Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom

by T. W. Allies

—Paradiso, c. 32, 22.

In like manner the Apostle commences his illustration of the life of faith by the martyrdom of Abel, “who being dead yet speaketh.” Thus the one life pleasing to God from the beginning to the end is identical in its substance, and shows the oneness of the divine plan, commencing its execution in the very family of the first man. There the just loses his life for his justice’ sake, and Abel becomes the type of Christ and of all who follow the Divine Master. So St. John the Baptist, marking the transition from the old covenant to the new, the precursor of our Lord, with the triple aureole of virginity, doctorship, and martyrdom, gives up his life to maintain the sanctity of marriage.

Further, the Passion of our Lord is the source of martyrdom; and union with Him, especially in the act of His Passion, is the cause of all the effects which martyrdom produces. As He said, in reference to His coming Passion, of Himself, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remaineth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit;” so Tertullian said of His people, “The blood of Christians is seed.” In martyrdom lies the perpetuation of faith in Christ. He stands in the midst of the ages, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, working backwards and forwards. The shedding of Abel’s blood, the first blood shed, and the blood of the brother shed by the brother, points to the shedding of Christ’s blood; and so in the interval between Abel and Christ the blood of all the just ones is shed for the hope of Christ. As all martyrdom preceding Him was for the hope of Him, so all following is in remembrance and participation of Him.

There is a strong parallel between miracle and martyrdom as to their principle, their witness, their power, and their perpetuity.

1. First, as to principle. The conception of miracle springs at once from the doctrine of God the Creator, Orderer, and Maintainer of the universe, united with the doctrine of the Fall of man and the ignorance thence superinduced, and requiring to be dissipated by an objective confirmation of the truth. This confirmation is produced when He suspends that order of nature which He has impressed on things. “The divine power can at any time, without prejudice to His providence, do something beyond the order impressed on natural things by God. This is the very thing which He sometimes does to manifest His power. For in no manner can it be better shown that all nature is subject to the divine will than by this, that sometimes He does something beyond the order of nature; for by this it is made to appear that the order of things proceeded from God, not by a necessity of His nature, but by His free-will.”[206]

On the other hand, the conception of miracles is incompatible with the notion of a power evolving itself by a strict necessity in the universe. This involves at the same time the rejection of the notion of sin as a violation of the eternal law. For the evolution itself is the only law admitted, and is incapable of sin, which arises from the misuse of the liberty of the will. A world evolved by eternal necessity denies any liberty to the will. In this the Positivist and Materialist of the present day only take the position which the Stoic took of old. All the three deny miracle, because they deny creation.

And the principle of martyrdom is the intimate union between Christ and Christians, whereby the Head and His members form one Body. The community in suffering rests on this. At the head of persecution is the statement of our Lord Himself (the narrative of which, it may be remarked, is given three times in the Acts), “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” Thus a martyr said to martyrs, “He who once conquered death for us is ever conquering death in us. You know that you are contending under the eyes of your present Lord; that by the confession of His name you reach His own glory. For He is not as if He was only looking at His servants, but He wrestles Himself, He combats Himself in them; in the contest of our struggle, Himself both crowns and is crowned.”[207]

The martyr Felicitas underwent in prison the sufferings of premature childbirth. One of the attendants remarked to her, “You who so much show your suffering now, what will you do when you are thrown before the wild beasts, which you despised when you refused to sacrifice?” And she answered, “It is I who suffer now that which I suffer; but then there will be another in me who will suffer for me, because I also shall be suffering for Him.” On which St. Augustine comments: “It was He who caused women to suffer with faith and the courage of men who deigned in His mercy for their sake to be born of a woman.... Eve’s penalty was not absent, but Mary’s grace was present. What she owed as a woman was exacted; what she needed in help was given by the Virgin’s Son.”[208]

2. As to the witness of miracles, in matter of fact the objective proof of our Lord’s mission as Messias and Son of God was based, both in His own life and in the propagation of His faith, upon miracles viewed in a double light—first, as they are in themselves, and secondly, as the fulfilment of prophecy. “To confirm doctrines which surpass natural knowledge He showed visibly works which surpass natural power, by the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, and, what is more wonderful, the inspiration of human minds, so that untaught and simple men, filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit, obtained in an instant the utmost wisdom and readiness of speech; so that not by the violence of arms, not by the promise of pleasures, but amid the tyranny of persecutors, an innumerable multitude, not merely of simple, but of the wisest men was drawn into the Christian faith. They preached doctrines surpassing man’s understanding; they set a restraint on carnal pleasures; they taught contempt for everything that is in the world. It would be the most marvellous of all marvels if the world without miracles had been led to the belief of doctrines so difficult, the working of deeds so arduous, the hoping of rewards so exalted, by simple and ignoble men.”[209]

The witness of martyrdom is expressed in its very name, that they who suffered death for the sake of Christ were simply called witnesses. The analogy with miracles is very strong indeed, the one being the witness of God attesting the truth of His messengers by visible signs, which suspend or reverse the order which He has Himself established as a general rule; the other being the witness of men who suffer all those things from which the nature of man recoils in order to attest the truth of God.