The fact of Christianity cannot be denied, because it is too immediately present and evident before the minds of all men. Unless one avowedly abjures reason, it must be accounted for. The hypothesis of the rationalists supposes that a young man of Galilee, without education, evolved out of his own mind and the Scriptures of the Old Testament a doctrine which he taught for about one year to the people of Judea and Galilee, and was then crucified as a teacher of false doctrine and a disturber of the religion of his country. The effect of his moral excellence and heroism in dying for his convictions, together with that of his teaching of a few simple and sublime doctrines of theology and ethics, was the astounding revolution which has resulted in historical Christianity. This is a theory of lunatics. The birth of Jesus precisely at the period which was the fulness of the times, the promulgation of a universal religion which appropriated and subjected to its dominion and utility all the results of previous preparation, combined opposite elements into a new form, conquered and regenerated the human race; and all the phenomena of the origin and progress of Christianity; prove the intervention of the same power which created the world and has governed it since the beginning. The divine mission of Jesus is proved by the work which he accomplished. The precise nature and comprehension of that mission and work, as God intended it, and as Jesus Christ revealed it to his apostles, is proved by the effect actually produced, by the argument a posteriori, from the effect to the cause. The religion which actually became universal is the religion which is founded on the confession of the Trinity, the true and proper divinity of the Son of God, his assumption of human nature by a miraculous birth from the Virgin, his redemption of the human race, fallen through the sin of the first Adam, by the cross, his absolute sovereignty over the earth and the whole universe, and his delegation of authority to the apostles under their prince and head, St. Peter. The conversion of the Roman Empire to this religion demands a sufficient cause, and the only cause to which it can possibly be traced is the divine power of its founder, Jesus Christ. The law did not go forth from Sion and Jerusalem to the whole world by virtue of any power which Judaism put forth. The Roman imperial power did not undergo a transmutation into the kingdom of Christ. Catholic theology was not the fruit of Greek philosophy, and the regeneration of mankind was not the natural result of Greco-Roman civilization. All these forms were overmastered and supplanted by a superior force which overcame a most violent and stubborn resistance on their part. They had only prepared the way, and were destroyed when their work was done. Jesus Christ proved himself to be the possessor of that divine power which had employed them to prepare his way before him, by establishing his new kingdom upon their territory, and making their work subservient to his own conquest and dominion. Rome was made the seat of his own Vicar, the monarch of his spiritual kingdom. The thirteen great dioceses of the Roman Empire were parcelled out to the great princes of the church, the patriarchs, exarchs, and primates, who received a delegated share of the supremacy of the Sovereign Pontiff of the city of Rome. The great provincial cities were made the seats of the metropolitans, and the thousands of minor cities the sees of the bishops of the Catholic Church. This great work was substantially accomplished within three centuries from the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. One must be demented not to recognize a supernatural cause for this effect, and, as directed by and concurring with this first, supreme, efficient cause, a chain-work of second causes extending through all previous history backward to the origin of the human race and of the great nations of the earth.
Mgr. Delille, Bishop of Rodez, thus contrasts the theory of universal history which presents the incarnation of the divine Word as the central fact of the whole circle of human events with that of modern rationalism:
“In presence of all the remains of the past actions of the human race which are buried in the catacombs of history, only two theories can be found by which to account for them—the theory of chance or fatalism, and the theory of a divine plan.
“The first explains nothing, because it professedly ignores the final destination of humanity. Sitting amid the ruins, with its back turned to the future, it contents itself with making an inventory of the bones of the defunct generations, and weighing their dust. As the conclusion of this fruitless and melancholy work, it says: Things were thus and so, because they had to be so; they are either games of chance or evolutions of the universal substance. It is quite otherwise with that theory derived from the revelation of the divine plan by the way of faith, in which all the events of the world are viewed as an execution of a pre-conceived design of Providence, being nothing else than the restoration of fallen humanity by the Mediator. This is the true philosophy of history, illuminating the past of which it furnishes the explanation, and the future of which it gives foresight. In accordance with its results, the ancient era of the world can be defined, the preparation for the reign of the Messias, and the modern era, the reign of the Messias.”
In this present article it is especially some parts of the preparation which immediately preceded the epoch of the Messias that are presented to the reader’s consideration. It is one of the most interesting and useful fields of exploration upon which any one who has taste and time for solid reading can enter. There are not wanting in our modern literature some excellent works in which the desirable information can be obtained. In the German language the Universal History of Leo, in the first part, on ancient history, presents a condensed but most complete, learned, and philosophical sketch of the great historical events of the pre-Christian period, conceived entirely in accordance with the idea we have here endeavored to present. In French, the History of the Universal Church, by Rohrbacher, has remarkable merit in this respect and is very full in its details. This subject is treated most explicitly and comprehensively in a work by M. l’Abbé Louis Leroy, entitled Philosophie Catholique de l’Histoire. In English the learned works of Father Thébaud, and a recent one entitled De Ecclesiâ et Cathedrâ, by Colin Lindsay, are especially valuable. As a French bishop, Mgr. Angebault, of Angers, has said: “For the last hundred years an effort has been kept up to make history lie by perverting it; it is requisite that men of learning and sound faith should bring it back into the right path from which it has been drawn away.”
History, like all the treasures of the past, belongs to Christianity and the Catholic Church. A few years ago some marbles belonging to Nero, which had been laid aside and become buried under the accumulated deposit of ages, were unearthed, and became the property of Pius IX. as sovereign of Rome; who made use of them for decorating a church. In like manner it is our right to claim all the costly materials we can find and dig out of the dust of all foregoing centuries, and our duty to use them in adorning the walls of the temple of God on earth, his universal and eternal church.
ST. CEADDA.
Hark! what sweet sounds beneath these lonely skies!
St. Mary’s Convent deep in yonder dell
Lies hidden. Echoes thus the minster bell