I
GERBET ON THE EUCHARIST.
7 /^ t *~0*+-%r&£,-lt^*~** Q***CC*&"-'
CONSIDERATIONS
THE EUCHARIST,
VIEWED AS
THE GENERATIVE DOGMA
OF
CATHOLIC PIETY,
CransIateD from tfje $ rettcf) THE ABBE^PH. GERBET,
BY A CATHOLIC CLERGYMAN.
LONDON :
PUBLISHED BY C. DOLMAN, 61, NEW BOND STREET.
Entered at Stationers' Hall.
TO THE
LIGHT KEY. DR. 3IUEPHY, R. C. BISHOP 01 CORK.
MY LORD,
Accept the first English version of a Work which has already obtained a high European reputation. It is a feeble effort to transfuse into our language the luminous views, as well as the condensed and eloquent reasoning of the Abbe Gerbet on the subject of the Eucharist.
Commenced under your Lordship's auspices, I gladly avail myself of your permission to present it in its complete form to the Catholics of this country, under the sanction of a name which cannot fail to augment considerably its circulation among the lovers of Religion and Literature.
Believe me, My Lord, With every sentiment of respect,
Your Lordship's devoted subject,
The Translator.
PEEF ACE.
This work is neither a dogmatical treatise, nor a book of devotion, but something intermediate, belonging to a class which forms the link that unites these two orders of ideas.
Religion nourishes the understanding with truth and the heart with sentiment. Hence there are two modes of viewing it — the one rational — the other edifying. From this two-fold aspect there arises another point of view, in which we consider the connexion of truths in relation to the developement of love in the human soul. It is in this light we are about to view the' mystery on which Catholic worship is based, In the first place, we observe that the Eucharistic dogma, is the complement of the primi- tive faith and worship of mankind; so that its detachment from religion would destroy the beautiful harmony of all the truths of which the latter is constituted.
After having viewed it in its principle, and, if we
viii
PREFACE.
may so express it, in its germ deposited in the bosom of the primitive religion, we glance at it in its results, namely in that manifestation of love of which it is the inexhaustible source ; and we demonstrate that the order of sentiments which it produces and upholds is the complete developement, or the very perfection of the sentiments inspired by primitive faith ; so that it cannot be retrenched from religion without assailing its vital principle — namely the spirit of life. This mystery is the heart of Christianity. Such in short is the object of this treatise.
Nothing being isolated in religion, which like God himself is essentially one, it is necessary, in order that it may be fully understood, to view each of its parts, not separately, but in its relation to the general plan of Christianity ; and the more clearly we con- ceive this admirable unity, the more love ought to increase with intelligence. If in this peculiar view this work will be found to contain some notions on the adorable present of Divine wisdom and goodness, Catholics will find therein new motives for attaching themselves to their faith, which will serve to nourish their devotion.
PREFACE.
ix
We no less fondly hope that it may contribute to remove the prejudices of our erring brethren, by shewing them this mystery in various aspects, hitherto unknown to many among them.
Owing to the happy change which is so perceptible among Protestants, the most inconsiderable efforts directed to this quarter, are attended at the present day, with pleasing results. The designs of Provi- dence are becoming manifest. The church continually repairs by conversions the losses caused by apostacy. The places which infidelity has left vacant are filled up by Protestants. This two -fold movement which impelling some to the very boundaries of error preci- pitates them into scepticism and which brings back others from the regions of error and doubt into the bosom of Faith, is the grand spectacle which has been reserved for our age. It is only commenced, but let us be observant, and we shall witness its developement which henceforward no human power can arrest.
In being thus explicit as to the result of Protes- tantism, we hope that neither our words or intentions may be misunderstood. It is not a personal question,
X
PRETACE.
nor is it a contrast instituted between any given portion of a Protestant and Catholic population, no ! it is the action of Catholicism taken in its widest sense and compared to that of Protestantism. Severe logic which is founded on general facts does not suffer us to alter the consequence in favour of the exceptions which charity may be inclined to make. The Protestants of whom we speak would deceive them- selves if they fancied that Catholicism prohibits us to be just towards whatever merits respect. On the contrary, the more deeply we are convinced that Protestantism by its peculiar action is subversive of Christianity, the more are we inclined to esteem those who by the uprightness of their will resist its baneful influence ; as we admire those plants which flourish in an ungrateful soil. In truth, such Christian souls have been nurtured in a belief more ancient than that of the Reformation, and which are so little akin to it that the latter destroys them by its developement. Their humble and docile dispositions belong not to Protestantism, for in proclaiming the independence of individual reason, pride has been made the first law of each intelligence. Indeed it has been acknowledged
PREFACE.
xi
by a very observant clergyman of the Protestant establishment, that a volume could be filled with the Catholicism of these Protestants. It is to such in particular that this work appeals.
Though it was not our intention to furnish the infidel party with a proof of religion ; such however is the character of Christianity, that we could not view it in any particular respect without being led to recognize its truth in this point of view, or, in other words, its radical identity with the tradition of the human race, the basis of all belief and virtue. To invalidate this basis on a single point, is to destroy it, and, before this plan be adopted, would it not be prudent to reflect deeply on all its conse- quences ?
THE EUCHARIST— THE GENERATIVE DOGMA
OF
CATHOLIC PIETY.
CHAPTER I.
On faith in a Divine presence, and union of God with Man.
Religion, such as it has been conceived in all ages, is based on the belief of a supernatural world. What is more supernatural than God '? The immense, the divine system, of which the present world is only a transient point, does not come within the grasp of our intelligence. Creation and a future life tran- scend the order of things submitted to our investiga- tion. If the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega of existence, are supernatural, why may not there be a similar series of terms destined to form, during the present life, a transition from the one to
2
GERBET ON
the other ? When the first, and last pages of a book contain symbolic characters, should we be astonished to find similar ones on the intermediate pages ? The contrary would be far more surprising.
But what is supernatural with respect to us, is natural in another point of view, if it be considered as it bears on the general plan of divine Providence, in which everything is executed according to the laws of eternal power, wisdom, and love. Each species of intelligent creatures being confined to a particular sphere of existence, the supernatural, relatively to each of these, is only the projection of some laws of a world, superior to that which they inhabit. What- ever proceeds beyond the combinations of the present order, is the means by which this order connects itself with the revolutions of the future.
Thus the general belief in a union of man with God, in a union which constitutes a connecting link between heaven and earth, always implied faith in a divine action, determined according to laws higher than those by which this world is governed, but which, at the same time, enter into the condition of our present existence, for we ourselves must concur in
4
THE EUCHARIST.
3
effecting this union, which results from this two-fold relation which must never be forgotten.
The human race always believed that God was present to man, not merely as the first cause is present to creatures in general, but by a particular mode of relation, suited to his free will, corresponding to his various necessities, descending, if it may be so ex- pressed, into the limits of his being; and, in this sense, a belief in the human presence of the Divinity always prevailed. The God whose name causes the human heart to throb, is not an abstract-geometrical God, holding a relation, only according to the mathematical laws of the universe, with creatures endowed with liberty. In such a system, which reduces the divine action to the mechanism of the universe, nature raises itself up as a wall of brass between man and his Creator. No communion, no active relation, no society of love, exists between them ; and Deism fully developed, is at bottom the absence of the Divinity, as Atheism is its negation.
Such is not the God that tradition, the ancient historian of mankind, proclaims. For it attests that, at the beginning, God established with his creatures
*
4
GERBET ON
a mode of communication * perfectly suited to their two-fold nature- — spiritual and corporal. What does it matter that we cannot clearly comprehend the nature of this communication ? Are our ideas of creation itself more clear ? And who does not perceive that, in every possible hypothesis, the commencement of things is involved in mystery. In rejecting the prodigies of divine goodness, we do not escape a miracle ; we only substitute for them prodigies of a different kind. For what can be imagined, more directly opposed to all authentic facts, than that primitive state dreamed of by philosophy, in which a band of human ourang-outangs, wearied from devouring one another, concluded by summoning into existence society, language and intelligence ; the animal creators of man ? It is not a little remarkable, that there is no medium between the terrestrial paradise, the recollection of which has been so fondly preserved by all the nations of the earth, and the terrestrial hell substituted for it by philosophy. No sooner is faith in divine love rejected, than hatred, in its most hideous form, takes its stand at the cradle of the human race.
THE EUCHARIST.
5
Though the primitive order of divine communica- tion, was impeded by this original crime,* which, as Voltaire remarks, was the basis of all the ancient theology, f nevertheless mankind was convinced that God had not entirely abandoned fallen humanity to itself, and that, though he had ceased to be personally present, he mercifully deigned to be present by his healing action. There is no dogma more universal than that of grace, nor should this be a matter of astonishment ; as it was the conservative dogma of hope. The ancient philosophy of the East represents the celestial genii themselves, celebrating in their hymns the God " who condemns evil works, and who gives efficacious aid to perform good ones. Man has free will ; but it is written in the Veda7i, that works of mercy are always performed by the grace of God." J
Man always prayed, and consequently always believed that there existed a divine-permanent action exercised, not according to the laws of motion, which govern the material world, but according to other laws peculiar to the free motions of the soul. This
* Vide note I. t Quest, on the Encyclop.
Oupnek ' hat, 9, No. 91— Ibid 27.
6
GERBET ON
powerful faith swayed man even when bowed to earth beneath the dominion of his passions. When the slaves of vice supplicated heaven for the false goods they idolized, the instinct of this sacred duty mani- fested itself even in their unhallowed petitions. But whoever sincerely aspired after virtue, implored from on high support for his weakness. The various liturgies of antiquity contain, on this point, many affecting invocations ; and so deeply was this want felt, that the Pagan worship, in one of its most enormous abuses, was, according to Cicero, but a corruption of prayer. " The passions, says he, have been deified, as their effects cannot be restrained otherwise than by divine power."*
When the will of man, borne by an ardent desire, is elevated to the supreme will, the miracle of divine intervention is accomplished. Prayer, " which makes God present to us,"f is a sort of communion by which man nourishes himself with grace, and makes it a
* Quarum omnium rerum quia vis erat tanta, ut sine Deo regi not posset, ipsa res Deorum numen obtinuit. Quo ex genere Cupidinis, et voluptatis Lubentince Veneris vocubala con- secrata sunt. De Nat. Deorum Lib. 11, c. 23. f Origen, De orat. opp. No. 8.
THE EUCHARIST.
7
portion of his spiritual substance. In this ineffable communication, the divine will penetrates our will, its action penetrates our action, that it may produce one and the same indivisible work, which belongs entirely to one as well as the other : astonishing union of grandeur and lowliness ; of an ever fruitful, eternal power, with a created activity whose very duration is but a process of decay ; of the incorruptible and regenerating element with the weak and corruptible elements ofourbeing; which, generally and constantly cherished, though differently understood, from the savage tribe to the most intellectual nations, was, under various forms, the imperishable faith of man- kind. If certain individuals, with whom the senses constitute all intelligence, refuse to believe that prayer is one of the conditions of the life of the soul, what does that moral idiotism prove against the sentiment of all ages ? Instead of recognising, on the faith of general experience, the conditions of the life of the body, shall we wait till it has been demonstated that bread is nutritious ?
As every spiritual act ought, according to the laws of our nature, assume a sensible form, and as this
8
GERBET ON
external realization completes what is properly called the human act, that is to say, the act of the entire man, we find among all nations the same fundamental rite, namely, the rite of oblation, which is, as it were, the body of prayer. By prayer, man adores God as the principle of all existence, the author and preserver of all beings, from whom every living soul receives grace to renew and repair its strength. This great act of adoration was everywhere represented exteriorly by the oblation of the things necessary for the life of the body : an oblation by which they also were referred to God, as to their principle. As man, by the very act of prayer, recognised that God, the principle of life, is the absolute master and supreme Lord of all creatures, so the destruction of the material elements offered to the Deity, indicated that every creature holds its existence under the supreme dominion of the Creator, who can preserve or withdraw the gift as he pleases. For this reason, the ordinary matter of the oblation, consisted in those things which serve as food for man, and particularly in bread and wine, the daily and universal food, the expressive symbol of this spiritual nourishment, of
THE EUCHARIST.
9
which the soul has always and everywhere felt the necessity. Thus oblation was the sensible consum- mation of prayer ; it may be denominated the prayer of the senses, as prayer itself is the oblation of the soul. Mere invocation, separated from it, appeared imperfect ; and, though they could not in every case be united, they were deemed not less intimately connected in their origin.
Prayer, considered in its essence, has a relation to the order of creation. In invoking the divine aid, we implore a continuation of the creative action, of which oblation is the perpetual memorial. These symbols are destined to awaken the remembrance of it, as if God, in teaching the first men the worship which they were to transmit to their posterity, had said to them " Do this in memory of me, and each time that you shall offer these emblems of life you shall announce the living God, who created and preserves all things." Though human nature had not been originally vitiated, prayer would have been the basis of terrestrial worship, because, arising from the essential connexion which exists between the creature and the Creator, it is a law for all intelli-
10
GEXIBET ON
gences. If God is essentially good and happy, his creatures cannot be happy but by freely attaching themselves to him who is the supreme good. Happi- ness, the reward of virtue, is their common condition. But to merit they must combat. Virtue which perfects their being, is the effort by which they conquer the obstacles opposed to its developement. Hence, the activity of all finite intelligence being exhausted in the unceasing struggle against these opposing limits, it requires continually to repair and renew its strength at the source of life, in the same manner as the plant must extract from the bosom of the earth the sap of each day, in order to triumph over the rigour of the seasons which impedes the developement of its vege- tation. Thus prayer, in its essence, is but the sincere acknowledgment of this continual want, the humble desire of this perpetual assistance, and the confession of an indigence that hopes. If the most perfect of the created spirits, even he who shines at the head of the celestial hierarchy, believed that he could exist independently even for a moment, by that alone he would offer to himself a sacrilegious adoration ; and, as the elevation to which he aspired had not humility
THE EUCHARIST.
II
for its basis, he would fall instantly precipitated by pride : whilst the last of those spirits, exiled in the depths of this valley of tears, as in the catacombs of creation, if he hath regulated in his heart the order of his elevation, by ascending from virtue to virtue,* might soar on the wing of humble prayer towards the God of gods, and, without ever attaining his greatness, would approach him unceasingly. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, f this is the language of all creation.
Ever since time came forth from the womb of eternity, prayer has been commensurate with the limits of creation, because wherever God has placed intelligent beings capable of serving him, there are to be found weakness and hope : supplications and acts of thanksgiving respond from sphere to sphere, and the vast universe becomes a great temple. How delightful the reflection that these forms of prayer
* Beatus vir cujus est auxelium abste ; ascensiones in corde suo disposuit, in valle lacoymarum, in loco quern posuit Etenim benedietionem dabit legislator, ibimt de vertute in virtutem : videbitur Deus deovum in Sion. — Psal. lxxxiii, v. 67.
f Iste pauper clamavit, et Dominus exaudivit cum. — Psal. xxxiii. v. 7.
12
GEREET ON
which are lisped in childhood, and which we ourselves repeat without comprehending all their sense and force, are but the translation, into terrestrial language, of the universal hymn which, from every point of space and time, swells towards the God of eternity.
But, if there be a means of salvation analagous to the condition of all intelligences, does not the condi- tion of fallen man demand a particular remedy, corresponding to the corruption of his nature ? Does not the wreck of his being demand a saving hand ? Yes, it is the aspiration of bis broken heart. But this indefinite sentiment, which still leaves him in dark- ness,tends only to make that want more sensible. Light is to be sought elsewhere ; what does tradition proclaim on this point? It tells us that man wants, not only aid to uphold, but also an expiation to purify him, and that prayer without sacrifice is insufficient.
The idea that man could not be saved but by the substitution of a victim, was as general as the idea of God himself, and apparently more general than the practice of simple prayer; for certain tribes have been discovered, in whose worship no trace of vocal prayer
THE EUCHARIST.
13
could be found, but who, in immolating victims prayed by action.
If we ascend to the most remote antiquity, we shall find this faith already in possession of the world. Genesis, which, considered as a mere historical document, offers to us so simple and so touching a picture of the primitive faith and manners, represents it as prevailing even among the children of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, and in a word among all the elder branches of the human family, or, as the Vedali has it, all the great Predecessors. It is now generally admitted that the collection of dogmas and rites, which ancient India presents to the contemplation of modern science, included, in its voluminous details, the belief in one great sacrifice ; and, as the different trains of thought were only considered as the rays of a circle that had religion for its centre, this doctrine of expiation appeared to embody itself, under different forms, in their political constitution, legislation, philosophy, and even in the usages of domestic life. It appeared, among certain primitive nations, at a period prior to all the other monuments of their religious belief. In examining
14
GERBET ON
the radical characters of the most ancient writing
extant, we would be tempted to believe that those who
first used them had no worship, if, among the signs
which relate to the physical necessities, one was not
discovered that directly refers to religion, and this
sign was that of sacrifice.* The Persian cosmogony
says that the ancestors of the human race, Meschia
and Meschiane, after being seduced by the
author of evil, immolated a lamb, a portion of
which was received into heaven, f Thus the solemn
sacrifice was always deemed the most august act,
containing, in an eminent degree, the virtue of all
the other parts of worship. An idea not less universal
is accurately represented, though under a different
form, by this ancient Chinese sentence : — " The
recital of all the pieces of Che-King is not equivalent
to a single oblation ; the oblation is much inferior to
the acceptation ; the acceptation is inferior to the
worship offered on the mountains ; and all combined
are infinitely beneath the sacrifice offered to Chang-ty
by the son of Heaven. "t
* Vide the memoirs of Abel Remusat, torn. 11, p. 37. f Bouen-Dehesch, Tom. 11 of Zend-Avesta, p. 379. £ Life of Confucius, Tom. xii. Memoirs by the Missionaries of Pekin, page 209.
THE EUCHARIST.
15
This great idea of expiation, realized in sacrifice, embodies itself under a form that contrasts as much with oblation, the expression of simple prayer, as the state of the human race subject to sin and death contrasts with the primitive state of innocence and immortality. A worship sombre as justice itself succeeded the peaceful worship, which would have been always that of man, had he remained faithful to the order established by the first love.* In the oblation we see the symbols of life : in the sacrifice, the living being is condemned, and its death is the figure of another death. The flesh, separated from the blood, is the awful emblem of the idea concealed in this mysterious action. What relation could exist between the immolation of an animal and the remission of sins — this was a mystery to man. Did the vile blood of the victims, that fell beneath the sacred knife, possess the virtue of purifying the conscience? Never did such an absurdity prevail in the world. But mankind firmly believed in what was represented by these sacrifices. All they knew was that they were the types of a divine mystery of * Dante.
16
GEKBET ON
justice and grace ; and the voice of hope arose, during four thousand years, from the depths of that mystery which futurity was to unveil.
The deists, in demonstrating that the efficacy of prayer and sacrifice cannot be established by mere reasoning, prove what is attested by tradition, namely, that this faith has not originated in human conception. The more clearly they establish that the principle of these dogmas cannot be found either in the sphere of experience, or in that of reasoning, the more evident it becomes that a belief in dogmas as ancient, and as widely diffused as mankind, could not have existed, if they had not been primitively revealed ; so that the insoluble difficulties against the purely rational theory of these dogmas, have infinite force in establishing the divine origin of that faith. If worship, the expression of these general tenets, be only a vain phantasmagoria, these tenets themselves must be an eternal chimera, and, in the midst of this universal dream, I should like to know, how those who reject belief in sacrifice could prove to a consistent mind that it ought to believe in God.
TFTG EUCHARIST.
37
CHAPTER II. Ancient Communion,
The study of antiquity leads from every point to this truth, that there existed on the earth but one religion, of which the local forms were originally but emanations more or less pure. Besides the striking uniformity of these systems of belief, certain fundamental rites, extraordinary in their nature, and yet common to all, render this unity of origin visible through the space of six thousand years, and the more so as we can find nothing in the constitution of the human mind, that can explain this constant universality. Among these rites, one of the most remarkable is com- munion, which was always the consummation of the offering and sacrifice.
B
lb
GERBET ON
Struck by the similarity of the Jewish rites with those of other nations, certain philosophers and theologians deduced, from this as well as from many other points, consequences diametrically opposed. The former inferred that the Jews borrowed their worship from the Gentiles; the latter, that the Gentile worship was only an imitation of the ceremonies established by Moses. But it is absurd to imagine a secondary derivation, when the very antiquity of these customs, which are found from the first ages to have been established among the more ancient nations, supposes a common derivation, prior to the formation of particular societies. We gather this even from the book of Genesis. "It is no longer doubtful among us, says Pelisson, that all false religions have been derived from the true one, and that the sacrifices of paganism have originated in those enjoined on the first men, of which Abel and Cain afford us an example ; sacrifices which were but the figure and the type of a great sacrifice in which God was to immolate himself for us. The flesh of victims was eaten throughout the world: in all nations the
THE EUCHARIST.
19
sacrifice which terminated in this way, was regarded as a solemn feast of man with God ; hence it occurs that we find very frequently, in the old pagan poets, the banquet of Jupiter, and the viands of Neptune, used to signify the victims which were eaten after they had been immolated in honor of these false divinities ; and though the J ews had holocausts, that is sacrifices in which the victim was entirely consumed in honor of the Deity, they were accompanied by the offering of a cake, so that in these sacrifices there might be something of which man could partake." *
The theology of India has associated this tradi- tional rite to its vast conceptions. 4 'AH nourish- ment is deemed to be a sacrifice. The nourish- ment of the body is emblematic of that of the soul, viz. the holy truth, — the celestial manna. Wherefore food was to be taken with devotion, in a state of sweet recollection, the soul free from terrestrial cares and absorbed in the delights of an innocent joy. Thus religion gave laws even to festivals. We communicate with the divinity through the * Treatise on the Eucharist, page 182 — Paris 1694,
GEUBET on
medium of the oblation presented to it. It is only on consecrated food that the Hindoo lives. He has a horror of all animal food, that has not been offered to the Divinity. Such are, in substance, the fundamental principles of the doctrine regarding sacrifices in India." * To cite but an example, one of the most celebrated sacrifices, which con- sisted in the immolation of a lamb, was accompanied by a prayer, in which these words were repeated aloud : TFhen shall the Saviour be born ? This symbolical ceremony terminated by partaking of the flesh of the victim, and so sacred was the character of this participation, that the law which bound the Bramins to perpetual abstinence, yielded to that superior law which prescribed communion, f We find a similar custom among the Egyptians, who eat, in their principal sacrifices, the flesh of animals which on other occasions they held in abhorrence. Herodotus, who remarks this apparent contradiction, says that he had learned the reason of it ; but, in
* The Catholic by Baron D'Eckstein. f Letters of the Abb£. P. Bouchet to Huet, Tom. xi of edifying, Letters p. 21.
THE EUCHARIST.
21
order that he might not profane the secrets which had been confided to him, he veils it in a religious silence. *
In the ancient mysteries of Mithras, which finally prevailed through a considerable portion of the Roman Empire, St. Justin f and Tertullianf inform us, that bread and a vessel full of water, over which a mysterious form of prayer was recited, were placed before the initiated ; and this species of consecration was also followed by communion. § We learn from the Zends books, that a similar ceremony was deemed an essential part of the Persian worship. The offerings of bread, meat, and fruit, in which the priest and people par- ticipated at the end of the sacred ceremony, were designated by the name of Miezd. It would be difficult to imagine any thing more solemn than the prayers and benedictions which preceded and followed this- rite.^f The holy spirits supposed to preside over the different parts of the universe and the conduct of men, as well as the souls of the just,
* Hist of Herodotus, Lib. 11. f Apology.
% Prescriptions, c. 40. § Vide note 11. IF Vide note 11L.
22
GERBET ON
from the Father of the human race down to Sosioch, a name which the Zends books give to the expected Redeemer, were all invoked for that oblation. And, as the reversibility of merit was universally believed, a special prayer is contained in the same books, by which the priest, according to his private intention, applied the benefit of that holy action to other men. Purity was deemed a necessary disposition for participating in the obla- tion. The liturgy proclaimed : " The pure ordain the oblation, the pure ministers have performed it, and the pure partake of it." Then the Celebrant said to his attendant : "Man of the law, eat this Miezd, and perform this action with purity." The Zends books extol its efficacy in pompous terms. Ormusd, who from the beginning dwelleth in increated light, had instituted and celebrated the Miezd with the celestial spirits in his splendid man- sion. To this ceremony the religion of the Persians adds another, emblematic of the same idea, and to which it attaches the same importance. The great Ormusd, in the beginning, created the tree of life. That symbolical tree, called Horn, grows in
THE EUCHARIST.
23
waters of a pure and vivifying source which flows from the throne of Oramsd himself. It banishes death, it will effect the resurrection, and impart life to the blessed. They consecrate it by a form of prayer similar to that of the Miezd ; and eleva- ting they invoke it, because it exalts piety and science. After having extracted the juice, which is received in a sacred cup, they drink it, for it is said, that whosoever shall drink this juice shall not die. Thus the two principal ceremonies of worship, so closely united, are also linked with the mystical idea of a communion which consists in being nourished by sacred bread, and in drinkmg what the Zend Avesta terms the liquor of life.*
Among the Chinese the same rite presents itself in the sacrifices of an inferior order offered to the souls of the just, as may be seen in that which is celebrated in honor of Confucius. The priest after having buried in the earth the blood of the victim, offers to Confucius a vessel full of wine which he
* Zend-Avesta, Vendidad Sad6, Tom. 1, part II, passim..
24
GERBET ON
immediately pours on a man of straw, and addresses this prayer to the tablet: "Your virtues, O Confucius, are excellent and admirable. Your doctrine teaches Kings how to rule. The offerings which we present to you are pure. May your spirit descend on us ; may it enlighten us by its presence." After the prayer, all the assistants kneel, and remain in that posture for some time. The priest himself, after having washed his hands, also kneels : then the voices and musical instruments steal upon the ear. He takes from the hands of one of the assistants a basin in which there is a piece of silk, elevating with both hands he offers it to Confucius. He performs a like ceremony with a vessel full of wine. Whilst they burn the piece of silk on a pan set apart for that use, the Cele- brant recites a prayer similar to the preceding. After many reverences, he takes again in his hands the vessel full of wine, and recites another prayer addressed to the spirit of Confucius. Then he says : Drink the wine of happiness and joy. He commands them to kneel. Whilst he says, Drink the wine of joy, the Celebrant drinks the wine
THE EUCHARIST.
25
that is in the vessel presented to him. He offers to Confucius the flesh of the victims, which are afterwards distributed among the assistants. Each was persuaded that, by such a participation, he became entitled to the favour of Confucius."*
The worship of the Greeks and Romans is too well known to require that we should enter into any details on this subject. It is generally admitted that besides the custom of feeding on the flesh of the victims, the former used, in their sacrifices, cakes made of fine flour and honey ; the latter, a paste made of fine flour and salt, which they called immolatio, to this were added libations of wine, which were not poured on the head of the victims till the celebrant and assistants had received a portion of them.
In the solemn sacrifice which the Celts offered at the beginning of every year, the three most ancient Druids carried, one bread, the other a vessel full of water, and the third an ivory hand representing justice. After some prayers, the
* Parallel of Religions. Tom. 1, page 420.
26
GEHBET ON
high-priest burned a little of the bread, poured on the altar some drops of wine, offered the bread and wine in sacrifice, and then distributed them to the assistants.*
The Germans, f Scandinavians, J and Finns, § conformed to the universal rite; and it appears that the practice of pagan communion was preser- ved, down to the end of the sixteenth century, in Sama-gotia, as well as in several parts of Lithuania. Ismaelismhas preserved a sacrifice commemorative of that of Abraham, which it celebrates with great mag- nificence : and in this festival, the most solemn of all, the mysterious ceremony, on which the consum- mation of the sacrifice depends, is also observed, though one of its circumstances is contrary to the prohibitions of the Koran. ^]
As to the Americans, we shall only cite the example of the two great nations, Mexico and Peru, which may be termed the east of the new world. 1 4 The
* Parallel of Religious, Tom. i, Part II, Page 80. f Vide note iv. J Suhn, odin Tom iii, P. 181.
§ Vide research on the ancient Finns. H Vide note v.
THE EUCHARIST.
'27
article of communion has been most clearly recorded by all their writers. It was practiced in Mexico especially ; where the priests made a statue from the dough of Indian corn which was afterwards baked. This was the representative of their idol. On a certain day of the year it was exposed, with much ceremony, to the veneration of the faithful, and no one dared to absent himself from the temple. It was carried about in procession, and when it was borne back to the temple, the Papa broke, and the priest distributed it to the people, who eat of ity and believed themselves sanctified by such a participation. We see the same rite diffused among many of the ancient nations of our hemisphere.
But we cannot omit alluding to another rite of the Peruvian priests. They offered in sacrifice bread made of Indian corn together with a vinous liquor extracted from it. They commenced bv eating this bread, then, dipping one of then* fingers in the liquor, and raising then- eyes to heaven, they made an aspersion in the air, with the liquid they had on their finger : and having done this they drank
28
GERBET ON
in honor of the Sun. It is not improbable that this bread and this vinous substance, were made of the Indian corn which grew in the gardens of the temples, and which was esteemed sacred. However tins may be, it is certain that this bread and wine were made by the consecrated virgins. The bread was called Cancu, and the liquor Aca, and were never used save in the great festivals of Eayami and Cittua*
This fundamental rite completes the unity of primitive worship, the scheme of which then becomes.fully developed. According to the univer- sal belief, God, who, in the beginning, was personally present to man, continued to be so only by grace to fallen man. But how was a par- ticipation in divine grace to be effected ? By prayer accompanied with oblation, and hi virtue of an expiation prefigured by sacrifice. But even this imion had an exterior form which consisted in the participation of the food consecrated by oblation, and the flesh of victims. Thus a communion in
* American Letters of Carle, Tom. 1, Pages 154 and 155.
THE EUCHARIST. 29
grace, at the same time spiritual and corporal, invisible in its essence, and visibly manifested, such was the centre to which the leading tenets of all nations tended, such the point of reunion — the vital principle of universal worship.*
It would be impossible to understand this primi- tive worship, without viewing each part in relation to the whole. This order of mystical ideas typified by corporal communion, was connected with a deep religious symbolism, according to which all the elements of the material were only the representatives of the invisible world. An immense colossal spiri- tualism rises before us ; even in the first ages of the world. Originating in the dogmas of tradition it shewed itself in all the ancient systems of the human race. At the epoch subsequent to the deluge, we see for example, in India, the ruins of a primitive science perfectly spiritual in its essence. These indeed are only ruins ; but yet they are nobler than our creations. Dimly seen through the vista of former ages, these intellectual pyramids would
* Vide Note VI.
30
GERBET ON
appear by their enormous proportions to oversha- dow the systems of modern invention. Spirituality was then the primitive state : it bore the venerable character of age when materialism received its birth. If man had been but the creature of mere sensation, it would have been impossible, judging by all the known laws of the human mind, that, in the interval which separates the period of which we now speak, from that which the traditions of all nations point out as the birth of our species, he could have raised himself, from a state scarcely superior to that of apes, to a spiritualism which embraced the universe, and disposed in harmonious and corresponding Cycles the various orders of ideas. With these facts before us, do you suppose that man, abandoned to himself, a wandering savage, commenced his career by spirituality ? Such an hypothesis is an evident absurdity. Look at the savages, who are already hi a more favourable position from being born in a sort of society, and receiving there, some degree of education: though initiated, by the language they are taught, in some general spiritual ideas, they remain, in every other respect, the slaves
THE EUCHARIST.
31
of the grossest materialism. The animal stupidity from which they cannot free themselves by their own energy, furnishes an irrefragable argument against this fanciful philosophy, not less contrary, in other respects, to the necessary progress of the human mind. For, as Hume remarks, it would be absurd that, in the intellectual order, man should have invented palaces before cottages. Two things are then certain: man commenced by spiritualism, and man, excluded from all communication with other intelligences, would have commenced by materialism. Hence arises the necessity of a pri- mitive revelation, which indeed would be the most philosophical conception, even though it had not been the universal belief. * The more deeply we shall examine the character of the ancient world, viewing it in relation with the established laws of the human mind, the more this great truth will become evident. The truly catholic philosophy, to which at the present day all the labours of the learned are contributing, sometimes unconsciously, will in developing itself, scatter to the winds, the * Vide note vii
32
GERBET ON
sterile dust of abstractions, and exhibit the ancient faith crowned with all the rays of science. Already the science even of the infidel school, astonished at its own discoveries, which overthrow at the same time the fanciful theories of idiology and materialism, has begun to suspect that tliere are more things between heaven and earth than its philosophy has dreamed of. *
* Shakspea,re,
THE EUCHARIST.
33
chapter nr.
Developement of the Primitive Religion— personal presence of the Deity — C7iristian Communion.
Though the primitive religion recognised, as we have seen, a certain intercourse between God and man, yet the human race aspired to a more perfect union. The recollection of an original soci'ety still more perfect had been preserved, and the same tradition had perpetuated the hope, that a more endearing union would be established by the Saviour universally expected. Thus the belief of a Godj present only by grace, could never satisfy the yearning desire of man for a closer union with his Creator. It was partly to the energy of this desire that idolatry owed its existence ; for every vicious practice is but the perversion of a sentiment originally good, as c
3-1
GERBET ON
error, according to the remark of Bossuet, is but the abuse of truth. Hence the consecration of statues that the Divinity might reside corporally therein ; hence the strong propensity to theurgy, so violent in all the pagan nations, hence also the disposition to recognise in illustrious personages some incarnate divinity. This divine instinct shewed itself, in every part of the universe, under various forms, and the public worship, even in the superstious practices amalgamated with it, was to a certain degree the prophetic yearning of mankind, seeking every where a personal presence of the divinity.
J esus Christ appears, the aspirations of the moral world are at length satisfied, its expectations realized. This faith in the real presence was immediately productive of two remarkable effects, bearing on the point before us, the one in the bosom of Christianity itself, the other in the pagan world. Among the christians, the universal rage for divination, sorcery, and magical rites, ceased on a sudden. It was not only the external practices that gave way before the rigorous laws of the Church, but even the propensity, till then so furious and indomitable, was stilled in
THE EUCHARIST.
35
the human heart, and was succeeded by a profound calm, indicating that a great want had been satisfied. Beyond the pale of the Church, the same belief reacted on pagan philosophy. The latter perceiving that Christianity, in announcing the personal presence of the Deity, had satisfied the perpetual desire of man- kind, recognised the necessity, in order to maintain some sway over the mind, of promising a similar boon. But as by the most elaborate abstractions, it could have produced nothing better than an abstract Deity, and as in truth it had produced nothing real but incertitude and doubt, it now assumed a perfectly new character. From rational which it had been, it became mystical and theurgical ; and the famous school of Alexandria, at that time the nursery of pagan philosophy, could only oppose to the mysteries of the Gospel a sort of theological alchymy, which vanished, like a vision of the night, before the ascendancy of the ancient faith fully displayed in the glories of Christianity.
The superiority of the Christian religion properly so called over the primitive religion, consists princi- pally in uniting us more closely with the Deity. God
36
GEKBEf ON
could not communicate with man without imparting a more intimate knowledge of himself ; hence the developement of truth. He could not impart this intimate knowledge of himself without being loved more perfectly ; hence again the developement of the law of love, and of all morality, fully comprehended in the precept of charity. It followed then as a necessary consequence, that religious worship should receive the degree of perfection suited to it. If the most august act of the Christian worship was only a memorial of the Saviour's death, as the most solemn sacrifice of the ancient worship was its emblem, if the one announced but the mere remembrance, as the other expressed but the hope, the two would consti- tute but mere figures, the one of the past, the other of the future, but both equally void; so that Religion having been developed in all its other parts, and that developement being a consequence of the real pre- sence of the Deity, had religious worship alone remained in its primitive state of imperfection, it would have stopped short of the reality. The momentous event, which constitutes the difference of the two Epochs, is necessarily the arch-stone of a
THE EUCHARIST.
37
new order, all the parts of which should be propor- tionally superior, as they relate to the corresponding parts of the preceding order, which was only the model ; and whereas the incarnation is the substan- tial union of the divine and human nature, however mysterious to our feeble intelligence as yet in its infancy, it was natural that the worship, determined by that fundamental fact, should be the medium of a union with God, less perfect than it wiil be when the shades of faith shall have given place to the unclouded vision of truth itself, but as close as it can be in this enigmatical world, where man is less susceptible of light than of love.
Such has been at all times the belief of the univer- sal Church, a belief founded on the words of Christ himself — that he was and would be always present to the regenerated world even to the consummation of time, though in an invisible manner — and that such a permanent presence constituted the vital principle of Christianity. It does not enter into our present plan to demonstrate the perpetuity of Catholic tradition ; this is indeed the less necessary as it is no longer contested by all consistent protestants, who
38
GERBET ON
have been forced, by the principle of mental indepen- dence, to represent to themselves that variation and change of belief is one of the essential characteristics of the true religion, and to reject catholicity merely because its fundamental principle is to believe what has been always and every where believed. But, if the rule of faith, the great preservative of dogmas, is immutably one, the dogmas considered in themselves present the same grand character of unity, particularly in every part that relates to the divine presence.
Mankind believed that God was present by grace : but what is grace ? It is an aid given man enabling him to regain the state in which he was created, renovating, because it relates to fallen man, and consequently purely gratuitous. It is in another point of view, a continuation of the creative action. Since the incarnation of the Word, the Church has believed in the real presence of Christ ; but what is the real presence, but the incarnation perpetuated? The dogma of the Eucharist is as naturally and inti- mately connected with the order of ideas which is based on the Incarnation, as is the dogma of grace with the more general order of ideas, though funda-
THE EUCHARIST.
m
mentally the same, which has for its basis the restora- tion of rational beings according to the primitive plan of the creation. It is uniformly a belief in the actual presence of the Deity, but under two different modes, having the same mutual relation as the two fundamental facts by which they are determined ; for the real presence is to the mere divine action, or grace, precisely what the Incarnation is to the will of assisting fallen man. The generative term of the union of God with man having changed, the fruits are different ; but, in both cases, the proportion is preserved. Thus all the mysteries of love are inter- woven with each other, or rather they are the progressive accomplishment of the same merciful design, of which the eucharistic union is the last terrestrial compliment : how beautiful the harmony which presents, under so magnificent an aspect, to the reason of man, this mystery which is also the tenet of his heart, being the purest and sweetest of his consolations.
The error of those who reject the real presence is, in relation to Christianity fully developed, what the system of the ancient Philosophers, who denied the
40
GERBET ON
dogma of grace, was to primitive Christianity : an error which the Pelagians sought to combine with christian ideas. By creation, said the former, we receive from God all that constitutes man, what necessity for a new divine action ? By the union of the Word with human nature, said the latter, we received all that constitutes the christian, what necessity for a new union with God ? The first did not understand that man stood in need of a commu- nion in divine grace to maintain the life of the soul, or to practice the primeval law. The second are still ignorant that a communion in the divine substance of the incarnate Word, is necessary to possess the plenitude of life, and to attain the high perfection of the evangelical Law, which is the end and consummation of the former. But when they suppose that, in recognising the necessity whe- ther of grace, or of the eucharistic communion, injury is done the Creator or Redeemer, they forget that the Eucharistic] communion is the means by which the permament incarnation is individualized in every christian, as grace is the means by which the divine permanent power operates in a particular
THE EUCHARIST.
41
manner in every man, and thus, so far from detrac- ting from the creative power, or from the renovating influence of the incarnation, nothing is better fitted to give a more 'exalted notion of them, than this continual want of participating in them, as nothing is more capable to inspire us with a lively sentiment of the infinite love they reveal, than this inexhaustible communication of both one and the other. Hence the beautiful expression of Bourdaloue, rigourously true with respect to grace, but supereminently so with respect to the Eucharist, or grace by excel- lence : God exalts himself by this infinite con- descension.
The analogies which have been just noticed show how Protestantism, in setting out with a denial of the catholic dogma of the Eucharist, has proceeded step by step, to reject the dogma of grace, the foun- dation of all religion; and this progress of Protestan- tism confirms in turn the accuracy of these analogies* For the history of doctrines is by no means a vain phe- nomenon. Their external connexion shadows forth the internal association of ideas, and gives a palpable form to their logic. The three leaders of the reform-
42
GERBET ON
ation marshaled against catholic mysticism, assail each from his ground, the belief in the sacrament of love. Luther mutilates and denaturalizes it; Calvin, by veiling under equivocal expressions the substance of his doctrine, annihilates it. Less cunning, but more enterprising, Zuinglius lifts the veil. The first effect of their common doctrine was that the Refor- mation exhibited a worship divested of sacrifice, and was thus placed without the pale of Religion, such as it has been conceived in all ages. Shortly, by a natural consequence, Socianinism, following up the work of destruction, assailed the dogma of the real presence, in the incarnation itself, as well as the fundamental idea of sacrifice by attacking the redemption. Though ancient Protestantism had struggled some time against the ascendancy of socinian doctrines, the latter however have prevailed. Save in the old liturgies, they are to be met with in all the writings of the reformers. Faith in prayer and grace, the last link that binds man to God, still survived amid the wreck of these crumbling doc- trines. But the rationalists of Germany * betray a
* Among others, Eberhard, Tuukeim, Spalding, Veigscheider, &c.
/
THE EUCHARIST.
43
marked tendency to hold up this belief as a ridiculous superstition, irreconcilable with the laws of nature. Thus, as the reformation advances, the living worship retires, a desert expands around it, and, in this moral waste where all the sources of love are dried up, prayer, even prayer, which springs up wherever a particle of faith remains, withers and dies beneath the blighting influence of Rationalism.
One of the most celebrated doctors of ancient Protestantism demanded what connexion could exist between faith in the real presence and faith in prayer. He took credit to himself that he could not under- stand it, and indeed what is it these men have understood ? The history of their own doctrine fully developed confounds their presumptuous ignorance. It shows that the germ of Catholic mysticism exists in faith in prayer. In truth, whoever admits that a simple act of the human will effects a change in the spiritual or material order of the universe, and that God obeys the voice of man, he makes a most profoudly mystical act of faith, as it bears a relation to an order of things entirely beyond the sphere of his * Larrogue — Hist, of the Euch, p. 41.
44
GERBET ON
reasoning and sensation; and hence he is inconsistent, if, retaining a belief on this point, he refuses it on any other, under the pretext that it transcends the sphere of his senses or the conception of his reason. Here then we have one of the causes that will make Protestantism disappear as a religion, at a period which cannot be very remote. Its destiny impels it, with an irresistible force, to resolve itself into pure rationalism, for, if the reason of each individual is absolute, it ought admit nothing but what it clearly conceives. Rationalism, in turn, will abolish faith in prayer, because it is essentially indemonstrable. Now, prayer once destroyed, form if you can the notion of a religion ?
Catholicism, on the contrary, maintains its belief in the real presence and communion in the substance of the Word made flesh, by an act of faith essentially similar to that by which the presence of God through his action, and communion in grace by means of prayer have been at all times believed. Catholicism also maintains, in virtue of the same principle, the faith of all ages in divine communications, rendered more perfectby the effects of the incarnation. To reject
THE EUCHARIST.
4-5
the Catholic doctrine, either we must discard the faith of antiquity, by denying that God was present to man in a particular manner, conformable to his nature, that is to say, in a human manner, or we must suppose that this union of God with man, which has ever been the foundation of religion, was not designed to be perfected ; in other words, that the ancient worship was not designed to give place to a more excellent one ; which inference would be directly opposed to the primitive traditions, that were the very vehicles of this faith in a future developement.
Christianity, in another and not less fundamental point, has realized the general expectation. The ancient worship prophetically shadowed forth, as we have seen, that a great atonement was at hand, and though the notion of it was somewhat confused, yet its essential traits naturally showed themselves in the general belief. Its symbolical rites however various were mutually connected only by the myste- rious relation they bore to it, as the different shades cast by a body form but one and the same shadow. The regenerating sacrifice. from which all other sacri- fices derive their value, ought to bear that impress of
46 GERBET ON
unity which characterizes God himself, to whom ever)' creature is indebted for existence. What does Christianity proclaim on this point ? " For there is one God, and one mediator of God and man, * the man Christ Jesus. For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."! Again this expiation ought to be universal, for, according to the faith of the human race, God opens not to one only but to all nations the bosom of his mercy. What is the doctrine of Christianity on this subject ? " Christ died for all,'! for there is no respect of persons with God."§ But if the all powerful efficacy of this sacrifice was to pervade every place, it was but a natural consequence that the hope of pardon emana- ting from it should be limited only by the consumma- tion of time. God never commanded man to despair, and the abandoned are no longer of this world. Never,
* Unus enimDeus, unus et mediator Dei et hominum, homo Christus Jesus. Epist. ad Timott., cap. ii, c. 5.
f Una enim oblatione consummavit in sempiternum sanctifi- catos. Epist. ad Hebr. cap. x. v. 14.
% Pro omnibus mortuus est Christus, 2d Epist. ad Corinth, cap. v., v. 15.
§ Non est enim acceptio personarum apud Deum, Ad Rom» cap. 11, 2.
THE EUCHARIST.
47
at any period of time, not even when the gulph of
iniquity opened widest and deepest, was it believed
that divine mercy had stopped in its course, like to
a river which loses itself in an abyss ; and as this
sacrifice the presentiment of which was so universal,
proved for mankind the inexhaustible source of grace,
so it was meet that this expiation should be the means
of salvation both for those who had expected by faith
its exterior realization, as well as for those who were
destined to know its accomplishment. Such was the
necessary consequence of the primitive symbol,
Christianity proclaimed it. " All these died according
to faith, not having received the promises, but
beholding them afar off, and saluting them, and
confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on
the earth.* Finally, the sacrifice being destined to
satisfy infinite justice, and the merits of all creatures
bearing no proportion to that infinite satisfaction, it
was necessary that the victim should be both divine
and human ; human to suffer, divine to satisfy. Thus
* Juxta fidem defuncti sunt omnes isti, non acceptis repro- messionibus sed a longe eas aspicientes, et salutantes et confitentes quia peregriai ethospites sunt super tenum. Ad Heb. cap. 11, v. 13.
48
GERBET ON
the belief in a man-God, of which very many striking traces are found in antiquity, was comprehended, though imperfectly, in the general desire of an efficacious expiation. * This mystery, hidden in the bosom of all ages, was unveiled by Christianity. " For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth,f and upholding all things by the word of his power." J Wherefore when he comethinto the world, he saith, sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not ; but a body thou hast fitted to me ; holocausts for sin did not please thee ; then said I, behold I come ; making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things on earth and the things in heaven. § When Christianity proclaimed the consummation of the one, universal, perpetual, eminently holy and divine Sacrifice, not an accent of surprise was heard throughout the world; as if mankind recognized in this
* Vide note 8.
t Omnia per ipsum et en ipso creata sunt.-— Ad. Coloss,, cap. 1., v. 16.
J Portansque omnia verbo virtutis suse. — Ad. Heb., cap. 1, v. 3.
§ Ingrediens mundum, dixit, hostiam et oblationem noluisti, corpus autem aptasti mibi : holocautomata pro peccato non tibi placuesuxit : tune dixi : Ecce venio. — ad Heb. ii, 5.
THE EUCHARIST.
49
dogma its recollections and its hopes. In the same way as the idea of God, or a necessary being, accounts for the existence of all other beings, so does the notion of the Christian sacrifice account for all the ancient ones. It explains to us how man hoped he might be saved by the substitution of a victim ; why the world believed, previously to its having been proclaimed by St. Paul, that without the effusion of blood there was no remission of sin ; why the animals mystically devoted should be pure ; why by an error fatal indeed, but bearing the impress of the truth which it abused, human sacrifice could appear necessary ; why all these expiations were deemed insufficient ; finally why mankind, doomed to die, sought even in the bosom of death salvation and life. The cross of the Saviour has solved all these astonishing problems ; it explains the faith of man- kind, as the existence of God explains the world.
Catholicism, in accordance with the tradition of all ages, admits that sacrifice is the supreme act of adoration, but that religious worship having ceased to be merely emblematical, since Christ substituted reality for figure, this rite, ever existing, has become
D
50
GERBET ON
and shall continue to the end the very form of the eternal sacrifice. And as all the rays of universal worship are seen to converge in sacrifice, so in the Christian sacrifice, the different parts of worship substantially reunited, are all raised to the highest degree of perfection. The primitive worship of mankind was based on prayer. It still continues to be the basis of Christian worship ; but when the priest, who is a mortal and a sinner, presents to God the petitions of his brethren assembled around the altar, it is not man who prays, it is the invisible and eternal Pontiff " always living to make intercession for us ; holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens."* Who, uniting our supplications to his, as he united our nature to his, gives a divine efficacy to the humble supplications of our misery. Oblation also constituted a part of the universal and ancient worship ; it still exists under the same form, and in bread and wine are offered up the first fruits of the viands on which we subsist. But in the far more spiritual worship of Christianity there only remains a mystical veil of * Ad. Heb. chap, vii., v. 26.
THE EUCHARIST.
51
these material elements suited to our present condi- tion, through which the divine Word imparts himself to us, the eternal bread which nourishes our souls languishing for the ever living truth, the celestial drink which begins to slake within us the infinite thirst of love. The immolation of typical victims was the most solemn act of primitive worship ; immolation yet remains ; but, the reign of figures having ceased on Calvary, Christ himself is the victim. The theandric flesh and blood are present under separate signs, in memory of his death, and at the same time under the form of bread and wine, the emblems of life, because life was restored to us by his death. The elements of oblation and those of the bloody sacrifice, of which the former were the memorial of creation, the latter the image of redemp- tion, and which were always separate in the primitive worship, are united and identified in the Christian sacrifice, because redemption is creation repaired. Finally the different parts of the ancient worship tended to a communion in the grace of God, repre- sented by the participation of the food consecrated by oblation, and in the flesh of victims. The
52
GERBET ON
consummation of the Christian worship is an act of the same nature, but of a superior order constituted by the incarnation which has ennobled all religion. Christian communion is not a mere participation in grace, but in the very substance of the man-God, becoming incarnate in each of us, in order to purify and nourish our souls. It is the union with God raised, if it may be so said, to the highest degree that can be attained within the limits of the present order; beyond this is heaven. For if in the union of the divine substance with ours, God proportionably changed our intelligence into his, and our will into his love, " We would see him face to face," we would love him with a love proportioned to that unclouded vision : heaven is nothing else than that. Let us wait a little, the transfiguration is fast approach- ing. This terrestrial life is but the infancy of man. As the child inhales the streams of life, and by natural instinct cleaves the maternal bosom, before it has opened its eyes to the light of day, thus man is nourished at the bosom of God before he can behold him face to face. Such is the universal order of Providence ; for the union of intelligence and will
THE EUCHARIST.
53
is invariably preceded by a substantial union. But shortly the child knows the authors of his being as he is known by them, and becomes identified with them in affection. Thus when we shall have passed from this world as from a cradle, the union, commenced on the earth shall be consummated in heaven, and God, penetrating all our being, by his power, his light, and his love, shall be in us and we in him, according to the plenitude of his attributes and the capabilities of our nature.
The eucharistic communion is something interme- diate between the union with the Deity granted to the just of old in this land of banishment, and that which the saints enjoy in the celestial City. More highly favoured than the former, we participate not only in grace, but in the substance of the incarnate Word, as the saints in heaven. But less happy than the latter, as yet we only see God through a veil, or enigmatically according to St. Paul. In this respect we are in the state of the ancient just, which is the condition of all men, during their sojourn in this world of shades and images, which is only relieved by a darkling day according to the remark of the
GEKBET ON
ancients. A union with the Divinity has ever been the principle of love ; but it has been developed in different degrees. Without losing the character of luiiformity, it has more profoundly penetrated human nature, since the incarnation which has established between God and man more intimate communica- tions ; as in the same way, without injury to this uniformity it will receive a boundless expansion, when the bonds which fetter it here below shall have fallen at the portals of the heavenly country. Thus the divine work is progressing to its accomplishment: all the developements which religion receive here below are but the transition from the temporal to the eternal order.
THE EUCHARIST.
55
CHAPTER IV.
The idea of the Eucharist according to Catholic Doctrine.
Catholicism is the universal belief, not in an abstract, but in a real and effective presence of God with man. God is really present to our intelligence by his word, of which general tradition is but the prolonged echo through the vast space of ages. He is really present to our will by grace, of which external worship is the permanent organ. Hence, through the medium of man's free concurrence, arises a union with God, who is the ultimate object of his existence, as well as that of all beings. Going forth from God to people the universe, he recalls them into the infinite bosom of his eternity, to be all in all: such, according to the belief of antiquity, were the last words of creation,
56
GERBET OJT
The spirits that departed from the pale of primi- tive Catholicism followed two different directions. The one setting out with the idea of God, and, endeavouring to discover the secret of creation, conceived a union of each individual being with God, similar to that which exists between modification and the substance modified ; thus making man one of the imiunierable forms of the Divinity, The other restricting themselves to man, sought to find in him the reason of all ; but as a contingent and limited being does not contain within itself the reason of any thing, not even of its own existence, these entirely lost sight of the truth, and scepticism was the result of their feeble researches. Such are the two extreme points to which the rationalism of antiquity, whether in India or Greece, conducted. With the sceptic, man was but the shadow of a being, with the pantheist, be was the supreme being. From these two doctrines emanated two corresponding orders of sentiments. Scepticism, which, in annihilating intelligence, suffers only an animal activity to exist, plunged man into a sensual life, whilst ideal pantheism absorbed even the senses themselves in the delirium of perpe- tual ecstacy.
THE EUCHARIST.
57
Equally remote from these absurdities, primitive Catholicism sustained during four thousand years the reason and the heart of man, by faith in a union with God, which, without degrading, admonished him of his weakness, and, without inspiring an equality, fixed him in the place which eternal order had assigned him. Bereft of that guiding faith, this anxious and feeble creature, hurried along on the waves of time, would have inevitably perished on one or other of these rocks — pride or despair. It is particularly since the preaching of the Gospel that the salutary influence of this leading dogma of Catholicism, the genuine polar star of mankind, has been more clearly seen and deeply felt.
Christ is the truth personally residing among men. Cotemporary with Christ, the Church which received from his lips the eternal word, but clothed in human language, unceasingly communicates, under the same relative and limited form, the infinite Word to mortal intelligences, until passing from this region they become united to him in a more perfect world. How could this tradition of the Word have been even for a single instant suspended ? Could the Church in some
58
GEE-BET COT
day-dream have imagined that word to be eternal which Was but of yesterday, or could she ever have said : I will announce what I have not learned ? Is it not notorious that she has always inexorably cast from her bosom every innovator who, substituting for common tradition his own ideas, sought, instead of transmitting truth to create it? In hearing theChurch, the faithful then hears Christ himself, who speaks to them as really as he did to his disciples seated around him on the Mount of Beatitudes. For the essence of the word is not the material sound that is borne on the wind, but that internal sound which vibrates in the heart, that expression always the same, which, though repeated by a thousand voices, invariably awakens the same thought, as an image reflected by an hundred mirrors is always the same image. Catholic tradition, ever preserving inviolable the primitive sense of Scripture, is not a word which stands alone, or independently of the word of Christ ; no it is the permanent vibration of his word through every point of space and time. But Christ is not merely the creative light of all
THE EUCHARIST.
59
intelligences ; he has other relations with the posterity of Adam, a degenerate and dying tribe of this great and immortal society of spirits. " The word was made flesh" to heal by this regenerating union the carnal fever of the soul, the innate source of all our woes, and to wash in his blood the wounds of humanity. Thus the Church, in receiving from Christ the word which enlightens, received also from him the divine remedy, which she distributes to her children as she imparts to them the light of his word. The Word made flesh resides in the midst of them, always full of truth and grace. As formerly the crowd of infirm pressed on his steps to be healed by the virtue that emanated from him, so do the faithful at present labouring under the same malady hidden within them, approach with an humble faith to a participation of this divine remedy.
What strikes the senses is the particular form under which the celestial element is veiled to communicate itself to the faithful, as the sounds which strike the ear attentive to the voice of the Church are only the sensible form, under which the divine Word pene- trates each intelligence. What is truly substantial
60
GERBET ON
in these two communions, is Christ enlightening by his word, and healing by his efficacious presence ; the only immutable reality amid this perpetual change of forms by which he comes within the changing condition of our being, in order to raise us to the participation of his incorruptible being.
Such is the vital principle of Catholicism. Here is the source of that power which it exercises on man, and which is universally recognised by its enemies. It sways him with all the force of the human presence of the Divinity. Separated from a faith in love, this belief would crush the soul. When contemplating the abyss of the heavens, a vague impression of immensity suddenly strikes the soul, and we fancy that there passes before our eyes the shadow of the Infinite Being, our imagination is stilled with stupor, and even our reason shudders. What would be our sensation were we to find ourselves immediately in connexion with the Eternal, the immense, the great Unknown, ignorant whether it be love or hatred that lies buried in the mysterious depths of infinity ? Thus, as tradition was weakened, faith in grace was also enervated, as may be perceived among many of
THE EUCHABIST.
61
the Pagan nations. An overwhelming fear of the Deity was manifested by rites, the very recollection of which carries terror to the soul. We cannot easily form to ourselves an idea of these terrific creeds. Cradled from its birth in the fond embrace of Christianity, our soul has been inebriated with the confidence which she inspires. Hope, bearing the cross, walks before us singing on the path of life. A heavenly interpreter, she explains these mysterious figures of clemency which religion shows at every step, and stern justice itself is presented beneath the veil of mercy. The spiritual world, all resplen- dant with the emblems of the eternal union, is but the reflected glory of Christ, residing in the midst of men to satiate them with truth and love : so that this powerful faith in the human presence of the Divinity overawes our weak nature but in order to console and strengthen it. By the same force with which it might overwhelm, it exalts it, and commu- nicates to it, if we may so speak, by all the power it exercises on it, an impulse of ascension towards the superior world, where, in the unveiled presence of the Deity, intelligence and love will expand without an effort.
62
GERBET ON
Protestantism which has rejected this magnificent gift is the absence of Christ, as Deism is, in a more general order of ideas, the absence of the Divinity. With the Bible in his hand, the Protestant fancies that he communicates with the living Truth ; but is it on the material form of the words, or on their real sense that this communication depends ? And whereas it is the reason of each Protestant that determines for him the sense of the Bible, how can this ever varying reason be a transmission of the reason eternally unchangeable ? How can so many interpretations that destroy one another be an ema- nation of the substantial "Word, which like God himself, bears the character of unity ? There is between them that vast space which separates illusion from immutable reality. You imagine that you enjoy the immediate presence of the sun of intelli- gences, and nothing is present to you, save the shadows of your own mind. Deifying your thoughts, you believe that you converse freely with the Word, whilst you are separated from it by the profound abyss which pride has interposed. The Protestants resemble an unhappy wanderer on the deep, who
THE EUCHARIST.
63
mistakes for the paternal shore those hills of mist, which are capriciously raised and destroyed by the winds. But the illusion soon vanishes. The fantas- tical horizon which surrounds them changes every instant : their inconstant opinions come into collision, separate, scatter, and suddenly reveal to them the waves of boundless scepticism. Hence the anguish of those who desirous of faith, but weak in will, are bound to Protestantism by temporal ties. They behold with terror the agitations of an unlimited scepticism which assail it on every side.* This spectacle, so afflicting to every Christian heart, hurries them into the opposite extreme. The propensity to illuminism, which has been found at every period among this class of Protestants, augments and strengthens in proportion as rationalism destroys the little faith which the reformation has preserved. f In this exaltation they seek an asylum against doubt. In effect every Protestant is placed in this dilemma : if he do not believe himself infallible, he has no certainty for his faith, if he
* Cunctaeque profundum pontum adspectabant flentes. f Vide note ix.
64
GEE.BET ON
believe himself infallible, each of his judgments must appear to him a ray of the increated intelli- gence. He ought, according to the remark of Bossuet deem all his thoughts to be emanations of tlie Deity ; an intellectual pantheism which directly leads to the other.
A similar alternative is produced with regard to the sentiments of the heart ; for, owing to the unity of the human soul, the laws of intelligence and love are parallel. If the reason of each individual needs an exterior invariable rule, in order that it may not succumb to doubt, which is the consciousness of its own weakness, the heart too, particularly in the order of divine things, requires an exterior principle of love that may continually act upon it, to save it from its own inconstancy, its strong inclination to the earth, and its liability to become weary even of God himself. Hence it is that this perfect piety, exclu- sively peculiar to christian ages, has been developed under the empire of faith in the permanent presence of God whose delight is to dwell with the children, of men. In Protestantism the soul of man is deprived of this daily, and if it may be so said, this fond
THE EUCHARIST.
65
communion, with him who is spirit and life. But as it feels the want of these frequent communications to maintain piety at the height to which it has been raised by Christianity, they are obliged, when they aspire to this spiritual life, to substitute for catholic faith in the real presence the dazzling fanaticism of inspiration. Then all the movements of the heart are a divine impulse, each respiration of the soul a communion, each affection is Christ himself. This mysticism, which in reality is but a sentimental pantheism, is also a sort of internal theurgy, differing from the ancient idolatrous theurgy in as much as it is purely spiritual, for Christianity has spiritualized every thing, even error itself. But this fanaticism consecrates in principle every folly as well as every passion; and the history of protestantism has demonstrated its results. On the other hand if their reason recoils at it, then feeling the impotence of attaining to that sublime christian piety, for the acquisition of which their heart, deprived of every exterior principle of love, finds not within itself the necessary conditions, they regard it as an idle dream, and falling into indifference on this point, the life of
E
66
GERBET ON
the senses resumes its empire over the life of the soul which becomes extinct. This two-fold tendency in the sentimental, coresponds to that which protes- tantism has presented in the logical order : for the fanaticism of inspiration is like the illuminism of the heart, and indifference is but the scepticism of the will. Just as man inclines to one or the other side, he meets, as we have seen, with pantheism or inanity. Pro- testantism must inevitably end by splitting into two classes : the one of mystical illuminati, tormented by a sort of monomania ; the other of sceptical and indifferent rationalists, with whom there will remain but the shadow of man, of that being who lives on truth and love. The majority of its followers, unable to support these excesses, will return in crowds to the Church, and this salutary movement has already commenced. Children of the holy City, look towards the desert ; do you not see that vast crowd of intel- ligences which have traversed it in the sweat of their brow, and who press to the gate of the habitable city ? Urbem orant. They seek that to which all the powers of reason and of the heart forcibly impel them, and which she alone can impart to them. For she alone,
THE EUCHARIST.
67
possessing the secret of creation, which is neither the separation of man from God, nor his identity with him, unites even on the earth, in the most intimate manner, the finite to the infinite being by the principle of faith and of love.
The various considerations at which we have glanced may be comprised in this formula. 6 ' Every system of religion exclusive of the real presence, is, by that degeneracy, in a greater degree inferior to Catholicism, than Catholicism hi its present state, is to the religion of heaven;" since that is but the eternal consummation of the union entered on here below.
To express this great law of the moral world, the allegorical genius of antiquity would fix this inscrip- tion at the beginning of the road which leads to where Protestantism has nearly arrived. " The empire of death, where the father of gods and men never descends, sinks in the night of chaos a distance twice as great as the space embraced by the look of mortals, when, from the earth where God placed them, they raise their eyes to ethereal Olympus.*
* Bis patet in preceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras.
Quantum ad aetherum cali suspectus Olympum. — Virg. En. 1. vi.
68
GERBET ON
The essence of true Christianity being every day more clearly perceived, in proportion as the ephemeral Christianity of sectarians wastes and disappears, the moment is approaching when reason shall see, almost face to face, this capital truth viz. , that the perpetual presence of the regenerating Word, under the emblems of a divine remedy, is the vital principle of Christianity in its relation with the heart of man, as the permanent presence of the Word, the eternal light, which the Church, interpreter of the divine Word, imparts to every man under the veil of human language, is the fundamental principle of Christianity in its connexions with intelligence. This admi- rable unity of the divine plan did not escape the pious author, who without an effort discovered the most sublime truths, because he contemplated all with an humble and a pure look. " For in this life, says he, I find there are two things especially necessary for me, without which this miserable life would be insupportable. Whilst I am kept in the prison of this body, I acknowledge myself to need two things viz., food and light.
Thou hast therefore given to me, weak as I am, thy
THE EUCHARIST.
69
sacred body for the nourishment of my soul and body, and thou hast set thy word as a lamp to my feet. Without these two things I could not well live ; for the word of God is the light of my soul, and thy sacrament is the bread of life.* Thus Christianity, as a whole, is but a great charity bestowed on a great misery. This is the secret of its unity : it is one by its merciful proportion to all our faults. At the sight of this touching harmony, reflection must give place to a hymn, and reason prostrate adores in silence.
* Imitation of Christ, liv. iv., chap. It.
70
GERBET OTX
CHAPTER Y.
The Eucharist viewed in relation to the religious wants of the soul.
There are two wants in human nature which Eeli- gion alone can satisfy ; the one, that of the practical, the other, that of the interior life. By the name of practical life, I do not mean that activity which is limited to the world of the senses, but that course of conduct which is connected with the moral order, as presented to us here below in the visible creation. For this temporary social state, comprised between the cradle and the grave, subsists, in a moral point of view, only in the continual application of the most sublime truths to gross and transitory phenomena. What, for instance, is a cup of water ? A means to purchase the possession of
THE EUCHARIST.
71
God himself, if you choose to apply it by giving it to a poor man. Human life is composed of small actions which accomplish great duties. Man labours on the same material as the animal, but to produce a divine work. Shut up amid the dust of our terrestrial laboratory, we impress the features of the Deity on our clay ; we fashion, if I may so say, the image of the eternal beauty. Woe to every doctrine that would not lead man energetically and continually to this humble — practical life, on which society is based. Such a proud spiritualism would include the principle of universal dissolution ; for, according to the primitive belief, the intelligences, superior to man, are the ministers of God even in the government of the physical order, nay the Eternal himself did not disdain to mould the material element.
But this practical life does not fill up the vast capacity of the human soul, nor exhaust all its activity. Whilst continually entering, to discharge our present obligations, into this narrow world of sensa- tions which is common to us with animals, the soul ever preserves a secret consciousness, and as
72
GERBET ON
it were a second view of another existence. Swayed by the instinct of futurity, she aspires to a state where the true, the good, the beautiful, freed from this gross alloy, will present themselves to her embrace under purer forms. Now, as soon as an intelligent being has an idea of a more perfect state, it ardently desires, without departing from the situation to which it is bound, to realize a transition from the one to the other ; for nothing is abrupt or defective in the harmonious developement of beings. Hence that order of sentiments which composes the mystical life, an expression too frequently misunder- stood, and which in reality signifies but a natural instinct of the soul, since it shews itself on all the points of the circle where sentiment is displayed. In fact who does not know that in the arts, in love, glory, heroism, man finds himself pursuing beyond all realities this ideal infinity whose extent is restrained and whose purity is tarnished by the positive order ; why then suppress these aspirations in Religion alone, which has the closest affinity with the end of his creation ? Why not seek for his entire being, what he aspires to in all its emanations? Why not prepare
THE EUCHARIST.
73
for his destiny by a previous essay, like one who composes the prologue for a poem, or who prepares the prelude which precedes a concert ? To destroy this lofty instinct, would be to fetter all the powers of the soul, for the religious sentiment eminently embraces all others ; it would be to mutilate our being in its nobler part. The most abject materialism alone could embrace this state of degradation ! Man indeed would be but the perfection of a mere animal, were he not the embryo of a celestial spirit. This order of sentiments is to a certain degree common to all men profoundly religious, for it is but the reflection of faith in the heart. The poor peasant, who, listening to the exhortation of his pastor, whom he may not fully comprehend, tells you that his soul feels the truth of the appeal, enters according to his manner into the mystical life, as the people with their lyric songs and poems enter after their manner into the ideal of poetry. But in proportion as we ascend the scale of humanity,this disposition manifests itself more forcibly, particularly in superior minds, in the hearts of the elect, from Confucius and Plato, to Fenelon and Vincent of Paul. The purer the flame, the
74
GERBET ON
higher it mounts, and the master spirits in order to support this mystical life are obliged to wing their way more frequently into that tranquil region, where they breathe the air of a more divine world.
The two wants to which we have alluded must be satisfied that whatever is good and beautiful in human nature may have its free expansion. Suppress every trace of the mystical life, and you arrive at the brutal activity of the London populace. Suppress the esteem and taste of the practical life, and there remains but the senseless quietism of the Indian Priest. Every religious system which alters, in a single point, one of these essential modes of our being, approximates, in a greater or less degree, to one or other of these two species of degradation. The perfection of man depends on their simultaneous developement : the one restrains the soul within the present, the other impels it towards the future order, and as this star of the moral order, belongs to both worlds, it cannot accomplish its career but by the harmonious combination of this two-fold attraction.
It has been frequently remarked that, when Protestant mysticism does not present itself under
THE EUCHARIST.
75
the form of fanaticism, it for the most part sinks into a religious melancholy. Besides the injuries it inflicts on the intellectual faculties, this malady, weakening by its effects the activity of the soul, proceeds to attack the generative principle of good works, and consequently the moral fecundity of man, whilst among the sects hostile to mysticism, this moral decay is replaced, as may be seen in the metropolis of Calvinism, by a fever for gold and all the sensual enjoyments of life. Protestantism is opposed to the alliance of the interior and social life ; for, individualism in breaking the ties by which spirits are bound together, produces isolated forms of belief which in turn engender a solitary mysticism. The human mind under such circumstances seeks life within itself, for there also it seeks truth. The heart feeds with complacency on itself as reason idolizes itself, and, though rationalism and mad- ness have each their distinctive traits, if you examine more closely you will find in both but the Proteus of egotism.
We invite every reflecting and philosophic mind, capable of applying the test of experience to the
76
GERBET ON
influence of doctrines, to contrast, in this respect, the spirit of Protestantism with the genius of the Catholic religion, which has unceasingly produced a parallel developement of the interior and social life, so harmoniously combined, that the action and reaction is uniform and continual. This is not the place to sound the depths of a subject which in order to be fully treated, should embrace the moral history of humanity. Not to depart from the limits of our present subject, we shall simply remark how, among the causes that concur in establishing the peculiar character of Catholicism, the eucharistic faith holds the first rank. It is not only a principle eminently active in each of these two orders ; but as they tend to separate, because the wants to which they correspond crave to be satisfied at the cost of each other, this tenet is the powerful link which inseparably unites them. For if this mystery, which is itself but an initiation to the mysteries of a future life, impel the soul beyond the present order, on the other hand the dispo- sition strictly necessary to approach it is the accom- plishment of all the obligations of ordinary life, and
THE EUCHARIST.
77
particularly of those which one might be most in- clined to despise, and to consider most repulsive.
Extending its vivifying influence to the two extremities of the moral world, it reaches at the same time the most humble duties and the loftiest aspirations of the soul. This bread of angels, which has become the bread of man, imparts to the faithful a two-fold existence. Like Raphael, they may say to these indigent souls who can only beg, at the banquet of time, the gross food of voluptuousness and pride. " I seemed indeed to eat and to drink with you but I use an invisible meat and drink which cannot be seen by man."* But the same action, which associates him with angels, reconducts him by the road of virtue into human society. For all is social in Catholicism, interwoven as it is with com- mon tradition. It is for this reason that the most magnificent gift of divine love is confided, not to an individual, but to the Church. She alone is its depository, as she alone is the depository of eternal Truth. Before the holy of holies can be approached,
* Sed ego cibo invisibili, et potu quiab homiaibus videri non potest, utor.— -Tob., chap, xii., v. 19.
78
GERBET ON
the individual conscience is submitted to the power of religious society, in the person of one of its ministers who pronounces the sentence of grace. The sanc- tuary is thrown open, and Penitence freed from remorse, and Innocence assured of its purity by the judgment of authority go hand in hand, amid the public prayers, to seat themselves at the universal banquet of the just. Thus the faithful are not admitted to this intimate union with Christ but by drawing more closely the links which bind them to the Church, the common parent of all Christians ; and the greatest act of the mystical life is itself a great social action.
THE EUCHARIST.
79
CHAPTER VI.
Social Life> — The Priesthood . Public Worship. Confession.
It is by its priesthood only that religious society acts in the moral government of the world. This institution is associated with an order of ideas supe- rior to that which ordinarily strikes the mind, ever prone to stop at exterior effects, instead of penetrating the essence of things. The priest is presented to the view of man under the endearing attributes of the father of the poor, the consoler of the afflicted, the confident of the weary and heavy-laden conscience. But this Helo of charity which is the necessary emanation of the sacerdotal character is not its perfect type. The fundamental idea of the priest- hood was originally connected with that of Mediation.
80-
GERBET ON
As sacrifice united to prayer were the figures of the expiation solicited by the aspirations of the human race, so those who were deputed to offer them up became the special representatives of the invisible Mediator, the supreme and universal Pontiff of creation. Hence that character of minister of peace, Mediation being but the peace of heaven with earth; hence the many privations which the creeds of all nations exacted from the priest, for he ought to bear more than other mortals a closer resemblance to the great victim; hence that perpetual or temporary continence recommended him by antiquity, and which, in many places, was of strict obligation. Mankind every where, and at the periods most disgraced by licentiousness, recognized in perfect continence the mens dimnior of sanctity. As poetry is a diviner eloquence, so chastity, which raises man above the senses, is as it were the sacred poetry of virtue. The social necessity, which interdicts to the generality of mankind the practice of this virtue, no more excludes it in the small number, than the necessity equally general of corporal labour destroys that other law of humanity, which to a small number
THE EUCHARIST.
81
gives leisure to embody in song their lofty medita- tions. Mankind must have its elite. Let the sophist in his affected singularity pride himself on being insensible to the merit of chastity ; has he reason to glory at being divested of that perception of moral beauty common to the human race? Should his eye, on viewing the lily of the fields, the symbol of purity, be affected by sensations contrary to those commonly experienced, he would at once pronounce it diseased : does this vicious discordance change its character when it affects the moral sentiment — the vision of the soul ? When philosophy, even that of the material school, was forced to admit the fact that the " notion of chastity being pleasing to God pervaded the Globe."* Why did it not perceive that a moral phenomenon, so directly opposed to the propensities of man, from the very circumstance of its not being based on reasoning, must necessarily have had its source in a superior order. The general sentiment which supports and cherishes modesty, has ever connected with the work of the flesh a
* American Letters of Carle, note of the Translator, Tom 1, page 119.
F
82
GERBET OS
mysterious idea of pollution, an unaccountable sentiment, if it be not derived from a confused recollection of that original corruption which vitiated in man the very source of life. All the primitive traditions declared that the personage whom they announced as the future Redeemer of mankind was to be born of a Virgin. From this order of ideas arose the general disposition of imposing on priests, the substitutes of the Mediator, virginal continence and expiatory austerities; and if both have been mutually attracted by a sort of permanent affinity, to combine in the priesthood, it is because they had originated in a common source.
All these ideas, diffused through the universe, were the as yet imperfect elements of the sacer- dotal character realized by Catholicism, and which could not have been accomplished till the Saviour himself had exteriorly realized the eternal sacrifice. The catholic priesthood is constituted like that of the primitive religion, by the relation the priest bears to the Mediator, a relation much more sacred and august since its immediate object is, not a typical victim, but the person of Christ, who is
THE EUCHARIST.
83
at the same time priest and victim. Theology demies the priesthood to be — the functions relative to the true body of Christ, and to his mystical body which is the Church. The different degrees of holiness attached to the minor orders, are deter- mined by their connexion more or less direct with the Eucharist. The high and inviolable perfection of catholic celibacy is principally derived from the same cause. The Popes and Councils well knew that the conjugal state weakens the divine union which should exist between the pastor and his church, as well as his spiritual paternity, by placing elsewheie the centre of his affections and duties. They conceive that the priesthood ought to absorb the entire man . But, however strong this reason may be, sacerdotal purity springs from a higher source ; and all tradition points out its primary cause in the Tabernacle. Thus the institution of ecclesiastical celibacy, though its developement required time, and though it suffered many modifications, is universal in its principle.* If the oriental churches were in this respect less severe than those more * Vide Note xi.
84
GEREET ON
immediately subject to the Papal influence, that relaxation confirms the rule ; for, though they did not impose it on all priests, of the second order who, according to their discipline, rarely celebrated the holy mysteries, they maintained it inviolable for Bishops.
But if the priest, associated to the oblation of the supreme sacrifice, must raise himself by an angelic purity above other men, he must also humble himself beneath them, in order to take upon him their misery, carry their crosses, and, renewing in his person the suffering marks of the adorable victim, as well as the image of his innocence, offer up with the incense of prayer the burning holocaust of charity. The mystic immolation of which he is the minister prescribes to him the immolation of himself. All tradition has unanimously concurred in drawing this consequence from the Eucharistic dogma. Would I could relate here the innumerable proofs of this logic of love. I can only pray its prejudiced adversaries to make it the subject of their serious meditation. I would vouch that, on such a review, no honest man, whatever his errors might
THE EUCHARIST.
65
be, could have the melancholy hardihood to declaim against so amiable a faith. Did it not yet find place in his heart, at least he would learn to respect it. Is there not something divine in every benefit ?
But wherever sacrifice ceases, the man remains and the priest disappears. Look at the Jews : no where did the priesthood strike deeper roots than among that people ; no where was it surrounded by more veneration. What are at the present day the Rabbins, who have superseded the priests of that people now disinherited of all sacrifice ? The anathema which pursues their degraded ministry, has been proclaimed by the mouths of Israelites. " Their power, exclaim their own followers, can effect nothing * for the salvation of our souls." The same obser- vation applys to protestantism. The ancient idea of the priesthood is one of the human ideas which it lost with sacrifice. The day on which the fire of the eternal holocaust was extinguished, beheld the divine mark effaced from the brow of its ministers. The opinion of the protestant public refuses them
* Jewish Consistories of France, by M. Singer, page 32, Paris, 1820.
86
GERBET OK
that pious respect, which all the people of the earth have attached to the sacerdotal character. It does not exact from them these superior virtues which Catholicism imposes on its priesthood, and with great justice, for it would be unfair to expect a consequence when the principle had been destroyed. This equitable indulgence sometimes shews itself with great naivete. I shall select an example out of many, and that within the pale of the English church, which however has preserved, better than the other sects, some faint resemblance of the priesthood. Dr. Burnet, relating the legal assassina- tion of Charles 1st, admits that Bishop Juxon, who assisted him in his last moments, " performed his duty so dryly and so coldly, as to make little or no effort to infuse any lofty sentiments into the mind of his Boyal master " yet the mitred historian asserts that he did his duty as an honest man* Suppose that Abbe Edgeworth had acted like Juxon, could you conceive how a French prelate, writing the history of the revolution, would tell you that the
* Hist of the last revolutions of England, Tom. 1, liv. L
THE EUCHARIST.
87
confessor of the son of St. Lewis did his duty as an honest man, before that scaffold the foot of which was bathed with the blood of martyrs, and above which the heavens opened. Such a supposition would be revolting to the feelings of catholics, and in their eyes every priest who, in descending from the altar, possessed no other recommendation than that of being an honest man, would be a monster.
Now if we consider, on the one hand, that the catholic priesthood tends, by its constant and univer- sal action, to lead men to the practice of duty, and, on the other, that the influence of the priesthood is proportioned to the veneration it inspires, we shall easily conceive how the Eucharist, of which the sacerdotal character, as understood in Catholicism, is the sublime emanation, already exercises in this respect a prodigious power in establishing the reign of virtue on the earth. Catholicism moves the world in order to elevate it to heaven, the priesthood is its instrument, the real presence, its support.
All great influence, exercised on mankind, can only result from the combination of two different modes of action, for, in man as well as in all other
88
GERBET OS
beings, we must distinguish what is general or common to the entire species, from what is purely individual. The public mode of action affects men collectively by addressing itself to human nature : but as it is differently modified in each of us, hence the necessity of an individual mode of action, corresponding to the individuality of every man. Catholicism combines, in a high degree, these two modes, for whilst by its public worship, it acts on the multitude, with unequaled energy, as is gene- rally acknowledged, confession constitutes its mode of action proportioned to the different necessities of individuals, it is the secret organ which particularizes for each of the faithful, this spirit of life that animates the vast body of the Church.
The philosophers who have endeavoured to explain the origin of public worship have assigned every possible reason except the true one. The hypothesis of a primitive religion, invented by man, which is the basis of all their theories, has drawn them, by substituting abstractions for facts, from the sphere of real life on this as on many other points ; for every error originates in this elaborate absurdity.
THE EUCHARIST.
89
They have done much to prove that public worship is useful, not suspecting that it is rigorously neces- sary. Eeligion having been originally traditional, and that tradition ' comprehending, besides the explanation of the truths primitively revealed, certain expiatory rites, which have been also regarded by all nations as of divine institution, can this common tradition be conceived without a common worship ? It was not then a mere expediency on the part of Religion, but the essential condition of its 'exis- tence. Thus, as soon as this two-fold basis of tradition is shaken, public worship totters and falls, as we see in the reformation : a thousand protestant voices have been raised to announce its ruin.* The protestant states of Germany have recently made great efforts to revive it : but does history present an example of a worship having been revived by police ordinances ? A jewish rigidity on the most minute points is united, in the English system, with an epicuran effeminacy, which makes the devout class, under the most trifling pretext, dispense with the
* Vide, De Starck's work on the reunion of the different Christian communions.
90
GERBET ON
religious duties prescribed by their liturgy. The negative part of their worship is maintained as a legal establishment, while the positive part crumbles to decay : this is the forerunner of death. Generally, in all the systems that reject tradition and the real presence, the ancient precept of regularly assisting, on the Lord's day, at the divine office, has lost its character of law, and at most is considered a council subject to the convenience of each individual. After all, why should it be necessary for a protestant to assist regularly at Church ? Has he not the Bible at home? Does he not recognise in himself the right of interpreting it ? Why then should he address himself to the Deity by the lips of a minis- ter ? In a system based on mental independence, why interpose a human agent between him and God ? His house ought to be his temple, as his reason is his priest. The marked tendency of Protestant- ism to concentrate itself in a domestic worship, will be the transition to a worship purely individual, the only one which indeed harmonizes with the logical principle of Protestantism. The same may be said of Deism, which reposes on a similar prin-
THE EUCHARIST.
01
ciple, and which is the Protestantism of the primitive religion.
With Catholics, on the contrary, social worship is, as it formerly had been, an essential condition of Religion. They are obliged to assemble frequently in the temple, to find what can be found only there — the two-fold tradition of truth and of the mysteries of love. The real presence, the focus of public worship, vivifies it by its perpetual action, and raises it to the highest degree of sublimity that a terrestrial worship can attain. The magnificence of Catholicism which spiritualizes the senses themselves, and the repulsive nakedness of Calvinism, may be considered as two extreme points, between which are found divers liturgies more or less meager, in proportion as the doctrine they represent is more or less remo- ved from the catholic mystery. All the ceremonies of the Church tend towards this centre of grace, as, in the temples raised by the genius of Christianity, all the lines of architecture have a beautiful but subordinate relation to the sanctuary ; this is the reason why the catholic worship, the expression of boundless love, as the physical world is the expres-
92
GERBET ON
sion of infinite power, moves the heart as profoundly as the magnificence of nature impresses the under- standing.
All is interwoven : the great moral causes act at a distance, and produce their effects even where the vulgar do not imagine their influence to reach. It is now sufficiently proved that mental derange- ment is far more frequent among a protestant than among a catholic population. This difference proceeds no donbt from the fact, that Catholicism, in submitting individual to the general reason, upholds the conservative law of intelligence, whilst individualism, by isolating and abandoning man to himself without a preserving rule, places him in an unnatural position, which is a perma- nent source of disorder and extravagance. But this first cause resolves itself, if I may so speak, into many subordinate ones, each of which partially tends to the general result. The influence of catholic legislation merits, on this point, serious attention. Let us limit ourselves to one of its results, which will lead to the discovery of many others. As soon as a disposition to mental aberration is developed, it
THE EUCHARIST.
93
impels man to retire from society in order that he may live to himself. The instinct of this frightful malady urges him to seek, in intellectual indepen- dence, the freedom of delirium. But, in general, the evil is not immediately consummated. In the gradual passage from perfect reason to settled insanity, man will be found to retain sufficient power over himself to resist the savage want of isolation, provided an active principle, and particularly the most active of all, the religious principle, excite him to return to society and thereby to common sense. The precept which strictly obliges the catholic to renew, at least once a week, by assisting at the public worship, the relation which binds him to God and man, rescues him from this fatal solitude, where his intellect would have been bewildered in order to place him in a society of reason, peace, and love. Conscience obliges him to become a man that he may remain a christian ; and this act, frequently repeated, contributes more than is generally supposed to prevent or arrest the developement of madness.
The real presence, the basis of the public worship by which Catholicism acts on men in the aggregate,
94
GERBET ON
is not less intimately connected with the practice of confession, the organ through which it acts in a mode, corresponding to the various necessities of individuals.* On this point let us attend to an English Writer who, though catholic by conviction, was surprised by death within the pale of Protes- tantism, so true it is that God alone knows what passes in the depths of the human heart. "All nations, says lord Fitz- William,]" have their religion and their laws; their religion to inculcate virtue and morality, — and their laws to punish crime. In this the Roman Catholic, as well as all other states, contemplate but the same object. But in the Roman Catholic Religion alone are to be found laws whose authority is far more imperious, and concerning which no individual can deceive himself, by any species of art or sophistry ; laws calculated not only to inspire the love of virtue and morality, but which farther render it obligatory to practice them; laws which are not limited to the mere punishment of crime, but extend to its prevention.
* Vide, Note xii. f Letters of Atticus, dedicated to Louis xviii, then in England.
THE EUCHARIST.
95
These laws consist in the obligation which they impose on all Eoman Catholics of communicating at least once a year ; in the veneration which they inculcate for that sacrament, and in the indispensible and rigorous preparation which they exact in order to receive it, or, in other words, in the belief of the real presence, confession, penance, absolution, and communion, on which they are based.
It may be truly said that in Eoman Catholic States the entire economy of social order turns on this pivot. It is to this wonderful institution they owe their strength, their duration, their security, and their happiness : hence arises an incontestable principle, a sound maxim, which is the last link of that long chain of reasonings which I have just established, namely, that it is impossible to frame any system of government whatsoever, which will be permanent and advantageous, unless it be founded on the Roman Catholic Religion. Every other system is illusive.
The precepts which this Religion imposes on its children, and the restraints to which it subjects them, are so little known to the sectaries who assail
96
GEKBET ON
it, that indeed they can scarcely have any notion of them. Some through ignorance are blind to them, and others from prejudice treat them with ridi- cule. In order then to instruct the ignorant and undeceive the prejudiced, I must inform them that all Roman Catholics are obliged to communicate at least once a year, regard however being had to the state of their conscience. Previously to the receiving of this most august sacrament, before which the most courageous among them are seized with fear and trembling, they must all, without distinction or excep- tion, confess their sins in the tribunal of penance ; and no minister of that dreaded tribunal can permit them to approach the Holy Table, until they shall have punned their hearts by all the dispositions necessary for the purpose. Now those indispensable dispositions are contrition, the full and candid acknowledgment of all the faults of which they have been guilty, atonement for all injustices, restitution of all goods unlawfully acquired, pardon of all injuries, the abandonment of every criminal and scandalous connexion, and the eradication of envy, pride, hatred, avarice, ambition, dissi-
THE EUCHARIST.
97
mutation, ingratitude, and every sentiment opposed to charity. Besides in that tribunal they must solemnly pledge themselves before God to avoid even the slightest faults, and to observe with a scru- pulous exactitude all the sublime laws of the Gospel. JFlwever, as the Apostle says, would approach the holy table without these dispositions, and not discer- ning the body of Jesus Christ, would receive his own condemnation. Such is, and such has always been, during eighteen hundred years, the fundamen- tal and immutable doctrine of the Eoman Catholic Church. And if it shall be objected that her children are wicked or perverse, notwithstanding the links wherewith she binds them, and the duties she impo- ses upon them, what shall we say of the man who is freed from these salutary restraints ?
What security, what pledge is not exacted from every individual for the performance of his social duties ; for the exercise of every virtue, integrity, benevolence, charity, mercy ! Where shall we find anything similar to this? Here conscience is regulated before the tribunal of God himself, not before that of the world. Here the culprit is
G
98
GERBET ON
his own accuser, but by no means his own judge. And whilst the christian of a different communion superficially examines himself, decides in his own cause, and indulgently absolves himself, the catholic christian is scrupulously examined by another, awaits his sentence from Heaven, and sighs after that consoling absolution which is accorded, refused, or deferred, in the name of the ]&ost High. What an admirable means for establishing between men mutual confidence, and perfect harmony in the discharge of their duties !
To pronounce on all questions of general impor- tance, it is both just and right that our reasonings be grounded on their general effects. Such is the course I have adopted. But so great, alas, is human frailty, that all Eoman Catholics, I must admit, do not profit by the advantages afforded them. It is then the duty, as indeed it is the highest interest of a wise and vigilant government, to oppose any relax- ation in the principles I have now developed. If in a Roman Catholic State no person swerved from their observance, the question would not be : which is the best government? but rather in such a
THE EUCHARIST.
99
government what necessity for other laws? perhaps, in such a case, all human laws would be as useless, . and superfluous, as they are certainly ineffectual wherever the Roman Catholic Religion is not their basis." Lord Fitz- William, resuming his observa- tions, reduces them to two social aphorisms which cannot be too profoundly meditated.
Virtue, justice, and morality, should constitute the basis of all governments.
It is impossible to establish virtue, justice, and morality, on any solid foundation, rmthout the tribunal of penance, because that tribunal, the most formidable of all, takes cognizance of the conscience of man, and directs it in a manner more efficacious than any other ; now that tribunal belongs exclu- sively to the Catholic Church.
It is impossible to establish the tribunal of penance without a belief in the real presence* that principal basis of catholic faith, because without that belief the sacrament of communion loses its dignity and value. Protestants approach the Holy Table without fear, for they receive only a sign commemorative of the body of Jesus Christ.
100
GERBET ON
On the other hand Catholics approach it with dread, because they receive the very body of their Redeemer. Thus wherever this belief was destroyed the tribunal of penance ceased with it ; confession became useless, as wherever this belief exists confession is essential. And this tribunal, which is necessarily established with it, renders imperative the exercise of virtue, justice, and morality. Therefore as I have already said it is impossible to frame any 'permanent or advantageous system of government , which is not founded on the Roman Catholic Religion.
Here then we have the solution of the most important of all questions, (next to that of the immortality of the soul,) that can be presented to the consideration of man, namely — Which is the best government ? The more we study this question, the more we shall perceive that the doctrine of the real presence applys not only to governments, but to all human affairs, that like the diapason in music, it forms the concord of the entire, and becomes to the moral what the sun is to the physical world. Illumians omnes homines St. John.
THE EUCHARIST,
101
CHAPTER VIL
Catholic Charity.
If we contrast the nations who lived under the primitive religion with those who have received Christianity fully developed, we shall immediately perceive that the sentiment of love has attained among the latter a superior degree, corresponding to a more perfect knowledge of the divine love. Eden revealed the goodness, but Calvary, the charity of God. From that hour man learned to love more perfectly.
Creation — by which God, without imparting him- self to man, gave something from himself, was a magnificent boon of the infinite Being. Such was the type of ancient beneficence. Man learned to
102 GERBET ON
share with his fellow man his superfluous goods, after the example of him who communicated to man, made to his likeness, a portion, and as it were, the superabundance of the inexhaustible riches of his own being. Hence the precept of charity ever remained associated in the tradition of all nations not excepting those in a state of barbarism, with the recollection of the supreme benefactor, the Father of the human family. " We all belong to the same family, said the chief of an American tribe, we are all the children of the great Spirit. When the white man put their foot for the first time on our lands, they were oppressed with hunger ; they had no place where to prepare their beds, or light their fires ; they were exausted ; they could do nothing for themselves. Our Fathers had pity on their distress, and willingly shared with them all that the great spirit had given his red children."*
For the same reason, the beneficence prescribed by the primitive religion did not attain a degree, superior to the practice of alms, and other works of
* Memoirs of a Captive among the Indians ofNorth America^ London.
THE EUCHARIST.
103
a similar nature. Where, in effect, could man have discovered the idea of a more perfect beneficence than that of which God had given him the example. But when the heavens opened, and this great mys- tery of piety * shone forth in all its splendour, the horizon of charity expanded. In not limiting his bounty to partial benefits, as he had already done by creation, but becoming himself the gift he bestowed on man, God revealed an order of beneficence until then unknown. The mysterious veil, which shrou- ded from human intelligence the sight of the Holy of holies, or love in its absolute perfection, was rent asunder, and the world contemplated face to face, on the mountain of sacrifice, the living archtype of an infinite devotedness. Enlightened and animated by this revelation of love, human nature felt within itself the developement of a new sentiment. The intelligence of the heart, to use scriptural language, soared above its ancient limits, and man learned to love and serve his fellow
* Manifesto magnum est pietatis sacramentum, quod mani- festatum est in carne. Epist, pr. ad Timoth. cap, iii. v. 16.
104
GERBET ON
man, not merely at the expence of what he possessed, but even at the sacrifice of his repose, his health, and his life. We had seen, under the influence of the primitive religion, men immolate themselves for their parents, friends, and country, but none for man, considered only as a member of the human family. The perpetual miracle of christian charity is, to have raised even to devotedness this sentiment of beneficence which, under the primitive society, was the link that united the family of man- kind in the bonds of affection. It transcends ancient beneficence as much as sacrifice does a mere act of kindness. In this particularly consists the regeneration of love. The beneficence that was limited to alms was charity in its infancy, as yet restrained by the elements of this world. It was at the foot of the cross it attained its maturity. From that moment, replenished with courage and life, it rejoices in the most painful labour, triumphs over all the repugnances of nature, faces death with a serene eye, and on its pale brow exhibits the halo of martyrdom.
Hence we see that protestant countries, which
THE EUCHARIST.
105
deem the subscription list, the test of christian charity and reduce it to a mere question of arithmetic, have lost its genuine notion. The Saviour having come, not to destroy, hut to fulfil the law, there is no doubt but the ancient and universal precept of alms- giving ought, not only exist, but be more generously observed by the nations which have felt, in any degree, the influence of Christianity, and that such is the fact will appear in the most striking manner, by comparing Mahometanism, one of the most degra- ded among the christian sects, with the most distinguished of the Pagan nations. This sort of beneficence which is to be seen wherever the primi- tive religion has been known and practiced, ought also be found among protestant nations ; for, as long as the principle of mental independence has not produced its last results, it must necessarily preserve some common faith in these primitive truths, without which no society, be it even barbarous or corrupt, could exist. It is equally incontestible that the countries separated from catholic unity, among whom a true and modest beneficence is practiced, superior by its activity to that of ancient nations, are
106
GERBET ON
precisely those where the mass of the people, less subject to the sceptical action of individual rationa- lism, have preserved, by virtue of a contrary principle, more positive faith in those christian dogmas which ancient protestantism had borrowed from the Catholic Church. But as the character which particularly distinguishes christian devotedness from primitive beneficence, does not merely consist in a greater multiplicity of good works of the same class, but rather in a new species of good works, the Church, the depository of genuine Christianity, ought not only perpetuate this beneficence of the primitive times, of which the creative bounty was the model, but further she ought unceasingly produce that perfect charity whose type is found in the sacrifice of redemption.
The comparison of Catholicism with protestantism presents, on this point, a remarkable phenomenon of the moral world, which attracted the attention of Voltaire. " The nations separated from the Roman communion have but imperfectly imitated, that generous charity"* by which the latter is charac- Essay on manners, torn. iii. c. 139.
THE EUCHARIST.
107
terised. As the spirit of any church eminently shews itself in its clergy, let us compare with the catholic priesthood, I was about to say the priesthood — no, the ministry of the protestant communion. I readily admit all the traits of individual beneficence which may be quoted in its favour. One thing only I ask ; shew me in that clergy, as a body, the spirit of sacrifice. I have not met with a single instance in their history, even at the period of their greatest religious fervour, to prove that they had received grace to brave pestilence in the discharge of the first of their duties, " In 1543 some ministers presented themselves to the council of Geneva, confessing that it was their duty to console those who were attacked, by pestilence, but none of them having courage enough to do so, they prayed the council to pardon them their weakness, God not having given them grace to encounter the danger with the necessary intrepidity, with the exception of Mathew Geneston, who offered to go if the lot should fall on him" * How different the language which Cardinal Borromeo
* State Registeries of the Genevian Republic, from 1535 to 1792.
108
GEHBET ON
addressed to his clergy almost at the same time, and in similar circumstances. " The most tender care that the best of fathers can bestow on his children in this time of desolation, the Bishop should bestow on his people both by his zeal and his ministry, in order that other men, stimulated by his example, may embrace, all the works of christian charity. As to parish priests and all those who have charge of souls, far from them be the thought to deprive their flocks of the most trifling services, at a time when they are so essential to them. Let them take the fixed determination to brave them all with a good heart, even death itself, rather than abandon, in this utter destitution of all aid, the faithful confided to their care by Christ who purchased them with his blood."*
* Tempore pestilentias episcopus qusecumque pietatis officia a parente optimo filiis praestari afflictissimo illo tempore opor- teat, ea studio et ministerio suo ita praestabit ut ad omnia caritatis christianae opera caeteri homines inflammentur. Parochi autem, animarumve curatores, tantum abest ut necessario co tempore populum cujus curam geruut, aliquo modo destituanr, ut fixa auimi deliberatione sibi statuendum putent omnia prorsuF- etiam mortis pericula, paratissimo animo subire, potius quam fldeles Christi sanguine redeinptos ac sibi praecipue in curam traditos in summa pene omnium adjumentorum necessitate deserere. Concil, mediol, v. part ii; cap. 4.
THE EUCHARIST.
109
Neither he, nor his priests, nor so many poor friars, at whom the intrepid pastors of Geneva were accus- tomed to sneer in safety, waited until the lot should fall on them to fly to the bed of pestilence. A parralel instituted between the conduct of both clergy amid such frightful calamities would afford matter for a moral statistic replete with interest. At all periods, and even recently, when a contagious malady was devastating some cantons of Germany, where the two religious creeds came in contact, the same contrast was strikingly manifested : it attracted the notice of the public journals. In fact we find it to prevail every where: "compare the protestant missions to our missions: what an unspeakable difference in the spirit which forms them, the means by which they operate, the success with which they are respectively attended ! Where are the protestant ministers who sacrifice life in announcing to the American Savage or to the learned Chinese the good tidings of salvation ? England may, as long as she please, boast of her apostles at Lancaster and her bible societies ; she may, in pompous reports, describe the progress of agriculture among the Negroes, and
110
GEB.BET ON
of the elementary sciences among the Hindoos ; all these pitiful counting-house missions, whereof policy- is the sole mover, as gold is the sole agent, only serve to demonstrate' the incurable religious apathy of protestant societies, alive to interest alone, and whoever can distinguish a noble action, inspired by a sublime motive, from a proceeding dictated by mercenary calculation, must recognise, if he be sincere, how infinite the distance between the Bishop of Tabarca, who lately fell by the sword of persecution, in the midst of the flock gained to Christianity by his courage and labours, and the Methodist missi- onary, whose prudent zeal conducts him only to places where his life is not exposed to danger, and who, according to a previous contract, is paid by the head for his converts.'"* Transcending the limits of this world, the devotedness of our missionaries has embraced every species of suffering and death. They have been seen crowding the dungeons of Constan- tinople, expiring with the hymn of triumph on their lips beneath the tomahawk of the savage, and pouring
* Melanges of the Abbe de la Mennais, torn. 1, p. 3G6.
THE EUCHARIST.
Ill
out in torrents on the Calvaries of Japan the blood of redemption which flowed in their veins. Name the desert, the rock of the ocean, unvisited by conquest or commerce, which has not been rendered glorious by the tomb of some martyr of Catholic Charity. And whilst the love which animates the Church would appear to be exhausted from so many losses, we perceive it, issuing from her bosom, in various forms, in these numerous religious congre- gations, whose members devoted body and soul to the service of suffering humanity, offer themselves up as a holocaust of charity ; a devotedness which is in many respects more touching than that of martyr- dom. For if an effort of courage be necessary to sacrifice life, something still greater is required in order to support an entire life of sacrifice. A Protestant journal, wishing to cite the two heroes of Christian charity, selected among the Catholics Vincent of Paul, and among the Protestants, not a minister, what indeed is truly remarkable, but a worthy philantrophic traveller. A single trait will suffice to characterize these two men. The monument raised in "Westminster Abbey to the memory of
112 GERBET ON
Howard, represents him holding in his hand plans of beneficence on a roll of paper. The poor Catholic priest has recorded his, as God has stamped his power, in his works, and one of his creations is the heart of those virgins who are the heroic mothers of all the unfortunate.
What is the donation of some pieces of gold, which does not deprive the rich man of a single enjoyment, compared with the bestowal of one's self*? Who is not struck by the difference between a subscriber to the Bible Societies and a sister of charity ? The retiring modesty of Catholic devoted- ness serves but to increase its splendour. I appeal to the conscientious testimony of all for the fact, that, though Protestantism presents administrations of beneficence, we look in vain for the humble victims of charity wherever it prevails.
Let us now attend to the important truth which results from all these facts. Christian charity is superior to ancient beneficence. What is the source of this superiority ? a more extensive manifestation of divine love. Catholic charity compared to Protestant beneficence, exhibits a similar superiority, which
THE EUCHARIST.
113
consequently must have for its principle the true, and for the same reason, the genuine sentiment of this love. Protestant individualism, in impelling the mind to scepticism, gradually destroys charity together with faith ; benevolence withers away as the light of iruthbecomes extinguished L This is the grand cause to which all others are subordinate. But this general explanation leaves another question to be solved. As this degradation manifested itself from the com- mencement of the reformation, it remains to inquire which, among the articles rejected by ancient Protestantism, is that whose destruction has specially contributed to alter, and extinguish that glowing christian charity which characterizes Catholicism. Ask the Church by what means she daily excites, revives, and nourishes this wonderful sentiment ? Her only response will be, to point to the inscription which crowns the mysterious tabernacle; ilIt is thus God lias loved the world." When love is to be explained, whom will you believe, if not those who love.
To comprehend in its full extent the action of this principle of love, we should call to mind how it raises
H
114
GERBET ON
to a superior degree of sanctity the duties of primitive beneficence, whilst it nourishes at the same time that spirit of sacrifice which is the peculiar character of Christianity. Charity does not enter into the human heart without a struggle, for there it finds an eternal opponent — pride, the first born of egotism, and the parent of hatred. The contempt of man for his fellow man produced the cruel theories of slavery, which existed among the degenerate nations of antiquity. But as soon as Christianity had stamped on the brow of all the seal of an august fraternity with him who is at the same time both man and God, these theories quickly disap- peared. Nevertheless, as in reviving the sentiment of the dignity of human nature, it respected, in the inequality of conditions, one of the elements of our present social state, pride, abusing this necessary order for the purpose of re assuming some at least of its former enjoyments, endeavours to create a petty slavery even under the empire of love. The insolent disdain so often manifested for the poor, and the harsh treatment of servants, furnish the proof. But, as in raising human nature to a
THE EUCHARIST.
115
union with the Divinity ; Christ broke the degrading yoke that had so long pressed upon it, so by imparting himself to man in the holy communion, which in a certain sense deifies the Christian, he perpetually combats in our morals the very shadow of that ancient barbarism which still lingers among us. Never, indeed, did the dogma of fraternal equality receive a more sacred sanction. Its most expressive sign, consecrated by universal custom, is a participation of the same repast. Here, the great and the humble, the young and the old, the rich and the destitute, come together to the same table, as to a family feast, and this feast is— God himself. The beggar, who this evening is at your gate, on to-morrow will place himself by your side at the banquet of eternal life. Know you whence comes this poor servant who suffers so much from your imperious temper ? He enters your house amid the reverence of angels ; for he bears within him the God who shall judge you. Whoever will closely observe the character of the Christian nations will easily recognise this secret, but constant action, of faith in the real presence. It is to it we owe, at least in part, one of the most
116
GEE BET ON
beautiful traits of our manners :— the dignity of the servant, the notion and sentiment of which, some nations, particularly England and Geneva, would seem to have lost.
The poor man is a superior being in Christianity. His eminent dignity is one of the first articles of the symbol of charity. We blindly disdain his apparent lowliness : but what state more lowly, what more obscure, what comes nearer to annihilation, than that in which Jesus Christ presents himself to us ? He who has said "This is my body, this is my blood" has also said " As long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me."* If our faith be not lively enough to recognise, under the rags of misery, the representation of the Prince of the future world, how shall it adore, under the meanest emblem, the majesty of the Master of the universe ? Each mark of contempt towards the poor contains a principle of infidelity and the germ of blasphemy. Let us penetrate more deeply the great mystery of faith : communion, unaccompanied by
* Amen dico vobis : quamdiu fecistis uni ex fratribns meis minimis, mihi fecistis — St, Matt, xxv. v. 40.
THE EUCHARIST.
117
works of charity, would be like an unpropitious sacrifice interrupted by crime, a sacrifice without a thanksgiving. Offered up in the temple, it is termi- nated in the hovel of the poor, for there too dwells the Son of Man. The hymn of Mercy is the comple- tion of the rite. These pious considerations, familiar to the faithful, daily produce acts of beneficence, that outnumber all the phrases of philosophers on the subject. Do you refuse to recognise the force of these sentiments, because they bear the impress of mysticism ? But is not the marvellous influence which Christianity has exercised throughout the universe connected with ideas of the same order. What are the boasted achievements of rational beneficence, when contrasted for a moment with this mystic charity, which, during eighteen hundred years, holding its vigil above suffering humanity, affectionately turns its bed of sorrow ? Ascend as high as you please into the regions of antiquity, and its records will inform you that all beneficent doctrines are based on mysticism. Viewed in this light mysticism has governed the world : its power dates from creation.
118
GEXLBET ON
The benignant influence of the mysteries of love is particularly manifested in the pardon of injuries, that other miracle of Christianity. If, thanks to the healing art, the eye of man seeks the science of organization even in the bosom of death, why should we not find means for presenting to the eyes of the infidel the Christian soul, that he may there behold the organization of living charity ? Let those who have experienced the troubles, and the remedies by which its tranquillity is restored, bear testimony to it. When the fire of revenge, raging in the inferior appetite, threatens to inflame the will, some drops of the blood of the Man- God extinguish it in its birth. I do not believe that any man who com- municates with the necessary dispositions, if he should happen to discover, at that divine instant, even a shade of hatred until then latent in his heart, could endure the aspect of it. In addition to the authority of duty, so powerful at such a moment, and the voice of that blood which cries aloud for pardon, the state of the soul is then imperviable to any sentiment of hatred. There is within her too sweet a peace. The infidel can form no idea of
THE EUCHARIST.
119
this order of sentiments ; but at least let him not blaspheme what he does not know, for indeed his doctrine will produce nothing similar. The precept which ordains the pardon of inj uries,is the great mystery of Christian morality, as redemption is the great mystery of faith. All human metaphysics are essentially inadequate, I do not say to procure the accomplishment of this duty, but even simply to prove that it is a duty. The heart of man feels that to pardon is noble ? Granted, but does it not also feel that there is a grandeur in an undying vengeance ? Where will you find in mere sentiment the obligation of preferring one emotion to the other ? Do you appeal to reason ? unaided by faith, reason tells you that vengeance is but the exercise of the right of self defence. In vain will you torment yourself with the abstractions of idiology : the duty of pardoning injuries will ever remain a consequence without a principle. It is an inference that can be drawn from Christian principles alone. When the wisdom of antiquity had the boldness to counsel this virtue, it connected it with ideas of divine pardon which constituted the basis of the primitive
120
GERBET ON
religion. On this subject the genius of all antiquity is imaged in the beautiful allegory of Homer " The gods who are our superiors in virtue, rank, and power, suffer themselves to be touched by compassion. When men offend them by their crimes, they avert the anger of these superior beings, by offering them with humble prayer, incense, vows, libations, andsacrifices, ' '•''Prayer •$ are the daughters of the great Jupiter " walking with a faultering step, — a furrowed brow,— * downcast eye — and sidelong glances, they constantly follow Injury, which, with a bold and light step, easily precedes them, and pervades the earth in its course of ruin. They come to repair the wrong which it has done. These daughters of Jupiter are bountiful to him who respectfully receives them, and they gra- ciously hear his petitions. If any person obstinately repel, or reject them, they supplicate Jupiter to send him Injury, that he may suffer condign punishment. "* Attend now to the Catholic doctrine. The pardon, which drew its being from the cross and which dwells in the tabernacle, waits not till prayer, with a down- cast eye, comes to blot out the traces of the * Iliad, chap. ix.
THE EUCHAHIST.
121
offence. As the God-Saviour opens his arms to guilty mortals, and makes the first advance to heal the wounds which in offending him they have inflicted on themselves : thus Pardon, the first born of Christ, and like him every where present, precedes the tardy supplications of repentance, and hastens to offer itself to the wrong-doer. Eternal as his Father, he embraces all ages, for him there is neither yesterday, nor to-morrow : yet in favour of man he has his days of benediction and his hours of grace. When the congregation of the devout assemble for the sacrifice at which the libation of the redeeming blood is made, he watches at the door of the temple, and says to all who enter, " If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath any thing against thee, leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first tobe reconciled to thy brother, and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift. ' ' * All those who bring a fraternal heart enter with joy,
* Si ergo offers munus tuum ad altare, et ibi recordatus fueris quia frater tuus habet aliquid adversum te, relinque ibi munus tuum ante altare, etvade prius reconciliarifratri tuo, et time veniens offeres munus tuum. St, Matt. cap. v., v. 23, 24
122
GERBET ON
for they bring the grateful offering ; and, when they depart thence to their abode, he says to them ; Go in peace. But if, deceiving his vigilance, some of these false brethren, who secretly sacrifice to Hatred, the queen of hell, dare to advance where love only is admitted, he awaits them at their return. When they pass before him, with a gloomy brow and a heavy heart, he gives them remorse, as a brother, who pursues their steps every where. They are condemned to his scathing embraces. Who shall tell the pangs by which they are tortured ? We only know that a terrible sentence is recorded, in their own breasts, by all the blood which has redeemed the world.
The eucharistic worship, which is the exterior and perpetual realization of an infinite devotedness, which by daily awakening it, nourishes with this sentiment, the memory, the heart, and even the senses of man, penetrates his entire being with the spirit of sacrifice. Self devotedness becomes an habitual sentiment. It is this which gives to charity perse- verance and activity. For nothing can supersede the force of habit, and the heart, as well as the body,
THE EUCHARIST.
123
has its habits. This action of the principle of love displays itself throughout the history of Christianity, and presents to the observant eye a magnificient experience. \Ye collect with a scrupulous curiosity the most minute details connected with the lives of celebrated authors : and very justly, for they are the notes of the history of genius. But how much nobler the subject, hi as much as it is more closely linked with the happiness of humanity, to seek in the life, the words, and confidential outpourings of these wonder-workers of charity produced by Catholicism, the secret of their incomparable devotedness. There it may be seen that, if the devotedness of Jesus Christ was its source, the communion of his body and of his blood was its daily nourishment, its remedy against the langour of nature, its vital principle which continually caused the pulse of charity to throb more quickly in the human heart. We shall give an illustration. The period comprised in the latter half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, beheld Francis Xavier, Francis of Sales, and Vincent of Paul, names every where in benediction, and which even humility
124
GERBET ON
could not preserve from glory. This triumvirate, composed of different characters, is christian charity personified under its different attributes. Worn out by sacrifice, oppressed beneath the weight of the world he was converting, the heroic Apostle of the East, forgetting his fatigues, his sufferings and continual dangers, exclaims. " The severest pang of the missionary, is not to be able, in certain cir- cumstances, to celebrate the holy mysteries, and to be deprived of the Celestial bread which invigorates the human heart, and which is its only consolation amid the evils and contradictions of this life." * Let us now hear the angel of meekness : in tracing with an admirable naivete the wonders that com- munion effects in the saints, he did not reflect that he was pourtraying himself. "They feel, says he, that Jesus Christ pervades their entire being. But what does the Saviour effect by this pervading influence? He purifies all, mortifies all, reforms all, causes the heart to glow with affection, gives light to the understanding, imparts new vigour to the breast, beams from the eyes, * Letters of St. Francis of Xavier, Liv, cviii, anno 1552.
THE EUCHARIST.
125
speaks with the tongue ; he becomes all in all: and then " we live, not we, but Jesus Christ liveth in us." * Would you wish now to learn from the mouth of Vincent of Paul what com- munion is ? " When you have received the adorable body of Jesus Christ, do ,you not feel, said he to his priests, do you not feel, the divine fire burning in your breast " ? f If, condemned to the galleys by human justice, in some reverie of fancy, I imagined that a perfect stranger, impelled by some unaccountable love for me, had come to take upon him my chains ; for the realization of such a day-dream, I must confess I would trust a little more to the fire which burned within the breast ofVincent of Paul, than to all the lights of philantrophy.
The philosophers who admire Catholic devotedness, resemble the Egyptians who bless the inundations of the Nile, whose source they know not "Perhaps there is nothing more noble, says Voltaire, than the
* Spiritual letters of St. Francis of Sales, liv. ii. cap. 48 — Lyons 1634.
f Life of St.' Yincent of Paul. By Louis Abelly, Tom. iii. p. 183.
126
GERBET ON
sacrifice made by a delicate sex of beauty, youth, and frequently of high rank, to relieve that aggregate of human misery collected in our hospitals, the very sight of which is so humiliating to our pride and so revolting to our delicacy."* The truth of this obser- vation is undeniable ; but why not proceed to an explanation of the cause ? Do you imagine that these retreats are inaccessible to the storms of the moral world *? that the human heart, which even pleasure fatigues, never sinks under sacrifice ? When in the midst of these gloomy apartments, it cannot but occur to those devoted beings as they bend above the un- known sufferer that, instead of the brilliant society and the fond family which they left, and to whose delights a single word would restore them, they must bind up the wounds of strangers, listen to the shrieks of agony, and follow to the tomb the friendless corpse, not for a week, or a month, but for years — for ever : think you that their courage is never shaken at the sight of such a gloomy future ? What then, it may be asked, sustains them in their weakness or preserves them from its influence? You know not: imitate the * Vide Essay on Morals, c. 139.
THE EUCHARIST.
127
example of those who wished to know it — interrogate themselves. Frequent communion, such is their unanimous response. But a truce to words : what will you give them in place of this mystery of love ? If their devotedness is the very perfection of moral grandeur, why do you not undertake so glorious a work? Create for us, with your pompous maxims of beneficence, one Sister of Charity for a proof, only one* we ask no more.
These reflections lead to a painful thought. Do these men who, since an ever to be deplored schism, are engaged by profession in combatting the faith of the Church, know what they are doing? Do they know that they are attacking a belief the most pro- ductive of every sort of beneficence, as it is that which supports in every part of the universe the spirit of devotedness and sacrifice ? May he who was meek and humble of heart, dispite of the haughty ingratitude of those whom he came to save, avert from our heart and lips every sentiment and expres- sion of bitterness against those unhappy scorners of the most magnificent of his gifts. And how could we speak to them otherwise than with the language
* Yide Appendix.
128
GERBET ON
of love ! If this language existed not, it should be invented when speaking of the Eucharist. But at the same time a sorrow, rendered indignant at witnessing its deplorable effects, urges us to raise our voice against their unhallowed ministry. Deeply- penetrated with this two-fold sentiment, we would not know how to express the mingled emotions of love and sorrow we feel for them, if we did not call to mind that word of Christ to the first despiser of the mystery of faith, that word so affectionate and so overwhelming. Friend whereto art thou come.*
* Amice, ad quid venisti? St Math. Chap. xxvi. v. 50.
THE EUCHARIST.
129
CHAPTER VIIL The Interior Life.
The mystical life is a moral phenomenon of all ages. The various religious treatises of antiquity contain theories of spirituality, which comprise the basis of this order of ideas, as it has been understood by all modern nations. But these theories are divi- ded into two clases which are diametrically opposed. The one, founded on purely philosiphical specula- tions, and principally on pantheism, tended to destroy the active principle in each man, that, by annihilating whatever is peculiar to the individual, he may be blended with the universal soul, and thus become absorbed in the Divinity. Diffused among a crowd
of the oriental sects ; this doctrine appears to have i
130
GERBET ON
originally come from India, and will be found developed together with the principle on which it is based and its demoralizing consequences, in one of the most ancient monuments of sanscrite literature. "He who knows" to use the language of Oupneck-hat, "that all things are the type of the Creator, that one's self and whatever appears to exist is the Creator; that the world proceeds from him, that he is the world, that it exists in him and returns to him ; he who knows this and meditates on it, finds therein the repose of his soul; he is in peace. When the heart has renounced its desires and actions, it then directly tends to its principle, which is the universal soul ; when it tends to its principle, it has no other will than that of the true being. It is the nature of the heart to be changed into what it desires; thus the soul becomes God or the world, according as its aspirations are directed to the one or the other. The impure heart is that which has its desires ; the pure, that which is divested of them. The heart absorbed in the perfect being by reflecting that the universal soul exists, becomes that soul, and then its happiness is
THE EUCHARIST.
131
ineffable : it knows that this soul resides within it. To be absorbed in God, as in a treasure that one has found, to affirm nothing, to propose nothing, to say nothing : either I or me ; to he without fear and without desire, such is the mark of salvation, and of supreme happiness. To desire, is to die ; not to desire, is to live. Whoever knows the universal being, whoever knows that his soul is the universal soul, becomes light; he is freed from all evil; he is lear- ned without tiresome study; he is happy, he is immortal, he is God. The desire to do a pure work, the apprehension to do abad one, trouble not the wise ; for he knows that both the pure and bad works are God himself (who acts.) The truth is there is neither production, decay, nor resurrection? neither contemplative, saved, nor salvation: for the world is but a phantom ; there is nothing real but the universal soul which shews itself under the appearance of the world." *
Though clad in the garb of enthusiasm, this doc- trine presents a series of consequences, rigorously
*Vide Analysis of Oupneck-hat, by M. Lauguinais. Anquetil Duperron's latin translation may be also consulted.
132
GETIBET OK
deduced from pantheism. Errors analogous, in many respects, to this imaginary mysticism which dates an origin of three thousand years, have repro- duced themselves, at different periods, in the bosom of Christianity, though by an inverse order. For, whilst the Indian quietists derived their theories of spirituality from pantheism, the European quietists, grounding themselves on a mistaken notion of perfec- tion, established, maxims that logically tended to the same point from which the others had set out. Their doctrine on the necessity of annihilating all individual operation of the understanding and of the will, cannot otherwise be conceived, than by supposing man to be a modification of the infinite substance: for if he be an intelligent creature distinct from God, as such he must be active ; matter alone being inert; and further as a distinct intelligent being, he ought to enjoy an activity proper to himself. Thus many of those mystics, drawing from their system of unification the same consequences as the ancients, derived from it also, like them, the indiffe- rence of all actions, and absolute impeccability, identifying, in the same way, the will of man with
THE EUCHARIST.
133
the will of God, the limited being with the infinite. Molinos, by the tendency of his system impelled to pantheism, announces it in terms so similar to those of Oupneck-hat, that one would be inclined to suspect, that the quietism of the seventeenth century was, like so many other systems, but the revival of the oriental doctrines.
The principle that contains this great error lurks in the writings, meritorious in other points, of some ascetic authors, who, being persons of true piety, would have rejected it had they perceived its consequences. The devotion they inculcate, instead of regulating the activity of the soul, tends only to weaken and destroy it. The germ of all pantheistical quietism is contained in this mistaken notion, as far remote from genuine catholic devotion, such as it has been understood in all ages, as being is from nonentity. Notwithstanding this error, these ancient sages who may be denominated, according to many of the holy Fathers, as the primitive christians, often gave admirable precepts of spirituality. Derived from traditionary faith, their theories, instead of destroying the active principle, aimed at its deve-
134
GERBET ON
lopement, exciting man to perfect within himself, by a continual purification of his heart, the living image of the Deity. Such is also, but in a degree neces- sarily superior, the spirituality consecrated by Christianity fully developed. It dilates and fertilizes the soul, as quietism paralizes it by a mortal lethargy, for it substitutes for this passive pleasure, which constitutes the essence of false mystisism, the active principle — love, which is to the moral, what fire, its ancient emblem is to the physical world — the universal stimulant. It may be interesting to con- trast with the pantheistical mysticism of Oupneck- hat the description of catholic devotion, given by an unknown author of a book translated almost into every language, the genuine christian Oupneck-hat, that contains the pure essence of the religion of love.
" Love is an excellent thing, a great good indeed : what alone maketh light all that is burthensome, and equally bears all that is unequal. For it carries a burthen without being burthened, and makes all that which is bitter, sweet and savoury. The love of Jesus is noble and generous, it spurs us on to do great things, and excites us to desire always that
THE EUCHARIST.
135
which is most perfect. Love will tend upwards, and is not to be detained by things on earth. Love will be at liberty, and free from all wordly affection, lest its interior sight be hindered, lest it suffer itself to be entangled with any temporal interest, or cast down by losses. Nothing is sweeter than love ; nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing more generous, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth : for love proceeds from God, and cannot rest but in God, above all things created. The lover flies, runs, and rejoices ; he is free and not held. He gives all for all, and has all in all : because he rests in one sovereign good above all, from whom all good flows and proceeds. He looks not at the gifts, but turns himself to the Giver above all goods. Love often knows no measure, but is inflamed above measure. Love feels no burthen, values no labours, would willingly do more than it can ; complains not of impossibility, because it conceives that it may, and can do all things. It is able there- fore to do anything, and it performs and effects many things ; where he that loves not, faints and lies town. Love watches, and sleeping, slumbers not,
136
GERBET ON
When weary, is not tired ; when straitened, is not constrained ; when frighted, is not disturbed ; but like a lively name, and a torch all on fire, it mounts upwards ; and securely passes through all opposition. Whosoever loveth, knoweth the cry of this voice. Whosoever is not ready to suffer all things, and to stand resigned to the will of his Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. He that loveth, must willingly embrace all that is hard and bitter, for the sake of his Beloved, and never suffer himself to be turned away from him by any contrary occurrences whatsoever." *
This active christian devotion, which nothing wearies, and that pantheistical insensibility, which nothing can excite, are the forms, the latter of egotism that destroys, the former of the spirit of sacrifice which is the conservative principle of the moral order. For quietism, which would appear to aim at the annihilation of self, tends, on the con- trary, to constitute it the centre of all things, and is at best but the ambition of a boundless egotism. On the contrary, in developing the activity of every * Imitation of Christ, Liv. iii, c. 5.
THE EUCHARIST.
137
individual, love, that lives only to embrace all, associates man to the action of the infinite being, emphatically so called — namely, the gift — and the sacrifice of self.
However, as error has no innate principle of support, pantheistical mysticism includes a great truth. The absorption of man in God is but the corruption, of a primitive and eternal dogma — the union of God and man. In this point of view, there is something hi the system which responds to the wants of human nature. It aspires to this union, it endeavours to free itself from the bonds which bind it to what is changeable and perishable, that it may cleave to the immutable reality, for it feels that there alone is to be found the repose of pure liberty. So far is Catholicism from refusing to recognise these wants, that her consoling truths serve only to nourish and satisfy them. In promising man that one day, without divesting himself of his nature, he shall become one with God, it imparts to him, in this terres- trial union , the foretaste of a future imion. The nature of this union is such, that in order to express it, it employs terms similar to those of the pantheistical
138
GERBET ON
system, and to which usage alone, regulated accor- ding to the explanations of a severe orthodoxy, has attached a sense formally exclusive of that great error. It teaches that God, by communion, so imparts himself to us, that the substance of Christ is mingled with our substance to make of him and us but one ; * that the result of this communion, is not merely a union of will, but of nature ; f and that we
* Initiati dictis obsequantur, ut non solum per dilectionem, sed etiam reipsa, cum ilia came commisceamur; id quod efficitur per cibum quern ille dedit, volens nobis ostendere quanto erganos ferveat amore. Propterea se nobis commiscuit et in unum corpus totum constituit, ut unum simus, quasi corpus junctum capiti. St. Joames chris. horn. 46 in Matth.
f Est ergo innobis ipse per carnem, et sumus, in eo, dum secundum hoc quod nos sumus in Deo est. Quam autem in co per sacramentum communicat se carnis et sanguinis simus, ipse testatur, dicens : et hie mundus me jam non videt; vos autem me videtis, quoniam, ego vivo et vos vivitis ; quoniam ego in Patre meo, et vos in me, et ego in vobis. Si voluntatis tantum unitatem intelligi vellet, cur gradum quemdam atque ordinem consummandee unitatis expo- suit ; nisi, ut cum ille in Patre per naturam divinitatis esset, nos contra in co per corporalem ejus nativitatem, et ille rursus in vobis per sacramentorum inesse mysterium crederetur ? ac si perfecta per Mediatorem unitas doceretur, cum nobis in se manentibus ipse maneret in Patre, et in Patre manens maneret in nobis, et ita ad unitatem Patris proficeremus : cum qui in co naturalitur secundum nativitatum inest, nos quoque in co naturaliter inessemus, ipso in nobis naturaliter permanente. St. Hil. de Trin. Lib. viii, No. 13
THE EUCHARIST.
139
are identified with him. * To express this unity, catholic faith does a happy violence to language, by imposing upon it an extraordinary syntax ; the noble antithesis of " Saint Paul, I live, no not I," is emi- nently expressive of the eucharistic transformation. Catholocism also teaches that, as Christ gives himself to us by love, this union cannot be accom- plished but in as much as through love we make him the offering of ourselves, and thus it eradicates the deep-rooted egotism of the pantheist. Two opposite systems of error have respectively failed to recognise an essential portion of human nature, viewed in relation to the point of which we now treat ; the one, whose germ is found in the stoical notions, and which has been, by modern Jancenism and quietism, connected with other ideas, commands man to love G-od, even in the supposition that he shall be eternally separated from him : it condemns
* Quern ad modum enim si quis ceram cerse conjunnerit, utique alteram in altera invicemque imineasse videbit : eodurn quoque opinor modo, qui Salvatoris nostri Christi carnern sumit, sec ejus pretiosum sanguinem bibit, ut ipse ait, unum quiddarn cum eo reperitur. St Cyrii, In ev, St Joannes, c. 5, v, 56.
140
GERBET ON
him to a hopeless and endless activity. The other, confounding man with God, and thereby concentrating all his energies in self destroys the principle of activity by destroying love. Catholocism combines the truths hidden in these contradictory errors. Uniting the want which impels us to look to God for peace and happiness, so essential to our nature, with that other want of activity by which alone nature is perfected, it corresponds at the same time to both, for it makes love, which is essentially active, the medium of a union with God. The reciprocal gift of God and Man, responding to each other — behold catholocism unveiled. This is the source — this the centre of every thing.
The love of man for God, such as Christianity has infused into the mind and heart, is a wonder which we cannot sufficiently admire. Its universality makes it appear natural, and yet it is nothing less than the result of a most profound and intimate change in our moral constitution. The human race, agitated a long time by the recollection of its fall, passed through the ordeal of a salutary fear to the de- lights of perfect love, in the same way as a man bowed
THE EUCHARIST.
141
beneath the weight of crime arises the beloved of God. We cannot go from one extreme to the other but by regular grades of transition. The sentiment which, according to the laws of the human heart, should first develop itself in sinful man is that of terror. But terror would immediately beget despair, if hope- did not at once present herself with a redeeming look, and sweetly lead him to the bosom of love. Such is the history of mankind ; for Providence governs the human family as an individual. Two sentiments divided the guilty heart of the children of Adam with regard to the God of holiness ; the fear of approaching him and the desire of being familiarly united to him. In the primitive religion, fear was the predominant sentiment. So deeply impressed was the worship of antiquity with it, that, when atheism endeavoured to explain the origin of religion, its first hypothesis was that fear had made the gods.* Not that hope bad ever abandoned the earth. A promise had been made our first parents, which caused all antiquity to proclaim, with the ancient sages of China, that when innocence perished, mercy * Primus in orlre Deos fecit timor.
142
GERBET ON
appeared. * Nevertheless the original anathema, so vividly represented to the imagination by the show of those terrible rites that constituted the universal liturgy ; made a deeper impression than that mysterious salvation, but dimly seen through the shadows of futurity. From this unquiet and troubled hope there arose, after a struggle a love tremulous as itself, and, during forty centuries, the heart of fallen man appeared more susceptible of fear than of confidence. The Gospel has, in the full force of the term, wrought a revolution in the human soul, by effecting a change in relation to the two sentiments that divided it : fear has ceded to love the empire of the heart. The God of gods having abased himself to such a degree as to become our friend, f our br other, % our servant, § fallen humanity immediately
* Chinese Memoirs, Tom. 1, p. 108.
f Jam non dicam vos servos, quia servus neseit quid faciat dominus ejus. Vos autem dixi amicos quia omnia qucecumque audavi a Patre meo nota feci vobis. — St. Joannes, ch. xv. v. 15.
% Non confunditur fratres eos vocare. — Ep. ad. Heb. c. ii. v. ii.
§ Filius hominis non venit ministrari sed ministrare.— St. Matt. chap. xx.3 v. 28.
THE EUCHARIST.
143
raised itself to a sort of familiarity with the Omnipo- tent, the idea of which was utterly unknown to the ancients, and which they would have deemed nothing less than sacrilege. This is the genuine and distinctive mark of Christian nations when com- pared with others : but they do not all partake of it in the same degree. This sentiment has been visibly weakened among Protestants. And hence it is they deem the free and cheerful piety of Catholics an irreverence to the Deity. What is considered by them religious respect, is but a cold and gloomy reserve, which makes Christian piety retrogade towards the imperfection of the law of fear. Too many recollections of Sinai mingle with their worship of Calvary. If the difference which exists on this point between the ancients and modems proceed from the familiarity established by Christ between man and God, the difference that exists between Catholic devotion and the frigid worship of Protestants is necessarily derived from an analogous principle, and supposes that Catholics are more familiarized with Christ himself. This indeed is the result of faith in the real presence or permanent incarnation which
144
GERBET ON
draws us to Christ, as the incarnation itself made us approximate more closely to God. It is no longer to humanity in general, but to each human being that the Word unites itself. It not only enters into the limits of our common nature, but even into those of our personality : it in some measure deifies our essence, and christianises the selfish principle The union which changes food into the substance of the body it nourishes, is the emblem of this incar- nation in us. To seek a more intimate union would be to desire to be the man-God. Who does not perceive that a worship founded on such a mystery, must raise to the highest possible degree this sentiment of familiarity with God whch is the basis of Christianity ? In our admirable prayers for communion, the soul speaks to Jesus, as the spouse to her well beloved, and fear to her is but the modesty of confidence.
To form a correct idea of this mystery, viewed in this light, we must consider the order in which love is developed. It does not shew itself in a created being, till a superior being has lowered itself for the purpose of manifesting this sentiment to it. Such
THE EUCHARIST.
145
is the invariable, the universal law, of which the idea is admirably expressed in those languages, in which the words,propensity and inclination are deemed synonimous with love. The child learns to love as he learns to speak. The tenderness of his parents awakens in his soul, as yet alive only to physical sensation, a superior order of affections till then unknown : his heart begins to throb at the smile of his mother. The general usage which obliges, in the conjugal state, man, or the strong being, first to manifest his love, originates in the same law which is not less visible in civil society. Fear is the first sentiment which power inspires. Should it desire love, it must commence by loving. This sentiment, like that of truth, is propagated from the high to the low, and this order which governs the present world, is equally developed in a more elevated sphere. Faith shews us numerous choirs of intelligent crea- tures, which lowering themselves towards us, antici- pate our friendship by a celestial friendship, and which in admirable gradation form an immense hierarchy of love. It might be said that creation rests on an inclined plane, so that all creatures
146
GERBET ON
appear to incline towards those beneath in order to love and to be loved by them, thus passing from one to the other, and as it were from hand to hand, down to the lowest rank — that flaming torch kindled in the highest heaven, and caught from the bosom of eternal love. The Apostle of charity, soaring on eagle wing to the first cause of this universal law, exclaims, Let us love God, for he has loved us first.* He by whom all things were made : the Word of God, in creating myriads of intelligent beings, originally manifested to them his love under forms analogous to their nature, and consequently as various as the modifications of their being. By the very act of thus lowering himself to them, he must necessarily have appeared in a state of abasement, under a form of existence inferior to that which he has in the bosom of the Father. Thus, according to the philosophy of antiquity, creation was considered a sort of annihilation of the Divinity, as the beginning of a sacrifice whereof God himself was the victim. But follow up the progress of this divine abasement,
* Diligamus Deum, quoniam, Deus prior delexit nos — Ep. St. Joannes, Cap. iv., v. 19.
THE EUCHARIST.
147
whose boundless plan was marked out from all eter- nity by love itself. He whom God begat before the morning star, * who is the splendour of his glory, the figure of his substance, t in descending from his bosom, passed over the various orders of creation to arrive at the most remote region of intellectual life, at the extreme point where spiritual life ends, and blind existence commences. There he found man, who is kindred alike to angels and to brutes ; Sthe shadow of a Deity in the body of an animal. And the word was made flesh. Could he humble himself still more after having entered so deeply into the narrow proportions of a creature below whom no intelligent beings are found? His love desired a still more profound abasement. The God who concealed himself under the magnificent veil of nature, who shrouded himself in the obscure veil of humanity, entombs himself under the appearance of lowly matter, to be like it the food of man. There all disappears, even his human form : he is as if he were
* Ex utero ante luceferurn genui te. — PsaL cix. f Splendor cloriae et %ura substantia ejus, — Cap. ad Heb. c. 1, v. 3.
148
GERBET ON
not, and, arrived at the ultimate point of abasement;, he sinks into the bottomless abyss of our miseries. For each degree of divine abasement, there is a divine developement of human nature : the latter ascending in love to God, in proportion as the former descends by charity to man. The ancient doxology to the good and great God, is the summary of the piety of the first times, but when he who governs us had become the Emanuel, the God whose greatness as Bossuet remarks is founded more on goodness than on power, he created in man a new heart. The sentiment of his love was more vivid than the recol- lection of his majesty, and Christianity, in preserving the sublimity of ancient language to describe the formidable power of him who is, has added nothing thereto, whilst it has formed with the elements of primitive language an idiom specially consecrated to the use of love. In this language taught by the Gospel, faith in the Eucharist has formed a magnifi- cent and tender dialect, the exclusive property of the Catholic Church. Its type is found in a fragment of holy writ, bearing a peculiar character, namely, the Canticle of Canticles. As the Apocalypse which
THE EUCHARIST.
149
exhibits to us the sublime figure of justice driving, from age to age, iniquity towards the abyss, forms by its terrific imagery a striking contrast with the serenity of the Gospel of mercy, so the Song of Solomon exhibits a difference not less remarkable with the austere majesty of the old Testament. It was the prophecy of a mystery of love which time was to unveil : and justly might it be called the Apocalypse of Christian charity. When Jesus Christ had consummated the mystery, the seals of this book were broken, its language understood, and its most impassioned figures naturally presented themselves to the pen of Catholic writers, as often as they endeavoured to express the ineffable nuptials which are accomplished in the communion. Protestant authors make comparatively little use of this sacred epithalamium, which appears to them a collection of hieroglyphics of which the key is lost.
The difference between Catholicism and Protestant piety is marked in their prayers. Prayer is the accent of religion : it exhibits its heart, as the human voice reflects the shades of thought and feeling. The supplications of the ancient world were
150
GERBET ON
the cry of a great misery to a great mercy. But with the prayer which we have learned from the lips of the Saviour a new order commenced. The Christian exposes his necessities to God : but it is not with these he begins : he first of all supplicates God on account of God himself. He desires that his name of Almighty Father, the principal and only cause of all that is, may be every where known and adored ; that his reign, the reign of his Word, the eternal King of the spiritual world, may come ; that heaven and earth, subject to his holy will, may be the sanctuary of his Spirit of love. It is only then, the Christian begins to suppli- cate for himself. In three words, he embraces all the wants of the present, past, and future — this, three-fold existence — the passing eternity of the creature. The present wants but a little bread, the bread of our indigence, according to the Syriac version, the material emblem of that food which is the super substantial aliment * which alone appeases the hunger of the soul. The past has nothing to
* Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodic. — Vulg. St. Matt. cap. vi., v. 2.
THE EUCHARIST.
151
ask for, save pardon, and to obtain it, the Christian wast pardon. In the future^ has nothing to fear but himself. His prayer concludes like the universal petition of all ages and nations; for deliverance from evil in the design of infinite goodness, is the end of our creation. Though admirable in eveiy word, the Lord's prayer is particularly distinguished from the forms of supplication inspired by the primitive religion, in this particular that the disciple of Christ, more occupied in his prayer with God than with himself, does not cry out with afflicted humanity, peace to men, until he has chaunted with the angels, Glory to God ! Compare the Catholic and Protestant prayers with this divine model, and, that the terms of comparison may be just, commence by retrenching from the last the prayers literally borrowed from the Catholic liturgy or formed on them ; there is no sincere Protestant who will not be impressed by the difference. However gross the prejudices that intervene, genuine devotion, whose ear is ever delicate, cannot fail to distinguish the true from the false accents of supplication. Whence
152
GERBET ON
is it that so many Protestants envy the unction of Catholic prayers which sheds so much sweetness even on the sentiment of our wants, and lends to repentance almost the charm of innocence ? Faith in the Eucharist, which, at every moment, powerfully excites confidence, love and the spirit of sacrifice constantly upholds prayer in the degree of perfection to which it has been raised by Christianity, whilst wherever this faith is altered or rejected, prayer necessarily retrogades towards its primitive imper- fection, a thing no longer tolerable, for, under the empire of religion fully developed, it is a grating discord, which disturbs the harmony of the whole. A striking comparison will serve to illustrate these observations. The Lutheran belief in the Eucharist is that which differs least from the Catholic, which latter has been entirely rejected by the Calvinists. The English system, though Calvinistic at bottom, oscilates between Wittenburg and Geneva, inasmuch as according to Burnet, it considers as indifferent the dogma of the corporal presence, so strenuously maintained, for the moment of commu- nion, by the primitive Lutherans, but rejected with
THE EUCHARIST.
153
such horror, as an impious tenet, by the fanaticism of the ancient Calvinists. Now it has been remarked that Lutheranism, notwithstanding the ferocious temper of its founder, presented from its very origin a milder character, in point of piety, when contrasted with the repulsive harshness of Calvinism though established by a man less violent. The character of the English system is intermediate : the Calvinists think it too devout ; the Lutherans, not sufficiently so. Hence the three principal fractions of Protestantism are distinguished by a corresponding relation to piety, as they recede from or approximate to the generative dogma of Catholic piety. I am far from sup- posing that the peculiar character of each of these sects has been determined by this cause alone ; but hi order to account for the phenomenon, it should not be forgotten that the moral, as well as the physical world, has its affinities and combinations. This law, which may be demonstrated by the history of many ancient sects,* shewed itself in Jansenism, the last of modern heresies. One of the first effects of its anti-social * Vide Appendix.
154
GEREET ON
doctrine was to estrange from communion. The stern controvertist, who contended to the last for the rarity of grace, was naturally impelled by his sombre logic to publish the manifesto of his sect against frequent communion. Impervious to the mysteries of love, jansenistical devotion is cold and heartless. It stands self-convicted of wanting the grace of prayer.
The Eucharist is, in Catholicism, the centre of those pious communities known under the name of Congregations. They have existed, at all times, and places under ever-variable forms, for they are precisely destined to correspond to the moral wants of times and places. The outcry against these institutions considered in themselves argues at least a profound ignorance of human nature. As, besides the tenets common to all, there are various modes of conceiving them, every individual — country, and period, having its peculiar intelligence ; in the same manner and for the same reason, besides that fund of piety which is common to all Christians, there are modes equally diversified of feeling religion. When a certain number of individuals agree in
THE EUCHARIST.
155
their ideas and feelings, these analogous disposi- tions necessarily tend to associate, and for that purpose seek an exterior and appropriate form. This tendency produces in the intellectual order, schools of Christian philosophy ; and, in the senti- mental, congregations of piety. Their suppression would reduce piety to a geometrical equality, to a state of inactivity opposed to the laws of nature, which so far from impeding, stimulate the free and varied developement of individual power and energy. But those particular societies, by the very fact of having each its mode of life, would soon form as many different modes of worship, were they not based on those of general worship. This is what the Church does, in giving them the altar of sacrifice for a centre, and frequent communion as their first law. The eucharistic devotiou, which is of general obligation, is to the particular forms of devotion which every individual may adopt what the symbol is to their different systems : it is both the foundation and the rule. Catholicism maintains, in point of piety as of government, something fixed and common, for such is, in every possible order of
156 GEREET ON
things, the necessary support of all indiuidual activity and existence ; variety in the midst of unity. Such is Catholicism — such is nature.
Frequent communion continually leads back the soul to itself. This sort of action, sensible at every period of the Church, is more perceptible in the middle ages. The interior of monasteries exhibited a vision of the angelic life amid the ferocity of a barbarous age. The religious orders which cultivated the soil of Europe still accomplished more, they reclaimed the moral waste of the soul. The Cenobites were obliged by their rule often to approach the sacred table. The Divine Word which alone resounded in the depths of their solitude, and which was prolonged in the silence of their meditations, dail^ reminded them of the perfect- ion which a familiarity with the Holy of Holies demanded from them. This thought continually excited them to acquire the knowledge of their own hearts. They cultivated those with exceeding care, that they might carry to the most august as well as to the sweetest of all mysteries, the purest and the most delicate flower of human aifection. The ascetic
THE EUCHARIST,
157
works of that period are marked by an exquisite refinement of feeling. From the cloister it gradually made its way into the world, and, directing itself to other objects, inspired chivalry with that mysticism of love and honor, which has exercised such power- ful influence on the manners and literature of the christian world. The asceticism of the middle age has handed down an inimitable work, to which Catholics, Protestants and philosophers, have agreed to pay the best tribute of admiration, viz. that of the heart. How wonderful that a small book of mysticism the production of such an age, should have imparted a deeper tone of reflection to the meditative genius of Leibnitz, and kindled almost to enthusiasm the cold temperament of Fontenelle ! No person has ever read a page of the Imitation, particularly in the hour of affliction, who did not say in concluding : this reading has done me good. Next to the Bible this work is the sovereign friend of the soul. But where did the poor solitary who wrote it find that inexhaustible love ? for never would he have written with so much power and sweetness had he not loved much. He solves the question for us himself. Every
158
GERBET ON
line in his book on the sacrament is a commentary on the preceding ones.
All the relations which we have now considered present but imperfectly the influence of this principle of love : to understand it fully, we should feel it. Why should the infidel refuse to believe so many Christians as to their internal sentiments. Does not their conduct harmonise with their testimony ? Why then should he disdain to hear them? Is there nothing beautiful but what strikes the senses ? Are the wonders of the heart to be despised as valueless, and, if marks of the Divinity exist any where, where shall they be sought for, if not in the inspiration of virtue ? As for my part I bow with deeper reverence to the accents that sanctify the soul, than to the voice of genius. Let us then listen to them in respectful silence. The Eucharist, they tell us, is an integral part of the two worlds, a temple placed on the boundaries of earth and heaven. There is effected a union between the types of the one and the realities of the other, and the communion is accomplished as if beneath the half-opened vestibule of the invisible sanctuary where the eternal union is
THE EUCHARIST.
159
consummated. "Whilst the -senses are detained in the visible order, the soul feels the presence of the invisible : it enters into it ; it partakes of its sub- stance, like a man placed at the limits of this present material system, who. stretching forth his hand, grasps the boundaries of a higher world. There then passes within the soul what human language would fear to profane by expressing. To that confused murmur of the passions, which as yet agitates the faithful soul, like the last struggle of life, succeeds a profound peace. Shortly after, a commotion sweet as it is powerful, announces the presence of the Deity, and immediately holy desires, prayer, patience, and the spirit of sacrifice, often languid, are again revived. All that is divine within her kindles at the moment : the mental eye becomes purified and receives some rays of that light which is reflected from a brighter world. Emotions, which combine all that is touching in sentiment with all that is calm in reflection, attest the renewed harmony of the spirit and the senses. We may frequently feel on other occasions the joys of virtue ; here alone we are inebriated with all its delights. You would fondly wish to retain these
160
GERBET ON
exquisite sensations, but your efforts are vain. They have been shed on the soul, but to imbue her with the sense of that word of happiness, the name of which belongs to a lost language, whose idiom spoken by the children of Adam contains but the wreck. But the more clearly the soul comprehends that word,the more deeply does she feel that it is not of this world. Until she shall have deposited at the portals of Heaven the burthen of terrestrial virtues, until the moment shall have arrived when she will be freed ever from hope, the joys of the captive soul will be marked by suffering. The pleasure of this world becomes insipid, its happiness a burthen, and, whoever is deeply versed in life must acknow- ledge, that the greatest miracle of communion is to render it tolerable. These raptures of love mingled with sorrow impart, at that solemn moment, a sub- lime expression to the countenance. That of joy is rarely so : because joy is so fugitive and false that it appears to give to the human figure a sensless and undignified expression. Sorrow, on the contrary, almost always ennobles the countenance. But the instinct of our primeval destiny, alarmed by the
THE EUCHARIST.
161
contrast, seeks another dignity than that of sorrow. The true condition of man is the reparation of his misery, and his countenance never exhibits a nobler terrestrial aspect, than when he embodies the expres- sion of that mystery of sorrow and grace, on receiving the impress of a divine joy in the abyss of his sufferings. Mark that christian who adores his Saviour within his soul: would you not say that if that mouth, closed by recollection, were to open, a voice would come forth, attempting, though in a plaintive tone the canticles of Heaven? It would blend the sighs of man with the rapture of an angelic spirit
162
GEP.BET ON
CHAPTER IX.
The connexion of all the errors that destroy faith in Divine Love.
The order of the physical shadows forth the unity of the spiritual world. Each particular phenomenon is interwoven with more general phenomena, those with others, and thus till we arrive at the universal phenomenon which is the harmony of all particular facts. What we denominate particular truths are, in like manner, only glances more or less limited of the eternal and infinite truth. He who contemplates the material universe as the expression of a single law, can easily understand how the sole violation of that law in any given instance would include in principle
THE EUCHARIST.
163
the destruction of the entire, and draw after it the total ruin of the system. In the same way, truth being essentially one, all negations finally tend to resolve themselves into one great negation, and there is no error that does not assail the substantial truth or God himself. Thus viewed every culpable error is a deicide. The rejection of the catholic doctrine respecting the Eucharist furnishes an example the more remarkable as it strikingly presents the close union of those consoling dogmas that vivify the human soul by the revelation of boundless love.
The first protestant controvertists who argued against this mystery of love unconsciously mooted a question of vast importance. Freed from scholastic subtilities on the essence of matter and spirit, now exploded from all great systems of philosophy, whether ideal or material, their difficulties arose from the impossibility of conceiving an union of the Infinite with man the finite being, according to the mode of communication which the Catholic dogma supposes. Let us attend to the consequence : the chain of error is about to unfold itself.
It is evident to all that the Deists only applied
164
GEBBET ON
the same logic to the fundamental mystery of Chris- tianity, in demanding how the increated, impassible, and infinite being could unite himself to our corrup- tible and mortal nature, in short, how the infinite being could unite himself to the finite, so as to form the Man-God.
But the question does not stop here ; for it is equally clear that the Pantheists only generalize it, by asking in turn how the finite can co-exist with the Infinite being who embraces all. Hence the system of the absolute identity of all things : the finite are then but the simple modifications of the universal being.
Thus the question of the Protestants on the Eucharist, of the Deists on the Incarnation, and of the Pantheists on Creation, may be resolved into the single question, viz., that of the relation of the Infinite and finite beings, whereof Pantheism pre- sents the general formula. It is for this reason it attracts all other systems, which sooner or later are absorbed by it, for it is the nature of the human mind not to stop at particular questions, but to ascend till it arrives to that which is the source of
THE EUCHARIST, 165
all others. History indeed attests the prevalence of Pantheism compared to other systems of error. It is at the same time the point of departure and the ulti- mate goal of that philosophy which has broken the bonds of fraternity with faith. It was seen watching over its cradle in the East, and again we behold it at the decline of Grecian philosophy, which, consu- med by doubt, buried itself in the school of Alexan- dria, beneath the ruins of Oriental pantheism. Our age presents a similar tendency : the philosophy of the eighteenth century, the offspring of Grecian philosophy, evidently recedes in Germany and France, before a more comprehensive philosophy, which is reviving Indian pantheism under modem forms. The mind of man, in estranging itself from God, cannot divest itself of that all-absorbing idea. Even in destroying it, he seeks after it and pursues its very shadow. After having refused to believe in a union of God with man, in his love, and even in his existence, when he sees himself separated from him, that unnatural solitude terrifies him — because the want of the Infinite being becomes a torment to him, and no sooner
166
GERBET ON
has he said in his heart : there is no God, than his bewildered reason exclaims all is God.
Some perhaps will be astonished to find that protestan t logic leads directly to this great error. And in truth the distance which separates the con- ceptions of Spinosa from the arguments of John Calvin and Theodore of Beze is very considerable. But if the necessary connexion of ideas be closely attended to, it will appear evident that the latter have only narrowed to the dimensions of their under- standing that vast principle of error the develope- ment of wThich has been presented by the dutch Jew in colossal proportions.
But we must proceed still further, for the protes- tant objection, generalized in pantheism, is, at bottom, but the identical objection of the sceptics against all certitude. The reason of man is fallible, because it is finite ; certitude is a participation in a reason essentially infallible, and consequently in the sove- reign and infinite reason. In demanding then how the reason of man can be certain, they simply ask how finite can participate in infinite reason: a question evidently insoluble ; and for the same reason
THE EUCHARIST.
167
so are the corresponding questions of the Pantheist, the Deist, and the Protestant. They reject each one of the catholic truths on the same principle that the sceptic rejects all certitude. Scepticism is the refusal to believe, prior to demonstration the com- munion of the human soul in truth which is its necessary aliment. Is the perception of our reason on this point the primaiy motive of our belief? No, for every perception of reason supposes it. We believe it because nature impels us to it, and not because our intelligence explains it. But what is this blind instinct in the constitution of our nature ? It implies that the principle of our existence, what- ever it be, is not a bad principle that would consign us to be the miserable dupes of an universal illusion, but a principle essentially good, which creates within us the idea and the want of truth only for the purpose of satisfying the latter. Thus our belief in truth and goodness is simultaneous : the life of the soul commences in the same manner as it is developed, viz., by faith in love.
This brings us to consider in another point of view the error of the Protestants, and its connexion
168
GERBET ON
with the errors destructive of faith in divine love. If the arrrogant weakness of reason is offended with the mysteries of power, because by pointing out its limits they humble it ; there is also in the folds of the corrupted heart a secret aversion to the mysteries of love, because they render more visible by a striking contrast all the horror of its depravity. In the same way as reason when humbled arms itself with its own darkness to combat whatever it does not understand, thus the will of man seeks in its own corruption a frightful pretext to reject the prodigies of love which confound it. Why conceal it, we all cany within us this fatal disposition — the most terrific disorder of the human heart. This abyss has its degrees ; let us endeavour to sound their depths.
If God has condescended to so great an excess of tenderness as to dwell in us and we in him by the Eucharistic communion, why does such love suffer men to continue a prey to so many frightful disorders'? Let the Protestants interrogate themselves, and say if this be not the secret of their heart. But lo ! another voice is heard : it rises from a more profound
THE EUCHARIST.
169
part of the abyss, from that region where dwell the blasphemers of Christ. If God became man, why is man so depraved ? God, say they, visited the world and changed it not ! Descend still lower, hearken to that other voice which proclaims aloud the symbol of despair, in protesting that the universe is not governed by supreme benevolence, that the power of evil equals the power of good, and eternally disputes with it the empire of creation. Whence comes this desolating doctrine ? On what is it based ? On the very same principle. Under a God infinitely good, they exclaim, why should evil exist ? Here ends Faith in infinite love : next to this — is the hell of Atheism.
Who would not tremble on contemplating the terrific fecundity of a single error ? Protestant heterodoxy conceals the germ of that rash doubt, which gave rise to the blasphemies of manicheism against Providence, as well as the generative principle of Pantheism, which destroys the idea of God, by prostituting it to other beings. Whence come these astonishing connexions between doctrines apparently so remote ? Let us penetrate still more deeply into this mystery
170
GERBET ON
of error, and we shall find at the bottom of all these doubts, the one identical question which has not cea- sed to agitate the human race, since it heard these deceitful words : — you will be like unto Gods know- ing good and evil.
Good, properly so called, is the Infinite Being. Evil, which is the privation of good, is, taken in its most general sense, a privation of being ; and in this sense every finite heing is evil, inasmuch as it is finite. Thus, whether we ask with the Manicheans, how disorder, or the privation of good can exist under the empire of perfect goodness, or whether we ask, with the Pantheists, how the finite or the absence of being can co-exist with the infinite, we only pursue, in two different points of view, that perfect knowledge of good and evil which is the incommunicable attribute of the Infinite intelligence. This unlimited curiosity is the original sin of the human mind ; and hence the root of all these errors to use an expression of Paschal, draws its folds and windings from the depths of this abyss.
What a strange perversion of the human mind ! During six thousand years, it has sought on every
THE EUCHARIST.
171
side the solution of this sombre problem, and each generation demands it in vain from those who have gone before it to the tomb. This in itself is a painful condition : but that reason should fatigue and exhaust itself in the attempt to infuse despair into the heart by wresting from it that belief which is its joy, its life ; this, alas, is the extreme of miser}7. Happy they who, relying, not on the changeable conceptions of their isolated reason, but on the immutable teaching of universal tradition which has transmitted to them the word of God, are devotedly attached to this vivifying word, and seek not, in the darkness of reason and corruption of the will, miserable argu- ments against the omnipotence of Divine charity. Fixed in the imperishable belief of the human race, they enjoy a profound repose. This repose of reason is not torpor or apathy. Though not exposed to rest- less agitation, these children of faith are by no means in bondage. Their faith ever aspires to intelli- gence. They know that the condition of man is to pass from simple belief to the unclouded vision, and, though this change camiot be perfectly accomplished but in the future order, they continually
172
GERBET ON
aim at it in the present, and realize on that know- ledge a faint reflection of the heavenly vision. Borne on the wing of faith, their reason pervades the universe to investigate the mysteries of life and death. It asks each creature the word of order which it received, each phenomenon represents to it a divine thought, and creation spreads before it as the transpa- rent veil of the ever living truth. If shades mingle with these terrestrial lights, it knows how to wait with patience. It knows that the limits which arrest its progress will one day disappear. Such is the intelli- gence of the believe?', in its developement, patient, because immortal, its look, always fixed on the horizon of eternity. The rays which it collects here below, the pale reflection of that glorious day for which they sigh, serve but to create within them a more ardent desire of mi clouded brightness. But though they do not now perceive as they will then perceive, they love already as they will hereafter. This is the reason why they understand better the mysteries of goodness than those of power. "When the solutions they receive do not fully satisfy them ; their reason, purified by love,, comprehends at least
THE EUCHARIST.
173
the sense of that supreme solution. It is thus God loved the world*
* Sic enim Deus Dilexit mundum. — Evanglic St. Joannes c. iii., v. 16.
THE EUCHAP.IST.
175
NOTES.
NOTE 1.
Though the primitive order of divine communica- tions was impeded by this original crime.
All close observers of human nature have recog- nised that a tendency to evil prevails in man. To their remarks on this point may be added the sentiments of one of the most zealous amongst the partisans of material physiology. "The child is as yet ignorant of the enjoyment derivable from reflec- tion, except those that he procures by artifice, which he is always prepared to substitute for force, whenever he comes into collision with another stronger than himself. This species of pleasure seems to possess more attractions for him than that of beneficence unless he discover in the latter means
176
GERBET ON
to indulge his predominent faculties : thus he pro- tects a child less strong than himself whom immedi- ately after he will make the sport of his tyranny. In general, lie prefers evil to gocd, because it minis- ters better to his vanity, and affords him greater commotion ; an enjoyment which must be procured at any risk. It is for this reason he prides himself in breaking inanimate objects ; for he finds therein the two-fold pleasure founded on the necessity of self-satisfaction, viz. that of destroying resistance and exciting the rage of rational creatures, which in his mind is nothing less than a victory that becomes a source of gratification to him, when he has escaped punishment by flight. The delight which he feels on beholding the torture of animals can be accounted for only on the same principle ; that of his fellow creatures would be equally agreeable to him, were he not curbed by fear, for even then the principle of self-preservation begins to exercise its influence. Pity restrains him from time to time ; but its deve- lopement is scarcely perceptible in children of the male sex ; it exists more frequently and is felt more deeply in females of a tender age. I grant that all
THE EUCHARIST.
177
the acts of children do not bear this impress of depravity. The benevolent disposition which cha- racterizes some in after life begins to shew itself anterior to reason ; but the majority is of the class already described. Strong children of the male sex who feel the necessity of exercising their strength in external movements, are more irresistibly born to the commission of evil. There are few who do not employ their force against the weaker class ; it is the first impulse of their nature, but when they are not born to be ferocious they are stopt by the tears of their victim, until by a fresh impulse they are excited to perpetrate a similar crime."* The child prefers evil to good. This indeed is a frightful enigma. Discover, if you can, an explanation preferable to that furnished by Christianity. It is true it accounts for this problem of all ages and nations by a primitive mystery; but this mystery, attested by general tradition, is itself the first fact of history, and has it not been rightly asserted that all our science consists in deriving our ignorance from its remotest source.
* Vide Treatise on irritation, by Dr. Broussais, p. 101, 1828.
M
178
GERBET t)N
NOTE II.
In the ancient mysteries of Mithra, which finally prevailed through a considerable portion of the Moman empire, St. Justin and Tertullian inform us that bread and a vessel full of water were placed before the initiated.
Tertullian says that the devil " whose principal study and business it is to corrupt the truth, strives to imitate in his idolatrous mysteries the holy ceremonies of the christian religion. The devil baptizes some, namely, his own disciples and adhe- rents ; by washing, he promises the remission of sin, and if I yet remember, Mithra signs his soldiers on their foreheads : he celebrates the oblation of bread and introduces an image of the resurrection.
Diabolo scilicet, cujus sunt partes, intervertendi veritatem, qui ipsas quoque res sacramentorum divinovurrf, idolorum mys- teriis emulatur. Tingit et ipse quosdain, ulique credentes et
THE EUCHARIST. 179
NOTE III.
It would be difficult to imagine any thing more solemn than the prayers and benedictions which preceded and followed this rite.
This part of the liturgy of Zoroastre, besides the information it affords us respecting the forms of ancient worship, is also in many other respects, a monument of the primitive faith which has been
developed by Christianity. We shall cite a few extracts.
THE INVOCATION.
O you, benign master, who reserve for men the reward which they merit, remunerate publicly, the
fideles suos : expositionem delictorum de lavacro repromittit, et si adhue memini, Mithra signat illic in frontibus milites suos : celebrat et panis oblationem, et imaginem resurrectionis indu- cit (Tertull. de Prescript hsereticor. XL.)
180
GERBET ON
supplicant who invokes you ,may I be pure in this world and happy in the next, and may the soul of Sapetinan Zoroastre, the pure Genius, those of all the servants of Ormusd, of all the military, of all the labourers, of all the artisans of the world, who have come for this Miezd, and to whom it has been acceptable, may they at my departure from life come to meet me at twelve hundred gams,* from Beheseth, the highest heaven, from the bright Gorotman, the seat of happiness. May they receive this miezd, and be always present to me, (when I pray) may my good works increase ! May the accursed source of sin and evil be banished for ever ! May the world be pure, the heavens excellent ! and finally may purity and holiness prevail ! May the souls