Venetian discourses, drawn from the history, art & customs of Venice

Front matter

(AD^

Works by Rev. Alex, Robertson^ D.D.

THE BIBLE OF ST. MARK : The Altar

Preface

Venice was the most stable, the most peaceful, the most prosperous, and the longestlived Republic the world has ever seen.

*' Through many an age in the mid-sea she dwelt, From her retreat calmly contemplating The changes of the Earth, herself unchanged.

A scene of light and glory, a dominion That has endured the longest among men."

Such being the case, nothing, I think, could be more opposed to reason and to probabilif-y , thjin the .notion, too commonlyentertained, that slie owed her superlative greatness to a policy and to practices that savoured of piracy and pillage, of tyranny and injustice, of cruelty and oppression. And, from my own study of Venice and Venetian history, I am prepared to say that no notion could be more opposed to truth and to fact.* The more I know of the old Venetians, the more I feel called upon to admire not only their marvellous energy and industry, their perseverance,

Vlll

PREFACE intelligence, and wisdom, but also their justice and humanity, their healthy morality, and their manly piety.

On the gable of the Church of San Giacomo, at the Rialto, the old commercial centre of the city, Venice carved, for the guidance of her merchants, who trafficked around it, the following inscription — as legible to-day as when cut a thousand years ago, and which Mr. Ruskin says it was the pride of his life to discover : —

" Around this temple, let the merchants' law be just ; Let not their weights be false, nor their covenants unfaithful."

And at St. Mark's, the old judicial centre of the city, above the door that connects Church and Palace — the ,Doge's chapel and the Doge's home — Vertlce' 'carved also in that far-back time, for the guidance of her Prince, these significant words : —

" Love justice, render to all their rights ; Let the poor, the widow, the ward, and the orphan,

O Doge !

Hope in thee as their protector. Be gentle to all. Let not fear, nor hate, nor love, nor gold bias thee. Thou art Doge ; but as a flower thou wilt perish and

become dust ; And as thy deeds have been, so, after death, thy fate

will be."

PREFACE ix

Moreover, in the speeches of the Doges, in the mosaics of her churches, in the pictures of her palaces, as well as in the books she printed and in the education she gave her sons, we have evidence of how genuine was her love, and how widespread was her knowledge, of the Holy Scriptures.

In this Biblical knowledge possessed by the Venetians, and in the spirit of righteousness which animated them, as shown by the inscriptions I have given above, we have, I think, a key to the explanation of the prosperity and longevity of the Republic. It was because her rulers and her people practised in daily life a lofty morality, the outcome of a vital religious faith, that she

« Rose, like an exhalation from the deep,''

and gained, and maintained, her proud preeminence amongst the nations.

Venice, therefore, cannot but be full of lessons for the preacher and for the hearer. It lends itself, as perhaps no other European city does, to Biblical illustration. During the years I have lived and worked in it, I have found this to be the case ; and I have been accustomed, from time to time, thus to use it in my pulpit ministrations. In doing

X PREFACE

so I know that travellers always appreciated my efforts, and that they found it much more profitable to think of Venice as fitted to afford them wholesome and Christian teaching, and to stimulate them to live nobly, than as being only, what at the close of her career she did become,

" The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy."

My hope is, through the publication of these sermons, to reach and influence a wider circle than I can in my Venetian " upper room," and to lead my readers to regard and study Venice from this same standpoint, in order that they may derive a similar benefit ; for I believe that Venice appeals to the mind and to the heart, not only of those who visit her shores, but of all who take an intelligent interest in human affairs. Venice is dear to all lands, and

" Most of all,

Albion ! to thee ; the Ocean Queen should not Abandon Ocean's children."

ALEXANDER ROBERTSON.

Venice, November 1905.

Contents

I. THE PALACE

PAGE

" Polished after the similitude of a palace.^' — Psalm

II

" Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." — Rev. iii. 8.

II

" / am the door : by me if any man enter in^ he shall he saved^ and shall go in and out^ and find pastured —John x. 9.

In the early centuries of the Christian era, when there were no printed books, and when manuscripts were the property of the fey^, it was customary to make the walls, and even the floors of churches teach the people Bible knowledge, by covering them with pictures illustrative of the main facts of the Christian faith, and bearing, the. sacred, text they were intended to expound and enforce. For the selection of these texts and illustrations, and for their arrangement in more or less conspicuous places, according to their relative importance, as well as for the teaching of this art of Christian Iconography in general, a school existed on Mount Athos, the Holy Hill of Greece. Quite recently a copy of its rules was discovered in one of the manv

^ c hundreds of monasteries scattered over that mountain. An examination of these rules showed that this text, "I am the door: by me if. any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture," with its appropriate illustration, was ordered to be put up over the main portal of the church, on the outside, so that all entering in might see and read it. The selection of such a text, for such a position, was a happy one. Indeed, no passage of Scripture, fuller of Gospel truth, or more appropriate to be set over a church door, could be found, for it reminded all, as they crossed the threshold of the material church, that the true Church of God could only be entered by Jesus Christ, "the door of the sheep," and that by Him all were invited to enter; and that so doing all would find the very blessings they required— -salvation and sustenance, protection and provision ; they would be folded and fed as the sheep are under the Shepherd's care, they should " be saved and find pasture."

I believe that only in two churches in Europe is this text, with its suitable illustration, to be seen now ; one of these is St. Sophia's, Constantinople, and the other is St. Mark's, Venice — two churches that in architecture and in their original mosaic decorations very much resemble each other. In accordance with the Byzantine Iconographic Code this text in the church of St. Sophia is placed above the main outer door, only, as St. Sophia's is now a Moslem mosque, it is barely legible through a coat of whitewash. In St. Mark's Church it remains in all its original dignity of design and colour, only it is not outside, but inside the building. St. Mark's Church has two lines of doors, the first opening into the atrium and the second into the church. Entering by the great central portal of the outer line, crossing the atrium, where the catechumens were instructed, a flight of marble steps leads up to the great central bronze door of the church. Passing through this into the building itself, we shall see above it, on its inner side, this text with a most appropriate and significant Byzantine representation, wrought in glass mosaic, and framed in marble. In the centre of the picture is the Lord Jesus Christ, sitting enthroned, robed in royal purple and blue ; behind His head there is a golden nimbus with the shadow of the cross upon it, and His monogram, begun on one side and ending on the other, I-C X-C (^lija-ovg X^f(7T09 — Jesus Christ). At Christ's right hand is Mary, with a simple circlet of gold behind her head, with her monogram, M-P e T (MtiT^p GetoO Tiou— Mother of the Divine Son), and her hands raised in the Byzantine attitude of prayer (the only attitude in which she is ever represented in the original mosaics of the church) ; and at Christ's left hand is St. Mark, in a similar attitude of worship, with his name, S. Marcus, and with a similar nimbus. Christ thus adored has His right hand raised in the act of blessing, whilst with His left He holds an open Bible on His knee, the outspread pages of which, turned full towards the spectator, bear in large letters the words : " Ego sum hostium, per me si quis introierit sahabitur, et pascua inveniet'' (I am the door, and by me if any man enter in he shall be saved . . and find pasture). As there was not space enough on the two open pages for the whole verse, the words " go in and out " are omitted. Let us now go over my text clause by clause, and may God make our study of it glorifying to His name, through our good.

(i) "/ am the doorT — Like many other objects to which our Lord, for the more easy comprehension of His hearers, compares Himself, such as the Light, the Vine, the Corn of Wheat, and the Water, the one here used is a very humble one — a Door. It is one

"I AM THE DOOR'

well fitted to remind us of the deep humiliation to which He stooped for our sakes, *' Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery" (a thing to be grasped at) "to be equal with God : but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men : and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." And the door selected for comparison is the lowliest of its kind — a sheep-fold door. In contrast to the lofty, wide, ample, ornate portals of palaces and mansions, and even of many ordinary dwelling-houses, it is low and confined, narrow and plain. It reminds us of the '' strait gate " of another of our Lord's parables. It is the postern, or wicket gate, of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It thus the better symbolised Him who was "despised and rejected of men," ** who was as a root out of a dry ground, without form and comeliness," of whom it was said, *' Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon } and are not his sisters here with us .? And they were offended at him."

And yet the figure is most expressive. For the door here figuratively spoken of, however humble it may be, commands the fold. Nothing can enter the sheep-fold but by the door. And its very lowliness, and narrowness, and straitness add to its serviceableness and importance in that it aids the shepherd in his examination of the sheep, insuring that none can enter unknown and unrecognised by him. And even so no one can enter into the true fold unknown to Christ. No one can deceive Him. On His part there is perfect knowledge of all who are His. " I know my sheep ; " "I know them by name." This fact should be a comfort to true Christians, and a warning to those who are only formal ones.

The impressiveness of the figure is still further enhanced when we realise that our Saviour here claims to be not only the door, but the only door. He does not say, " I am a door," but *' I am the door," for the article in the original is very emphatic, implying that there is no other door. '' I (alone) am the door of the sheep, all that ever came before me (usurping my place) are thieves and robbers." The lawyers thought that the " key of knowledge " which they possessed would open for them the door of the kingdom of heaven ; the scribes and Pharisees trusted similarly in their legal righteousness and their ceremonial observances ; whilst the common people, as a whole, were content to rest in their Abrahamic descent, saying, " We have Abraham for our father." But our Saviour brushes all these confidences aside as refuges of lies, and claims by the use of this humble figure of the door to stand, solitarily and alone, the Saviour of the world. " No man cometh unto the Father but by me." " There is no other name given under heaven, among men, whereby we must be saved." One door to the ark, one door to the sheep-fold, one Saviour and Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is remarkable how this claim was recognised and confessed by the old Venetians in St. Mark's Church. Not content with the conspicuous display of it in the words and in the pictorial illustration of our text above the door, they have re-asserted it on the marble arch that frames the mosaic in the following lines : —

(I am the gate of life, O My members,"enter by Me.) Also, on a band of marble that crosses the wall above, there is an inscription referring to the picture of Christ beneath : " Ciuis fuerit^ et quo te^ quo procioque redemit^ et cur tihi fecit, et dedit omnia, mente revolve''' (Who He was, and for what purpose, and at what price, He redeemed thee, and why He did this for thee, and gave thee all things, consider). Further, on the keystones of all the arches of the outer line of doors of the church the figure of Christ is carved. In many churches, both ancient and modern, whilst Christ may be set over one door, probably the principal one of the building, very often Mary is put over a second door, and the saint, after whom the church is named, over a third. This arrangement is intended to teach that though Christ is the Door, the main Door, into the fold of the redeemed, yet men are helped thitherward by the intercession and by the mediation of His mother and of the saints. St. Mark's Church is a protest against that teaching. In it all the doors are one door, and that Door is Christ. With Christ the Church stands or falls. The sculptures and mosaics of St. Mark's thus singularly emphasise the teaching of the text — Christ the Door, the only Door. The spiritual fold of the redeemed, like that material sanctuary, cannot be entered but by Him.

Christ's claim to be the Door, the only Door, is rendered still more impressive by His

CHRIST THE KEYSTONE asserting Himself to be this in His own person, "/(personally) am the door." Our Saviour's words may be understood almost literally. A friend of mine in the East was once looking at a sheep-fold in the company of a shepherd. After a time he said, " Well, you have shown me many things about the fold, but you have not shown me the door." The shepherd replied in the very words of the text, " I am the door," and then, pointing to a gap in the fold, he explained that at night, when the sheep were all in the enclosure, he wrapt himself in his blanket and lay down across the gap. He was the door. Nothing could enter but by him. So Christ in His own person is the Door. Christ does not separate Himself from what He taught and wrought, as did the founders of pagan Religions and Schools, or the Old Testament prophets and teachers, none of whom made themselves the subjects of their teaching and prophecy. They acknowledged themselves to be but messengers delivering messages, to be but teachers imparting lessons. In the Koran there are passages expressly calling upon its readers to distinguish between Mohammed and Mohammedanism. But Christ claims, in contrast to this, to be the messenger and the message, the teacher and the lesson, the preacher and the sermon, the founder of a religion and the religion that He founded. Salvation is not a thing that Christ bestows upon us apart from Himself. He bestows it in union with Himself. We obtain it by being joined to Him by the bonds of faith and love and service. As has been said, " Christianity is Christ." To come to the door, is to come to Christ ; to grasp the handle of the door, is to grasp the hand of Christ ; to enter the door, is to enter Christ.

(2) ^^ By me if any man enter in.'' — Christ having declared Himself to be the Door, the only Door, next offers Himself as an entrance to all. By Christ all may enter in. But He does not put it in that way. He says, " By me if any man enter in." He thus offers Himself to all, by offering Himself to each. In this way there is brought before us, in these words, two things — (^) the Universality of our Lord's offer of entrance, and {F) its Particularity.

{a) Its Universality. — Christ as the Door offers admission to all. The Kings of Babylon and Persia are represented in the Book of Daniel as issuing their commands and decrees *' to all peoples and nations and languages that dwelt in all the earth." But an appeal which, on the lips of men of limited knowledge of the world and of its inhabitants, savoured of pride and folly is full of reality and significance when proceeding from Him who knows all men, and in whose *' hands are all the corners of the earth." And Christ ojffers admission to all, because He loves all, and died for all ; because He is the " propitiation . . . for the sins of the whole world." And He offers admission to all equally, because all the distinctions that separate man from man — distinctions of race and colour, of nationality, of social status and caste — sink into insignificance in view of the great fact that all men '' have gone astray like lost sheep," and that Christ has provided in Himself a remedy for them all. In the light of this fact, '' there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free : but Christ is all, and in all." False religions are not adapted for unlimited extension. Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, born in the East, can never by their very nature take root in the West. But the Christian religion is indigenous nowhere ; it can take root and grow equally anywhere. It is a universal religion, knowing no boundaries of latitude and longitude, knowing no barriers of race and country, but, coming from God the Father of all, it is designed and fitted to be for the salvation of all. " Go ye unto all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." All, then, enter in by Christ, the Door ; all are invited to enter in ; all are commanded to enter in, " according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations, for the obedience of faith."

(^) The Particularity of our Lord's offer of entrance. " By me if any man enter in." The narrow sheep-fold door prevents, as we said, any entering unknown to Christ ; it also prevents any entering to whom Christ is unknown. "I know my sheep" is one half of the truth, " and am known of mine " is the other. If on Christ's side there is, " I know whom I have chosen," on the believer's side there is, " I know in whom I have believed." Coming to Christ must be personal. Each one in this matter must act for himself. Each one must himself come to Christ, believe in Christ, lay hold of Christ. Each one must personally come to the strait gate, to the wicket gate, to the sheep-fold door, and be admitted. We are told in the parable that the sheep hear the shepherd's voice, and know his voice ; and so likewise each one must hear the voice and know the voice of Jesus. As Christ is Himself the Door, it is impossible to come to it, and enter it, without knowing Him.

This individual coming to Christ, this personal finding the strait gate, the sheep-fold door, and entering it, implies individual exertion and labour and self-denial. One cannot find it by sitting still. One cannot find it by deputy. Though one may point another to it, and urge him to start in its quest, and may even accompany him thither all the way, still each one must enter it for himself. And that sometimes strenuous effort is required for this is implied in our Saviour's words, " Strive (agonize) to enter in at the strait gate." Intellect, will, heart, thought, resolve, affection, are all brought into action in coming to Christ.

But none sincerely seeking the Door can miss it. The land-doors of the great palaces of Venice are generally small, and placed at the ends of long, narrow, tortuous alleys, and they would be difficult to find but that there are hung out over them great \a,nterns, fana/i, that flood them with light. When Christian asked Evangelist the way to the Celestial City, Evangelist, pointing over a very wide field, said, " Do you see yonder wicket gate ? " Christian answered, " No." Then asked Evangelist, " Do you see yonder shining light ? " Christian said, " I think I do." " Then," said Evangelist, *' keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto, so shalt thou see the gate." In the same way, God has hung up over the strait gate, the sheep-fold Door, the lamp of Scripture which gleams out into the darkness of the night, so that men who have strayed like lost sheep in the wilderness of the world may see the light from afar, and, guiding their footsteps by it, may find the Door, and, finding the Door, may find Christ, of whom all Scripture testifies, the great Shepherd and Bishop of their souls.

(3) ''^ He shall be saved ^ and shall go in and out ^ and find pasture T — A door serves two purposes — entrance and exit; and a sheep-fold door gives ingress to the fold and egress to the fields ; thus guaranteeing for the sheep, in the one case, {a) Safety^ and in the other, (^) Sustenance.

And these are the blessings those receive who enter Christ, the Door; for '' by me if any man enter in he shall be saved^ and shall go in and out, and find pastured The believer in Christ obtains safety and subsistence, security and sustenance ; and in the possession of these blessings he obtains all he really needs, a saved life and a sustained life ; since '* in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,'' and he is " complete in him.''

((«) In Christ the Believer obtains Safety. — *' He shall be saved." We need to be saved. The fact of sin existing is patent to all, felt by all, confessed by all. Sin is a fact in our lives, and in the lives of others. There is, as has been said, " a baseness in the blood," a moral malady that is foreign to our nature, of which we are ashamed. And sin means peril, punishment, lostness, death. "Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." " The wages of sin is death." On this point Canon Liddon has said : " The sternest things that have ever been said, as regards sin's prospects in another world, first passed the tenderest lips that ever proclaimed God's love to man." It is Christ who speaks of the undying worm, and of the unquenchable fire. As sinners we need forgiveness, we need to be saved from sin's punishment. And this is what Christ does for us. This is one half of the salvation He brings us. When the Christian pilgrim, footsore and weary with the length of the way and the load of sin on his back, knocked at the wicket gate and was admitted, and came up to the cross — when he, "in other words, came to Christ, "his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and he saw it no more." As of old, so still, the very first words Christ speaks to the sin-oppressed one coming to Him, are, " Son, daughter, be of good cheer ; thy sins are forgiven thee."

" There is no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus." And we need to be saved from sin's power. Sin has by nature dominion over us. Subjection to evil is a stern fact confessed by Jew and Gentile alike. Horace said, " I see and approve of the better course, I follow the worse;" and St. Paul said, "The good that I would I do not : but the evil which I would not, that I do. O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." St. Paul thanked God for deliverance from sin's dominion, which he obtained in Christ. And this is the second half of the salvation Christ brings us. He " breaks the power of cancelled sin." He supplants love to sin by love to Himself, so that the danger of moral ruin by actual transgression is averted. In Christ there is protection from those evil influences and temptations which, inherent in our own constitution, and assailing us from without, endanger peace of mind and life. And no matter how many and how fierce our enemies may be, in Christ we occupy such a position of security that we are delivered from their fear, and we are inspired with confidence. As the sheep within the fold are protected from the thief and the spoiler, the lion and the wolf, so the believer in Christ is protected from him in whom all evil is summed up, Satan, which " as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour " : and from " wolves in sheep's clothing," those "grievous wolves " that *' enter in among you, not sparing the flock." Where the shepherd in his own person is the door of the fold, he has to be vanquished before the sheep can be reached ; and so in the case of the believer, Christ, the Door, has to be overcome before he can be touched. Therefore the Christian's confidence is that of St. Paul, " And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom." In Christ there is safety, security, and salvation.

D

(^) In Christ the believer obtains Sustenance. — *' He shall go in and out, and find pasture." The sheep-fold is not a prison. The sheep do not enter it to remain there, but rather that, having found in it needed refuge and repose, they may come forth again to the green valleys and hill-sides, and find pasture. Giving ingress to the fold, the door also gives egress to the fields. But when the sheep go out, it is always under the protection and the guidance of the shepherd. He is thus the door of the sheep, as well as the door of the fold.

And in like manner he who enters by Christ into the fold does not enter into a prison — nay, rather, he enters into liberty, " the glorious liberty of the children of God," that " liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free." The very refuge and repose the believer receives in the fold is given him that he may pass out, refreshed and restored, under the guidance of Christ, into a life of activity in the fields ; and find pasture, find sustenance. Into what fields .? Into all the old, it may be, well-known fields provided by the Divine bounty for our sustenance and pleasure — the fields of Nature, of Society, of Business, of Providence, of Science, of History, of Revelation. Christianity does not narrow, does not restrict, the range of our

CHRIST THE ONE DOOR affections, of our interests, and faculties. The very opposite : it broadens and widens them. But all these fields change their aspect to the man who is in contact with Christ. They wear for him a richer green and a fairer aspect, and are bathed in sweeter sunshine. For him, " old things have passed away, and all things have become new ; " and all the new things afford him spiritual nourishment.

He sees now the true glory of the realms of Nature, for he sees everywhere the handiwork of Him, " by whom all things were made," and " in whom all things consist." His mind and heart, his soul and spirit, are warmed and fed, as he sees around him the manifestations of his Saviour's wisdom, power, goodness, love, beauty, and purpose. For the Christian's nourishment and support Christ turns the very " wilderness " into " a standing water," and the " dry ground into water springs." For his refreshment and delight the barren waste is transformed into a garden, " the garden of the Lord," and the " desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose." Christ, the Lord of nature, glorifies and interprets His words and His workings to the Christian for his sustenance.