Natural causes run to integration as well as to disintegration.
All growth is integration, and all growth is natural. All decay is
disintegration, and all decay is natural. Nature builds and nature
destroys. When the acorn grows--when the sunlight and rain fall upon it
and the oak rises--so far as the oak is concerned "all natural causes"
do not "run to disintegration." But there comes a time when the oak
has reached its limit, and then the forces of nature run towards
disintegration, and finally the old oak falls. But if the Cardinal is
right--if "all natural causes run to disintegration," then every success
must have been of divine origin, and nothing is natural but destruction.
This is Catholic science: "All natural causes run to disintegration."
What do these causes find to disintegrate? Nothing that is natural. The
fact that the thing is not disintegrated shows that it was and is of
supernatural origin. According to the Cardinal, the only business
of nature is to disintegrate the supernatural. To prevent this, the
supernatural needs the protection of the Infinite. According to this
doctrine, if anything lives and grows, it does so in spite of nature.
Growth, then, is not in accordance with, but in opposition to nature.
Every plant is supernatural--it defeats the disintegrating influences of
rain and light. The generalization of the Cardinal is half the truth. It
would be equally true to say: All natural causes run to integration. But
the whole truth is that growth and decay are equal.
The Cardinal asserts that "Christendom was created by the world-wide
church as we see it before our eyes at this day."
Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own
hands; they did not make it, but they have for three hundred years been
unmaking it by reformations and revolutions.
The meaning of this is that Christendom was far better three hundred
years ago than now; that during these three centuries Christendom has
been going toward barbarism. It means that the supernatural church of
God has been a failure for three hundred years; that it has been unable
to withstand the attacks of philosophers and statesmen, and that it has
been helpless in the midst of "reformations and revolutions."
What was the condition of the world three hundred years ago, the period,
according to the Cardinal, in which the church reached the height of its
influence, and since which it has been unable to withstand the rising
tide of reformation and the whirlwind of revolution?
In that blessed time, Philip II. was king of Spain--he with the cramped
head and the monstrous jaw. Heretics were hunted like wild and poisonous
beasts; the Inquisition was firmly established, and priests were busy
with rack and fire. With a zeal born of the hatred of man and the love
of God, the church, with every instrument of torture, touched every
nerve in the human body.
In those happy days, the Duke of Alva was devastating the homes of
Holland; heretics were buried alive--their tongues were torn from their
mouths, their lids from their eyes; the Armada was on the sea for the
destruction of the heretics of England, and the Moriscoes--a million and
a half of industrious people--were being driven by sword and flame
from their homes. The Jews had been expelled from Spain. This Catholic
country had succeeded in driving intelligence and industry from its
territory; and this had been done with a cruelty, with a ferocity,
unequaled, in the annals of crime.
Nothing was left but ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, credulity, the
Inquisition, the seven sacraments and the seven deadly sins. And yet a
Cardinal of the nineteenth century, living in the land of Shakespeare,
regrets the change that has been wrought by the intellectual efforts, by
the discoveries, by the inventions and heroism of three hundred years.
Three hundred years ago, Charles IX., in France, son of Catherine de
Medici, in the year of grace 1572--after nearly sixteen centuries of
Catholic Christianity--after hundreds of vicars of Christ had sat in St.
Peter's chair--after the natural passions of man had been "softened" by
the creed of Rome--came the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the result of a
conspiracy between the Vicar of Christ, Philip II., Charles IX., and his
fiendish mother. Let the Cardinal read the account of this massacre
once more, and, after reading it, imagine that he sees the gashed and
mutilated bodies of thousands of men and women, and then let him say
that he regrets the revolutions and reformations of three hundred years.
About three hundred years ago Clement VIII., Vicar of Christ, acting in
God's place, substitute of the Infinite, persecuted Giordano Bruno even
unto death. This great, this sublime man, was tried for heresy. He had
ventured to assert the rotary motion of the earth; he had hazarded the
conjecture that there were in the fields of infinite space worlds larger
and more glorious than ours. For these low and groveling thoughts, for
this contradiction of the word and vicar of God, this man was imprisoned
for many years. But his noble spirit was not broken, and finally, in the
year 1600, by the orders of the infamous vicar, he was chained to
the stake. Priests believing in the doctrine of universal
forgiveness--priests who when smitten upon one cheek turned the
other--carried with a kind of ferocious joy fagots to the feet of this
incomparable man. These disciples of "Our Lord" were made joyous as
the flames, like serpents, climbed around the body of Bruno. In a few
moments the brave thinker was dead, and the priests who had burned him
fell upon their knees and asked the infinite God to continue the blessed
work forever in hell.
There are two things that cannot exist in the same universe--an infinite
God and a martyr.
Does the Cardinal regret that kings and emperors are not now engaged in
the extermination of Protestants? Does he regret that dungeons of the
Inquisition are no longer crowded with the best and bravest? Does he
long for the fires of the _auto da fe_.?
In coming to a conclusion as to the origin of the Catholic Church--in
determining the truth of the claim of infallibility--we are not
restricted to the physical achievements of that church, or to the
history of its propagation, or to the rapidity of its growth.
This church has a creed; and if this church is of divine origin--if
its head is the vicar of Christ, and, as such, infallible in matters
of faith and morals, this creed must be true. Let us start with the
supposition that God exists, and that he is infinitely wise, powerful
and good--and this is only a supposition. Now, if the creed is foolish,
absurd and cruel, it cannot be of divine origin. We find in this creed
the following:
"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold
the Catholic faith."
It is not necessary, before all things, that he be good, honest,
merciful, charitable and just. Creed is more important than conduct. The
most important of all things is, that he hold the Catholic faith. There
were thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that
faith, because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the
virtues were just as important as now, just as important as they ever
can be.
Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed.
Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and
rejected it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because
of their belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions
of their fellows. We know that men can be, have been, and are just
as wicked with it as without it. We know that it is not necessary to
believe it to be good, loving, tender, noble and self-denying. We admit
that millions who have believed it have also been self-denying and
heroic, and that millions, by such belief, were not prevented from
torturing and destroying the helpless.
Now, if all who believed it were good, and all who rejected it were
bad, then there might be some propriety in saying that "whoever will
be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic
faith." But as the experience of mankind is otherwise, the declaration
becomes absurd, ignorant and cruel.
There is still another clause:
"Which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without
doubt, he shall everlastingly perish."
We now have both sides of this wonderful truth: The believer will be
saved, the unbeliever will be lost. We know that faith is not the child
or servant of the will. We know that belief is a conclusion based upon
what the mind supposes to be true. We know that it is not an act of the
will. Nothing can be more absurd than to save a man because he is not
intelligent enough to accept the truth, and nothing can be more infamous
than to damn a man because he is intelligent enough to reject the false.
It resolves itself into a question of intelligence. If the creed is
true, then a man rejects it because he lacks intelligence. Is this
a crime for which a man should everlastingly perish? If the creed is
false, then a man accepts it because he lacks intelligence. In both
cases the crime is exactly the same.
If a man is to be damned for rejecting the truth, certainly he should
not be saved for accepting the false. This one clause demonstrates
that a being of infinite wisdom and goodness did not write it. It also
demonstrates that it was the work of men who had neither wisdom nor a
sense of justice.
What is this Catholic faith that must be held? It is this:
"That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither
confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." Why should an
Infinite Being demand worship? Why should one God wish to be worshiped
as three? Why should three Gods wished to be worshiped as one? Why
should we pray to one God and think of three, or pray to three Gods
and think of one? Can this increase the happiness of the one or of the
three? Is it possible to think of one as three, or of three as one? If
you think of three as one, can you think of one as none, or of none as
one? When you think of three as one, what do you do with the other two?
You must not "confound the persons"--they must be kept separate. When
you think of one as three, how do you get the other two? You must not
"divide the substance." Is it possible to write greater contradictions
than these?
This creed demonstrates the human origin of the Catholic Church. Nothing
could be more unjust than to punish man for unbelief--for the expression
of honest thought--for having been guided by his reason--for having
acted in accordance with his best judgment.
Another claim is made, to the effect "that the Catholic Church has
filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true God, and that
it has destroyed all idols by light instead of by fire."
The Catholic Church described the true God as a being who would inflict
eternal pain on his weak and erring children; described him as a fickle,
quick-tempered, unreasonable deity, whom honesty enraged, and whom
flattery governed; one who loved to see fear upon its knees, ignorance
with closed eyes and open mouth; one who delighted in useless
self-denial, who loved to hear the sighs and sobs of suffering nuns,
as they lay prostrate on dungeon floors; one who was delighted when
the husband deserted his family and lived alone in some cave in the far
wilderness, tormented by dreams and driven to insanity by prayer and
penance, by fasting and faith.
According to the Catholic Church, the true God enjoyed the agonies of
heretics. He loved the smell of their burning flesh; he applauded with
wide palms when philosophers were flayed alive, and to him the _auto da
fe_ was a divine comedy. The shrieks of wives, the cries of babes when
fathers were being burned, gave contrast, heightened the effect and
filled his cup with joy. This true God did not know the shape of the
earth he had made, and had forgotten the orbits of the stars. "The
stream of light which descended from the beginning" was propagated by
fagot to fagot, until Christendom was filled with the devouring fires of
faith.
It may also be said that the Catholic Church filled the world with the
true knowledge of the one true Devil. It filled the air with malicious
phantoms, crowded innocent sleep with leering fiends, and gave the world
to the domination of witches and wizards, spirits and spooks, goblins
and ghosts, and butchered and burned thousands for the commission of
impossible crimes.
It is contended that: "In this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was
revealed to man their own relation to a Creator as sons to a Father."
This tender relation was revealed by the Catholics to the Pagans, the
Arians, the Cathari, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the heretics, the
Jews, the Moriscoes, the Protestants--to the natives of the West Indies,
of Mexico, of Peru--to philosophers, patriots and thinkers. All these
victims were taught to regard the true God as a loving father, and this
lesson was taught with every instrument of torture--with brandings and
burnings, with flayings and flames. The world was filled with cruelty
and credulity, ignorance and intolerance, and the soil in which all
these horrors grew was the true knowledge of the one true God, and the
true knowledge of the one true Devil. And yet, we are compelled to say,
that the one true Devil described by the Catholic Church was not as
malevolent as the one true God.
Is it true that the Catholic Church overthrew idolatry? What is
idolatry? What shall we say of the worship of popes--of the doctrine of
the Real Presence, of divine honors paid to saints, of sacred vestments,
of holy water, of consecrated cups and plates, of images and relics, of
amulets and charms?
The Catholic Church filled the world with the spirit of idolatry. It
abandoned the idea of continuity in nature, it denied the integrity of
cause and effect. The government of the world was the composite
result of the caprice of God, the malice of Satan, the prayers of
the faithful--softened, it may be, by the charity of Chance. Yet the
Cardinal asserts, without the preface of a smile, that "Demonology was
overthrown by the church, with the assistance of forces that were
above nature;" and in the same breath gives birth to this enlightened
statement: "Beelzebub is not divided against himself." Is a belief in
Beelzebub a belief in demonology? Has the Cardinal forgotten the Council
of Nice, held in the year of grace 787, that declared the worship of
images to be lawful? Did that infallible Council, under the guidance of
the Holy Ghost, destroy idolatry?
The Cardinal takes the ground that marriage is a sacrament, and
therefore indissoluble, and he also insists that celibacy is far better
than marriage,--holier than a sacrament,--that marriage is not the
highest state, but that "the state of virginity unto death is the
highest condition of man and woman."
The highest ideal of a family is where all are equal--where love has
superseded authority--where each seeks the good of all, and where none
obey--where no religion can sunder hearts, and with which no church can
interfere.
The real marriage is based on mutual affection--the ceremony is but the
outward evidence of the inward flame. To this contract there are but two
parties. The church is an impudent intruder. Marriage is made public to
the end that the real contract may be known, so that the world can see
that the parties have been actuated by the highest and holiest motives
that find expression in the acts of human beings. The man and woman
are not joined together by God, or by the church, or by the state.
The church and state may prescribe certain ceremonies, certain
formalities--but all these are only evidence of the existence of a
sacred fact in the hearts of the wedded. The indissolubility of marriage
is a dogma that has filled the lives of millions with agony and tears.
It has given a perpetual excuse for vice and immorality. Fear has
borne children begotten by brutality. Countless women have endured the
insults, indignities and cruelties of fiendish husbands, because they
thought that it was the will of God. The contract of marriage is the
most important that human beings can make; but no contract can be
so important as to release one of the parties from the obligation of
performance; and no contract, whether made between man and woman, or
between them and God, after a failure of consideration caused by the
willful act of the man or woman, can hold and bind the innocent and
honest.
Do the believers in indissoluble marriage treat their wives better than
others? A little while ago, a woman said to a man who had raised his
hand to strike her: "Do not touch me; you have no right to beat me; I am
not your wife."
About a year ago a husband, whom God in his infinite wisdom had joined
to a loving and patient woman in the indissoluble sacrament of marriage,
becoming enraged, seized the helpless wife and tore out one of her eyes.
She forgave him. A few weeks ago he deliberately repeated this frightful
crime, leaving his victim totally blind. Would it not have been better
if man, before the poor woman was blinded, had put asunder whom God
had joined together? Thousands of husbands, who insist that marriage is
indissoluble, are the beaters of wives.
The law of the church has created neither the purity nor the peace of
domestic life. Back of all churches is human affection. Back of all
theologies is the love of the human heart. Back of all your priests and
creeds is the adoration of the one woman by the one man, and of the one
man by the one woman. Back of your faith is the fireside; back of your
folly is the family; and back of all your holy mistakes and your sacred
absurdities is the love of husband and wife, of parent and child.
It is not true that neither the Greek nor the Roman world had any true
conception of a home. The splendid story of Ulysses and Penelope, the
parting of Hector and Andromache, demonstrate that a true conception of
home existed among the Greeks. Before the establishment of Christianity,
the Roman matron commanded the admiration of the then known world. She
was free and noble. The church degraded woman--made her the property
of the husband, and trampled her beneath its brutal feet. The "fathers"
denounced woman as a perpetual temptation, as the cause of all evil. The
church worshiped a God who had upheld polygamy, and had pronounced his
curse on woman, and had declared that she should be the serf of the
husband. This church followed the teachings of St. Paul. It taught the
uncleanness of marriage, and insisted that all children were conceived
in sin. This church pretended to have been founded by one who offered a
reward in this world, and eternal joy in the next, to husbands who would
forsake their wives and children and follow him. Did this tend to the
elevation of woman? Did this detestable doctrine "create the purity and
peace of domestic life"? Is it true that a monk is purer than a good and
noble father?--that a nun is holier than a loving mother?
Is there anything deeper and stronger than a mother's love? Is there
anything purer, holier than a mother holding her dimpled babe against
her billowed breast?
The good man is useful, the best man is the most useful. Those who fill
the nights with barren prayers and holy hunger, torture themselves
for their own good and not for the benefit of others. They are
earning eternal glory for themselves--they do not fast for their
fellow-men--their selfishness is only equalled by their foolishness.
Compare the monk in his selfish cell, counting beads and saying prayers
for the purpose of saving his barren soul, with a husband and father
sitting by his fireside with wife and children. Compare the nun with the
mother and her babe.
Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity. It tries to put a stain upon
motherhood, upon marriage, upon love--that is to say, upon all that
is holiest in the human heart. Take love from the world, and there is
nothing left worth living for. The church has treated this great, this
sublime, this unspeakably holy passion, as though it polluted the heart.
They have placed the love of God above the love of woman, above the love
of man. Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish,
because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own.
Yet the Cardinal asserts "that the change wrought by Christianity in the
social, political and international relations of the world"--"that the
root of this ethical change, private and public, is the Christian home."
A moment afterward, this prelate insists that celibacy is far better
than marriage. If the world could be induced to live in accordance with
the "highest state," this generation would be the last. Why were men and
women created? Why did not the Catholic God commence' with the sinless
and sexless? The Cardinal ought to take the ground that to talk well is
good, but that to be dumb is the highest condition; that hearing is a
pleasure, but that deafness is ecstasy; and that to think, to reason, is
very well, but that to be a Catholic is far better.
Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions
from human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to
destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge
passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance--to destroy passion is
another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of
the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue.
The goodness, the sympathy, the self-denial of the nun, of the monk, all
come from the mother-instinct, the father-instinct--all were produced by
human affection, by the love of man for woman, of woman for man. Love is
a transfiguration. It ennobles, purifies and glorifies. In true marriage
two hearts burst into flower. Two lives unite. They melt in music. Every
moment is a melody. Love is a revelation, a creation. From love
the world borrows its beauty and the heavens their glory. Justice,
self-denial, charity and pity are the children of love. Lover, wife,
mother, husband, father, child, home--these words shed light--they are
the gems of human speech. Without love all glory fades, the noble falls
from life, art dies, music loses meaning and becomes mere motions of the
air, and virtue ceases to exist.
It is asserted that this life of celibacy is above and against the
tendencies of human nature; and the Cardinal then asks: "Who will
ascribe this to natural causes, and, if so, why did it not appear in the
first four thousand years?"
If there is in a system of religion a doctrine, a dogma, or a practice
against the tendencies of human nature--if this religion succeeds,
then it is claimed by the Cardinal that such religion must be of divine
origin. Is it "against the tendencies of human nature" for a mother to
throw her child into the Ganges to please a supposed God? Yet a religion
that insisted on that sacrifice succeeded, and has, to-day, more
believers than the Catholic Church can boast.
Religions, like nations and individuals, have always gone along the line
of least resistance. Nothing has "ascended the stream of human license
by a power mightier than nature." There is no such power. There never
was, there never can be, a miracle. We know that man is a conditioned
being. We know that he is affected by a change of conditions. If he
is ignorant he is superstitious; this is natural. If his brain is
developed--if he perceives clearly that all things are naturally
produced, he ceases to be superstitious, and becomes scientific. He is
not a saint, but a savant--not a priest, but a philosopher. He does
not worship, he works; he investigates; he thinks; he takes advantage,
through intelligence, of the forces of nature. He is no longer the
victim of appearances, the dupe of his own ignorance, and the persecutor
of his fellow-men.
He then knows that it is far better to love his wife and children than
to love God. He then knows that the love of man for woman, of woman for
man, of parent for child, of child for parent, is far better, far holier
than the love of man for any phantom born of ignorance and fear.
It is illogical to take the ground that the world was cruel and ignorant
and idolatrous when the Catholic Church was established, and that
because the world is better now than then, the church is of divine
origin.
What was the world when science came? What was it in the days of
Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler? What-was it when printing was invented?
What was it when the Western World was found? Would it not be much
easier to prove that science is of divine origin?
Science does not persecute. It does not shed blood--it fills the world
with light. It cares nothing for heresy; it develops the mind, and
enables man to answer his own prayers.
Cardinal Manning takes the ground that Jehovah practically abandoned
the children of men for four thousand years, and gave them over to every
abomination. He claims that Christianity came "in the fullness of time,"
and it is then admitted that "what the fullness of time may mean is one
of the mysteries of times and seasons, that it is not for us to know."
Having declared that it is a mystery, and one that we are not to
know, the Cardinal explains it: "One motive for the long delay of four
thousand years is not far to seek--it gave time, full and ample, for the
utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of
which the intellect and will of man are capable."
Is it possible to imagine why an infinitely good and wise being "gave
time full and ample for the utmost development and consolidation of
falsehood and evil"? Why should an infinitely wise God desire this
development and consolidation? What would be thought of a father who
should refuse to teach his son and deliberately allow him to go into
every possible excess, to the end that he might "develop all the
falsehood and evil of which his intellect and will were capable"? If a
supernatural religion is a necessity, and if without it all men simply
develop and consolidate falsehood and evil, why was not a supernatural
religion given to the first man? The Catholic Church, if this be true,
should have been founded in the Garden of Eden.
Was it not cruel to drown a world just for the want of a supernatural
religion--a religion that man, by no possibility, could furnish? Was
there "husbandry in heaven"?
But the Cardinal contradicts himself by not only admitting, but
declaring, that the world had never seen a legislation so just, so
equitable, as that of Rome.
Is it possible that a nation in which falsehood and evil had reached
their highest development was, after all, so wise, so just and so
equitable?
Was not the civil law far better than the Mosaic--more philosophical,
nearer just?
The civil law was produced without the assistance of God.
According to the Cardinal, it was produced by men in whom all the
falsehood and evil of which they were capable had been developed and
consolidated, while the cruel and ignorant Mosaic code came from the
lips of infinite wisdom and compassion.
It is declared that the history of Rome shows what man can do without
God, and I assert that the history of the Inquisition shows what man
can do when assisted by a church of divine origin, presided over, by the
infallible vicars of God.
The fact that the early Christians not only believed incredible things,
but persuaded others of their truth, is regarded by the Cardinal as a
miracle. This is only another phase of the old argument that success is
the test of divine origin. All supernatural religions have been founded
in precisely the same way. The credulity of eighteen hundred years ago
believed everything except the truth.
A religion is a growth, and is of necessity adapted in some degree to
the people among whom it grows. It is shaped and molded by the general
ignorance, the superstition and credulity of the age in which it lives.
The key is fashioned by the lock.
Every religion that has succeeded has in some way supplied the wants of
its votaries, and has to a certain extent harmonized with their hopes,
their fears, their vices, and their virtues.
If, as the Cardinal says, the religion of Christ is in absolute harmony
with nature, how can it be supernatural? The Cardinal also declares that
"the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature
in all nations and all ages to this day."
What becomes of the argument that Catholicism must be of divine origin
because "it has ascended the stream of human license, _contra ictum
fluminis_, by a power mightier than nature"?
If "it is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations and
all ages to this day," it has gone with the stream, and not against
it. If "the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral
nature of all nations," then the men who have rejected it are unnatural,
and these men have gone against the stream. How then can it be said
that Christianity has been in changeless opposition to nature as man has
marred it? To what extent has man marred it?
In spite of the marring by man, we are told that the reason and moral
nature of all nations in all ages to this day is in harmony with the
religion of Jesus Christ.
Are we justified in saying that the Catholic Church is of divine origin
because the Pagans failed to destroy it by persecution?
We will put the Cardinal's statement in form:
Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution, therefore
Catholicism is of divine origin.
Let us make an application of this logic:
Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution; therefore,
Catholicism is of divine origin.
Catholicism failed to destroy Protestantism by persecution; therefore,
Protestantism is of divine origin.
Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity;
therefore, Infidelity is of divine origin.
Let us make another application:
Paganism did not succeed in destroying Catholicism; therefore, Paganism
was a false religion.
Catholicism did not succeed in destroying Protestantism; therefore,
Catholicism is a false religion.
Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity;
therefore, both Catholicism and Protestantism are false religions.
The Cardinal has another reason for believing the Catholic Church of
divine origin. He declares that the "Canon Law is a creation of wisdom
and justice to which no statutes at large or imperial pandects can bear
comparison;" "that the world-wide and secular legislation of the church
was of a higher character, and that as water cannot rise above its
source, the church could not, by mere human wisdom, have corrected and
perfected the imperial law, and therefore its source must have been
higher than the sources of the world."
When Europe was the most ignorant, the Canon Law was supreme.
As a matter of fact, the good in the Canon Law was borrowed--the bad
was, for the most part, original. In my judgment, the legislation of the
Republic of the United States is in many respects superior to that of
Rome, and yet we are greatly indebted to the Civil Law. Our legislation
is superior in many particulars to that of England, and yet we are
greatly indebted to the Common Law; but it never occurred to me that our
Statutes at Large are divinely inspired.
If the Canon Law is, in fact, the legislation of infinite wisdom, then
it should be a perfect code. Yet, the Canon Law made it a crime next to
robbery and theft to take interest for money. Without the right to take
interest the business of the whole world, would to a large extent, cease
and the prosperity of mankind end. There are railways enough in the
United States to make six tracks around the globe, and every mile was
built with borrowed money on which interest was paid or promised. In no
other way could the savings of many thousands have been brought together
and a capital great enough formed to construct works of such vast and
continental importance.
It was provided in this same wonderful Canon Law that a heretic could
not be a witness against a Catholic. The Catholic was at liberty to
rob and wrong his fellow-man, provided the fellow-man was not a fellow
Catholic, and in a court established by the vicar of Christ, the man
who had been robbed was not allowed to open his mouth. A Catholic could
enter the house of an unbeliever, of a Jew, of a heretic, of a Moor, and
before the eyes of the husband and father murder his wife and children,
and the father could not pronounce in the hearing of a judge the name of
the murderer.
The world is wiser now, and the Canon Law, given to us by infinite
wisdom, has been repealed by the common sense of man.
In this divine code it was provided that to convict a cardinal bishop,
seventy-two witnesses were required; a cardinal presbyter, forty-four;
a cardinal deacon, twenty-four; a subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, reader,
ostiarius, seven; and in the purgation of a bishop, twelve witnesses
were invariably required; of a presbyter, seven; of a deacon, three.
These laws, in my judgment, were made, not by God, but by the clergy.
So too in this cruel code it was provided that those who gave aid,
favor, or counsel, to excommunicated persons, should be anathema, and
that those who talked with, consulted, or sat at the same table with or
gave anything in charity to the excommunicated should be anathema.
Is it possible that a being of infinite wisdom made hospitality a crime?
Did he say: "Whoso giveth a cup of cold water to the excommunicated
shall wear forever a garment of fire"? Were not the laws of the Romans
much better? Besides all this, under the Canon Law the dead could be
tried for heresy, and their estates confiscated--that is to say, their
widows and orphans robbed.
The most brutal part of the common law of England is that in relation
to the rights of women--all of which was taken from the _Corpus Juris
Canonici_, "the law that came from a higher source than man."
The only cause of absolute divorce as laid down by the pious canonists
was _propter infidelitatem_, which was when one of the parties became
Catholic, and would not live with the other who continued still an
unbeliever. Under this divine statute, a pagan wishing to be rid of
his wife had only to join the Catholic Church, provided she remained
faithful to the religion of her fathers. Under this divine law, a man
marrying a widow was declared to be a bigamist.
It would require volumes to point out the cruelties, absurdities and
inconsistencies of the Canon Law. It has been thrown away by the world.
Every civilized nation has a code of its own, and the Canon Law is
of interest only to the historian, the antiquarian, and the enemy of
theological government.
Under the Canon Law, people were convicted of being witches and wizards,
of holding intercourse with devils. Thousands perished at the stake,
having been convicted of these impossible crimes. Under the Canon Law,
there was such a crime as the suspicion of heresy. A man or woman could
be arrested, charged with being suspected, and under this Canon Law,
flowing from the intellect of infinite wisdom, the presumption was in
favor of guilt. The suspected had to prove themselves innocent. In all
civilized courts, the presumption of innocence is the shield of the
indicted, but the Canon Law took away this shield, and put in the hand
of the priest the sword of presumptive guilt.
If the real pope is the vicar of Christ, the true shepherd of the sheep,
this fact should be known not only to the vicar, but to the sheep. A
divinely founded and guarded church ought to know its own shepherd, and
yet the Catholic sheep have not always been certain who the shepherd
was.
The Council of Pisa, held in 1409, deposed two popes--rivals--Gregory
and Benedict--that is to say, deposed the actual vicar of Christ and the
pretended. This action was taken because a council, enlightened by the
Holy Ghost, could not tell the genuine from the counterfeit. The council
then elected another vicar, whose authority was afterwards denied.
Alexander V. died, and John XXIII. took his place; Gregory XII. insisted
that he was the lawful pope; John resigned, then he was deposed, and
afterward imprisoned; then Gregory XII. resigned, and Martin V. was
elected. The whole thing reads like the annals of a South American
revolution.
The Council of Constance restored, as the Cardinal declares, the unity
of the church, and brought back the consolation of the Holy Ghost.
Before this great council John Huss appeared and maintained his own
tenets. The council declared that the church was not bound to keep its
promise with a heretic. Huss was condemned and executed on the 6th
of July, 1415. His disciple, Jerome of Prague, recanted, but having
relapsed, was put to death, May 30, 1416. This cursed council shed the
blood of Huss and Jerome.
The Cardinal appeals to the author of "Ecce Homo" for the purpose of
showing that Christianity is above nature, and the following passages,
among others, are quoted:
"Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the
formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? Who can
describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these
things can explain the origin of the Christian Church."
These passages should not have been quoted by the Cardinal. The author
of these passages simply says that the origin of the Christian Church
is no harder to find and describe than that which unites men--than that
which has entered into the formation of speech, the symbol of their
union--no harder to describe than the origin of civil society--because
he says that one who can describe these can describe the other.
Certainly none of these things are above nature. We do not need the
assistance of the Holy Ghost in these matters. We know that men are
united by common interests, common purposes, common dangers--by race,
climate and education. It is no more wonderful that people live in
families, tribes, communities and nations, than that birds, ants and
bees live in flocks and swarms.
If we know anything, we know that language is natural--that it is a
physical science. But if we take the ground occupied by the Cardinal,
then we insist that everything that cannot be accounted for by man,
is supernatural. Let me ask, by what man? What man must we take as the
standard?
Cosmas or Humboldt, St. Irenaeus or Darwin? If everything that we
cannot account for is above nature, then ignorance is the test of the
supernatural. The man who is mentally honest, stops where his knowledge
stops. At that point he says that he does not know. Such a man is a
philosopher. Then the theologian steps forward, denounces the modesty
of the philosopher as blasphemy, and proceeds to tell what is beyond the
horizon of the human intellect.
Could a savage account for the telegraph, or the telephone, by natural
causes? How would he account for these wonders? He would account for
them precisely as the Cardinal accounts for the Catholic Church.
Belonging to no rival church, I have not the slightest interest in the
primacy of Leo XIII., and yet it is to be regretted that this primacy
rests upon such a narrow and insecure foundation.
The Cardinal says that "it will appear almost certain that the original
Greek of St. Irenaeus, _which is unfortunately lost_, contained either
[--Greek--], or some inflection of [--Greek--], which signifies
primacy."
From this it appears that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome rests on
some "inflection" of a Greek word--and that this supposed inflection
was in a letter supposed to have been written by St. Irenaeus, which has
certainly been lost. Is it possible that the vast fabric of papal power
has this, and only this, for its foundation? To this "inflection" has it
come at last?
The Cardinal's case depends upon the intelligence and veracity of his
witnesses. The Fathers of the church were utterly incapable of examining
a question of fact. They were all believers in the miraculous. The same
is true of the apostles. If St. John was the author of the Apocalypse,
he was undoubtedly insane. If Polycarp said the things attributed to him
by Catholic writers, he was certainly in the condition of his master.
What is the testimony of St. John worth in the light of the following?
"Cerinthus, the heretic, was in a bathhouse. St. John and another
Christian were about to enter. St. John cried out: 'Let us run away,
lest the house fall upon us while the enemy of truth is in it.'" Is
it possible that St. John thought that God would kill two eminent
Christians for the purpose of getting even with one heretic?
Let us see who Polycarp was. He seems to have been a prototype of the
Catholic Church, as will be seen from the following statement concerning
this Father: "When any heretical doctrine was spoken in his presence
he would stop his ears." After this, there can be no question of his
orthodoxy. It is claimed that Polycarp was a martyr--that a spear was
run through his body, and that from the wound his soul, in the shape
of a bird, flew away. The history of his death is just as true as the
history of his life.
Irenaeus, another witness, took the ground that there was to be a
millennium--a thousand years of enjoyment in which celibacy would not be
the highest form of virtue. If he is called as a witness for the purpose
of establishing the divine origin of the church, and if one of his
"inflections" is the basis of papal supremacy, is the Cardinal also
willing to take his testimony as to the nature of the millennium?
All the Fathers were infinitely credulous. Every one of them believed,
not only in the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ, by the
apostles, and by other Christians, but every one of them believed in
the Pagan miracles. All of these Fathers were familiar with wonders and
impossibilities. Nothing was so common with them as to work miracles,
and on many occasions they not only cured diseases, not only reversed
the order of nature, but succeeded in raising the dead.
It is very hard, indeed, to prove what the apostles said, or what the
Fathers of the church wrote. There were many centuries filled with
forgeries--many generations in which the cunning hands of ecclesiastics
erased, obliterated or interpolated the records of the past--during
which they invented books, invented authors, and quoted from works that
never existed.
The testimony of the "Fathers" is without the slightest value.
They believed everything--they examined nothing. They received as a
waste-basket receives. Whoever accepts their testimony will exclaim with
the Cardinal: "Happily, men are not saved by logic."
Robert G. Ingersoll.