The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
states, and the only cases in which so-called Catholic states approach
them, is when they put their religion in their pocket, war on the Pope,
or for purely secular ends, on purely earthly principles. The French
Republic, in putting an end to the Mazzinian Reign of Terror, and
restoring Pius the Ninth to his temporal estates, professed no religious
motives, and would have failed if it had. It acted from worldly policy,
and avowedly for the purpose of watching Austria and maintaining French
influence in the Peninsula.
The question is not as Gioberti conceives it; it is not a question of
the fusion of Christian and Gentile virtues, but a question between
Gentilism and Christianity itself. It is not how to train our youth to
be great, noble, energetic, according to the Italo-Greek standard, but
whether we are or are not to be Christians. If Christianity be true,
there can be no question that our youth should be trained for heaven and
not for the world, and taught to be meek, humble, self-denying,
unworldly—to die to the world, and live only to God—to prepare
themselves for dying and living eternally hereafter in heaven. If so
trained, they will not exhibit those traits of character which you so
much admire in the great men of pagan antiquity; they will meditate when
you will think they should act, pray when you would have them fight, and
run to the church when you would have them run against the enemy. But,
at the same time, if Christianity be true, there can be no question that
the management of earthly affairs on Christian principles and for a
Christian end, would be decidedly for the interests of society as well
as for the salvation of the soul. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his
justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
There is an innate and irreconcilable antagonism between Italo-Greek
Gentilism and Christianity. According to Christianity, the world by
wisdom knows not God; and the whole economy of the Gospel is undeniably
to discard the wisdom of this world, and to rely solely on the wisdom
from above, to trust not ourselves, but God alone. The Gospel reverses
all the maxims of Gentile wisdom, and blesses what it curses, and curses
what it blesses. Gentilism had said, Blessed are the proud, the
distinguished, they who are honored and abound in this world’s goods;
the Gospel says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, that is, they who are
humble, lowly-minded, and despise riches and honors. Gentilism had said,
Blessed are they who are quick to resent and avenge their real or
imaginary wrongs; the Gospel says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall
inherit the land. The former had said, Blessed are they that rejoice;
the latter says, Blessed are they that mourn. Gentilism had said,
Blessed are they who thirst for fame, for honor, power, and who live in
luxury, who eat, drink, and are merry; the Gospel says, Blessed are they
who hunger and thirst after justice, Blessed are the merciful, and
Blessed are the clean of heart. Gentilism had said, Blessed is the man
who delights in arms, whom no one dares attack, whom none slander,
revile, or persecute, and who, by his force, craft, or wisdom, has
triumphed over all his enemies, and subjugated them to his will; the
Gospel says, Blessed are the peacemakers, Blessed are they that suffer
persecution for justice’ sake, Blessed are ye when men shall revile you,
and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my
sake: rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
The principle of Christianity is humility, meekness, gentleness,
forgiveness of injuries, love of enemies, self-denial, detachment from
the world, and a delight in living, suffering, and dying for the glory
of the cross. In every respect, the principle of Gentilism is the direct
contradictory. Look at the Gospel as you will, and its direct denial of
heathenism everywhere strikes you. Its Author came into the world not in
the pride, pomp, and power of an earthborn majesty. He came in the form
of a servant, a slave, the reputed son of a poor carpenter, at whose
craft he worked with his own hands. The foxes of the earth have holes,
and the fowls of the air have nests, but poorer than they, he had not
where to lay his head. Of the rich, the proud, the great, and honored,
none were with him. His disciples were poor fishermen and publicans. He
sought and accepted no earthly honors; and when the people, in a fit of
momentary enthusiasm, would make him perforce their king, he withdrew,
retired into the mountains, concealed himself, and prayed to his Father.
When betrayed by one of his followers, and delivered into the hands of
his enemies, he made no resistance, and permitted none to be made. He
patiently endures insults, mockeries, and revilings, and opens not his
mouth in his defence, when confronted with his accusers before the bar
of Pilate, but meekly submits to the unjust sentence pronounced against
him, suffers himself to be led unresistingly, bearing his cross, to the
place of execution, and to be crucified between two thieves.
Here is the whole spirit, the whole economy of Christianity. If
Christianity be from God, this means something, and proves that if
Christians are sincere and in earnest, they cannot adopt or even value
the wisdom of the world; and it must always be true, that the children
of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.
Concede the Gospel to be true, and you must own that Christian
asceticism is the highest wisdom, and Gentile wisdom, or the wisdom of
this world, the sublimest foolishness. This St. Paul well understood,
and hence he says, “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them that are
called, Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
The foolish things of the world hath God chosen to confound the wise,
and the weak things of the world hath God chosen that he may confound
the strong; and base things of the world, and things contemptible hath
God chosen, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought
the things which are.”
There is no denying this, and hence the error of Gioberti. He would be
both a Christian priest and a Gentile philosopher, at once a disciple of
the Gospel and of the Portico, and he labored with an ability and a
subtlety to demonstrate by means of a philosophy, considered apart from
the use he made of it, worthy of profound esteem, that this was not only
possible, but demanded by the deepest and truest principles of
ontological science. I do not think that he was at that time an
unbeliever, or that he entertained any doubts of the religion he
professed. But he had little of the sacerdotal character or the
Christian spirit, and I think he was disgusted with what he considered
the weakness, tameness, abjectness, the _frivolezza_ of the Catholic
populations of France and Italy, and out of patience with seeing them
crouching before the haughty infidel, and the domineering heretic or
schismatic. He wished to see them men, men of lofty and daring souls,
scorning to be trampled on, and indignantly hurling back the invading
hosts of barbarians, and boldly and triumphantly asserting the proud
prerogatives which belong to them as possessors and guardians of the
truth of God. He was right after the wisdom of men, but wrong after the
wisdom of God, if Christianity is our standard, and was animated by the
spirit of Gentilism, not by the spirit of the Gospel. He failed, for he
was too pagan for a Christian, and too Christian for a pagan.
The remedy, if remedy is needed, is the return of modern society to
real, earnest, living faith in the Gospel. The age is frivolous, because
it is educated to be Christian, and is at heart unbelieving. It is not
heresy or schism that needs now to be attacked, but unbelief—a moral and
intellectual scepticism, which books and schools do not teach us to
attack successfully. Here schoolmen, men of routine, with their
_probos_, _respondeos_, and _objectiones solvunturs_, stand us in poor
stead. Exquisite polish, gracefully-turned periods, charming
pleasantries, pretty conceits, and soft, sweet sentimentality for boys
and girls in their teens, will stand us in just as little. It is
necessary to abandon routine, the easy habit of speaking _memoriter_,
and learn to think, to master, not merely repeat, what others have said,
but to master for ourselves the principles involved, and to speak out in
a tone of strong, impassioned reasoning, in free, bold, and energetic
language, in defence of the Gospel itself.
CHAPTER XIV.
ROME AND THE REVOLUTION.
In June, 1846, the death of Gregory the Sixteenth, and the election of
Cardinal Mastai and his elevation to the Papacy, under the name of Pius
the Ninth, summoned us to Rome, the Eternal city. I felt a momentary
grief, as I saw the mouldering ruins of pagan Rome, the ancient capital
of Gentilism, and felt indignation at beholding the diminutive Rome that
had supplanted it; but I felt sure that the old gods lingered still in
those ruins of the Capitoline and Palatine hills, and that the time was
drawing near when we might evoke Jupiter Tonans and the fiery Mars, and
the Goddess of Victory, from their slumber of centuries; revive the old
Roman spirit, and reëstablish the old Republic, so long triumphed over
by the barbarism of the cross. Never before had I felt how thoroughly
alienated from the Christian world, and assimilated in my feelings to
the old Gentile world I had become. I was in the capital of the
Christian world, the centre of Christian art, and of the most glorious
Christian associations for two thousand years, and my heart was touched
only at sight of the monuments of pagan antiquity, which time and the
still more destructive hand of man had spared.
But we had no leisure for sight-seeing, and still less for
sentimentalizing over the ruins of that stupendous superstition of which
Rome was the capital, and which had gradually supplanted the patriarchal
Christianity, only slightly corrupted, of the primitive Romans. The
superficial politicians, Catholic and non-Catholic, regard the Papacy as
comparatively of little political or social significancy in our times;
but whoever looks a little below the surface of things, knows very well
that the Pope, though weak as to his temporal states, is not only the
oldest but the most influential sovereign in Europe. The death of one
Pope and the accession of another, is an event which reverberates
through the whole civilized world; and the policy of the sovereign
pontiff, the feeble old man of the Vatican, with hardly a regiment of
guards, has not seldom the preponderating weight in the councils of
princes, although unseen, unrecognized—so much the more inexplicable, as
there no longer remains a truly Catholic government on the globe, and
not a Catholic nation in whose heart lives and breathes the old Catholic
faith. Not a nation in Europe would, to-day, for the sake of religion
alone, rush to the assistance of the Pope; yet the Papacy is everywhere,
and not a court in Europe but trembles when it thinks of the Pope, even
weak and unsupported as he is.
All the Liberals throughout the world held a jubilee as soon as they
heard of the death of the old Pope, who had, no one could tell how, held
them in check. The whole world seemed to have been suddenly relieved of
an invisible burden, and bounded with a wild and frantic joy. The good
time that had been a-coming, now could come. This joy grew wilder and
more frantic still, when it was known that Cardinal Mastai was the new
Pope. He was known to be gentle and humane, kind-hearted and pious, and
suspected of leaning to liberal views, and of being a Giobertian; and