PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
VI.
THE TRINITY OF PERSONS INCLUDED IN THE ONE DIVINE ESSENCE.
The full explication of the First Article of the Creed requires us to anticipate two others, which are its complement and supply the two terms expressing distinctly the relations of the Second and Third Persons to the First Person or the Father, in the Trinity. "Credo in Unum Deum Patrem," gives us the doctrine of the Divine Unity, and the first term of the Trinity, viz., the person of the Father. "Et in Unum Dominum Jesum Christum Filium Dei Unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula; Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine; Deum Verum de Deo Vero; Genitum non Factum, consubstantialem Patri, per quem omnia facta sunt:" gives us the second term or the person of the Son. "Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et Vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit, quicum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificacur:" gives us the third term or the person of the Holy Spirit. Both these are necessary to the explanation of the term "Patrem." The proper order is, therefore, to begin with the eternal, necessary relations of the Three Persons to each other in the unity of the Divine Essence, and then to proceed with the operations of each of the Three Persons in the creation and consummation of the Universe.
Our purpose is not to make a directly theological explanation of all that is contained in this mystery, but only of so much of it as relates to its credibility, and its position in regard to the sphere of intelligible truth. With this mystery begins that which is properly the objective matter of revelation, or the series of truths belonging to a super-intelligible order, that is, above the reach of our natural intelligence, proposed to our belief on the veracity of God. It is usually considered the most abstruse, mysterious, and incomprehensible of all the Christian dogmas, even by believers; though we may perhaps find that the dogma of the Incarnation is really farther removed than it from the grasp of our understanding. Be that as it may, the fact that it relates to the very first principle and the primary truth of all religion, and appears to confuse our apprehension of it, namely, the Unity of God--causes us to reflect more distinctly upon its incomprehensibility. Many persons, both nominal Christians and avowed unbelievers, declare openly, that in their view it is an absurdity so manifestly contrary to reason that it is absolutely unthinkable, and, of course, utterly incredible. How then is the relation between this mystery and the self-evident or demonstrable truths of reason adjusted in the act of faith elicited by the believer? What answer can be made to the rational objections of the unbeliever? If the doctrine be really unthinkable, it is just as really incredible, and there can be no act of faith terminated upon it as a revealed object. Of course, then, no inquiry could be made as to its relation with our knowledge, for that which is absurd and incapable of being intellectually conceived and apprehended cannot have any relation to knowledge. It is impossible for the human mind to believe at one and the same time that a proposition is [{759}] directly contrary to reason, and also revealed by God. No amount of extrinsic evidence will ever convince it. Human reason cannot say beforehand what the truths of revelation are or ought to be; but it can say in certain respects what they cannot be. They cannot be contradictory to known truths and first principles of reason and knowledge. Therefore, when they are presented in such a way to the mind, or are by it apprehended in such a way, as to involve a contradiction to these first truths and principles, they cannot be received until they are differently presented or apprehended, so that this apparent contradiction is removed. This is so constantly and clearly asserted by the ablest Catholic writers, men above all suspicion for soundness in the faith, that we will not waste time in proving it to be sound Catholic doctrine. [Footnote 183] Of course all rationalists, and most Protestants, hold it as an axiom already. If there are some Protestants who hold the contrary, they are beyond the reach of argument.
[Footnote 183: See among others, Archbishop Manning on the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost.]
The Catholic believer in the Trinity apprehends the dogma in such a way that it presents no contradiction to his intellect between itself and the first principles of reason or the primary doctrine of the unity of the divine nature. God, who is the Creator and the Light of reason, as well as the author of revelation, is bound by his own attributes of truth and justice, when he proposes a doctrine as obligatory on faith, to propose it in such a way that the mind is able to apprehend and accept it in a reasonable manner. This is done by the instruction given by the Catholic Church, with which the supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit concurs. The Catholic believer is therefore free from those crude misapprehensions and misconceptions which create the difficulty in the unbelieving mind. He apprehends in some degree, although it may be implicitly and confusedly, the real sense and meaning of the mystery, as it is apprehensible by analogy with truths of the natural order. What it is he apprehends, and what are the analogies by which it can be made intelligible, will be explained more fully hereafter. It is enough here to note the fact. This apprehension makes the mystery to him thinkable, or capable of being thought. That is, it causes the proposition of the mystery in certain definite terms to convey a meaning to his mind, and not to be a mere collocation of words without any sense to him. It makes him apprehend what he is required to assent to, and puts before him an object of thought upon which an intellectual act can be elicited. It presents no contradiction to reason, and therefore there is no obstacle to his giving the full assent of faith on the authority of God.
It is otherwise with one who has been brought up in Judaism, Unitarianism, or mere Rationalism; or whose merely traditional and imperfect apprehension of Christian dogmas has been so mixed up with heretical perversions that his mature reason has rejected it as absurd. There is an impediment in the way of his receiving the mystery of the Trinity as proposed by the Catholic Church, and believing it possible that God can have revealed it. He may conceive of the doctrine of the Trinity as affirming that an object can be one and three in the same identical sense, which destroys all mathematical truth. Or he may conceive of it, as dividing the divine substance into three parts, forming a unity of composition and not a unity of simplicity. Or he may conceive of it as multiplying the divine essence, or making three co-ordinate deities, who concur and co-operate with each other by mutual agreement. These conceptions are equally absurd with the first, although it requires more thought to discern their absurdity. It is necessary then to remove the apparent absurdity of the doctrine, before any evidence of its being a [{760}] revealed truth is admissible. The first misconception is so extremely crude, that it is easily removed by the simple explanation that unity and trinity are predicated of God in distinct and not identical senses. The second, which is hardly less crude is disposed of by pointing out the explicit statements in which the simplicity and indivisibility of the divine substance in all of the Three Persons is invariably affirmed. The third is the only real difficulty, the only one which can remain long in an educated and instructed mind. The objection urged on theological or philosophical grounds by really learned men against the dogma of the Trinity, is, that it implies Tritheism. The simplest and most ordinary method of removing this objection, is by presenting the explicit and positive affirmation of the church that there is but one eternal principle of self-existent, necessary being, one first cause, one infinite substance possessing all perfections. This is sufficient to show that the church denies and condemns Tritheism, and affirms the strict unity of God. But, the Unitarian replies, you hold a doctrine incompatible with this affirmation, viz., that there are three Divine Persons, really distinct and equal. This is met by putting forward the terms in which the church affirms that it is the one, eternal, and infinite essence of God which is in each of the Three Persons. The Unitarian is then obliged to demonstrate that this distinction of persons in the Godhead is unthinkable, and that unity of nature cannot be thought in connection with triplicity of person. This he cannot do. The relation of personality to nature is too abstruse, especially when we are reasoning about the infinite, which transcends all the analogies of our finite self-consciousness, to admit of a demonstration proving absolutely that unity of nature supposes unity of person, and vice versa, as its necessary correlative. The church affirms the unity of substance in the Godhead in the clearest manner, sweeping away all ground for gross misconceptions of a divided or multiplied deity; but affirms also trinity in the mode of subsistence, or the distinction of Three Persons, in each one of whom the same divine substance subsists completely. This affirmation is above the comprehension of reason, but not contrary to reason. Even Unitarians, in some instances, find no difficulty in accepting the statement of the doctrine of the trinity made by our great theologians, when it is distinctly presented to them; and in the beautiful Liturgical Book used in some Unitarian congregations, the orthodox doxology, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," has been restored.
The absurd misconception of what the church means by the word Trinity being once removed, the evidence that her doctrine is revealed, or that God affirms to us the eternal, necessary distinction of three subsistences in his infinite being, becomes intelligible and credible. Reason cannot affirm the intrinsic incompatibility of the proposition, God reveals himself as subsisting in three persons, with the proposition, there is one God; and therefore cannot reject conclusive evidence that he does so reveal himself through the Catholic Church. For aught reason can say, he may have so revealed himself. If satisfactory evidence is presented that he has done so, reason is obliged, in consistency with its principles, to examine and judge of the evidence, and assent to the conclusion that the Trinity is a revealed truth. This is enough for all practical purposes, and as much as the majority of persons are capable of. But is this the ultimatum of reason? Is it not possible to go further in showing the conformity of the revealed truth with rational truths? Several eminent theologians have endeavored to take this further step, and to construct a metaphysical argument for the doctrine of the Trinity. Some of the great contemplatives of the church, who are really the most profound and sublime of her [{761}] theologians and philosophers, have also through divine illumination appeared to gain an insight into the depths of this mystery. For instance, St. Ignatius and St. Francis de Sales both affirm that the truth and the mutual harmony of all the divine mysteries were made evident to their intelligence in contemplation. In modern times, Bossuet, Lacordaire, and Dr. Brownson have reasoned profoundly on the rational evidence of the Trinity, and a Roman priest, the Abbate Mastrofini, has published a work entitled "Metaphysica Sublimior," in which he proposes as his thesis, Given divine revelation, to prove the truth of all its dogmas by reason. The learned and excellent German priest Günther attempted the same thing, but went too far, and fell into certain errors which were censured by the Roman tribunals, and which he himself retracted. It is necessary to tread cautiously and reverently, like Moses, for we are on holy ground, and near the burning bush. We will endeavor to do so, and, taking for our guide the decisions of the Church and the judgment of her greatest and wisest men, to do our best to state briefly what has been attempted in the way of eliciting an eminent act of reason on this great mystery, without trenching on the domain of faith.
First, then, it is certain that reason cannot discover the Trinity of itself. It must be first proposed to it by revelation, before it can apprehend its terms or gain anything to reason upon. Secondly, when proposed, its intrinsic necessity or reason cannot be directly or immediately apprehended. If it can be apprehended at all, it must be mediately, or through analogies existing in the created universe. Are there such analogies, that is, are there any reflections or representations of this divine truth in the physical or intellectual world from which reason can construct a theorem parallel in its own order with this divine theorem? Creation is a copy of the divine idea. It represents God as a mirror. Does it represent him, that is, so far as the human intellect is capable of reading it, not merely as he is one in essence, but also as he is three in persons? Assuming the Trinity as an hypothesis, which is all we can do in arguing with an unbeliever, can we point out analogies or representations in creation of which the Trinity is the ultimate reason and the infinite original? If we can, do these analogies simply accord and harmonize with the hypothesis that God must subsist in three persons, or do they indicate that this is the most adequate or the only conceivable hypothesis, or that it is the necessary, self-evident truth, without which the existence of these analogies would be unthinkable and impossible? Do these analogies, as we are able to discover them, represent an adequate image of the complete Catholic dogma of the Trinity, or only an inadequate image of a portion of it?
It is evident, in the first place, that some analogical representation of the Trinity must be made in order to give the mind any apprehension whatever of a real object of thought on which it can elicit an act of faith. The terms in which the doctrine is stated, as for instance. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, eternal generation, procession or spiration, person, etc., are analogical terms, representing ideas which are otherwise unspeakable, by images or symbols. It is impossible for the mind to perceive that a proposed idea is simply not absurd, without apprehending confusedly what the idea is, and possessing some positive apprehension of its conformity to the logical, that is, the real order. Every distinct act of belief in the Trinity, therefore, however rudimental and imperfectly evolved into reflective cognition, contains in it an apprehension of the analogy between it and creation. If we proceed, therefore, to explicate this confused, inchoate conception, we necessarily proceed by way of explicating the analogy spoken of, because we must proceed by explaining the terms in which the doctrine is stated, [{762}] which are analogical; and by pointing out what the analogy is which the terms designate. What is meant by calling God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Why is the relation of the Son to the Father called filiation? Why is the relation of the Holy Spirit to both called procession? The Niceno-Constantinopolitan and Athanasian Creeds, all the other definitions of the church respecting the Trinity, and all Catholic theology deduced from these definitions and from Scripture and tradition by rational methods, are an explication of the significance of these analogical terms. The only question which can be raised then, is, in regard to the extent of the capacity of human reason to discern the analogy between inward necessary relations of the Godhead, and the outward manifestation of these relations in the creation. The hypothesis of the Trinity assumes that this analogy exists, and is to some extent apprehensible. We will now proceed to indicate the process by which Catholic theologians show this analogy, beginning with those terms of analogy which lie in the material order, and ascending to those which lie in the order of spirit and intelligence.
First, then, it is argued, that the law of generation in the physical world, by which like produces like, represents some divine and eternal principle. Ascending from the lower manifestation of this law to man, we find this physical relation of generation the basis of a higher filiation in which the soul participates. Man generates the image of himself, in his son, who is not merely his bodily offspring, but similar and equal to himself in his rational nature. As St. Paul says, the principal of this paternity must be in God, and must therefore be in him essential and eternal. But this principle of eternal, essential paternity, within the necessary being of God, is the very principle of distinct personal relations.
Again, the multiplicity of creation indicates that there is some principle in the Divine Nature, corresponding in an eminent sense and mode to this multiplicity. The relations of number are eternal truths, and have some infinite transcendental type in God. If there were no principle in the Divine Nature except pure, abstract unity, there would be no original idea, from which God could proceed to create a universe; which is necessarily multiplex and constituted in an infinitude of distinct relations, yet all radically one, as proceeding from one principle and tending to one end. Here is an analogy indicating that unity and multiplicity imply and presuppose one the other.
These two arguments combine when we consider the law of generation and the principle of multiplicity as constituting human society and building up the human race. Society, love, mutual communion, reciprocal relations, kind offices, diversity in equality, constitute the happiness and well being of man; they are an image and a participation of the divine beatitude. All the good of the creature, all the perfections of derived, contingent existences, have an eminent transcendental type in God. Love, friendship, society, represent something in the divine nature. If there were no personal relations in God, but a mere solitude of being existing in a unity and singularity exclusive of all plurality and society, it would seem that, supposing creation possible, the rational creature would copy his archetype, be single of his kind, and find his happiness in absolute solitude. It is otherwise, however, with the human race. The human individual is not single and solitary. Human nature is one in respect of origin and kind, derived from one principle which is communicated by generation and exists in plurality of persons. Society is necessary to the perpetuation, perfection, and happiness of the human race. This society is constituted primarily in a three-fold relation between the father, the mother, and [{763}] the child, which makes the family; and the family repeated and multiplied makes the tribe, the nation, and the race. Taking now the hypothesis of three persons in one nature as constituting the Godhead, it is plain that we have a clearer idea of that in God which is represented and imitated in human society, and which is the archetype of the life, the happiness, the love, existing in the communion of distinct persons in one common nature, than we can have in the hypothesis of an absolute singularity of person in the deity. That good which man enjoys by fellowship with his equal and his like, is a participation in the supreme good that is in God. In that supreme good, this participated good must exist in an eminent manner. God must have in himself infinite, all-sufficing society, fellowship, love. He must have it in his necessary and eternal being, for he cannot be dependent on that which is contingent and created. Supposing therefore that it is consistent with the unity of his nature to exist in three distinct and equal persons, not only is the analogy of his creation to himself more manifest, but the conception we can form of the perfection of his being is more complete and intelligible.
There is another analogy in the intellectual operation of the human mind. The intellective faculty generates what may be called the interior word, or image of the mind, the archetype of that which is outwardly expressed in a philosophical theory, a poem, a picture, a statue, or a work of architecture. Through this word, the great creative mind lives and attains to the completion and happiness of intellectual existence. It loves it as proceeding from and identical with itself. Through it, it acts upon other minds, controls and influences their thought and life; and thus the spirit proceeding from the creative mind, through its generated word, is the completion of its inward and outward operation. Thus, argue the theologians, the Father contemplating the infinitude of his divine essence generates by an infinite thought, the Word, or Son. Being infinite and uncreated, his necessary act is infinite and uncreated, in all respects equal to himself, and therefore the Word is equal to the Father; possesses the plenitude of the divine essence, intelligence and personality. The divine act of generation is not a purely intellectual cognition, but a contemplation in which love is joined with knowledge. The Father beholds the Son, and the Son looks back upon the Father, with infinite love, which is the spiration of the divine life. This spiration or spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is the consummating, completing term of their unity, and contains the divine being which is in the Father and the Son in all its plenitude; constituting a third person, equal to the first and second. The operation of a limited, finite, created soul presents only a faint, imperfect analogy of the Trinity, because it is itself limited, as being the operation of a soul participating in being only to a limited extent. Individual existences possess each one a limited portion of being. But in God, it is not so. There is no division in his nature, because the eternal, self-existing cause and principle of its unity is a simultaneous cause of its absolute plenitude by which it exhausts all possible being. This plenitude of being is in the eternal generation of the second person, and the eternal spiration of the third person in the Godhead, on account of the necessary perfection of the most pure act in which the being of God consists; wherefore personality is predicable, as one of the perfections of being, of each of the three terms of relation in God. The word of human reason and its spirit, are not equal to itself, or personal, because of the limited and imperfect nature of human reason, and its operations. The Word or Son of the Eternal Father, and the Holy Spirit, are equal to him and personal, because the Father is God, and his act is infinite.
This prepares the way for a different method of presenting the argument from analogy, based on the conception of God as actus purissimus, or most pure act. This is clearly and succinctly stated by Dr. Brownson as follows:
"The one, or naked and empty unity, even in the Unitarian mind is not the equivalent of God. When he says one, he still asks, one what? The answer is, one God, which implies even with him something more than unity. It implies unity and its real and necessary contents as living or actual being. Unity is an abstract conception formed by the mind operating on the intuition of the concrete, and as abstract, has no existence out of the mind conceiving. Like all abstractions, it is in itself dead, unreal, null. God is not an abstraction, not a mere generalization, a creature, or a theorem of the human mind, but one living and true God, existing from and in himself, ad se et se. He is real being, being in its plenitude, eternal, independent, self-living, and complete in himself. To live is to act. To be eternally and infinitely living is to be eternally and infinitely acting, is to be all act; and hence philosophers and theologians term God, in scholastic language, most pure act, actus purissimus. But act, all act demands, as its essential conditions, principle, medium, and end. Unity, then, to be actual being, to be eternally and purely act in itself, must have in itself the three relations of principle, medium, and end, precisely the three relations termed in Christian theology Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--the Father as principle, the Son as medium, and the Holy Ghost as end or consummation of the divine life. These three interior relations are essential to the conception of unity as one living and true God. Hence the radical conception of God as triune is essential to the conception of God as one God, or real, self-living, self-sufficing unity. There is nothing in this view of the Trinity that asserts that one is three, or that three are one; nor is there anything that breaks the divine unity, for the triplicity asserted is not three Gods, or three divine beings, but a threefold interior relation in the interior essence of the one God, by virtue of which he is one actual, living God. The relations are in the essence of the one God, and are so to speak the living contents of his unity, without which he would be an empty, unreal abstraction; one--nothing." [Footnote 184]
[Footnote 184: Brownson's Review, July, 1863, pp. 266, 267.]
There is still another way of stating the argument, founded on the necessary relation between subject and object. In the rational order, subject is that which apprehends and object that which is apprehended. Intelligence is subject and the intelligible is object. The mere power or capacity of intelligence, if it is conceived of in an abstract manner as existing alone without relation to its object, must be conceived of as not in actual exercise. Intelligence in act implies something intelligible which terminates the act of intelligence. Even supposing that the object of the intelligence is identical with the subject, that is, that the rational mind contemplates itself as a really existing substance, nevertheless there is a distinction between the mind considered as the subject which contemplates, and the mind considered as the object which is contemplated. The reason contemplated must be projected before itself and regarded as an object distinct from the contemplating reason in the act of contemplation. The eye which sees objects external to itself, does not actually see or bring its visual power into act until an object is presented before it; and the individual does not become conscious that he can see or is possessed of a visual faculty, except in the act of seeing an object. The eye cannot see itself immediately by the mere fact that it is a visual organ, but only sees itself as reflected in a mirror and made objective to itself. God is the absolute intelligence and the absolute intelligible, as has been proved in a previous chapter. He contemplates and comprehends himself, and in this consists his active being and life. Thus in the divine being there is the distinction of subject and object. God considered as infinite intelligence is subject, and considered as the infinite intelligible is his own adequate object. The hypothesis of the Trinity presents to us God as subject for intelligence in the person of the Father, as object, or the intelligible, in the person of the Son. The Son is the image of the Father, as the reflection of a man's form in the mirror is the image of himself. The eternal generation of the Son is the [{765}] eternal act of the Father contemplating his own being, and is terminated upon the person of the Son as its object. As this act is within the divine being, the image of the Father is not a merely phenomenal, apparent, unsubstantial reflection of his being, but real, living, and substantial. The Son is consubstantial with the Father. The being of God is in the act of intelligence or contemplation, whether we consider God as the subject or the object in this infinite act, that is, as intelligent and contemplating, or as intelligible and contemplated. The consummating principle of love, complacency, or beatitude, which completes this act, vivifies it, and unites the person of the Father with the person of the Son in one indivisible being, is the Holy Spirit, equal to the Father and the Son, and identical in being, because a necessary term of the most pure act in which the divine life and being consists. All that is within the circle of the necessary, essential being of God, as most pure, intelligent, living act, is uncaused, self-existent, infinite, eternal. By the hypothesis, we must conceive of God as subsisting in the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in order to conceive of him as ens in actu, or in the state of actual, living, concrete being, and not as a mere abstraction or possibility existing in thought only; as infinite intelligence, and the adequate object of his own intelligence, self sufficing and infinitely blessed in himself. Therefore the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. It is only by this triplicity of personal relations that the unity of God as a living, concrete unity, or the unity of one, absolute, perfect, infinite being, containing in himself the actual plenitude of all that is conceivable or possible, can subsist or be vividly apprehended. Therefore there cannot be, by the hypothesis, a separate and distinct Godhead in each of the three persons, since triplicity of person enters into the very essential idea of Godhead. The hypothesis of the Trinity, therefore, absolutely compels the mind to believe in the unity of God, and shuts out all possibility that there should be more Gods than one, because it shuts out all possibility of imagining any mode or form of necessary being which is not included in the three personal relations of the one God. Unity and plurality, singularity and society, capacity of knowing, loving, and enjoying the true, the beautiful, and the good, and the adequate object of this capacity, or the true, beautiful, and good in se, the subject and the object of intelligent and spiritual life and activity, intelligence and the intelligible, love and the loved, blessedness and beatitude, subsist in him in actual being, which is infinite and exhausts in its most pure act all that is in the uncreated, necessary, self-existent principle of being and first cause. The adequate reason and type of all contingent and created existences is demonstrated also to be in the three personal relations of the one divine essence, in such a way, that the hypothesis of the Trinity, as a theorem, satisfactorily takes up, accounts for, and explains all discoverable truths as well in regard to the universe as in regard to God.
This last statement indicates the answer which we think is the most correct one to the question proposed in the beginning of this chapter, as to the full logical force of the rational argument for the Trinity. That is, we regard it as a hypothesis which in the first place is completely insusceptible of rational refutation. In the second place, contains certain truths which are established by very strong probable arguments and analogies. In the third place, suggests a conception of God which harmonizes with all the truth we know, or can see to be probable, and at the same time is more perfect and sublime than any which can be made, excluding the hypothesis. We do not claim for it the character of a strict demonstration. To certain minds it seems to approach [{766}] very near a demonstration, probably because their intellectual power of vision is unusually acute. To others it appears nearly or quite unintelligible. Probably but few persons comparatively can grasp it in such a way as to attain a true intellectual insight into the relation between the doctrine of the Trinity and philosophy. Yet all those who have thought much on the doctrine, and who find their great difficulty in believing it to consist in a want of apparent connection with other truths, ought to be able to appreciate the philosophical argument by which the connection is shown. They must have an aptitude for apprehending arguments of this nature, otherwise they would not think on the subject so intently. All they can justly expect is that the impediment in their minds against believing that the doctrine is credible, or not incredible, supposing it revealed, should be removed. This is done by the arguments of Catholic theologians. If the doctrine be revealed, it is credible; that is, an intelligent person can in perfect consistency with the dictates of reason assent to the proposition that God has revealed it, and that it is therefore credible on his veracity. The ground of the positive and unwavering assent of the mind is in the veracity of God, and remains there, no matter how far the reasoning process may be carried; for without the revelation of God, the conception of the Trinity, supposing it once obtained, would for ever remain a mere hypothesis, though the most probable of all which could be conceived.
As already explained, it is only by a supernatural grace that the mind is elevated to a state in which it clearly and habitually contemplates the object of faith as revealed by God. By divine faith, the intellect believes without doubting the mystery of the three persons in one divine nature, and incorporates this belief into its life, as a vivifying truth and not a dead, inert, abstract speculation or theorem. When it is thus believed, and taken as a certain truth, the intellect, if it is capable of apprehending the argument from analogy, may be able to see that the Trinity is really that truth which is the archetype that has been copied in creation, and is indicated in the analogies already pointed out. It may see that one cannot think logically unless he is first instructed in the doctrine of the Trinity and proceeds from it as a given truth or datum of reasoning. Thus, he may by the light of faith attain an elevated kind of science, or eminent act of reason, which really rests on indubitable principles. Yet it will not be properly science or knowledge of the revealed mysteries, since one of these indubitable principles on which all the consequences depend, is revelation itself, which really constitutes the mind in a certitude of that which on merely rational principles remains always inevident. Probably this is what is meant by those who maintain that the Trinity can be rationally demonstrated. Given, that the Trinity is a revealed truth, it explains and harmonizes in the sphere of reason what is otherwise inexplicable. It is the same with other revealed truths, and to prove that it is so is the principal object of this essay. Presented in this light, the Catholic dogma of the Trinity vindicates its claim to be a necessary part of religious belief; an essential dogma of Christianity, revealed and made obligatory for an intelligible reason, and essential to the formation of a complete and adequate theology and philosophy. It is no longer regarded as a naked, speculative, isolated proposition; to which a merely intellectual assent is required by a precept of authority, and which has no living relation to other truths or to the practical, spiritual life of the soul. It is shown to be a universal and fundamental truth, the basis of all truth and of the entire real and logical order of the universe.
This can be shown much more easily, and to the majority of minds more intelligibly, in relation to the other truths of Christianity, than to those truths which are more recondite and metaphysical. It is necessary to an adequate explication of the creation, of the destiny of rational existences, of the supernatural order, of the character and mission of Christ, of the regeneration of man through him, and of his final end or supreme and eternal beatitude and glorification in the future life, as will be shown hereafter. Deprived of this dogma, Christianity is baseless, unmeaning, and worthless; and is infallibly disintegrated and reduced to nihilism, by the necessary laws of thought. This is true also of theism, or natural theology. And this suggests a powerful subsidiary argument in a different line of reasoning, proving that the doctrine of the Trinity is necessary to the perfection and perpetuity of the doctrine of the unity of God.
The same universal tradition which has handed down the pure, theistic conception, and has instructed mankind in the true, adequate knowledge of God, has handed down the Trinity, and traces of it are even found in heathen theosophy and the more profound heathen philosophy. Wherever the doctrine of the Trinity has been preserved, there the clear conception of the one God and his attributes has been preserved. And where this doctrine has been corrupted or lost, the conception of God as one living being of infinite perfection, the first and final cause of all things, has passed away into polytheism or pantheism or scepticism. Wherever God is apprehended as the supreme creator and sovereign, the supreme object of worship, obedience, and love, in intimate personal relations to man, he is apprehended in the personal relations which subsist in himself, that is, in the Trinity. His interior personal relations are the foundation of all external personal relations to his creatures. This is even true of Unitarians, so long as they retain the Christian ethical and spiritual temper which connects them with the Christian world of thought and life, and do not slide into some form of infidelity. They retain some imperfect conception of the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and in proportion as they become more positive in religion, they revive and renew this conception. The effort to make a system of living, practical theistic religion is feeble and futile, and what little consistency and force it has is derived from the conception of the fatherhood of God borrowed from Christian theology; but imperfect without the two additional terms which constitute the complete conception of the Trinity. All this is a powerful argument for a Theist or a Unitarian in favor of the divine origin and authority of the Catholic dogma. The instruction which completes the inward affirmation of God in the idea of reason, and is the complement of the creative act constituting the soul rational, must be from the Creator. He alone can complete his own work. It is contrary to all rational conceptions of the wisdom of God to suppose that he has permitted that the same instruction which teaches mankind to know, to worship, to love, and to aspire after himself, should hand down in inseparable connection with the eternal truth of the unity of his essence, the doctrine of the threefold personal relations within this unity, if this were an error diametrically its opposite, and not a truth equally necessary and eternal.
From The Month.
CAIRO AND THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS ON THE NILE.
On the 25th November, 186--, a small but crowded steamer was seen ploughing its way through the waves at the entrance to the port of Alexandria. Its living freight was of a motley description: there were the usual proportion of Indian passengers--Indian officers returning with their wives after sick-leave; engineer officers going out to lay down the electric telegraph--one of whom, young in years but old in knowledge, whose distinguished merit had already raised him to the first place in his profession, was never again destined to see his native shores. Then there were others seeking health, and about to exchange the damp, foggy climate of England for the warm, dry, invigorating air of Nubia and the Upper Nile. They had had a horrible passage, in a small and badly-appointed steamer, of which all the port-holes had to be closed on account of the gale, leaving the wretched inhabitants of the cabins in a state of suffocation difficult to describe. So that it was with intense joy that the jetty was at last reached; and in the midst of a noise and confusion impossible to describe, the passengers were landed on the dirty quay, and were dragged rather than led into the carriages which were to convey them to the hotel. It was the feast of St. Catharine, the patron saint of Alexandria, to whom the great cathedral is dedicated; and in consequence the town was more than usually gay. Towards evening a beautiful procession was formed, and Benediction sung in the cathedral, which is served by the Lazarist fathers. It was the best day to arrive at Alexandria, and the prayers of the virgin saint and martyr were earnestly invoked by some of the party for a blessing on their voyage and a safe and happy return.
To one who has been for a long time in the East, Alexandria appears a motley collection of half European, half Arabian houses, and the refuse of the populations of each; but on first landing, everything appears new, beautiful, and strange. The long files of camels, the veiled women, the variety of the dresses are all striking; but the one thing which even the most hackneyed Nile traveller cannot fail to admire is the vegetation. Enormous groves of date-palms and bananas, with an underwood of poncettias, their scarlet leaves looking like red flamingos amid the dark-green leaves, and ipomeas of every shade-- lilac, yellow, and above all turquoise-blue--climbing over every ruined wall, and exquisite in color as in form, delight an eye accustomed to see such things carefully tended in hothouses only, or paid for at the rate of five shillings a spray in Covent Garden. The sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul have two very large establishments here--one a hospital, to which is attached a large dispensary, attended daily by hundreds of Arabs; the other a school and orphanage of upwards of 1000 children. There are thirty-seven sisters, and their work is bearing its fruit, not only among the Christian but the native population. To our English travellers the very sight of their white "cornettes" was an assurance of love and kindness and welcome in this strange land; and it was with a glad and thankful heart that they found themselves once more kneeling in their chapel, and felt that no bond is like that of charity, uniting as in one great family every nation upon earth.
After a couple of days' rest, our English party started by the railroad for Cairo. This journey was not as commonplace as it sounds; for at each station the train was besieged by Arabs, clamoring for passages, between 300 and 400 at a time; so that it required all the efforts of the guards and their dragoman to prevent their carriage being taken from them by main force. The beauty of Cairo is the theme of every writer on Egypt and the Nile; but it would be impossible to exaggerate its extreme picturesqueness, the exquisite carving of its mosques and gateways; the oriental character of its narrow streets and bazaars and courts; the beauty of the costumes, and of the fretted lattice casements overhanging the streets; the gorgeous interior fittings of the mosques, one of which is entirely lined with oriental alabaster; the magnificent fountains in the outer courts of each; the graceful minarets--all seen in the clearness and beauty of this perfectly cloudless sky, leave a picture in one's mind which no subsequent travel can efface. Outside the town is a perfect "city of the dead;" all the pashas and their families are interred there, and people "live among the tombs," as described in the Gospels; while on Fridays the Mohammedans have services there for their dead, "that they may be loosed from their sins;" one of those curious fragments of Christianity which are continually cropping out of this strange Mohammedan worship.
One of the most interesting expeditions made by our travellers was to Heliopolis. They passed through a sandy plain full of cotton, date-palms, and bananas, and by a succession of miserable native huts, (which consist of mud walls, with a roof of Indian corn, and a hole left in the wall for light,) until they came to an obelisk, and from thence to a garden, in the centre of which is a sycamore tree, carefully preserved, under which the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph are said to have rested with the infant Saviour on their flight into Egypt. It is close to a well of pure water, and surrounded with the most beautiful roses and Egyptian jasmine. The Mohammedans have the greatest veneration for the "Sitt Miriam," as they call the Blessed Virgin. They proof her immaculate conception from the Koran, and keep a fast of fifteen days before the Assumption; therefore no surprise was felt at seeing the care with which this grand old tree is tended and watered by them.
Another expedition made by the travellers was to Old Cairo, where, near the famous Nilometer, is the Coptic convent and chapel built over the house of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, where they are said to have lived for two years with our Blessed Lord. There are some very beautiful ancient marble columns and fine olive-wood carvings, inlaid with ivory, in this church, and a staircase leads down to the Virgin's House, which is now partly under water from the rise of the Nile. It is curious how persistently all early tradition points to this spot as the site of our Saviour's Egyptian sojourn, and it was with a feeling of simple faith in its authenticity that one of the party knelt and strove to realize this portion of the sacred infancy.
There are three Catholic churches in Cairo, the cathedral being a fine large building. The sisters of "the Good Shepherd" have also a large convent near the cathedral, and an admirable day-school and orphanage. Many dark-eyed young girls whom our travellers saw kneeling at benediction there had been rescued by the kind Mother from worse than Egyptian slavery. The condition of the "fellahs," or lower orders, in Egypt, is appalling from its misery and degradation; and the good sisters have very uphill work to humanize as well as christianize these poor children. [{770}] Nothing can be more wretched than the position of the women, especially throughout Egypt. If at all good-looking, they are brought up for the harems; if not, they are kept as "hewers of wood and drawers of water;" and the idea of their having souls seems as little believed by the Mohammedan as by the Chinese, whose incredulity on the subject the Abbé Hue mentions so amusingly in his missionary narrative.
Before leaving Cairo the English ladies were invited to spend an evening in the royal harem, and accordingly at eight o'clock found themselves in a beautiful garden, with fountains, lit by a multitude of variegated lamps, and conducted by black eunuchs through trellis-covered walks to a large marble-paved hall, where about forty Circassian slaves met them and escorted them to a saloon fitted up with divans, at the end of which reclined the pasha's wives. One of them was singularly beautiful, and exquisitely dressed, in pink velvet and ermine, with priceless jewels. Another very fine figure was that of the mother, a venerable old princess, looking exactly like a Rembrandt just come out of its frame. Great respect was paid to her, and when she came in, every one rose. The guests being seated, or rather squatted, on the divan, each was supplied with long pipes, coffee in exquisite jewelled cups, and sweetmeats, the one succeeding the other, without intermission, the whole night. The Circassian slaves, with folded hands and downcast eyes, stood before their mistresses, to supply their wants. Some of them were very pretty, and dressed with great richness and taste. Then began a concert of Turkish instruments, which sounded unpleasing to English ears, followed by a dance, which was graceful and pretty; but this again followed by a play, in which half the female slaves were dressed up as men, and the coarseness of which it is impossible to describe. The wife of the foreign minister kindly acted as interpreter for the English ladies, and through her means some kind of conversation was kept up. But the ignorance of the ladies in the harem is unbelievable. They can neither read nor write; their whole day is employed in dressing, bathing, eating, drinking, and smoking. The soirée lasted till two in the morning, when the royalty withdrew, and the English ladies returned home, feeling the whole time as if they had been seeing a play acted from a scene in the Arabian Nights, so difficult was it to realize that such a way of existence was possible in the present century.
The Sunday before they left, curiosity led them after mass to witness the gorgeous ceremonial of the Coptic Church. The men sat on the ground with bare feet, the women in galleries above the dome, behind screens. The patriarch--who calls himself the successor of St. Mark, and is the leader of a sect whose opinions are almost identical with those condemned by the council of Chalcedon as the Eutychian heresy--was gorgeously attired in a chasuble of green and gold, with a silver crosier in one hand, (St. George and the dragon being carved on the top,) and in the other a beautiful gold crucifix, richly jewelled, wrapped in a gold-colored handkerchief, which every one stooped to kiss, after the reading of the gospel and the creed, the people joined with great fervor in the litanies; and then began the consecration of the sacred species, which lasted a very long time. The holy eucharist was given in a spoon to each communicant, the bread being dipped in the wine, and the patriarch laying his hand on the forehead of each person while he gave the blessing. At the same time, blessed bread stamped with a cross, and with the name of Christ, was handed round to the rest of the congregation, like the pain bénit in village churches in France. The Copts boast that there has never been the slightest alteration in their religious rites since the fourth century, and they are undoubtedly the only descendents of the ancient Egyptians.
The following morning a portion of our travellers started by train for Suez, across a waving, billowy-looking tract of interminable sand. Except the "half-way house," (a miserable shed,) there is no human habitation all the way, and nothing to be seen but long files of camels slowly wending their way across the desert. After enjoying for a few minutes the first sight of the Red Sea, the consul obligingly lent them horses to ride to the Lesseps Canal, which was then completed to within six miles of Suez. Upward of 5000 Arabs had been pressed into the service by the pasha, and the poor creatures were toiling under the burning sun, with no pay and wretched food, and, when night came, sleeping under the banks. The mortality among them was frightful; but it was in this way that the pasha paid for his shares! Our travellers tasted the water, the first that had ever been brought to Suez, except by camels, or, of late, by the water-train. It is difficult to realize the fact of a town of this size being entirely without fresh water until now, which accounts for the absence of the least kind of vegetation. The next morning a steamer took our party early to the wells of Moses, about nine miles up the gulf, where they landed, being carried through the surf by the Chinese rowers. Each of the wells is enclosed in a little fence, and belongs to a Suez merchant. It is a wonderful spot, so green and so lovely in the midst of such utter desolation. There are dates and banians, roses and pomegranates, salads and other vegetables, all growing in the greatest luxuriance. Long strings of camels filed across the sand on their way to Mount Sinai, and the coloring of the mountains was exquisite. The shore was covered with coral and shells. After spending an hour or two there, and reading the Bible account of the spot, our travellers returned to the ship, and went across the gulf to see the exact place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea when pursued by Pharaoh. The view was beautiful, and the Hill of Barda stood out brightly with its jagged points dear and purple against the glowing sky. The Catholics have a small church at Suez, but are building a larger one, as their mission is greatly on the increase.
Our travellers returned that evening to Cairo and for the first time slept on board their boats, or daha-biéh. The first sensation was of discomfort at the smallness of the cabins; but soon they got used to their floating homes, and the beauty of the weather enabled them to live all day long on the awning-covered poop; so that they soon ceased to feel cramped and uncomfortable. The following day, the wind being contrary, Latifa Pasha, the head of the Admiralty, gave them a steamer to tow them up to Gizeh, from whence they were to visit the Pyramids. The excessive depth of each stone makes the ascent an arduous one for women; but the view amply repays one for the exertion. On one side is the interminable desert; on the other, the fertile "Land of Goshen." Owing to the recent inundations, the party had continually to dismount from their donkeys and be carried across the water on men's backs. The next few days passed quickly, our travellers landing every morning to walk and sketch, while the men were "tracking" along the shore, and making acquaintance with all the people and places of interest as they passed. At El-Atfeh was a remarkable dervish of the tribe they had seen "dancing" in Cairo, who showed them his house, in the court of which was the tomb of his predecessor, hung with ostrich-eggs, canoes and other votive offerings, but hideously painted in bright green. At Bibbeh there was a very fine Coptic church, with a picture of St. George and the Dragon, who is the favorite saint throughout the East, and venerated alike by Christian and Moslem. Again, on their way to Minieh, they passed by a fine Coptic convent on the top of a [{772}] cliff, and two of the monks swam to the boats to ask for alms and offerings, which are never refused them. On the 20th December they reached Sawada, which is a village somewhat inland, but containing a large Coptic convent and church, served by six priests, and with a congregation of upwards of 1000 Christians. It was also an important burial-place, and there were multitudes of little domes looking like children's sand-basins reversed, but each surmounted with a cross. One of the ladies was sketching this picturesque village from a palm-grove at the entrance of the principal gateway, when a venerable priest approached her and made that sign which in the East is the freemasonry of brotherhood--the sign of the Cross. The lady instantly responded, and the old priest, joyfully clapping his hands, led her into the church, showing her all its carious carvings and decorations, and several very ancient MSS. There are some fine mountains at the back, in which the gentlemen of the party discovered some wolves. The next day brought them to Beni-Hassan. The caves, which are about three miles from the shore, were originally used as tombs by the ancient Egyptians, and are covered with paintings and hieroglyphics; but their chief interest arises from their having been the great hiding-place of the Christians during the persecutions, and also used as cells by St. Anthony, St. Macarius, and other anchorites. A little farther on, near Manfaloot, is the cave of St. John the Hermit, venerated to this hour as such by the natives. On Christmas-day our travellers arrived at Sioot, and found there a Catholic church served by the Franciscan mission, which is under the special protection of the Emperor of Austria, who has sent some very good pictures for the altars there. The mass was reverently and well sang, and about 150 Catholics were present. After mass, the Italian padre gave them coffee. He had been educated at the "Propaganda," but had been twenty-four years in Egypt; so that he had almost forgotten every language except Arabic. He said that they had now obtained a union with the Copts, and a Coptic mass followed the Latin one. The mission had been established at Sioot four years before, by the intervention of Said Pasha, but had encountered great opposition at first from the Moslems. Two bodies of Christian saints with all the signs of martyrdom had been lately discovered in the caves above the town; but the Mohammedans would not allow the Christians to have them. The good old Franciscan had studied medicine, and thus first made his way among the people. Now he seems to be universally respected and beloved.
Our party rode through the dirty bazaars of this so-called capital of Upper Egypt, and ascended to the caves. But the "City of the Dead", a little beyond the town, is mournfully beautiful and silent. It is composed of streets of tombs, of white stone or marble, the only sign of life being the jar of water left in front of each, to water the aloes planted in picturesque vases at the gate of each tomb. A whole poem might be written on the thoughts suggested by those silent streets. It was this "City of the Dead" which is said to have occasioned the valuable lesson given by St. Macarius to the young man who had asked him "how he could best learn indifference to the world's opinion?" He directed him to go to this place, and first upbraid and then flatter the dead. The young man did as he was bid. When he came back, the saint asked him "what answer they had made?" The young man replied, "None at all." Then said St. Macarius: "Go and learn from them neither to be moved by injuries or flatteries. If you thus die to the world and to yourself, you will begin to live to Christ."
Here for the first time our travellers realized the horrors of an Egyptian conscription. A number of villagers coming in to the Sunday's market were at once seized, chained together, and thrown on the ground like so much "dead stock" to be packed off on board a government vessel, when the fall complement had been secured. The screams and howls of their wives and daughters, throwing dirt on their heads and tearing their hair, in token of despair, when their frantic efforts to release them from the recruiting-sergeants were found ineffectual, were most piteous to hear. The poor fellows rarely survive to return to their homes; and their pay and food are so miserably small and scanty, that to be made a soldier is looked upon as worse than death. They maim themselves in every way to escape it--cutting off their forefingers, putting out their eyes, and the like. Scarcely a man on board the boats is not mutilated in this manner. In the evening, being Christmas-day, all the boats were illuminated with Chinese lanterns and avenues of palms; while the sailors made crosses and stars of palm-leaves, to hang over the cabin-doors. A beautiful moon-light night added to the effect of these decorations, as the party rowed round the different dahabièhs, and the "Adeste fidelis" sounded softly across the water. The following morning, after early mass, a favorable wind carried them on to Ekhnim, where there is also a Catholic Franciscan missionary and church. The priest was a Neapolitan, and had begun his labors at Suez. His only companion was a native Copt, who had been educated at the Propaganda. They had about five hundred Catholics in their congregation, and a school of about fifty children. The church was of the fifteenth century, and under the protection of a Christian sheik, to whom our travellers were introduced, and who courteously invited them into his house. The courtyard of the Catholic church was crowded with native Christians who had escaped from the conscription, and were safe under the roof of the priest. The sheik conducted his guests to his house, the only good one in Ekhnim, and furnished more or less in European style, as he had been at Cairo, and attached to the household of the late viceroy. They sat on the divan, with pipes and coffee, talking Italian with the priest, when the sheik, as a great honor, allowed them to see his wife, and afterward his daughter, a bride of thirteen, married to the son of the Copt bishop. She was dressed in red, as a bride, with a red veil and a profusion of gold ornaments and coins strung round her neck and arms. The sheik and the whole population escorted our travellers back to their boats with every demonstration of respect, and then the principal chiefs with the priests were invited to come on board and have coffee, which they accepted. The Franciscan father had been for seven years at Castellamare, and felt the change terribly, but said that the climate was good, and that the comfort of feeling he was working for God strengthened his hands when he was inclined to despond. He complained of the lamentable ignorance of the Coptic priests, who knew nothing of the history of their interesting old churches and convents, and only tell you "they were built before their fathers were born!" The two large Coptic convents formerly existing in the mountains above the town are deserted; but their church at Ekhnim is the oldest now remaining in Egypt, and full of curious carving and very ancient pillars.
On New Year's day our travellers arrived at Denderah, and spent it in the wonderful temple of Athor. The heat was very great, and it required some courage to attempt to sketch. At five the following morning the boats arrived at Keneh, and some of the party went on shore to mass, that being also a Franciscan station. The church is small, but very nicely kept; the place is, however, unhealthy, and the good Franciscan father was very low at the mortality among his comrades. He has lately started a school and has about twenty children; but his life is a very desolate one, having [{774}] no European to speak to, or any one to sympathize in his work. After mass he took our travellers to see the making of the goolehs, or water-bottles, which are so famous throughout Egypt, and are made solely in this place, of the peculiar clay of the district, mixed with the ashes of the halfeh grass. They are beautiful in form, and keep the water deliciously cool. After a breakfast of coffee and excellent dates at the sheik's house, the party reëmbarked, and arrived that evening at Negaddi. Here again they found a Catholic mission. The superior, Padre Samuele, had been laboring there for twenty-three years. He was of the Lyons mission, and was the only one who had survived the climate. Four of his brethren had died within the last twelvemonth, and he had just dug a grave for the last. They had a large and devout congregation, and a school of one hundred and fifty children, and had been building a new church of very fine and good proportions. But now the good father has to labor and live alone. He said, however, that he had written to Europe for fresh workers, whom he was anxiously expecting. Negaddi is remarkable for its turreted pigeon-houses, painted white and red, which form an amusing contrast to the miserable mudholes in which the inhabitants live. The following evening found our travellers at Thebes. The town itself is a surprise and disappointment. There are literally no shops, no bazaar, no houses but the two or three belonging to the consuls, and built in the midst of the temples. But the said temples are unrivalled for interest and beauty. Karnac, either by daylight or moonlight, is a thing apart from all others in the world for vastness of conception and magnificence of design. "There were giants in those days." The same may be said of the Tombs of the Kings, of the Vocal Memnon, of the Memnouium, of Medemet Haboo, and the rest. The marvel is, what has become of the people who created such things; who had brought civilization, arts, and manufactures to such perfection that nothing modern can surpass them. Is it not a lesson to our pride and our materialism, when we think of them and of ourselves, and then see the degraded state of the modern Egyptian, the utter extinction of the commonest art or even handicraft among them, so that it is scarcely possible, even in Cairo, to get an ordinary deal table made with a drawer in it? There is no Catholic mission at Thebes, but a Coptic bishop, who received our travellers very kindly, showed them his church, and gave them coffee on a terrace overlooking the Nile. This evening was "twelfth-night," and the boats were again illuminated and decorated with palms, the whole having a beautiful effect reflected in the water.
After spending a week at Thebes, Our travellers sailed on to Assouan, visiting the temples of Esneh, Edfoo, and Komom-Boo on their way, and coming into the region of crocodiles and pelicans, and of the Theban or dom palm--less graceful than the date palm, but still beautiful, and bearing a large, nut-like fruit in fine hanging clusters. Between Edfoo and Thebes are shown some caves, in one of which St. Paul, the first hermit, passed so many years of penitence and prayer. He was discovered by St. Antony in his old age, when tempted to vain-glory, God having revealed to him that there was a recluse more perfect than himself, whom he was to go into the desert and seek. A beautiful picture in the gallery at Madrid by Velasquez represents the meeting of the two venerable saints, the dinner brought to them by the raven, and the final interment of St. Paul by St. Antony in the cloak of St. Athanasius, the lions assisting to dig the grave!
Assouan is, as it were, the gate of the Cataracts, and is on the borders of Nubia, the great desert of Syene being to the left of the village. The Nubian caravans were tented on the shore, and tempting the Europeans with daggers, knives, [{775}] ostrich-eggs, poisoned arrows, rhinoceros hide shields, lances and monkeys. The climate was delicious. There is no country in the world to be compared with Egypt at this time of the year, because, in spite of the heat, there is a lightness and exhilaration in the air which makes every one well and hungry. To an artist the coloring is equally perfect. No one who has not been there can imagine what the sunrises and sunsets are, especially the after-glow at sunset. No artificial red, orange, or purple can approach it. Then the gracefulness of the palms on the banks, the rosy color of the mountains, the picturesque sakeels or water-wheels, and the still prettier shadoof, with its mournful sound, which seems as the wail of the patient slave who works it day and night, and thereby produces the exquisite tender green vegetation on the banks of the river, due to this artificial irrigation alone--all are a continual feast to the eye of the painter. And if all this is felt below Assouan, what can be said of Philae--beautiful Philae--that "dream of loveliness," as a modern writer justly calls it?
Our travellers, while waiting for the interminable arrangements with the Reis of the Cataracts, took the road along the shore; and after passing through a succession of curious and picturesque villages, arrived at one called Mahatta, where they hired a little boat to take them across to the beautiful island. Rocks of the most fantastic shapes are piled up on both sides of the shore; but when once you have emerged from these into the deep water, "Pharaoh's Bed" and the other temples stand out against the sky in all their wonderful beauty. Philae was the burial-place of Osiris, and "By him who sleeps in Philae" was the common oath of the old Egyptians. The temples are too well known by drawings to need description; but what is less often mentioned by travellers is that the larger one, originally dedicated to the sun, was used for a long time by the Christians as a church. Consecration crosses are deeply engraved on every one of these grand old pillars; and at one end is an altar, with a cross in the centre, in white marble, and a piscina at the side, with a niche for the sacred elements; and above this recess is a beautiful cross deeply cut in the stone, together with the emblem of the vine. The cross is also let into the principal gateways. There was an Italian inscription commemorating the arrival of the first Roman mission sent by Gregory XVI., and a tablet in French recording the arrival of the French army there under Napoleon in 1799, signed by General Davoust.
The gentlemen of the party decided to pitch their tents in the island till the question of the passing of the Cataracts was decided; and while this operation was going on, one of the ladies sat down to sketch. She was quietly painting, luxuriating in the beauty and silence around her, and watching the sun setting gloriously behind the temple, when all of a sudden a deep bell boomed across the water and was repeated half-a-dozen times. It was the "Angelus." Even the least Catholic of the party was struck and impressed by this unexpected sound, so unusual in a country where bells are unknown, and the only call for prayer is from the minaret top. Instinctively they knelt, and then arose the question "Where could the bell come from?" There was no sign of habitation or human beings either on the island itself or on the opposite shores, and the dragoman himself was equally at fault. At last, on questioning the boatmen, they found that behind some hills a short distance off was a convent--sort of "convalescent home" for the sick monks of the Barri mission. The English lady decided at once to go and see it, and on arriving at the long low stone building, found that the Franciscan father, who was almost its solitary occupant, had just returned from the White Nile, being one of a mission to the blacks in the Barri country, a month's journey south of Khartoun. [{776}] He had been at death's door from fever; and on leaving Khartoun for Philae, an eighteen days' ride on camels, had been attacked by dysentery, and left for dead in the burning desert by the caravan; only a faithful black convert remained by his side, and he felt that his last hour was come; when the arrival of poor Captain Speke, on his way home from one of his last explorations, changed the state of things. With true Christian charity our countryman at once ordered a halt, and devoted himself to the nursing and doctoring of the dying monk; so that in a few days he was so far recovered as to be able to resume his journey, and arrived safely at Philae. He said he owed his life, under God, entirely to the kindness of this Englishman; and his only anxiety seemed to be to show his gratitude by doing everything he could for those of his nation. He invited our travellers to take up their abode in the convent, and gave them a most interesting account of the missionary work of his order. They have chartered a small vessel, which they have called the "Stella Matutina," and which plies up and down the river, and enables them to visit their stations on each bank. But they have every kind of hardship to encounter from the treachery or stupidity or positive hostility of the different tribes, from the intense heat, and above all, from the deadly malaria which had carried off seventy of their brothers in three years. But there are ever fresh soldiers of this noble army ready and eager to fill up the ranks.
The ladies rode home by the way of the desert, and reached their boats in safety. The next morning, at five o'clock, the same road was resumed by two of the party who were anxious to to reach the convent in time for the early mass. They met nothing on their seven-miles' ride but a hyaena, who was devouring a camel which they had left dying the night before. The little convent chapel was very nice; and among the vestments sent by the oeuvre apostolique and worked by the ladies of the Leopoldstadt mission, one of the party recognized a court-dress which had been presented for the purpose by a Hungarian friend of hers at Rome. It was strange to find it again in the depths of Nubia. The mass was served by two little woolly-haired negro boys from the good old father's school, whose attachment to him was like that of a dog to its master. He was in some trouble as to finding clothes for them. The Nubians dispense with every thing of the kind except a fringed leathern girdle round the loins, decorated with shells. The children have not even that. However, in the dahabièh a piece of rhododendron-patterned chintz was found, carefully sent from England for the covering of the divans; and with that, certain articles of dress were manufactured, gorgeous in coloring, and therefore perfect in native eyes, however ludicrous and incongruous they might appear to Europeans. The following day was fixed for one of the boats to go up the cataracts, and the party started early for what is called the "first gate," to see the operation. No one who has not lived for some months with this "peuple criard," as Lamartine calls them, can imagine the din and screaming of the Arabs as each dangerous rapid is passed; the Reis all the time shouting and storming and leaping from one stone to the other like one possessed. But the ascent is child's play compared to the descent. So many accidents have happened in the latter, and so many boats have been swamped, that the captains now insist on the passengers landing on an island near, while their boats rush down the rapids. It is a beautiful sight, the way those apparently unwieldy vessels are steered, and clear the rocks as it were with a bound, amidst the frantic yells and cheers of the whole population. A number of men, for a trifling baksheesh, swam down the current on logs; one with his little child before him; but an Englishman, attempting [{777}] to do it a year or two ago, was caught in the whirlpool and instantly drowned. After watching this exciting operation, the party dined together at Philae in their tent, and then rowed round and round the island by moonlight, which exceeded in loveliness all they had hitherto seen; the vividness of the reflections were beyond belief; and reading or writing was easy in the brilliant light.
Our traveller availed herself of the kind Father Michael Angelo's proposal, and slept at the convent. He gave them some curious arms, and hippopotamus-teeth from the White Nile, and some ostrich-eggs arranged as drinking-vessels, with shells and leather strips: his sole furniture in his native tent. The English, in return, gave him a quantity of medicines, which he eagerly accepted for his mission, to which he was hoping to return. After early mass the next day, he escorted them to see the Island of Biggeh with its picturesque temple, and then to the quarries of Syene, where an uncut obelisk of great size still remains embedded in the sand. Some idea was entertained in England of using it for Prince Albert's monument; but the difficulty of carriage and the distance from the river would make its transfer almost impossible. Far simpler would be the proposal of taking the Luxor obelisk, already given to the English by Mehemet Ali, the sister one to that successfully transported to Paris by the French. It is a thousand pities to leave it where it is, and to miss the occasion of adding so unique and valuable a monument to our art-treasures.
This, the last day of our traveller's stay at Assouan, was spent in making a few last purchases, visiting the old castle overlooking the river, and exploring the island of Elephantine, which offers beautiful sketching. But the inhabitants are even more importunate as beggars than their confraternity at Thebes; and it required all the eloquence of the good priest to prevent their appropriating the contents of the traveller's paint-box. She purchased from them many strings of bright beads, which constitute their sole idea of female dress. A curious funeral took place in the evening, an empty boat being carried for the dead man, who was buried with his arms and his spear; while a funeral dirge was sung over him by his tribe. It was curious, as being identical with the hieroglyphics of similar scenes in the tombs of the kings. Many of the customs of these people are purely pagan; for instance, when an Arab makes his coffee, he pours out the first three cups on the ground as a libation to the sheik, who first invented the beverage. The slave-trade, though nominally abolished by the viceroy, is carried on vigorously at Assouan. The governor goes through the form of confiscating the cargo and arresting the owners of the ship; but, after a few days, a handsome baksheesh on the part of the slave-owner and captain settles the matter; and their live cargo is transported to Cairo, there to be disposed of in the harems or elsewhere.
To the Catholic traveller in this country nothing can be more melancholy than the utterly degraded condition of the people, who are really very little removed from the brute creation. Years of ill-usage, hardship, and wrong have ground down the Fellah to the abject condition of a slave; and the utter extinction of Christianity among them seems to preclude all hope of their rising again. Yet Egypt was once the home of saints. From Alexandria, the seat of all that was most learned and refined, the see of St. Athanasius, and St. Alexander, and St. Cyril, and St. John the Almoner, and a whole string of holy patriarchs, bishops, and martyrs, up to the very desert of Syene, peopled with anchorites, the whole land teemed with saints. And now, the little handful of Franciscan fathers, scattered here and there, sowing once more the good seed at the cost of their lives, is all that remains to bear witness to the truth.
[ORIGINAL.]