Rome And The World.
Under the head Rome or Reason we showed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for last month that Catholicity is based on reality, and is the synthesis, so to speak, of Creator and creature, of God and man, of heaven and earth, nature and grace, faith and reason, authority and liberty, revelation and science, and that there is in the real order no antagonism between the two terms or categories. The supposed antagonism results from not understanding the real nexus that unites them in one dialectic whole, and forms the ground of their mutual conciliation and peace, expressed in the old sense of the word "atonement."
Christianity is supernatural, indeed, but it is not an after-thought, or an anomaly in the original plan of creation. Our Lord was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; the Incarnation is included in creation as its completion or fulfilment; and hence many theologians hold that, even if man had not sinned, God would have become incarnate, not, indeed, to redeem man from sin and death which comes by sin, but to ennoble his nature, and to enable him to attain to that supernatural union with God in which alone he finds or can find his supreme good or perfect beatitude. Christianity, whether this be so or not, must always be regarded as teleological, the religion of the end—not accidentally so, but made so in the original plan of the Creator. It enters dialectically, not arbitrarily, into that plan, and really completes it. In this view of the case the Creator's works from first to last are dialectical, and there is and can be no contradiction in them; no discrepancy between the natural and supernatural, between faith and reason, nature and grace, the beginning, medium, and end, but all form integral parts of one indissoluble whole.
But, if there is and can be no antagonism between Rome and Reason, there certainly is an antagonism between Rome and the World, which must not be overlooked or counted for nothing, and which will, in some form, most likely, subsist as long as the world stands. Rome symbolizes for us the catholic religion, or the divine order, which is the law of life. The Catholic Church in its present state dates only from the Incarnation, out of which it grows, and of which it is in some sort the visible continuation; but the Catholic religion, as the faith, as the law of life, dates from the beginning. The just before the coming of Christ were just on the same principles, by the same faith, and by obedience to the same divine law, or conformity to the same divine order, that they are now, and will be to the end; and hence the deist Tindal expressed a truth which he was far from comprehending when he asserted that "Christianity is as old as the world." Tindal's great error was in understanding by Christianity only the natural law promulgated through natural reason, and in denying the supernatural. Christianity is that and more too. It includes, and from the first has included, in their synthesis, both the natural and the supernatural. The human race has never had but one true or real religion, but one revelation, which, as St. Thomas teaches, was made in substance to our first parents in the garden. Times change, says St. Augustine, but faith changes not. As believed the fathers—the patriarchs—so believe we, only they believed in a Christ to come, and we in a Christ that has come. Prior to the actual coming of Christ the Church existed, but in a state of promise, and needed his actual coming to be perfected, or fulfilled, as St. Paul teaches us in his epistle to the Hebrews; and hence none who died before the Incarnation actually entered heaven till after the passion of our Lord.
Now, to this divine order, this divine law, this catholic faith and worship symbolized to us by Rome, the visible centre of its unity and authority, stands opposed another order, not of life, but of death, called the world, originating with our first parents, and in their disobedience to the divine law, or violation of the divine order established by the Creator, conformity to which was essential to the moral life and perfection of the creature, or fulfilment of the promise given man in creation. The order violated was founded in the eternal wisdom and goodness of the Creator, and the relations which necessarily subsist between God as creator and man as his creature, the work of his hands. There is and can be for man no other law of life; even God himself can establish no other. By obedience to the law given or conformity to the order established man is normally developed, lives a true normal life, and attains to his appointed end, which is the completion of his being in God, his beatitude or supreme good. But Satan tempted our first parents to depart from this order and to transgress the divine law, and in their transgression of the law they fell into sin, and founded what we call the world—not on the law of life, but on what is necessarily the law of death.
The principle of the world may be collected from the words of the Tempter to Eve: "Ye shall not surely die, but shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." These words deny the law of God, declare it false, and promise to men independence of their Creator, and the ability to be their own masters, their own teachers and guides. "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil;" that is, determining for yourselves, independently of any superior, what is right or wrong, good or evil, or what is or is not fitting for you to do. You shall suffice for yourselves, and be your own law. Hence, as the basis of Rome is the assertion of the divine law, conformity to the divine order, or submission to the divine reason and will, that is, humility, the basis of the world is the denial of the divine order, the rejection of the law of life and the assertion of the sufficiency of man for himself, that is, simply, pride. Rome is based on humility, the world on pride; the spirit of Rome is loyalty and obedience, the spirit of the world is disloyalty and disobedience, always and everywhere the spirit of revolt or rebellion. Between these two spirits there is necessarily an indestructible antagonism, and no possible reconciliation.
The radical difference between Rome and the world is the radical difference between the humility of the Christian and the pride of the Stoic. All Christian piety and virtue are based on humility; the piety and virtue of the stoic are based on pride. The Christian is always deeply impressed with the greatness and goodness of God; the stoic with the greatness and strength of himself. The Christian submits to crosses and disappointments, to the sufferings and afflictions of life, because he loves God, and is willing to suffer anything for his sake; the stoic endures them without a murmur, because he disdains to complain, and holds that he is, and should be, superior to all the vicissitudes and calamities of life. The Christian weeps as his Master wept at the grave of Lazarus, and finds relief in his tears; the stoic is too proud to weep; he wraps himself in his own dignity and self-importance, and, when his calamities are greater than he can bear, he seeks relief, like Cato, in suicide, thus proving his weakness by the very means he takes to conceal it. The Christian throws his burden on the Lord, and rises above it; the stoic insists on bearing it himself, and at last sinks under it. The world despises humility, and tramples on the humble. To it the Christian is tame, passive, mean-spirited, contemptible. It has no sympathy with the beatitudes, such as, Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are the pure in heart; blessed are the meek; blessed are the peacemakers. It understands nothing of true Christian heroism, or of the greatness of repose. It sees strength only in effort, which is always a proof of weakness, and the harder one strains and tugs to raise a weight, the stronger it holds him. We may see it in the popular literature of the day, and in nearly all recent art. The ancients had a much truer thought when they sculptured their gods asleep, and spread over their countenance an air of ineffable repose. The Scriptures speak of the mighty works of God, but represent them as the hiding of his power. All the great operations of nature are performed in silence, and the world notes them not. The Christian's greatness is concealed by the veil of humility, and his strength is hidden with God. He works in silence, but with effect, because he works with the power of Him to whom is given all power in heaven and in earth.
Mr. Gladstone thinks he finds in Homer the whole body of the patriarchal religion, or the primitive tradition of the race, and he probably is not much mistaken; but no one can study Homer's heroes without being struck with the contrast they offer to the heroes of the Old Testament. The Old Testament heroes are as brave, as daring, and as effective as those of Homer; but they conceal their own personality, they go forth to battle in submission to the divine command, not seeking to display their own skill or prowess, and the glory of their achievements they ascribe to God, who goes with them, assists them, fights for them, and gives the victory. What is manifest is the presence and greatness of God, not the greatness and strength of the hero, who is nothing in himself. In Homer the case is reversed, and what strikes the reader is the littleness of God and the greatness of men. The gods and goddesses take part in the fray, it is true, but they are hardly the equals of the human warriors themselves. A human spear wounds Venus, and sends Mars howling from the field. It is human greatness and strength, human prowess and heroism, without any reference to God, to whom belongs the glory, that the poet sings, the creature regarded as independent of the Creator. In reading the Old Testament, you lose sight of the glory of men in the glory of God; in reading Homer, you lose sight of the glory of God in the glory of men. Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, Jephtha, David, the Maccabees fight as the servants of the Most High; Agamemnon, Ajax, Diomed, Achilles, even Hector, to display their own power, and to prove the stuff that is in them.
Perhaps no author, ancient or modern, has so completely embodied in his writings, the spirit of the world, the Welt-Geist, as the Germans say, as Thomas Carlyle. This writer may have done some service to society in exposing many cants, in demolishing numerous shams, and in calling attention to the eternal verities, of which few men are more ignorant; but he has deified force, and consecrated the worship of might in the place of right. Indeed, for him, right is cant, and there is no right but might. He spurns humility, submission, obedience, and recognizes God only in human ability. His hero-worship is the worship of the strong and the successful. Ability, however directed or wherever displayed, is his divinity. His heroes are Woden and Thor, Cromwell, Frederick the Great, Mirabeau, Danton, Napoleon Bonaparte. The men who go straight to their object, whether good or bad, and use the means necessary to gain it, whether right or wrong, are for him the divine men, and the only thing he censures is weakness, whether caused by indecision or scruples of conscience. His hero is an elemental force, who acts as the lightning that rives the oak, or the winds that fill the sails and drive the ship to its port. Old-fashioned morality, which requires a man to seek just ends by just means, is with him a cant, a sham, an unreality, and the true hero makes away with it, and is his own end, his own law, his own means. He is not governed, he governs, and is the real being, the real God; all else belong to the unveracities, are mere simulacra, whose end is to vanish in thin air, to disappear in the inane. The man who recognizes a power above him, a right independent of him, and in submission to the divine law, and from love of truth and justice, weds himself to what is commanded, espouses the right and adheres to it through good report and evil report, takes up the cause of the oppressed, the wronged and outraged, the poor, the friendless, and the down-trodden, and works for it, gives his soul to it, and sacrifices his time, his labor, and his very life to advance it, when he has no man with him, and all the world unheeds, jeers, or thwarts him, is unheroic, and has no moral grandeur in him, has no virtue—unless he succeeds. He is a hero only when he carries the world with him, bends the multitude to his purpose, and comes out triumphant. The unsuccessful are always wrong; lost causes are always bad causes; and the unfortunate are unveracious, and deserve their fate. The good man struggling with fate, and holding fast to his integrity in the midst of the sorest trials and temptations, and overborne in all things save his unconquerable devotion to duty, is no hero, and deserves no honor, though even the ancients thought such a man worthy of the admiration of gods and men. Carlyle forgets that there is an hereafter, and that what to our dim vision may seem to be failure here may there be seen to have been the most eminent success. The Christians conquered the world, not by slaying, but by being slain, and the race has been redeemed by the Cross. Indeed, pride is always a proof of meanness and weakness, is an unveracity; for it is born of a lie, and rests on a lie: all real magnanimity and strength for men spring from humility, which is not a falsehood, but a veracity; for it is conformity to the truth of things.