Chapter III (6)

It is not easy to fix the date when the movement began. Some trace it back to Aristobulus. He lived under Ptolemy Euergetes, whose reign extended from 247-221 B.C., and had been the teacher of that illustrious prince, who, disdaining the coarse divinities of Egypt, addressed his homage to Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, and sacrificed in the Temple of Jerusalem, where he left marks of his munificence and of his piety. It is true that Aristobulus appealed to Orphic poems in which Jewish doctrines are found in support of the assertion that the Greek poets and philosophers had borrowed their wisdom from the Jews. But this opinion, which is shared by Aristeas and others in those ages, is not peculiar to Neo-Platonism, and is by no means one of its characteristics. Others pretend that the earliest traces of Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy are to be found in the Septuagint. According to them, the authors of this version of the Biblical writings into Greek, made by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), knew and approved the principal doctrines of this philosophy, and contrived to suggest them by apparently insignificant deviations from the original text. But the passages on which they rest their argument do not necessarily force us to admit this conclusion. We find that they avoid representing God under sensible forms; such ideas as God’s repenting, being angry, etc., are toned down in their expression; in the same way euphemisms are used when there is question of sensible manifestations of the Divinity; there are omissions and explanations in the translation which are not authorized by the original text. It is evident that the translators were influenced in their work by the dread they had lest Jehovah should be assimilated to the false divinities of pagan mythologies. All this competent critics concede, but fail to see in the Septuagint a union of Greek philosophemes with Jewish ideas. Be this as it may, it was at the dawn of Christianity, when the Ptolemies had gone and the Romans came in, that the Neo-Platonic movement was really inaugurated; and if it did not originate with Philo, it was in him, at any rate, that it first attained to importance. Philo belonged to a rich family of Alexandria, and was born about twenty-five years before our era. He lived long enough to be placed at the head of the legation to Caligula in favor of his people, and to write an account of it in the reign of Claudius. What gives a special interest to his writings is that they were composed at the very last period of the Jewish nation, before the appearance of Christianity. In religion a zealous Jew penetrated with the truth and goodness of the Hebrew revelation, and a Greek by education—a man, besides, of high intellectual gifts—it is no wonder that he should wish to blend in a harmonious whole the two elements of his own being, and to fuse the form of Greek thought with the substance of Jewish belief. In his endeavors to realize this object Philo falls into grievous errors, and on several points deflects from the Jewish faith into Greek views. “His love of Greek philosophy,” says Allies, “had led him, as it seems unconsciously, to desert the divine tradition of Moses and the orthodox Jewish belief.” Here, then, we are concerned with two questions: first, What did Philo contribute to Greek thought? and, secondly, How far his orthodoxy suffered by its contact with it.

Philo introduced into philosophy two principles the result of which can be traced throughout the whole subsequent periods of Neo-Platonism: the principle of faith, or the need of a revelation in order to acquire the knowledge of God and of the great problems relating to human life; and the principle of grace, or of a special assistance from heaven in order to make this knowledge practically available. Now, these principles had been either entirely ignored by the Greek philosophers or had remained without any significance to them down to Philo’s time. Reason was the only light by which they were guided, and scientific thought their only source of knowledge. We find in them no assumption of supernatural revelation, no requirement of contact with the divine other than what might be produced by the effect of thought itself. Greek philosophy in its whole tenor was rationalistic. “On the contrary,” observes Allies in his _Formation of Christendom_, “the religious and philosophical system of Philo is based upon the idea of a revelation made to man by God, and of holiness, the result of divine assistance. His conception of God is derived to him from the theology of the Old Testament; it comes to him as a gift from above, not as an elaboration of his own mind.” Hence it is that his notion of the Supreme Being is so much above that given us by Plato and Aristotle. The God of Plato is an ideal and metaphysical God, not absolutely personal, not free; the God of Aristotle, or his _Primum movens_, the first Motor, is mechanical, and holds in the universe the office of the spring in a watch, by which all its parts are moved; but the God of Philo is life, and, as he constantly calls him, “the living God.” “He is one, simple, eternal, unoriginated, and absolutely distinct from the world which is his work. His own being is incomprehensible. We can only predicate of him that he is ‘He who is.’ He is most pure and absolute mind, better than virtue and better than knowledge, better than the idea of goodness and the idea of beauty. He is his own place, and full of himself, and sufficient for himself, filling up and embracing all that is deficient or empty, but himself embraced by nothing, as being one person and yet everything” (_Legis Allegor._, l. xiv., quoted in Allies). His providence is fully recognized. “Those who would make the world to be unoriginated, cut away, without being aware of it, the most useful and necessary constituents of piety—that is, the belief in Providence. For reason proves that what has an origin is cared for by its father and maker. For a father is anxious for the life of his children, and a workman aims at the duration of his works, and employs every device imaginable to ward off everything that is pernicious or injurious, and is desirous by every means in his power to provide everything which is useful and profitable for them. But with regard to what has had no origin there is no feeling of interest, as if it were his own, in the breast of him who has not made it. It is a worthless and pernicious doctrine to establish in the world what would be anarchy in a city, to have no superintendent, regulator, or judge by whom everything must be distributed and governed” (_De Mundi Opificio_, apud Allies). In his work entitled _Quod Deus est Immutabilis_ Philo ascribed to God absolute knowledge. “To God,” he says, “as dwelling in pure light, all things are visible, for he, penetrating into the very recesses of the soul, is able to see transparently what is invisible to others, and by means of prescience and providence, his own peculiar excellences, allows nothing to abuse its liberty or exceed the range of his comprehension. For, indeed, there is with him no uncertainty even in the future; for there is nothing uncertain and nothing future to God. It is plain, then, that the producer must have knowledge of all that he has produced, the artificer of all that he had constructed, the governor of all that he governs. Now, Father, Artificer, and Governor he is in truth of all things in heaven and the world. And whereas future things are overshadowed by the succession of time, longer or shorter, God is the Maker of time also.... For the world by its motion has made time, but he made the world, and so with God there is nothing future, who has the very foundations of time subject to him. For their life is not time, but the archetype and model of time, eternity; and in eternity nothing is past and nothing is future, but there is the present only.” In his conceptions of the Godhead and of his attributes it is evident that Philo, as long as he follows the light of revelation and keeps clear of the false notions which he had drawn from Greek sources, rises far above the speculations of the Greek philosophers on the same subjects. Plato himself in his happiest moments never reached such heights. For Philo, God is goodness and sanctity itself. By this he does not mean only that he is the boundless ocean of all perfections, the archetype of all holiness and of everything that is good, but that he is the origin of all human virtue, which flows from him into his rational creatures as from its only source. “It is God,” he writes in his _Allegories of the Law_, “who sows and plants all virtue upon earth in the mortal race, being an imitation and image of the heavenly.” According to him, man, in order to reproduce in himself the divine resemblance in which holiness consists, must be freed from the influence of his sensuous nature, the source of his weakness and sinfulness. But in that nature no power is to be found to transform itself, as no nature has the power of changing itself into anything other than what it is. The consequence is that “he must betake himself to a higher power, and receive from it as a loan that strength which fails in himself.” The difference between this doctrine and that of the older philosophers is palpable. When Plato and Pythagoras recommend to their disciples the subduing of the senses as a condition to reaching truth, they suppose that man can do it by his own efforts and without any help from above; and this is precisely what Philo denies. Furthermore, the knowledge of God, in which man finds his perfection and supreme happiness, is not a mere ray of cold light, but it leads to an intimate union with him, which is the ultimate point of Philo’s system; and this union, as everything perfect in human nature, is an immediate gift of God. Thus Philo would reach knowledge and virtue by the gift of God, bestowed through his grace, whilst down to his time Greek philosophy, adhering to its own principle, scientific thought, would reach them by the exercise of reason alone.

It is impossible to overrate the influence which Philo, with his powerful genius and vast erudition, must have exercised not only among his co-religionists but among the Greek-speaking populations of Alexandria and other countries. The most authorized writers have at all times rendered justice to his great merits. Josephus says that he was “a man illustrious in all things”; Eusebius extols “the abundance, the richness, the sublimity of his style and the depth of his thoughts”; St. Jerome, speaking of his works, says that “they are most remarkable and innumerable”; St. Augustine praises him as “a philosopher of universal erudition, whose language the Greeks do not hesitate to compare to that of Plato.” Photius also testifies that “his writings gave him an immense reputation among the Greeks.” This truly admirable man went, as did all the great philosophers of antiquity, over the whole range of human knowledge: history, ethics, jurisprudence, politics, metaphysics, cosmogony, physics, mathematics—no department of learning did he leave unexplored. In morals he rises far above Stoicism, and approaches to the sublimity of the Gospel—a fact which probably was the origin of the opinion entertained by some that Philo had embraced Christianity. But the glaring errors which are found in his works on several important points show that he was rather the disciple of Plato than a follower of Christ.

No Christian would have held, as he did, the independent existence of matter, which is the subversion of the dogma of creation _ex nihilo_ taught us by revelation. For Philo God is not, strictly speaking, the Creator, but the _Demiurgos_, the Artificer and Arranger of the world. He admitted the Stoic doctrine of the human soul being a fragment or derivation of the divine Mind. He places the origin of evil in the conflict of matter and spirit. Accordingly, the body is an absolute contradiction to the mind, and, as such, the source of all evils. He thinks that the earthly shell is a prison out of which the soul longs to be set free. Thus it is not the abuse of free-will, but rather the conflict between the flesh and the spirit, which is made the source of evil. On these four points Philo’s ideas are identical with those of Plato and the Greek school. Philo is further notorious for his extravagant use of allegory in the interpretation of Scripture on the one side, and in giving a moral sense to the Greek myths on the other; besides, it is asserted that his doctrine on the _Logos_, or divine Word, is erroneous, and has thrown considerable obscurity over his otherwise elevated and exact conceptions of God.

According to the Alexandrian philosopher, the _Logos_, or the Word, would be “an intermediary being between God and the world,” “the first-born of God,” “the highest of all the divine forces or potencies,” “a creature whose instrumentality he used to give existence to all other creatures,” “a second God.” The _Logos_ is also the directing power of the world, the divine Providence that governs all things. “The divine Word,” he says, “flows down as from a fountain, like unto a stream of wisdom, to inundate souls enamored with heavenly things. It is by his Word that God gives to the children of the earth the knowledge of that which is.” Finally, the Word holds the office of mediator between man and God; in this regard it is “the Supreme Pontiff,” and may be called “the Paraclete, or Consoler.” If we take some of these expressions in their literal meaning—if the Logos is, properly speaking, a creature, and yet a second God endowed, as it appears from the passages which we have just quoted, with the attributes of the Divinity—there is no doubt that Philo is at variance with the orthodox teaching of the Jews, who were always averse to anything that would in the least go against their belief in the unity of God. Creation in the first book of Genesis is simply attributed to God: “At the beginning God created heaven and earth,” and in the Book of Wisdom and other passages of Biblical writings there is nothing to indicate that the Word, the Energy or the Virtue of God, by which he created all things, is not identical with God. In Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 14, Wisdom is said to have been created before the world. But there is no question here of any creative act, properly so-called. The meaning is that the Word, who is the Wisdom of the Father, was produced from eternity by an ineffable generation; for Wisdom is spoken of as existing before all time, and therefore is eternal and God himself. The notion of the _Logos_ which is attributed to Philo would likewise be at variance with that of his master, Plato. The doctrine of Plato on the subject is contained in his theory of ideas, the types, exemplars, or immutable reasons of things, present to the mind of the Creator, which determine in him the essence of each class of beings, and direct him in the production of his works. Did Plato make of those types or ideas separate existences and substantial beings distinct from God? Aristotle interpreted in this sense certain expressions of his teacher. But in antiquity as well as in our own days Plato found strenuous defenders who refused to admit that he ever intended such an absurdity. For our own part, we believe that the whole of his doctrine is faithfully exposed in the following passage of Atticus, apud Eusebius, one of his most illustrious disciples: “Plato,” he says, “had recognized God as the Father and Author, the Master and Administrator, of all things. Understanding, by the very nature of a work, that he who produces it must first of all conceive its plan in his mind to give it existence afterwards according to that type, he saw that the ideas of God were anterior to his works; that they were the immaterial, purely intelligible, eternal, immutable exemplars of everything that exists; that in them was the first being, the being _par excellence_ from which all things derive their being, since they are only in the measure in which they reproduce their types. Being fully aware that those truths are not easily understood, and that language is inadequate to formulate them in a clear manner, Plato discoursed of them as best he could, opening the way to those who would come after him; and absorbed in that consideration, making his whole philosophy converge towards that object, he declared that wisdom consisted in the knowledge of the divine exemplars, and that such was the science which would lead man to his end or beatitude.” Again, if it be true that Philo conceived the _Logos_ as a being distinct from God, his doctrine has nothing in common with the Christian dogma of the Word as exposed in the Gospel of St. John. The Word that was at the beginning, and by whom all things have been made, was with God, and the Word was God. But it would not be fair to condemn a man before having made honest endeavors to give to his words the most favorable interpretation of which they are susceptible. When Philo calls the Word “the first-born of God,” “the first creature,” nothing forces us to attach to these expressions any other meaning than that we give to similar locutions which we find in Scripture, and in some of the early Fathers; as, for instance, St. Paul, Coloss. i. 15, who, speaking of the Word, says that “he is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature”; and Clement of Alexandria, who declares that the Word is “the first created wisdom.” Besides, it is probable that Philo had some idea of the personality of the Word. We must not forget that he based all his philosophical speculations upon revelation as found in the Old Testament, and that he could not have been wholly ignorant of the teachings of Christianity. When, therefore, he uses the expression “second God,” or “the other God”—_alter Deus_—it is possible that he intends to designate by it the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Be this as it may, certain it is that Philo’s ideas are found permeating Neo-Platonism in that phase of it into which it entered in his time, and which is also denominated Neo-Pythagoreanism, because in that school an attempt was made to revive the doctrines and method of Pythagoras, as well as his mode of life. It will be sufficient here to direct our attention to Apollonius of Tyana, the chief representative of the Neo-Pythagoreans of that period. He was a contemporary of Christ. His life, written by Philostratus in the third century, is a philosophico-religious romance in which the Neo-Pythagorean ideal is portrayed in the person of Apollonius. He had visited many countries and sojourned with the sages of India, whom he admired, and whose pantheistic notions he adopted. His doctrine is no more that of the old Greek philosophers, who considered reason as the only means of knowledge. He pretends to be in direct communication with the Deity, from which he derives light and strength; and in this immediate contact with Heaven his whole being is purified and elevated to a degree of power which gives him, as he pretends, the dominion over the forces of nature. And as the soul is, according to him, a portion of the divine intelligence, and the source of all good to man, so the body, which is regarded as the prison of his higher nature, must be the source of the disordered affections which gain mastery over his soul. All the ascetic life of Apollonius is therefore directed to subdue this tyranny of the body. This he must do first in himself and then in those around him.

There is no doubt that this tone of mind, which began to prevail at the very time Christianity made its appearance in the world, was favorable to it. Henceforth the several schools of philosophy shall be brought in contact with Christian dogma and the contest carried on in the same field. On the one hand, the Greek philosophers were in search of a light which they did not possess; they were forced to acknowledge in spite of themselves that the speculations and systems had failed to give a solution to the most important problems with which humanity is concerned; they had been made aware of the insufficiency of reason to effect this purpose; they felt the need of a special assistance from above as a check to the corruption of nature. And, on the other hand, the champions of a new religion saw the necessity of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the ideas of their opponents, in order to meet them on their own ground and gain admittance into the very heart of pagan learning. “In the truest sense of the word,” says a writer in the _Dublin Review_, “Christianity is a philosophy, and, what is more to the purpose, in the sense of the philosophers of Alexandria it was a philosophy. The narrowed meaning that in our days is assigned to philosophy, as distinguished from religion, had no existence in those times. Wisdom was the wisdom by excellence, the highest, the ultimate wisdom. It meant the fruit of the highest speculation, and at the same time the necessary ground of all important practice. A system of philosophy was, therefore, at that period, tantamount to a religion. When the Christian teachers then told the philosophers of Alexandria that they could teach them true philosophy, they were saying not only what was perfectly true but what was perfectly understood by their hearers. The catechetical school was, and appeared to them, as truly a philosophical lecture-room as the halls of the museum.” It was in this light that the Neo-Platonics must have looked upon such men as Clement, Origen, and other writers of the Christian school. They listened with deep interest to the words of those teachers, who, with a clearness and authority which they had not known before, propounded doctrines that had already found an echo in their hearts. “Your masters in philosophy,” they were told, “are great and noble; but they did not go far enough, as you all acknowledge. Come to us, then, and we will show you what is wanting in them. Listen to these old Hebrews whose writings you have in your hands. They treated of all your problems, and had solved the deepest of them whilst your forefathers were groping in darkness. All their light, and much more, is our inheritance. The truth which you seek we possess. ‘What you worship without knowing it, that we preach to you.’ God’s Word has been made flesh, has lived on earth, the Perfect Man, the Absolute Man. Come to us, and we will show you how you may know God through him, and how through him God communicates himself to you. Asceticism and the subduing of the flesh by mortification are good and commendable, but the end of it all is God and the love of God, and this end can only be attained by a Christian.” Thus those very matters of intellect and high ethics in which they especially prided themselves were brought back to them with an intensity of light that made visible the darkness which surrounded the teachings of their old masters.

It does not matter that Christianity found its most bitter enemies in the ranks of Neo-Platonism. It was a great advantage for it to be brought hand-to-hand with all forms of error. The battle raged for three hundred years; but from the very first Christianity proved itself superior to its antagonist by the influence which it exerted even then on heathen philosophy, whose tone and temper were completely changed as early as the time of Plutarch—that is, about fifty years after Philo. That influence is unmistakable, as Champagny clearly shows in his _Antonines_. Philosophy has become more pious, more worshipful. The idea of one supreme God is more definite; God is spiritual, not material; he is the pattern of every virtue, and his providence extends over the world and man. The principles of morality are purer and in many cases recall the spirit of the Gospel. “In the time of Severus,” says Allies, “all the thinking minds have become ashamed of Olympus and its gods. The cross has wounded them to death.” It is in vain that the later Neo-Platonics and court philosophers strive to shelter retreating heathenism in a last fortress. They only prepare the way for the Christian faith, which they strenuously combat. When the Emperor Severus, regarding with the eye of a statesman and a soldier that faith, contemplates its grasp upon society, and decrees from the height of the throne a general assault upon it; when his wife encourages Philostratus to draw an ideal heathen portrait, that of Apollonius of Tyana, as a counterpart to the character of Christ, tacitly subtracting from the Gospels an imitation which is to supply the place of the reality, they confess by the very fact the weakness of heathenism and the ascendency which the religion of Christ had already obtained. Soon after Origen could discern and prophesy the complete triumph of that religion. To Celsus, who had objected that, were all to do as the Christians did, the emperor would be deserted and his power fall into the hands of the most savage and lawless barbarians, he replied: “If all did as I do, men would honor the emperor as a divine command, and the barbarians, drawing to the Word of God, would become most law-loving and most civilized; their worship would be dissolved, and that of the Christians alone prevail, as one day it will alone prevail, by means of that Word gathering to itself more and more souls” (Orig. contra Celsus, apud Allies).

Philo, therefore, in inaugurating the Neo-Platonic movement in philosophy, was only fulfilling the mandate delivered to his people, that of preparing the way of the Lord and disposing the nations for the acceptance of the Gospel. The church succeeds the synagogue as the divinely-accredited teacher of mankind; the long-cherished hope of the Hebrews is realized, and the true kingdom of David, is established upon earth to hold universal sway. The Gentile world, through the instrumentality of the chosen people, had been made to share in the great hope of a Redeemer, and within it aspirations had been developed and longings were felt which philosophy was unable to satisfy; and at the very time when its inanity appeared more manifest Christ reveals himself to that world as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and presented to it in his own person that form of virtue which Plato thirsted to see embodied. Under his influence the face of the earth is renewed; what human genius, with all its efforts, had failed to accomplish, what such men as Plato, Pythagoras, and others could not accomplish, even among a small number of adepts—this and infinitely more was realized, not merely within the narrow circle of a few privileged disciples, but among the masses, among the learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, the rulers and the ruled, the powerful and the weak; not in one corner of the globe, but all over the world, from north to south and from east to west; not only in countries favored by great intellectual aptitudes, where the arts and sciences flourished, where civilization with all its refinements had reached the highest degree of perfection, but in countries most abandoned, among savage tribes and barbarous nations plunged in utter darkness. Surely a new principle of life has taken possession of the earth—a divine principle which gives rise to those heroic virtues which we see displayed in every rank of society and in all climes, and by which the human race is transfigured. This result was foretold centuries before; it is the new creation spoken of by the Psalmist: “Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created; and thou shalt renew the face of the earth” (Ps. ciii. 30). It was preceded by a series of events so combined that it is impossible not to see in them the supernatural action of divine Providence and the profound wisdom of God, who makes use of apt means for the furtherance of his end. Besides, there is a wonderful unity of truth discernible from the very beginning, and which appears in an unbroken chain throughout the course of ages. It is the same Word, the same light, which was communicated to our first parents that we see increasing in intensity until it reaches in Christ the splendor of the full day. The first revelation of the Word to man is to be found in his natural reason, which is pervaded with primary truths that are axioms in the intelligence of mankind. “But on these,” says Cardinal Manning (_Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost_), “descended other truths from the Father of light, as he saw fit to reveal them in measure and in season, according to the successions of time ordained in the divine purpose. The revelations of the patriarchs elevated and enlarged the sphere of light in the intelligence of men by their deeper, purer, and clearer insight into the divine mind, character, and conduct in the world. The revelations to Moses and to the prophets raised still higher the fabric of light, which was always ascending towards the fuller revelation of God yet to come. But in all these accessions and unfoldings of the light of God truth remained still one, harmonious, indivisible; a structure in perfect symmetry, the finite but true reflex of truth as it reposes in the divine intelligence.” None of the much-boasted theories of our modern rationalists gives us that unity which is the test of truth. The restoration of our fallen race by the manifestation of the Word is the leading principle of Schlegel’s _Philosophy of History_; and the greatest minds, as St. Augustine and Bossuet, admitted no other in their immortal works. How puerile, in comparison with their grand and luminous conceptions, are all those systems which would fain explain the destinies of man without God! To the dreamers who have invented them can be applied the words of St. Paul: “They detain the truth of God in injustice. They have become vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart has been darkened” (Rom. i. 18-21).

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE DIVINE SANCTUARY. A series of Meditations upon the Litany of the
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. By the Very Rev. Thomas S. Preston,
V.G., Pastor of St. Ann’s Church, N. Y. New York: Robert Coddington.
1878.

We welcome most gratefully this new book for the month of June. We hope it will go a long way towards placing the observance of this month on a level with that of the month of May; for the more the devotion to the Sacred Heart increases among us the more abundant will be the graces it always brings.

The book, however, is not intended for the month of June alone, but can be used at any time, and particularly on the first Friday or Sunday of every month. The author’s idea, in choosing the Litany of the Sacred Heart and forming a meditation on each of the invocations to this “divine sanctuary,” is a very happy one. He has divided the whole into three parts, viz.: “The Glories of the Sacred Heart,” as shown in the first thirteen invocations; “The Sorrows of the Sacred Heart,” as contemplated in the next eight; and “The Offices of the Sacred Heart,” as appealed to in the remaining nine. At the head of each meditation is an appropriate passage of Holy Scripture.

As to the excellence of the meditations themselves, there is no need of our dwelling on it. It is enough to know, from his past efforts, what Father Preston is capable of in dealing with devotional subjects. This kind of book is his peculiar _forte_. We are sure the little volume will be highly prized by all lovers of the Sacred Heart, who will also find the Litany itself, together with a beautiful Act of Consecration, immediately following the list of contents.

GOOD THINGS FOR CATHOLIC READERS: A Miscellany of Catholic
Biography, History, Travels, etc. Containing Pictures and Sketches
of Eminent Persons, representing the Church and Cloister, State and
Home, etc., etc. With over two hundred Illustrations. Second
edition, with Additions. New York: The Catholic Publication Society
Company. 1878.

This large and very handsome volume is in every way a gem. It contains more varied and interesting information—much of it of positive and immediate value—than any work we know. It is called “second edition,” but really it is a new volume, containing twice as much matter as the original. Its sketches of Catholic biography, with excellent portraits, are brought down to the present year. The last face that looks at us from the pages is the beautiful one of the Rt. Rev. M. M. de St. Palais, the lamented Bishop of Vincennes, who died in June, 1877. Near him is the noble countenance of Bishop Von Ketteler. Dear old Father McElroy looks out at us with his bright eyes, his head leaning against his hand. Archbishops Bayley and Connolly and Bishop Verot are there. There is also the leonine head of Dr. Brownson, and an excellent sketch of his life. But it is dangerous to begin the list of these Catholic heroes and holy men whose portraits and biographies are here given us. One lingers by each one, for each one is full of attraction. A good sketch and an excellent portrait of our late Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., catch the eye as we open the volume of 638 pages. Interspersed with these biographical sketches and portraits is every kind of interesting matter with pleasing illustrations. No book could make a more acceptable present; for it is indeed an exhaustless mine of “good things”—things, too, which young and old will find equally good.

* * * * *

We are in receipt of a number of volumes and pamphlets, many of which have been noticed and the notices are already in type, but owing to a variety of necessities have been regretfully held over from month to month. We trust to satisfy everybody in our next number. A word to publishers: They are very apt to send in what are called “seasonable” books on the eve of THE CATHOLIC WORLD’s going to press, and appear to be surprised at not seeing a notice duly appear “in season.” For instance, devotional works intended for the month of May come to us by the dozen when the May number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD is already passing through the press. If all publishers bore in mind, as some do, that the magazine is to all intents and purposes prepared a month ahead of date, there would be no surprise at the long delay which “seasonable” books that arrive out of season have to endure.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVII., No. 161.—AUGUST, 1878.

DR. EWER ON THE QUESTION, WHAT IS TRUTH?[125]

Ten years ago Dr. Ewer produced an argument proving the failure of Protestantism by some solid reasons, which he avers have been met “not by argument, but by a gale of holy malediction and impotent scorn,” on the part of those who were included in his indictment. Dr. Ewer being an accredited minister of a society whose official designation in its own ecclesiastical law and before the civil law of the land is “the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States,” it was a very natural inquiry whether he had not indicted his own church and himself as participants in this general failure or religious bankruptcy, and was not morally bound to abandon an institution denounced by himself as not only insolvent but fraudulent. The late illustrious Dr. Brownson did the reverend gentleman the great honor of reviewing the argument which he had put forth, in the pages of this magazine. Not with malediction and scorn, but with sober logic, he pointed out his inconsistent and self-contradictory position, as a Protestant minister denouncing Protestantism, and proved that the only possible logical alternative of Protestantism, for one who admits the divine origin of the Christian religion, is the genuine and pure Catholicism of the holy, Catholic, apostolic Roman Church. To the many failures of Protestantism, not only to construct any real form of Christian religion, but also to destroy the actual and historical Christianity which it has renounced, Dr. Ewer added another in his own person by failing to answer the arguments of Dr. Brownson. Although strongly urged to undertake the task, he absolutely declined to do so; and in presenting himself anew, after a lapse of ten years, with the proffer of something which he is pleased to call “Catholic Truth” as a substitute for Protestant error, he does so under the great disadvantage of having failed to vindicate himself from the charge of teaching what is only one of the Protean forms of the very error which he so solemnly denounces as subversive of all faith or even natural religion.

The present lecture, besides containing a renewal of the indictment of Protestantism, and a restatement of the assertion that the truth opposite to its errors is embodied in the infallible teaching of a Catholic Church existing in his own imagination, has also what purports to be a palmary refutation of the dogma of Catholic faith defined by the Council of the Vatican respecting the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. Perhaps the lecturer considers that this is a sufficient though late rejoinder to the arguments of Dr. Brownson in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Not so. Dr. Ewer’s Catholic Church has been proved to be an _ens rationis_, an abstraction, and its imaginary infallibility to be mere moonshine of the fancy. The logical idea of organic unity, of corporate, Catholic, unerring teaching and legislating and grace-giving hierarchical authority, representing Christ on earth from his ascension to his second coming, has been demonstrated to have no counterpart and expression in the order of real and actual existence, except in the one church over which Peter presides in his successors. If it is proved that the successor of Peter, with the concurrence of the bishops, clergy, and faithful who obey his supreme authority, has committed an act of self-stultification, this lamentable catastrophe affords no more ground to Dr. Ewer and his little party to claim a gain of cause for their _petite église_ than it does to the Rev. John Jasper to maintain the triumph of his ancient and primitive doctrine that “the sun do move.” Let us suppose that the utter failure of Protestantism is demonstrated. Let us suppose, also, that the Church of Rome has erred. Does it follow by any logical reduction that the party of Dr. Ewer, however respectable in regard to learning and intellectual ability, morality and religious zeal, is not also in error? By no means. The only conclusion which does logically follow is that two-thirds of those who are called Christians are very seriously in error regarding the true and real nature of the Christian religion which they profess. It is possible that the remainder may also have erred. The Greek Church may have erred, the Church of England may have erred, the Oriental sects may have erred. Some of them must have erred, for they disagree among themselves in regard to two important matters, one as to what pertains to the essence and integrity of Catholic faith, the other as to what pertains to the essence and integrity of Catholic order. There is a general disagreement and disunion, without any external criterion or legitimate tribunal of judgment by which their differences can be adjudicated and terminated. The appeal which some of our Anglican friends are wont to make to an œcumenical council of Christendom is about as practical a method of constituting such a tribunal as an appeal would be to Moses, to the twelve apostles, to the Council of Nice, or to a special commission of archangels. Failing all possible recourse to an actually existing and infallible tribunal, we are thrown back upon the necessity of judging for ourselves between the various systems and forms of doctrine professedly Christian, on their intrinsic merits, and the rational evidence which each of them can adduce in its own behalf. Whoever thinks that we are really in this predicament will, if he holds firmly to Christianity and at the same time follows the dictates of reason, conclude that the various forms of Christianity are only differentiations of the same generic ratio, and will seek for some rationalistic or broad-church basis of reconciliation and union among Christians. If he does not hold by some kind of strong, and dominant conviction to the Christian religion, he will adopt the opinion of Mr. Froude and many other men of the nineteenth century, that it is a religion destined to become obsolete and be replaced by a new religion or by nihilism. So far from liberating those who are “breast-deep in torrents of scepticism,” Dr. Ewer plunges them with a stone to their feet to the bottom of the sea of scepticism. He loudly proclaims that there is no remedy for doubt, misery, and spiritual ruin except in the coming and the remaining upon earth, in visible, audible form and presence, of God made man, by his natural and mystical body, through whose organs of human speech the truths of salvation are infallibly declared to those men who are willing to hear. Yet he denies all the evidence there is that any such mystical body of Christ, possessing and exercising the requisite power of infallible speech, has continuously existed, and does now exist, on the earth, giving to men an unerring external criterion of judgment whereby they may discern Catholic truth from Protestant errors. Having first swept away rational theology and all certitude concerning revealed truth which can be gained from the private study of the Scriptures, he annihilates the living, teaching authority of the perennial church, and leaves nothing whatever which can furnish a refuge from the universal sea of doubt, not even a Noe’s ark. The land which he points out is a mirage, the ark of safety is a phantom-ship. Man is justified, according to the gospel of Dr. Ewer, not by faith alone, but by theory alone; not by the works of the law, but by the plays of the imagination. With very great pomp of language he exclaims: “In this God embodied in the one church, in this God continuously visible and audible, therefore, behold, gentlemen, the fountain of infallibility which you seek; for God himself cannot err nor falsify.” This is an encouraging and promising invitation. Surely, if we can find this divine oracle, this sacred tabernacle over which a pillar of fire reposes all through the hours of this present darkness as a token of the abiding of the Spirit of Truth within its sacred enclosure, we may be satisfied, and if this bright cloud precedes we may march with confidence through the desert toward the promised land.

Let us be sure that the Son of God has come into the world, that he has founded a church with sovereign and unerring authority to teach his truth and his law, that we know with certainty which is this church, and it is obvious that all reasonable cause for doubting in regard to things necessary to our interior peace of mind and our eternal salvation is removed. Dr. Ewer’s theory is right and consistent so far. But he fails to verify his own conditions, and does not designate any real and concrete body which fulfils the exigencies of his theory. He asserts that whoever holds his theory is a Catholic, and that there are three, and only three, churches which are parts of the one body that, according to the theory which he calls Catholic, must necessarily be identified and recognized as the mystical body of Christ. He exhorts his hearers to listen, “as the one Holy Catholic Church in all its parts, His own body, raises its voice,” which he says is “the voice of God on earth, chanting aloud that all the people in all time may hear, and be without excuse, the unaltering, irreformable truth.” What is the sum and substance of this truth? It is, he informs us, “the solemn, Catholic Creed of Nice, Constantinople, and Athanasius.” This creed, moreover, he asserts, has been chanted “in unison round and round the world in unbroken strain, following the tireless sun, through the centuries and the millenniums,” by his imaginary catholic church, a body existing in separate parts, without any head or unity of organization. Dr. Brownson has demonstrated that such a body cannot exist either in the realm of nature or in that of grace, and we need not repeat his arguments. We simply affirm, at present, that this unison of voices without discord or interruption, chanting continuously from the apostolic age the three creeds above mentioned, is a myth, and no historical fact. Dr. Ewer appears to rely on it as the external criterion of Catholic truth, and if it vanishes, as it must under the historical test, he is left to the mercy of the torrents of scepticism, along with the other Protestants. The creeds, in their external form, are a growth and a development from the germ which first existed under a simpler form. The slightest acquaintance with early church history suffices to show how long and violent a warfare was necessary in order to establish the Nicene Creed with its test-word of orthodoxy, “consubstantial with the Father,” as the permanent, universal, and unchangeable formula of faith, even among those who truly held and confessed the Catholic faith itself in regard to the true and proper divinity of the Son. The additions made by the First Council of Constantinople were not universally adopted, or the council itself completely ratified and recognized as œcumenical, until at least seventy years after its celebration.

If the doctrine contained in the creeds is regarded in itself, prescinding from its verbal expression, the case is much worse for Dr. Ewer’s theory. The Arian heretics were numerous and powerful, and they were able to persecute the Catholics and lay waste the church in a fearful manner. They were nevertheless Catholics, according to Dr. Ewer’s definition. They professed to have the genuine, apostolical, and primitive faith, and accused the Catholics of having altered and corrupted it. They recognized the visible church, the apostolic succession, the hierarchical order, the sacrifice and sacraments instituted by Christ, and continued the outward show and appearance of conformity to established Catholic usage, and even to the language of the Fathers respecting the mysteries of faith. They were intruded into the possession of the titles, churches, and other temporalities of many of the most important episcopal sees, and sustained in their usurpation by the civil power.

After the extermination of the Arian heresy came the Nestorians. They also professed to be orthodox and Catholic, anathematized the Arians and all the previous heretics, confessed the Nicene Creed, and, when they were condemned and cut off from the church, so far from ceasing to exist, they increased and flourished in a remarkable way for centuries, and still remain as a separate organization with their bishops, who have succeeded in an unbroken line from those of the fifth century.