thought and feeling of one generation are not a just standard by which
to judge the conditions and views of another age or generation. This
is an important fact to remember for those who are inclined to look in
every part of the Sacred Scriptures for a verification of the
sentiments which they feel, and of the views and opinions of things
which they hold.
XVIII.
RUSH-LIGHTS.
There is a method of interpreting the Bible which, although it affords
a temporary satisfaction to the heart, is misleading to the mind. I
mean private interpretation in the sense in which it is generally
practised and defended by our Protestant brethren. To take a good
photograph you must have sunlight; candles, gas, even electric lights,
unless they be flash-lights, which don't suit all purposes of accurate
reproduction, will not accomplish it. For vegetable growth you need
sunlight; artificial light will give neither healthy fruit nor even
color to the plant. So it is with the divine image traced in the
Sacred Scriptures. We cannot reproduce it in our souls by any earthly
light. Now human judgment is an earthly light, because it is
constantly influenced by feelings, prejudices, attachments, and partial
views of things. Some of us accept an opinion because it suits our
conditions of life, is agreeable to our sense of ease or vanity,
relieves us from certain responsibilities to God and our neighbor which
a severer statement of the case would exact. Others endorse a view
because it is held by a person whom they love or respect. Others,
again, maintain an opinion because it is contrary to the one held by a
person whom they dislike. And there is a vast number of people who
take a view simply because it is the first that presents itself to
them, and they are as well pleased with it as with others which they
don't know. It must be remembered, moreover, that man is not naturally
inclined toward the right. The world loves darkness since its eyes
were hurt by the wanton effort to see God and to be like Him in a way
which was against His law. Amid this darkness, intellectual and moral,
which surrounds man, and which for the moment pleases him because it
relieves him of a strain, we need a guide. We must follow a leader who
knows all the ways and enjoys the full light of heaven.
The defence in favor of private interpretation of the Bible usually
rests in the assumption of God's goodness, who must needs furnish an
inward light to man lest he go wrong in his search after truth. But
God's goodness gives you a guide, well accredited with testimonials
from Himself, against whose efficiency the inward light compares like a
rush-light against the sun.
The red cross of the Alpine Club marks the safe passage down the rocky
mountain paths of Switzerland. We recognize the stones which are
landmarks because they bear the conventional sign of an authorized body
of mountaineers. They lead our way, and we follow without hesitation.
But if the mark of the red cross of the Alpine Club were not visible,
if we had to trust to the inward light or to our instinct to guide us,
we should run the risk of losing our way and lives, though the stones
which marked the path of former travellers are still there.
Nor does it seem according to the divine wisdom to give man a written
law and then to leave him to Himself for its interpretation. No other
written law was ever given under such conditions by or to man. It
would frustrate the fundamental purpose of any written law to allow the
individual to interpret it, because it would lead to contradictions and
confusion, which it is the very object of laws to prevent. That the
divine Law, in its written form, is no exception to this rule is proved
from the effects of the theory of private interpretation, which have
grown into a history of many sects, conscientiously protesting one
against the other because of the inferences which each draws from the
one sacred code of Christian law and doctrine. Thus the written word
of God would frustrate its own manifest purpose, nay, give occasion to
a thousand justifications of separation and hostility, which its
fundamental canon, charity in the union of Christ, expressly forbids.
What other conclusion, therefore, remains than to accept the warning of
St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, who, speaking of the reading of the
Sacred Scriptures, wishes the converts to understand "_this, first,
that no prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation_,"[1]
because "_the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost_" (II.
Pet. i. 20, 21).
And this disposes, in the mind of the sincere Christian, of all the
theories of interpretation advanced by rationalist and naturalist
philosophers, who render their arguments a trifle more consistent than
Protestants by denying from the outset the divine inspiration of the
Sacred Scriptures.
[1] The Protestant (King James) version of this passage reads: "That no
prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation." The late
revision of the New Testament omits the word _any_.
XIX.
THE USE AND THE ABUSE OF THE BIBLE.
"Revelation and a Church are practically identical. Revelation and
Scripture are not."[1] Though _revelation_ is necessary to guide the
human mind, prone to error, and to sustain the human will, weak by
reason of an hereditary fall, we have seen that the Bible is but _one_
channel of that revelation, and that a complementary, secondary one.
It neither contains all revealed truth, nor can the truth which it
contains be clearly and completely understood without the guidance of
an intelligent interpretation. A teacher of any science or art may
give a book into the hands of his pupils to serve as a text, as a
reminder of his precepts, as a compend of his methods and practice; but
no book, no matter how perfectly written, will make us dispense with
the teacher. The education, in any direction, which rests upon the
sole use of books is essentially defective and misleading.
This is eminently true of the Bible as a text or guide in the
acquisition of the highest of arts, the profoundest of sciences, which
leads us to the recognition of absolute truth, with an ever-increasing
apprehension, because its scope is immeasurable, eternal.
The teacher of revelation, in its first and most important
signification, is Christ. He is the central historical figure,
announced to man immediately after his fall in Paradise foreshadowed by
the prophets in the Jewish Church, and completing His mission in the
Christian Church. As the Holy Ghost animated the prophets to foretell
Him, and the priests of the synagogue to announce Him in the Old Law,
so the Holy Ghost animates the Church to continue His work in the New
Law. As books were written by the prophets of old to perpetuate the
remembrance of what Jehovah had spoken through them to His people
regarding the coming of the Messias, so books were written by the
Apostles and disciples of the New Law to perpetuate the remembrance of
what that Messias had said and done, and of what He wished us to do.
But as the old written Law was not to be a substitute for the
commission of teaching and guiding the people through the Jewish
Synagogue, so neither was the new written Law intended to be a
substitute for the commission of teaching and guiding those who seek
salvation through Christ. The Bible alone, as we have already seen,
cannot satisfy us in such a way as to supply the full reason for our
faith in Christ's teaching. For this we have a Church to whom Christ,
as God, gave a direct commission, without adding a book, or an express
command to write a book.
But a book was written, written under the guidance of the divine
Spirit, who had been promised to the Church whenever it would speak,
whether by word of mouth or by epistle and written gospel. And that
book, though not containing all truth, contains truth only. Therefore
it is useful, as St. Paul says, II. Tim. iii. 16: "All Scripture
inspired of God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to
instruct in justice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to
every good work." The use, then, of the Bible is to teach, to instruct
in justice, primarily; to make man perfect, furnished to every good
work. Mark the twofold term: to _teach_ and to _instruct_; both
teaching and instruction to serve the one end--to make a perfect man,
"furnished to every good work."
That the principal purpose and scope of Scripture is to teach the
truths of religion has been demonstrated in a former chapter. I have
here only to add that, as an instrument of Apologetics, and in
discussion with Protestants who admit the divinity of Christ and the
inspired character of the Sacred Scriptures, reference to the teachings
of the Bible plays a very important part. Whether we are defending our
faith against misrepresentation, or desirous of convincing other
sincere and open minds of the justness of the claims which the Catholic
Church makes as the only true representative of Christ's divine mission
to teach the nations, the Bible is a safe and commonly recognized
meeting-ground for a fair discussion of the subject.
Even when we have to speak of religion with practical infidels, who
read the Bible, or have some knowledge of its contents, that book will
serve us as a powerful weapon of defence and persuasion. Few
intelligent men or women of to-day, especially if they are earnest, and
have a real regard for virtue and truth, though they may consider them
as mere gifts of the natural order, fail to recognize that Christianity
is a power for good, and that Christ, its Author, is and ever will be
the great teacher of mankind, in whose true following man becomes
better, nobler, and happier. To illustrate this fact, we may be
permitted to quote at some length from an article by Baron Von Huegel in
a recent number of the _Dublin Review_ (April, 1895). Speaking of
Christ, he cites from various writers, as follows:
Thus "Ernest Renan, sceptical even to his own scepticism, addresses him
and says: 'A thousand times more living, a thousand times more loved,
since thy death than during thy passage upon earth, thou wilt become
the corner-stone of humanity, to such a point, that to blot out thy
name out of the world would be in very truth to shake its very
foundations.'[2] John Stuart Mill, who tells us of himself: 'I never
lost faith, for I never had it,' proclaims at the end of his long
life's labors: 'Whatever else may be taken from us by rational
criticism, Christ is still left; a unique figure, not more unlike all
his predecessors than all his followers, even those who had the direct
benefit of his personal teaching. It is no use to say that Christ in
the Gospels is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is
admirable has been superadded by the tradition of his followers. For
who among his disciples or their proselytes was capable of inventing
the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character
revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee, as
certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasy were of a
totally different sort; still less the early Christian writers, in whom
nothing is more evident than that the good which was in them was all
derived, as they always professed that it was derived, from the higher
source.'[3] Even so purely Deistic a critic as Abraham Kuenen
declares: 'The international religion which we call Christianity was
founded, not by the Apostle Paul, but by Jesus of Nazareth, that Jesus
whose person and whose teaching are sketched in the Synoptic Gospels
with the closest approximation of truth.' 'The need of Christianity is
as keen as ever. It is not for less but for more Christianity that the
age cries out. Even those many who do not identify Christianity with
the ecclesiastical form in which they themselves profess it, and who
have no confidence that the world will necessarily conform to
them--even these may be at peace. The universalism of Christianity is
the sheet-anchor of their hope. A history of eighteen centuries bears
mighty witness to it; and the contents of its evidence and the high
significance they possess are brought into the clearest light by the
comparison with other religions. We have good courage then.'[4] So
advanced a critic and sensitively loyal a Jew as Mr. Claud Montefiore
tells us: 'Some of the sayings ascribed to Jesus have sunk too deep
into the human heart, or shall I say into the spiritual consciousness
of civilized mankind, to make it probable that any religion which
ignores or omits them will exercise a considerable influence outside
its own borders. It may be that those who dream of a prophetic
Judaism, which shall be as spiritual as the religion of Jesus, and even
more universal than the religion of Paul, are the victims of a
delusion.'[5] So largely naturalistic a critic as Julius Wellhausen
writes of our Lord's teaching and person: 'The miraculous is impossible
with man, but with God it is possible. Jesus has not only assured us
of this, but he has proved it in his own person. He had indeed lost
his life and saved it, he could do as he would. He had escaped the
bonds of human kind and the sufferings of self-seeking nature. There
is in him no trace of that eagerness for action which seeks for peace
in the restlessness of its own activity. The completely super-worldly
standpoint in which Jesus finds strength and love to devote himself to
the world has nothing extravagant about it. He is the first to know
himself, not simply in moments of emotion, but in completest
restfulness, the child of God; before him no one so felt or so
described himself.' 'Jesus not only prophesies the kingdom of God, but
brings it out of its transcendence on to earth; he plants at least its
germ. The new times already begin with him: the blind see, the deaf
hear, the dead arise. Everywhere he found spaciousness for his soul,
nowhere was he cramped by the little, much as he put forward the value
of the great; this we should do, and not leave that undone. He was
more than a prophet; in him the word had become flesh. The historic
overweightedness, to which the Jews were succumbing, does not even
touch him. A unit arises in the dreary mass, a man from among the
rubbish which the dwarfs, the rabbis, had heaped up. He upsets the
accidental, the caricature, the dead, and collects the eternally valid,
the human divine, in the focus of His individuality. "Ecce homo," a
divine wonder in this time and this environment.'"
Such being the view of religiously disposed persons outside of the
Catholic Church regarding the New Testament teaching of Christ, it
would seem easy at first sight to convince them of the Catholic
doctrine by reference to the words of Christ and the Gospels, which
contain explicit, if not complete testimony in behalf of the Catholic
teaching. There is one difficulty in the way of this, and that is that
Protestants themselves distrust the meaning of the New Testament words
except in so far as it expresses their own feelings. The principle of
private interpretation necessarily leads to this one-sided view. A
hundred persons appeal to the one Book as an infallible expression of
God's will and truth. Now, some of these infallible expressions
manifestly contradict one another as Protestants interpret them. Yet
the consequences of such contradictions are vital, and involve eternal
life or death. Take the doctrine of baptism by water as essential to
salvation, according to the reading of some Protestants; yet the
Quaker, no less sincere than his Baptist neighbor, and claiming a
special inward light, consciously neglects baptism, holding that the
teaching of the New Testament is only meant in a spiritual sense.
Equally awful in their consequences are the two contrary doctrines
regarding the Eucharistic presence of Christ as declared in the New
Testament, one believer drawing the conclusion that he must adore God
under the veil of bread, the other equally convinced from the same
Scriptures that such a view is sheer idolatry, and that there is
nothing divine under the appearance of bread. This appeal to private
judgment makes most Protestants sceptical if you attempt to prove to
them Catholic doctrine from the New Testament; and unless you can first
convince them that the Church has a greater claim to declare the sense
of the Bible than any private individual, they will consider their
opinion of its meaning and purpose just as good as yours.
But it is different if you appeal to the Old Testament for a
confirmation of Catholic doctrine. And I would strongly urge this
method for various reasons. Every Protestant will admit that the Old
Testament is not only inspired and divine in its origin, but that in
its historic expression, even the deutero-canonical portion, contains
the application of its meaning and purpose. In other words, that God
not merely gave the Israelites a law, but also shows us how He meant
them to interpret that law in their lives--domestic, social, and
religious. Here, therefore, we have little need, or even opportunity,
for private interpretation as to God's meaning. That meaning becomes
clear from the action of His people.
At the same time it is also clear and generally admitted that the Old
Testament is a foreshadowing of the New Law, hence that the doctrines
and practices of the Christian Church have their counterpart in the Old
Law. Protestants readily agree to this, in proof of which fact I may
be allowed to quote Prof. Robertson Smith:
"Christianity can never separate itself from its historical basis, or
the religion of Israel; the revelation of God in Christ cannot be
divorced from the earlier revelation on which our Lord built. Indeed,
the history of Israel, when rightly studied, is the most real and vivid
of all histories; and the proofs of God's working among His people of
old may still be made, what they were in time past, one of the
strongest evidences of Christianity."[6]
Dr. A. B. Bruce in his _Apologetics_, 1892, p. 325, says: "The Bible,
instead of being a dead rule, to be used mechanically, with equal value
set on all its parts, is rather a living organism, which, like the
butterfly, passes through various transformations before arriving at
its highest and final form. We should find Christ in the Old Testament
as we find the butterfly in the caterpillar."[7]
Hence if you can show to the average intelligent Protestant that a
doctrine or practice distinctively of the Catholic Church prevailed in
the Jewish Church, you have established an _a priori_ argument for its
reasonableness. This applies particularly to such doctrines and
practices as Protestants condemn or censure in the Catholic Church from
a mere habit of not finding them in their own churches, or from some
prejudice nourished by bigotry of early teachers, or by the popular
literature of the anti-Catholic type. I only mention such topics as
Indulgences, Confession, the Infallibility of the Pope, Celibacy of the
clergy and religious, and such like. Now all these things existed in
the Old Law, not so completely developed as in the Christian Church,
but sufficiently pronounced to establish a motive of credibility for
their existence in the Church of Christ. Thus we have the
reasonableness of the practice of Confession plainly indicated in the
Mosaic times: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Say to the children
of Israel, when a man or woman shall have committed any of all the sins
that men are wont to commit, and by negligence shall have transgressed
the commandment of the Lord, and offended, they shall confess their
sin, and shall restore the principal itself, and the fifth part over
and above, to him against whom they have sinned" (Num. v. 6-7; also
13-14). The Infallibility of the Pope finds its perfect counterpart in
the oracular responses given by the Jewish high-priest when he wore the
Urim and Thummim in his breastplate, which covers the precise ground of
Papal decisions regarding faith and morals, the breastplate being
called "the rational of judgment, doctrine, and truth" (See Exod.
xxviii. 30; Levit. viii. 8; Num. xxvii. 21; Deut. xxxiii. 8, etc.).
As to the practice of virginity, we know that it existed among the
Jews, as an exceptional condition; but as such it had the sanction of
God. Thus the Prophet Jeremias receives the command of virginity from
Jehovah directly: "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Thou
shalt not take thee a wife; neither shalt thou have sons and daughters
in this place" (Jer. xvi. 2).
Thus practical arguments, of which I can here only indicate a few, may
be found for each and all of the usages of the Catholic Church. And
any censure of the latter will cast its reflection upon the Jewish
dispensation, of which God was Himself the Author and Guardian. For if
God sanctioned ceremonies in worship, and infallibility in the
high-priest, and virginity in the Prophet whom He selects for a special
mission, and confession, with penance and the obligation of
restitution, why should Protestants think it so strange to find us
practise the same things which have the seal of divine approbation!
Thus they may be inclined more readily to accept the more explicit
arguments in favor of Catholic doctrine and discipline as given in the
New Testament, which is but the fulfilment of the types suggested in
the Old Law.
It is hardly necessary for me to point out in this connection the
advantages of being able to disabuse Protestants of the impression that
Catholics do not honor the Bible as the word of God. Those who, as
Protestants, do not recognize any other source of divine revelation
than the written word are, of course, obliged to occupy themselves
wholly and entirely with its study, whilst Catholics look upon that
same written word, not with less reverence, but with less consciousness
of having to rely upon it as the only symbol and exponent of their
faith. If we refuse on general principles to have the Bible read to
our Catholic children in a public school from a Protestant translation,
it is simply because the admission of such a practice implies an
admission of a Protestant principle, and might leave a wrong impression
upon our children as to the value of the true version of their
religion. The Protestant translation of the Bible contains a great
deal of truth, _but some errors_ which we cannot admit in our teaching.
To give it to our children in the schools is something like planting a
Southern flag upon some public institution of the United States. Some
may say it is better than none, because it begets patriotism, and as
there is no difference in the two flags except the slight one of a few
stars and stripes, most people might never notice it. But we know that
if they did notice it, it would create considerable disturbance,
because it implies something of disloyalty to "Old Glory."
For a like reason Catholics often refuse to kiss the Protestant Bible
in court. They prefer simply _to affirm_. And in this they are
perfectly right, although to attest one's willingness to tell the truth
on such occasions is not supposed to be a trial of one's faith, and
hence it does not involve anything of a denial of Catholic truth.