A MAY CAROL.
"He looked on her humility."
Ah! humbler thrice that breast was made
When Jesus watched his mother's eye,
When God each God-born wish obeyed!
In her with seraph seraph strove,
And each the other's purpose crossed:
And now 'twas reverence, now 'twas love
The peaceful strife that won or lost.
Now to that Infant she extends
Those hands that mutely say, "Mine own!"
Now shrinks abashed, or swerves and bends,
As bends a willow backward blown.
And ofttimes, like a rose leaf caught
By eddying airs from fairyland,
The kiss a sleeping brow that sought
Descends upon the unsceptred hand!
O tenderest awe! whose sweet excess
Had ended in a fond despair,
Had not the all-pitying helplessness
Constrained the boldness of her care!
O holiest strife! the angelic hosts
That watched it hid their dazzled eyes,
And lingered from the heavenly coasts
To bless that heavenlier paradise.
Aubrey de Vere.
CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM.
NUMBER NINE.
UNION BETWEEN THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE—CONTINUED.
In the preceding article we unfolded the nature of the hypostatic moment, the solution which the Catholic Church gives to the problem of the highest sublimation of the cosmos. In the present article we shall point out the consequences which flow from that moment, in order to put in bolder relief the nature of the exaltation which has thereby accrued to the cosmos.
For the sake of perspicuity, we shall bring those consequences under the following heads:
1. Consequences of the hypostatic moment, viewed in reference to the external action, as the effective typical and final cause of the cosmos.
2. Consequences of the hypostatic moment, considered respectively to the nature, properties, and action of the cosmos, as abridged in the human nature of the Theanthropos.
3. Those which relate to the other moments and persons of the cosmos.
4. Those which affect the Theanthropos himself, in relation to the other moments and persons of the cosmos.
With respect to the consequences of the first class, it is evident that the efficient typical and final cause of the external works is absolutely and simply infinite. No real distinction can be made between God's essence and his action, between his interior and exterior action. Any distinction between these things would imply potentiality and imperfection, and would throw us back into pantheism.
God's essence therefore, his interior and external action, are, ontologically speaking, one and the same. Now, God is absolutely infinite; the effective typical and final cause of the cosmos is thereby absolutely infinite. In other words, the cause which calls the cosmos to being is endowed with infinite energy; the cause which serves as its exemplar and pattern, and which the cosmos must delineate and express, is the infinite perfections of God; the cause which inclines God to effect it is the infinite and transcendental excellence of his being, as capable of being communicated. Now, a cause infinite in every respect would naturally claim a term corresponding to the intensity of the action. It is upon this principle that pantheism has been framed. An infinite cause claims a term also infinite. Now, an effect infinite in its nature is a contradiction in terms; therefore the work is and can be nothing more but a phenomenon of the infinite.
If pantheists had paid attention to the Catholic theory, that the action of God, because infinite, is distinct in two moments, the one immanent and interior, the other transient and exterior; that the same action in the first moment is absolute and necessary, and gives rise to the eternal originations which constitute infinite life; that the same action in the second moment is absolutely free, and consequently master of the intensity of its energy, free to apply as much of that energy as it chooses; they would have seen that the above principle applies to the first but not to the second moment, and that therefore their theory rests on a false assumption.
However, though pantheism rests on a false assumption, it cannot be denied that there is a certain fitness between an infinite cause and an effect, as much as possible corresponding to the infinite energy of the cause; and that consequently the external action of God, because infinite, is for that very reason inclined to effect the best possible cosmos, a cosmos almost infinite in its perfection; an infinite energy has a tendency to effect an infinite term; an infinite typical perfection, to realize an infinite expression; an infinite yearning of communication, to impart itself in a manner the most exhaustive possible.
This fitness of proportion between cause and effect is so evident as to baffle all doubt; yet the necessary distinction implied by the very nature of cause and effect, a distinction of infinite superiority on the part of the one and infinite dependence and inferiority on the part of the other, in the present case is that which gives rise to the problem which may be formulated as follows: given the infinite superiority of the cause of the cosmos, and admitting the essential inferiority of the effect, how to exalt the effect to a perfection almost absolute, and draw it as near the perfection of the cause as possible, without destroying the absolute and necessary finiteness of the effect.
The hypostatic moment is the sublime and transcendental answer which God has given to the problem. For in that mystery the cosmos, as abridged and recapitulated in human nature, without ceasing to be what it is, without losing its essence and nature, is exalted to the highest possible perfection, by a union of subsistence with the Infinite himself. Nay, the infinite subsistence and personality of the Word is the subsistence and personality of the human nature assumed; so that the human nature, though real and finite, is at the same time the nature of the person of the Word, and consequently partaking of all the dignity, perfection, and excellence of the Word. In other terms, the cosmos, as abridged in the human nature of Christ, is deified, not indeed by a change of its ontological being, but by the highest, strictest, and closest communication and union with the Godhead. For, next to the identity of nature, we can conceive of no closer union or communication than that which exists between two distinct natures completed and actualized by the same identical subsistence. Now, this identity of subsistence communicates to the inferior nature all the worth and dignity of the superior; and consequently the human nature of Christ, and hence the cosmos which it abridges, are, as it were, deified in such a manner as to exchange the denomination of attributes, and we can call man God, and God man.[130]
Thus the tendency of the infinite cause of the external works is fully satisfied. The infinite energy of the efficient cause has for its term an object perfectly corresponding to the intensity of its energy; since it terminates in an object absolutely infinite—the Word completing the two natures, the divine and the human; an individual who is very God as well as very man.
The typical cause is even better satisfied, so to speak. It tends to express itself exteriorly, as perfectly as it exists interiorly. By the hypostatic moment, the same identical type of the cosmos, its intelligible and objective life enters to form part of the cosmos, the interior logos or schema is wedded to its exterior expression in the bond of one subsistence, and is at the same time type and expression, objective and subjective life. Unlike other artists, who must necessarily regret the impossibility of their impressing on the external work, be it marble or canvas, the interior conceptions of the mind, as fully and as perfectly as they conceive them interiorly, the divine artist of the cosmos found a means whereby to unite, to bring together type and expression, the intelligible and the subjective, the original and the copy, in one identical person; so that in the person of the Theanthropos, as you admire the art so exquisitely divine in the copy, you are dazzled by the effulgence of the type which dwells and shines forth in it; as you wonder at the exactness of the created expression, you can see the original conception also, blended together in one common subsistence. The end also of the external work is fully attained. For in the hypostatic moment the infinite and transcendental excellence of God is communicated in a manner beyond which you could not go; God in this moment yielding himself so far as to make his own subsistence common to human nature, and thus making it share in his infinite dignity, attributes, and the very name of God.
We shall allude to one consequence only of the second class; those having reference to the sublimation of the cosmos; and that is the life of the cosmos.
Life is action and movement. Those beings which act not exist but do not live. If, therefore, the action of the cosmos has been elevated to the highest possible perfection by the hypostatic moment, it follows that its life also has been exalted.
Now, though action originates in the nature, which is the first principle of action in a being, yet its ontological worth and dignity it receives from the subsistence or person, because the nature would be an abstraction, a possibility, without the subsistence.
In the case, therefore, of an individual in whom the nature is inferior, and the subsistence, which actualizes and completes the nature, is superior, in the scale of being, the actions primarily originating from nature as their first root have all the ontological worth of the subsistence, and not of the nature.
Consequently, all the human actions of Christ, primarily originating in his human nature, partake of the ontological dignity and value of his person, and not of his human nature; just because his human nature is completed by and subsists in the personality of the Word.
Now, this personality is infinite; infinite, therefore, is the ontological worth of the human actions of Christ.
And if we consider, as we have already remarked, that human nature is a recapitulation of all the elements of the cosmos, since it shares spirit, intelligence, and will with the angelic nature, sensible apprehension with animal nature, life with the vegetable nature, and locomotion with inorganic nature, it follows that all the actions of the cosmos are recapitulated in human nature, and that consequently they are exalted to an infinite worth and dignity in the human nature of Christ, which is completed by his infinite personality.
The consequences of the third class will better explain and develop this exaltation of the life of the cosmos. The object of the external action consists in manifesting the infinite excellence and perfections of God. This creation does in two different ways: 1st, ontologically, the very nature of the cosmos being an expression, a likeness of the infinite. This function is discharged indistinctly both by intelligent and unintelligent beings.
2d. But this function, by which unintelligent creatures unconsciously manifest in their nature and properties the excellence of God, in intelligent creatures is necessarily a moral act, and gives rise to the virtue of religion; because intelligent creatures cannot possibly fail to perceive the relation which binds them to their creator, and to feel the duty of acknowledging it.
Hence, religion is an absolute duty for intelligent beings; so necessary and absolute that the opposite assertion would be a contradiction in terms.
To say a creature, is to affirm a being created by God with the express purpose of manifesting his perfections; to say intelligent, is to affirm a creature able to perceive this relation, and able to fulfil the purpose which it perceives was intended by the creator. To absolve, therefore, intelligent creatures from the duty of religion, is to affirm and deny in the same breath that they are intelligent creatures.
Hence, they must necessarily perceive and will the relation in which they stand to their creator, and consequently be religious by force of their very nature and existence.
The whole cosmos must pay to God, its creator, the homage of religion; unintelligent creatures by unconsciously portraying his perfections; intelligent creatures, by acknowledging the same with their intelligence and will.
Now, this first function of the cosmos, this primary act of its life, is elevated to the highest possible perfection through the hypostatic moment. For through this moment the external religion of the cosmos is elevated to the dignity and grandeur of the internal religion.
Philosophers and theologians do not treat of the existence of the eternal and objective religion, as often as they do of that religion which expresses the relations between the creator and his creatures, and might be styled external and temporal religion. But every thing temporal is the counterpart of something eternal; every subjective existence has an intelligible objective existence in eternity, a type without which its subjective existence were inconceivable.
Religion, then, must have its type in God; in his infinite essence must be found those eternal laws which render temporal religion possible.
What is there in the essence of the infinite which constitutes religion, and establishes its laws?
The eternal religion is the life of God, its laws the laws of the genesis of his life.
God is a living, personal being. He is unborn, unbegotten, intelligent activity; first termination of the Godhead. By one eternal, immanent glance of his intelligence he searches, so to speak, and scrutinizes the innermost depths of his essence, and thus comprehends himself, that is, conceives and utters himself interiorly.
This infinite, most perfect utterance and intelligible expression of himself is a second termination of the Godhead; the Word, who portrays and manifests the Godhead intelligibly; as the first person is the actuation of the Godhead under the termination of intelligent, primary, independent activity and principle.
This duality of terminations is brought into harmony by a third person, the result of the action of both. For between the intelligent principle, uttering himself intelligibly, and the utterance, the term of that intellectual conception, there passes necessarily an infinite attraction, a blissful sympathy, an unutterable complacency.
The Father beholds as in a bright, clear stream of infinite light the unspeakable beauty and loveliness of his infinite perfections, and utters them to himself, and delights in that utterance. The Son beholds himself as the most perfect, the consubstantial representation of the sublime excellence of the Father, and takes complacency in him as the principle of his personality.
This common complacency, sympathy, attraction, love, bliss, is the third termination of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, the breath of the love of both, the personal subsisting attraction of the Father and of the Son, the person who closes the cycle of God's infinite life.
This is the eternal, immanent, objective religion. For what is religion in its highest metaphysical acceptation? It is the intelligible and loving acknowledgment of the infinite nature and attributes of God. Now, the Word is the infinite, substantial, and intelligible acknowledgment of the Father; the Holy Ghost is the infinite, substantial, loving acknowledgment of both. Therefore, the eternal mystery of the life of the infinite, the Trinity, is also the eternal objective religion by which God acknowledges, appreciates and honors himself.
It might be objected to the soundness of this doctrine, that one of the relations, which is the principal and fundamental in religion, the relation of dependence, is wanting in the life of the infinite, and that consequently that life cannot be taken as the eternal type of religion.
In the metaphysical idea of religion, dependence is necessary as the fundamental relation upon which all others rest. Because religion is essentially an acknowledgment of one person from another. Therefore, the person who acknowledges himself as indebted to another for something must, by that very fact, be dependent upon him. The intelligible acknowledgment means that one intelligent being perceives with his mind that he stands indebted to another for something, and consequently depends upon him for that thing. The practical or loving acknowledgment conveys the idea that the person who has perceived his standing indebted to another for something, acts in such a manner as to express by his action his sense of the dependence. Religion is therefore an intelligible and practical dependence of one person upon another.
But this relation of dependence does not necessarily imply the idea of inferiority in the hierarchy of being upon the part of the person who is dependent, and a like superiority on the part of the person who is acknowledged. A dependence of origin or procession, without including any inferiority on the part of him who is dependent, is fully and absolutely sufficient in the metaphysical idea of transcendental religion.
The reason of this lies in the very nature of transcendental religion or acknowledgment. By this we seek the highest possible, the most perfect idea of acknowledgment, which necessarily implies an equality between the person who acknowledges and the person who is acknowledged. Otherwise, without the equality the acknowledgment would fall short of the perfection of the object acknowledged. Now, an inferiority of nature and attributes in the person who acknowledges would destroy the equality and imply an inferiority of acknowledgment, and consequently would not represent the idea of the highest, most perfect acknowledgment and religion.
The Son, therefore, depending upon the Father as to his origin, though absolutely equal to him in nature and attributes, and being the intelligible, infinite expression of the perfections of the Father, is, by force of his very personality, the subsisting, living, speaking acknowledgment of the Father.
The Holy Ghost, depending upon the Father and the Son as to origin, though perfectly equal to them as to nature, and being the loving expression of the infinite goodness of both, is, by force of his very personality, the living, practical recognition of the Father and of the Son.
The eternal life of God, therefore, is the eternal typical religion. It is the only true religion in the transcendental meaning of the term. Because the more perfect is the recognition, the more adequate it is to the object, and the more it approaches to metaphysical truth, which lies in the equation of the type with its expression. It is the only religion worthy of God. For religion, as we have said, is the intelligible and practical recognition of God. Now, every one can see that such recognition, to be worthy of God, must be absolutely perfect. The intelligible recognition must imply such an idea of God as to be absolute utterance of his nature and perfections; the loving recognition must love God in the most perfect and absolute sense of the word. Now, God being infinite, an infinite, intelligible recognition, an infinite, practical, loving acknowledgment only can be worthy of him. He alone can know and love himself as he deserves. Now, to draw nearer to our subject, we inquire, Is temporal religion worthy of God? And we observe, before answering the question, that by temporal religion we do not mean that recognition of God which results from the ontological essence of all the beings of the cosmos, but that voluntary and reflex acknowledgment which created spirits, whether men or angels, are bound to pay to their maker. We ask, therefore, is the acknowledgment which created spirits pay to God worthy of him, worthy of his infinite and transcendental nature and perfections? Evidently not. Because the intelligence of the cherubim, however high and lofty, and soaring as far above the intelligence of inferior created spirits as the eagle's flight over all the feathered tribes; the love of the seraphim, however intense, however deep, however tender, however ardent, are merely and simply finite. On the other hand, what is the intelligence and love of men compared with those of the heavenly spirits, who are so near the supreme intelligence and love, when compared to us, and yet so far from it, when compared with God?
The religion, therefore, of all created spirits is not proportionate to its object; it falls infinitely short of the merits of God. Hence the cosmos, of which created spirits form the best part, with the exclusion of the Incarnate Word, cannot properly discharge the first and paramount duty of the creature, the homage of acknowledgment and adoration to its creator.
But let the Word, the eternal mediator between God and the cosmos, let the intelligible and objective life, the type of the cosmos, enter into it, and the worth of the nature and the acts of the cosmos shall be exalted, elevated, changed, transformed; and it can then pay to God a tribute of recognition fully, perfectly, and absolutely worthy of him.
For the Theanthropos—the God-Man, who is possessed of infinite intelligence, and can comprehend God as far as God is intelligible, who is possessed of infinite will, and can love God as far as God is amiable, can recognize him, acknowledge him, theoretically and practically, as perfectly as he deserves, with absolute equation. And the human nature of the Theanthropos, though in itself finite in its essence and in its acts, can likewise render to God a homage fully and perfectly worthy of him. First, because the acts of the Word of God, honoring the infinite majesty theoretically and practically in an infinite manner, are acts also belonging to human nature, are its own acts, so to speak; because they are acts of its own personality, and human nature can say to God, I honor thee with the acts of my own person, and they are infinite. Secondly, because even the acts springing immediately from human nature, and consequently in themselves finite, in force of the union of these same acts with the divine personality in whom they subsist, acquire an infinite worth and dignity because of the person in whom they subsist; and human nature can say to God, I honor you with my own acts of worship and acknowledgment. In both cases, therefore, whether we look at the acts of the Theanthropos springing from his divine nature, or at those proceeding from his human nature, they are of infinite value, by force of the unity of his divine person; and consequently the Theanthropos can recognize God in an infinite manner, a manner absolutely worthy of God.
The cosmos, then, recapitulated in the human nature of Christ, is enabled to worship God as he deserves; the temporal religion of the cosmos is wedded to the eternal; and the Godhead is worshipped in his cosmos with the same perfect homage of recognition as he receives from eternity in the bosom of his interior life. The Word, as infinite recognition of the Father, is the eternal mediator of religion between the Father and the Holy Ghost. The Word incarnate is the mediator of religion between God and his cosmos.
All angels and men, and to a certain degree all creatures, all persons, all individualities, from the highest pinnacle of creation down to the farthest extremities thereof, united in a particular manner, which shall be hereafter explained, with the Theanthropos, and partakers of his mind, of his will, of his affections, of his heart, of his life, can raise to God a canticle of acknowledgment fully worthy of him, perfectly equal to that which rose up silently in the bosom of the infinite, when, in the day of his eternity, he uttered his infinite word, and breathed his spirit and recognized himself very God.
Who will not admit a dogma which elevates the cosmos to such a height of dignity? And what can pantheism offer in its stead? It can destroy both temporal and eternal religion, by identifying both terms, the cosmos and the infinite, and thus rendering a true acknowledgment of God impossible. But it can never impart that true exaltation, that high dignity to the cosmos, which the Catholic doctrine of the hypostatic moment affords. God acknowledges himself infinitely from all eternity, by uttering a perfect intellectual expression of himself, and by both aspiring a loving recognition of themselves. We creatures are enabled to acknowledge him as he acknowledges himself; the only recognition worthy of him. The Word, by becoming incarnate, enters into the choir of creation, and takes its leadership; brings into it the harmonies of the bosom of God, and on a sudden the music and the songs of the cosmos rise up to the height of its leader, and mingle with the harmonies of eternal life.
Before we pass to other consequences of the incarnation, we shall point out a corollary, among all others, which follows from the doctrine above stated, and which, though of the highest importance, is lost sight of both by apologists and rationalists.
This corollary is, that the Christian religion, as Christ founded it, is cosmological law, and can no more be lost sight of by the philosopher than by a Christian himself.
For according to the actual plan of the cosmos, the plan which God selected, God was not satisfied with that finite, imperfect, natural acknowledgment which created spirits might render to him. But, as he was pleased not to leave the cosmos in its natural conditions, but raised it to the highest possible dignity by a union with the divine personality of the Word, so he was not satisfied that the acknowledgment which is due to him as the creator should be that natural, imperfect, finite acknowledgment which created spirits could, with their natural force, render to him, but willed that their acknowledgment should, by a union with the Theanthropos, be exalted to the dignity of the infinite acknowledgment which he renders to himself from all eternity.
This is a law of the actual cosmos which God selected, and it is as much a law, an integral part of its constituents, as any natural law which we may discover. God selected such a cosmos that we might pay to him a recognition true and worthy of him.
Now, Christianity, as Christ founded it, is the religion of all created persons in time and space, who, united to the Theanthropos by a particular mode of union, worship God with and through the Theanthropos; that is, worship God as he deserves. Consequently Christianity is a law of the cosmos, an integral constituent of that cosmos which God selected, and hence true, elevating, and imperative.
True, because it is a religion the acts of which are fully adequate to the object, since in it God is worshipped as perfectly as he deserves.
True, because, religion implying a knowledge of God, in Christianity knowledge is imparted to the minds of its followers fully adequate to the object known, in its origin, in its mode of communication, and its end. In its origin, being derived from the Theanthropos; in its mode, being imparted by a peculiar operation of the Theanthropos; and in its end, as tending to gradual development, until it has reached the fulness of knowledge, which may be imparted to a pure creature in palingenesia.
True, because, religion implying operation and action, action is imparted in the same manner as knowledge.
Elevating, because it is evident that that aim of Christianity is to raise human persons from their natural state, from their natural operation, to a superior state and operation through the Theanthropos.
Imperative, because, God having made Christianity a law of the cosmos, which he selected, it is not free to a moral agent to accept or reject it, but all must accept it as a law of the cosmos which no one may contravene.
Hence rationalists, and infidels, and indifferentists, in rejecting Christianity or in being indifferent to it, reject a law of the cosmos, a law which is as essential to the entirety of the cosmos, which God chose, as the law of gravitation or locomotion; and in reasoning upon the cosmos, after rejecting Christianity, rationalists and indifferentists should say, "I do not reason on the actual cosmos that God has selected; I reason on a cosmos of my own creation; I limit it, I contract it, I debase it, as it pleases my fancy; and yet, after that, I insist on retaining the name of philosopher."
We pass to the other consequence. The tendency of the exterior act is to form the cosmos, and especially created intelligences, into a universal society. We could prove this by the consideration of the efficient, typical, and final cause of the external act; but prefer to show it only from the typical cause, or objective life of creation.
The objective life of the cosmos is the life of the infinite intelligibly expressed in the Word. Now, God's life is essentially one, absolute, most perfect, universal society. One is the nature of the infinite terminated and concreted by three distinct subsistences—the Beginning, the Word, the Spirit. One and identical is their intelligence and will; because intelligence and will, being an attribute of nature, as the three divine personalities partake of the same nature, they are at the same time endowed with the same identical intelligence and will.
One and identical is likewise their life and bliss; because the life and bliss of the infinite consists in knowing and loving himself, in which operation the three divine personalities share, in force of the identical absolute intelligence and will with which they are equally endowed. They are finally one by their common and reciprocal indwelling in each other; because the beginning is Father, inasmuch as his eternal Son dwells in his bosom. The Son is such, inasmuch as he is related to the Father, and dwells in him. The Spirit is such, inasmuch as he is related to both, and dwells in both.
The Trinity, therefore, is the type of one universal perfect society, because the three divine persons are associated by the unity and identity of nature, of attributes, of life, of happiness, and by a common indwelling in each other.
Now, the Trinity, as intelligibly mirrored in the Word, is the objective life of the cosmos, or its typical cause. On the other hand, we have shown that the plan which God has chosen in his works ad extra is that which draws the subjective cosmos as near in perfection to its intelligible and objective life as possible.
The cosmos, therefore, in force of its typical cause, is called to represent the one most perfect universal society of the three divine persons as perfectly as possible.
This were impossible except by the admission of the existence of the Theanthropos into creation. For, once admitting the existence of the Theanthropos, we see that the eternal society of the three divine persons, as mirrored intelligibly in the Word, the very typical cause of the cosmos, has come in contact with the cosmos itself, by the closest, most intimate society—the same identical subsistence: the eternal and interior society is externated, and the cosmos and the infinite society of God form one single society in the identity of the person of the Word. Man and God are one single society in Christ. Unite now all created spirits and persons to this externation of the typical cause, by a principle of which we shall speak in the next article; unite their nature to his nature, their intelligence to his intelligence, their will to his will, their life to his life, their bliss to his bliss; and we shall have one universal society, partaking of the nature, the intelligence, the will, the life, the bliss, of the Theanthropos; and thus not only united with each other, and meeting each other in one common medium and centre, but also presenting a divine society whose bond of union is the intelligence, will, life, bliss, of the Theanthropos communicated to them all; and through him and by him ushered into the eternal society of the Trinity.
This is the idea expressed in the sublime prayer of our Lord, when he said, Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as WE also are. And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me; that they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.[131]
This consequence of the hypostatic moment affords the cosmological reason of the truth, the divinity, the imperative necessity of the Catholic Church.
For the Catholic Church is nothing else but the society of all the persons of the cosmos elevated in Christ and through Christ to the eternal typical society of the Trinity, by a community of supernatural intelligence, will, life, bliss, imparted to them by the Theanthropos, to whom they are united, travelling centuries and generations to add new members to this universal society of all ages, until the number of members being complete, it shall cease its temporal action, and rest in eternity. This is the only true view of the Catholic Church. Men imagine it to be an after-thought, a thing begun nineteen centuries ago. The Catholic Church is a cosmological law; and hence necessary, universal, imperative. God in acting outside himself might have chosen to effect only substantial creation; but having once determined to effect the hypostatic moment, to cause the Theanthropos to form the exalting principle, the centre, the mediator of the cosmos, he could not but carry out to their fullest expression those relations which result from that moment. Now, the Catholic Church is the necessary consequence of the hypostatic moment. The Word, the type of the universe, is united to its expression in the unity of his divine personality, and is thus placed at the very centre of the universe, as that in which all things are consolidated. It follows, therefore, that all created persons must hover round about their centre, must be put in communication with him, united to him as their centre and mediator by a communion of intelligence, of will, of life, of bliss, and thus be associated with each other, and united with the eternal archetypical society—the Trinity.
This gives as a result a society of all created persons united by the bond of the same theanthropic intelligence, will, life, and bliss.
Now, such is the Catholic Church. Therefore it is a cosmological law in the present plan of the exterior action of God; and as a cosmological law is universal, extending to all times and places, divine in its origin and action, and imperative, so the Catholic Church is essentially universal in time and space; divine in its origin and action; imperative, enforcing its acceptance and adhesion on every intellect which can contemplate the plan of the exterior works of God.
Hence Protestantism is not only a theological error, but a philosophical blunder.
God effects the hypostatic moment, and makes the Theanthropos the centre of the cosmos, and of the best part of the cosmos—men. He could not be their centre unless they were united to him by intelligence, will, and life. And they could not be united to him unless they were united to each other by a common theanthropic intelligence, will, and life, etc.[132] And the question being of incarnate spirits, this union of intelligence, will, and life could not be possible, except it were visible and external.
Hence, it is a necessary consequence of the hypostatic moment that men should be united in one universal, visible, and external society. Protestantism, admitting the hypostatic moment, denies the consequence which so evidently flows from it, and denies by its fundamental principle a society of intelligence, and of will, and of life, and also the visibility, the externation of such society, and takes refuge in an individual union between himself and Christ, and says, by the same principle, "I have a right to form an intelligence of my own, in no way connected with the intelligence of other created persons. I have a right to follow laws which I shall individually find out and proclaim. I have a right to have a life exclusively my own, and no interchange shall pass between me and others."
Hence the absolute falsehood of Protestantism, which ignores the existence and qualities of this supreme cosmological law.
The cosmological law is one. Protestantism is multiform. The cosmological law is universal. Protestantism is individual. The cosmological law is communicative and expansive. Protestantism is egotistical.
What is more remarkable still is the astounding pretension of Protestantism to having enlightened and elevated mankind. Enlightened mankind by ignoring the plan of the universe in its beauty, in its harmony, in its whole! Elevated mankind by proclaiming individualism and egotism in the face of the one great life-giving law of a common universal society!
We would beg our Protestant readers to ask themselves the following questions:
Is it true that God made Christ, the Word incarnate, the centre of the cosmos, and hence the centre of all created persons?
Is it true that, in consequence of this, created persons should be united to him by partaking of his intelligence, will, and life?
Is it true that, in force of this union, all created persons become united to each other in force of the principle that two things united to a third are united to each other?
Is it true that God has effected all this in order to elevate human society to the society of his eternal life?
Is it not true that the Catholic Church is nothing but that?
Then the Catholic Church is cosmological law, one, divine, universal, imperative.
We pass to the fourth class of consequences, those which regard the Theanthropos in relation to all the moments and persons of the cosmos.
I. The Theanthropos was intended by God before and above all other works.
Every one is aware that an intellectual agent, in effecting his works, follows a different order from that which he pursues in planning them; in other words, the order of execution which an intellectual agent follows is in the inverse ratio of the order which he follows in idealizing them. In an architect's mind the end and use of a building is first in order, and he idealizes and shapes his building according to the object intended. In the execution of the work the order is inverted, the building is effected first, the object and use are attained afterward.
The order followed in idealizing a work is called by schoolmen the order of intention; that which is pursued in executing the work, the order of execution. When we say, therefore, that the hypostatic moment and the Theanthropos are the first of God's external works, we mean, of course, in the order of intention; we mean that they were intended by God first and before every other work when he resolved to act outside himself;[133] so that the incarnation was determined upon, not only independently of the sin of man, but would have taken place even if man had never fallen.[134]
The metaphysical reason of this consequence is found in the relation which means bear to the end. It is absolutely necessary that an intellectual agent should intend primarily and chiefly that object which is best calculated to attain the end he has in view in his action; which best fulfils his intention and is the most appropriate and nearest mean.
Now, the hypostatic moment, and consequently Christ, attains better than any other moment or individual the object of the external action of God, as we have shown. Therefore Christ was intended by God first and above every other work.
This consequence is poetically described by the inspired author of the Proverbs, in those beautiful lines so well known:
"The Lord possessed me from the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning.
"I was set up from all eternity, and of old before the earth was made.
"The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the foundations of water as yet sprung out.
"The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established; before the hills I was brought forth.
"He had not made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world.
"When he prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a certain law and compass he inclosed the depths," etc.[135]
2. Consequence. The Theanthropos is the secondary end of God's external works.
For, in a series of means necessary to the end, that which is first and chief is also end in respect to the other means. Christ, therefore, being the first and chief means to attain the end of the external act, is also end in reference to the other moments, and consequently the secondary end of the cosmos. "All things," said St. Paul to the Corinthians, "are yours; and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
3. Christ is the secondary type of the cosmos. Ontologically speaking, the end determines and shapes the nature and perfections of the means, and bears to the means the relation of type and exemplar. Now, Christ is the secondary end of the cosmos; he is, therefore, the secondary model and type of the exterior works; in other words, he is the best and supremest expression of God's infinite excellence, the archetype of the cosmos; therefore he is also the secondary type of the cosmos.
4. Christ is the universal mediator between God and his works.
As in the bosom of God the Word is the medium in the genesis of his eternal life, the link which connects the Father and the Spirit; so, outside of God, the incarnate Word is the mediator, the medium universal and absolute, between God and his works, the link connecting the infinite and the finite.
For, in the first place, the very nature of the hypostatic moment makes him such. He is the Word, that is, the very Godhead, with his infinite nature and perfections, under the termination of intelligibility.
He is man, comprehending in his human nature all the various elements of substantial creation. Both the Godhead and the human nature subsist of that one termination of intelligibility. It is evident, therefore, that the incarnate Word is essentially, by the very nature of the hypostatic union, the medium between the infinite and the finite.
Moreover, every intellectual agent is linked to his work by the type of it existing in the intelligence, without which knowledge the agent could never communicate with his work. The divine Artist of the cosmos, therefore, is in communication with it by the eternal cosmic type residing in his essence—the Word. Now, Christ is the Word incarnate, and, as such, is the type of the cosmos hypostatically united to its expression, the intelligible and objective life personally linked to the subjective. He is, therefore, the medium between the objective and subjective cosmos, and consequently between the cosmos and God.
Hence Christ is essentially the mediator of creation, both in the natural and supernatural moment; inasmuch as by him and through him all things were made in both orders.
He is essentially the mediator of the continuation of existence in both orders; since the same action, by which all things were made, through him continues to hold them in existence.
He is essentially the mediator of the action of creatures in both orders; since the same action by which all things are made to exist, and to continue in existence through him, incites them to action and aids them to develop their faculties. He is essentially the mediator of perfection and beatitude; because the same action, which incites and aids all existences, both in the natural and supernatural order, to develop their faculties, must also perfect them, and bring them to their final completion. And in the very act of beatitude, when the dawn of the vision of God shall flash before the mind of created spirits, the Theanthropos shall be the mediator between them and the superabundant and dazzling effulgence of the infinite, by aiding and invigorating their intellect with the light of glory.
"In him (Christ) were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. He is before all, and by him all things consist."[136]
5. Christ is the supreme universal objective science; the supreme universal objective dialectic.
In the ontological order intelligibility and reality are one and the same thing; every thing real being by the very fact intelligible, and vice versa.
Now, Christ is the infinite and finite reality, hypostatically united together. He is, therefore, the infinite finite intelligibility, and consequently the universal objective science.
He is also the supreme universal objective dialectic; for he is essentially the type and the form of all reasoning. The form of all reasoning consists in the comparison of two terms with a third, with a view of deducing their agreement or disagreement. Christ is at once the infinite universal term, and the finite and particular term; both terms agreeing together in the oneness of his divine personality. He is, therefore, the type and form of all reasoning, and the objective dialectic.
6. He is the light of all finite intelligences. Because, in the first place, he is the space of essences, so to speak; being the subsisting intelligibility of the Godhead.
Secondly. Because in his individuality there is the ontological agreement of all the problems of the human mind, and the solution of all the questions relative to the infinite and the finite, to time and eternity, to the absolute and the relative, to immutability and movement, to cause and effect, etc.
Thirdly. Because he is the incarnate Word, creating, supporting, elevating and perfecting all created intelligences, in force of his essential office of universal mediator of the cosmos.
7. Christ is the supreme universal and objective morality.
The moral perfection of the cosmos consists in the voluntary realization of the final perfection to which it is destined by its archetype.
Now, Christ is the archetype of the cosmos. Therefore, he is the supreme objective morality. He is also supreme morality in the sense of his inciting and aiding the cosmos in the voluntary reproduction and realization of the type, in force of his office of mediator. Therefore, etc.
8. Christ is the supreme objective realization of the beautiful.
The beautiful lies in variety reduced to unity by order and proportion. Christ is the infinite and finite, the two beings most distant, brought together into the unity of his divine personality by order and proportion, as it is evident to every mind that has grasped the nature of the hypostatic moment.
He is, therefore, the supreme, universal realization of the beautiful.
9. Christ is the supreme and universal king and ruler of the universe.
For he is the medium of the creation, preservation, and action of the cosmos; he is its secondary end and exemplar; he is the type and light of intelligence, the law of morality and of the beautiful.
The cosmos, therefore, is subject and dependent upon him for so many reasons, and consequently he is the supreme ruler of it.
10. He is the centre of all the other moments and persons of the cosmos; all things gathering around him as their chief, their exemplar, their mediator.
"I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End." (Apoc. i. 8.)
BRITTANY: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS POEMS.
SECOND ARTICLE.
More than a year has elapsed since we expressed a hope to present our readers with some further specimens of the ancient poetry of Brittany. We then gave, translated from their rendering into French by M. de Villemarqué, a portion of bardic poems, for example, The Prophecy of Gwench'lan; The Submersion of the City of Is; The Changeling, and The March of Arthur. These, as well as the dialogue between a Druid and a child, (which is perhaps too long for insertion here,) The Plague of Elliant, and portions of Lord Nann and the Fay, retain much of their scientific and often alliterative form, a part of which is their arrangement in tercets, or strophes of three lines rhyming together.
We now proceed to fulfil our promise with regard to the ballad of Lord Nann, which, however, it may be well to preface with some remarks upon that portion of Breton mythology which it illustrates.
The principal supernatural agents in the popular poetry of Brittany are the dwarfs and the fairies.
The common appellation of these elfish beings is Korrigan, whether masculine or feminine, from korr, little, (diminutive, korrik,) and gan or gwen, genius.
The Goddess Koridgwen is said by the Welsh bards to have had nine attendant virgins, called the nine Korrigan. This also was the name of the nine priestesses of the Isle of Sein.
The Breton fairies not only bear the same name as the Keltic goddesses and consecrated virgins, but are accredited with the same powers of foretelling future events, of curing by magical charms diseases otherwise incurable, of transporting themselves from one end of the world to the other in a moment of time, and of taking whatever forms they please.
Every year, at the return of spring, they hold, on the green turf near some fountain, a grand nocturnal feast. In the midst of the most delicate viands there sparkles a cup of crystal, of which the splendor is so great that there is no need of torches, and like the magic vase of the British Keridgwen, containing a marvellous liquid, one single drop of which conveys the knowledge of all sciences, and of all events, past, present, and to come.
The favorite haunts of the Korrigan are always by springs of water, especially those which are in lonely places in the neighborhood of Druidic remains called dolmens, and from which the Holy Virgin, who is said to be their especial enemy, has not yet chased them. Their traditional aspect is much the same as that of the other fairy races of European nations; their delicate and aerial frames being about two feet in height, perfect in symmetry, and clad in the very thinnest of ethereal textures. But all their beauty is nocturnal only. By the light of day, which they hate above all things, they are hideous, red-eyed, wrinkled, and old; their whole appearance betokening fallen intelligences. The Breton peasants assure us that they are great princesses who were struck by the curse of heaven for refusing to embrace the Christian faith when the first missionaries preached it in Armorica. The peasants of Wales declare them to be the souls of Druidesses, condemned to do penance.
Their breath is deadly. Should any wayfarer trouble the waters of their fountain, or, near their dolmen, come upon them suddenly, he is almost sure to perish; particularly if it be on a Saturday, the day consecrated to the Blessed Virgin, against whom they bear an especial hatred. They also have a great aversion to any token of religion, fleeing at the sound of a consecrated bell or at the sight of a soutane.
Like certain of their European cousins, the Korrigan have a decided penchant for stealing the infant offspring of the human race, with the object of regenerating their own. Therefore does the peasant mother of Brittany place round the neck of her babe a scapular or a rosary, that he may be secured against every elfish device, under the protection of Our Blessed Lady.
The changelings whom the Korrigan are accused of leaving in the place of the children whom they carry away are of the race of dwarfs, and also bear the name of korr, korrik, and korrigan; as well as kornandon, gwanzigan, or duz. This last name is that of the father of Merlin, and of an ancient divinity worshipped in that part of Britain which is now the county of York.
These dwarfs, we are told, are little, black, and hairy monsters, with the claws of a cat, the hind legs of a goat, and a voice harsh and broken with age. They it was who, ages ago, raised the huge stones of the menhir and dolmen, and hid beneath them untold hoards of treasure. Around these, when the stars are out, they are fond of dancing, to the primitive song which consists in an incessant repetition of the names of all the days of the week except Saturday and Sunday, of which they studiously avoid all mention. Wednesday, the day of Mercury, is always observed by them with especial festivities. It was they, say the peasants, who engraved the mystic characters on the Keltic stones of the Morbihan, and especially those at Gawr-iniz, or the Isle of the Giant. He who, like Taliessin, could read them, would learn all the places of their hidden treasure, and to him all the secrets of science would be revealed.
The dwarfs are less dreaded by the country people than the fays, as being rather comically mischievous than wholly malicious. The peasant who has taken the precaution to sprinkle himself with holy-water passes fearlessly by the lonely dolmen in the solitudes which they haunt.
We were taught in our early youth that it is to her white cliffs that Albion owes her name; but M. de Villemarqué suggests that she is more probably indebted for it to the god Mercury, the Keltic Hermes, who was the chief divinity worshipped by the insular Britons, under the name of Gwion. Their island was especially placed under his protection, and called for that reason the Isle of Gwion, or of Alwion. The same learned author remarks upon the apparent identity of the Gwion of Britain and the Gigon of the Tyrians and Phoenicians, the divinity being in each case revered as the god of commerce, the inventor of letters, and the patron of all the arts, and represented in each case by the figure of a dwarf carrying a purse.
The dwarfs of Brittany possess all the attributes of Gwion, the heavy purse included, and are evidently a part of the Keltic mythology. It is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine the date of poems of which they form the subject. The burden of the ballad of Lord Nann comes down from the cradle of the Indo-European nations, and, in numerous localities, finds expression in various forms. The one of which we here give a translation probably dates from the fifth or the sixth century.
The name Nann is the diminutive of the Breton Reunan.
LORD NANN AND THE FAY.
Lord Nann and his bride, both plighted
In youthful days, soon blighted,
Were early disunited.
Of snow-white twins a pair,
Yestreen the lady bare;
A son and daughter fair.
"What cheer shall I get for thee,
Who givest a son to me?
Say, sweet, what shall it be?
"From the forest green a roe,
Or a woodcock from where, I trow,
The pond in the vale lies low?"
"For venison am I fain,
But would not give thee pain
For me the wood to gain."
But while the lady spoke,
Lord Nann took his lance of oak,
And mounting his jet-black steed,
Rode forth to the wood with speed.
When he gained the greenwood shade,
A white hind from the glade
Fled, of his lance afraid.
Swift after the hind he flew;
The ground shook 'neath the two,
So swiftly on they flew,
And late the evening grew.
The heat streamed from his face,
From the horse's flanks apace,
Till twilight closed the race.
A little stream was welling,
'Mid softest moss up-swelling,
Hard by a haunted dwelling,
The grot of a Korrigan.
By the streamlet's brink
He stooped to drink,
For sore athirst was Nann.
The Korrigan sat there,
By the edge of her fountain fair,
Combing her golden hair.
Combing her hair with a golden comb,
For all is of price in the Korrigan's home.
"And who, so rash, art thou,
Troubling my water's flow?
Thou shalt marry me now," the Korrigan said,
"Or for seven long years shalt wither and fade,
Or in three days hence in the grave be laid!"
"I've been married a year," quoth he;
"So think not I marry thee.
Nor through seven long years shall I wither and fade,
Nor in three days hence in the grave be laid.
Dead in three days I shall not be:
I will die when it pleases God, not thee.
Yet die this moment would Seigneur Nann,
Far rather than marry a Korrigan."
"Dear mother mine, I am sorely sick;
Let my bed be made, if you love me, quick.
Let not a word to my wife be told:
I am under the ban
Of a Korrigan;
Three days, and you'll lay me in the mould."
In three days' time the young wife said,
"My mother, tell me why the bells are ringing,
And why, so low, the black-stoled priests are singing?"
"A poor man, whom we lodged last night, is dead."
"My mother, say to me,
My Lord Nann, where is he?"
"My daughter, to the town he's gone;
To see thee he'll come anon."
"And tell me, mother dear,
My red robe shall I wear,
Or shall I my robe of blue put on,
When I must to the church be gone?"
"My child, the mode is come to appear
At church in naught but sable gear."
As up the church-yard steps she went,
On a new-made grave her eyes were bent.
"Who of our kin is lately dead,
That I see in our ground a grave new-made?"
"Alas! my child, in that grave hard by,
That new-made grave which thou dost espy—
I cannot hide it—thy lord doth lie!"
Upon her knees she sank down then,
Nor ever rose she up again.
Within the self-same tomb, at close of day,
The gentle lady and her husband lay.
Behold a marvel! When the morning shone
Two spreading oaks from out that grave had grown,
And 'mid their branches, closely intertwining,
Two happy doves of dazzling whiteness shining.
Sweetly they cooed at breaking of the day,
Then forth together swiftly sped their way.
With gladsome notes they circling upward flew,
Together vanishing in heaven's deep blue.
The foregoing ballad is reproduced under no fewer than fifteen different variations in Sweden and Denmark, where it is entitled, Sire Olaf and the Dance of the Elves. In its Servian form of Prince Marko and the Wila, the latter, instead of taking the life of the hero, exacts both his eyes and the four feet of his horse.
Numerous as are the traditions relating to the dwarfs, the songs of which they are the subject are very rare. The one we are about to give is apparently intended as a satire upon the tailors, that ill-used class which in all warlike nations has been condemned to ridicule. In Basse-Bretagne, no one pronounces their name without raising the hat, and adding, "Saving your presence."
It will be remarked that the name of Duz (diminutive, duzik) is, among others, given to the dwarfs, which, M. de Villemarqué observes, was that borne by the genii of Gaul in the days of St. Augustine, who speaks of them as "Dæmones quos Duscios Galli nuncupant."[137]
It is said that a traveller being upon one occasion drawn into their circling dance, and finding the refrain of "dilun, dimeurs, dimerc'her," etc., somewhat monotonous, ventured to add the words Saturday and Sunday, when the sudden explosion of outcries, threatenings, and rage among the assembly was so great that the rash adventurer was half-dead with fear. We are told that if only he had added, "And so the week is done," the long penitence to which the dwarfs are condemned would have ended.
AR C'HORRED.
(THE DWARFS.)
Paskou le Long, the tailor brave, turned thief on Friday night.
No more culottes had he to make, since all men went to fight—
To fight against the Frankish king, and for their own king's right.
He took a spade; he sallied forth, and to the grotto went,
The grotto of the dwarfs: to find their treasure his intent;
And digging deep for hidden hoards, beneath the dolmen bent.
Ha! here's the treasure. He has found it! Home in haste he hies.
To bed he goes. "Quick! shut the door, and shut it fast," he cries,
"Against the little Duz of night:" and trembles as he lies.
"Eh! Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday."...
Ah poor soul!
They climb and swarm upon his roof, and there they make a hole.
My hapless friend, they have thee! haste! throw out the treasure, whole!
Poor Paskou! Holy-water take, and well besprinkle thee,
And cast the sheet about thy head; still as a dead man be,
Nor stir in any wise. "Ah! how I hear them laugh at me,
And cry, 'If Paskou can escape, a cunning man is he!'
"O heavens! here is one; and see, his head the hole is hiding;
His eyes like embers glow, as down the bed-post he comes sliding;
And after him, one, two, three, four; ah! multitudes, are gliding.
"They bound, they dance, they race, they tumble wildly o'er the floor."...
"Eh, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday....
"Two, three, four.
"Eh, little tailor, dear!—five, six, seven, eight, and something more.
"Dear little tailor, surely thou art strangled with the clothes!
Dear little tailor, only show a bit of thy dear nose!
Come: let us teach thee how to dance—dance, dance, for late it grows.
"Come: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ... little tailor, thou'rt a knave!
Come, rob the dwarfs again, and see what treasure thou shalt have.
Dance, wicked little tailor, dance; and dance into thy grave!"
The money of the dwarfs is worth nothing.
The Plague of Elliant commemorates a frightful pestilence which, in the sixth century, desolated not only Armorica, but the whole of Europe. Those who were attacked by it lost their hair, their teeth, and their sight; became yellow and languid, and speedily died. The parish of Elliant, in Cornouaille, was one of several from which the whole population perished. The neighboring country, especially that around Tourc'h, was preserved from the scourge by the prayers of a hermit named Rasian.
We are told by M. de Villemarqué that the ballad of The Plague of Elliant is never sung without the addition of the following legend:
"It was the day of the Pardon (the feast of the patron saint) at Elliant; a young miller, arriving at the ford with his horses, saw a fair lady in a white robe seated on the bank of the river, a little staff in her hand, and who requested him to convey her over the water. 'Oh! yes; assuredly, madame,' replied he, and already she was on his horse's crupper, and soon deposited on the other side. Then the fair lady said to him, 'Young man, you know not whom you have brought over: I am the Plague. I have just made the tour of Brittany, and I go to the church of the town, where they are ringing for mass; all whom I strike with my staff will quickly die; as for yourself, fear nothing; no harm shall happen to you, nor yet to your mother."
"And the Plague kept her word," adds the Breton peasant; for does not the song itself say that none but
"A widow poor of sixty, and her only son, are left?"
The following is most probably only a fragment of the original:
THE PLAGUE OF ELLIANT.
Thus spake the holy bard who dwells not far from Langolen.
'Twixt Langolen and Le Faouet, the father Rasian:
Let every month a mass be said, ye men of Le Faouet,
A holy mass for all the souls the plague has rent away.
From Elliant, bearing heavy spoils, at last the plague has gone:
Seven thousand and a hundred slain, and left but two alone.
Death has come down upon the land, and Elliant has bereft:
A widow poor of sixty, and her only son, are left.
"The plague is at my cottage door, and when God wills," she said,
"She will come in, and we go out, among the other dead."
Go look in Elliant market-place, and mow the waving grass;
Save in the narrow rut whereby the dead-cart used to pass.
Oh! hard must be the heart of him, whoever he may be,
Who would not weep, such utter desolation could he see.
See, eighteen carts all piled with dead stand at the graveyard gate;
And eighteen carts all piled with dead, behind their turn await.
Nine children of one house there were, who on one tumbrel lay,
Which their poor mother dragged alone along the burial-way.
Their father followed, whistling, for his reason all had fled;
The mother wailed, and called on God, and pointed to her dead.
"Oh! bury my nine sons," she cried. "Oh! lay them in the ground;
A rope of wax I promise that shall thrice your walls surround,
Your church and sanctuary both therein shall be enwound.
"Nine sons I brought into the world: Death has not spared me one;
On my own hearth he struck them down, and left me all alone.
None have I now who might to me a drop of water give:
Ah! why am I not stricken too; for wherefore should I live?"
The cemetery full is piled, high as its walls, with dead;
The church heaped to the steps: the fields must now be hallowed.
In the church-yard I see an oak, and from its topmost bough
A white sheet hangs, the truce of death; for all are buried now.
There is no surer remedy, in the estimation of the Breton peasantry, against an epidemic than to make a song about it. "The Plague, finding herself discovered, fled away." Thus, as one among many examples of the practical utility of the popular poetry, we find that when, some years ago, Brittany was severely visited by the cholera, no attention was paid to the printed circulars which were issued by medical and magisterial authority; all the preparation made by the people to meet it was to dig an extra number of graves, until a popular poet put into verse the good advice concerning preventives and remedies which, when placarded in official prose, had been passed by with no more notice than a grave and incredulous shake of the head. But a week after the composition of the "Song upon the Cholera" it was heard in every remote hamlet or farm throughout Brittany. The verses in themselves were detestable, in the way of poetry; no matter, the cholera, finding itself the subject of a song, would take flight. From the power attributed by the people to poesy arises the Breton proverb, "Poesy is stronger than the three strongest things: stronger than evil, than tempest, or than fire." And again, "Song is the calmer of all sorrow." All the Keltic poems, which, like The Plague of Elliant, are written in strophes, are sung throughout to some national air, however lengthy they may be. "I remember," writes M. Émile Souvestre, "that one day, arriving at the Pardon of St. Jean du Doigt, near Morlaix, I heard a blind man who was singing Breton verses on the Nativity: in passing by again in the evening, I found him still in the same place, continuing his subject, which was by no means concluded, and which, he informed me, it required an entire day to get through, though he did not yet know the whole."
It is impossible to compute the number of the popular poems of Brittany. The author just quoted considers that eight or ten thousand would not reach the reality; and he proceeds to describe the manner in which they mingle with the very air of the country, as follows:
"No words can do justice to the intoxicating sensation which he who understands our old language experiences, when, on a fine summer evening, he traverses the mountains of Cornouaille, listening to the songs of the shepherds. At every step the voice, perhaps of a child, perhaps of an aged woman, sends forth to him from the distance a fragment of some antique ballad, sung to melodies such as are never now composed, and narrating the miracle of a former time, or a crime committed in the valley, or an attachment which has broken the heart. The couplets answer one another from rock to rock; the verses sport in the air like the insects of the evening; the wind carries them by gusts into your face, with the perfume of the black-wheat and the rye; and, immersed in this poetic atmosphere, enchanted and meditative, you advance into the midst of the rural solitudes. You perceive great Druidic stones, clothed with moss, leaning toward the border of the wood; feudal ruins, half-hidden in the thickets or breaking the slope of the hills, while at times, on the heights of the mountain, figures of men, with long hair flying in the wind, and strangely clad, pass like shadows between you and the horizon, marked out against the sky, which is just beginning to be illumined by the rising moon. It is like a vision of bygone times; like a waking dream that one might have after reading a page of Ossian."
We will close our present article with a translation of the Sône of Per Cöatmor, as promised in our last; hoping in a future one to conclude our notice of the more ancient and "learned" poetry of Brittany, that is, that which was composed according to the bardic rules, with some curious fragments relating to Merlin the Magician and Merlin the Bard; to be followed by specimens of the historical poems of Brittany.
BRETON SONE.
"Not to Rouen, not to Paris, go I, friend, with thee.
What among the folk of the High Country should I see?
Treacherous ice, whereon one slips and falls, they say to me.
"Only to the mortuary I my steps will bend;
To the village mortuary with thee will I wend,
And behold the bones; for one day we must die, my friend.
"Bare of fleshly garb, the bones lie there, by day and night.
Where is now their skin so soft, and where their hands so white?
Where their souls? oh! where, my friend? In darkness or in light?
"Ah friend! when the preachers preach, you laugh at what they say.
'In this life you will dance? Ah! well, so in the next you may.
There's a hall prepared below for dancers mad and gay.
'Carpeted with points of steel, where barefoot dancers fly,
Lit with fiery prongs which demons brandish, as they cry,
Dance, young man! to dances and to pardons who would'st hie.'"
"Silence, maiden! mock me not, but give me love for love;
Take me for thy spouse; our life shall sweet and joyful prove.
Henceforth pardons nor the dance my spirit e'er shall move."
"Not fifteen was I, my friend, when to the church I went.
'Leave the world,' my angel whispered, 'leave its discontent.
To the veil and cloistered life henceforth thy will be bent.'
"Girl, forget thy convent dream; believe and marry me.
Safer, stronger than the convent walls my care shall be.
With a sheltering love, sweet maid, will I encompass thee."
"Youth, not so; but let thy heart toward another lean;
Let some fairer maid from me thy fond affection wean;
Twere an easy task; good looks are thine, and portly mien."[138]
'Fairer maid than thou, nor any like to thee, will I.
Thee must I have, nor worse, nor better: if not thee, I die.
Stay, and let this silver ring around thy finger lie."
"No bright ring of earthly troth my finger shall ensnare.
Heaven's espousal ring alone my hand shall ever bear:
That high bond of love nor chance nor changes can outwear?"
"Maiden, if thou speakest truly, profitless and vain
All the time which I have spent thy favor sweet to gain.
For the pleasures that are past I nothing reap but pain!"
"Youth, what days for me thou mayst have lost, will I repay
Praying for thy soul's good speed and health by night and day;
So to blessed Paradise thou mayst not miss the way."
LINES.
FROM THE LATIN OF THEODULPHUS, BISHOP OF ORLEANS, A.D. 820.
Adspice ne vitiet tumidus præcordia fastus,
Dum loca sublimis editiora tenes,
Dumque favent populi vallaris pluribus unus,
Undique te septum prosperitate putes;
Neve quod es demant oblivia segnia menti,
Ultima sit semper conspicienda dies.
Ut valeas omni vitiorum sorde carere,
Hoc quod es aspicito, non tamen id quod habes.
Ipse licet sedeas gemmis ornatus et ostro,
Post carnis putridus tempora pulvis eris.
Corpus enim fulvo quod nunc accingitur auro
Squalenti intectum veste premetur humo.
Quod mare, quod terræ, quod et aer gestat edendum,
Eheu! sordidulus post cinis illud erit.
Quemque tegunt celsis laqueata palatia tectis,
Parvaque conquereris culmina magna satis,
Clausus in angustâ modicâque tenebris urnâ
Vixque domus tibimet corpore major erit.
Plura quid enumerem? Visu quod cernitur aptum,
Visibus humanis quod favet atque placet,
Post vitam vermis, post vermem pulvis habebit,
Voce Tonantis erit, quum redit, unde venit.
TRANSLATION.
O thou who, seated in the place of power,
Dost hear the praise and see the prostrate crowd,
When all things smile upon thy prosperous hour,
Let not thy heart be proud!
Be not with dull oblivion overcast;
Keep ever in thy sight life's certain goal;
Consider what thou art, not what thou hast.
And so be pure of soul.
Thou sittest to-day in purple and in gold;
Thy vesture is with jewels clasped to-day;
How soon the squalid earth-robe will enfold
The little mouldering clay!
Of all earth nourishes—the flocks of air,
The life that ocean in its deep maintains—
Of all the plenty spread for banquets rare—
What nothingness remains!
Now lofty painted ceilings shield thee well;
Now thy broad halls too narrow seem to be;
Scarce larger than thy mortal frame, the cell
Will soon suffice for thee.
What further say? O all that doth rejoice
Our human eyes! O all with beauty rife!
The worm! the dust! and then—the thunder-voice
That calls the dead to life!
C. E. B.