_Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the
children of God._--MATT. V. 9.
_Do not think that I am come to send peace on earth; I
came not to send peace but the sword._--MATT. X. 34.
We have considered how the key to the Paradoxes of the Gospel and the
key to the Paradoxes of Catholicism is one and the same--that the Life
that produces them is at once Divine and Human. Let us go on to consider
how this resolves those of Catholicism, especially those charged against
us by our adversaries.
For we live in a day when Catholicism is no longer considered by
intelligent men to be too evidently absurd to be argued with. Definite
reasons are given by those who stand outside our borders for the
attitude they maintain; definite accusations are made which must either
be allowed or refuted.
Now those who stand without the walls of the City of Peace know nothing,
it is true, of the life that its citizens lead within, nothing of the
harmony and consolation that Catholicism alone can give. Yet of certain
points, it may be, in the large outlines of that city against the sky,
of the place it occupies in the world, of its wide effect upon human
life in general, it may very well be that these detached observers may
know more than the devout who dwell at peace within. Let us, then,
consider their reflections not necessarily as wholly false; it may be
that they have caught glimpses which we have missed and relations which
either we take too much for granted or have failed altogether to see. It
may be that these accusations will turn out to be our credentials in
disguise.
I. Every world-religion, we are told, worthy of the name has as its
principal object and its chief claim to consideration its establishing
or its fostering of peace among men. Supremely this was so in the first
days of Christianity. It was this that its great prophet predicted of
its work when its Divine Founder should come on earth. Nature shall
recover its lost harmony and the dissensions of men shall cease when He,
the Prince of Peace, shall approach. The very beasts shall lie down
together in amity, _the lion and the lamb_ and _the leopard and the
kid_. Further, it was the Message of Peace that the angels proclaimed
over His cradle in Bethlehem; it was the Gift of Peace which He Himself
promised to His disciples; it was the _Peace of God which passeth
knowledge_ to which the great Apostle commended his converts. This then,
we are told, is of the very essence of Christianity; this is the supreme
benediction on the peacemakers that _they shall be called the children
of God_.
Yet, when we turn to Catholicism, we are bidden to see in it not a
gatherer but a scatterer, not the daughter of peace but the mother of
disunion. Is there a single tormented country in Europe to-day, it is
rhetorically demanded, that does not owe at least part of its misery to
the claims of Catholicism? What is it but Catholicism that lies at the
heart of the divided allegiance of France, of the miseries of Portugal,
and of the dissensions of Italy? Look back through history and you will
find the same tale everywhere. What was it that disturbed the politics
of England so often from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, and tore
her in two in the sixteenth, but the determined resistance of an
adolescent nation to the tyranny of Rome? What lay behind the religious
wars of Europe, behind the fires of Smithfield, the rack of Elizabeth,
and the blood of St. Bartholomew's Day but this intolerant and
intolerable religion which would come to no terms even with the most
reasonable of its adversaries? It is impossible, of course, altogether
to apportion blame, to say that in each several instance it was the
Catholic that was the aggressor; but at least it is true to say that it
was Catholic principles that were the occasion and Catholic claims the
unhappy cause of all this incalculable flood of human misery.
How singularly unlike, then, we are told, is this religion of
dissension to the religion of Jesus Christ, of all these dogmatic and
disciplinary claims and assertions to the meekness of the Poor Man of
Nazareth! If true Christianity is anywhere in the world to-day it is not
among such as these that it lies hid; rather it must be sought among the
gentle humanitarians of our own and every country--men who strive for
peace at all cost, men whose principal virtues are those of toleration
and charity, men who, if any, have earned the beatitude of being _called
the children of God_.
II. We turn to the Life of Jesus Christ from the Life of Catholicism,
and at first indeed it does seem as if the contrast were justified. We
cannot deny our critic's charges; every one of his historical assertions
is true: it is indeed true that Catholicism has been the occasion of
more bloodshedding than has any of the ambitions or jealousies of man.
And it is, further, true that Jesus Christ pronounced this benediction;
that He bade His followers seek after peace, and that He commended them,
in the very climax of His exaltation, to the Peace which He alone could
bestow.
Yet, when we look closer, the case is not so simple. For, first, what
was, as a matter of fact, the direct immediate effect of the Life and
Personality of Jesus Christ upon the society in which He lived but this
very dissension, this very bloodshedding and misery that are charged
against His Church? It was precisely on this account that He was given
into the hands of Pilate. _He stirreth up the people. He makes Himself a
King._ He is a contentious demagogue, a disloyal citizen, a danger to
the Roman Peace.
And indeed there seem to have been excuses for these charges. It was not
the language of a modern "humanitarian," of the modern tolerant
"Christian," that fell from the Divine Lips of Jesus Christ. _Go and
tell that fox_, He cries of the ruler of His people. _O you whited
sepulchres full of dead men's bones! You vipers! You hypocrites!_ This
is the language He uses to the representatives of Israel's religion. Is
this the kind of talk that we hear from modern leaders of religious
thought? Would such language as this be tolerated for a moment from the
humanitarian Christian pulpits of to-day? Is it possible to imagine more
inflammatory speech, more "unchristian sentiments," as they would be
called to-day, than those words uttered by none other but the Divine
Founder of Christianity? What of that amazing scene when He threw the
furniture about the temple courts?
And as for the effect of such words and methods, our Lord Himself is
quite explicit. "Make no mistake," He cries to the modern humanitarian
who claims alone to represent Him. "Make no mistake. I am _not come to
bring peace_ at any price; there are worse things than war and
bloodshed. I am _come to bring not peace but a sword_. I am come to
_divide families_, not to unite them; to rend kingdoms, not to knit
them up; I am come _to set mother against daughter and daughter against
mother_; I am come not to establish universal toleration, but universal
Truth."
What, then, is the reconciliation of the Paradox? In what sense can it
be possible that the effect of the Personality of the Prince of Peace,
and therefore the effect of His Church, in spite of their claims to be
the friends of peace, should be _not peace, but the sword?_
III. Now (1) the Catholic Church is a Human Society. She is constituted,
that is to say, of human beings; she depends, humanly speaking, upon
human circumstances; she can be assaulted, weakened, and disarmed by
human enemies. She dwells in the midst of human society, and it is with
human society that she has to deal.
Now if she were not human--if she were merely a Divine Society, a
far-off city in the heavens, a future distant ideal to which human
society is approximating, there would be no conflict at all. She would
never meet in a face-to-face shock the passions and antagonisms of men;
she could suppress, now and again, her Counsels of Perfection, her calls
to a higher life, if it were not that these are vital and present
principles which she is bound to propagate among men.
And again, if she were merely human, there would be no conflict. If she
were merely ascended from below, merely the result of the finest
religious thought of the world, the high-water mark of spiritual
attainment, again she could compromise, could suppress, could be silent.
But she is both human and divine, and therefore her warfare is certain
and inevitable. For she dwells in the midst of the kingdoms of this
world, and these are constituted, at any rate at the present day, on
wholly human bases. Statesmen and kings, at the present day, do not
found their policies upon supernatural considerations; their object is
to govern their subjects, to promote the peace and union of their
subjects, to make war, if need be, on behalf of the peace of their
subjects, wholly on natural grounds. Commerce, finance, agriculture,
education in the things of this world, science, art, exploration--human
activities generally--these, in their purely natural aspect, are the
objects of nearly all modern statesmanship. Our rulers are professedly,
in their public capacity, neither for religion nor against it; religion
is a private matter for the individual, and governments stand aside--or
at any rate profess to do so.
And it is in this kind of world, in this fashion of human society, that
the Catholic Church, in virtue of her humanity, is bound to dwell. She
too is a kingdom, though not of this world, yet in it.
(2) For she is also Divine. Her message contains, that is to say, a
number of supernatural principles revealed to her by God; she is
supernaturally constituted; she rests on a supernatural basis; she is
not organized as if this world were all. On the contrary she puts the
kingdom of God definitely first and the kingdoms of the world definitely
second; the Peace of God first and the harmony of men second.
Therefore she is bound, when her supernatural principles clash with
human natural principles, to be the occasion of disunion. Her marriage
laws, as a single example, are at conflict with the marriage laws of the
majority of modern States. It is of no use to tell her to modify these
principles; it would be to tell her to cease to be supernatural, to
cease to be herself. How can she modify what she believes to be her
Divine Message?
Again, since she is organized on a supernatural basis, there are
supernatural elements in her own constitution which she can no more
modify than her dogmas. Recently, in France, she was offered the
_kingdom of this world_ if she would do so; it was proposed to her that
she actually retain her own wealth, her churches and her houses, and
yield up her principle of spiritual appeal to the Vicar of Christ. If
she had been but human, how evident would have been her duty! How
inevitable that she should modify her constitution in accordance with
human ideas and preserve her property intact! And how entirely
impossible such a bargain must be for a Society that is divine as well
as human!
Take courage then! We desire peace above all things--that is to say, the
Peace of God, not _that peace which the world_, since it _can give_ it,
can also _take away_; not that peace which depends on the harmony of
nature with nature, but of nature with grace.
Yet, so long as the world is divided in allegiance; so long as the
world, or a country, or a family, or even an individual soul bases
itself upon natural principles divorced from divine, so long to that
world, that country, that family, and that human heart will the
supernatural religion of Catholicism bring _not peace, but a sword_. And
it will do so to the end, up to the final world-shattering catastrophe
of Armageddon itself.
"I come," cries the Rider on the White Horse, "to bring Peace indeed,
but a peace of which the world cannot even dream; a peace built upon the
eternal foundations of God Himself, not upon the shifting sands of human
agreement. And until that Vision dawns there must be war; until God's
Peace descends indeed and is accepted, till then _My Garments must be
splashed in blood_ and from My Mouth comes forth _not peace, but a
two-edged sword_."