Generally speaking it is St. Paul, or the author of the Epistles,
(wherever he be) that are attributed to him, that ought to be regarded
as the true founder of Christian theology. The mysterious obscurity
of his works, the tone of fanaticism which reigns in them, and the
unintelligible oracles with which they are filled, render them well
suited to impose on the vulgar, who respect things only in proportion
as they are impossible to be comprehended. Devout enthusiasm and pious
melancholy there finds a continual feast for its sickly brain. Oracles
and enigmas are taken for divine mysteries, which without a strong
dose of faith we should conclude were the production of delirium or the
inventions of imposture, which seeks to put reason to flight. Reason had
no means of examining ideas which are totally unreasonable; thus they
persuaded men that it was necessary to renounce reason in order
to become a good Christian. In consequence of this principle, so
humiliating to mankind and derogatory to the character of a God, the
author of reason, it was no longer permitted to examine anything;
man was commanded blindly to subscribe to the most incomprehensible
reveries, and it was considered meritorious to renounce common sense
and adopt fables and opinions revolting to every thinking being. Thus
delirium was changed into wisdom, deception into truth, and frequently
crime became virtue. They closed the mouths of reasoners by citing the
language of Paul, who had said "that the foolishness of God is wiser
than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." According to
the same Apostle God himself had predicted by the mouth of a prophet,
the revolution that Christianity was to produce in the minds of mankind.
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent." Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?
where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world, &c.* And he concludes by saying, "But we preach
Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks
foolishness."
* 1 Corinth, chap. i. ver. 19.
However violent Paul's enthusiasm may have been, he well knew how odd
the doctrine he preached, must appear to reasonable beings. He must have
been aware, that it overturned all received ideas; that it would not
bear the test of examination; that it was a difficult enterprise to
persuade sensible beings that a God could die, that this God had arisen
again, that an immutable God had changed and annulled the eternal
alliance he had made with the Jews, and which been so repeatedly
confirmed with oaths, &c. Thus our Apostle in order to pass such
improbable opinions, believed it requisite, to substitute folly in the
place of reason, and to fortify his disciples against the weapons of
logic. For the evidence which results from the testimony of the senses
be substituted faith, which according to him is the evidence of things
not seen, and evidence which can only be founded on the most stupid
credulity.
Thus this prudent orator took care to guard against the philosophy of
common sense, and against all science, seeing clearly that they opposed,
invincible obstacles to the religion that he sought to establish, and of
which he pretended to be the soul and chief. Hence we find he attached
the greatest merit to faith, that is to say, to a blind submission to
his authority; and such an unbounded confidence in himself as prevented
any doubt of those things, the truth of which he attested.
As science was injurious to the establishment of his empire he decried
it. "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth." By charity, we may
here understand that affection to a spiritual director which closing
the eyes against those defects, which in common with other men he may
possess, convinces us that he is always right, that he is incapable
of the wish to deceive, and in short, that he ought to be believed in
preference to the evidence of our senses.
It is thus that this great Apostle laboured incessantly to establish his
own authority on the ruins of wisdom, reason, and science. However we
may reply to his doctrine, so useful to those whose interest it is
to maintain absurd opinions and incredible fables, that God who, is,
according to them, the author of reason could not have destroyed his own
work. We shall demand of St. Paul and of those who like him preach
up implicit faith, if folly is more able than wisdom to attain to the
knowledge of God? We shall ask of them, if God has given wisdom to men
on condition of their never using it, and if it is not by the aid of
human wisdom, that man gains some idea of the divine wisdom? We shall
ask if God can, without absolutely changing the nature of things, make
wisdom folly, and folly wisdom? In short we shall ask them, if in order
to become a Christian it is necessary to renounce common sense, or how
far our folly must prevail to have a religion?
To all these questions theologians, faithfully treading in the steps
of St. Paul, will reply, that we must believe, and that as soon as they
speak, we must submit to their authority. "Faith" says Paul "comes
by hearing," whence it results that have faith, we must sacrifice our
reason, to the wills of our spiritual pastors. Charity ought to convince
us, that these infallible guides, can neither deceive nor desire to lead
us into error.
According to this firm persuasion we shall never be embarrassed, unless,
by chance, those pastors should happen to disagree in their opinions.
This however often occurs in the church, and has done from the
commencement. In fact we have seen St. Paul himself resist St. Peter to
his face and differ from him in opinion. Their quarrels like many others
had fatal results, and produced a true schism between the partizans of
Peter, and those of Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles.
The latter has acknowledged himself, that there must be heresies in
a church, perpetually guided by the most high. This prophecy has been
verified in the Christian religion, which from its foundation has been
incessantly agitated by quarrels, divisions, animosities, troubles, and
paroxysms of fury mat would induce a belief, that the gospel was given
to nations only to excite in them, fermentations unknown to Paganism,
and show them to what a degree of madness credulity could lead.
The writings of Paul especially have furnished in all ages ample matter,
for disputes to the Christian doctors. The obscure dogmas they contain,
have of necessity been diversely understood by profound dreamers, who
have passed their time in meditation. Each pretended to have discovered
the true sense of this infallible and divinely inspired doctor. Each
found in his writings a confirmation of his own sentiments. Works filled
with contradiction continually gave rise to parties the most opposite to
each other, and virulently bent upon mutual destruction. The authority
of St. Paul was opposed to himself, and in the impossibility of deciding
upon questions totally out of the power of reason to discuss, recourse
was had to violence, and the strongest always made the weak feel,
that they alone comprehended the true sense of the great Apostle. They
disputed continually on predestination, on grace, and on the liberty
of man; they understood neither themselves nor St. Paul. The most
headstrong, the most wicked, and the most powerful, enforced their
opinions as the only ones which the Holy Ghost had dictated.
To conclude, the incredulous, are not those, who alone find the writings
of Paul obscure and unintelligible, as we have seen in the the case
of St. Peter already quoted. If this prince of the Apostles founded
difficulties in the work of St. Paul, what shall we think of the
presumption of modern commentators when they pretend to explain to us,
the enigmatical and confused passages that we meet with in the epistles
of this doctor of the Gentiles.