Peter the Hermit | Page 7

his piety.
[Sidenote: Emotions in Jerusalem]
He stood with agony on Calvary. He adored with tears the tomb of Christ. Then he sought speech with the Patriarch of Jerusalem. His name was Simeon, and like another, waited for "the salvation of God." Who is responsible for the report of this interview we do not know, but one more probable and pathetic is not on record outside the Bible.
[Sidenote: Patriarch Simeon]
[Sidenote: Simeon's and Peter's Hope]
Simeon had suffered much for his faith as well as for his leadership. The impatient enthusiasm of Peter was moved to tears by the patient enthusiasm of Simeon. "Is there no remedy?" cried Peter, weeping. And Simeon answered: "Is it not evident that our sins have shut us away from the mercy of the Lord? All Asia is in the power of the Mussulmans; all the East is enslaved; no power on earth can help us." Peter asked, "May not the warriors of the West come to your help?" "Yes," said Simeon, "when our cup is full, God will soften the princes of the West, and will send them to the help of the Holy City." This was Peter's thought, and, weeping with joy over a great hope, the patriarch and the pilgrim embraced. The patriarch pledged himself to appeal to Europe by letter and Peter by word of mouth.
The plan of Peter was strengthened by his further devotions at the Holy Sepulcher. There are two ways in which men of strong will become sure that their will is the will of God.
[Sidenote: Peter's Mental Constitution]
One is to make a plan, and then submit it to God in prayer. The other, and the truer, is to ask God's help in the making of the plan as in its execution. The first, as was probable from Peter's intellectual and moral constitution, seems to have been the way in which he came to certainty as to his life mission. There is no reason to doubt that in his exiled state, moved at once by piety and peril, he saw the vision, though inwardly, which inspired his return. At the Sepulcher he thought he heard the voice of Christ commanding him to proclaim the sorrows of Christ's land and of Christ's people. The best account of this vision and commission is that of the Historia Belli Sacri: "One evening as Peter went to rest the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him in a vision, saying, 'Peter, stand up. Go back quickly into the West. Betake thyself to Pope Urban with this commission from Me that he get all My brothers as quickly as possible to hasten to Jerusalem, in order to purge the city of unbelievers. All who do this from love to Me, to them stand open the doors of the kingdom of heaven.'" This became to him a daily commission from on high. Bearing letters from Simeon, he went to Italy by sea, and sought the presence and aid of Urban II, then pope.
[Sidenote: Pope Urban]
Urban felt that this call, recognized by his predecessors, was more fully and loudly given to him.
The refusal of Hagenmeyer to credit this vision and its influence on Pope Urban seems to be the result of an ultra critical spirit. When a pope speaks, after argument and urging, he is not likely to think it consonant with his dignity to give credit in allocution or bull to those who urged him. Holding that all men are properly servants of the Holy See, he speaks as if he was the original source of knowledge and impulse. Urban does not, in his famous speech at the Council of Clermont, give Peter's vision or Peter's urgency as a ground for his utterance or action. But he followed Peter on that occasion, and it may well be that if Peter mentioned his vision as the inspiration of his mission, the pope would not speak of its influence on himself.
[Sidenote: Urban's Emotions]
The Roman pontiffs, whatever their own ability or lack of it, have always been distinguished for the wise use of enthusiasm. If not able to make the wise direction of it themselves, some one of the Curia has always been at their service to value the force and direct it into channels of wider influence for the Church. There can be little doubt that Urban was moved by a true and generous feeling. It would have been almost impossible for any one to have simulated the grief he manifested at the Council of Clermont.
[Sidenote: Mixed Motives]
But there can be as little doubt that, as the proposed movement must inevitably aggrandize Roman Catholicity and make her the leader of the Christian world, Urban was happier and stronger by the coincidence and collaboration of both forces. There was a rival pope, and there were sovereigns who were his enemies. What a