. Glory without shame. (Col. iii. 4.)
11. Joy without sadness: joy in having overcome our foes, joy in having become purged from every defect, joy in having escaped the woes of the lost.
12. Liberty without restraint, arising from the spirituality of the body. To will being then to do: the spiritual body being capable of travelling as swiftly as mind, of executing whatever the imagination can conceive.
Each Person of the ever-blessed Trinity, observes Meffreth, will grant us three gifts.
God the Father will present us with the unutterable contemplation of His unveiled presence, with the entire possession of all good things, and with the fulfilment of every desire.
God the Son will afford us clean and renewed flesh, sanctified souls radiant with beauty, and participation in the Divine nature.
God the Holy Ghost will give us the sweetness of eternal fruition, the wine of perennial gladness, and the fruits of love, joy, peace, &c. (Gal. v. 22, 23.)
Meffreth then returning to the requisites of a feast, says that the fifth is the courtesy of the ministers. In that made by King Ahasuerus, it is expressly said, “The king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man’s pleasure.” How fully will that requisite be obtained in the heavenly banquet! exclaims Meffreth, when even Christ “shall gird Himself and make” His servants “sit down ​to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” (Luke xii. 37.)
The sixth requisite of a feast is sweet music, and here Meffreth speaks of the music of the heavenly city as heard by St. John in Patmos.
The seventh requisite is abundance of light, and on this he quotes the Apocalypse xxi. 23, “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”
The eighth requisite is the delicacy of the victuals, and this he applies to the varied delights the redeemed will have in the society of the saints and of the angels in their differing orders and ranks.
The ninth requisite is duration. The banquet of Ahasuerus lasted but seven days, whilst that of Christ will be for ever and ever.
And lastly, a feast must be peaceful and calm. When Ahasuerus made his banquet, he prepared “beds of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble.” How much sweeter will be the rest of the redeemed in the green pastures of Paradise, beside the ever-flowing waters of comfort!
In another sermon on the same Gospel, Meffreth strangely inverts the subject just given, and makes the certain man to be the devil, and he describes with equal power the great feast of emptiness which he prepares. The properties of a feast are of course in this case wanting in every particular. For abundance of light there is outer darkness; for sweetness of music there are never-ending cries of despair; for calm and ​tranquillity there is strife and discord, and instead of those who are at that fearful feast having delicacy or variety of food, they are themselves the food on which the never-dying worm so sweetly feeds.
The commencement of the second sermon for the same Sunday after Trinity is so thoroughly characteristic of Meffreth’s worst style, that I must give it in his own Latin.
“Experientia, quæ est rerum magistra,”—note this pompous and stately beginning, and see what it introduces—“sæpe ostendit, quod mus, quandoque intrat promptuarium macilentus, ibique invenit lardum, carnes vel caseum et hujusmodi (and all that sort of thing) comedit, et impinguatur, cumque dominus venit quærens murem, vult fugere per foramen arctum, per quod intravit, sed præ pinguetudine non potest exire, sicque capitur et necatur.
“Moraliter. Per mures hic ad præsens intelliguntur homines, quia, sicut mus ab humo dicitur, eo quod ex humore terræ nascatur. Nam humus terra dicitur. Sic enim homo ab humo est dictus, eo quod de limo terrce est formatus. Gen. i.” After a few words about minding earthly things, and a quotation from Boetius, he continues,—“Si enim inter mures videres unum aliquem, jus sibi atque potestatem præ cætoris vendicantem, id est, usurpantem super alios mures. O quanto movereris cachinno, id est, risu, quia derisibile esset, et talis potestas terrena scilicet derisibilis, quæ non extendit se ad corpus. Quid vero si tu corpus spectes hominis, quid est imbecillius, id est, debilius homine? quasi diceret, nihil; quos scilicet homines muscarum sæpeque morsus ​in secreta, id est;”—another id est, Meffreth is intent upon being intelligible,—“in interiora hominis quæque reptantium, id est, serpentium, necat introitus.” The construction of this sentence is very confused. “In quo declarat, quod homo est mure debilior, imo parvissimo mure, quia musculus est diminutivum a mure. Iste quidem homo ad instar muris macilentus et nudus intrat in promptuarium hujus mundi. Juxta illud Job i. Nudus ingressus sum in hunc mundum et nudus revertar illuc. Cui alludet Apost., 1 Tim. vi., Nihil intulimus in hunc mundum, haud, id est, non dubium, quia nee auferre quid possumus.”
Having brought us into the larder of this world, Meffreth ought to have followed out the moral application, but he becomes apparently lost over the “lardum, carnes vel caseum et hujusmodi,” and never leaves them throughout his sermon.
An Advent discourse opens with the following statement: “Naturalists say that the Balustia, a certain flower of the pomegranate, is cold and dry, and has astringent and stiptic properties, wherefore it is used against dysentery and bloody flux of the stomach. It also restrains choleric vomiting, if it be cooked in vinegar and laid upon the collar-bone—so say medical men.”
“Expert naturalists say that every irrational animal, when it feels itself becoming weak and helpless, at once seeks a remedy for its languor, which may restore it to health. . . . . In like manner, says Isidorus (lib. xii.), stags, when they feel themselves burdened with infirmity, snuff the serpents from their holes with the ​breath of their nostrils, and having overcome the noxiousness of the poison, reinvigorate themselves with their food. Aristotle (lib. vi.) says of animals, that bears are wont to eat crabs and ants for medicinal purposes. Avicenna relates in his book viii. of animals, that it was related to him by a faithful old man, that he had seen two little birds squabbling, and that one was overcome; it therefore retired and ate of a certain herb, then it returned to the onslaught; which, when the old man observed frequently, he took away the herb. Now when the birdie came back and found it not, it set up a great cry and died. And Avicenna says, ‘I inquired the name of the plant, and conjectured it to be of the species which is called Lactua agrestis.’” (Dom. Sexagesima i.)
“The owl at night eats the eggs of the jackdaw, because it is strongest by night. But, on the other hand, the jackdaw walks off with the owl’s eggs by day, and eats them, because the owl is feeble by day. In like manner the devil devours all man’s good works in the night of sin, .... and just as the devil like an owl destroys man’s good works by mortal sins, so on the other hand ought man in the day of safety and grace to destroy the devil’s eggs by works of repentance.” (Feria, 4to. post, Reminiscere i.)
“According to naturalists, salt has the property of preserving from putrefaction. For we see that if meat is placed at full moon in the beams of the moon, it breeds worms, because the moon augments the moisture of the meat, and by this means predisposes it for corruption. If, however, meat is salted, the moon cannot ​do it so much harm; for salt extracts from the flesh its juices, wherefore men desirous of preserving meat from putrefaction put it in the pickle-tub. Morally—by salt understand the bitterness of penitence, or satisfaction; and by the meat understand carnal delights,” &c. (Domin. 2da p. Pascha, 9.)
I have mentioned the fact of Meffreth using stories in his sermons. They occur very frequently; they are not all either appropriate or edifying. The following, however, is pretty: it is to be found in the first sermon on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Meffreth is speaking of wealth and its cares as contrasted with the insouciance of poverty. He then relates the story of a certain Robin, or Rubinus, a poor man who lived under the steps leading into the palace of a wealthy nobleman. Poor Robin had a hard time of it: he toiled all day, and at nightfall he would go about the streets with an old fiddle, playing for a few coppers: sometimes, however, he would get as much as five pence, and then he would fiddle and sing at night on his straw, so cheerily that the rich man in his palace heard him and sighed, because his own heart was never glad. One day the lady of the house said to her lord, “How is it that you with all your wealth are never happy, whilst poor Robin under our stairs is as cheerful as a cricket?” “I will destroy his mirth,” replied the rich man; and he secretly conveyed a bag of money into Robin’s den.
No fiddle, no song, were heard for many days, for the poor fellow was gloating over his strangely-acquired wealth, and fearing hourly lest it should be taken from him. “How is it,” asked the lady of the house, “how ​is it that Robin neither fiddles, whistles, nor sings now?” “Mark!” replied her lord; “I will restore his song to him.” So he reclaimed his money. Now when Robin was free of this source of care, he caught up his fiddle and sang to it right lustily half the night through.
Another charming story told by Meffreth is this:—
There was once an aged hermit in the Egyptian desert, who thought it would be well with him if he had an olive-tree near his cave. So he planted a little tree, and thinking it might want water, he prayed to God for rain, so rain came and watered his olive-tree. Then he thought that some warm sun to swell its buds would be advisable, so he prayed, and the sun shone out. Now the nursling looked feeble, and the old man deemed it would be well for the tree if frost were to come and brace it. He prayed for the frost, and hoar frost settled that night on bar and beam. Next, he believed a hot southerly wind would suit his tree, and after prayer the south wind blew upon his olive-tree and—it died. Some little while after, the hermit visited a brother hermit, and lo! by his cell-door stood a flourishing olive-tree. “How came that goodly plant there, brother?” asked the unsuccessful hermit.
“I planted it, and God blessed it, and it grew.”
“Ah I brother, I too planted an olive, and when I thought it wanted water I asked God to give it rain, and the rain came; and when I thought it wanted sun, I asked, and the sun shone; and when I deemed that it needed strengthening, I prayed, and frost came—God gave me all I demanded for my tree as I saw fit, yet is it dead.”
“And I, brother,” replied the other hermit, “I left ​my tree in God’s hands, for He knew what it wanted better than I.”
Very different is Meffreth’s story of the fat priest who was carving a capon in Lent, when his servant burst out laughing behind his back. “Sirrah! what are you laughing at?” asked the globular parson.
“Oh, your reverence! excuse me, but I could not help thinking what a lot of drippings there would be from you, when hereafter the devils have the roasting of you.”