What, indeed, did they, who cannot live a day without their gossip, without trying to fill their emptiness with the husks which make up by far the greater part of the world’s talk, of the life of one whose mind was as a fountain for ever overflowing, who had eyes in her finger-tips, and who listened with every pore of her body? What knew the readers of daily newspapers of the hoarded treasures of literature, ever ready with eloquent voices? What knew the Christians of one communion in the year, and one Mass when there was obligation, of long, delicious hours in churches when there was no function to stare at, nor music to talk through? The world has no such society as the cultivated mind can fill its house with; and there are no receptions so splendid as those given by the imagination. Bores never come, tattlers and enemies never are admitted, late hours never weary, and the wine never inebriates. And, better yet, those who are invited are always present and ready to stay. How the possessors of such a society laugh at the “societies” of the outer world, and how truly they can exclaim, “Alone? I never was alone in my life!”
DOUBTS OF A CONTEMPORARY ON THE DESTINY OF MAN.
The New York Sun gave us (March 25, 1877) a short but thoughtful and substantial review of a little work lately published by Rev. Dr. Nisbet, of Rock Island, Ill., on The Resurrection of the Body. The reviewer very justly affirms that the author’s conclusions are anti-Scriptural, and that his method of interpretation lays the way open to a general disregard of dogmatic truth; for if the Bible, as the doctor contends, does not really teach what the whole world has hitherto believed it to teach concerning the resurrection of the flesh, it is plain that we can never be sure that we understand the doctrine of the Bible, even when it seems perfectly clear; and, if this be so, we can have no definite knowledge of revealed truth. The critic makes some very pertinent remarks on the baneful effects that such works as the one he criticises are apt to produce; and, although he does not point out explicitly the root of the evil, yet he gives us a clue to it by averring that any interpretation of Scripture which conflicts with the universal and traditional interpretation received in the church is calculated to shake the very foundations of faith, and exposes every dogma to the attacks and sneers of unbelievers. This is to say that the Protestant principle of freely interpreting the Bible without regard to ecclesiastical tradition leads to infidelity—a truth which is painfully confirmed by daily experience, and which accounts for the sympathy of all the anti-Christian sects with Protestantism; but which the writer in the Sun—an excellent Protestant, we presume—could not very consistently insist upon. Yet the whole tone of his article shows his sincerity. He is evidently an intelligent scholar; and though he finds himself somewhat entangled in the solution of some important questions, yet he does not imitate the folly of such flippant scribblers as blaspheme what they do not understand, but he shows forbearance and circumspection, a wholesome reverence for religion, and an ardent love of truth, and expresses an earnest desire to be taught how the resurrection of the flesh and the immortality of the soul can be successfully established and vindicated against the allegations of modern sceptics.
As we anticipate that Protestant divines will probably not take the trouble to investigate the objections of the infidel school with which they too often sympathize and of which they are the unconscious props and promoters, we will consider the honest appeal of the writer as addressed to Catholic thinkers; and we intend to do briefly what we can, from our doctrinal point of view, to solve his difficulties and to set at rest his doubts. The more so because, as he remarks, whoever can furnish a way out of such difficulties will confer, by so doing, an immense benefit upon a whole world of anxious but sincere doubters on the subject of immortality.
“It cannot be denied,” says he, “that while the Christians generally believe in some kind of continuance of human existence after death, there is a great diversity of opinions among them in regard to its nature and characteristics. The men of the primitive church were not perplexed about the matter, as they were not about many others which are actively debated among us.”
This introductory remark is exceedingly important. The primitive church “was not perplexed” about the matter. Why? Apparently because the faithful were in the habit of accepting the Gospel with humility and simplicity as it was given to them by the apostles and by their successors; because the Protestant method of interpreting Scripture according to every one’s individual bias was not thought to be consistent with the profession of Christianity; because the teachers of the faith did not contradict one another, as our modern Protestant preachers and writers are wont to do to the scandal and ruin of their bewildered flocks. When we see that our Lord’s words, “This is my body,” can be construed by Protestant divines as meaning “This is not my body,” we may form an idea of what must be the result of the Protestant system of Scriptural interpretation. No one can be surprised that such a system creates perplexity, fosters debate, and ends in discord and ultimately in unbelief. But if there is “a great diversity of opinions” among Protestants, such is not the case with us Catholics. We members of the universal church are not perplexed about such matters. We still believe with perfect unanimity as the primitive Christians believed; our teachers teach all the same Gospel—the Gospel of Jesus Christ as transmitted to us by legitimate channels, not the contradictory gospels and the doctrinal crotchets of free-thinking divines. That is what makes the difference.
The critic whose words suggested to us these passing remarks will not fail to see that it is mainly to the rebellious spirit and presumption of the Protestant reformers that the present age owes its theological perplexities and the loss of religious unity. Would it not be better, therefore, to give up at last the gospels of men, and return to the Gospel of the primitive Christians?
“They believed,” as our critic points out, “that at the last day the bodies of the dead would be raised to life, and that the faithful would once more, in flesh and blood, inhabit their former abodes. The most ancient versions of the Apostles’ Creed teach explicitly the resurrection of the flesh, and the earliest Christian apologist, Justin Martyr, writing only a hundred years after the death of Christ, defends the doctrine by asking whether it be any more difficult for God to create a body anew from its dust than for him to create it the first time in its mother’s womb. And Mr. Nisbet concedes that all the succeeding Fathers of the church maintain the same view. Tertullian declares: 'The flesh shall rise again wholly in every man, in its own identity, in its absolute integrity.’ Irenæus agrees with him, and so do Jerome and Augustine.”
It would appear that these authorities, to which many more of the same kind might be added, should leave no doubt in the mind of a Christian about the legitimate interpretation of the dogma of resurrection. For, when an article of faith is clearly expressed in the Gospel and has been uniformly understood in all ages by the doctors of the universal church, it is difficult to see how a man who makes profession of Christianity can think himself authorized to twist it according to his individual bias. Yet this is what Dr. Nisbet has had the courage to do.
“It is remarkable,” says the reviewer, “with what confidence Dr. Nisbet overrides this primitive interpretation of Scripture and declares it to be incorrect. He allows no weight whatever to the obvious fact that men living so much nearer than he does to the days when the New Testament was written, and with whom its very language was still in colloquial use, would be more likely than he to perceive its true meaning. He lays great stress upon the famous passage in Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xv. 35-53), which, he thinks, asserts the resurrection-body not to be of flesh and blood. But he fails to perceive that all that Paul is contending for is a finer and more glorious form of flesh and blood. Paul’s language is: 'The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed’ (v. 52). This he further explains in writing to the Thessalonians: 'We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord’ (1 Thess. iv. 15-17). It was the expectation of the apostolic church that the Lord would come again in their time, agreeably to his prediction in Matthew xxiv.: 'This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled’; and in John v.: 'The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.’ They know that the Lord had raised Lazarus and many others in their own flesh and blood, and had himself, after his resurrection, offered his body to the touch of Thomas; and they would have had to do violence to their own reasoning faculties had they conceived of any different fulfilment of his promises. When, therefore, Dr. Nisbet denounces, as he does, Mr. Talmage’s picture of the final resurrection, with its general scramble of souls for their old bodies, the flying of scattered limbs through the air, and their reconstruction in their pristine integrity, he discredits what has been for eighteen centuries the accepted faith of the Christian Church.”