Littera occidit, spiritus autem vivificat.
"The letter killeth; but the spirit giveth life."
[It is due to R. P. Hyacinthe to say that the following translation is made from a short-hand report, published in the Semaine Religieuse de Paris. In style, in development of ideas, the compte rendu is incomplete. But to us who cannot listen to the great Carmelite's eloquence, in the nave of Notre Dame, even an outline of this conference, so full of fresh and healthy thought, will be acceptable.—TRANS.]
Rev. P. Hyacinthe takes this text from St. Paul, at once as the basis and the summary of his entire conference. On previous occasions he had pointed out two elements in the Jewish Church, opposed to each other yet equally essential to the aims of that church; the one exclusive, securing the preservation of the sacred deposit of revelation; the other universal, insuring the diffusion of this deposit throughout the whole human race. These two elements he now calls, in the language of the apostle, letter and spirit. According to the letter, the Bible—that is to say, the Old Testament, is exclusive; according to the spirit, it is universal. The internal struggle of these two elements forms the history of Judaism, thoughtfully viewed. Their startling rupture during the life of Jesus Christ introduced the Christian era, inaugurated the Catholic Church. As sons of that holy and infallible church, we need not fear the triumph of the letter; but as members of a church composed of and governed by imperfect men and sinners, we should not disregard the struggles of the letter for predominance. Let us, then, review the profitable history of these combats between letter and spirit in the bosom of Judaism, considering successively the representatives of the letter and the representatives of the spirit in the Jewish Church.
I. The Representatives Of The Letter.
These were the kings and priests. The kings represented the letter in the political order; the priests, in the religious order.
I. David prophesied, "He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. And all kings of the earth shall adore him; all nations shall serve him." And discerning in the far-off radiance that one among his sons whom he called the Anointed, the Christ par excellence, he said, or let the Lord say by his lips: "Sit thou at my right hand until I make thy enemies thy footstool. With thee is the principality in the day of thy strength: in the brightness of the saints: from the womb before the day star I begot thee."
In the throne of the son of David, the God-engendered, two royalties were united: a temporal royalty, created to reign over the house of Jacob, confined within the narrow limits of its own blood, regnabit in domo Jacob; and a royalty destined to extend throughout all humanity, within the wide boundary of the faith of Abraham, regnabit in aeternumn.
The danger lay in confounding these two royalties, in absorbing the celestial in the terrestrial royalty—an error so frequent in similar unions. To this danger succumbed the synagogue.
In a national church, or in a religious nation, no peril is more imminent, none more fatal, than the confusion of religious and political forms. [Footnote 168] Already great while remaining human, for such it is in character and origin, political thought becomes still greater in ascending to the heavenly spheres of morality and religion. But religion shrinks in dimensions, abdicating its true position, revolting against human instinct, and wounding the attributes of Divine Majesty, when it assumes political forms, adopting the ideas, the habits, the paltry interests of politics.