The Syllabus for the People/Chapter 5
V.
Review of the Propositions condemned in the Syllabus.
§ I.—Errors on Pantheism, Naturalism, and absolute Rationalism.
Pantheism is not a plant of English growth. Although, as in the case of Coleridge, it may have for a season allured individual minds, it is too misty and vague to be able to gain ground in the practical understanding of Englishmen. It is hard to say to what peculiar morbid development of the human spirit it owes its birth, although its constant reappearance in the schools of thought during the last three thousand years seems to point it out as one of the ills the spirit of fallen man is heir to. Germany is its modern home; and it has cast out sickly offshoots in France and Italy, through such erratic intellects as those of Cousin and Gioberti.
Its main feature is the substitution of the visible world for the God of Christianity. It ascribes His name to the universe which we behold with the eyes of the flesh. Of course, it does away with the super natural order, and annihilates the idea of faith of revelation, as it denies the existence of their author. On this subject I need dwell no longer, as every Christian will concur with Pius IX. in condemning the errors described in the first section.
The first condemnation, strikes at the impious denial of the existence of Him who said of old "I am that I am."
The second destroys the impiety of such as deny to God any power to rule the work of His hands.
The third is aimed at such as, with satanic pride, proclaim the understanding of man free from all subjection to the guidance of the Light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world,
The fourth is urged against such as make a God of each man's individual reason.
The fifth overthrows the subtle heresy that confounds the Word of the Most High with the intellectual development of mankind.
The sixth condemns the repudiation of Divine faith as hostile to human reason.
The seventh denounces the impious blasphemy of Strauss and his compeers, reducing the Scriptures to a system of mythology.
Such blasphemies can scarce be heard without a shudder. But before dismissing the revolting subject it is well, in a brief digression, if such it be, to unfold something of the daring and impious system condemned in the seventh proposition. Christ, say its supporters, is a myth, like Prometheus. What is a myth? A hero of fiction? Not exactly; the myth will be in most cases an historical being, but whose real character can but faintly be made out through the haze of fable and legend which has thickened round it. So it is with Prometheus; the legend of the god-like son of heaven, whom Vulcan chained to Mount Caucasus in punishment for his philanthropy, is found, in one shape or another, among Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Chinese, etc. It must have some foundation in truth. But no mortal wisdom can now discern that truth in the troubled water of legends that envelope it. So it is with Christ. He is a myth, like Prometheus. That man, crucified in Judea, doubtless, did exist. But to make out the real Christ from the Christ of the New Testament is beyond the power of criticism.
Such is the blasphemous error here denounced. Its refutation is easy. The age of myths and the age of Christ are separated by many centuries. The latest myths in Italy belong to the age of Romulus, seven centuries before Christ, if, indeed, Romulus can be called a myth. When the age of written monuments begins, the mythical period ends. Hence the Jewish people cannot properly be said to have ever had myths. And the man who talks of mythical beings in Judea during the reign of Tiberius, may undertake to persuade us that Napoleon III. is a myth. We know the current events of that period, year by year, and month by month. The Annals of Tacitus, the Commentaries of Cæsar, have not, even humanly speaking, the critical evidence in their favour possessed by the Four Gospels.
§ II.—Moderate Rationalism.
The errors of this section are all sprung from the same parent, namely, from the denial of the existence of mysteries, or of truths whose depth is beyond the understanding of man. The basis on which the condemnations contained in the section rest, is, firstly, the recognition of the fact that mysteries do exist, and have been revealed; secondly, the logical principle that the science of Faith, commonly called theology, must be conducted in a different manner from the natural sciences. To show the folly of the propositions herein censured, I ask whether a man would not be crazed who should try to settle the truth of the story of Hengist from Euclid? Of course he would, because he would be applying the principles of a purely abstract science to an historical question, which can only be solved by the testimony of trustworthy witnesses. Yet the absurdity of such an attempt is infinitely less than that of trying to frame a science of Faith by the same means wherewith chemistry or natural philosophy are to be studied. And now let us briefly review the condemnations that follow.
The eighth and ninth condemn the ridiculous system I have just referred to.
The tenth strikes at the error of implying that a man of science may outwardly accept and inwardly reject the dogmas of Faith, as if the philosopher indeed were subject to God, but human science were independent of the divine intellect.
The eleventh is aimed at the error of those who would fain take from the Church her power of defending the revealed deposit from the dangers that beset it through the abuse of reason.
The twelfth contradicts the insulting assertion that Papal decrees impede the progress of science. It does not touch the question whether, in any particular case, the act or decree of any Pope not speaking ex cathedrâ may have impeded the development of some particular scientific theory, true or otherwise; but condemns, as scores of learned Protestants have done ere now, the sweeping calumny of the enemies of the Holy See.
The thirteenth condemnation displays, even in a human sense, the most consummate wisdom. The author of the censured opinion means to treat faith and reason on the same level; but the full pith of the condemnation can only be felt by those who have fathomed the almost godlike intellectual strength of mediæval divines.
The fourteenth, after what I have said, needs no comment.
§ III.—Indifferentism. Latitudinarianism.
Every reader of the Bible must have met, in the writings of the Apostles, with sundry wholesome warnings against heretics, and for example, in the Apocalypse or Revelations of St. John, with fearful predictions of torments reserved for them. Of course we do not style those heretics who have entered the Church by baptism, and have never heard the truth of Catho licity sufficiently proposed for them to be able to embrace it; such as these may well be saved, and belong, as Father Perrone says, to the soul of the Church. But still we hold that there is no salvation for those who belong neither to the body nor to the soul of the Church, and we believe there is but one true Church of Christ. Hence we cannot admit the comfortable doctrines of the present batch of errors.
In the fifteenth condemnation therefore, the Pontiff simply inculcates the principle laid down by St. Paul in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans, namely, that faith is obedience. There is but one true religion, and every man is bound to embrace it, and in so doing he obeys a Divine command. "He that believeth not, shall be condemned."—Mark xvi. 16.
The sixteenth denies that any synagogue of falsehood can be heir to the promises of Christ, and be our guide to life everlasting, according to the privilege of His Church.
The seventeenth censure is directed against the anti-Christian doctrine that communion with the Church is in nowise wanted for salvation.
The force of the eighteenth of the Papal censures will be seen from the supposition implied in the error condemned.
The supposition is, that denials of a truth are simply different forms of the same truth, and that two antago nistic systems maybe equally true, and alike the Word of God.
§ IV.—Secret Societies, Communism, etc.
As I find no propositions here, I may pass this heading over in silence. The reign of terror of Parisian Communism has more than justified the Pontifical censure passed on this class of errors.
§ V.—Errors concerning the Church and her rights.
§ VI.—Errors concerning the State considered both in itself and in its relations to the Church.
I put these two paragraphs together, as my prefatory remarks will apply to both alike. I may have to say over again something already said in a former pamphlet on the "Vatican Decrees," but shall study to be as short as possible. A few words on the Church in herself, and then on the Church in her relation to the State, will be a necessary introduction to my subject.
Is the Church a society, or body politic? If so, is she a perfect or an imperfect society?
First, let us define terms. A society is a body of men conspiring together by united efforts for the attainment of a common end. We have in this definition four elements; the multitude of human beings, their moral union, the means of attainment of the end, and the end itself. Thus the society called the British Empire consists of all Queen Victoria's subjects, linked together by the observance of the laws of the Empire, for the attainment of temporal prosperity.
Of these elements it is plain that the first three form, as it were, the matter, or vague, undetermined part, and the last, the determining element, or form of the society. The end determines the means and is the vital principle of the whole structure. The means employed by a society whose aim is life everlasting, must be totally different from those made use of by the State, whose end is temporal welfare. The means employed for the attainment of the end of a literary club are not those employed by a railway company. The social means therefore, and, consequently the very nature of a society, are to be determined from its scope.
Now for the distinction between perfect and imperfect societies. I said in a former pamphlet that the State is a perfect, a railway company an imperfect so ciety. The imperfect society aims at a partial attainment of the end of the perfect society; the perfect society contains within itself the imperfect society, and is contained within no other having the same end as itself. There are but two perfect societies—the Church and the State, each, in its own sphere, independent and supreme; and every other society must be a part of one or of the other of these two.
But here I have been stating what I wish to prove, to wit, that the Church is a society. Well, let us see whether she has the four elements of the definition.
First, does she consist of a multitude of men? The answer is plain. Was it her Founder's will that these men should be linked together, so as to tend to a common end? I say it was, and in proving this I have proved the existence of the second, third and fourth elements required in the definition.
Christ said to Peter, that on him He would build His Church. The metaphor of building conveys the idea of parts bound together so as to form a whole. Apply this metaphor to a multitude of human beings and you have a society. Again, Christ calls His Church in that same text, a kingdom—"Upon thee will I build My Church, and to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Now a kingdom is a society, and a perfect one. And St. Paul writing to the Ephesians in the fourth chapter, describes the Church as "a body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part," etc. And if these terms do not express the idea of a society, of a body politic, no language supplies words able to convey that idea.
The Church is then a society, and what I have said sufficiently indicates that she is a perfect one. But, moreover, if she be not perfect, then her end must form part of the end of the State. Is it so? Does the State ever aim at the sanctification of its members? Assuredly not. And if I charged the State with being wanting to itself, because, with the help of electric telegraphs and railways, with army and navy, with Royal societies and mechanics' institutes, etc., it has never formed a single saint, a single mortified and holy man, I should be called a fool, and rightly so. The end of the Church is distinct and independent of the object of the State; now that society whose end is not included in the end of any other society, is a perfect society; therefore the Church is a perfect society.
Next, every perfect society must have means for the attainment of its aim. But human passions and private interests, the vagaries of men's minds, and differences of opinion, would keep up a constant whirl wind of confusion, and annihilate all order, were these means not to be imposed on the society for its adoption in an obligatory form. When so imposed they are called laws; and hence every perfect society must have legislative power. But the same causes will perforce bring about disputes as to the way in which the means have to be applied; to decide such disputes every perfect society must have judicial power. To restrain the malevolent, and protect the good, is, unhappily, a necessary function in the government of a body of men; and hence the necessity in every perfect society of coercive power, or the right of using force. This threefold power, legislative, judicial, and coercive, must be allowed to belong to the Church if the Church be, as I have proved above, a perfect society.
Of the relations between Church and State I have written on a former occasion. I need here only repeat that neither may interfere with the other in what is out of its own sphere; that if (which I do not know if it be even possible) the eternal welfare of the subjects of a State could not be attained without loss of its temporal prosperity, eternal interests must take precedence of earthly ones; and that the ruler of neither society has a right to obedience when he commands anything out of his own sphere.
On these principles it will be easy for us to see the justice of the condemnations contained in the next two paragraphs.
In condemning the nineteenth error the Pope defines that the Church is a perfect society. He likewise denounces the absurd theory that rights defined by Christ himself should be subject to the revision of the civil power.
The twentieth proposition is censured for making the divinely-instituted society part and parcel of the State.
The twenty-first error supposes that Christ left His Apostles and their successors powerless to tell His true religion from false ones.
The twenty-second denies the Church's power of defining dogmatic facts of which I have spoken elsewhere. To show how inconsistent a Catholic would have to be if his obligation of belief were restricted to dogmas of faith, I put the following case: I believe the Immaculate Conception, because defined by Pius IX.; but if that man, John Mastai Ferretti, be not really Pope, the definition is null. Therefore I must believe that John Mastai Ferretti is really Pope. Now I find nothing in Scripture or Tradition about John Mastai Ferretti, and his election to the Popedom. Here is a truth which must needs be accepted for the acceptance of a dogmatical definition, yet is not itself an article of faith.
The twenty-second proposition is condemned, especially for its last portion, which is, that Popes and Councils have erred in matters of faith. The assertion that Pontiffs have usurped the rights of princes is false if it speaks of sentences proceeding from the Pope as guardian of the revealed deposit; nor is anything here defined by Pius IX. about the private conduct of Popes, historically considered. Take the contradictory, not the contrary of the condemned error.
The twenty-fourth error is at variance with the principles proved above.
The twenty-fifth, in the sense of its author, was intended to set down powers really spiritual as a gift to the Church from civil society.
The twenty-sixth falsely supposes that the ministers of the Church forfeit their natural rights as men, and are reduced to the state of outlaws.
The same principle is involved in the twenty-seventh error.
The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth deny the Church to be a perfect and independent society.
The thirtieth is censured as an historical falsehood.
The thirty-first proposition is condemned because it denies to the Church the right inherent to every perfect society of passing judgment in its own courts.
The thirty-second denies the right of the Church, based on the law of nature, that its sacred ministers should be free from burdens incompatible with their calling.
The thirty-third needs no comment after what has been said in the second section.
The thirty-fourth is another historical falsehood. The doctrine of the Pope's spiritual supremacy is the same now as it was in the middle ages.
The thirty-fifth error is opposed to the Catholic doctrine that the authority of St. Peter's successor is such as the words of Christ define, to wit, monarchical; and to the doctrine that the government of the universal Church is, by God's decree, united with the office of successor of St. Peter in the episcopal See of Rome, so that he who is Bishop of Rome must like wise be Pope of the universal Church.
The thirty-sixth condemned proposition transfers, against the teaching of the Catholic Church, the su preme and ultimate ecclesiastical jurisdiction and power, from the Pope and the whole Hierarchy, to the Bishops of each nation. It forms part of the system of the excommunicate Bishop Nicholas Hontheim, suffragan of Treves, better known under the name of Febronius.
The thirty-seventh is a sequel to the foregoing.
The falsity of the thirty-eighth is but too evident to anyone conversant with the history of the Greek schism.
The thirty-ninth proposition condemned, raises the State to the place of God.
The fortieth offers a sweeping and gratuitous insult to the teaching of the Catholic Church.
In the forty-first, a double exercise of right is claimed for the State, in both cases incompatible with the existence of the Church as a divinely-founded and perfect society. The first claim is that of the right of exequatur, which means, that no Papal mandate concerning spiritual matters can be carried out without the consent of the State (i.e., without the signature of Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Gladstone); the second claim is that a rebel priest, for example, if condemned for heresy, may appeal to a lay judge to have the sentence reversed. The forty-second implies that Cæsar is above God and His representatives.
The forty-third (one of the craziest of all) will have it that in agreements entered into between the State and the Church, the latter only is bound to abide by them, the State being at liberty to cast them to the winds when its pleases.
The forty-fourth claims for the State the episcopal rights given by Christ to the successors of the Apostles.
The forty-fifth denies the right of parents and the Church to see that the minds of youth under education are not to be tainted with impious or immoral teaching.
The forty-sixth carries the same monstrous pretension a step further.
The forty-seventh and forty-eighth are developments of the same absurdity, and deny to theology her place in the cycle of sciences.
The forty-ninth, fiftieth, and fifty-first, advocate that interference of laymen in the appointment of ecclesiastical rulers, which even Anglicanism has felt most intolerable, and which is one of the curses of the Russo-Greek schism. That the detestation of this offspring of Cæsarism is shared outside the Church of Rome appears from the secession, thirty years ago, of the Free Kirk of Scotland.
The principles upheld in the fifty-second and fifty-third propositions, of interfering with the sacrifice which religious choose to make of themselves to God by vows, surpass in extravagance the wildest accusations ever brought against the Church, of meddling with affairs of the State.
The fifty-fourth gives to Sovereigns the Pontifical power of Pagan Cæsars.
The fifty-fifth, in the intention of its framer, might be fitly embodied thus: Atheism is the only fit religion of State.
§ VII.—Errors concerning Natural and Christian Ethics.
The root of the errors of this section is an utter distortion of the true notion of law, of moral obligation, of right and wrong. Catholic philosophers hold, that the Author of all good in that one infinite act of will, wherewith he loves His own infinite Goodness, loves and wills all that is good; and hence issue the multitude of laws and moral obligations. Hence it is that the principles of right and wrong remain unchangeable, as God cannot will anything hostile to His goodness. But the hideous brood of Pantheistic and Rationalistic vagaries that have sprung into life,
As when the potent rod,
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day
Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
place moral goodness, not in this pure emanation of God's essence, but either in pleasure, or in money-making, or in political usefulness, etc.
Hence the fifty-sixth and fifty-seventh shut out the Almighty law-giver from all control over the moral acts of His creatures.
Acting on this blasphemous assertion, the fifty-eighth aims at changing men into unclean animals.
The fifty-ninth, sixtieth, and sixty-first, acknowledge no law in nature but the right of the strongest.
The sixty-second applies to States the degrading principle, which every Englishman loathes and detests, of standing idly by, while the weak are oppressed by the strong, called the principle of non-intervention.
In condemning the sixty-third, the Pontiff shews himself the best preserver of civil allegiance, binding all Catholics throughout the world, under pain of being deprived of the communion of the Church and excluded from all hope of salvation, to condemn and repudiate the doctrine that makes it lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, or to rebel against them.
§ VIII.—Errors concerning Christian Marriage.
The summary of what Catholics believe on the subject of marriage with reference to the opinions herein censured, is this: "Marriage, even in the law of nature, was indissoluble, though not with the more perfect indissolubility it has acquired from Christ in the New Law. He has raised it to the dignity of a sacrament. The contract itself is the sacrament; the latter is not something extrinsical, superadded to the matrimonial contract. As it is an absolute decree of the Redeemer that so it should be, it is out of the power of Christians to evade it. Hence every marriage between baptized Christians, if validly contracted, is, ipso facto, a sacrament, although gone through without any exterior religious rite or ceremony. Once raised to the rank of a sacrament, it took its place among the social contracts of the Church of Christ. She saw in the union of primeval man with the woman formed from his rib, as the Apostle tells us, an image of Herself, issuing from the pierced side of Christ and celebrating Her nuptials with Him on the Cross of our Redemption. And even as the State claims the right of in validating civil contracts, when it deems it right for the welfare of its members, so the Church claims the right of imposing conditions without whose fulfilment the marriage contract shall be invalid. Wisely has she used her power, without creating confusion among those who do not recognize her authority. Among these conditions, one, which binds in most countries of Europe, is that marriages among Catholics are invalid unless made in presence of the parish priest and two witnesses. The wisdom of the condition is obvious, and the English legislature aims at part of the Church's object, namely the avoiding of secrecy, when it makes the attendance of the registrar compulsory. The absence of the persons required by the laws of the Church constitutes an impediment, called a diriment or nullifying impediment, to the validity of the marriage contract, in the countries aforesaid. And, as the Church does not recognize the civil magistrate as authorized to supply the place of the pastor, it follows, that what are called civil marriages, celebrated by Catholics without the assistance of a person authorized by the Church, are held as invalid till they have been subsequently ratified before the priest.
But here it must be carefully borne in mind, firstly, that the Church fully recognizes the binding force of the marriage tie between such as, because unbaptized, do not belong to her tribunal. In respect to these she only claims the privilege which, as St. Paul teaches, belongs to her of right, namely, that in case of one party embracing the Christian faith, and failing to obtain from the other the free exercise of the Christian religion, an authoritative dissolution of the bond may be obtained. In all other cases she acknowledges the validity of marriage between infidels, as forming part of the law of nature.
I said above, that the Church avoids such use of her power as might beget confusion in the matter of matrimonial contracts among those who, however, unlawfully, ignore her authority. I speak of such as, like Protestants, have the indelible character of Baptism, but have not yet recognized in the Church of Rome the one Catholic Church, which has a right to their sub mission. Marriage between two Protestants, wherever contracted, is held by Catholic divines to be valid and indissoluble. It is therefore sacramental whether contracted in a church or in a private house; with or without the presence of a sacred minister; with or without witnesses. Nor is it in the power of the contracting parties to divest wedlock of the sacramental essence which Christ has Himself infused into it. In a word the Church leaves the marriage of two non-Catholics free from the impediment of clandestinity.
Another example of the caution used by the See of Rome in exercising the power of binding and loosening, is seen in the fact that, after three centuries, she still allows the decree of Trent, which makes clandestine marriages invalid, to remain unpublished, and therefore not in force, in a large portion of the Catholic world. Hence marriages, even between Catholics, without witnesses or any sacred rite, are, though unlawful, valid, and, of course, sacramental, in England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, parts of Germany, Switzerland, America, etc.
With these principles before our eyes, a glance will tell us why the errors of this section were censured by Pius IX.
The sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth deny that matrimony is a sacrament.
The three that follow are based on the supposition that matrimony is a civil, not a sacred contract.
The seventieth and seventy-first are an attempt to elude the force of the decree of Trent forbidding and rendering null clandestine marriages.
The seventy-second proposition is condemned as historically false.
The seventy-third and seventy-fourth condemnations were a necessary consequence of the Catholic principles on the sacramental nature of marriage, stated at the head of this section.
§ IX.—Errors regarding the Civil Power of the Sovereign Pontiff.
If the States of Europe consulted their own political interests, they would uphold with every nerve and sinew the Temporal Power of the Pope. Nothing could be more odious to Catholics in any State— nothing more calculated to create jealousy and rivalry—than the knowledge that the Pontiff is under the control of a foreign prince. Witness the troubles of the Avignon Popes. But Italian injustice has ere now shown but too clearly how justly Pius IX. declared that his civil independence and sovereignty were necessary for the due fulfilment of his spiritual power. All true Catholics Join in spirit in the words of the Catholic Episcopate addressed to His Holiness on the 9th of June, 1862: "On this subject it scarce becomes us to speak. For thine own voice, Most Holy Father, has proclaimed to the world, that by a singular counsel of God's Providence the Roman Pontiff, whom Christ constituted Head and Centre of the Church, hath attained civil sovereignty."
But let us take the contradictories of the two sentences here condemned, and see what the Pope defines.
Seventy-fifth. The children of the Catholic Church are not divided about the compatibility of the temporal with the spiritual power.
The abolition of the temporal power would not contribute to the liberty and prosperity of the Church.
§ X.—Errors having reference to Modern Liberalism.
In the seventy-seventh censure the Pope denies that the principle of religious unity is less desirable now than it was formerly.
The seventy-eighth censure declares it unwise, where the unity of faith has never been shattered, to excite dissension by authorizing the introduction and public practice of heretical worship.
The condemnation of the seventy-ninth proposition teaches that liberty of publishing any sentiments, however libellous, blasphemous and immoral they may be, tends to the corruption of morals.
The last condemnation censures the insulting assertion, that the Roman Pontiff either stands in need of reconciling himself with true civilization, or that he ought to join hands with Red Republicanism, covertly implied in the term "liberalism."
I now have but one word to say in conclusion. Non-Catholics will of course find much in the Syllabus which is at variance with their belief, but, I trust, they will not find in it the spectre conjured up by Mr. Gladstone's fancy. They will find in it much with which they will heartily concur, and will allow that the Holy See could not, on Catholic principles, pronounce other wise than Pius IX. has pronounced.
A few unhappy men have gone out from among us during these last years, rather than accept such acts of the See of Peter as the Syllabus and the definition of Infallibility. If there was any one among them who enjoyed in the bosom of the Church a reputation for great learning and great integrity of life, yet let us bear in mind the words written, fourteen hundred years ago, by Vincentius of Lerins: "In the Church of God, the going astray of the master is the danger of the people; and the more learned he was who hath gone astray, the greater the temptation. But herein is something worthy to be learned and necessary to be borne in mind: that all true Catholics should know, that from the Church they receive their teachers; but do not forsake, with erring teachers, the communion of the Church."