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Here begins Chapter 5 of Newman's Apologia, continued from Chapter 4.
Chapter V. {Pages 238 through 284} Position of My Mind Since 1845
From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history
of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that
my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological subjects;
but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart
whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one
doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change,
intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith
in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more
fervour; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on
that score remains to this day without interruption.
Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles, which are
not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any
one of them was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception
with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now. I am far
of course from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as
held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties;
and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties.
Many persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of Religion; I am as
sensitive of them as any one; but I have never been able to see a connexion
between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to
any extent, and on the other hand doubting the doctrines to which they are
attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the
subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be
difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the
doctrines themselves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be
annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is
or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a
certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of
a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet
borne in upon our minds with most power.
People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I
did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in
believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the
oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the
original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how
is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe,
that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More,
before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened
age could resist "the overwhelming force of the argument against it." "Sir
Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and
the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which
stands that test, will stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove
it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to
hinder it? What do I know of substance or matter? just as much as the greatest
philosophers, and that is nothing at all;"—so much is this the case, that there is
a rising school of philosophy now, which considers phenomena to constitute the
whole of our knowledge in physics. The Catholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone.
It does not say that the phenomena go; on the contrary, it says that they
remain; nor does it say that the same phenomena are in several places at once.
It deals with what no one on earth knows any thing about, the material
substances themselves. And, in like manner, of that majestic Article of the
Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity.
What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I know that my abstract idea
of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the
question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense
in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God.
But I am going to take upon myself the responsibility of more than the mere
Creed of the Church; as the parties accusing me are determined I shall do. They
say, that now, in that I am a Catholic, though I may not have offences of my own
against honesty to answer for, yet, at least, I am answerable for the offences
of others, of my co-religionists, of my brother priests, of the Church herself.
I am quite willing to accept the responsibility; and, as I have been able, as I
trust, by means of a few words, to dissipate, in the minds of all those who do
not begin with disbelieving me, the suspicion with which so many Protestants
start, in forming their judgment of Catholics, viz. that our Creed is actually
set up in inevitable superstition and hypocrisy, as the original sin of
Catholicism; so now I will proceed, as before, identifying myself with the
Church and vindicating it,—not of course denying the enormous mass of sin and
error which exists of necessity in that world-wide multiform Communion,—but
going to the proof of this one point, that its system is in no sense dishonest, and that
therefore the upholders and teachers of that system, as such, have a claim to be
acquitted in their own persons of that odious imputation.
Starting then with the being of a God, (which, as I have said, is as certain
to me as the certainty of my own existence, though when I try to put the grounds
of that certainty into logical shape I find a difficulty in doing so in mood and
figure to my satisfaction,) /h/ I look out of myself into the world of men, and
there I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world seems
simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is so full;
and the effect upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as
confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a
mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which
actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no
reflexion of its Creator. This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of
this absolute primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not for this
voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an
atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I looked into the world. I am
speaking for myself only; and I am far from denying the real force of the
arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the general facts of human society and
the course of history, but these do not warm me or enlighten me; they do not
take away the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves
grow within me, and my moral being rejoice. The sight of the world is nothing
else than the prophet's scroll, full of "lamentations, and mourning, and
woe."
To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the
many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their
conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their
enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements,
the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken
of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great
powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not
towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching
aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the
disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain,
mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries,
the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole
race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, "having no hope
and without God in the world,"—all this is a vision to dizzy and appal; and
inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely
beyond human solution.
What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact? I can
only answer, that either there is no Creator, or this living society of men is
in a true sense discarded from His presence. Did I see a boy of good make and
mind, with the tokens on him of a refined nature, cast upon the world without
provision, unable to say whence he came, his birth-place or his family
connexions, I should conclude that there was some mystery connected with his
history, and that he was one, of whom, from one cause or other, his parents were
ashamed. Thus only should I be able to account for the contrast between the
promise and the condition of his being. And so I argue about the
world;—if there be a God, since there is a God, the human race is
implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the
purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its
existence; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called original sin becomes to me
almost as certain as that the world exists, and as the existence of God.
And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will of the Creator to
interfere in this anarchical condition of things, what are we to suppose would
be the methods which might be necessarily or naturally involved in His purpose
of mercy? Since the world is in so abnormal a state, surely it would be no
surprise to me, if the interposition were of necessity equally extraordinary—or
what is called miraculous. But that subject does not directly come into the
scope of my present remarks. Miracles as evidence, involve a process of reason,
or an argument; and of course I am thinking of some mode of interference which
does not immediately run into argument. I am rather asking what must be the
face-to-face antagonist, by which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of
passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the intellect in
religious inquiries? I have no intention at all of denying, that truth is the
real object of our reason, and that, if it does not attain to truth, either the
premiss or the process is in fault; but I am not speaking here of right reason,
but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen man. I know that even
the unaided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the
immortality of the soul, and in a future retribution; but I am considering the
faculty of reason actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not
think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards a simple unbelief in
matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand against it, in the long
run; and hence it is that in the pagan world, when our Lord came, the last
traces of the religious knowledge of former times were all but disappearing from
those portions of the world in which the intellect had been active and had had a
career.
And in these latter days, in like manner, outside the Catholic Church things are
tending,—with far greater rapidity than in that old time from the circumstance
of the age,—to atheism in one shape or other. What a scene, what a prospect,
does the whole of Europe present at this day! and not only Europe, but every
government and every civilization through the world, which is under the
influence of the European mind! Especially, for it most concerns us, how
sorrowful, in the view of religion, even taken in its most elementary, most
attenuated form, is the spectacle presented to us by the educated intellect of
England, France, and Germany! Lovers of their country and of their race,
religious men, external to the Catholic Church, have attempted various
expedients to arrest fierce wilful human nature in its onward course, and to
bring it into subjection. The necessity of some form of religion for the
interests of humanity, has been generally acknowledged: but where was the
concrete representative of things invisible, which would have the force and the
toughness necessary to be a breakwater against the deluge? Three centuries ago
the establishment of religion, material, legal, and social, was generally
adopted as the best expedient for the purpose, in those countries which
separated from the Catholic Church; and for a long time it was successful; but
now the crevices of those establishments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years
ago, education was relied upon: ten years ago there was a hope that wars would
cease for ever, under the influence of commercial enterprise and the reign of
the useful and fine arts; but will any one venture to say that there is any
thing any where on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum for us, whereby to
keep the earth from moving onwards?
The judgment, which experience passes whether on establishments or on
education, as a means of maintaining religious truth in this anarchical world,
must be extended even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine. Experience proves surely
that the Bible does not answer a purpose for which it was never intended. It may
be accidentally the means of the conversion of individuals; but a book, after
all, cannot make a stand against the wild living intellect of man, and in this
day it begins to testify, as regards its own structure and contents, to the
power of that universal solvent, which is so successfully acting upon religious
establishments.
Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to interfere in human
affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the world a knowledge of
Himself, so definite and distinct as to be proof against the energy of human
scepticism, in such a case,—I am far from saying that there was no other
way,—but there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He should think fit to
introduce a power into the world, invested with the prerogative of infallibility
in religious matters. Such a provision would be a direct, immediate, active, and
prompt means of withstanding the difficulty; it would be an instrument suited to
the need; and, when I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church,
not only do I feel no difficulty in admitting the idea, but there is a fitness
in it, which recommends it to my mind. And thus I am brought to speak of the
Church's infallibility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to
preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom of thought, which
of course in itself is one of the greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue
it from its own suicidal excesses. And let it be observed that, neither here nor
in what follows, shall I have occasion to speak directly of Revelation in its
subject-matter, but in reference to the sanction which it gives to truths which
may be known independently of it,—as it bears upon the defence of natural
religion. I say, that a power, possessed of infallibility in religious teaching,
is happily adapted to be a working instrument, in the course of human affairs,
for smiting hard and throwing back the immense energy of the aggressive, capricious,
untrustworthy intellect:—and in saying this, as in the other things that I have
to say, it must still be recollected that I am all along bearing in mind my main
purpose, which is a defence of myself.
I am defending myself here from a plausible charge brought against Catholics,
as will be seen better as I proceed. The charge is this:—that I, as a Catholic,
not only make profession to hold doctrines which I cannot possibly believe in my
heart, but that I also believe in the existence of a power on earth, which at
its own will imposes upon men any new set of credenda, when it pleases,
by a claim to infallibility; in consequence, that my own thoughts are not my own
property; that I cannot tell that to-morrow I may not have to give up what I
hold to-day, and that the necessary effect of such a condition of mind must be a
degrading bondage, or a bitter inward rebellion relieving itself in secret
infidelity, or the necessity of ignoring the whole subject of religion in a sort
of disgust, and of mechanically saying every thing that the Church says, and
leaving to others the defence of it. As then I have above spoken of the relation
of my mind towards the Catholic Creed, so now I shall speak of the attitude
which it takes up in the view of the Church's infallibility.
And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible teacher must be an emphatic
protest against the existing state of mankind. Man had rebelled against his
Maker. It was this that caused the divine interposition: and to proclaim it must
be the first act of the divinely-accredited messenger. The Church must denounce
rebellion as of all possible evils the greatest. She must have no terms with it;
if she would be true to her Master, she must ban and anathematize it. This is
the meaning of a statement of mine which has furnished matter for one of those
special accusations to which I am at present replying: I have, however, no fault at all
to confess in regard to it; I have nothing to withdraw, and in consequence I
here deliberately repeat it. I said, "The Catholic Church holds it better for
the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the
many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal
affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should
commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal
one poor farthing without excuse." I think the principle here enunciated to be
the mere preamble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as an Act of
Parliament might begin with a "Whereas." It is because of the intensity
of the evil which has possession of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has been
provided against it; and the initial act of that divinely-commissioned power is
of course to deliver her challenge and to defy the enemy. Such a preamble then
gives a meaning to her position in the world, and an interpretation to her whole
course of teaching and action.
In like manner she has ever put forth, with most energetic distinctness,
those other great elementary truths, which either are an explanation of her
mission or give a character to her work. She does not teach that human nature is
irreclaimable, else wherefore should she be sent? not, that it is to be
shattered and reversed, but to be extricated, purified, and restored; not, that
it is a mere mass of hopeless evil, but that it has the promise upon it of great
things, and even now, in its present state of disorder and excess, has a virtue
and a praise proper to itself. But in the next place she knows and she preaches
that such a restoration, as she aims at effecting in it, must be brought about,
not simply through certain outward provisions of preaching and teaching, even
though they be her own, but from an inward spiritual power or grace imparted
directly from above, and of which she is the channel. She has it in charge to
rescue human nature from its misery, but not simply by restoring it on its own
level, but by lifting it up to a higher level than its own. She recognizes in it
real moral excellence though degraded, but she cannot set it free from earth
except by exalting it towards heaven. It was for this end that a renovating
grace was put into her hands; and therefore from the nature of the gift, as well
as from the reasonableness of the case, she goes on, as a further point, to
insist, that all true conversion must begin with the first springs of thought,
and to teach that each individual man must be in his own person one whole and
perfect temple of God, while he is also one of the living stones which build up
a visible religious community. And thus the distinctions between nature and
grace, and between outward and inward religion, become two further articles in
what I have called the preamble of her divine commission.
Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and pertinaciously inflicts
upon mankind; as to such she observes no half-measures, no economical reserve,
no delicacy or prudence. "Ye must be born again," is the simple, direct form of
words which she uses after her Divine Master: "your whole nature must be
re-born; your passions, and your affections, and your aims, and your conscience,
and your will, must all be bathed in a new element, and reconsecrated to your
Maker,—and, the last not the least, your intellect." It was for repeating these
points of her teaching in my own way, that certain passages of one of my Volumes
have been brought into the general accusation which has been made against my
religious opinions. The writer has said that I was demented if I believed, and
unprincipled if I did not believe, in my own statement, that a lazy, ragged,
filthy, story-telling beggar-woman, if chaste, sober, cheerful, and religious,
had a prospect of heaven, such as was absolutely closed to an accomplished
statesman, or lawyer, or noble, be he ever so just, upright, generous, honourable, and
conscientious, unless he had also some portion of the divine Christian
graces;—yet I should have thought myself defended from criticism by the words
which our Lord used to the chief priests, "The publicans and harlots go into the
kingdom of God before you." And I was subjected again to the same alternative of
imputations, for having ventured to say that consent to an unchaste wish was
indefinitely more heinous than any lie viewed apart from its causes, its
motives, and its consequences: though a lie, viewed under the limitation of
these conditions, is a random utterance, an almost outward act, not directly
from the heart, however disgraceful and despicable it may be, however
prejudicial to the social contract, however deserving of public reprobation;
whereas we have the express words of our Lord to the doctrine that "whoso
looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already
in his heart." On the strength of these texts, I have surely as much right to
believe in these doctrines which have caused so much surprise, as to believe in
original sin, or that there is a supernatural revelation, or that a Divine
Person suffered, or that punishment is eternal.
Passing now from what I have called the preamble of that grant of power,
which is made to the Church, to that power itself, Infallibility, I premise two
brief remarks:—1. on the one hand, I am not here determining any thing about the
essential seat of that power, because that is a question doctrinal, not
historical and practical; 2. nor, on the other hand, am I extending the direct
subject-matter, over which that power of Infallibility has jurisdiction, beyond
religious opinion:—and now as to the power itself.
This power, viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous as the giant evil which
has called for it. It claims, when brought into exercise but in the legitimate
manner, for otherwise of course it is but quiescent, to know for certain the very meaning of
every portion of that Divine Message in detail, which was committed by our Lord
to His Apostles. It claims to know its own limits, and to decide what it can
determine absolutely and what it cannot. It claims, moreover, to have a hold
upon statements not directly religious, so far as this,—to determine whether
they indirectly relate to religion, and, according to its own definitive
judgment, to pronounce whether or not, in a particular case, they are simply
consistent with revealed truth. It claims to decide magisterially, whether as
within its own province or not, that such and such statements are or are not
prejudicial to the Depositum of faith, in their spirit or in their
consequences, and to allow them, or condemn and forbid them, accordingly. It
claims to impose silence at will on any matters, or controversies, of doctrine,
which on its own ipse dixit
{"He himself said it" that is to say, a dogmatic statement asserted but not proved, to be accepted on faith in the speaker.}, it pronounces to be dangerous, or
inexpedient, or inopportune. It claims that, whatever may be the judgment of
Catholics upon such acts, these acts should be received by them with those
outward marks of reverence, submission, and loyalty, which Englishmen, for
instance, pay to the presence of their sovereign, without expressing any
criticism on them on the ground that in their matter they are inexpedient, or in
their manner violent or harsh. And lastly, it claims to have the right of
inflicting spiritual punishment, of cutting off from the ordinary channels of
the divine life, and of simply excommunicating, those who refuse to submit
themselves to its formal declarations. Such is the infallibility lodged in the
Catholic Church, viewed in the concrete, as clothed and surrounded by the
appendages of its high sovereignty: it is, to repeat what I said above, a
supereminent prodigious power sent upon earth to encounter and master a giant
evil.
And now, having thus described it, I profess my own absolute submission to
its claim. I believe the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed
by the Apostles to the Church; and as declared by the Church to me. I receive
it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus
committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted
by that same authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the
universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those
new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all
times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already
defined. And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See,
theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which,
waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me
with a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, I consider that, gradually and in
the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has
thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its
own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St.
Augustine, and St. Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces
the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days.
All this being considered as the profession which I make ex animo
{"from the heart"}, as for myself, so also on the part of the Catholic body,
as far as I know it, it will at first sight be said that the restless intellect of
our common humanity is utterly weighed down, to the repression of all independent
effort and action whatever, so that, if this is to be the mode of bringing it into order,
it is brought into order only to be destroyed. But this is far from the result, far
from what I conceive to be the intention of that high Providence who has
provided a great remedy for a great evil,—far from borne out by the history of
the conflict between Infallibility and Reason in the past, and the prospect of
it in the future. The energy of the human intellect "does from opposition grow;" it
thrives and is joyous, with a tough elastic strength, under the terrible blows
of the divinely-fashioned weapon, and is never so much itself as when it has
lately been overthrown. It is the custom with Protestant writers to consider
that, whereas there are two great principles in action in the history of
religion, Authority and Private Judgment, they have all the Private Judgment to
themselves, and we have the full inheritance and the superincumbent oppression
of Authority. But this is not so; it is the vast Catholic body itself, and it
only, which affords an arena for both combatants in that awful, never-dying
duel. It is necessary for the very life of religion, viewed in its large
operations and its history, that the warfare should be incessantly carried on.
Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act by an intense and varied
operation of the Reason, both as its ally and as its opponent, and provokes
again, when it has done its work, a re-action of Reason against it; and, as in a
civil polity the State exists and endures by means of the rivalry and collision,
the encroachments and defeats of its constituent parts, so in like manner
Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism, but
presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately
advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide;—it is a vast
assemblage of human beings with wilful intellects and wild passions, brought
together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power,—into what
may be called a large reformatory or training-school, not as if into a hospital
or into a prison, not in order to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but
(if I may change my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral factory,
for the melting, refining, and moulding, by an incessant, noisy process, of the
raw material of human nature, so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine
purposes.
St. Paul says in one place that his Apostolical power is given him to
edification, and not to destruction. There can be no better account of the
Infallibility of the Church. It is a supply for a need, and it does not go
beyond that need. Its object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the
freedom or vigour of human thought in religious speculation, but to resist and
control its extravagance. What have been its great works? All of them in the
distinct province of theology:—to put down Arianism, Eutychianism, Pelagianism,
Manichćism, Lutheranism, Jansenism. Such is the broad result of its action in
the past;—and now as to the securities which are given us that so it ever will
act in time to come.
First, Infallibility cannot act outside of a definite circle of thought, and
it must in all its decisions, or definitions, as they are called, profess
to be keeping within it. The great truths of the moral law, of natural religion,
and of Apostolical faith, are both its boundary and its foundation. It must not
go beyond them, and it must ever appeal to them. Both its subject-matter, and
its articles in that subject-matter, are fixed. And it must ever profess to be
guided by Scripture and by tradition. It must refer to the particular Apostolic
truth which it is enforcing, or (what is called) defining. Nothing, then,
can be presented to me, in time to come, as part of the faith, but what I ought
already to have received, and hitherto have been kept from receiving, (if so,)
merely because it has not been brought home to me. Nothing can be imposed upon
me different in kind from what I hold already,—much less contrary to it. The new
truth which is promulgated, if it is to be called new, must be at least
homogeneous, cognate, implicit, viewed relatively to the old truth. It must be
what I may even have guessed, or wished, to be included in the Apostolic
revelation; and at least it will be of such a character, that my thoughts readily concur
in it or coalesce with it, as soon as I hear it. Perhaps I and others actually
have always believed it, and the only question which is now decided in my
behalf, is, that I have henceforth the satisfaction of having to believe, that I
have only been holding all along what the Apostles held before me.
Let me take the doctrine which Protestants consider our greatest difficulty,
that of the Immaculate Conception. Here I entreat the reader to recollect my
main drift, which is this. I have no difficulty in receiving the doctrine; and
that, because it so intimately harmonizes with that circle of recognized
dogmatic truths, into which it has been recently received;—but if I have
no difficulty, why may not another have no difficulty also? why may not a
hundred? a thousand? Now I am sure that Catholics in general have not any
intellectual difficulty at all on the subject of the Immaculate Conception; and
that there is no reason why they should. Priests have no difficulty. You tell me
that they ought to have a difficulty;—but they have not. Be large-minded
enough to believe, that men may reason and feel very differently from
yourselves; how is it that men, when left to themselves, fall into such various
forms of religion, except that there are various types of mind among them, very
distinct from each other? From my testimony then about myself, if you believe
it, judge of others also who are Catholics: we do not find the difficulties
which you do in the doctrines which we hold; we have no intellectual difficulty
in that doctrine in particular, which you call a novelty of this day. We priests
need not be hypocrites, though we be called upon to believe in the Immaculate
Conception. To that large class of minds, who believe in Christianity after our
manner,—in the particular temper, spirit, and light, (whatever word is used,) in
which Catholics believe it,—there is no burden at all in holding that the Blessed Virgin
was conceived without original sin; indeed, it is a simple fact to say, that
Catholics have not come to believe it because it is defined, but that it was
defined because they believed it.
So far from the definition in 1854 being a tyrannical infliction on the
Catholic world, it was received every where on its promulgation with the
greatest enthusiasm. It was in consequence of the unanimous petition, presented
from all parts of the Church to the Holy See, in behalf of an ex cathedrâ
declaration that the doctrine was Apostolic, that it was declared so to be. I
never heard of one Catholic having difficulties in receiving the doctrine, whose
faith on other grounds was not already suspicious. Of course there were grave
and good men, who were made anxious by the doubt whether it could be formally
proved to be Apostolical either by Scripture or tradition, and who accordingly,
though believing it themselves, did not see how it could be defined by authority
and imposed upon all Catholics as a matter of faith; but this is another matter.
The point in question is, whether the doctrine is a burden. I believe it to be
none. So far from it being so, I sincerely think that St. Bernard and St.
Thomas, who scrupled at it in their day, had they lived into this, would have
rejoiced to accept it for its own sake. Their difficulty, as I view it,
consisted in matters of words, ideas, and arguments. They thought the doctrine
inconsistent with other doctrines; and those who defended it in that age had not
that precision in their view of it, which has been attained by means of the long
disputes of the centuries which followed. And in this want of precision lay the
difference of opinion, and the controversy.
Now the instance which I have been taking suggests another remark; the number
of those (so called) new doctrines will not oppress us, if it takes eight
centuries to promulgate even one of them. Such is about the length of time through
which the preparation has been carried on for the definition of the Immaculate
Conception. This of course is an extraordinary case; but it is difficult to say
what is ordinary, considering how few are the formal occasions on which the
voice of Infallibility has been solemnly lifted up. It is to the Pope in
Ecumenical Council that we look, as to the normal seat of Infallibility: now
there have been only eighteen such Councils since Christianity was,—an average
of one to a century,—and of these Councils some passed no doctrinal decree at
all, others were employed on only one, and many of them were concerned with only
elementary points of the Creed. The Council of Trent embraced a large field of
doctrine certainly; but I should apply to its Canons a remark contained in that
University Sermon of mine, which has been so ignorantly criticized in the
Pamphlet which has been the occasion of this Volume;—I there have said that the
various verses of the Athanasian Creed are only repetitions in various shapes of
one and the same idea; and in like manner, the Tridentine Decrees are not
isolated from each other, but are occupied in bringing out in detail, by a
number of separate declarations, as if into bodily form, a few necessary truths.
I should make the same remark on the various theological censures, promulgated
by Popes, which the Church has received, and on their dogmatic decisions
generally. I own that at first sight those decisions seem from their number to
be a greater burden on the faith of individuals than are the Canons of Councils;
still I do not believe that in matter of fact they are so at all, and I give
this reason for it:—it is not that a Catholic, layman or priest, is indifferent
to the subject, or, from a sort of recklessness, will accept any thing that is
placed before him, or is willing, like a lawyer, to speak according to his
brief, but that in such condemnations the Holy See is engaged, for the most
part, in repudiating one or two great lines of error, such as Lutheranism or Jansenism,
principally ethical not doctrinal, which are divergent from the Catholic mind,
and that it is but expressing what any good Catholic, of fair abilities, though
unlearned, would say himself, from common and sound sense, if the matter could
be put before him.
Now I will go on in fairness to say what I think is the great trial to
the Reason, when confronted with that august prerogative of the Catholic Church,
of which I have been speaking. I enlarged just now upon the concrete shape and
circumstances, under which pure infallible authority presents itself to the
Catholic. That authority has the prerogative of an indirect jurisdiction on
subject-matters which lie beyond its own proper limits, and it most reasonably
has such a jurisdiction. It could not act in its own province, unless it had a
right to act out of it. It could not properly defend religious truth, without
claiming for that truth what may be called its pomśria
{the was the sacred boundary of the city of Rome, which lay without the city walls } or, to take
another illustration, without acting as we act, as a nation, in claiming as our
own, not only the land on which we live, but what are called British waters. The
Catholic Church claims, not only to judge infallibly on religious questions, but
to animadvert on opinions in secular matters which bear upon religion, on
matters of philosophy, of science, of literature, of history, and it demands our
submission to her claim. It claims to censure books, to silence authors, and to
forbid discussions. In this province, taken as a whole, it does not so much
speak doctrinally, as enforce measures of discipline. It must of course be
obeyed without a word, and perhaps in process of time it will tacitly recede
from its own injunctions. In such cases the question of faith does not come in
at all; for what is matter of faith is true for all times, and never can be
unsaid. Nor does it at all follow, because there is a gift of infallibility in
the Catholic Church, that therefore the parties who are in possession of it are in
all their proceedings infallible. "O, it is excellent," says the poet, "to have
a giant's strength, but tyrannous, to use it like a giant." {Shakespeare, Measure for Measure,
Act II, Scene 2} I think history
supplies us with instances in the Church, where legitimate power has been
harshly used. To make such admission is no more than saying that the divine
treasure, in the words of the Apostle, is "in earthen vessels;" nor does it
follow that the substance of the acts of the ruling power is not right and
expedient, because its manner may have been faulty. Such high authorities act by
means of instruments; we know how such instruments claim for themselves the name
of their principals, who thus get the credit of faults which really are not
theirs. But granting all this to an extent greater than can with any show of
reason be imputed to the ruling power in the Church, what difficulty is there in
the fact of this want of prudence or moderation more than can be urged, with far
greater justice, against Protestant communities and institutions? What is there
in it to make us hypocrites, if it has not that effect upon Protestants? We are
called upon, not to profess any thing, but to submit and be silent, as
Protestant Churchmen have before now obeyed the royal command to abstain from
certain theological questions. Such injunctions as I have been contemplating are
laid merely upon our actions, not upon our thoughts. How, for instance, does it
tend to make a man a hypocrite, to be forbidden to publish a libel? his thoughts
are as free as before: authoritative prohibitions may tease and irritate, but
they have no bearing whatever upon the exercise of reason.
So much at first sight; but I will go on to say further, that, in spite of
all that the most hostile critic may urge about the encroachments or severities
of high ecclesiastics, in times past, in the use of their power, I think that
the event has shown after all, that they were mainly in the right, and that
those whom they were hard upon were mainly in the wrong. I love, for instance, the name
of Origen: I will not listen to the notion that so great a soul was lost; but I
am quite sure that, in the contest between his doctrine and followers and the
ecclesiastical power, his opponents were right, and he was wrong. Yet who can
speak with patience of his enemy and the enemy of St. John Chrysostom, that
Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria? who can admire or revere Pope Vigilius? And
here another consideration presents itself to my thoughts. In reading
ecclesiastical history, when I was an Anglican, it used to be forcibly brought
home to me, how the initial error of what afterwards became heresy was the
urging forward some truth against the prohibition of authority at an
unseasonable time. There is a time for every thing, and many a man desires a
reformation of an abuse, or the fuller development of a doctrine, or the
adoption of a particular policy, but forgets to ask himself whether the right
time for it is come: and, knowing that there is no one who will be doing any
thing towards its accomplishment in his own lifetime unless he does it himself,
he will not listen to the voice of authority, and he spoils a good work in his
own century, in order that another man, as yet unborn, may not have the
opportunity of bringing it happily to perfection in the next. He may seem to the
world to be nothing else than a bold champion for the truth and a martyr to free
opinion, when he is just one of those persons whom the competent authority ought
to silence; and, though the case may not fall within that subject-matter in
which that authority is infallible, or the formal conditions of the exercise of
that gift may be wanting, it is clearly the duty of authority to act vigorously
in the case. Yet its act will go down to posterity as an instance of a
tyrannical interference with private judgment, and of the silencing of a
reformer, and of a base love of corruption or error; and it will show still less
to advantage, if the ruling power happens in its proceedings to evince any defect
of prudence or consideration. And all those who take the part of that ruling
authority will be considered as time-servers, or indifferent to the cause of
uprightness and truth; while, on the other hand, the said authority may be
accidentally supported by a violent ultra party, which exalts opinions into
dogmas, and has it principally at heart to destroy every school of thought but
its own.
Such a state of things may be provoking and discouraging at the time, in the
case of two classes of persons; of moderate men who wish to make differences in
religious opinion as little as they fairly can be made; and of such as keenly
perceive, and are honestly eager to remedy, existing evils,—evils, of which
divines in this or that foreign country know nothing at all, and which even at
home, where they exist, it is not every one who has the means of estimating.
This is a state of things both of past time and of the present. We live in a
wonderful age; the enlargement of the circle of secular knowledge just now is
simply a bewilderment, and the more so, because it has the promise of
continuing, and that with greater rapidity, and more signal results. Now these
discoveries, certain or probable, have in matter of fact an indirect bearing
upon religious opinions, and the question arises how are the respective claims
of revelation and of natural science to be adjusted. Few minds in earnest can
remain at ease without some sort of rational grounds for their religious belief;
to reconcile theory and fact is almost an instinct of the mind. When then a
flood of facts, ascertained or suspected, comes pouring in upon us, with a
multitude of others in prospect, all believers in Revelation, be they Catholic
or not, are roused to consider their bearing upon themselves, both for the
honour of God, and from tenderness for those many souls who, in consequence of the confident
tone of the schools of secular knowledge, are in danger of being led away into a
bottomless liberalism of thought.
I am not going to criticize here that vast body of men, in the mass, who at
this time would profess to be liberals in religion; and who look towards the
discoveries of the age, certain or in progress, as their informants, direct or
indirect, as to what they shall think about the unseen and the future. The
Liberalism which gives a colour to society now, is very different from that
character of thought which bore the name thirty or forty years ago. Now it is
scarcely a party; it is the educated lay world. When I was young, I knew the
word first as giving name to a periodical, set up by Lord Byron and others. Now,
as then, I have no sympathy with the philosophy of Byron. Afterwards, Liberalism
was the badge of a theological school, of a dry and repulsive character, not
very dangerous in itself, though dangerous as opening the door to evils which it
did not itself either anticipate or comprehend. At present it is nothing else
than that deep, plausible scepticism, of which I spoke above, as being the
development of human reason, as practically exercised by the natural man.
The Liberal religionists of this day are a very mixed body, and therefore I
am not intending to speak against them. There may be, and doubtless is, in the
hearts of some or many of them a real antipathy or anger against revealed truth,
which it is distressing to think of. Again, in many men of science or literature
there may be an animosity arising from almost a personal feeling; it being a
matter of party, a point of honour, the excitement of a game, or a satisfaction
to the soreness or annoyance occasioned by the acrimony or narrowness of
apologists for religion, to prove that Christianity or that Scripture is
untrustworthy. Many scientific and literary men, on the other hand, go on, I am
confident, in a straightforward impartial way, in their own province and on their own
line of thought, without any disturbance from religious difficulties in
themselves, or any wish at all to give pain to others by the result of their
investigations. It would ill become me, as if I were afraid of truth of any
kind, to blame those who pursue secular facts, by means of the reason which God
has given them, to their logical conclusions: or to be angry with science,
because religion is bound in duty to take cognizance of its teaching. But
putting these particular classes of men aside, as having no special call on the
sympathy of the Catholic, of course he does most deeply enter into the feelings
of a fourth and large class of men, in the educated portions of society, of
religious and sincere minds, who are simply perplexed,—frightened or rendered
desperate, as the case may be,—by the utter confusion into which late
discoveries or speculations have thrown their most elementary ideas of religion.
Who does not feel for such men? who can have one unkind thought of them? I take
up in their behalf St. Augustine's beautiful words, "Illi in vos sćviant," &c.
{(Aug. Contra Epistolam Manichaei, Caput ii. n. 2)}
Let them be fierce with you who have no experience of the difficulty
with which error is discriminated from truth, and the way of life is found amid
the illusions of the world. How many a Catholic has in his thoughts followed
such men, many of them so good, so true, so noble! how often has the wish risen
in his heart that some one from among his own people should come forward as the
champion of revealed truth against its opponents! Various persons, Catholic and
Protestant, have asked me to do so myself; but I had several strong difficulties
in the way. One of the greatest is this, that at the moment it is so difficult
to say precisely what it is that is to be encountered and overthrown. I am far
from denying that scientific knowledge is really growing, but it is by fits and
starts; hypotheses rise and fall; it is difficult to anticipate which of them
will keep their ground, and what the state of knowledge in relation to them will be from
year to year. In this condition of things, it has seemed to me to be very
undignified for a Catholic to commit himself to the work of chasing what might
turn out to be phantoms, and, in behalf of some special objections, to be
ingenious in devising a theory, which, before it was completed, might have to
give place to some theory newer still, from the fact that those former
objections had already come to nought under the uprising of others. It seemed to
be specially a time, in which Christians had a call to be patient, in which they
had no other way of helping those who were alarmed, than that of exhorting them
to have a little faith and fortitude, and to "beware," as the poet says, "of
dangerous steps." {Newman here misquotes, the correct quotation of the moral from
"The Needless Alarm (1794) by William Cowper (1731-1800) is
"Beware of desp'rate steps; the darkest day, / Live till tomorrow, will have pass'd away."}
This seemed so clear to me, the more I thought of the matter,
as to make me surmise, that, if I attempted what had so little promise in it, I
should find that the highest Catholic Authority was against the attempt, and
that I should have spent my time and my thought, in doing what either it would
be imprudent to bring before the public at all, or what, did I do so, would only
complicate matters further which were already complicated, without my
interference, more than enough. And I interpret recent acts of that authority as
fulfilling my expectation; I interpret them as tying the hands of a
controversialist, such as I should be, and teaching us that true wisdom, which
Moses inculcated on his people, when the Egyptians were pursuing them, "Fear ye
not, stand still; the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace."
And so far from finding a difficulty in obeying in this case, I have cause to be
thankful and to rejoice to have so clear a direction in a matter of
difficulty.
But if we would ascertain with correctness the real course of a principle, we
must look at it at a certain distance, and as history represents it to us.
Nothing carried on by human instruments, but has its irregularities, and affords
ground for criticism, when minutely scrutinized in matters of detail. I have
been speaking of that aspect of the action of an infallible authority, which is
most open to invidious criticism from those who view it from without; I have
tried to be fair, in estimating what can be said to its disadvantage, as
witnessed at a particular time in the Catholic Church, and now I wish its
adversaries to be equally fair in their judgment upon its historical character.
Can, then, the infallible authority, with any show of reason, be said in fact to
have destroyed the energy of the Catholic intellect? Let it be observed, I have
not here to speak of any conflict which ecclesiastical authority has had with
science, for this simple reason, that conflict there has been none; and that,
because the secular sciences, as they now exist, are a novelty in the world, and
there has been no time yet for a history of relations between theology and these
new methods of knowledge, and indeed the Church may be said to have kept clear
of them, as is proved by the constantly cited case of Galileo. Here "exceptio
probat regulam:" for it is the one stock argument. Again, I have not to speak of
any relations of the Church to the new sciences, because my simple question all
along has been whether the assumption of infallibility by the proper authority
is adapted to make me a hypocrite, and till that authority passes decrees on
pure physical subjects and calls on me to subscribe them, (which it never will
do, because it has not the power,) it has no tendency to interfere by any of its
acts with my private judgment on those points. The simple question is, whether
authority has so acted upon the reason of individuals, that they can have no
opinion of their own, and have but an alternative of slavish superstition or
secret rebellion of heart; and I think the whole history of theology puts an
absolute negative upon such a supposition.
It is hardly necessary to argue out so plain a point. It is individuals, and
not the Holy See, that have taken the initiative, and given the lead to the
Catholic mind, in theological inquiry. Indeed, it is one of the reproaches urged
against the Roman Church, that it has originated nothing, and has only served as
a sort of remora or break in the development of doctrine. And it is an
objection which I really embrace as a truth; for such I conceive to be the main
purpose of its extraordinary gift. It is said, and truly, that the Church of
Rome possessed no great mind in the whole period of persecution. Afterwards for
a long while, it has not a single doctor to show; St. Leo, its first, is the
teacher of one point of doctrine; St. Gregory, who stands at the very extremity
of the first age of the Church, has no place in dogma or philosophy. The great
luminary of the western world is, as we know, St. Augustine; he, no infallible
teacher, has formed the intellect of Christian Europe; indeed to the African
Church generally we must look for the best early exposition of Latin ideas.
Moreover, of the African divines, the first in order of time, and not the least
influential, is the strong-minded and heterodox Tertullian. Nor is the Eastern
intellect, as such, without its share in the formation of the Latin teaching.
The free thought of Origen is visible in the writings of the Western Doctors,
Hilary and Ambrose; and the independent mind of Jerome has enriched his own
vigorous commentaries on Scripture, from the stores of the scarcely orthodox
Eusebius. Heretical questionings have been transmuted by the living power of the
Church into salutary truths. The case is the same as regards the Ecumenical
Councils. Authority in its most imposing exhibition, grave bishops, laden with
the traditions and rivalries of particular nations or places, have been guided
in their decisions by the commanding genius of individuals, sometimes young and
of inferior rank. Not that uninspired intellect overruled the super-human gift which
was committed to the Council, which would be a self-contradictory assertion, but
that in that process of inquiry and deliberation, which ended in an infallible
enunciation, individual reason was paramount. Thus Malchion, a mere presbyter,
was the instrument of the great Council of Antioch in the third century in
meeting and refuting, for the assembled Fathers, the heretical Patriarch of that
see. Parallel to this instance is the influence, so well known, of a young
deacon, St. Athanasius, with the 318 Fathers at Nicća. In medićval times we read
of St. Anselm at Bari, as the champion of the Council there held, against the
Greeks. At Trent, the writings of St. Bonaventura, and, what is more to the
point, the address of a Priest and theologian, Salmeron, had a critical effect
on some of the definitions of dogma. In some of those cases the influence might
be partly moral, but in others it was that of a discursive knowledge of
ecclesiastical writers, a scientific acquaintance with theology, and a force of
thought in the treatment of doctrine.
There are of course intellectual habits which theology does not tend to form,
as for instance the experimental, and again the philosophical; but that is
because it is theology, not because of the gift of infallibility. But, as
far as this goes, I think it could be shown that physical science on the other
hand, or again mathematical, affords but an imperfect training for the
intellect. I do not see then how any objection about the narrowness of theology
comes into our question, which simply is, whether the belief in an infallible
authority destroys the independence of the mind; and I consider that the whole
history of the Church, and especially the history of the theological schools,
gives a negative to the accusation. There never was a time when the intellect of
the educated class was more active, or rather more restless, than in the
middle ages. And then again all through Church history from the first, how slow is authority
in interfering! Perhaps a local teacher, or a doctor in some local school,
hazards a proposition, and a controversy ensues. It smoulders or burns in one
place, no one interposing; Rome simply lets it alone. Then it comes before a
Bishop; or some priest, or some professor in some other seat of learning takes
it up; and then there is a second stage of it. Then it comes before a
University, and it may be condemned by the theological faculty. So the
controversy proceeds year after year, and Rome is still silent. An appeal
perhaps is next made to a seat of authority inferior to Rome; and then at last
after a long while it comes before the supreme power. Meanwhile, the question
has been ventilated and turned over and over again, and viewed on every side of
it, and authority is called upon to pronounce a decision, which has already been
arrived at by reason. But even then, perhaps the supreme authority hesitates to
do so, and nothing is determined on the point for years: or so generally and
vaguely, that the whole controversy has to be gone through again, before it is
ultimately determined. It is manifest how a mode of proceeding, such as this,
tends not only to the liberty, but to the courage, of the individual theologian
or controversialist. Many a man has ideas, which he hopes are true, and useful
for his day, but he is not confident about them, and wishes to have them
discussed, He is willing, or rather would be thankful, to give them up, if they
can be proved to be erroneous or dangerous, and by means of controversy he
obtains his end. He is answered, and he yields; or on the contrary he finds that
he is considered safe. He would not dare to do this, if he knew an authority,
which was supreme and final, was watching every word he said, and made signs of
assent or dissent to each sentence, as he uttered it. Then indeed he would be
fighting, as the Persian soldiers, under the lash /i/, and the freedom of his intellect
might truly be said to be beaten out of him. But this has not been so:—I do not
mean to say that, when controversies run high, in schools or even in small
portions of the Church, an interposition may not advisably take place; and
again, questions may be of that urgent nature, that an appeal must, as a matter
of duty, be made at once to the highest authority in the Church; but if we look
into the history of controversy, we shall find, I think, the general run of
things to be such as I have represented it. Zosimus treated Pelagius and
Cślestius with extreme forbearance; St. Gregory VII. was equally indulgent with
Berengarius:—by reason of the very power of the Popes they have commonly been
slow and moderate in their use of it.
And here again is a further shelter for the legitimate exercise of the
reason:—the multitude of nations which are within the fold of the Church will be
found to have acted for its protection, against any narrowness, on the
supposition of narrowness, in the various authorities at Rome, with whom lies
the practical decision of controverted questions. How have the Greek traditions
been respected and provided for in the later Ecumenical Councils, in spite of
the countries that held them being in a state of schism! There are important
points of doctrine which have been (humanly speaking) exempted from the
infallible sentence, by the tenderness with which its instruments, in framing
it, have treated the opinions of particular places. Then, again, such national
influences have a providential effect in moderating the bias which the local
influences of Italy may exert upon the See of St. Peter. It stands to reason
that, as the Gallican Church has in it a French element, so Rome must have in it
an element of Italy; and it is no prejudice to the zeal and devotion with which
we submit ourselves to the Holy See to admit this plainly. It seems to me, as I
have been saying, that Catholicity is not only one of the notes of the Church, but,
according to the divine purposes, one of its securities. I think it would be a
very serious evil, which Divine Mercy avert! that the Church should be
contracted in Europe within the range of particular nationalities. It is a great
idea to introduce Latin civilization into America, and to improve the Catholics
there by the energy of French devotedness; but I trust that all European races
will ever have a place in the Church, and assuredly I think that the loss of the
English, not to say the German element, in its composition has been a most
serious misfortune. And certainly, if there is one consideration more than
another which should make us English grateful to Pius the Ninth
{his Bull Universalis Ecclesiae of 1850 re-established the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales}, it is that, by
giving us a Church of our own, he has prepared the way for our own habits of
mind, our own manner of reasoning, our own tastes, and our own virtues, finding
a place and thereby a sanctification, in the Catholic Church.
There is only one other subject, which I think it necessary to introduce
here, as bearing upon the vague suspicions which are attached in this country to
the Catholic Priesthood. It is one of which my accusers have before now said
much,—the charge of reserve and economy. They found it in no slight degree on
what I have said on the subject in my History of the Arians, and in a note upon
one of my Sermons in which I refer to it. The principle of Reserve is also
advocated by an admirable writer in two numbers of the Tracts for the Times, and
of these I was the Editor.
Now, as to the Economy itself /20/,
it is founded upon the words of our Lord, "Cast not your pearls before swine;"
and it was observed by the early Christians more or less, in their intercourse with the
heathen populations among whom they lived. In the midst of the abominable
idolatries and impurities of that fearful time, the Rule of the Economy was an
imperative duty. But that rule, at least as I have explained and recommended it,
in anything that I have written, did not go beyond (1) the concealing the truth
when we could do so without deceit, (2) stating it only partially, and (3)
representing it under the nearest form possible to a learner or inquirer, when
he could not possibly understand it exactly. I conceive that to draw Angels with
wings is an instance of the third of these economical modes; and to avoid the
question, "Do Christians believe in a Trinity?" by answering, "They believe in
only one God," would be an instance of the second. As to the first, it is hardly
an Economy, but comes under what is called the "Disciplina Arcani." The second
and third economical modes Clement calls lying; meaning that a partial
truth is in some sense a lie, as is also a representative truth. And this, I
think, is about the long and the short of the ground of the accusation which has
been so violently urged against me, as being a patron of the Economy.
Of late years I have come to think, as I believe most writers do, that
Clement meant more than I have said. I used to think he used the word "lie" as
an hyperbole, but I now believe that he, as other early Fathers, thought that,
under certain circumstances, it was lawful to tell a lie. This doctrine I never
maintained, though I used to think, as I do now, that the theory of the subject
is surrounded with considerable difficulty; and it is not strange that I should
say so, considering that great English writers declare without hesitation that
in certain extreme cases, as to save life, honour, or even property, a lie is
allowable. And thus I am brought to the direct question of truth, and of the
truthfulness of Catholic priests generally in their dealings with the world, as bearing
on the general question of their honesty, and of their internal belief in their
religious professions.
It would answer no purpose, and it would be departing from the line of
writing which I have been observing all along, if I entered into any formal
discussion on this question; what I shall do here, as I have done in the
foregoing pages, is to give my own testimony on the matter in question, and
there to leave it. Now first I will say, that, when I became a Catholic, nothing
struck me more at once than the English out-spoken manner of the Priests. It was
the same at Oscott, at Old Hall Green, at Ushaw; there was nothing of that
smoothness, or mannerism, which is commonly imputed to them, and they were more
natural and unaffected than many an Anglican clergyman. The many years, which
have passed since, have only confirmed my first impression. I have ever found it
in the priests of this Diocese; did I wish to point out a straightforward
Englishman, I should instance the Bishop, who has, to our great benefit, for so
many years presided over it.
And next, I was struck, when I had more opportunity of judging of the
Priests, by the simple faith in the Catholic Creed and system, of which they
always gave evidence, and which they never seemed to feel, in any sense at all,
to be a burden. And now that I have been in the Church nineteen years, I cannot
recollect hearing of a single instance in England of an infidel priest. Of
course there are men from time to time, who leave the Catholic Church for
another religion, but I am speaking of cases, when a man keeps a fair outside to
the world and is a hollow hypocrite in his heart.
I wonder that the self-devotion of our priests does not strike a Protestant
in this point of view. What do they gain by professing a Creed, in which, if their
enemies are to be credited, they really do not believe? What is their reward for
committing themselves to a life of self-restraint and toil, and perhaps to a
premature and miserable death? The Irish fever cut off between Liverpool and
Leeds thirty priests and more, young men in the flower of their days, old men
who seemed entitled to some quiet time after their long toil. There was a bishop
cut off in the North; but what had a man of his ecclesiastical rank to do with
the drudgery and danger of sick calls, except that Christian faith and charity
constrained him? Priests volunteered for the dangerous service. It was the same
with them on the first coming of the cholera, that mysterious awe-inspiring
infliction. If they did not heartily believe in the Creed of the Church, then I
will say that the remark of the Apostle had its fullest illustration:—"If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." What
could support a set of hypocrites in the presence of a deadly disorder, one of
them following another in long order up the forlorn hope, and one after another
perishing? And such, I may say, in its substance, is every Mission-Priest's
life. He is ever ready to sacrifice himself for his people. Night and day, sick
or well himself, in all weathers, off he is, on the news of a sick call. The
fact of a parishioner dying without the Sacraments through his fault is terrible
to him; why terrible, if he has not a deep absolute faith, which he acts upon
with a free service? Protestants admire this, when they see it; but they do not
seem to see as clearly, that it excludes the very notion of hypocrisy.
Sometimes, when they reflect upon it, it leads them to remark on the
wonderful discipline of the Catholic priesthood; they say that no Church has so
well ordered a clergy, and that in that respect it surpasses their own; they
wish they could have such exact discipline among themselves. But is it an
excellence which can he purchased? is it a phenomenon which depends on nothing
else than itself, or is it an effect which has a cause? You cannot buy devotion
at a price. "It hath never been heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it
been seen in Theman. The children of Agar, the merchants of Meran, none of these
have known its way." What then is that wonderful charm, which makes a thousand
men act all in one way, and infuses a prompt obedience to rule, as if they were
under some stern military compulsion? How difficult to find an answer, unless
you will allow the obvious one, that they believe intensely what they
profess!
I cannot think what it can be, in a day like this, which keeps up the
prejudice of this Protestant country against us, unless it be the vague charges
which are drawn from our books of Moral Theology; and with a short notice of the
work in particular which by our accusers is especially thrown into our teeth, I
shall bring these observations to a close.
St. Alfonso Liguori, then, it cannot be denied, lays down that an
equivocation, (that is, a play upon words, in which one sense is taken by the
speaker, and another sense intended by him for the hearer,) is allowable, if
there is a just cause, that is, in an extraordinary case, and may even be
confirmed by an oath. I shall give my opinion on this point as plainly as any
Protestant can wish; and therefore I avow at once that in this department of
morality, much as I admire the high points of the Italian character, I like the
English rule of conduct better; but, in saying so, I am not, as will shortly be
seen, saying any thing disrespectful to St. Alfonso, who was a lover of truth,
and whose intercession I trust I shall not lose, though, on the matter under
consideration, I follow other guidance in preference to his.
Now I make this remark first:—great English authors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton,
Paley, Johnson, men of very different schools of thought, distinctly say, that
under certain extraordinary circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie. Taylor
says: "To tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, of
a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not only been done
at all times, but commended by great and wise and good men. Who would not save
his father's life, at the charge of a harmless lie, from persecutors or
tyrants?" Again, Milton says: "What man in his senses would deny, that there are
those whom we have the best grounds for considering that we ought to deceive,—as
boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in error, thieves? I would
ask, by which of the commandments is a lie forbidden? You will say, by the
ninth. If then my lie does not injure my neighbour, certainly it is not
forbidden by this commandment." Paley says: "There are falsehoods, which are not
lies, that is, which are not criminal." Johnson: "The general rule is, that
truth should never be violated; there must, however, be some exceptions. If, for
instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone."
Now, I am not using these instances as an argumentum ad hominem; but
the purpose to which I put them is this:—
1. First, I have set down the distinct statements of Taylor, Milton, Paley,
and Johnson:—now, would any one give ever so little weight to these statements,
in forming a real estimate of the veracity of the writers, if they now were
alive? Were a man, who is so fierce with St. Alfonso, to meet Paley or Johnson
to-morrow in society, would he look upon him as a liar, a knave, as dishonest
and untrustworthy? I am sure he would not. Why then does he not deal out the
same measure to Catholic priests? If a copy of Scavini, which speaks of
equivocation as being in a just cause allowable, be found in a student's room at
Oscott, not Scavini himself, but even the unhappy student, who has what a
Protestant calls a bad book in his possession, is judged to be for life unworthy
of credit. Are all Protestant text-books, which are used at the University,
immaculate? Is it necessary to take for gospel every word of Aristotle's Ethics,
or every assertion of Hey or Burnett on the Articles? Are text-books the
ultimate authority, or rather are they not manuals in the hands of a lecturer,
and the groundwork of his remarks? But, again, let us suppose, not the case of a
student, or of a professor, but of Scavini himself, or of St. Alfonso; now here
again I ask, since you would not scruple in holding Paley for an honest man, in
spite of his defence of lying, why do you scruple at holding St. Alfonso honest?
I am perfectly sure that you would not scruple at Paley personally; you might
not agree with him, but you would not go further than to call him a bold
thinker: then why should St. Alfonso's person be odious to you, as well as his
doctrine?
Now I wish to tell you why you are not afraid of Paley; because, you would
say, when he advocated lying, he was taking extreme or special
cases. You would have no fear of a man who you knew had shot a burglar dead
in his own house, because you know you are not a burglar: so you would
not think that Paley had a habit of telling lies in society, because in the case
of a cruel alternative he thought it the lesser evil to tell a lie. Then why do
you show such suspicion of a Catholic theologian, who speaks of certain
extraordinary cases in which an equivocation in a penitent cannot be visited by
his confessor as if it were a sin? for this is the exact point of the
question.
But again, why does Paley, why does Jeremy Taylor, when no practical matter
is actually before him, lay down a maxim about the lawfulness of lying, which
will startle most readers? The reason is plain. He is forming a theory of morals, and he must
treat every question in turn as it comes. And this is just what St. Alfonso or
Scavini is doing. You only try your hand yourself at a treatise on the rules of
morality, and you will see how difficult the work is. What is the
definition of a lie? Can you give a better than that it is a sin against
justice, as Taylor and Paley consider it? but, if so, how can it be a sin at
all, if your neighbour is not injured? If you do not like this definition, take
another; and then, by means of that, perhaps you will be defending St. Alfonso's
equivocation. However, this is what I insist upon; that St. Alfonso, as Paley,
is considering the different portions of a large subject, and he must, on the
subject of lying, give his judgment, though on that subject it is difficult to
form any judgment which is satisfactory.
But further still: you must not suppose that a philosopher or moralist uses
in his own case the licence which his theory itself would allow him. A man in
his own person is guided by his own conscience; but in drawing out a system of
rules he is obliged to go by logic, and follow the exact deduction of conclusion
from conclusion, and must be sure that the whole system is coherent and one. You
hear of even immoral or irreligious books being written by men of decent
character; there is a late writer who says that David Hume's sceptical works are
not at all the picture of the man. A priest might write a treatise which was
really lax on the subject of lying, which might come under the condemnation of
the Holy See, as some treatises on that score have already been condemned, and
yet in his own person be a rigorist. And, in fact, it is notorious from St.
Alfonso's Life, that he, who has the repute of being so lax a moralist, had one
of the most scrupulous and anxious of consciences himself. Nay, further than
this, he was originally in the Law, and on one occasion he was betrayed into the commission
of what seemed like a deceit, though it was an accident; and that was the very
occasion of his leaving the profession and embracing the religious life.
The account of this remarkable occurrence is told us in his Life:—
"Notwithstanding he had carefully examined over and over the details of the
process, he was completely mistaken regarding the sense of one document, which
constituted the right of the adverse party. The advocate of the Grand Duke
perceived the mistake, but he allowed Alfonso to continue his eloquent address
to the end without interruption; as soon, however, as he had finished, he rose,
and said with cutting coolness, 'Sir, the case is not exactly what you suppose
it to be; if you will review the process, and examine this paper attentively,
you will find there precisely the contrary of all you have advanced.'
'Willingly,' replied Alfonso, without hesitating; 'the decision depends on this
question—whether the fief were granted under the law of Lombardy, or under the
French Law.' The paper being examined, it was found that the Grand Duke's
advocate was in the right. 'Yes,' said Alfonso, holding the paper in his hand,
'I am wrong, I have been mistaken.' A discovery so unexpected, and the fear of
being accused of unfair dealing filled him with consternation, and covered him
with confusion, so much so, that every one saw his emotion. It was in vain that
the President Caravita, who loved him, and knew his integrity, tried to console
him, by telling him that such mistakes were not uncommon, even among the first
men at the bar. Alfonso would listen to nothing, but, overwhelmed with
confusion, his head sunk on his breast, he said to himself, 'World, I know you
now; courts of law, never shall you see me again!' And turning his back on the
assembly, he withdrew to his own house, incessantly repeating to himself, 'World, I
know you now.' What annoyed him most was, that having studied and re-studied the
process during a whole month, without having discovered this important flaw, he
could not understand how it had escaped his observation."
And this is the man, so easily scared at the very shadow of trickery, who is
so flippantly pronounced to be a patron of lying.
But, in truth, a Catholic theologian has objects in view which men in general
little compass; he is not thinking of himself, but of a multitude of souls, sick
souls, sinful souls, carried away by sin, full of evil, and he is trying with
all his might to rescue them from their miserable state; and, in order to save
them from more heinous sins, he tries, to the full extent that his conscience
will allow him to go, to shut his eyes to such sins, as are, though sins, yet
lighter in character or degree. He knows perfectly well that, if he is as strict
as he would wish to be, he shall be able to do nothing at all with the run of
men; so he is as indulgent with them as ever he can be. Let it not be for an
instant supposed, that I allow of the maxim of doing evil that good may come;
but, keeping clear of this, there is a way of winning men from greater sins by
winking for the time at the less, or at mere improprieties or faults; and this
is the key to the difficulty which Catholic books of moral theology so often
cause to the Protestant. They are intended for the Confessor, and Protestants
view them as intended for the Preacher.
2. And I observe upon Taylor, Milton, and Paley thus: What would a Protestant
clergyman say to me, if I accused him of teaching that a lie was allowable; and
if, when he asked for my proof, I said in reply that such was the doctrine of
Taylor and Milton? Why, he would sharply retort, "I am not bound by
Taylor or Milton;" and if I went on urging that "Taylor was one of his
authorities," he would answer that Taylor was a great writer, but great
writers were not therefore infallible. This is pretty much the answer which I
make, when I am considered in this matter a disciple of St. Alfonso.
I plainly and positively state, and without any reserve, that I do not at all
follow this holy and charitable man in this portion of his teaching. There are
various schools of opinion allowed in the Church: and on this point I follow
others. I follow Cardinal Gerdil, and Natalis Alexander, nay, St. Augustine. I
will quote one passage from Natalis Alexander:—"They certainly lie, who utter
the words of an oath, without the will to swear or bind themselves: or who make
use of mental reservations and equivocations in swearing, since they
signify by words what they have not in mind, contrary to the end for which
language was instituted, viz. as signs of ideas. Or they mean something else
than the words signify in themselves and the common custom of speech." And, to
take an instance: I do not believe any priest in England would dream of saying,
"My friend is not here;" meaning, "He is not in my pocket or under my shoe." Nor
should any consideration make me say so myself. I do not think St. Alfonso would
in his own case have said so; and he would have been as much shocked at Taylor
and Paley, as Protestants are at him /21/.
And now, if Protestants wish to know what our real teaching is, as on other
subjects, so on that of lying, let them look, not at our books of casuistry, but
at our catechisms. Works on pathology do not give the best insight into the form
and the harmony of the human frame; and, as it is with the body, so is it with
the mind. The Catechism of the Council of Trent was drawn up for the
express purpose of providing preachers with subjects for their Sermons; and, as my whole
work has been a defence of myself, I may here say that I rarely preach a Sermon,
but I go to this beautiful and complete Catechism to get both my matter and my
doctrine. There we find the following notices about the duty of Veracity:—
"'Thou shalt not bear false witness,' &c.: let attention be drawn to two
laws contained in this commandment:—the one, forbidding false witness; the other
bidding, that removing all pretence and deceits, we should measure our words and
deeds by simple truth, as the Apostle admonished the Ephesians of that duty in
these words: 'Doing truth in charity, let us grow in Him through all
things.'
"To deceive by a lie in joke or for the sake of compliment, though to no one
there accrues loss or gain in consequence, nevertheless is altogether unworthy:
for thus the Apostle admonishes, 'Putting aside lying, speak ye truth.' For
therein is great danger of lapsing into frequent and more serious lying, and
from lies in joke men gain the habit of lying, whence they gain the character of
not being truthful. And thence again, in order to gain credence to their words,
they find it necessary to make a practice of swearing.
"Nothing is more necessary [for us] than truth of testimony, in those things,
which we neither know ourselves, nor can allowably be ignorant of, on which
point there is extant that maxim of St. Augustine's: Whoso conceals the truth,
and whoso puts forth a lie, each is guilty; the one because he is not willing to
do a service, the other because he has a wish to do a mischief.
"It is lawful at times to be silent about the truth, but out of a court of
law; for in court, when a witness is interrogated by the judge according to law,
the truth is wholly to be brought out.
"Witnesses, however, must beware, lest, from over-confidence in their memory,
they affirm for certain, what they have not verified.
"In order that the faithful may with more good will avoid the sin of lying,
the Parish Priest shall set before them the extreme misery and turpitude of this
wickedness. For, in holy writ, the devil is called the father of a lie; for, in
that he did not remain in Truth, he is a liar, and the father of a lie. He will
add, with the view of ridding men of so great a crime, the evils which follow
upon lying; and, whereas they are innumerable, he will point out [at least] the
sources and the general heads of these mischiefs and calamities, viz. 1. How
great is God's displeasure and how great His hatred of a man who is insincere
and a liar. 2. What little security there is that a man who is specially hated
by God may not be visited by the heaviest punishments. 3. What more unclean and
foul, as St. James says, than ... that a fountain by the same jet should send
out sweet water and bitter? 4. For that tongue, which just now praised God,
next, as far as in it lies, dishonours Him by lying. 5. In consequence, liars
are shut out from the possession of heavenly beatitude. 6. That too is the worst
evil of lying, that that disease of the mind is generally incurable.
"Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast extent, and touching men
generally, that by insincerity and lying faith and truth are lost, which are the
firmest bonds of human society, and, when they are lost, supreme confusion
follows in life, so that men seem in nothing to differ from devils.
"Lastly, the Parish Priest will set those right who excuse their insincerity
and allege the example of wise men, who, they say, are used to lie for an
occasion. He will tell them, what is most true, that the wisdom of the flesh is
death. He will exhort his hearers to trust in God, when they are in difficulties and
straits, nor to have recourse to the expedient of a lie.
"They who throw the blame of their own lie on those who have already by a lie
deceived them, are to be taught that men must not revenge themselves, nor make
up for one evil by another."
There is much more in the Catechism to the same effect, and it is of
universal obligation; whereas the decision of a particular author in morals need
not be accepted by any one.
To one other authority I appeal on this subject, which commands from me
attention of a special kind, for it is the teaching of a Father. It will serve
to bring my work to a conclusion.
"St. Philip," says the Roman Oratorian who wrote his Life, "had a particular
dislike of affectation both in himself and others, in speaking, in dressing, or
in any thing else.
"He avoided all ceremony which savoured of worldly compliment, and always
showed himself a great stickler for Christian simplicity in every thing; so
that, when he had to deal with men of worldly prudence, he did not very readily
accommodate himself to them.
"And he avoided, as much as possible, having any thing to do with
two-faced persons, who did not go simply and straightforwardly to work in
their transactions.
"As for liars, he could not endure them, and he was continually
reminding his spiritual children, to avoid them as they would a
pestilence."
These are the principles on which I have acted before I was a Catholic; these
are the principles which, I trust, will be my stay and guidance to the end.
I have closed this history of myself with St. Philip's name upon St. Philip's
feast-day; and, having done so, to whom can I more suitably offer it, as a
memorial of affection and gratitude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest
brothers of this House, the Priests of the Birmingham Oratory, Ambrose St. John,
Henry Austin Mills, Henry Bittleston, Edward Caswall, William Paine Neville,
and Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder? who
have been so faithful to me; who have been so sensitive of my needs; who have
been so indulgent to my failings; who have carried me through so many trials;
who have grudged no sacrifice, if I asked for it; who have been so cheerful
under discouragements of my causing; who have done so many good works, and let
me have the credit of them;—with whom I have lived so long, with whom I hope to
die.
And to you especially, dear Ambrose St. John; whom
God gave me, when He took every one else away; who are the link between my old
life and my new; who have now for twenty-one years been so devoted to me, so
patient, so zealous, so tender; who have let me lean so hard upon you; who have
watched me so narrowly; who have never thought of yourself, if I was in
question.
And in you I gather up and bear in memory those familiar affectionate
companions and counsellors, who in Oxford were given to me, one after another,
to be my daily solace and relief; and all those others, of great name and high
example, who were my thorough friends, and showed me true attachment in times
long past; and also those many younger men, whether I knew them or not, who have
never been disloyal to me by word or deed; and of all these, thus various in their relations
to me, those more especially who have since joined the Catholic Church.
And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a hope against hope, that
all of us, who once were so united, and so happy in our union, may even now be
brought at length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and under One
Shepherd.
May 26, 1864. In Festo Corp. Christ.
Newman's Notes:
/20/
Vide Note F, The Economy.
/21/
Vide Note G,. Lying and Equivocation.
Here ends Newman's Apologia.
Trumbull's Notes:
/h/ Compare Wisdom 1:14
"To fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and it was created with the faithful in the womb."
/i/ The image of the Persian soldiers fighting under
compusion and lashed on by their superiors (as compared to free citizen-warriors of Greece) goes back at least to Herodotus
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