Chapter IX (2)

In the first regard, the repletion of the Church with God is not a state attained once for all. It is rather a process of measured growth [Greek text]. The measure of the age of the fulness of Christ is the goal and the objective point of the entire development of the Church. It will be attained when every individual shall have become complete in Christ, and therewith also in his own person a pleroma of Christ. In the edifying of the body of Christ, or in the establishment of the Church, therefore, we must work without repose till we all meet in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. In this sense only can it be said that there is a progress in the Church. This continued development of Catholicism the apostle regards as a gradual repletion of the single members of the Church with all the fulness of God, [Greek text].

We have as yet, however, come to know but the one phase of this relation of the Church to Christ, or to the pleroma of the Godhead. The Church is not only destined to present herself at the close of her historical development as the pleroma of him that filleth all in all; she is even now entitled to this attribute, by virtue of her essential character.

On this head we derive instruction from a nearer contemplation of the process of development in which the erection of the Church is completed. "The whole body," says the apostle, meaning the body of Christ himself, "maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity." The Church therefore carries within herself, in the inmost recesses of her being, the principle and the germinal power of her whole development. This fundamental principle of Catholicism is Christ himself, who pervades the Church as his body.

There is a subjective and an objective repletion of the Church with Christ. The former progresses gradually, in so far as the single members of the Church assimilate themselves more and more to Christ. The latter is a given state of things from the first. In it consists the most subtle essence of the Church. This objective presence of Christ in her approves itself as the vital power of her growth. The gradual ripening of the Church therefore grows up into Christ ([Greek text], Eph. iv. 15) on the one hand, and proceeds from him ([Greek text]) on the other. From him--that is to say, by means of the vivifying influence of the Son of God, present in the Church, she maketh increase of herself unto the edifying of herself in charity.

It is the same idea, when the apostle characterizes the growth of the Church as an [Greek text], an _augmentum Dei, i.e._, a growth emanating from God. God effects it, but by the instrumentality of the Church, within her and as issuing from her. For this purpose God hath installed her as his pleroma. Precisely because the Church is filled with God, or is his pleroma, the members of the Church may gradually become complete in him. Thus there is a development and a progress only for the individual members of the Church. She herself, by virtue of her essential character, is superior to development, and acts as the impelling force of this development. Christianity _has_ a history, but it _is_ not itself a history. The essence of Christianity, which is that of the Church, is not a thing in process of formation, it is a thing accomplished and perfect from the beginning.

The scriptural idea of the body of Christ presents the principle of Catholicism in a new light. The Church alone has Christ for her head. It is her exclusive privilege to be the body of Christ. This gives her a fellowship of life with Christ, by which she is distinguished from the world, the {678} latter sustaining to him no relation but that of subjection and dependence. But upon what rests this privilege of the Church? Why is she alone the body of Christ, the pleroma of the God-head?

Christology must supply the fundamental reason. According to the Catholic dogma of the person of Christ, he filleth the universe only by virtue of his Godhead. With his life as the Son of Man he filleth only the Church, his body. But how much more largely does God reveal himself by his personal inhabitation of the sacred humanity of Christ than by the creative power wherewith he penetrateth and filleth all in all! Here a single ray, a faint reflection of his glory, flutters through the veil of created nature, there the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily.

The idea of Catholicism, therefore, coincides with that of fulness. As the pleroma of him who filleth all in all, the Church harbors in her bosom a treasure, the richness of which is inexhaustible. Every created thing, every single period, every particular phase of the culture of the human mind, has some good attribute. Yet this attribute is a mere special advantage, a peculiar quality, a feeble reflex of the chief good, a single ray of the shining sea of goodness inclosed in the unfathomable abyss of the divine essence, of the fulness of the Godhead. The completeness of the revelation of God's goodness is found only in the sacred humanity of Christ, and therefore in the Church. Hence the Church is the highest good that is to be found on earth. Let the productions of the human mind, at a given stage of its development, be ever so glorious and sublime, they can never supplant the pleroma of the Church. Her wealth is fraught with all the possible results of the human intellect and imagination; and these, in the fulness of the Church, are intensified, raised, as it were, to a higher power of goodness. Every production of the human mind is more or less in danger of falling short of the requirements of later ages. The metal of all such fabrics needs to be recast from time to time, as forms and fashions change. In default of this, it gradually degenerates into mere antiquity, or, in the most fortunate event, it preserves only the character of an honored relic. From this fate of all that comes into existence the Church is exempt. She alone is ever young, and always on a level with the times. This qualifies her to be the teacher of the world from age to age. Hence, also, she is enabled to minister an appropriate remedy for the disease of every generation. How, then, can a movement which makes war on the Church claim to be an advance of the human mind in the right direction? The interests of true civilization will never interfere with those of the Church.

As well that the Church is the body of Christ as that in her is the fulness of him who filleth all in all--both of these attributes adhere to her in virtue of her divine foundation. Thus Catholicism, whose fundamental principle we have contemplated in this twofold scriptural aspect, is not the product of the combination of any external circumstances. It is grounded in the very idea of the Church, in the inmost depths of her being. Therefore she remains the Catholic Church in every vicissitude of her external condition, whether in the splendor of princely honors, or under the crushing weight of Neronic persecution.

If, then, Catholicism is of the essence of the Church, the momentous conclusion is irresistible, that the true Church is capable of realization in such an image only as enables her to present herself in her essential feature of catholicity. It follows that the papacy, as necessary to the Catholic manifestation of the Church, is imperatively demanded by the law of her being.

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From Once a Week.

THE CATHEDRAL LIBRARY.

It is now between forty and fifty years ago that I obtained leave from the dean and chapter of Winterbury Cathedral to read for some weeks in their cathedral library. The editions of the fathers and of some important middle-age writers which are preserved in that quiet library boast of peculiar excellence, and I well remember the exultation with which I, then a very young man, received news of the desired information to ransack those treasures. Having secured a small lodging in the close, or cathedral enclosure, I set out for Winterbury early in the year 182-. Through the kindness of one of the canons, who seldom had to consult the library on his own account, I was provided with a key to the library buildings, and allowed to keep undisturbed possession of it as long as my visit lasted. This key gave access not only to the library, but to all parts of the cathedral likewise, including even the cloisters, so that I was able to let myself in and out of the noble edifice at all hours of the day or night, and to ramble unchallenged through aisle, crypt, stalls, triforium, and organ-loft.

I have never forgotten, and shall never forget, the day on which I first took my seat in the room which was to be the special scene of my labors. The library lay on the south side of the cathedral, being a lower continuation of the south transept, and forming one side of the cloister court. It was obviously, therefore, raised above the height of the cloister vaulting, and it was reached by a flight of stairs opening into the cathedral itself. Narrowness (it measured about eighty feet by thirty), and a certain antique collegiate air (and smell, too, to be perfectly accurate) about the bindings of the books and the coverings of the chairs, were its chief characteristics. There was a bust of Cicero at one end, and of Seneca at the other. Some smaller busts of the principal Greek fathers adorned the side-shelves, and a dingy portrait of the "judicious" Hooker abode in a musty frame over the heavy stone mantelpiece. The fender itself was of stone, or rather the fireplace was not protected by a fender at all, but by a small stone wall, about three inches thick and six inches high, which afforded blissful repose to the outstretched foot.

One April evening, shortly after sunset, when there was still daylight enough to read the titles on the backs of books, I walked across the close in order to fetch and bring away with me a couple of volumes of which I stood in need. It was an hour when the grand old cathedral is accustomed to put on its very best appearance. The heaven-kissing spire and the far lower, but beautiful, western towers are tinted with the faint rose color which suits old stonework so admirably; and the deep gloom of the cloisters, tempered by the glow from the noble piles of masonry overhead, makes it possible and easy to realize some of the rapturous visions of the recluse. I passed as usual down the nave, and having ascended the little staircase, let myself into the library, and was on the point of attacking the necessary bookshelf, when instead of placing the key in my pocket, as it was my habit to do, I tossed it carelessly on to the sill of an adjoining window. The woodwork of the library was by no means in a sound condition, and between the inner edge of the sill and the wall there was a wide chink, opening down into unseen depths of distance. Into this chink, impelled by my evil genius, or by one of the ghostly beings that (as {680} I was assured by the verger) haunt the library and cloisters, down tumbled my unlucky key. I saw it disappear with a sharp twinge of vexation, principally, however, at the thought of the time and trouble that would be consumed in bringing it to light again. To-morrow, I said to myself, I shall be forced to get a carpenter to remove this sill, and rake up the key from heaven knows where; while smirking Mr. Screens, the verger, will watch the whole proceeding, and insinuate with silent suavity a doubt whether I am a fit person to be entrusted with Canon Doolittle's key. It was not until I had come down from the short ladder with the books under my arm, and, warned by the deepening shades, was about to leave the library, that the full effect of the key's disappearance presented itself to my mind. The outer gate and inner door of the nave had been carefully shut by me, according to custom, on entering the cathedral. All the gates and doors were fitted with a spring-lock, so that without my key I was double-locked into the building. My first thought was one of amusement, and I fairly laughed aloud at my own perplexity. It seemed an impossible and inconceivable thing that one might really have to pass the entire night in this situation. Presently I left the library, the door of which I had not shut on entering, and went down the staircase into the transept, and then into the nave. I carefully tried the inner door, but without effect. I had done my duty on entering, and it was hopelessly and mercilessly fastened against me. Resolved on maintaining unbroken self-possession, I returned to the library. It was now quite dark, the only light being that reflected from the shafts of the cloisters, on which the moonbeams were now beginning to fall. I sat down in a large arm-chair which stood at one end of the library table, and thought over all the possible means of extricating myself from an unexpected durance. Should I go up to the belfry in the north-western tower and toll one of the bells until the verger, roused from his first sleep, should come to see what was the matter? but even this I could not do without the key, which would be required to open the door at the entrance of the tower. Or should I make my way into the organ-loft, and filling the bellows quite full, strike a succession of loud chords, until the music might attract the attention of some passer-by? this might be done, but it would be a perilous experiment. Half Winterbury would be seized with the belief that their old cathedral was haunted. The organ-loft would be invaded by vergers, beadles, and constables--there were no blue-coated police in those days-- and I should move about the ancient city ever after with the stigma of a madcap on my head. People would nod knowingly to one another as I passed, and significantly tap their foreheads, by way of hinting that I was "a little touched." Canon Doolittle would recall his key, and abstain from inviting me to his hospitable table. Gradually, therefore, I gave up the scheme of saving myself by means of the organ; and the belfry being already set aside, no other resource remained but to stay where I was, and quietly to pass the hours as best I could until Mr. Screens should open the doors at about half-past six in the morning, ready for the seven o'clock prayers in the Lady chapel.

I was luckily undisturbed by any fears arising from the possible anxiety of my landlady. Winterbury is near the sea; and I had on more than one occasion spent the greater part of the night on the cliffs, watching the glorious moonlit effects upon the romantic coast scenery of that district. These Mrs. Jollisole was accustomed to call my "coast-guard nights;" and I made no doubt that, should I fail to appear, the sensible old lady would go contentedly to bed, supposing me to have mounted guard on the cliffs.

I therefore lost no time in composing myself, if not to sleep, at any rate to an attempt at sleep. The library table was always surrounded by an {681} array of solemn old oak chairs, padded with cushions of yellowish leather, and looking as though--if their own opinion were consulted--no mortal man of lower degree than a prebendary should ever be allowed to seat himself upon them. At each end of the table there was a chair of a superior order--a couple of deans, as it were, keeping high state amidst the surrounding canons. These chairs were made of precisely the same kind of oak, and covered with leather of exactly the same yellowish tinge as the others, but their whole design was larger and more imposing, and what was of the most consequence to me in my present position--they were _arm_-chairs, affording opportunity for all manner of easy and sleep-inviting postures. Throwing myself into one of these dignified receptacles, I soon fell asleep, and soon afterward took to dreaming.

Leaning in my dream on the sill of the library window, I fancied myself to be gazing down into a peaceful church-yard. One by one, like gleams of moonlight in the dark shade of the surrounding cloisters, I saw a number of young girls assemble, and fall with easy exactitude into rank, as if about to take part in a procession. Each slender figure was draped in the purest white muslin, with a veil of the same material arranged over the head, and partially concealing the face. Just as one sees at the present day in Roman Catholic churches at the more important _fetes_, the procession was arranged according to the gradations of height. The very young children were in the front, and as the other end of the line was approached, the pretty white figures grew gradually taller, until girls of eighteen or nineteen brought up the rear. They presently began to move, and it was clear that they were about to take part in some solemn office for the dead. With two priests at their head, they made the circuit of the cloisters, moving along with graceful regularity of step. Between each pair of the slender columns of the cloister building, I imagined that a small stone basin (or "_benitier_") was set, standing on a low pedestal, and filled with holy water. Each girl walking on the side next to these basins was furnished with a small broom of feathers, like those which may at any time be seen in the Continental churches. Dipping these brooms from time to time into the basins of water, they waved them in beautiful harmony with their own harmonious movements, sprinkling the ancient monumental slabs over which they were stepping. They sang to a strain of rare melody the familiar words of _Requiem AEternam_.

Presently they seemed to change time and tune, and to sing a hymn of many verses, each verse ending with a refrain. A single voice would give the verse, but all joined together in the plaintive music of the refrain:

"Through life's long day and death's dark night,
O gentle Jesus! be our light!"

I have heard much music, secular and sacred, since then; but I know of no musical effect which abides with me so constantly as that imagined chanting of young voices heard long ago.

One girl in particular attracted my attention as I dreamt. She was one of the pair who closed the procession, and was of a commanding height and extremely elegant figure. She had, as it seemed to me, taken excessive precaution in drawing her ample veil closely around her head and face,

* * * *

On a sudden I awoke. There, in one of the decanal arm-chairs, I was sitting--in an easy, familiar posture, as if I had been myself a dean-- and there beside me, close at hand, within reach of my outstretched arm, was a tall figure in white, clearly a female form, and the precaution had been taken of drawing an ample veil closely around the head and face. Any one but an imbecile would have acted as I did, though I remember taking some credit to myself at the time for my coolness and presence of mind. I simply sat still and stared; and by degrees I observed, I conned. Years before, in my boyhood, I had walked a good {682} deal on the stretch; and I had known what it was in North Devon to wake up "upon the middle of the night," to feel the hard, unyielding turf underneath one's back, and see and gaze, gaze wistfully upon the bright unanswering stars above one's head. Even then one could divine the true value of a bed. But to wake on the downs in the small hours is a trifle compared with waking in a cathedral any time between dew and dawn. More especially when, as was my case, you have a ghost at your elbow. Not that my ghost remained long stationary. She did not. Starting from my arm-chair, she began a survey of the shelves by moonlight in so active and business-like a manner that I felt no doubt, given her _quondam_ or present mortality, she was or had been a "blue." In five minutes, my powers of decision were wide awake, and the question of her mortality was settled. She was not a thing of the past, but alive as I myself was; and the only scruple was, how or how soon to awaken her from her somnambulist's dream. While I was debating with myself the best means to pursue, she suddenly passed out of the library door on to the stone staircase. My alarm was now fairly excited. She had two courses to pursue in her sensational career--I employ the word in a more correct use than it is commonly put to. She might either turn downward toward the floor of the church itself, in which case she could do herself little or no harm; or she could mount the ascending staircase, and reach an outward parapet, with heaven knew what mad scheme in view, before I had time to overtake her. She chose the second alternative, and--she leading, I following--we mounted the lofty staircase that leads to the base of the spire. I was aware that the door at the top of this particular ascent was not furnished with a lock; it was fastened by a simple bolt, and I had little doubt that my sleep-walking friend would shoot that bolt back as readily as she had taken down and replaced the books on the library shelves. My greatest fear was that she might begin playing some mad prank upon the parapet before I was sufficiently near to arrest her movements. I need hardly add that, influenced by the dread of consequences commonly said to follow on a sudden awakening from a fit of somnambulism, I inwardly resolved to try every means of humoring and coaxing my companion down again to _terra firma_, and only as a last resort to attempt arousing her. In a few moments we stood side by side on the platform looking down on Winterbury, which lay outstretched in the white moonlight. It was a tranquil and beautiful scene. There was the church of St. Werburgh, a noble monument of thirteenth century building, which would attract instantaneous admiration anywhere but under the shadow of Winterbury cathedral. There was the fine old market-place, with the carved stone pump at which Cromwell drank as he passed through the city; and the charmingly quaint guildhall, and the ruins of the abbey skirting the river in the distance. I was not permitted, however, long to enjoy the prospect. Before I could lift a finger to arrest her rapid movements, my mysterious companion had stepped lightly on to the parapet, and began a quick and perfectly unembarrassed walk around it. Dreading the experiment of forcible rescue, it occurred to me to try the effect of quietly accosting her, and endeavoring--by humoring her present mental condition--to decoy her away from her perilous amusement. It was an awful moment of suspense. Should she lose her balance and her life, it would be next to impossible for me ever totally to clear up the enigmatical circumstance of my having been actually present by her side during that weird moonlit dance upon the parapet. If, on the other hand, I were to seize and lift her from the top-stone, she might rouse the whole close with frightful screams, she might faint--might even die--in my arms, or from the shock of sudden awakening she might lose her reason.

{683}

But there was no time to stand balancing chances. Accordingly, I gently drew toward her side, and said, in as easy and collected a tone as I could command,

"I think we left the library door unlocked; before you complete your rounds, had we not better go down the stairs and secure it? Having been allowed the entry of the cathedral, I think we are bound in honor to shut doors after us."

"To be sure," she replied, and instantly, to my intense relief, dropped cleverly down into the space between the parapet and the lower courses of the spire. "To be sure, the door should be locked at once. Let us go down. I cannot make out who you are. In none of my former visits to the cathedral have I met you; but you seem to be no intruder, and I will certainly go down and secure the door as you suggest."

All this was uttered quickly and easily, but with an abstracted air, and without the slightest motion of her steadfast eyes. While still speaking, she stooped under the low door-way at the stair-head, and began to descend. I followed, busily devising plans for preventing any fresh ascent, and yet still avoiding the necessity of breaking the curious spell which bound her. We reached the library door. To my surprise, she produced a key of her own, and was about to turn the lock, when I remembered that at this rate I should be deprived for the rest of the night of my only comforts, the warm atmosphere of the library and the decanal arm-chair. I therefore extemporized a bold stroke.

"Excuse me," I said, "I have left my hat and a few papers inside, and having a canon's key, I will save you the trouble of locking up. But permit me to suggest that it is still very early in April and the night is cold. Why not give up the rest of your walk for to-night, and return again on one the glorious nights in May or June?"

Without uttering a syllable in reply, she turned on her heel, and began slowly descending the staircase into the transept. My curiosity was now fairly on the alert, and I resolved to unravel the mystery, at least so far as to discover by what means she would leave the cathedral, and in what direction she would go. Stepping for a moment inside the library, I hastily but quietly slipped off my shoes on the matting of the floor, and followed her barefoot and silent. She was just stepping from the staircase into the transept, when I caught sight of her again. With the same steady and self-possessed action which she had displayed throughout, she crossed the transept, and made straight for a small postern door which led, as I knew, into the garden of the bishop's palace. This she unlocked, and I made sure that, having passed through, she would lock it again behind her. Whether, however, she was a little forgetful that night, or whether the unexpected _rencontre_ with a stranger had ruffled the tranquil serenity of her trance, it so happened that she omitted to turn the lock, and I was able, after gently reopening the door, to trace her progress still further. Under the noble cedars of the episcopal gardens, past long flower-beds and fresh-mown lawns, I followed her barefoot, until we arrived within a few yards of the hinder buildings of the palace. Here I stopped under the dark shade of a cedar, and watched my companion walk coolly up to a little oaken, iron-clamped door, open it, and disappear within the house. Then of course I retraced my steps toward the cathedral. But stopping again under one of the magnificent cedars, I could not avoid a few moments' reflection on the exceedingly odd position into which accident had brought me. Here was I, alone and barefooted, standing, at two o'clock in the morning, on the lawn of the palace, where I had no more business than I had at the top of the spire; and the only place in which I could find shelter for the night was the cathedral itself, a building {684} that most people would rather avoid than enter during the small hours. The queerness of my situation, however, did not prevent me from enjoying to the full the extreme loveliness of the gardens, and the glorious view of the splendid edifice, rising white and clear in the moonlight above their shady alleys and recesses.

On regaining the library, I dozed away the remainder of the dark hours in the same commodious arm-chair, and as soon as the bell began to toll for the seven o'clock prayers, I passed unnoticed out of the building and regained my lodgings.

"Been keeping a coast-guard night, sir?" said Mrs. Jollisole, as she set the breakfast things in order.

"Why, yes, Mrs. Jollisole," I answered; "I did enjoy some rather extensive prospects last night."

And that was all that passed. I had fixed it in my own mind that I would keep my own counsel strictly until I should have called at the palace, and communicated the whole of the circumstances in confidence to the bishop, with whom I was slightly acquainted.

This plan I carried into effect in the course of the morning. His lordship was at home, and listened with his customary kindness and courtesy to the whole of my romantic recital. Just as I was finishing, his study door opened, and a young lady entered, dressed in black, tall, and strikingly beautiful, though looking pale and fagged. Glancing at me she gave a slight start, and taking a book from one of the shelves, instantly left the room, after a few muttered words of apology for disturbing the bishop. It was my companion of the library and the tower.

"I see," said his lordship, "that you have recognized the ghost. That young lady is an orphan niece of mine, and has been brought up in my house from her infancy. Never strong, she has reduced what vigor she possesses by her ardent love of books, and her intellectual interest is awake to all kinds of subjects. She is equally unwearied in visiting amongst the poor, and often returns home from her rounds in a state of exhaustion from which it is difficult to rouse her. About a twelvemonth ago we first noticed the appearance of a tendency to somnambulism. She was removed for several weeks to the sea-side, and we began to hope that a permanent improvement had set in. A severe loss, however, which she has lately sustained, has, I fear, done her great injury, and here is proof of the old malady returning. We are indebted to you, sir," added the kind old man, "for your judicious and thoughtful way of proceeding under the circumstances of last night, and for at once putting me in possession of the details, which will enable me to take the necessary precautions."

Before leaving the bishop's company, I begged him to go with me into the cathedral, and to be present while a carpenter removed the woodwork of the library window in order to recover the key. This he consented at once to do, and we crossed the gardens by the very route which "the ghost" and I had traversed during the night. On removing the panelling, we found that the depth of the chink was comparatively trifling, and the key was soon seen shining among the dust.

I was further gratified by another discovery, which, together with the extreme pleasure that it gave the bishop, quite indemnified me for my night's imprisonment. We noticed, partially concealed by rubbish in a niche of the wall below the panelling, the corner of a vellum covering. On further examination, this proved to be a MS. copy of St. Matthew's Gospel, not indeed of the most ancient date, but adorned with very rare and curious illumination, and making an excellent addition to the stores of the library. After a _tete-a-tete_ dinner that evening with the friendly bishop, we spent a pleasant hour or two in a thorough inspection of the newly-found treasure.

It was little more than a month afterward that I heard the great bell in the western tower toll the tidings {685} of a death. One week more, and a sorrowing procession of school-children and women of the alms-houses filed from the transept into the quiet cloister-ground, there to bury the last remains of one who would seem to have been to them in life a loving and much-loved friend. It was so. The eager brain and the yearning heart, worn out with unequal labors, were laid to rest for ever. The bishop's frail nursling was dead.

----

From The Month.

CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

The errors of the present day are generally the consequences of some false principle admitted long ago, and many may be traced clearly to the calamities of the sixteenth century. One of these is, that the mediaeval learning preserved (as was declared at the Council of Trent) chiefly among the monks was in its nature useless and trifling, fitted only to amuse ignorant and narrow-minded men in the darkness of the middle ages, and consisted in certain metaphysical speculations and logical quibbles, called scholastic teaching. Several French writers have done much to disabuse men of this prejudice, by making known the amount of knowledge and science attained by mediaeval scholars, whose works are despised because they are too scarce to be read, and perhaps too deep to be understood in a less studious age. One of these champions of he truth is Ozanam, who has traced with a master-hand the preservation of all that was valuable in antiquity, through the downfall of the empire; and he has rendered a subject which otherwise it would have been presumption to approach a plain matter of history, which the reader has only to receive, like other facts; so that we see how, under the safeguard of the Church, the same powers which were formerly used in vain by the philosophers for the discovery of truth, were successfully used for the attainment its deeper mysteries. But all that is human is marked by imperfection; and the very instinct which led philosophers to "feel after" their Creator, and seek that supreme good for which we were created, was misled by errors which all ultimately ended in infidelity. It is not necessary to dwell on these. A few words will remind the classical scholar that the Ionian school, which sought truth by experiment, through the perception of the senses, leads to fatalism and pantheism; while Pythagoras, who sought by reason and the sciences him who is above and beyond their sphere, left the disappointed reason in a state of doubt and indifference, or else despair. Plato alone pursued a course of safety. Taking the existence of God as a truth derived perhaps from patriarchal teaching, he used the Socratic method of induction only for the destruction of falsehood, and received with fearless candor all that the poets taught of superhuman goodness and beauty; for though the symbolism of the poets degenerated into disgusting idolatry, they have been called the truest of heathen teachers. It is well known how Aristotle strengthened the reasoning power; but the mighty power had no object on which to put forth its strength, and the more noble minds rejected at once both reasoning and experiment, and sought for religion in the mysticism of Alexandria. Such was the wreck and waste of all that man could do without revelation, {686} and so sickening was the disappointment, that St. Augustin would fain have closed the Christian schools to Virgil and Cicero, which he loved once too well; but St. Gregory, brought up as he was a Roman and a Christian, had nothing to repent of or to destroy, and classic letters were preserved by Christians.

Ozanam found pleasure in believing that Christianity, while as yet concealed in the catacombs, was "in all senses undermining ancient Rome," and that it had an ameliorating effect on the Stoic, which was then the best sect of the philosophers; so that Seneca, instead of following the lantern of Zeno, who confused the natures of God and man, learnt from St. Paul not only to distinguish them, but also the relation in which man regards his Creator and Father, whom he serves with free-will and love, by subduing his body to the command of his soul. But the pride of philosophy may be modified without being subdued. The principle of heathenism is "the antagonist of Christianity: one is from man, and for man; the other from God, and for God." It was the object of St. Paul and the first fathers of the Church to liberate the intellect as well as the affections from perversion, and to teach how the treasures of antiquity might be used by Christians for religion, as the spoils of Egypt and the luxurious perfumes of the Magdalen. And after the fierce battle of Christianity with paganism was over, the triumph of the Church was completed under Constantine by the Christianization of literature; that is, by using in the service of truth all those powers which had been wasted in the ineffectual efforts for its discovery. "A mixed mass of ancient learning was saved from the wreck of the Roman world; and as Pope Boniface preserved the splendid temple of the Pantheon, and dedicated it to the worship of God glorified in his saints, so the doctors of the Church employed the logic and eloquence of the philosophers without adopting their theories. This was not always easy, and some, like Origen and Tertullian, fell into error; for the distinctive character of Christian teaching is to be dogmatic, not argumentative, submitting the conclusions of reason to the decisions of inspired authority, and the province of reason has bounds which it cannot pass."

Gradually a Christian literature arose. Not only in the still classical Roman schools, but in those of Constantinople, Asia, and Africa, pagan writings were used as subservient to the training of Christian authors, and the fourth century was the golden age of intellect as well as sanctity. The fathers employed their classical training in the study of the Holy Scriptures; but, according to the true principle of sacred study, they sought from Almighty God himself the grace which alone can direct the use of the intellectual powers. "From the three senses of Holy Scripture" (says St. Bonaventure, in a passage quoted by Ozanam out of his _Redactio Artium ad Theologiam_) "descended three schools of Scriptural teaching. The _allegorical_, which declares matters of faith, in which St. Augustin was a doctor, and in which he was followed by St. Anselm and others, who taught by discussion. The _moral_, on which St. Gregory founded his preaching and taught men the rule of life, in which he was followed by St. Bernard who belongs also to the mystical school and by a host of preachers. While from the third or _analogical_ sense, St. Dionysius taught by contemplation the manner in which man may unite himself to God." Ozanam names a chain of authors as belonging to this school of "Boethius, who on the eve of martyrdom wrote the consolations of that sorrow which is concealed under the illusions of the world; Isidore, Bede, Rabanus, Anselm, Bernard, Peter Damian, Peter the Lombard, who rejoiced 'to cast his sentences like the widow's mite into the treasury of the temple, Hugo, and Richard of St. Victor, Peter the Spaniard, Albert, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas."

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"Under the barbarian rule, all the intellectual, an well as the devout, took sanctuary in the cloister; so that when the Arian Lombards attacked the centre of Christendom, they were opposed only by the teaching and discipline of the Church as perfected by St. Gregory; and the power of these must have been supernatural, as the influence of letters was nearly lost in Rome. Then, in defence of the faith, St. Benedict marshalled a new band of devoted champions in the mountains of Subiaco, and he made it a part of their duty to preserve the treasures of learning, and to employ them in the service of religion; and these monks," says Ozanam, "who spent six hours in choir, transcribed in their cells the historians and even the poets of Greece and Rome, and bequeathed to the middle ages the most valuable writings of antiquity."

It is agreed by all that Charlemagne was the founder of the middle ages; and he opened the schools in which theology was formed into a science, and gained the title of scholastics. Alcuin was the instrument by whom Charlemagne remodelled European literature, with the authority of the Church and councils, tradition and the fathers. Of these the Greek were little known west of Constantinople; and the chief representative of the Latin fathers was St. Augustin. There were a few later writers, as Boethius on the "Consolation of Philosophy," and Cassidorus, who wrote _De Septem Disciplinis_.

"Every one knows," says Ozanam, "that when Europe was robbed of ancient literature by the invasion of barbarians, the remains of science, saved by pious hands, were divided into seven arts, and enclosed in the Trivium and Quadrivium." These arts were grammar, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics, which last comprehended arithmetic and geometry, music and astronomy. "The establishment of public schools in cent, ix.," says Ozanam, "assisted the progress of reasoning, till it became in itself an art capable of being employed indifferently to prove either side of an argument. The science of words was no longer that of grammar, but became dialectics; and words were used lightly as a mere play of the intellect, or as a mechanical process to analyze truth." But it can never be lawful for a Christian to discuss what has been revealed, as though it were possible that those who reject it may be right; nor to consider truth as an open question, which is still to be decided, and may be sought by those rules of reasoning which had been laid down by Aristotle for the discovery of what was as yet unknown. It was for this reason that, as Ozanam says, Tertullian called Aristotle the patriarch of heretics; yet his rules of reasoning were right, and the error lay in using them amiss. Thus the Manichaeans reasoned when they should have believed, and the Paulicians subjected the Holy Scriptures to their own interpretation, and rejected all that was above their comprehension; and thus in after-times did the Albigenses, and then the Protestants of the sixteenth, and the Liberals of the nineteenth, century.

It was in 891 that Paschasius wrote, for the instruction of his convent, a treatise on the Holy Eucharist, in which he proved by reasoning that doctrine which "the whole world believes and confesses;" but he was contradicted by Ratram, who first put forth the heresy that the real presence is only figurative, and then the Church pronounced the dogma of transubstantiation. From that time theologians were obliged to confute the intellectual heresies of philosophers by fighting, as on common ground, with the weapons of argument which were used by both, in order to defend the doctrines which had been hitherto declared simply and by authority, as by our Lord himself. "Now," says Ozanam, "mysteries were subjected to definitions, and revelation was divided into syllogisms. And as the love of argument 'increased, the disputants took up the question which {688} had been discussed among heathen philosophers as to the abstract existences which are called universal forms or ideas; types of created things eternally existing in the mind of God, according to the teaching of St. Bonaventure. And when these were discovered by metaphysics, logic was exercised upon them; and a dispute arose as to whether truth exists independently of the perceptions of man. The Platonists asserted that it does, and this belief, which they called idealism, was held by the divines, and was called realism, while those who denied that it exists independently of man were said to be nominalists." In modern days the dispute of realism and nominalism is laughed at as an idle war of words; but the war is, in truth, on principles, and still divides the orthodox and unbeliever, and the names of realism and nominalism are only changed for objective and subjective truth.

A painful experience had long prevailed that the spirit of controversy is destructive of devotion; and the more devout, weary of the wars of philosophers, rejected logic, and found in the mystic school that repose which had been sought even by heathens in a counterfeit mysticism, in which the evil powers deluded men by imitating divine inspirations. According to Ozanam, "Christian mysticism is idealism in its most brilliant form, which seeks truth in the higher regions of spontaneous inspiration;" and he goes on to explain, from the writings of St. Dionysius, that its nature is contemplative, ascetic, and symbolical. It is _contemplative_, as it brings man into the presence of the immense indivisible God, from whom all power, life, and wisdom descend upon man through the hierarchies of the angels and through the Church, and whose divine influences act in nine successive spheres through all the gradations between existence and nothing. It is _ascetic_, as it acts on the will through the link which connects the body with the mind, and regulates the passions through the inferior part of the soul. This "medicine of souls" was taught by the fathers of the desert, who were followed by all the mystic doctors; and it was on this reciprocal action of physics and morals that St. Bonaventure afterward wrote the Compendium. It is _symbolic_, because it takes the creation as a symbol of spiritual things, and the external world as the shadow of what is invisible. The union of man with God is the object and fullness of the knowledge which regards both the divine and human nature, and levels all intellects in the immediate presence of God. This was imparted to Adam, and restored by Christ our Lord, who left it in the keeping of the Church. The first uninspired teacher of this mystic theology is thought to have been Dionysius the Areopagite, and the martyred Bishop of Athens, or, as some say, of Paris. In the festival of his martyrdom it is declared "that he wrote books, which are admirable and heavenly, concerning the divine names, the heavenly and ecclesiastical hierarchy, and on mystical theology." Ozanam quotes a fragment from his writings, which teaches that the indivisibility of God is intangible by mathematical abstractions of quantity, and indefinable by logic, because definition is analysis; and it is incomparable, because there are no terms of comparison.

The teaching of St. Dionysius was not forgotten when the knowledge of Greek was lost in the west. He was succeeded in this religious and Christian philosophy by St. Anselm in the eleventh century. In his _Monologium, De Ratione Fidei_, he supposes an ignorant man to be seeking the truth with the sole force of his reason, and disputing in order to discover a truth hitherto unknown. "Every one, for the most part," he says, "if he has moderate understanding, may persuade himself, by reason alone, as to what we necessarily believe of God; and this he may do in many ways, each according to that best suited to himself;" {689} and he goes on to say that his own mode consists in deducing all theological truths from one point--the being of God. All the diversity of beautiful, great, and good things supposes an ideal one or unity of beauty, and this unity is God. Hence St. Anselm derives the attributes of God--the creation, the Holy Trinity, the relation of man to God, in a word, all theology. The _Proslogium_, or truth demonstrating itself, is a second work, in which St. Anselm proposes to demonstrate truth which has been already attained. "As in the first he had, at the request of some brothers, written _De Ratione Fidei_ in the person who seeks by reasoning what he 'does not know, so he now seeks for some one of these many arguments which should require no proof but from itself. He was the first to use the famous argument, that from the sole idea of God is derived the demonstration of his existence. He thus begins the _Proslogium:_ 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. Wherefore the most foolish atheist has in his mind the idea of the sovereign good, which good cannot exist in thought only, because a yet greater good can still be conceived. This sovereign good therefore exists independently of the thought, and is God.'" It is not worth while to follow out the errors which arose in the middle ages from nominalism. In the eleventh century Roscelin carried it to the absurdity of saying that ideas are only words, and that nothing real exists except in particulars. And Philip of Champeaux asserted the opposite extreme, and denied the existence of all but universals; as that humanity alone exists, of which men are mere parts or fragments. It was in the twelfth century that Abelard, who had been trained in both these systems, came forth in the pride of his vast intellect to reconcile them by a new theory, but his search after truth was by a mere intellectual machinery, to be employed by science in order to construct general scheme of human knowledge; while it led to the rejection of that simple faith which believes without examination, and substituted the system of rationalism, so fruitful to this day of error and unbelief.

It was while men were constructing this intellectual tower of Babel that Almighty God raised up as the champion of the truth the meek and holy St. Bernard. Like David he laid aside his weapons of reasoning, and left his cloister to overthrow the gigantic foe. In the cowl of St. Benedict, he declared that the truth, which men sought by human efforts, was to be received in faith as the gift of God, from whom all knowledge and light proceeds. And it was not the powers of his well-trained faculties, nor his classical and poetical studies, but his prayers, which gained the victory; so that, as by miracle, Abelard, the most eloquent disputant of his age, stood mute before the saint, who taught that faith is no opinion attained by reasoning, but a conviction beyond all proof that truth is revealed by God. This had been the teaching of St. Gregory, who said that faith which is founded on reason has no merit; and of St. Augustin, who said that faith is no opinion founded on reflection, but an interior conviction; and of the apostle, who said that faith is the certainty of things unseen. It is consoling to read that the holy influence of St. Bernard did not only silence his adversary; the heart of Abelard was melted, he laid aside the studies in which he had so nearly lost his soul, and he made his submission to the Church, and sought the forgiveness of St. Bernard. Soon afterward he died a penitent, sorrowing for his moral and intellectual offences. But evil does not end with the guilty; and his school has continued brilliant in intellect and taste, but presumptuous in applying them to the examination of truth. On the other hand, the two folio volumes of St. Bernard have been always a treasury of devotion, where the saints and pious of all succeeding ages have been trained. It is impossible for words to {690} contain more thought; and he had the gift of penetrating thoughts contained in the inspired writings; as when he wrote twenty-four sermons on the three first verses of the Canticles. Ozanam says that St. Pierre perceived a fresh world of insects each day that he examined a single strawberry-leaf; and thus in the spiritual world the intellect of St. Bernard contemplated and beheld wonders with a sort of microscopic infinity, while his vast comprehension was analogous in its discoveries to the telescope. Such were the gifts conferred by God on the humble abbot of Clairvaux.

There were in the time of St. Bernard other great teachers: Peter the Venerable, St. Norbert, Godfrey, Richard, and Hugo, all monks of St. Victor. Ozanam says that he embraced the three great modes of teaching--that is, the allegorical, moral, and analogical; and preceded St. Bonaventure in a gigantic attempt to form an encyclopaedia of human knowledge, based on the truth declared by St. James, that every good and perfect gift descends from the Father of light, who is above.