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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38446-8.txt b/38446-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c921086 --- /dev/null +++ b/38446-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7593 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based +on Psychology and History, by Auguste Sabatier + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History + +Author: Auguste Sabatier + +Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38446] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + + _Outlines of a Philosophy + of Religion based on + Psychology and History_ + + +_By Auguste Sabatier_ + +_Author of the "Apostle Paul" etc._ + + + + +NEW YORK + +JAMES POTT & COMPANY + +119-121 WEST 23D STREET. + +1910 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE + + + +BOOK I.--RELIGION + + +CHAPTER I + +THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION + + 1. First Critical Reflections + 2. Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness + 3. Religion the Prayer of the Heart + + +CHAPTER II + +RELIGION AND REVELATION + + 1. The Mystery of the Religious Life + 2. Mythological Notion of Revelation + 3. Dogmatic Notion + 4. Psychological Notion + 5. Conclusion + + +CHAPTER III + +MIRACLE AND INSPIRATION + + 1. The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity + 2. Miracle and Science: Miracle and Piety + 3. Religious Inspiration + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY + + 1. The Social Element in Religion + 2. Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion + 3. Progress in the Representation of the Divine + 4. The History of Prayer + 5. Conclusion + + + +BOOK II.--CHRISTIANITY + + +CHAPTER I + +HEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL + + 1. Prophetism + 2. The Dawn of the Gospel + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY + + 1. The Problem + 2. The Christian Principle + 3. The Gospel of Jesus + 4. A Necessary Distinction + 5. The Corruptions of the Christian Principle + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY + + 1. The Evolution of the Christian Principle + 2. Jewish or Messianic Christianity + 3. Catholic Christianity + 4. Protestant Christianity + 5. Conclusion + + + +BOOK III.--DOGMA + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT IS A DOGMA? + + 1. Definition + 2. Genesis of Dogma + 3. The Role and the Religious Value of Dogma + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION + + 1. Three Prejudices + 2. The Two Elements in Dogma + 3. The Crisis of Dogma + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS + + 1. Mixed Character of the Science of Dogmas + 2. The Science of Dogmas and the Church + 3. The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy + + +CHAPTER IV + +CRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE + + 1. Antiquated Theories + 2. The Kantian Theory of Knowledge + 3. The Two Orders of Knowledge + 4. Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge + 5. Teleology + 6. Symbolism + 7. Conclusion + + +APPENDIX + +Reply to Criticisms + + + + +PREFACE + +This volume contains three parts which are related to each other as the +three stories of one and the same edifice. The first treats of +religion and its origin; the second of Christianity and its essence; +the third of Dogma and its nature. + +Proceeding thus from the general to the particular, from the elementary +forms of religion to its highest form, passing afterwards from +religious phenomena to religious doctrines, I have endeavoured to +develop a series of connected and progressive views which I do not wish +to be regarded as a system, but as the rigid application and the first +results of the method of strictly psychological and historical +observation that for years I have applied to this species of studies. +In no domain is there a greater incoherence of ideas, a sharper +conflict of feeling, or data more contradictory or, at all events, more +difficult to reconcile. In no other is it more urgent to introduce a +little sequence, clearness, harmony. Our century, from the beginning, +has had two great passions which still inflame and agitate its closing +years. It has driven abreast the twofold worship of the scientific +method and of the moral ideal; but, so far from being able to unite +them, it has pushed them to a point where they seem to contradict and +exclude each other. Every serious soul feels itself to be inwardly +divided; it would fain conciliate its most generous aspirations, the +two last motives for living and acting that still remain to it. Where +but in a renovated conception of religion will this needed +reconciliation be found? + +No one nowadays underestimates the social importance of the religious +question. Philosophers, moralists, politicians, show themselves to be +alive to it; they see it dominating all others, whose solution, in the +end, it may prevent or decide. But, singular contradiction! the more +zeal and the more decision these men manifest in handling the religious +question in the social order, the more indifference or impotence they +show in solving it for themselves both in their inner and their family +life... No one has the right to impose a doctrine or the presumption, +surely, to dictate to others how they must direct their thought; but a +sincere and persuaded mind may tell how it has directed its own, and +may set forth as an experience and a "document" the views at which it +has arrived.... + +The solidarity of minds has now become so great, the currents of ideas, +like the currents in the atmosphere, move so quickly and create, in +circumstances so different and so far apart, states of soul so similar +that many who read these studies, and who are struggling with the same +difficulties as those which have so long engaged the author's thoughts, +may find both interest and profit in seeing how he has succeeded in +satisfying himself. Those even who have never reflected on these +questions, or have lightly turned from them because they deemed them +insoluble, will not perhaps object to be directed to them by one who +wishes, not to check their freedom of thought, but to stimulate them to +exercise it. Who, at the close of his secret meditations, on the +confines of his knowledge, at the end of his affections, of the joys he +has tasted, of the trials he has endured, has not seen rising before +him the religious question--I mean the mysterious problem of his +destiny? Of all questions it is the most vital. Men may be turned +from it for a time by manifold distractions and by a sense of +powerlessness to solve the question, but it is impossible that they +should not return to it. Has life a meaning? Is it worth living? Our +efforts, have they an end? Our works and our thoughts, have they any +permanent value to the universe? This problem, which one generation +may evade, returns with the next. Each new recruit to the human race +brings the problem along with him, because he wishes to live, and to +live is to act, and all action requires a faith. It is of the young +that I have thought while preparing these pages, and it is to them that +I dedicate them. + +To a generation that believed it could repose in Positivism in +philosophy, utilitarianism in morals, and naturalism in art and poetry, +has succeeded a generation that torments itself more than ever with the +mystery of things, that is attracted by the ideal, that dreams of +social fraternity, of self-renunciation, of devotion to the little, to +the miserable, to the oppressed--devotion like the heroism of Christian +love. Hence what has been called the renaissance of Idealism, the +return, _i.e._, to general ideas, to faith in the invisible, to the +taste for symbols, and to those longings, as confused as they are +ardent, to discover a religion or to return to the religion their +fathers have disdained. Our young people, it seems to me, are pushing +bravely forward, marching between two high walls: on the one side +modern science with its rigorous methods which it is no longer possible +to ignore or to avoid; on the other, the dogmas and the customs of the +religious institutions in which they were reared, and to which they +would, but cannot, sincerely return. The sages who have led them +hitherto point to the impasse they have reached, and bid them take a +part,--either for science against religion, or for religion against +science. They hesitate, with reason, in face of this alarming +alternative. Must we then choose between pious ignorance and bare +knowledge? Must we either continue to live a moral life belied by +science, or set up a theory of things which our consciences condemn? +Is there no issue to the dark and narrow valley which our anxious youth +traverse? I think there is. I think I have caught glimpses of a steep +and narrow path that leads to wide and shining table-lands above. +Indeed I have ascended in the footsteps of some others, and I signal in +my turn to younger, braver pioneers who, in course of time, will make a +broader, safer road, along which all the caravan may pass. + + + + +BOOK FIRST + +RELIGION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN, AND ON THE NATURE OF RELIGION + +1. _First Critical Reflections_ + +Why am I religious? Because I cannot help it: it is a moral necessity +of my being. They tell me it is a matter of heredity, of education, of +temperament. I have often said so to myself. But that explanation +simply puts the problem further back; it does not solve it + +The necessity which I experience in my individual life I find to be +still more invincible in the collective life of humanity. Humanity is +not less incurably religious than I am. The cults it has espoused and +abandoned have deceived it in vain; in vain has the criticism of +savants and philosophers shattered its dogmas and mythologies; in vain +has religion left such tracks of blood and fire throughout the annals +of humanity; it has survived all change, all revolution, all stages of +culture and progress. Cut down a thousand times, the ancient stem has +always sent new branches forth. Whence comes this indestructible +vitality? What is the cause of the universality and perpetuity of +religion? + +Before entering upon this question it will be necessary to remove a +fruitful cause of error with respect to the essence and origin of the +religious sense, especially among the peoples of Latin extraction. +This cause lies in the very word _religion_. It very badly designates +the psychological phenomenon to be studied; it envelops it in accessory +and even in alien ideas, which blind and mislead half-educated men. +The word comes to us from the least religious of the peoples of the +world. It has no synonym or equivalent in the language of the ancient +Hebrews, or in that of the Greeks, the Germans, the Celts, or the +Hindus, the human families which, in the religious order, have been the +most original and the most creative. It was Rome that imposed the word +upon us along with her language, her genius, and her institutions. + +The first Christians were not acquainted with it. It is absent from +the New Testament. When, in the third century, it enters into +Christian speech, it no doubt undergoes a sort of baptism, and seems to +cover a meaning more in conformity with the spirit of the Gospel. +Lactantius defines religion as "the link which unites man to God." But +in the ancient Roman writers the word never had this profound and +mystical meaning. Instead of marking the inward and subjective side of +religion, and signalising it as a phenomenon of the life of the soul, +it defined religion by the outside, as a tradition of rites, and as a +social institution bequeathed by ancestors. The Christian baptism +through which the word passed did not efface this ancient Roman stamp. +To the majority, even now, religion is hardly anything more than a +series of traditional rites, supernatural beliefs, political +institutions; it is a Church in possession of divine sacraments, +constituted by a sacerdotal hierarchy, for the discipline and +government of souls. Such is the form under which the genius of Rome +conceived and realised Christianity in the Western world; and the +fascination that this political and social conception of religion still +exercises is so great that minds the most enlightened know no better +than to agree with M. Brunetière, who, when wishing to set forth the +superiority of Catholicism to Protestantism, confines himself, like +Bossuet, to praising it as a perfect model of government. + +By a sort of logical necessity, whenever and wherever this political +conception of religion has predominated, an analogous explanation of +its origin has always arisen. It is natural that men should have +applied to it the ancient juridical adage: _is fecit cui prodest_. +Religion admirably serves to govern the peoples; therefore it was +originally invented for that purpose. It was the work of priests and +chiefs who wished by means of it to strengthen and to ratify their +authority. So reason the Romans in the days of Cicero and the +philosophers of the eighteenth century. And there is some foundation +for their arguments. Religion has often been utilised by politics: +pious frauds are to be found in all the cults. But what then? What do +the facts prove? It is not the pious fraud that produces the religion; +it is the religion that gives occasion and opportunity to pious frauds. +Without religion there would have been no pious frauds. When I hear it +said, "Priests made religion," I simply ask, "And who, pray, made the +priests?" In order to create a priesthood, and in order that that +invention should find general acceptance with the people that were to +be subject to it, must there not have been already in the hearts of men +a religious sentiment that would clothe the institution with a sacred +character? The terms must be reversed: it is not priesthood that +explains religion, but religion that explains priesthood. + +The theory propounded by Positivism is profounder and more serious. +Religion, which dates from the earliest ages, can only have been a +first attempt at an explanation of the extraordinary phenomena by which +man in his ignorance was astonished and frightened. It is the +beginning of the childish form of science, which, in course of time, +would naturally give place to higher and more rigorous forms. Children +and savages animate all things round about them with a psychical life; +they see particular wills behind every phenomenon that excites their +hope or fear. Thus the imagination of primitive man peopled the +universe with an infinite number of spirits, good and evil, whose +mysterious action made itself felt at every moment of their destiny. A +while ago we had the explanation of religion by priesthood; now we have +the explanation by mythology. But it is the same vicious circle: it is +an insufficient psychology once more mistaking the effect for the cause. + +To conceive of religion as a species of knowledge is an error not less +grave than to represent it as a sort of political institution. No +doubt religious faith is always accompanied by knowledge, but this +intellectual element, however indispensable, so far from being the +basis and the substance of religion, varies continually at all the +epochs of religious evolution. Doctrinal formulas and liturgies are +means of expression and of education, of which religion avails itself, +but which it can exchange for others after each philosophical crisis. +Rites and beliefs become obliterated or die out; religion possesses a +power of perpetual resurrection, whose principle cannot be exhausted in +any external form or in any dogmatic idea. + +Comte's theory of the three stages through which human thought has +passed is well known: the theological stage of primitive times, the +metaphysical stage in the Middle Ages, the positive or scientific stage +of modern times. If knowledge were the essence of religion, one could +easily understand the logical course of this evolution, an inferior +form of knowledge being condemned to disappear before a superior form. +The proof that it is nothing of the kind is the fact that religion does +not cease to reappear at all epochs and in the most widely different +conditions of culture. The three stages are not successive but +simultaneous; they do not correspond to three periods of history, but +to three permanent needs of the human soul. You find them combined in +various degrees in antiquity, in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; in +modern times, in Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Kant, Claude Bernard, and +Pasteur. The more science progresses and becomes conscious of its true +method and of its limits, the more does it become distinguished from +philosophy and religion. Scientific research, exclusively devoted to +the determination of phenomena and of their conditions in time and +space, is one thing; the philosophic need of comprehending the universe +as an intelligible whole, and of explaining all that exists by a +principle of sufficient reason, is another and a different thing; and, +lastly, differing from both, is the religious need which, rightly +understood, is but a manifestation, in the moral order, of the instinct +of every being to persevere in being. Why may not these divers +tendencies of soul, coexisting always and everywhere, manifest +themselves simultaneously and on parallel lines? + +We need not go beyond the Positivists themselves for examples and +proofs of this persistence of the religious sentiment. Comte, Spencer, +and Littré may be called as witnesses. The founder of Positivism, who +had predicted the fatal extinction of the disposition to religion in +the human soul, crowned his system and ended his career by founding a +new religion, clumsily copied from the sacerdotal organisation and the +ritual practices of Roman Catholicism. There actually exists a +Positivist Church, with a calendar of saints, with relics and +anniversaries, with a catechism, and with a high priest not less +infallible than the one at Rome. A few disciples, scandalised by this +supreme temptation of the master, desired to excuse him by declaring +that he had gone mad. It was a mistake. The fact is that, arriving at +the construction of a Positive Sociology, Comte comprehended the _rôle_ +of the religious instinct and of religious feeling in the life of +peoples, and he believed that he would only be able to cement the +edifice of society in the future by religion. It is said that those +who have been amputated sometimes feel sharp twitches in the limbs they +have lost. Comte and his disciples have experienced something similar. +Nature, with her usual irony, has avenged herself on them for the +violence they have done to her. + +Of Herbert Spencer not much need be said; everybody knows that the +_Unknowable_ in his system has become a sort of undetermined and +unconscious force, eluding every effort of the mind to grasp it, but +remaining, none the less, the cause explaining evolution, and the +source profound whence all things flow. Under different names, do we +not recognise the First Cause of the philosophers, and the image, +half-effaced, of the God of believers? Need we be surprised that the +English thinker pronounces religion to be eternal? that he finally +reduces the mental life of man to these two essential and primordial +activities--the scientific activity which pursues the knowledge of +phenomena and their transformation, and religious activity delivering +itself up to mystical contemplation and to silent adoration of +universal being? + +The example of Littré is more touching still. I remember reading a +sublime page in one of his works, in which the savant, after running +through the _terra firma_ of positive knowledge, reaches its utmost +limit, and, seating himself on the extremest promontory, sees himself +surrounded by the mystery of the unknowable, as by an infinite ocean. +He has neither barque, nor sails, nor compass wherewith to explore this +boundless sea; nevertheless, he stands there gazing into it; he +contemplates it; he meditates in presence of this vast unknown, and +finally abandons himself to a movement of adoration and of confidence +which renews his mental vigour and which fills his heart with peace. +What is this, I ask, but a sudden outburst of religious feeling which +positive science, so far from extinguishing, has only served to deepen +and accentuate? And since we have here the religion of the unknowable, +is it not evident that religion is not necessarily knowledge? + +I now come to a third explanation which, older than either of the +others, will bring us nearer to the end at which we aim. "It is fear," +says a Latin poet, "that engenders the gods." There is a sense in +which this is true. It cannot be doubted that religion was at first +awakened in the heart of man under the impress of the terror caused by +the disordered and destructive forces of primitive Nature. Thrown +naked and disarmed on the barely-cooled planet, walking tremblingly +upon a soil that quaked beneath his tread, his would be a state of +misery and distress which filled his heart with an infinite terror. +But the explanation needs completing. In itself and of itself, fear is +not religious; it paralyses, crushes, stuns. In order that it may +become religiously fruitful, it is necessary that, from the outset, it +should be mixed with an opposite sentiment, an impulse of hope; it is +necessary that man, the prey of fear, should conceive, in some way or +other, the possibility of surmounting it--that is to say that he should +find above him some help, some succour, by which to confront the +dangers which threaten him. Fear only gives birth to religion in man +because it awakens hope and calls forth prayer--prayer that opens an +issue to human distress. There is that amount of truth in the ancient +hypothesis. It brings us near the source we are seeking, for it places +us on the practical arena of life, and not in the theoretical region of +science. The question man puts to himself in religion is always a +question of salvation, and if he seems sometimes to be pursuing in it +the enigma of the universe, it is only that he may solve the enigma of +his life. And now we must press nearer to the problem. We must +ascertain out of what fundamental contradiction the religious feeling +arises. We may reach it by a mental analysis that every one can +follow, and verify the more easily inasmuch as it is always in course +of reconstruction, by noting our own experiences. + + +2. _Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness_ + +What is man? Externally he does not differ much from the higher +animals, the series of which seems to have been closed by his +appearance on our planet. His physical organism is composed of the +same elements, acting according to the same laws; and of the same +organs, performing analogous functions. It is by the incomparable +development of his mental life that man is distinguished, and little by +little disengages himself from animality. Phenomena and laws of a new +kind now make their appearance. The mysterious life of the spirit, +emerging from the physical life, unfolds itself gradually like a divine +flower, and gives the world, for us, its meaning and its loveliness. +The region of the true, the beautiful, the good, is opened up to +consciousness; the moral world is constituted as a higher order to +which man belongs. It is these moral laws, capable of dominating +physical laws and bending them to higher ends that, in the human +animal, realise and constitute humanity. Man is only man in so far as +he obeys them, and such is the point of transition that he occupies +between two worlds, such the necessity of the crisis by which he must +disengage himself from material animality, that, if he does not rise +above the brute, he necessarily, by the very perversion of his higher +life, falls beneath him. + +From the beginning, physical life implies a double movement: a movement +inward from the outside to the centre of the ego, and a movement +outward from the centre to the circumference. The first represents the +action of external things upon the ego by sensation (passivity); the +second, the reaction of the ego upon things by the will (activity). +This internal flux and reflux is the whole mental life. From this +point we shall soon perceive the initial contradiction in which this +life is formed, and in which it goes on developing itself continually. +The passive side and the active side of the life of the mind are not +harmonious. Sensation crushes the will. The activity, the free +expansion of the ego, its desires to extend and aggrandise itself are +checked and crushed by the weight of the world, which on every side is +pressing in upon it. Springing up from the centre, the wave of life +breaks itself inevitably on the rocks of outward things. This +perpetual collision, this conflict of the ego and the universe,--this +is the primary cause and origin of all pain. Thus thrown back upon +itself, the activity of the ego returns upon the centre and heats it +like the axle of a wheel in motion. Sparks soon fly, and the inner +life of the ego is lit up. This is _consciousness_. Brought back by +painful sensations and by repeated failure of its efforts from the +outside, the ego begins to reflect upon itself; it doubles itself and +knows itself; soon it judges itself; it separates itself from the +organism with which at first it confounded itself; it opposes itself to +itself, as if there were really in itself two _beings_, an ideal ego +and an empirical ego. Hence comes its torment, its struggles, its +remorse, but also the impulse ever renewed, the indefinite progress of +its spiritual life, of which each moment seems to be but a degree from +which it ought to rise to a stage still higher. + +May we not here foresee the divine purpose of pain? Without it, it +would seem as if the life of the spirit could not have arisen out of +physical life. All births are painful. Consciousness, like every +other child, was born in tears. The child of pain, it can only be +developed by pain. Where do you find intelligence the most refined, +consciousness the keenest, inner life the most intense, if not amongst +the human beings whose external activities have been repressed by +sickness or by some limitation in their social position? How else will +you explain the _Pensées_ of Pascal or of Maine de Biran, or the +_Journal_ of Amiel? Whence comes that extraordinary development of +consciousness of which we are all aware in men like these, unless it be +that they feel more profoundly than others that radical contradiction +which constitutes at once the misery and the grandeur of human destiny? + +Continue this observation; follow each of our faculties in its +progressive expansion. Starting from a contradiction without which +they would not exist, you see them all end in a contradiction in which +they seem to perish, so that that which has engendered consciousness +seems as if it must destroy it. Everywhere the same discouraging +antinomy. Man cannot know himself without knowing himself to be +limited. But he cannot feel these fatal limitations without going +beyond them in thought and by desire, so that he is never satisfied +with what he possesses, and cannot be happy except with that which he +cannot attain. I desire to know; my labouring intellect is athirst to +comprehend and understand, and its first discoveries enchant it. But, +alas, my head soon runs itself against the wall of mystery. Not only +are there things it does not know, but there are things which it knows +for a certainty that it will never be able to know. How can a man jump +off his own shadow, or stand on his own shoulders, to look over the +impassable wall? That all which is intelligible to us is real, I +grant; but is all that is real intelligible to us? And then what +becomes my knowledge save a melancholy feeling of ignorance that knows +itself to be such? The same contradiction in my faculty for enjoyment. +As my seeming knowledge changed into its opposite, so now I see +pleasure and happiness changing into pain and sorrow. Let the +superficial and the vulgar lay on fate or things the blame of their +deceptions and of their inability to be happy; as for me, I can only +blame the inner constitution of my being. It is as the result of that +very constitution that enjoyment bears within itself the cause of its +own exhaustion, that pleasure is changed into disgust, and that pain is +born of all voluptuousness. Pessimism is in the right; for it is +proved by an experience only too long-lived that the only result of +happiness exclusively pursued is an increase of the capacity for +suffering. Need I speak of moral activity? I desire to do good, but +"evil is present with me." I do not do that which I approve, and I do +not approve that which I do: I feel myself free in my will, and I am +enslaved in action. The more effort I make towards an ideal +righteousness, the more that ideal, which I never reach, constitutes me +a sinner and strengthens in me the consciousness of sin; so that here +again, and here especially, the final result of my search is the +opposite of that which I set out to seek. + +Whence shall deliverance come? How shall I solve this contradiction of +my being which makes me at the same time live and die? To free man +from the miseries and limitations of his nature men count upon the +progress of science and the amelioration of the conditions of his life. +But who does not see that here is a new source of despair? How can we +forget that, so far from attenuating it, science in its progress +aggravates and renders mortal the original condition of life? To make +a discovery, to explain a new phenomenon, what is this but to add +another link to the causal and necessary network which science weaves +and spreads over things? To put sequence, order, and stability into +the world, is not this, for science, to put necessity into it, and to +make necessity the sovereign ruler of the world? Science, in the +strict sense of the word, is determinist. But then, prolong this +progress of science indefinitely; multiply it by ten, by a hundred, a +thousand; what do you do but multiply proportionately the weight of +universal determinism beneath which our soul groans and ceases to +strive? We should then end in the still more tragic +contradiction--between science and conscience, physical laws and moral +laws, action and reflection. The more the one enlarges and triumphs +the vainer seems the other. Hence that philosophical dualism in which +modern thought ends--a science which cannot engender an acknowledged +morality, and a morality which cannot be the object of positive +science. We touch the cause of that strange malady _le mal du siècle_, +a sort of internal consumption by which all cultivated minds are more +or less affected. It is an intestine war which arms the human ego +against itself and dries up all the springs of life. The more one +reflects on the reasons that may be urged in favour of living and +acting, the less capable one is of effort and of action. Clearness of +thought is in inverse proportion to the energy of the will. The +Pessimists tell us that if we were fully and perfectly conscious we +should lose the will to act, and even the desire to be. And which of +us is not more or less of a Pessimist nowadays? Who does not complain +of "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world"? Who does not +feel his weakness and the pressure of external things? Who has not +marked that union now become almost habitual of frivolity of character +and intellectual culture the most perfect and refined? That sad +monotone which comes to us on every wind, from the latest volume of +philosophy, from the most popular novel, from the most successful +play,--what is it but the melancholy sigh of a life that seems to be +ready to expire, of a world that seems about to disappear. Must one +give up thinking then if he would retain the courage to live, and +resign himself to death in order to preserve the right to think? + +From this feeling of distress, from this initial contradiction of the +inner life of man, religion springs. It is the rent in the rock +through which the living and life-giving waters flow. Not that +religion brings a theoretical solution to the problem. The issue it +opens and proposes to us is pre-eminently practical. It does not save +us by adding to our knowledge, but by a return to the very principle on +which our being depends, and by a moral act of confidence in the origin +and aim of life. At the same time this saving act is not an arbitrary +one; it springs from a necessity. Faith in life both is and acts like +the instinct of conservation in the physical world. It is a higher +form of that instinct Blind and fatal in organisms, in the moral life +it is accompanied by consciousness and by reflective will, and, thus +transformed, it appears under the guise of religion. + +Nor is this life-impulse (_élan de la vie_) produced in the void, or +objectless. It rests upon a feeling inherent in every conscious +individual, the feeling of dependence which every man experiences with +respect to universal being. Which of us can escape this feeling of +absolute dependence? Not only is our destiny, in principle, decided +outside ourselves and apart from ourselves according to the general +laws of cosmical evolution, in the course of which we appear at a given +time and place with a heritage of forces which we have not chosen or +produced, but, not being able to discover in ourselves or in any series +of individuals the sufficient reason of our existence, we are obliged +to seek outside ourselves, in universal being, the first cause and +ultimate aim of our existence and our life. To be religious is, at +first, to recognise, to accept with confidence, with simplicity and +humility, this subjection of our individual consciousness; it is to +bring this back and bind it to its eternal principle; it is to will to +be in the order and the harmony of life. This feeling of our +subordination thus furnishes the experimental and indestructible basis +of the idea of God. This idea may possibly remain more or less +indetermined, and may indeed never be perfected in our mind; but its +object does not on that account elude our consciousness. Before all +reflection, and before all rational determination, it is given to us +and, as it were, imposed on us in the very fact of our absolute +dependence; without fear we may establish this equation: the feeling of +our dependence is that of the mysterious presence of God in us. Such +is the deep source from which the idea of the divine springs up within +us irresistibly. But it springs at once as religion and as an effect +of religion. + +At the same time, it is well to note at what a cost the mind of man +accepts this subordination in relation to the principle of universal +life. We have seen this mind in conflict with external things. The +mind revolts against them because they are of a different nature to +itself, and because it is the proud prerogative of mind to comprehend, +to dominate, to rule things and not to be subordinate to them. +Pascal's phrase is to the point: "Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing +in nature; but he is a thinking reed. Were the universe to crush him, +man would still be nobler than the universe that killed him, for he +would be conscious of the calamity, and the universe would know nothing +of the advantage it possessed." That is why the material universe is +not the principle of sovereignty to which it is possible for man to +submit. The superior dignity of spirit to the totality of things can +only be preserved in our precarious individuality by an act of +confidence and communion with the universal Spirit. It is only on a +spiritual power that my consciousness does actually make both me and +the universe to depend, and in making us both to depend on the same +spiritual power, it reconciles us to each other, because, in that +universal being conceived as spirit, both I and the universe have a +common principle and a common aim. Descartes was right: the first step +of the human mind desirous of confirming to itself the sense of its own +worth and dignity is an essentially religious act. The circle of my +mental life, which opens with the conflict of these two +terms--consciousness of the ego, experience of the world--is completed +by a third in which the other terms are harmonised: the sense of their +common dependence upon God. But is not this account of the genesis of +religion too philosophic and too abstract to be capable of universal +application? If it explains the persistence of the religious sentiment +in epochs of high culture, can it also explain its appearance in the +pre-historic ages of humanity? Those who raise this objection have not +sufficiently marked the permanent nature of the initial contradiction +which constitutes, at the beginning as at the end, the empirical life +of man, and which renders it in all degrees so precarious and so +miserable. It is not a contradiction created by logic. To experience +it and to suffer from it man did not need to wait until he became a +philosopher. It manifested itself in the terrors of the savage in +presence of the cataclysms of nature, in the midst of the perils of the +primeval forest not less than in our troubled thought in presence of +the enigma of the universe and the mystery of death. The expression of +human misery and the consciousness thereof are different things; the +religious thrill which brings relief, at bottom is the same. Pascal, +with all his knowledge, did not experience less distress than primitive +man, when he exclaimed: "The eternal silence of the infinite spaces +terrifies me." The disciple of Kant, shutting himself up in despair +within the impassable limits of phenomenal knowledge, or the disciple +of Schopenhauer ending in the internecine conflict between intellect +and will, are they not smitten with a feeling of impotence still more +painful, and, when they cease to reason in order to decide to live, do +they not feel forming within themselves, and in spite of themselves, a +sigh which is the beginning of a prayer? + +Religion, therefore, is immortal. Far from drying up with time, the +spring from whence it flows in the human soul enlarges, deepens, and +becomes more rich under the twofold action of philosophic reflection +and of the painful experiences of life. Those who predict its +approaching end mistake for religion that which is only its outward and +fleeting expression. The periodical crises in which it seems as if it +must perish, renew its traditions and its forms, and, so far from +proving its weakness, demonstrate its fecundity and its faculty of +rejuvenescence. Never, in all history, has the human soul been seen +entirely naked. On this tree, in which the sap divine mounts ever, the +leaves of one season only fall, however dry they may be, under the +pressure of new leaves. Religious beliefs do not die; they are simply +transformed. Let the friends of religion then cease to be alarmed and +its enemies to rejoice. The hopes of the one and the fears of the +other show an equal misconception of that which is its essence and its +principle. If they seek it in themselves, they will find it all the +more living in their inner life, the more its traditional forms outside +themselves seem menaced. The sigh, the impulse, or the melancholy of +the soul in distress are more religious than an interested or +mechanical devotion. There are hours when the heresy which suffers, +and which seeks and prays, is much nearer the source of life than the +intellectual obstinacy of an orthodoxy incapable, as it would seem, of +comprehending the dogmas that it keeps embalmed. Let the men who +despise religion learn first to know it; let them see it as it is--the +inward happy crisis by which human life is transformed and an issue +opened up to it towards the ideal life. All human development springs +from it and ends in it. Art, morals, science itself fade and waste +away if this supreme inspiration be wanting to them; the irreligious +soul expires as if from lack of breath. Man is not; he has to make +himself; and in order to this he must mount from the darkness and +bondage of earth to light and liberty. It is by religion that humanity +begins in him, and it is by religion that it is established and +completed. + + +3. _Religion is the Prayer of the Heart_ + +We shall now be able to define the essence of religion. It is a +commerce, a conscious and willed relation into which the soul in +distress enters with the mysterious power on which it feels that it and +its destiny depend. This commerce with God is realised by prayer. +Prayer is religion in act--that is to say, real religion. It is prayer +which distinguishes religious phenomena from all those which resemble +them or lie near to them, from the moral sense, for instance, or +æsthetic feeling. If religion is a practical need, the response to it +can only be a practical action. No theory would suffice. Religion is +nothing if it is not the vital act by which the whole spirit seeks to +save itself by attaching itself to its principle. This act is prayer, +by which I mean, not an empty utterance of words, not the repetition of +certain sacred formulas, but the movement of the soul putting itself +into personal relation and contact with the mysterious power whose +presence it feels even before it is able to give it a name. Where this +inward prayer is wanting there is no religion; on the other hand, +wherever this prayer springs up in the soul and moves it, even in the +absence of all form and doctrine clearly defined, there is true +religion, living piety. From this point of view, perhaps a history of +prayer would be the best history of the religious development of +mankind. That history would be seen to commence in the crudest cry for +help and to complete itself in perfect prayer which, on the lips of +Christ, is simply submission to and confidence in the Father's will. + +This concrete definition of religion has the advantage of correcting by +completing that of Schleiermacher. It reconciles the two antithetic +elements which constitute the religious sentiment: the passive and the +active elements, the feeling of dependence and the movement of liberty. +Prayer, springing up out of our state of misery and oppression, +delivers us from it. There is in it both submission and faith. +Submission makes us recognise and accept our dependence, faith +transforms that dependence into liberty. These two elements correspond +to the two poles of the religious life; for in all true piety man +prostrates himself before the omnipotence that encompasses him, and he +rises with a feeling of deliverance and of concord with his God. +Schleiermacher erred in insisting only upon resignation. Thenceforth +he could neither escape Pantheism in order to arrive at liberty, nor +find any link between the religious and the moral life. Religion, +then, is a free act as well as a feeling of dependence. And such is +the character and the virtue of the act of prayer that everything is +transformed by it. The crushing feeling of my defeat becomes the +joyful and triumphant feeling of my victory. Each of these states is +changed into its opposite, so that the truly religious man lives at +once in a free obedience and in an obedient liberty. If religion has +often been an oppressive power and an instrument of servitude, it has +been at least as often the mother of all the liberties. The force +which bows me down is that which also lifts me up, for it passes into +my soul. The God that I adore comes in the end to be an inward God +whose presence drives away all fear and places me beyond the reach of +all the menaces of things. The conscious realisation of this presence +of God,--that is the true salvation of my being and my life. + +I now understand why "natural religion" is not a religion. It deprives +man of prayer; it leaves God and man at a distance from each other. No +intimate commerce, no interior dialogue, no exchange between them, no +action of God in man, no return of man to God. At bottom, this +pretended religion is nothing but philosophy. It arises in periods of +rationalism, of criticism, of impersonal reason, and has never been +anything but an abstraction. The three dogmas in which it is summed +up--the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the +obligation of duty--are but the inorganic residue, the _caput mortuum_, +found at the bottom of the crucible in which all positive religions are +dissolved. This natural religion, so called, is not found in Nature; +it is no more natural than it is religious. A lifeless, artificial +creation, it shows hardly any of the characteristic marks of a +religion. For the moment, it may seem to have the advantage of +escaping the attacks of scientific criticism. On trial, it is found to +be less resistant than any other. The self-same reason that +constructed it destroys it, and its dogmas are perhaps more compromised +to-day in face of modern thought than those it professes to replace. + +Religion then is inward prayer and deliverance. It is inherent in man +and could only be torn from his heart by separating man from himself, +if I may so say, and destroying that which constitutes humanity in him. +I am religious, I repeat, because I am a man, and neither have the wish +nor the power to separate myself from my kind. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +RELIGION AND REVELATION + +1. _The Mystery of the Religious Life_ + +"Thou wouldst not seek me hadst thou not already found me." In this +word that Pascal heard amid his restless search, the whole mystery of +piety is disclosed. If religion is the prayer of man, it may be said +that revelation is the response of God, but only on condition that we +add that this response is always, in germ at least, in the prayer +itself. + +This thought struck me like a flash of light. It was the solution of a +problem that had long appeared to me to be insoluble. I had never read +without a certain amount of doubt, and as an oratorical exaggeration, +that promise made by Jesus to His disciples with so strange an +assurance: "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: +knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, +receiveth: and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it +shall be opened" (Matt vii. 7, 8). Jesus had experienced a truth of +which I am only beginning to catch sight: no prayer remains unanswered, +because God to whom it is addressed is the One who has already inspired +it. The search for God cannot be fruitless: for, the moment I set out +to seek Him, He finds me and lays hold of me. Allow me to reflect a +little longer on this mystery. I seem as if I were listening to these +gospel words and promises for the first time. They sound in my ears +like deep and solemn music which, bearing to me the echo of the +religiously active soul of Jesus, brings succour to my own. The +religious life, then, is not a fixed state; it is a movement of the +soul, it is a desire, a need. The love of truth, is it not the +principle of science? To love truth above all things, is not that in +some way to be already in the truth? The point of departure, the +inward beginning of a real righteousness, is not this repentance, that +is to say the pain of not being righteous? I understand now why the +Christ has made humility and confidence the sole conditions of entrance +to His kingdom, why His Word has made riches spring from poverty, +health from sickness, and satisfaction from the very intensity of need. +Secret of the gospel, mysterious laws of spirit, pure moral essence of +the kingdom of God, paradoxes which disconcert the man immersed in the +ideas of the life of sense and self, but which contain the highest +realities of moral life, reveal yourselves with ever-growing clearness +to my consciousness, since, for me, on this first revelation all the +rest depend! + +I turn to another thought of Pascal. "Piety," he says, "is God +sensible to the heart." If so, it is evident that in all piety there +is some positive manifestation of God. The ideas of religion and +revelation are therefore correlative and religiously inseparable. +Religion is simply the subjective revelation of God in man, and +revelation is religion objective in God. It is the relation of subject +and object, of effect and cause, organically united; it is one and the +same psychological phenomenon, which can neither subsist nor be +produced save by their conjunction. It is as impossible to isolate as +it is to confound them. + +I conceive therefore that revelation is as universal as religion +itself, that it descends as low, goes as far, ascends as high, and +accompanies it always. No form of piety is empty; no religion is +absolutely false; no prayer is vain. Once more, revelation is in +prayer and progresses with prayer. From a revelation obtained in a +first prayer is born a purer prayer, and from this a higher revelation. +Thus light grows with life, truth with piety. This makes it possible +for me to enter into communion and sympathy with all sincerely +religious souls, however simple and however crude or gross their +worship and their faith; but if I can comprehend them, I cannot always +speak their language or share their ideas. All religions are not +equally good, nor are all prayers acceptable to my consciousness. To +return to exploded superstitions or to beliefs now recognised to be +illusory is as much a moral impossibility as it would be for a +full-grown man to return to the puerilities of his childhood. +Revelation therefore is not a communication once for all of immutable +doctrines which only need to be held fast. The object of the +revelation of God can only be God Himself, and if a definition must be +given of it, it may be said to consist of the creation, the +purification, and the progressive clearness of the consciousness of God +in man,--in the individual and in the race. + +From this point of view, I see very clearly that the revelation of God +never needs to be proved to any one. The attempt would be as +contradictory as it is superfluous. Two things are equally impossible: +for an irreligious man to discover a divine revelation in a faith he +does not share, or for a truly pious man not to find one in the +religion he has espoused and which lives in his heart. With what, +moreover, and how could it be proved that light shines except by +forcing those who are asleep to awake and open their eyes? All serious +Apologetics must insist as a necessary starting-point on the awakening +and conversion of the soul. + +Having always been religious, mankind has never been destitute of +revelation, that is to say of witness more or less obscure, more or +less correctly interpreted, of the presence in it and the action of +God. But if men have always maintained some relation and some commerce +with the deity, they have not always represented in the same manner the +mode in which communications have been received from Him. The notion +of revelation has progressed with the growth of mental enlightenment +and with the nature of the piety. It is therefore necessary to +criticise that notion and to see what it has now become for us. It is +to this examination that I shall devote this second meditation. The +idea of revelation has passed through three phases in the course of +history: the mythological, the dogmatic, and the critical. + + +2. _The Mythological Notion of Revelation_ + +Among the faculties of man, the first to awaken in the mental life of +the child and of the savage is the imagination. All literatures begin +with chants, all histories with legends, and all religions with myths +or symbols. Poetry always makes its appearance before prose. One can +only see the effect of an inveterate rationalism in the promptitude +with which men are scandalised at any attempt to point out in the Bible +or around the cradle of Christianity legends and myths serving as +sacred vehicles for the purest and sublimest religious revelations, as +if the divine Spirit, in order to be intelligible to the simple and the +ignorant, could not as well avail Himself of the fictions of poetry as +of logical reasonings, of the chants of the angels at Bethlehem as of +the rabbinical exegesis and argumentations of the Apostle Paul. A myth +is false in appearance only. When the heart was pure and sincere the +veils of fable always allowed the face of truth to shine through. And +why so much disdain? Does not childhood run on into maturity and old +age? What are our most abstract ideas but primitive metaphors which +have been worn and thinned by usage and reflection? + +It is none the less true, as St. Paul says, that in advancing in age we +have left behind the speech and thought of infancy. The first men did +not know how to distinguish between the substance and the form of their +beliefs. This distinction has become easy to us. The most +conservative minds can no longer read the stories or the monuments of +the ancient religions without criticising and translating them. + +The men of other times, timid and ingenuous as children, saw everywhere +material signs by which they believed the will of the gods was +manifested. They early formed the art of divination--an essentially +religious art. It is found among all peoples, the ancient Hebrews not +excepted. The thunder was to them the voice of God. They consulted +Him by the Urim and Thummim, and by the sacred ephod. They did not +doubt, any more than the Greeks, either the divine origin or the +prophetic sense of dreams. Elsewhere they evoked the dead, they +interrogated the flight of birds, they listened to the sound of the +wind in the foliage of the oaks, or to the noise of waters in sonorous +caverns. That was an external and, in some sort, physical conception +of revelation, from which modern peoples have escaped, but with which +all set out. + +In the oldest traditions of Hebraism, God speaks to Adam, to Noah, to +Abraham, to Moses, as one man speaks to another, by articulate sounds +perceived by the ear. The sacred formula, _Thus saith the Lord_, +serves as the uniform introduction to civil, political, and ritual, as +well as to moral and religious, laws. Religion then embraced and +regulated all the life. The great empires of antiquity all claim a +divine origin. As to ancient legislations, there is not one that is +not said to have come from heaven. The Egyptians refer theirs to the +god Thoth or Hermes; Minos, in Crete, is said to have received his laws +from Jupiter; Lycurgus, in Sparta, from Apollo; Zoroaster, in Persia, +from Ahura Mazda; Numa Pompilius, at Rome, from the nymph Egeria. +Moses does not stand alone. I am not here comparing the value of the +things; I am simply pointing out the identity of the representations. + +Nor was it only religious and political institutions that they referred +to the will of the gods; they referred to it all kinds of decisions and +enterprises; declarations of war, raids to make, the order of battle, +the extermination of the vanquished, the sharing of the spoils, +conditions of peace, expiations to be made; everything was done in +obedience to supernatural orders the authenticity of which no one +thought of discussing. In the same way, a divine inspiration explained +the gift of predicting the future, the eloquence of orators, the +sagacity of statesmen, the genius of great soldiers, the verve of +poets, and even the skill of the more famous artisans. "Legends!" it +is said. No doubt. But these legends are universal. Men speak +everywhere the same language, because everywhere they think in the same +fashion. + +A great progress, however, is accomplished in Israel. The notion of +revelation gradually becomes interior and moral. Among the prophets, +revelation is conceived of as the action of the Spirit of Jehovah +entering and acting in the spirit of man. It is true that the mythical +conception still persists and betrays itself in this: divine +inspiration is represented as the invasion of a human being by another +being alien to him,--as a sort of mental alienation or possession. The +divine Spirit is represented as a force which comes from without, a +wind from above which no one can resist, of which the elect are as much +the victims as the organs. Its action is measured by the agitation and +commotion of the inspired, by the disorder of their faculties, by the +incoherence of their gestures and their speech. The delirium of man +becomes the sign of the presence of God. Madmen, valetudinarians, +epileptics, are regarded almost everywhere as the favourites of Heaven. +Their strange words or acts men believe to be divine oracles delivered +unconsciously and against the will. + +This violent opposition between the supernatural action of the divine +Spirit and the normal exercise of rational faculties is gradually +attenuated in the course of the ages. It is easy to see that in the +great prophets of Israel the formula _Thus saith the Lord_, while still +frequent and still expressing the same subjective certitude of +inspiration, has become a simple rhetorical form. God speaks +henceforth to His people by their eloquence, by their faith, by their +genius. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," cries the second +Isaiah; "because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to +the meek," etc. (Is. lxi. 1-3). + +This evolution appears to have been completed in the soul of Christ. +Here inspiration ceases to be miraculous without ceasing to be +supernatural. It is no longer produced by fits and starts or +intermittently. An ancient gospel ("The Gospel of the Hebrews") +admirably marks this change. At the moment of His baptism the Holy +Spirit says to Jesus: _Mi fili, te exspectabam in omnibus prophetis, ut +venires et requiescerem in te. Tu enim es requies mea_. (My Son, in +all the prophets I awaited Thy coming in order that I might repose in +Thee. Thou art indeed my rest.) + +Being continuous, the inspiration becomes normal. The ancient conflict +between the divine Spirit and the human vanishes. The immanent and +constant action of the one manifests itself in the regular and fruitful +action of the other. God lives and works in man, man lives and works +in God. Religion and Nature, the voice divine and the voice of +conscience, the subject and the object of revelation, penetrate each +other and become one. The supreme revelation of God shines forth in +the highest of all consciousnesses and the loveliest of human lives. + +This progress, is it not admirable? Should it not strike the attention +all the more inasmuch as, instead of being the effect of rational +criticism, it is, in Christianity, exclusively the work of piety? +This, become more profound, has conquered the ancient antithesis +created by the ignorance of early times. Divesting itself more and +more of foreign and inferior elements, the idea of revelation has been +found to be more human as it has become more inward, more constant, +more strictly moral and religious. Christ has not given us a critical +theory of revelation; He has done what is better; He has given us +revelation itself--a perfect and permanent revelation; He presents God +and man to us so intimately united in all the acts and moments of His +inner life, that they become inseparable. The Father acts in His Son, +and the Son reveals the Father to all who wish to know Him. + +Though he still retained many remnants of the ancient mythological +notion (visions, dreams, ecstasies, delirium of tongues), the Apostle +Paul seized with energy the distinguishing characteristic of the +Christian revelation, and propounded the theory of it with a sacred +boldness. That theory consists in the effusion and habitation of the +Holy Spirit in the souls of Christians who, in their turn, become +"children of God," and enjoy, by this Spirit, the same direct and +permanent communion with the Father. This Spirit is no longer an alien +guest or a perturbing force; He becomes in us a second nature. That is +why the Christian is set free from all the old tutelages; he judges +everything and is judged by nothing; he has his law within himself, so +that from this inspiration springs his autonomy and his liberty. + +But neither this spiritual piety nor the lofty conception which flows +from it could long be sustained. Preoccupied in founding its +authority, and only being able to succeed in it by returning to the +idea of an external revelation, the Catholic Church made it to consist +chiefly in rules and dogmas, and, by this change, it naturally +transformed the mythological notion of revelation into a dogmatic +notion not essentially different. + + +3. _Dogmatic Notion_ + +"The Greeks," said Paul, "seek philosophy; the Jews demand miracles." +From these two tendencies combined, from Greek rationalism and Hebrew +supernaturalism, sprang the new notion that may be summed up and +defined thus: a divine doctrine legitimated by divine signs or miracles. + +These two elements of the theory are mutually dependent, and form an +indivisible whole. Given to man in a supernatural way, the doctrine +surpasses the reach of the human understanding; hence it must not be +imposed upon the mind by its own evidence or examined by natural +reason. The supernatural doctrine demands supernatural proof. This +proof can only be found in the miracles which have accompanied the +doctrine from its birth. Thus mysteries, incomprehensible in the order +of reason, will necessarily be established by inexplicable events in +the order of Nature. + +The theory, in this way, becomes coherent, but it is not complete. A +third term must be added. The divine doctrine must be embodied in a +form which distinguishes it from all others, and placed under an +authority that guarantees it. For Protestantism, the form and the +authority of revelation is--the Bible; for Catholicism, it is the Bible +sovereignly interpreted by the Church. The scholastic notion of +revelation is now complete. The doctors teach us to distinguish three +things in it: the object, which is dogma; the form, which is Scripture; +and the proof or criterion, which is miracle. This construction +appears to be compact in all its parts; in reality it is so fragile and +so artificial that it crumbles at a touch. + +To make of dogma, that is to say of an intellectual datum, the object +of revelation is, in the first place, to eliminate from it its +religious character by separating it from piety, and in the next place +it is to place it in permanent and irreconcilable conflict with the +reason, which is always progressing. In vain do they appear to deduce +this scholastic theory from the Bible; it is simply an unfaithful +translation of the Biblical notion. They tear up from the soil of the +religious life the revelation of God in order to constitute it into a +body of supernatural verities, subsisting by itself, to which they make +it an obligation and a merit to adhere, silencing, if needs be, both +the judgment and the conscience. Faith, which, in the Bible, was an +act of confidence and consecration to God, becomes an intellectual +adherence to an historical testimony or to a doctrinal formula. A +mortal dualism starts up in religion. It is admitted that orthodoxy +may exist apart from piety, that a man may obtain and possess the +object of faith apart from the conditions that faith presupposes, and, +at a push, serve divine truth while inwardly an unbeliever and a +reprobate. Get rid of this illusion, frivolous and irreligious man! +Whatever your authorities in earth or heaven, you are not in the truth, +because you are not in piety. God has not spoken anything to you. To +the prophets He has spoken, doubtless, and to Christ and the apostles +and the saints; to you He still remains a stranger and unknown. His +revelation has not been to you a light, for you are walking in +darkness. You are like the Jews who built the tombs of the prophets +and crowned their memory with empty honours. Had you been living in +the time of the men of God, you would have been the first to stone them. + +This idea of revelation is at bottom entirely pagan. In the region of +authentic Christianity you cannot separate the revealing act of God +from His redeeming and sanctifying action. God does not enlighten, on +the contrary He blinds those whom He does not save or sanctify. Let us +boldly conclude, therefore, against all traditional orthodoxies, that +the object of the revelation of God could only be God Himself, that is +to say the sense of His presence in us, awakening our soul to the life +of righteousness and love. When the word of God does not give us life, +it gives us nothing. It is true that that presence and that action of +the divine Spirit in our hearts become in them a light whose rays +illumine all the faculties of the soul. But do not hope to enjoy that +light apart from the central sun from which it flows. + +The scholastic notion is not only irreligious; it is +anti-psychological. In entering the human understanding this +supernatural knowledge introduces into it a hopeless dualism. The +sacred sciences are set up alongside the profane sciences without its +being possible to organise them together into a coherent and harmonious +body, for they are not of the same nature, they do not proceed from the +same method, they do not accept the same control. You have thus a +sacred cosmogony and a profane cosmogony, a sacred history of the +origins of man and a purely human history of his beginnings, and of his +first adventures, a divine metaphysic and another purely rational. How +to make them live together and unite them? If, by a subtle theology, +you succeed in rationalising dogma, do you not see that you destroy it +in its very essence? If you demonstrate that it is essentially +irrational, do you not feel that you are instituting an endless warfare +between the authority of dogma and the authority of reason? One +remembers the generous attempt of mediæval scholasticism, taken up +again by the Protestant theologians of the seventeenth century, and one +has not forgotten its twice fatal issue. One would need to have no +notion of the laws of human thought to be astonished at it. Nominalism +in the fifteenth century and rationalism in the eighteenth were the two +natural heirs of orthodoxy. + +The intervention of miracle as a _criterion_ or proof of doctrine does +not remove the difficulties of the theory; it multiplies and aggravates +them. In consequence of the lapse of time, the incertitude of the +documents, and the demands of modern thought, miracle, which formerly +established the truth of religion, has become much more difficult to +demonstrate than religion itself. The relation between the two has +been reversed. The foundation of the edifice has become more ruinous +than the building. Examples? Consider, then, on the one hand, the +Decalogue, and on the other the thunders and lightnings of Sinai. +Peals of thunder may have served to convince the Hebrews that the law +of Moses came from the Eternal; for they looked upon thunder as +revealing the presence, in some sort material and local, of their God. +But who does not see that it is much easier to-day to prove the +excellence and the truth of the _Ten Words_ of the Law than the divine +character of the most terrible of tempests? Make the opposite +experiment: you are familiar with the Books of Joshua, Judges, Kings. +You have read in them those orders issued by Jehovah for the total +extermination of peoples whose crime was the defence of their country +against the invaders. Prodigies abound in them: the walls of Jericho +fall down at the sound of trumpets, etc., etc. Are these events +sufficient to warrant us in admitting the affirmation of the Hebrew +historian that these terrible reprisals, these crimes and violences, +which were then common in all the Semitic tribes, were commanded either +by the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ or by the impartial God of the +universe? Our conscience resists and protests. Prodigies the most +brilliant cannot make it do violence to itself or bend the law of +righteousness and love beneath any manifestation, however striking, of +brute force. Let us go further; let us come to the miracles of Christ. +Let us interrogate the best Christians of our time: let us ask +ourselves, Is it the cures that Jesus wrought which make us believe +to-day in the divine truth of His word or which give authority to the +Sermon on the Mount? Is it not rather the Gospel that helps us to +believe in the miracles by persuading us that a man who spake like this +man must have been able to do things and work works as beautiful and as +wonderful as the words which He spoke? The most conservative +Apologists of the traditional school confess to-day that miracle has +lost its evidential force; it might move those who witnessed it, but +its action and its prestige have necessarily been diminishing day by +day for the generations which have followed them. + +What if we were to press the idea of miracle itself which is in process +of vanishing in proportion as the idea of Nature is transformed? What +is Nature? Who knows its secrets and its limits? The theory of the +evolution of things and beings, does it not show Nature to us as in +travail, and as if perpetually giving birth to marvels? And if this +creative energy which is in it can only religiously be referred to the +constant activity of God in the universe and in history, how can we +still oppose the laws of Nature to the will of God? Moreover, nothing +is to-day more indeterminate, more impossible to define than the notion +of miracle; it floats without ever being able to fix itself, between +the idea of an absolute violation of the laws of Nature now no longer +witnessed anywhere, to that entirely relative one of an extraordinary +event, which, seeing that it may be encountered everywhere, no longer +proves anything. + +Lastly, if from the _object_ and the _criterion_ of revelation, we pass +to the form which conserves and warrants it, _i.e._ to the Bible, +questions become still more numerous and insoluble. In the seventeenth +century the notion of the Bible and that of revelation were coincident +and commensurate. But this identity depended upon two dogmas much +impaired to-day. The one was the divine origin of the two Biblical +Canons, _i.e._ of the Old and New Testaments: the other, the verbal +inspiration of all holy Scripture, considered as divinely dictated. + +History and exegesis have dissipated the illusions and the ignorance on +which these two strange affirmations rested. The Bible appears to us +as the work, slowly and laboriously constructed, of the ancient Jewish +Synagogue, and of the Early Christian Church. It needed more than four +centuries to establish and to delimitate the New Testament. The books +which compose it were still in the time of Eusebius divided into two +classes: books admitted everywhere and books contested. Why then +should we not have the same liberty as Origen of doubting the +authenticity of 2 Peter, _e.g._, or as Denis of Alexandria in +discussing the apostolic origin of the Apocalypse? As to the theory of +verbal inspiration, which makes the sacred writers God's penmen merely, +no savant nowadays can defend it, so thoroughly have biblical studies +set forth the personal originality of each of them, and the merits or +the imperfections of their works. Moreover, the distinction clearly +made in all the schools between the sacred writings and revelation must +be considered as an inalienable conquest of modern theology. There is +no one now who does not admit this truth, which would have seemed +intolerable to our fathers, namely, that the word of God is in the +Bible, but that all the Bible is not the word of God. + +If this be so one sees new questions surging up and awaiting solution. +What is the relation of the word of God to the Bible? By what sign may +we recognise the first and distinguish the second? Further, if there +be any word of God outside the Bible, if there has been any revelation +of God beyond the limits of the Hebrew people and primitive +Christianity--and how can we deny this without denying the worth of +religion?--what relation is there to establish, and what synthesis to +make, between the biblical revelation and the other revelations suited +to the various human families? Lastly, what place does the religion of +Jesus occupy in the religious evolution of humanity? Modern theology +seems deaf to these questions. Despairing of a solution, it hesitates +to approach them. But they must be answered. Contemporary philosophy +presses them upon the conscience of Christians. The scholastic theory, +it is clear, cannot bring any solution to these new problems. As soon +as the distinction is made in our consciousness between the word of God +and the letter of holy Scripture, the first becomes independent of all +human form and of all external guarantee. It is with it as with the +light of the sun. It is only recognised by the brightness with which +it floods us. But take care to introduce this criterion of religious +and moral evidence into the scholastic theory is to deposit an +explosive in the heart of it which shatters it to atoms.... I leave to +others the task of masking or repairing the ruins. A task more urgent +and more fruitful awaits us. We must build up, on a new principle, a +new theory of revelation, a theory that will at once bear the test of +criticism and give satisfaction to piety. + + +4. _Psychological Notion_ + +To return to psychology. In all piety there is some positive +manifestation of God. Otherwise, one might question the value of +religious phenomena. + +Three consequences follow: the revelation of God will be evident, +interior, progressive. + +It will be interior, because God, not having phenomenal existence, can +only reveal Himself to spirit, and in the piety that He Himself +inspires. + +If revealers and prophets believed they heard the voice of God outside +themselves they were the victims of a psychological illusion that +analysis discerns and dissipates. The old theologian was right who +said: + +_Nulla fides si non primum Deus ipse loquitur; Nulla que verba Dei nisi +quæ in penetralibus audit Ipsa fides._[1] This interior revelation is +only made, it is true, in connection with some external event of Nature +or of History. If wonder is the beginning of philosophy it is also the +commencement of piety. Religious emotion does not spring up by chance +and unconditionally. But external signs are only revealers for those +who know how to comprehend them, and who are able to interpret them in +a religious sense. That is why the distinction sometimes made between +the _manifestation_ of God in things and divine _inspiration_ in +consciousness, between the sign or external miracle and the inward +word, is of little worth except for pedagogic purposes. The +manifestation of God in Nature or in History is always a matter of +faith. It would only appear to be such in the light on the hearth of +consciousness. Put out that inner light and everything speedily +becomes obscure: "If the light that is in thee be darkness, there will +be darkness round about thee," says Jesus. To the deaf man the +universe is mute. The starry heavens which bent the pensive brows of +Newton and of Kant before the majesty of God, said nothing to Laplace. +Lit up within, the soul of Christ saw everywhere the signs of God. +Caiaphas saw none. In the cross of Jesus, where St. Paul discerned the +manifestation of the wisdom and the power of God, the Pharisees had +only seen the crushing proof that this Messiah was a mere impostor. + + +[1] There is no faith save in the heart where God has first made +Himself heard, and there are no divine words except those which faith +hears in the inmost sanctuary of the soul. + + +This inward revelation will be also _evident_. The contrary would +imply a contradiction. He who says revelation says the veil withdrawn, +the light come. True, the word _mystery_ is often on the lips of +Jesus, and in the writings of the New Testament; but, when applied to +the essence of the Gospel it never has the meaning which is given to it +later in the language of theology. The mystery of which Jesus, Paul, +and the Apostles speak is a revealed mystery, _i.e._ a mystery which +has become evident to pure hearts and pious souls through the public +preaching of it. The Gospel is not obscurity; it is daylight, and it +is nonsense to demand a criterion of evangelical revelation other than +itself, any other evidence, _i.e._, than its own truth, beauty, and +efficiency. + +Lastly, this revelation will be _progressive_. It will be developed +with the progress of the moral and religious life which God begets and +nourishes in the bosom of humanity. The word of God is not that of a +poor human founder who formulates in abstract terms ideas which are but +the pale shadows of things. It is essentially creative. It carries +with it all the substance of being and all the potency of life. It +realises that which it proclaims, and never manifests itself except by +its works. When God wished to give the Decalogue to Israel, He did not +write with His finger on tables of stone; He raised up Moses, and from +the consciousness of Moses the Decalogue sprang. In order that we +might have the Epistle to the Romans, there was no need to dictate it +to the Apostle; God had only to create the powerful individuality of +Saul of Tarsus, well knowing that when once the tree was made the fruit +would follow in due course. The same with the Gospel; He did not drop +it from the sky; He did not send it by an angel; He caused Jesus to be +born from the very bosom of the human race, and Jesus gave us the +Gospel that had blossomed in His inmost heart. Thus God reveals +Himself in the great consciousnesses that His Spirit raises, fills, +illumines one by one; they form a sacred theory through the ages and +leave on history a track of light which brightens, broadens to the +perfect day. + +A new and graver problem here arises. This revelation, made in the +depths of the human soul, remains individual and subjective. How will +it become objective and concrete? How will it be made an educating, +saving power? This problem would be insoluble if Leibniz was right, if +human souls were independent monads, closed against and impenetrable to +one another, if it had been necessary, in a word, to regard them as +absolute entities, posited from the beginning by the Creator. But they +are nothing of the kind. Social philosophy has sufficiently +demonstrated that no individual exists either by himself or for himself +alone. In each man it is humanity that is realised--that is to say, a +moral life common to all. Moral goods are in essence universal. They +do not exist, doubtless, apart from the consciousness of the +individual; but no consciousness acquires them without acquiring them, +in principle at least, for all others. + +Whence comes that religious kinship of souls, that facility of +communion between them, and that infinite extension and prolongation of +one and the same inspiration, if not from the presence in each of the +same indwelling God? Men are only divided by their external idols. In +proportion as they plumb their being and descend into the depths of +their spiritual nature, they discover the same altar, recite the same +prayer, aspire to the same end. It is for this profound reason that +individual revelations become universal. There are only prophets +chosen of God because there is a general vocation and election of all +men. If humanity were not potentially and in some degree an Immanuel +(God with us), there would never have issued from its bosom Him who +bore and revealed this blessed name. The religious experience He +passed through, He passed through for us; the victory He won was for +our advantage and is repeated indefinitely in every sincere soul that +joins itself to Him to live His life. Thus the revelation of God given +at one point and in one consciousness infallibly shines forth, +perpetuates and multiplies itself. A vibration set up in a soul +resounds in kindred souls. An illumined consciousness illuminates in +turn. There are religious filiations, just as there are historical +genealogies. Thus the inner revelation becomes consistent and +objective in history; it forms a chain, a continuous tradition, and +becoming incarnate in each human generation, remains not only the +richest of heritages, but the most fecund of historical powers. + +One step more. Let us follow this historical incarnation of religious +tradition into its most material form. The inner experiences of men of +God and the witness of them that they give to the world, express +themselves naturally in speech, and this in its turn is transformed +into Scripture. It is in this way that in all civilised religions +divine revelation is presented to man in the form of a sacred writing; +everywhere it is gathered into collections of sacred books which have +been called the bibles of humanity. While all these have been born +according to the same psychological and historical laws, it does not +follow that they have all the same value, or that an unintelligent +syncretism has the right to mix together the various elements in them +to make of them one common and characterless Bible. No; each of them +naturally belongs to a particular stage in the ladder of divine +revelations, and there we must leave them. The highest will always be +that which contains the deepest and purest expression of inward +religion, and consequently offers to man the most precious treasure. +The rank of the Hebrew and Christian Bible is thus found to be +logically determined by the moral worth of the Hebrew and the Christian +religions. But in leaving historical criticism and religious +experience to make here the necessary demonstration and render it daily +more evident, we must once more call to mind the always human +conditions of these written collections, of those at the top as well as +those at the bottom of the ladder, conditions which forbid us ever to +identify the letter and the spirit, the divine inspiration and the +particular form in which it has been clothed. + +God, wishing to speak to us, has never chosen any but human organs. +With whatever inspiration He has endowed them, that inspiration has +always therefore passed through human subjectivity; it has only been +able either to express or to translate itself in the language and the +turn of mind of a particular individual and of a particular time. Now, +no individual and historical form can be absolute. If the contents are +divine, the vessel is always earthen. The organ of the revelation of +God necessarily limits it. It must of necessity accommodate itself to +the limits of human receptivity. How could it possibly enter and +mingle with the changing waves of the intellectual and moral life of +humanity unless it flowed in the bed of the river and between its banks? + +However incontestable this historical complexity of the divine and +human elements in religion, most men seem incapable of comprehending +it, and of frankly accepting it. Men of little faith, we feel +ourselves lost the moment men take from us the illusion that we ever +have before us and outside of us the divine revelation in an objective +and unadulterated form, when alongside authority and tradition they +make a place for the freedom and the interpretation of consciousness. +Is there then some chemistry by which we can separate that which God +has joined so indissolubly? Has life ever been seen apart from living +beings or light apart from luminous vibrations? Why not make an effort +to see that the wisdom of God is infinitely greater than our own, and +that what He has given us is better than that of which we dreamed. +Life and light, even if they are not absolute, propagate themselves +with none the less force. + +Lastly, what is the criterion by which you may recognise an authentic +revelation of God in the books you read, in the things you are taught? +Listen: only one criterion is sufficient and infallible: every divine +revelation, every religious experience fit to nourish and sustain your +soul, must be able to repeat and continue itself as an actual +revelation and an individual experience in your own consciousness. +What cannot enter thus as a permanent and constituent element into the +woof of your inner life, to enrich, enfranchise, and transform it into +a higher life, cannot be for you a light, or, consequently, a divine +revelation. The spirit of life is not there. Do not believe that the +prophets and founders have transmitted to you their experience in order +to make yours needless, or that their revelation has been brought to +you in a book for you to receive passively and as if it were an alien +thing. Religious truth cannot be borrowed like money, or, rather, if +you do so borrow it you are none the richer. Remember what the +Samaritans said to the woman: "Now we believe, not because of thy +saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed +the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John iv. 42). Thus the divine +revelation which is not realised in us, and does not become immediate, +does not exist for us. And I admire the counsel of God, Who, wishing +to raise man into liberty, did not give to him an objective revelation +which would have become to him a yoke of bondage. The aim of tradition +is liberty, and liberty returns lovingly to tradition when, instead of +finding it a yoke, it sees in it only a help, an aliment, a guide. + + +5. _Conclusion_ + +Such, in its principle, and with all its consequences, is the new idea +of revelation given to us by psychology and history. Before it vanish +the insoluble antitheses and conflicts raised by scholasticism between +supernatural and natural revelation, between what the theologians call +immediate and mediate, between a universal and a special revelation. +Synthesis is made, and peace is re-established. + +There is not and could never have been two revelations different in +nature and opposed to each other. Revelation is one, in different +forms and various degrees. It is at once supernatural and natural: +supernatural by the cause which engenders it in souls, and which, +always remaining invisible and transcendent, never exhausts or +imprisons itself in the phenomena it produces; natural, by its effects, +because, realising itself in history, it always appears therein +conditioned by the historical environment and by the common laws which +regulate the human mind. + +This revelation also is immediate for all, for the least in the kingdom +of heaven, as for the greatest of the prophets; for God desires to +admit them all into direct and personal communion with Himself; and it +is equally mediate for all; for it comes to none, whether prophets or +their disciples, unconditionally, and without previous preparation. + +Lastly, it is not less false and futile to oppose universal revelation +to particular revelations as two exclusive quantities. Particular +revelations enter into general revelation as varieties into species. +Every special revelation, if it be really from God, is human, and tends +to become universal; every general revelation was once individual, for +it could only have been made in an individuality. Among the men and +peoples chosen by God as organs there is inequality in gifts but +solidarity in the common work. We must not mistake the one or the +other. The religious vocation of humanity does not exclude--it +prepares and supports--the particular vocation of Israel. In this +national vocation there is a place for that of the prophets, and, among +the prophets, for the vocation of Him who was their heir, and in Whom +the revelation of God was completed, because in His consciousness was +realised perfectly the very idea of piety. + +Is everything explained in religion, then, and nothing left obscure? +Far from that! There remains the ground from which emerges the +conscious and moral life of the soul; there remains that initial +mystery, the relation in our consciousness between the individual and +the universal element, between the finite and the infinite, between God +and man. How can we comprehend their co-existence and their union, and +yet how can we doubt it? Where is the thoughtful man to-day who has +not broken the thin crust of his daily life, and caught a glimpse of +those profound and obscure waters on which floats our consciousness? +Who has not felt within himself a veiled presence and a force much +greater than his own? What worker in a lofty cause has not perceived +within his own personal activity, and saluted with a feeling of +veneration, the mysterious activity of a universal and eternal power? +_In Deo vivimus, movemur et sumus_. There is perhaps no other mystery +in religion; at all events all others are but particular forms of this. +But this mystery cannot be dissipated, for, without it, religion itself +would no longer exist. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MIRACLE AND INSPIRATION + +In speaking of revelation we have already touched on the doctrines of +inspiration and of miracle, which are dependencies of it, and, as it +were, constituent parts. But these two notions are still so obscure in +the public mind, and give rise to so many and such lively +controversies, that it may be well to return to them and study them by +themselves and in some detail. + +In this matter there are two causes of dispute and misunderstanding. +The first is that everybody believes he ought to begin by giving his +own personal and arbitrary definition of miracle, and afterwards +explain by way of deduction why he believes or does not believe in it. +The debate thus turns on a question of terminology--that is to say, on +a vain and barren logomachy. The second cause is that the defenders of +miracle always keep to abstractions, instead of following their +contradictors on to the ground of criticism of miraculous stories and +placing themselves in presence of the facts which alone make up the +matter of the discussion. They believe they have gained everything +when they have proved that God, according to the very definition of the +idea that we have of Him, can do everything--which no one denies--while +the problem consists not in knowing what God can do _in abstracto_, but +what He has done _in concreto_, in Nature and in History. Now, in +order to know what is really done, and whether there are or ever have +been produced phenomena which must be referred to the immediate +intervention, and to a particular volition of God, independently of the +concurrence of second causes, this is evidently something that only the +critical observation of facts, past or present, can teach us. Every +other method of research and discussion is illusory. + +Faithful to our own, we here place ourselves at the historical point of +view. Convinced that ideas have a history, and are most clearly and +surely defined by their very evolution, we shall confine ourselves to +following and describing that evolution. We shall seek in the first +place to ascertain the notion of miracle that was current in antiquity; +after that we shall see what became of it in mediæval theology; and +lastly we shall see into what elements it has resolved itself in modern +times, as much at the point of view of science as of piety. As +religious inspiration, properly speaking, is but a particular miracle, +a miracle of the psychological order, the solution available for the +one will apply to the other. + + +1. _The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity_ + +The primitive conception of Nature was animistic. In everything +_astonishing_, extraordinary, men used to see the action of spirits +like themselves, with whom their religious imagination peopled the +heavens, the earth, the seas. They lived in miracle. It would be +easier to enumerate the things that were not than the things that were +to them miraculous. The word Nature, which has become so familiar and +so indispensable to designate the regular course of things, does not +exist in primitive languages. One does not meet with it even in the +language of the Old Testament. This is because the conception it +represents only came into existence later, and by a slow and laborious +process, in the philosophy of the Greeks. The cosmos, ordered and +harmonious and fixed, is the sublime creation of Hellenic reason. +Elsewhere, no doubt, with experience of life and the daily return of +phenomena, a certain order, the effect of custom, would exist around +man and be established in his mind. He learned to distinguish between +the habitual course of things and the prodigies which caused him +wonder, fear, or hope, and in which he always saw the effect either of +the favour or the anger of a demon or a god. His imagination, to which +his ignorance gave free play, and his credulity, which religious terror +held open to all impressions, stories, legends, wrapped his life in an +atmosphere of marvel, gentle or terrible, but incessant. Eclipses, +earthquakes, thunder, lightning, rainbows, deluges, accidents, +maladies, etc.--these were the work of particular actors, personal, +impassioned like man, hidden behind the scenes. Add to this the +inventions of sorcerers and priests; ... transport yourself into this +first effervescence of the human faculties, into this luxuriant +vegetation of poetical creation in the early human mind, and you will +have some idea of what, for centuries on centuries, must have been the +mental state of primitive historic humanity. Such, however, is the +comparative poverty of human conceptions, that, when you come to +catalogue these marvels, you see them reduced to a small number of +miracles which turn up everywhere and again and again among all +peoples. Their similarity approaches to monotony.... The question for +the moment is not whether these miraculous facts are real or not, but +how the men who have transmitted them to us represented them. There is +no doubt on this point. To them they were not simply astonishing facts +that admitted of a natural explanation. Modern theologians and savants +who seek and find for them explanations of this kind do not perceive +that they contradict themselves, and that to explain miracle in this +way is to destroy it. No; that which is miraculous in these events--to +the contemporaries of Tarquin in Rome, of Joshua in Palestine, to the +people in our own day--is this, that they are produced, contrary to the +natural course of things, solely by a special intervention of the +divine will. That is the mark and characteristic of ancient miracle. +Efface it, for any reason whatever, and miracle disappears. That which +makes it possible is ignorance of Nature and its laws: that which +supports it is the religious belief in the existence of these +supernatural wills and in their unexpected invasion of the succession +of accustomed things. "Without this belief," as M. Ménégoz remarks,[1] +"the birth of a myth or of a legend could not be explained. St. Denis, +decapitated, would not have been able to carry his head." In fact, the +miracles you find in the apocryphal legends are exactly of the same +nature as those which are met with in narratives held to be more +historical. + + +[1] _La notion biblique du miracle_ (Leçon d'ouverture), 1894. + + +I must add that this notion of miracle is absolutely the same in +Biblical as in profane literature. In a general way, no doubt, the +supernatural in the history of Israel and in the early days of +Christianity is of a more sober, more profoundly moral and religious +character than it is everywhere else. But the sacred writers do not +represent miracles differently. Without exception, they also conceive +of them as a violation, by a particular volition of God, of the +ordinary course of things.... Still, so far from being more striking +or more numerous, miracles and prodigies in the Bible are rarer than +elsewhere, clearer, less fantastic, more under law to conscience and to +common sense. The worship of one God, invisible, spiritual, in whom +centres the ideal of wisdom, reason, righteousness, conceived by the +prophets, joined to the lack of imagination in the Hebrew race, has +freed the Bible from the luxuriant growths of oriental mythologies and +theogonies, as of the marvellous in the poesy of Greece. Nothing +purifies the mind like a great moral idea around which all the rest +organises itself. It is very remarkable that the great prophets, +Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work hardly any +miracles. If prodigy has penetrated into the life of Jesus at two or +three points, the explanation is to be found in the mistakes or the +legendary corruptions for which His biographers are alone responsible, +and which criticism may eliminate without violence. Prodigy, properly +so called, is quite foreign to the wholly moral conduct of His life, +and to the strictly religious conception of His work. He did not found +His religion on miracle, but on the light, the consolation, the pardon +and the joy which His gospel, issuing from His holy, loving heart, +brought to broken and repentant souls. His works proceeded only from +His charity. Far from wishing to impose belief in His miracles, He +often forbids men to divulge them. It is to the faith of the afflicted +that He refers their cure. He turns away from the seductive +invitations of miraculous _Messianism_ as from the distrust or the +curiosity of an incredulous wisdom. To those who demanded of Him an +indubitable prodigy come from heaven, He answers that no sign shall be +given them save the preaching of repentance by the prophet Jonah. The +whole temptation in the wilderness is simply a victory of the moral +consciousness over the religion of physical prodigy. His filial piety +to the Father raised Him above miracle itself and above the dualism +that miracle supposes in Nature and in the divine action. He discovers +in everything the signs of the presence, the will, the affection, of +His Father. He accepts them, submits to them, celebrates them, without +preoccupying Himself with the ordinary or the extraordinary manner in +which they may be manifested. This absolute piety, absolutely pure and +confident, succeeds in realising the unity of the world and the +universal and continuous action of God, quite as well as the dialectic +of a Scotus Eriginus or a Spinoza or a Hegel; for it suppresses still +more radically the old and mortal antithesis of the natural and the +supernatural. Nature in its expansion and its evolution--what is it +but the very expression of the Will of the Father? How can you imagine +then that there could ever be conflict in it between the order which +reigns in it and the action of Him by whom that order is maintained day +by day and moment by moment? If the thought of Jesus was bounded by +the ancient notion of miracle, it must be acknowledged that His piety +was not imprisoned in it, but went beyond it. Not having come into the +world to teach science, He contented Himself with the opinions He had +inherited with the rest of His people, and which constituted the +science of Nature of His little popular environment, without concerning +Himself as to whether these opinions were erroneous or correct. +Miracle was not then something essentially religious as it is to-day. +Belief in miracles was not a sign of piety. Everybody shared in it, +men of the world as well as men of God. Herod believed in them not +less than the apostles. The Pharisees did not doubt them; they only +denied the miracles of Jesus; they attributed them to Beelzebub. +Christ did not doubt any more than they did that Satan and the demons +wrought as many and perhaps more miracles than the messengers of God. +He did not wish them to believe the doctrine because of the prodigy, +but in the prodigy because of the doctrine. It will be seen how far +they were at that time from the dualism of our day, and from the +conflict created by scholasticism between science and piety. + +When we examine this ancient notion of miracle, especially in the +superior expression it receives in the Bible, we discover in it two +things: it is made up of two judgments of a very different order: of an +intellectual and scientific order, disclosing that which then existed +in point of fact, a _naïf_ and perfect ignorance of the nature and the +laws of things; and of a judgment of a religious order, implying an +absolute confidence in an all-good God who is almighty to respond to +the cry of His children and to deliver them. These two judgments are +so thoroughly blended in the biblical notion of miracle that orthodox +theologians and irreligious philosophers agree in declaring them to be +inseparable, and they would compel us to choose between a piety hostile +to the elementary results of science, and a science radically hostile +to piety. The dilemma is specious but false. To see it vanish it is +only necessary to perceive that these two judgments, not being of the +same nature, cannot be eternally _solidaire_. The settlement of the +controversy in which Christian thought has been engaged for the last +three centuries will consist in separating them. + + * * * * * + + +2. _The Notion of Miracle in the Face of Modern Science and of Piety_ + +Modern science neither affirms nor denies miracle; it ignores it, +necessarily. It is, for it, as if it did not exist. + +Religious persons, who often look towards science to ascertain what +their faith may hope or fear from it, only consider its results, and as +these are never definitive, but always variable, always being revised, +enlarged, enriched, they secretly indulge the hope that a moment may +come when science, which has not yet welcomed miracle, will welcome it; +that such a fact, supported by such and such testimony, will in the end +conquer its resistances and obtain a place in the category or the +catalogue of scientific facts. They would quickly lose this illusion, +if, turning away from the net results of science, they would fix their +attention on its processes and methods of investigation. What is it, +according to science, to know a phenomenon? It is to place it in a +necessary link of succession, concomitance, and causality with other +phenomena which explain it by analogy. Suppose a mysterious phenomenon +without analogy and connection with any other; savants brought into its +presence will declare themselves simply in a state of ignorance with +respect to it. They will say they have not discovered the cause of it, +that they cannot explain it; they will study it on every side a +thousand times if necessary until they have torn out the heart of the +mystery. Either they will succeed, or on this point there will never +be science made or explanation established. + +Savants, it is true, are the first to recognise and to proclaim, in all +domains, the limitations of their knowledge. The most advanced are the +most modest. They all have the feeling that their discoveries are but +a beginning, and that the part of Nature they have explored is as +nothing to that of which they are ignorant. They hold themselves in +readiness to modify the laws they have established, to enlarge their +hypotheses, to make new ones, to record all facts which observation may +supply. That many facts astonish them and disconcert them, we see +every day. But mark the attitude of the true savant in face of these +new phenomena. Does he doubt a single moment that they obey laws, +unknown perhaps, but certain? ... There can only be science of that +which is general and constant. + +It is therefore absolutely chimerical to expect of science the +establishment of any miracle whatever.... Miracle, according to the +only tenable definition, and this is the ancient and traditional one, +is a positive intervention of God in the phenomenal order and at a +particular point. Now science knows only second causes. How could it +ever seize in the course of these causes the immediate action of the +First Cause? Is God a phenomenon that the eye of man can ever perceive +in any phenomenal series? And is not this the reason why science +despairs of ever proving scientifically the existence of God? It +recognises itself to be impotent to step out of the relative, to +resolve anything outside space and time, and it has removed from its +domain all questions as to origin and aim, because it has no means of +reaching them. + +To perceive God and the action of God in the human soul and in the +course of things is the business of the pious heart (Matt. v. 8). The +affirmation of piety is essentially different from scientific +explanation. It places us in the subjective and moral order of life, +which no more depends on the order of science than the scientific order +depends on piety. There cannot be conflict between these two orders, +because they move on different planes and never meet. Science, which +knows its limits, cannot forbid the act of confidence and adoration of +piety. Piety, in its turn, conscious of its proper nature, will not +encroach on science; its affirmations can neither enrich, impoverish, +nor embarrass science, for they bear on different points and answer +different ends. My child is ill; I procure for it the best advice and +the best remedies; but confiding in God's mercy, I beg of Him to spare +me my child, or, in any case, to help me to accept His will. The child +recovers. What savant will forbid me to thank my heavenly Father? +Will this be because my thanksgiving will be a denial of the science of +the physician? Certainly not, for my gratitude will include the fact +of the doctor, the medicine, the care bestowed, the whole series of +second causes that have contributed to the recovery of my child. Was +not this the piety of Jesus when He taught us to pray: "Our Father +which art in Heaven: Thy will be done: Give us our daily bread"? Was +He ignorant of the fact that in order to have bread we must sow wheat? +No; but none the less He asked His food from God, because He knew also +that, in the last resort, it is the will of God that makes the +substance and the order of things, that it is He who clothes the lilies +of the field, feeds the fowls of the air, makes His sun to shine upon +the evil and the good, and sends upon the labourer's soil the early and +the latter rain. + +Reduced to its religious and moral significance, miracle, for Jesus, +was the answer to prayer, as M. Ménégoz (_pp. cit._ pp. 19-29) has +clearly shown, and this altogether apart from the phenomenal mode in +which the answer was produced. God only manifests Himself in +extraordinary events in order that we may learn to recognise Him in +ordinary ones. The child asks, the father grants; but the child does +not trouble himself about the means by which his wishes are gratified. +The pious man adores the ways he cannot comprehend. This confidence in +the love and justice of God may be accompanied in the mind of the +apostles and of Jesus Himself by imperfect or erroneous scientific +ideas as to the mode of divine action in Nature. But it is not +_solidaire_, with them, and may easily be detached in order to bring it +into harmony with the views of our present science, as in the mind of +Jesus and the apostles it was in harmony with the science of their +time. For piety, the laws of Nature which have since then been +revealed to us in their sovereign constancy, become the immediate +expression of the will of God. The Christian submits to them +instinctively, saying: "Thy will be done." Which is only saying that +these laws, which are sometimes spoken of with a sort of horror, as of +a blind and brutal fate, become religious and are consecrated in the +eyes of piety by a divine authority. Why then should not piety offer +to science and its revelations of Nature the same frank and joyous +welcome as that accorded to them by scientists themselves? The +opposition established by scholasticism between faith and science, is +it not as irreligious as it is irrational, and has it not been one of +the chief causes of the death of theology in the Church and of the +triumph of incredulity in the present age? + +While developing themselves on parallel lines, can science and faith +remain isolated? Man is one, and his scientific activity, like his +religious activity, tends to a synthesis. The synthesis will be found +in a teleological consideration of the universe. This universal +teleology, faith predicts it, science labours to realise it. It can +only be established by this twofold concurrence. Without faith, +knowledge of the universe is impossible; without phenomenal science all +interpretation of the universe becomes illusory. Faith, therefore, +must become more and more an act of confidence in God, and the +scientific study of phenomena ever more profound and rigorous. Of +course the teleological synthesis will never be completed here below, +but it will always find a provisional and satisfying conclusion in the +act of confidence and adoration towards God. + +Science is perpetually becoming. If at times it closes to piety dear +and familiar prospects, it necessarily and constantly opens new ones. +If it takes away its crutches, it gives it wings. The contemplation of +the harmony of the worlds which moves us religiously is, it seems to +me, worth more to modern thought than the fatidical oracle, or the cry +of the crow that frightened the good old woman of Rome. The more +science progresses the more it puts into things the order and harmony +of thought. It can only create a Cosmos more and more intelligible +and, consequently, susceptible of an increasingly religious +interpretation. + +At the same time as science instituted its severest methods, it +radically transformed its primary notion of Nature. This was conceived +by the Cartesian Rationalism as a finished and coherent whole, a system +of identical movements and phenomena which were produced by virtue of +the same springs acting in the same circle (the vortices of Descartes). +The familiar image under which they loved to represent it was that of a +watch, constructed and wound up by the divine artificer once for all. +Now, we see this dogma of the immutability of Nature going to join the +other dogmas of the past. The theory of the ascensional evolution of +beings, which renders miracle useless, shows Nature to us in the course +of constant transformation and perpetual travail. Nothing in it is +stable or final. Everything is preparatory to something else; each +form of life is the preface to a higher form. What then is the hidden +mystery which ferments in the bosom of this painful nature and +endeavours to expand? + +"The more cannot issue from the less," said the schoolmen, and no doubt +in abstract logic they were right. But reality smiles at logic. It +shows us everywhere the triumph of the opposite maxim. Perfection is +at the beginning of nothing. Cosmic evolution proceeds always from +that which is poorer to that which is richer, from the simple to the +complex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from dead matter to +living matter, from physical to mental life. At each stage Nature +surpasses itself by a mysterious creation that resembles a true miracle +in relation to an inferior stage. What then shall we conclude from +these observations except that in Nature there is a hidden force, an +incommensurable "potential energy," an ever open, never exhausted fount +of apparitions at once magnificent and unexpected? How can such a +universe escape the teleological interpretation of religious faith? +For the moment, science may accord nothing more to piety; but piety has +no need to ask more from it; for it has already in this way found +safeguarded the three things which the old notion of miracle guaranteed +to it: the real and active presence of God, the answer to prayer, and +liberty to hope. + + * * * * * + + +3. _Religious Inspiration_ + +Passing by the subject of prophecy, which is a species of miracle, and +admits of the same kind of explanation, it may be well to touch upon +the subject of prophetic inspiration. The ancients represent it as a +veritable state of possession. The spirit of the god or demon +violently entered into the body of a man or woman, sometimes of an +animal, and made of it an organ the more faithful in proportion as it +was unconscious. Everybody knows the description given by Virgil of +the Cumaean sybil at the moment of vaticination: "The god, the god, she +cried," etc. (Aeneid VI. v. 45 et 77.)[2] It was a sort of frenzy or +sacred delirium in which divine words involuntarily and sometimes +unconsciously proceeded from the mouth of the possessed. Madmen, +epileptics, idiots, hysterical persons, were regarded almost everywhere +as sacred beings, friends and confidants of superior spirits. Their +strange malady only seems explicable by the presence in them of one of +these spirits. + + +[2] Cf. Plato, _Meno. Timaeus_, 45.--Cicero, _De Divin_ 1. 2. 18. 31. +Aristotle, _Problem_, xxx. p. 474. + + +The same ideas were current among the Hebrews, and are to be found both +in the Old and in the New Testament. The prophets of Ramah, disciples +of Samuel, and Saul himself, putting themselves by contagion into a +state of delirium and "prophecy," are in a physical and mental state +identical with that of the sybil of Cumae. The demons in possession of +the man who was healed by Jesus were the first to divine and to salute +His messianic dignity. The poor woman whom Paul healed at Philippi was +haunted by "a spirit, a Python." The speakers with tongues at Corinth +were thought by those present to be mad, and those at Jerusalem on the +day of Pentecost looked like drunken men (1 Sam. x. 5-7: Mark i. 24: +Acts xvi. 16-20: 1 Cor. xiv: Acts ii. 13). + +All these manifestations, formerly held to be supernatural, are now +recognised as morbid phenomena, of which mental pathology describes the +physiological causes, the natural course, the fatal issue. Even in +frightful disorders order has been discovered; laws and remedies have +been found for many of these sad afflictions. Formerly they deified +these demented and tormented souls; in the Middle Ages, and up to the +eighteenth century, they burned them; we pity them and care for them. +This is much the best for all concerned. + +Preoccupied with guaranteeing the infallibility of the sacred writings, +the theology of the Fathers, of the scholastic doctors, and of the +Protestant doctors of the seventeenth century, drew from this ancient +notion of religious inspiration a dogmatic theory applicable to the +divine oracles contained in the Bible. It seemed to them that the more +passive the personal spirit of the writers was, the purer would be the +word of God that they were charged to deliver when it reached us. At +this point of view, the most faithful organ of God, the one that ought +to inspire us with the greatest confidence, would be Balaam's ass. +"The writer might be stupid," exclaims Gaussen, "but that which came +from his hands would always be the Bible." Some have gone further by +way of inventing images borrowed from the material order, such as, "the +strings of a lyre," sounding beneath the divine bow, "the quills or +pens of the Holy Spirit," etc., etc. The theory is familiar. It was +developed throughout the Middle Ages until they came to say that God +was the author and is alone responsible for the Bible, and for +everything that is found in it; not only for the things and thoughts, +but also for the words and style; not only for each word, but also for +the vowels and the consonants. It only remained that they should have +added the punctuation, not the least important matter in a connected +discourse. Unhappily, the punctuation is absent from the oldest +manuscripts. + +Let us remind ourselves, however, that St. Paul, and Jesus Christ +before him, had deposited the germ of a conception of religious +inspiration more human, more psychological, and, at the same time, more +real. Paul, who had ecstasies, visions, "tongues," always spoke of +these doubtful privileges with a certain modesty, and that only when he +was constrained to it, as if he had the feeling that there was +something abnormal and morbid in these phenomena. On the other hand, +he opposes to them a theory of true Christian prophecy conceived as a +forcible, eloquent, irresistible proclamation of the mercy and justice +of God; prophecy on the lips of the apostle, the poet, or the orator, +springing from the assurance given him by the inward witness of the +Holy Spirit that he is in perfect harmony with the divine thought. The +force of this inspired prophecy comes from the luminous evidence which +springs up within, which warms and kindles up the spirit like an inward +fire. Under the influence of this illumination the apostle feels his +strength increase tenfold; he rises at a mighty bound above himself. +His faculties are carried to their maximum of energy and power. So far +from being an inert, passive instrument, his intellect has never been +intenser, richer; his thoughts more clear and more coherent; his words +more fluent, more abundant, more pictorial and expressive; his voice +more firm and resonant; his gestures more imperious. It is the hour +when he is most himself, when his particular genius has freest play, +when his moral originality is greatest, when he is most certainly the +organ of eternal truth. Thus understood, religious inspiration does +not differ psychologically from poetic inspiration. It presents the +same mystery, but it is not more miraculous. It is not produced like a +trouble violently introduced into the psychical life from without, but +as a really fruitful force, acting from within, in harmony with all the +laws and forces of the mind. + +Does not experience establish and piety confirm this? When does an +Amos, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a St. Paul, or a St. John, appear to us as +the most authentic bearer of the word of truth and life, but in their +most eloquent pages, where their personal genius, their faith, their +thought, shine forth most freely? Religious inspiration is simply the +organic penetration of man by God; but, I repeat, by an interior and +indwelling God, and in such wise that when that penetration is +complete, the man finds himself to be more really and fully himself +than ever. It is with this mysterious action of the Spirit in the +bosom of humanity as it is with the solar heat upon the plants that +spring up from the soil. In regions where the heat is greatest and the +other conditions favourable, plants which elsewhere are stunted attain +their richest development and their greatest fecundity. + +The inner root of this inspiration is only found in the piety common to +religious men. It differs from it not in nature, but simply in +intensity and energy. Prophetic inspiration is piety raised to the +second power. There is no other mystery in it than the religious +mystery _par excellence_. That is why this inspiration is essential to +and promotes effectually the progress of the moral and religious life. +They advance together through the ages as we now shall see. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY + +1. _The Social Element in Religion_ + +Religion is not merely a phenomenon of the individual and inner life: +it is also a social and historical phenomenon. Psychology lays bare +its root, but history alone reveals its power and range. + +This social action of religion springs from its very essence. The +phrase "communion of souls" is of religious origin and hue. The thing +expressed by it--one of the most wonderful phenomena of collective +moral life--is never perfectly realised save in religion and by +religion. An identic faith, a common act of adoration, not merely +brings souls together: it makes them live in each other, blends them +into one soul in which each of them finds itself, multiplied, as it +were, by all the rest. That is what is properly called "edification," +by which I mean that feeling of joy, of force, of fulness of life, +produced by the common act of worship in those who sincerely take part +in it. That is the reason why men of the same religion have no more +imperious need than that of praying and worshipping together. State +police have always failed to confine growing religious sects within the +sanctuary or the home. Their members have never been resigned to this +comparatively solitary life; they have braved all interdicts and +persecutions in order to turn it into social life and fraternal +communion. + +God, it is said, is the place where spirits blend. In rising towards +Him man of necessity passes beyond the limits of his own individuality. +He feels instinctively that the principle of his being is also the +principle of the life of his brethren; that that which gives him safety +must give it to all. In the same Religion, souls the most diverse, +being affected in the same manner, become related to each other, and +form a real family, united by closer, stronger bonds than those of +blood. The religious life is a higher region. Those who rise into it +feel the barriers fall which hemmed in their existence. They become +free; they penetrate the souls of their neighbours and feel themselves +to be penetrated by them; and all live one life, which, although it be +larger and almost universal, is none the less very personal and very +intense. Have you ever been present in a crowd excited and exalted by +religious enthusiasm? Have you felt the contagion? Then you can never +forget it. It is said the early Christians were of one heart and one +soul. Their community of faith, of hope, of love, went so far as to +make them forget the idea of property and put their goods in common. +In how many monastic orders or mystic sects has not this same need of +equality and unity gone to the point of identity in costume and +deportment, and even of the loss of name and personal individuality? + +It is not surprising therefore that religion, capable of creating in +modern times those moral societies called "Churches," should, in all +ages, have been the strongest bond of natural societies, primitive +families, savage tribes, great empires, civilised peoples. The first +stone of every hearth was a sacred stone. The first tombstone was a +monument of piety, and burial is an essentially religious ceremony. +Before they were regarded as protectors without, tribal gods were the +internal bonds of the tribe itself. All the individuals of the tribe +saw in the god a father and an ever present head, so that religion came +to double by this moral kinship their blood relationship. In this +matter the great civilisations do not differ from the rest. All have a +religious soul that differentiates and explains them. It is not merely +morals and philosophy that are affected by religion, but literature, +art, politics, social economy, and in a general way the whole destiny +of men. The secret of a race is hidden in its religion. It is there +that the forces of life and resistance to the causes of dissolution are +concentrated.... Let us enter with deep piety therefore on the history +of religion on the earth.... That history is still in embryo. The +comparative study of religions has arisen within our time; it is still +at its beginnings.... The idea of religious progress is a great and +luminous idea, but it is not possible to apply it to all the details of +history. Progress has not taken place along a single or continuous +line.... On four or five points the progress is undeniable; it must +suffice to point them out and mark their direction in order that we may +foresee the supreme end to which this faltering and laborious march is +tending. + +In religions there are differences of degree and differences of kind: +the one mark in the scale of evolution the successive movements of the +religious consciousness in time; the others express the diversity and +simultaneity of religions in space. The first are explained by +inequalities of moral development; the second by variety of races, +climates, civilisations. Take, for example, the Hebrew tradition; +follow it in broad outline, and you will note religious forms which +give birth one to another and constitute an historical development--the +religion of the ancient Beni-Israel, prophetism, rabbinical pharisaism, +Christianity, Mohammedanism: there, in a continuous evolution, you have +what may be called differences of degree. But, on the other hand, +consider the Mongolian or Chinese religions, those of ancient Mexico, +of India, Egypt, or Greece: you have differences of kind which you +cannot classify in a single scale. And, as some of these peoples have +disappeared, and others been arrested in their growth, and as they have +never marched abreast, it is impossible to compare them or to put into +one category the religious forms which their history presents. But +some attempt must be made to trace them out. + + +2. _Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion_ + +In this universal religious evolution the progress that is most +apparent because most outward is the enlargement of the form of +religion itself, the movement, often interrupted but never stopped, +from the narrowest particularism to the most human universalism.... It +is characteristic of all religion to propagate itself: that is the +implicit affirmation that it is made for all men. Even when it is +abased to the level of a recipe and of a magical secret that is hidden +with a jealous selfishness, or even from a ferocious patriotism, there +is the avowal that it might be serviceable to others.... But we must +see how this passage from the particular to the universal is effected. + +The beginnings of religion are everywhere the same. The number of +cults at first is almost endless, but they vary very little from each +other. It is impossible to write the history of barbarous religions, +and it is useless to enumerate them. Nothing is more monotonous than +the descriptions that have been attempted of them. Their most +characteristic feature is, that at first they are confined to the +family. Religion at this stage is a matter of instinct, and +instinctive matters are always uniform. In mental life, diversity only +appears with reflection and consciousness. + +To the domestic and tribal succeeds the national stage of religion. +Political federations are formed, and the religious as well as the +social consciousness of the people is enlarged. This phenomenon is +seen in Greece in its most interesting form. The religion of Greece, +as witness the Homeric poems, was a confederation of local cults and +deities, just as Hellas was a federation of previously unconnected +tribes. + +The conquests of Alexander and the extension of the Roman Empire +greatly enlarged the horizon of ancient thought. The philosophers in +the time of Cicero and Seneca had already risen from the national idea +to that of the human race. It must not be supposed, however, that the +universal religion sprang from the philosophic or religious syncretism +of the later ages of Graeco-Roman civilisation. The dissolution of the +national religions had preceded that of political nationalities, and, +so far from creating anything universal, the morbid curiosity of minds +denuded of all national tradition abandoned itself to individual +superstitions the most exotic and monstrous. Christianity was born, +not in Greece, in the schools, nor in Rome, at the foot of the throne +of the Cæsars, but in a race the narrowest, the most fanatical and +intolerant that ever existed, and in the heart of a Son of Israel whom +no extra-Palestinian influence seems ever to have reached. + +Nowhere is a universal religion the fruit of an unconscious evolution, +produced by the action of fatal and external laws. It presents itself +everywhere as an individual creation, as the free and moral work of a +few elect souls, in whom tradition by a profound crisis is purified and +enlarged. This was the rôle of Confucius, of Buddha, of Socrates, of +the prophets of Israel, of Mohammed in Arabia. All of them were +reformers of the religion of their ancestors.... They did not discover +the universal religion outside themselves, but in their consciousness +and personal piety. Passing through their souls as through a filter, +the traditional religion of their race was gradually clarified and +freed from foreign or material elements, and it was found that, in the +end, the new faith appeared the more human and universal as it had +become more strictly religious, more inward, and more pure.... Not +that all the ancient cults were capable of transformation or all the +prophets equally inspired. Often the revelation would appear uncertain +or incomplete. On only one point and in only one consciousness would +it be seen to end in a clear and definitive conclusion. Progress +implies selection. As we rise from one stage to another in the history +of religious evolution we see the ranks enlightened and the number +diminished of concurrent religions. At the lowest stage, the savage +cults are almost innumerable. The great national or ethnic religions +were much fewer. Only three are frankly universalist: Buddhism, +Mohammedanism, and Christianity. And these three are universalist, if +I may so say, in a very unequal degree. + +Mohammedanism was far from being an original religion. The element +which gives to it a higher moral and religious value came to it from +Judaism and Christianity. Its monotheism, its horror of idolatry, the +comparative purity of its ethics, have no other source, and, without +paradox, it has been possible to represent it as an inferior form of +Christianity accommodated to the needs and to the stature of +semi-civilised Semitic peoples. But, alongside this Christian +spiritualism it has conserved naturalistic elements, gross remnants of +old Arab cults which, having made its fortune, perhaps, in its early +days, now embarrass it and paralyse it. Moreover, in spite of its +conquests, it has always remained an Oriental religion with Mecca as +its centre and its head. If it would survive, it must reform itself; +it must enter into the path of moral and intellectual progress, free +itself from local superstitions, from its gross hopes, its hatred of +the infidel, its doctrine of good works; in other words, it will have +to cast off its old nature, and receive a new effusion of the Christian +spirit. It can only become universal in so far as it approaches the +moral principle of Christianity, in order, in the end, to become one +with it. + +Buddhism has a more profound originality, but it also is afflicted with +an inward dualism which will ruin it. From the beginning there have +been two Buddhisms: the one an esoteric philosophy for the use of sages +convinced by experience of the vanity of all things, suffering from the +essential evil of existence and aspiring to Nirvana. It is an +unfruitful mysticism because it is Atheistic. The other is popular +Buddhism, which sinks and dies into puerile superstitions and into the +grossest polytheism. From which we may conclude that Buddhism only +becomes universalist when it ceases to be a positive religion, and that +where it still remains a religion it is anything but universalist. + +With Christianity it is altogether different. The terms "universal +religion" and "Christian religion" coincide so exactly that if a form +of Christianity is not universalist on any side, on that particular +side it ceases to be Christian. In fact there cannot here be either +division or esoterism, nor consequently limitation or narrowness. We +are here in the absolute freedom of spirit. Christ did not propound +the theory of the unity of the human race; but He did something quite +different and much better: He gave us the gospel. Between His gospel +and the humanitarian philosophy there is all the difference that there +is between abstraction and life, between idea and love. All men enter +into the kingdom of God by the same door, and that door cannot be shut +by any one; for it is the door of humility, of confidence, of +self-renunciation, of the higher righteousness fulfilling itself by +fraternal charity. Rank in that kingdom is determined by the measure +of devotedness. The greatest is the one that humbles himself the most, +and the only way of being master is to serve. In the religion of Jesus +there is nothing religious but that which is authentically moral, and +nothing moral in human life that is not truly religious. The perfect +religion coincides with the absolute morality, and this naturally +extends to and is obligatory on all mankind. Jesus not only proclaimed +the only God, or even the God who is spirit, whose worship could not +thenceforth be confined to anything material or particular in time and +space: He showed us the Father who loves all His children with an equal +affection, and desires to dwell in the humblest as well as in the +highest consciousness. This divine Fatherhood, in proportion as it is +realised in our hearts, produces in them human brotherhood. The +religious and the human ideals here join, no more to be separated. +Having begun in the animal man, with the grossest form of religion, +humanity finds itself completed in the perfect religion. + + +3. _Progress in Representations of the Divine_ + +To represent the divine, man has never had any but the resources which +are in himself. These representations have varied therefore with the +general progress of experience and of thought.... From beginning to +end the evolution of religious images and notions is based on the idea +of spirit. It is in this idea that the resemblance and the kinship of +man to his God is based; only by this can there be understanding, +converse, harmony between them. Primitive religions, doubtless, are +neither spiritualist nor materialist; they are animistic. A simple +animism gives to men their first conceptions. The child projects the +life which animates him; he endows the things around him with a +personality similar to his own. For him there is nothing dead or +inert; the world is peopled with living beings with which he contends, +and talks, and is angry, to which he gives his love and his caresses. +Do not let us smile too much at this simplicity. The latest steps of +philosophy are rejoining our earliest thoughts. We are coming to see +that in sum we know nothing but ourselves, that our science is but the +projection of our consciousness without, and that it is solely on this +condition that the world becomes intelligible to us. Man never +worships anything purely material, anything that cannot hear and answer +him. When he perceives that the object of his worship is inanimate, he +thinks his god has deserted him, and he sets himself to pursue him. He +usually finds him and retains him under other names and forms. By +faith in ghosts, and by the memory of his dreams, he has learnt to +double himself, and to oppose his will to his thought, his interior ego +to his body, which he calls his house. He may easily quit this for +another. Nothing is more ancient than the idea of the transmigration +of souls. But at the same time he doubles the being of his gods; he +distinguishes between the god and the object in which he habitually +resides. This is the period at which _idolatry_ begins. It will only +be completed when the spirit-god has broken the bonds which bind him to +its visible prison and its material image; when He shall speak who says +that "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in +spirit and in truth." From that moment, mythology transforms itself +into theology, and external rites into inward piety. + +Necessarily polytheistic in its origins, religion tended nevertheless +towards monotheism. The subordination which disciplined the heads of +the tribes on earth also ranged the divinities under the authority of a +supreme head. Force at first gave this supremacy. Zeus was the king +of gods and men because he was stronger than all of them put together. +This is the natural order of ideas. Force first imposed itself on +weakness; then intelligence conquered force; lastly, justice and love, +which is the supreme form and flower of righteousness, obtain supremacy +over intelligence itself. The highest and the chiefest is no longer +the strongest, or the wisest, but the best. In becoming moral, man has +moralised his gods, who, in their turn, becoming models and +authorities, have greatly helped to moralise the race. + +It is very surprising that this evolution in the direction of moral +monotheism did not complete itself in the Indo-European family. But +the fact is that that family encountered an invincible barrier in the +very nature of its primitive mythology. The Greek and Hindu +philosophers, no doubt, pushed the notion of God to that of His +spirituality and unity, but they did not succeed in transforming the +religion of their race. Their rational criticism had power to +dissolve, but not to change. Their monotheism remained always an +object of speculation more or less esoteric. When, in the second and +third centuries of our era, in competition with Christianity, +Graeco-Roman polytheism endeavoured to reach a sort of monotheism, it +could only return to the most glorious mythus of its infancy, to the +worship of the Sun, and raise it to supremacy among the symbols of +their faith. + +The transition from polytheism to monotheism was only made in Palestine +and in the tradition of the Hebrews. There were two reasons for this, +both of which bear witness to the divine vocation of that people: its +religious predispositions and the powerful action of its prophets, of +those men of God raised up in it from Moses to Christ. The desert is +not monotheistic, as M. Renan was pleased at first to say, nor are +nomads, shepherds, or freebooters nearer to the only God than sedentary +and agricultural peoples. But, owing to the special turn of mind of +the Hebrew family, its primitive polytheism, of which the plural, +_elohim_, still reminds us, had an abstract character, and was reduced +to a sort of anonymous plurality from which no divine genealogy could +spring. All these elementary spirits, these _elohim_ of the air, the +earth, the waters, were so similar to each other that the thought of +the Semite never succeeded in discerning and discriminating them. They +entered into one another, and ended by forming a sort of collective and +abstract power, analagous to that which is represented in our language +by the word "divinity." Add to this that, by the idea of holiness, +Jehovah, the national _elohim_, was equally separated from Nature, and +that, gradually divested of all corporeal form, He was predestined to +become the God of conscience, the invisible Creator of all things, the +Judge and the rewarder of all human actions. + +Neither these original predispositions, however, nor these general +causes, account for the marvellous progress of the religion of Israel. +The faith of the prophets is a creation of the moral order; it is the +work of individual consciousnesses, of the religious heroes whom the +divine Spirit raised up in succession for more than a thousand years. +We shall explain elsewhere this heroic and age-long struggle of the +prophets of Jehovah against the customs, the tendencies, and even the +temperament of their people. Suffice it here to indicate the constant +direction of their efforts, the precision and the fixedness of their +ideal, the power of the common inspiration that animated them, the +vigorous and vivacious feeling in each one of them that makes their +work divine and carries them beyond their individual thoughts and +hopes. Like us they laboured on an infinitely vaster plane than they +conceived. + +But their conception of a divine ideal of righteousness still left God +outside the consciousness. The image of His sanctity awakened in their +souls the sense of sin and raised a tragic conflict between the human +will enslaved by evil and the essentially inflexible law of God. God +and man were found to be more profoundly separated by this moral +antithesis of righteousness and sin than they had before been by the +antithesis of strength and feebleness. How was this hostility to +cease? A supreme revelation is about to respond to this cry of +distress. God will become internal to the consciousness; He will +manifest Himself, in man himself, as the principle of justification and +salvation. He who was called _El, Allah_, the Mighty God, in +patriarchal days,--He who from the times of Moses had been named +_Jehovah_, the living God, the vigilant guardian of the Covenant,--will +reveal Himself as the Father in the filial consciousness of Jesus +Christ. The revelation of love comes to crown the revelation of force +and righteousness. God desires to dwell in human souls. The Heavenly +Father lives within the Son of Man, and the dogma of the God-Man, +interpreted by the piety of each Christian, not by the subtle +metaphysics of the doctors and the schools, becomes the central and +distinguishing dogma of Christianity. Do not spoil its religious +meaning, leave the mystery intact, see what is wrapped up in it: the +sin of man effaced, the ancient conflicts ended, harmony restored, the +whole moral and spiritual life enrooted in the eternal life of God, the +Divine Life shed abroad in the heart of man. Try to comprehend this +consummation of the religious unity of the Divine and the human sought +for, cried for, in the dim desire of consciousness, and you will also +comprehend that, at this point of view, as at all the others, the +precedent religious evolution found its _raison d'être_ and its final +aim in the soul and in the work of Christ. The orphaned human soul and +the distant unknown God are re-united and embraced in filial love, to +be no more divided or estranged. + + +4. _The History of Prayer_ + +The living expression of the relations of man to his God, prayer is the +very soul of religion. It brings to God the miseries of man, and +brings back to man the communion and the help of God. Nothing better +reveals the worth and moral dignity of a religion than the kind of +prayer it puts into the lips of its adherents. Now, progress is more +apparent here than anywhere else. The savage beats his fetish when it +is not complacent enough. The Christian in his greatest distresses +repeats the prayer of Jesus in the Garden: "Father, not my will, but +Thine be done!" What a long road man has travelled between these two +extreme points of religion! + +At the outset, prayer would seem to have had nothing religious in it +except the vague trust which men placed in its efficiency. It was +almost everywhere conceived and practised as a sort of constraint put +by the worshipper on the will that he wished to master. There were +mysterious syllables, which, pronounced correctly, would produce an +irresistible effect. To the voice were added rites and ceremonies, +_i.e._ gestures menacing or wheedling, whose object was to move the god +and bind his will to that of man. Primitive stories and legends are +full of this idea. Out of it sprang magic, sorcery, necromancy. + +With the supernatural beings around him man does as with other +neighbours. He seeks to induce them to help him, and that by the +self-same means. There is very little respect in these primary +relations. Ruse, violence, seduction by bribes or threats,--these are +the forms of that strange supplication. It is human selfishness +addressing itself naïvely to the selfishness of the gods. Regular +contracts are made between these two egoisms, each of which arms itself +against the other with the _Do ut des_. The god who fails in his +promise deserves to be chastised, and privations, and even blows, do +not fail to follow and punish his felony. + +Sacrifice at first was merely a form of prayer. Man never approaches +his superior or his master with empty hands. To secure his favour or +appease his wrath he brings the offerings he believes to be the most +agreeable. The gods, like mortals, _e.g._, have need of nourishment. +For them, therefore, are reserved the first-fruits of the human repast; +libations, presents of honey and fine flour, the most luscious fruits, +the most delicious viands. What difficulty man has had in believing in +the goodness of his gods! He saw the effects of their anger in the +evils which befell him, and if good fortune came to him he felt obliged +to offer a sacrifice to turn aside the jealousy of higher powers. Was +a god supposed to have been offended? They trembled for years beneath +the strokes of his wrath; they offered in expiatory sacrifices all +possible equivalents; they invented penances, humiliations, tortures, +without being sure that the divine vengeance ever was appeased. These +are universal religious phenomena. + +The religious is so different from the moral sense that, at the outset, +it exists by itself, and expresses itself in the most selfish and +ferocious manner. How many crimes have been committed in the name of +religion! with what baseness and sordidness has it not been sincerely +connected! But here also we must note the new revelation made in the +souls of prophets and of sages in order to raise the religion of +naturalism to morality. Confucius, Buddha, the prophets of Israel, the +philosophers of Greece, came simultaneously to feel that the true +relation of man to God must be a moral relation, that righteousness is +the only link which binds earth to heaven, that sacred words, rites, +interested offerings, outward compensations, can do nothing, and mean +nothing, the moment the religious man rises above the law of Nature and +enters upon the higher life of the spirit. If God be righteous, there +is only one means henceforth of putting one's self into harmony and +peace with Him--to become like Him. Thus religion and morality were +destined to approach each other and to penetrate each other more and +more, until the perfect religion should be recognised by this sign: the +highest piety under the form of the ideal morality. At bottom, +Christianity has no other principle, and it is for this reason more +than for any other that it is not only the highest form of religion, +but the universal and final religion. "The absolute religion" and "the +absolute moral life" are identical terms. The ancient dualism is +surmounted in the unity of Christian consciousness. It is not +surprising, therefore, that prayer should, in its turn, be transformed, +and that, having at first been the most violently interested act of +life, it should come in the end to be a pure act of trust and +self-abandonment, of disinterestedness the most religious and complete. +Is there need of many words for a child to make its father understand? +It is the heathen, says Jesus, who make many prayers. The Father knows +your needs before you ask Him. It is a mark of unbelief to be anxious +about food and raiment and the future. The essential thing is not to +multiply petitions, but to live near Him and feel Him ever near. Is He +not Almighty and all-good? Does He not love you better than you love +yourselves? Does He not make all things work together for the good of +His children? If trials come, or dangers threaten, what ought we to +do? Submit to God, as Jesus did. What is such prayer as His but the +defeat of egoism and the perfect liberation of the individual spirit in +the feeling of its plenary union with God? + +Such was the prayer of Jesus. It did not consist in an outward flow of +words, but in a constant, silent state of soul which made Him say in +turning towards His Father: "I know that Thou hearest me always." +Confidence increases with renunciation. Admirable progress of +religion! Sublime reversal of rôles! At the beginning the ambition of +the pious man was to bend the Divine will to his own; at the end his +peace, his happiness, is to subordinate his wishes and desires to the +will of a Father who knows how to be gracious, righteous, perfect! + +There is another aspect of this progress. In all religions there is a +double gamut of feeling: the one, which rules in primitive religions, +and whose dominant note is fear and sadness; the other, which prevails +in the end, in which the dominant note is confidence and joy. It is a +natural effect of the progressive victory of the religious +consciousness gradually surmounting the contradictions in the midst of +which it is born and developed. At the outset, man, alone and +defenceless, finds no fewer enemies in heaven than on earth. He feels +as if surrounded by hostile and mysterious powers before which he +cringes in fear, awaiting their decisions with respect to him. But +everything changes when there rises within his soul the luminous dawn +of the moral revelation of God. With the darkness, vanish all the +frightful phantoms of the night. In the God whom he adores he sees his +own interior law glorified and become henceforth the supreme law of +things. That law of righteousness is, at bottom, a law of love. +Nothing can trouble me any more except the sense of my own +failure--that is, of my own sin, which alone can separate me from the +very principle of righteousness and life. But, see, justice manifests +itself as justifying grace! God gives it as He gives life to those who +thirst for it. Reconciliation is complete. The orphan has found his +Father; the Father, His child. The sinner, trembling, begins his +prayer, prostrated; he ends it upright, with the confidence and freedom +of a child that feels itself at home within the Father's house. The +Gospel bids us to rejoice; it makes of joy an obligation, while +distrust and sadness are the marks of selfishness and unbelief. + + +5. _Conclusion_ + +Such has been the course of religion through the centuries of human +history, and amid the complex and confused development of particular +faiths. The progress has not been on a straight line and by successive +additions, as in the scientific sphere. Religious evolution is more +like the evolution of art, in which the experience of the past is only +fruitful when translated by a higher inspiration and a mightier +creative force. There are periods of recrudescence of the religious +sentiment in which the passions of a past that seemed to have been +abolished are revived. These are the times of superstition. There are +also periods of religious inertia, when the soul seems to empty itself +of its eternal content, and divert itself into a frivolous activity and +a superficial wisdom. These are the ages of incredulity. Lastly, +there are epochs of crisis and confusion, in which mingle religious +traditions the most diverse, and currents of thought the most contrary. +We must pass over all these accidents and vicissitudes. In the +religious evolution of humanity there is a sequence, an order, a +progress which, in spite of all interruptions and reactions, manifest +themselves as soon as we rise high enough to embrace it in its vast +entirety. + + * * * * * + +A few years ago there assembled in Chicago what the Americans called +the Parliament of Religions. The official representatives of all the +principal religions of the new world and the old met together under a +common feeling of religious brotherhood. They did not discuss the +value of their rites or dogmas; their object was to approach each +other, to edify each other, and, for the first time in the world's +history, to present the spectacle of a universal religious communion. +When it came to the point, three things became clear: first, the common +name under which they were able to call upon God--the Father; secondly, +the Lord's Prayer was adopted and recited by all; thirdly, Christ +Himself, apart from all theological definition, was unanimously +recognised and venerated as the Master and Initiator of the higher +religious life. + +In my own consciousness, this practical demonstration is completed. I +can hardly help being religious; but if I am seriously to be religious +I can only be so under the Christian form. I can hardly help praying; +but if I desire to pray, if moral anguish or intellectual doubt +constrain me to seek some form of prayer that I can use in all +sincerity, I never find but these words: "Our Father which art in +heaven." Lastly, I may disdain the inner life of the soul, and divert +myself from it by the distractions of science, art, and social life; +but if, wearied by the world of pleasure or of toil, I wish to find my +soul again and live a deeper life, I can accept no other guide and +master than Jesus Christ, because, in Him alone, optimism is without +frivolity, and seriousness without despair. + + + + +BOOK SECOND + +CHRISTIANITY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL + +To understand Christianity we should need to see clearly and in one +view the link which connects it with the religious evolution of +mankind, the living originality by which it is distinguished, the +succession and the character of the forms it has assumed. Such are the +three points which we shall take up in turn. We must begin with its +origins. + +There is never a complete break in the chain of history. Every +phenomenon arises in its place and at its time. It has its +antecedents, which prepare it and _condition_ it. However new +Christianity may have been, it is no exception to the rule. It springs +from the tradition of Israel by an evident affiliation. The old +theology did not dissimulate this kinship of origin; it rather +exaggerated it. The Christian Church made the Bible of the Jews the +first part of its own. The writings of the prophets were placed in the +sacred volume before those of the apostles, as if to intimate that the +one could not be understood without the other. _Novum Testamentum in +Vetere latet; Vetus in Novo patet_. At bottom, this old adage of the +schoolmen is true. It is an excellent rule of biblical exegesis to +trace the primary Christian ideas to their Hebraic root, and to regard +as foreign and adventitious those which are not attached to it. If +there is nothing essential in the New Testament the germ of which is +not to be found in the Old, there is nothing truly fruitful in the Old +which has not passed into the New. Such is the historical sequence and +connection that we must respect and follow. The study of the religion +of Israel is the natural introduction to the study of Christianity. +The only point to be considered here is how the one was preparatory to +the other.[1] + + +[1] Two non-essential sections have here been omitted, one on _The +Sacred History_, the other on _The Nation_.--Trans. + + + +1. _Prophetism_ + +The miracle of the history of Israel is Prophetism. In this is to be +found the incomparable force by which the religious evolution we may +trace in its annals was effected. + +But first let me explain what I understand by this word evolution, and +let me eliminate from it the fatalistic sense too often given to it. +If by evolution you mean a necessary and unconscious process, a +mechanical and continuous movement, which, without either effort or +danger, causes light to spring out of darkness, good from evil, and +raises a people or a race from a lower to a higher form of life, you +incur the reproach of confounding the laws of the moral world with +those of the physical order; you will be condemned to falsify history +in general and to understand nothing of the history of Israel in +particular. In the moral and religious progress which constitutes the +singular originality of that history, there is nothing facile, nothing +that can be logically deduced from the natural predispositions of the +nation. No doubt the prophets were the children of the nation and +intimately connected with it; but the inspiration which breathes in +them, raises them and animates them, is something entirely different +from the ethnic genius of their race. The contrast is so great that it +amounts to contradiction. The race, in Israel, as in Moab, or among +the Edomites or Philistines, had its interpreters and prophets. But +these were not the prophets of conscience. They flatter the people; +they do not elevate them. They are found to be false prophets. The +others, the witnesses for the righteous, holy God, only brought +Hebraism to the consciousness of its religious vocation by a sæcular +and painful struggle against hereditary idolatry and immorality. This +was not a collective evolution, but an essentially individualist +reform; it was a moral creation continually interrupted and +compromised; it was a work of faith and will. Each prophet enters into +the conflict and utters his cry of battle and reform as if he were +alone, responsible only to the God who has sent him, and yet all of +them succeed each other and pursue the same design, because they are +all obedient to the same identic inspiration. They fight against all; +against the multitude that cannot break away from custom and from +prejudice; against the priests who have always from the beginning made +of the priesthood a _métier_ and of oracles a merchandise; against +kings whose vanity, whose crimes, and whose exactions they denounce; +against the great and rich oppressors of the weak and poor. They speak +in the name of Jehovah, because Jehovah speaks in their consciousness. +That is the origin of the prophetic spirit. It is a divine ferment +which, perpetuating itself, becoming clearer, stronger, from generation +to generation, gradually raises and transmutes the heavy mass of +primitive Semitism. No, this is not the work of time and Nature, +unless you see God at work in time, and, beneath this word Nature, by +the side of realised and manifested forces you perceive the hidden and +immeasurable virtualities which ferment in it and carry it beyond +itself into the higher life of liberty and love. In the apparition of +these prophets, in the energy of their faith, in the boldness of their +words, there is a positive revelation of a new world, the revelation of +a religious ideal which, after divesting itself, in the gospel of +Christ, of every national element, will naturally become the faith and +consolation of humanity. + + * * * * * + +The education of the people of God had been a long and laborious work; +besides the preaching of the prophets, it had needed repeated +catastrophes in which the nationality of Israel had perished, as if the +spirit could not free itself save by the annihilation of the matter +that had from the outset grossly closed it in. When in the age of +Cyrus we see the poor remnants of Benjamin and Judah return from +Babylon, they are no longer a people; they are already almost a Church. +The religious Law is now fixed. It enshrines the life, the ideas, the +ethics and the ritual, the minute practices and precautions, which will +for ever separate the Jew from all the other nations, and maintain him +in a state of legal purity and high morality in the midst of universal +corruption. It is the beginning of Pharisaism. In it the spirit of +prophetic piety deteriorates, hardens, freezes. Nevertheless, when we +think of the progress that had been accomplished, when we think of the +distance that separates this rigid monotheism and this rigorous law +from the old hard, cruel, sometimes impure Semitic cults, the prophets' +work in Israel will appear to us in its immense proportions and +immortal worth. + + +2. _The Dawn of the Gospel_ + +But Prophetism was not to end in the Talmud. The Isaiahs and Jeremiahs +were to have other heirs and successors than the Pharisees and the sons +of the Synagogue. Prophetism had in it the promise and the germ of a +higher and more human religion. The prophets had accents which their +immediate successors in history seem never to have heard. They +attacked nothing with more vehemence than formalistic piety or +practical religion divorced from righteousness. Listen to Amos, as he +makes Jehovah utter words like these: "I hate, I despise your feast +days," etc. (Amos v. 21 _et seq._); or to Isaiah on the same theme in +his first chapter. Hosea declares that heart-piety and mercy are +better than sacrifices. Jeremiah predicts the time when God will make +a new Covenant with His people, and write His laws in their hearts, +instead of on tables of stone. Or think of Elijah in the cave of +Horeb. Fatigued with fighting, almost in despair, the terrible +adversary of Baal, who had just had 450 of the priests of Baal put to +death, has retired to the mountains and is asleep in a cave. You know +the narrative (1 Kings xix. 9-13). The still small voice! Is there in +all the Bible a finer image containing a profounder thought? What is +this supreme revelation of the God of Israel but an apparition by +anticipation of the God of the Gospel? And the still, small voice, +"the sound of gentle stillness," what is it but the first faint accents +of the gracious, tender words: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and +are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and +learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest +unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matt. +xi. 28-30). + +Beneath the breathings of this creative inspiration the religion of +legal righteousness and rigorous retributions is softened into the +religion of love. The God who punishes becomes the God who pardons and +restores. Beneath the tears of the poor, the vanquished, the afflicted +in Israel the gospel of divine compassion germinated and sprang up. +What tones of tenderness are heard in the later prophets, the prophets +of consolation, properly so called. "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people. +Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Say unto her that her warfare is +accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned." Read the chapter through +(Is. xl.), and the forty-second and the sixty-sixth, and Psalms xxiii. +and ciii. Such words as these announce and prepare the way for the +great religious revolution called by Jesus the New Covenant. The +relations between God and the human soul are in course of being +changed. From the beginning, a pact existed between Jehovah and His +people; a compact expressed and guaranteed in a Law on which depended +the destiny of the nation and of the individual. The Covenant has +become more inward and profound. To the law of strict remunerations is +now joined a bond of love. Between God and His people the relations +are those of Husband and wife. The wife has proved unfaithful to Him +who had loved her, who had found her poor and naked in the desert, and +had been desirous to enrich her. She has followed other gods. +Jehovah, by the mouth of His messengers, covers her with reproaches, in +order to excite her to repentance; but He has learnt to pity, and, in +the end, He pardons. The more the nation's miseries are multiplied, +the more its tears flow on the soil of alien lands, the more His heart +is melted in Him and the tenderer become His words. "Can a woman +forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the +son of her womb? yea, she may forget, yet will not I forget thee" (Is. +xlix. 15). + +The idea beneath these words is the Christian idea. God loves His +people with a boundless love. His mercy extends infinitely beyond the +sins of the children of men. In the consciousness of the great unknown +prophet whom we call the second Isaiah, we see sketched, five centuries +beforehand, the drama of repentance and forgiveness, which Jesus, in +profounder and yet simpler words, sums up for all mankind in the +Parable of the Prodigal Son. + +The long period of affliction and of misery between the Captivity and +the Advent of the Christ is like a time of painful gestation, during +which, in the bosom of the Hebraic tradition, fecundated by the spirit +of the prophets, was prepared in obscurity the gospel of the Beatitudes +and of the Parables. What a revolution! The ancient theocratic law +promised to the righteous length of days and great abundance of +material goods. The friends of Job regarded him as criminal because +they saw him in adversity. The problem of human destiny appeared to +the later prophets as less simple and more tragic. "Why do the wicked +prosper?" is the question ever on their lips. "Why do the righteous +suffer?" This spectacle has become so constant that the correlation of +the words has been reversed. "Rich and wicked" in the Psalmists, and +in the second Isaiah, are equivalent terms. "Poor and afflicted" are +synonymous with "the righteous" and "the friends of God." Riches and +high looks are the signs of malediction; humility, poverty, +persecution, tears, are the marks of piety and the pledges of divine +affection. It was at this time that the words were born that edified +the early Christians: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the +humble." Gather together in a common hope this family of little ones, +of the defeated and unhappy ones whose hearts were crushed and whose +eyes were filled with tears, and you have the true people of God, the +heirs of all the promises, the "little flock" to whom it is the +Father's pleasure to give the kingdom. It was from their ranks that +was to come the "Man of Sorrows," who should be scourged and put to +death for the sins of His people. The religion of suffering is born. +For the suffering of "the Servant of Jehovah," in whom is no iniquity, +cannot be the chastisement of His own crimes; it will henceforth be +accepted as the necessary part that fraternal solidarity imposes on the +best for the redemption of the rest. A tender, fragile flower, a bud +as yet scarce opened in the writings of the prophets, this thought will +expand into the Gospel and become the religion of mankind. + +Pity joined to a severe ideal of righteousness in the notion of God; +morality introduced into religion by the subordination of rites to +rectitude of heart and will; hope of a future of peace and happiness by +the realisation of righteousness: these are the three great ideas +bequeathed by Prophetism to the Gospel. This heritage is a rich and +lovely one, but it must not be over-estimated or misunderstood. We are +still a long way off the Gospel. The thought of the prophets did not +go beyond the narrow limits of a national Messianism; it remained +Jewish, not only by its forms and symbols, but also by the religious +privilege which is to guard the people of Israel in the future as in +the past. The destiny of humanity is still bound up with the destiny +of Jerusalem, and the triumph of the Jews implies the partial or total +defeat and subjection of the Gentiles in the days of the Messiah and +after they are admitted into the kingdom of God. The saints of Israel +are the children of the household; the heathen may enter, and even +share in the felicity which fills them, but only as servants and +tributaries. + +It should also be noted that, in the theology of the prophets, the +object of Jehovah's love is not the individual as a moral being, but +the chosen people. Only the nation counts in the eyes of the Eternal. +In its deliverance and triumph the citizens find salvation.... There +is something great and thrilling in this Messianic doctrine. It +elevated the soul of a people and of a religion to the point of the +sublime. It is something to have given hope to a defeated people and a +dying world. In this doctrine also we may note this admirable trait: +this national triumph is identified with the advent of righteousness to +all the earth. Nor have the hopes of Israel been belied. The dream of +the prophets was realised in ways of which they did not think, but in a +manner not less marvellous. The descendants of Japhet lodge to-day +beneath the tents of the children of Shem, and our eyes may see the day +approaching when the ancient promise made to Abraham and his seed shall +be fulfilled, and all the families of the earth be blessed in Him. + +Between the religion of the prophets and the religion of Jesus, +however, there is one more barrier to be broken down. In the "Kingdom +of God," the idea of the nation must give place to the idea of +humanity. The universal God must be represented as the immanent God, +as present in every human soul. His seat and temple could not be in +Jerusalem or in Palestine; it could only be in pure and humble hearts. +A supreme crisis was necessary. The Hebrew nation must perish in order +to free the human conscience from its Jewish yoke. A divine flower had +been formed in the heart of Prophetism; but it would have been a barren +ornament, had there not been deposited in its calix a living and a +fruitful germ. The transformation of the piety of the prophets into a +purely moral creation and a Covenant really new with God, this was the +work of Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus is "He that should come," He +whom the prophets half unconsciously desired, He in whom, to the profit +of all mankind, was completed the religious development of Israel. Its +whole history ends in Jesus. Apart from Him the inspiration of the +prophets dies into rabbinical Talmudism or wanders into the vagaries +and delirium of the apocalypses. After giving birth to the Gospel, +Judaism dries up and withers like a tree that has borne its fruit and +whose season is past. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY + +1. _The Problem_ + +We come at last to Christianity. What is its principle or essence? +This question must be answered or we cannot judge of it aright. + +Now, during the eighteen centuries of its history, Christianity has +taken so many and such various forms, it has received so many +developments in every sense, it has become a thing so rich and +luxuriant, that it is far from easy to discover beneath this thick +growth of institutions, dogmas, ceremonies, and devotions the tap-root +of the tree from which it all has sprung, and from which it still +derives its nutriment. It would be next to useless to interrogate the +Churches. They would each answer according to their official +theologies and Confessions of Faith. This, they would say, is the +essence of Christianity. The Catholics would say it is the institution +and infallible authority of the Church, because everything rests on +this first foundation, and because no one can be in Christian truth who +is outside the Church. The Protestants would not be agreed: one would +propose the dogma of Justification by Faith; another the authority of +Scripture; a third the metaphysical divinity and the eternal +pre-existence of Jesus Christ, under the pretext that they could not +conceive the possibility of the subsistence of Christianity without +these dogmas. In entering on this examination we enter on an +interminable dispute. + +The problem, happily, is simplified for the historian and the +psychologist. In asking what is the principle of Christianity, what do +we wish to know? Simply what it is that makes a Christian a Christian. +We desire to ascertain what is the inward element, present in the soul, +which compensates, at need, for the absence or defect of all the rest, +and which, being wanting, cannot be supplied or compensated for by +anything else. In short, we want to get at the religious experience +which determines and marks out the consciousness of all Christians, +which makes them members of one moral family, and which makes them to +be recognised as such in spite of differences of times and place, of +language and of culture, of rites and even of beliefs. To seize this +common feature there is no need of polemics; all we need is a little +history and psychology. + +In history, Christianity offers itself to us as the term and crown of +the religious evolution of humanity. In the consciousness of the +Christian it is something more; it there reveals itself as the perfect +religion. How must we understand this perfection? Is it the +perfection of a complete system of supernatural knowledge, of a +religious science which would have been strange to former generations, +and which was shared by Christians alone? In no wise. If there are +enlightened Christians, there are many who are very ignorant. And yet +they are all Christians by one and the same principle, which is +entirely independent of degrees of culture. No Christian will maintain +that his knowledge is perfect. They all agree with St. Paul that at +present it is very imperfect. We see divine things dimly. What, then, +do they affirm who say with so much assurance that Christianity is the +perfect religion? They affirm that, religion not being an idea but a +relation to God, the perfect religion is the perfect realisation of +their relation to God and of God's relation to them. And this is not, +on their part, a theoretical speculation; it is the immediate and +practical result of their inward experience. They feel that their +religious need is entirely satisfied, that God has entered with them, +and they with Him, into a relation so intimate and so happy that, in +the matter of practical religion, not only can they imagine nothing, +but that they can desire nothing above it or beyond. They simply set +themselves to realise more fully and more effectually in themselves +this supreme relation, this piety whose principle is immanent to +themselves; they know that in it they have the germ of perfect +spiritual development and eternal life. This is why they affirm +without the slightest doubt that Christianity is the ideal and perfect +religion, the definitive religion of humanity. + +Such is the first affirmation of the Christian consciousness. Here is +the second. + +This perfect relation between God and my soul, this supreme religious +good, this kind of piety which constitutes my joy and strength, which +enlightens, renovates, sustains my whole inner life, does not date from +myself, and I well know that it is not my own virtue that has created +it. Nor can I refer the origin of it to my parents, although I may +perhaps have received it through them or through my teachers; nor to my +Church, although I still remain its catechumen; for parents, teachers, +churches, will acknowledge, with myself, that they have only +transmitted that which they themselves received. Remounting thus the +living chain of Christian experiences, I reach a first experience, a +creative and inaugural experience, which has made possible and +engendered all the rest. That experience was realised in the +consciousness of Jesus Christ. I affirm, then, not only that Christ +was the author of Christianity, but that the first germ of it was +formed in His inner life, and that in that life, first of all, that +divine revelation was made which, repeating and multiplying itself, has +enlightened and quickened all mankind. Christianity is therefore not +only the ideal, but an historical religion, inseparably connected not +only with the maxims of morality and with the doctrines of Jesus, but +with His person itself, and with the permanent action of the new spirit +which animated Him, and which lives from generation to generation in +His disciples. + +These are the two affirmations, equally immediate and equally +essential, of every Christian consciousness. Now, the whole +theological problem is how to reconcile the two. How can that which is +ideal and perfect be realised in history? How can that which is +historical be held to be ideal and eternal? Does it not seem as if +these attributes were contradictory and exclusive of each other, and +that Christianity could not become an ideal religion without severing +all its links with a particular history, or that if it would remain an +historical religion it must renounce all pretensions to absolute +perfection? On the other hand, these two attributes, are they not +equally necessary to it? How can it subsist if it obeys the formal and +summary logic which summons us to choose between them? Will it be +anything more than a speculative philosophy if cut off from its +historic tradition? Will it continue to inspire me with confidence, +will it place me in security, if it ceases to appear to me to be the +perfect and definitive religion? + +Theology, from the beginning, has had no other task; at all events, it +has had no task more arduous or pressing than that of reconciling these +two data. There have always been two tendencies amongst theologians +corresponding to two families of minds: the _Idealist_ tendency--that +of Origen and his emulators, which puts the emphasis en ideas and +constructs a religious metaphysic or gnosis, which of necessity +rationalises dogma, and for which history is but a temporary envelope, +a sort of external and sensible illustration; and the _Realist_ +tendency, represented by the genius of Tertullian, which, obeying an +opposite instinct, materialises ideas, gives an anthropomorphic body to +everything, even to God, deifies phenomena, and changes contingent +history into an eternal metaphysic. From these two tendencies, +perpetual and parallel, have issued the two solutions given by +Rationalism and by Orthodoxy to the problem as to the essence of +Christianity. + +The first finds that essence in a few simple truths of reason or of +consciousness, which are of all time and all lands, and which impose +themselves on every man by their own natural evidence. Jesus of +Nazareth was the preacher and the martyr of these truths; but it is +clear that His personality is no more essential to Christianity than +that of Plato is to his philosophy. Only, mind, in thus severing +itself from Christ the Christian Religion ceases to be positive and +becomes an abstract and dead doctrine; it loses its religious pith and +power. + +Orthodoxy, whether Catholic or Protestant, avoids this reef but strikes +upon another. In making of Christ the Second Person of the Eternal +Trinity, the Son of the Father, consubstantial and equal, it removes +Him from history and transports Him into metaphysics. But thus to +deify history is also in a fashion to destroy it. The dogma annuls the +limited, contingent, and human character of the appearance of Jesus of +Nazareth. His life loses all reality. We have no longer a man before +our eyes, although the Church, theoretically, maintains the humanity of +Christ alongside His divinity. This fatally absorbs everything. We +have only a deity walking in the midst of His contemporaries, hidden +beneath a human figure. The traditional Christology has been so +incurably Docetic that it has been practically impossible, from this +point of view, to write a serious Life of Jesus without falling into +the heresy at once modern and semi-pagan of _Kenosis_, the theory +according to which the pre-existent and eternal deity commits suicide +by incarnating Himself in order gradually to be re-born and find +Himself God again at the end of His human life. Can this strait be +crossed? Is there a passage between Scylla and Charybdis? Not so long +as you cling to the intellectualist conception which forms the error +common to both Rationalism and Orthodoxy, and ensures their final +failure. If the essence of Christianity lies in the revelation of +natural truths or supernatural dogmas, the problem is insoluble. All +Apologetics will inevitably dash themselves to pieces against the +insurmountable contradiction that they will soon encounter. Strauss's +argumentation, which the philosophers do not cease to repeat, and which +the theologians pretend not to hear, springs into one's mind. So far +from weakening it, the historical studies of the past half century have +only added sharpness to its edge. "The idea does not pour all its +riches into a single individual. The Absolute does not descend into +history. It is against all analogy that the fulness of perfection +should be met with at the outset of any evolution whatsoever; those who +place it at the origin of Christianity are victims of the same illusion +as the ancients, who placed the Golden Age at the beginning of human +history." + +Before going further it may be convenient to estimate the strength and +weakness of this famous dilemma, and to inquire how we may escape from +it. The traditional theology succumbs to it. But this only proves +that that theology needs reforming. Let us place ourselves at a +different point of view, and examine for a moment the idea of +perfection which serves as the premise to Strauss's reasoning. When he +speaks of the total or plenary perfection which cannot be found in the +first link of an historical chain, he doubtless means a quantitative +perfection--that is to say, a complete collection of virtues, merits, +and faculties the numerical addition of which makes the notion entire. +Now, from this point of view, Strauss's observation is incontestable. +Neither the perfection of science comprising all scientific +discoveries, nor the perfection of civilisation embracing all the +progress and all the forms of human life, are ever found or could be +found at the beginning or at any given moment in the course of history. +One individual, however great, could not exhaust the life or labour of +the species so as to render evolution useless. But have you noticed +that this idea of perfection is contradictory, and therefore +chimerical? Under the category of quantity or of extension there could +be no real perfection either for the individual or for the species. No +sooner is anything that can be counted or measured conceived than the +mind instantly conceives something greater. There is no such thing as +perfect number. Here therefore it is needful to make an essential +distinction. We must distinguish between the quantity and the quality, +or rather, the intensity, of being. Now, between the degrees of both +these things there is not the slightest relation, nor consequently any +common measure. And that which is true in the one becomes false in the +other. Take a cubic metre of stone, multiply it by a thousand or a +million, you will still have the same stone--that is to say, there is +not more true reality in a million cubic metres of stone than there is +in one. But let a bit of moss spring up in a fissure in that stone; in +that bit of living moss there is more being, or, if you will, being of +a higher quality than that of a whole mass of rocks. Still, do not +forget that it needed a germ to produce it, and that this germ was a +sort of positive perfection in relation to all inorganic matter, whose +last end is life. This is why we may boldly say that evolution is not +the cause of anything; that no development ever gives more than what is +hidden in the new germ which engenders it; that a hundred thousand +imbeciles do not make a man of genius, and that if man descended from a +monkey all the monkeys in creation put together do not make up one +human consciousness. From this synthetic point of view, it will no +longer seem contradictory, but natural, and in full accordance with the +analogies of history, that we should meet in the person of the Founder +of Christianity that perfect relation to God, that perfection of piety +which every Christian still experiences within himself, and which he +declares he has drawn from communion with Him. + +Lastly, let us fortify ourselves, and finish this brief statement of +this somewhat novel view with Pascal's pregnant words. There are, he +says, three orders of greatness. From all bodies put together you +could not extract one thought, if there were not first a mind to +conceive it. From all thoughts you could not draw a single movement of +charity, if there were not there a heart to produce and feel it So far +from needing to manifest themselves by the same attributes, these +various kinds of greatness are absolutely independent of each other and +even incommensurable. That which makes one shine forth would diminish +or obscure the others. Alexander came with a pomp which dazzled the +eyes and astonished the imaginations of mere carnal men. Archimedes +had no need of the pomp of Alexander in order to impress the minds of +men; his greatness, purely intellectual, was of an altogether different +order. And, so, the Christ did not come with the _éclat_ of Alexander +or Archimedes. His greatness is of another order still. It is in fact +so different that neither the glory of the conqueror nor the potency of +genius would add anything to it, and that it had need, the better to +shine forth to all, to appear in lowliness and humiliation. Therefore +He was humble, patient, gentle, holy towards God, merciful towards man, +terrible to all the hosts of darkness. Without sin, without external +goods, without the productions of science, He was in His own order. +Oh, with what pomp, with what transcendent magnificence, did He appear +to the eyes of the heart that discerns true wisdom! + + +2. _The Christian Principle_ + +We must therefore come to the religious consciousness of Jesus Christ +as to the fountainhead from which the Christian stream has flowed. It +is certain that we shall find in it the principle and essence of +Christianity itself, for it would be too paradoxical to maintain that +the Master alone was excluded from the benefit of the religion that He +has bequeathed to all His disciples. No; we may affirm in all security +that the principle of Christianity was at first the very principle of +the consciousness of Christ. To determine the one will be to define +the other. + +What we call the religious consciousness of a man is the feeling of the +relation in which he stands, and wills to stand, to the universal +principle on which he knows himself to depend, and with the universe in +which he sees himself to be a part of one great whole. If then we +would know exactly what was the essential element in the consciousness +of Jesus, what was the distinctive characteristic of His piety, we must +ask in what relation did He feel Himself to stand towards God and +towards the universe. The answer will be neither difficult nor +uncertain. If there are matters on which the true thought of the +Master remains obscure, nothing shines out with more evidence and +continuity through all His teaching and His life than the religious +attitude of His soul towards God and man. + +He felt Himself to be in a filial relation towards God, and He felt +that God was in a paternal relation towards Him. The name of Father +that He gives to God continually, exclusively, uniquely; the name of +Son that He takes to Himself; the nature of His adoration; the form of +His prayer; the motive of His devoted obedience even unto death; the +way in which He works His cures, hails His first successes, accepts the +apparent failure of His work, and explains the incredulity of His +people,--all announce, manifest, and confirm that intimate relation, +that communion and union of spirit, by which a father prolongs his life +in the life of his child, and the child feels himself to live by the +life of his father. This was clearly the essential element in His +consciousness, the distinctive and original feature of His piety; it is +also the principle and essence of Christianity. + +That which we observe in the consciousness of Jesus we find in the +experience of all Christians. They are Christians exactly in +proportion as the filial piety of Jesus is reproduced in them. They +are recognised by this unique but sufficient sign, by the confidence +with which they call God their Father, abandoning themselves to His +love for all that regards their present or future destiny, and living a +life of self-renunciation and of devotion to the good of others. All +whose inner life has been raised from the region of selfishness and +pride to the higher realm of love and life in God,--who have found in +that profound conversion, together with the pardon and oblivion of +their past, the germ of a higher life,--of the perfect, and, by +consequence, eternal life, are the true religious posterity of Christ; +they reproduce His spirit, continue His work, and are as dependent upon +Him and as like Him religiously as are the descendants of an ancestor +whose blood and whose life have not ceased for an instant to flow in +their veins. + +This feeling, filial in regard to God, fraternal in regard to man, is +that which makes a Christian, and consequently it is the common trait +of all Christians. It should be added that this principle of +Christianity admirably corresponds to the two fundamental affirmations +of the Christian consciousness already established. The contradiction +that appeared to us so menacing is thus resolved and reconciled. On +the one hand, Christianity, by this filial union with God, is seen to +be the ideal and perfect religion; on the other, it appears as a real +fact in the consciousness of Jesus Christ, so that this religious +reality comes to us with the imperative character of the ideal. +Through prejudice men may neglect religion, but if they desire to have +one they can neither desire nor imagine a relation at once closer and +more moral, more sacred and more joyous, freer and more trustful, than +that which was inaugurated in the filial consciousness of Jesus Christ. +What can they have in the shape of life superior to the life of perfect +and reciprocal affection,--God giving Himself to man and realising in +him His paternity, man giving himself to God without fear, and +realising in Him his humanity? Is not religious evolution accomplished +when these two terms, God and man, opposed to each other at the origin +of conscious life on earth, interpenetrate each other till they reach +the moral unity of love, in which God becomes interior to man and lives +in him, in which man becomes interior to God and finds in God the full +expansion of his being? Christianity is therefore the absolute and +final religion of mankind. + +At the same time, this filial piety in the person of Jesus and His +followers is an observable phenomenon; so that the ideally perfect +religion has manifested itself from the beginning as an historical and +positive religion. It is not an abstract ideal, a theoretical +doctrine, floating above humanity, but a principle and a tradition of +new life, an inexhaustibly fruitful germ inserted in human life to +raise it, not in idea but in fact, to a higher form. That which the +first human consciousness was on earth, separating itself from its +maternal animality, and bringing with it the kingdom of man, the +initiative consciousness of Christ, issuing from the bosom of antique +humanity, has been, and it has founded on our humble planet the kingdom +of God, the kingdom, _i.e._, of free, pure spirit, of righteousness and +love. We are no longer therefore in face of a rational doctrine or a +speculative view, but of a positive force, of a power of life with +which no one can break (I do not say in form and from without, but in +fact and in the inner man) without at the same time breaking with the +higher life of spirit as well as with all hope and joy, and health of +soul. + + * * * * * + + +3. _The Gospel of Jesus_ + +The Christian principle appears in its simple and naked form, in the +form of feeling and of inspiration, in the soul of Jesus. It is +described, explained, expanded, in His Gospel. The Gospel in fact is +merely the popular translation and the immediate application of the +principle of the piety of Jesus in the social _milieu_ in which He +lived. Everything springs from His filial consciousness as a natural +and wonderful efflorescence: His messianic vocation, His twofold +ministry of preaching and healing, His deeds and His discourses, His +ethics and His doctrine, the absolute gift of Himself in life and +death. We must place ourselves at this luminous centre if we would see +the rest dart forth like rays. In it is found the inner, living unity +of His teaching and His destination. He promulgates no law or dogma; +He founds no official institution. His intention is quite different: +He wishes, before everything else, to awaken the moral life, to rouse +the soul from its inertia, to break its chains, to lighten its burden, +to make it active, free, and fruitful. He regards His work as finished +when He has communicated His life, His piety, to a few poor +consciousnesses that He found asleep and dead. Never man spake like +this man, because never had man less concern about what we call +"orthodoxy"--that is, about abstract and accurate formulas. He prefers +the language of the people to the language of the schools; He makes use +of images, parables, paradoxes, of current and traditional ideas, of +every form of expression which, taken literally, is the most inadequate +in the world, but which, on the other hand, is the most living and +stimulating. Each of His sentences or parables is enclosed in a hard +shell that has to be broken before you can get at the kernel. Jesus +wished to force His hearers to interpret His words, because He called +them to an inward, personal, autonomous activity, because He wished to +put an end to the religion of the letter and of rites, and to found the +religion of the spirit. Even now, he that does not give himself to +this labour of interpretation and assimilation in reading the +Gospel,--he who does not penetrate through the letter and the form to +the inspiration and the inmost consciousness of the Master,--cannot +understand or profit by His teaching. He who does not collaborate with +Him while listening to Him, who does not pierce through His words to +His soul, will come away empty. He only gives to those who have, or at +least desire to have. He only leads the seeker to the truth. He only +pardons those who repent, or comforts those who mourn, or fills the +hungerers and the thirsters after righteousness. + +Such is the character of His Gospel. We cannot here set forth its +contents; we can only note the religious attitude of Jesus with regard +to things and men, to Nature and Society. + +At peace with God, Jesus found Himself at peace with the universe. The +idea of Nature, that formidable screen erected between ourselves and +God, destroying hope and quenching prayer, did not exist for Him. +Nature--that was the Will of His Father. He submitted to it with +confidence and joy, whereas we submit to it with desperate resignation. +He did not feel Himself to be an orphan or an exile in the world; He +conducted Himself in it with ease and in security, not as a slave, but +as a son in the house which the Father filled with His presence. It is +the Father that directs all things; He makes His sun to shine upon the +evil and the good; He watches over the sparrows; He clothes the lilies +of the field; He gives life and food, the body and raiment; He notices +the work we have to do, the trials we must bear. He never leaves us to +ourselves. His spirit vivifies and fortifies our own. He is at the +origin of our life and at the end. We are ever in the Father's hands. + +The outlook of Jesus, it is true, is not our own. He shared the +outlook of His race and time.... But His filial piety did not depend +upon His knowledge of the universe. The amount of culture does not +count in this order of feelings. Irreligion was not less easy or less +frequent then than now, and if His outlook on the universe was +narrower, it must not be imagined that it was less full of scandalous +fatalities, of moral difficulties, of rude shocks to piety and faith. +The world of the apocalypses, which was the world in which Jesus had to +live and act, was not less full of mysteries and terrors than our own. +His filial piety alone gave Him the means and strength by which to +overcome them. The duty of man, He considered, was to change his heart +rather than to change the order of things, _i.e._ the will of God. +There is no trace of sorcery or magic or the appetite for miracles in +the prayer He taught to His disciples. At bottom it amounts to this: +"Our Father, let Thy will be done!" His heart-obedience was composed +half of childlike confidence, half of heroic renunciation. In face of +His trials He submitted without weakness and without complaint, and in +face of death He breathed the prayer of faith, the only one that still +remains to us: "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." + +In face of the universe and its laws the individual ego is necessarily +called on to submit and to renounce itself. The only matter of +importance is to know upon what altar we shall make this sacrifice. +Those who offer it on the altar of that blind divinity, "the nature of +things," remain still unconsoled. Those who, with Jesus, make it in +the arms of the Heavenly Father, accomplish it with strength and joy. +From the awakening of consciousness to its highest point of +development, man carries within him this radical contradiction: he +feels that there is a mortal conflict between the idea that he +gradually forms of the world and the idea he forms of himself. The ego +wishes to conquer and does actually conquer the world; it even goes +beyond it by thought; but the world has its revenge; it dominates the +ego, it crushes it beneath the weight of its invincible laws, and it +swallows it up,--itself, its efforts, its works, its thought,--like an +ephemeral nonentity. Jesus felt this opposition; He suffered from this +conflict. He resolved the antithesis by a third term, in which was +realised the other two: the notion of the Father, whose beneficent will +is equally sovereign in man and in the universe. And it is this happy +solution of the enigma of life that still renders the religion of Jesus +the religion of hope. + +Amongst men, in the midst of society, Jesus felt other relations and +new obligations formed in His heart. His filial piety became a +fraternal piety. The first commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy +God with all thine heart," necessarily gave birth to the second: "And +thy neighbour as thyself." The Father who lives in me lives equally in +my neighbour; He loves him as much as He loves me. I ought therefore +to love Him in my neighbour as well as in myself. This paternal +presence of God in all human souls creates in them not only a link but +a substantial and moral unity which makes them members of one body, +whatever may be the external and contingent differences which separate +them. From the Fatherhood in heaven flows the brotherhood on earth. +From a relation of righteousness and love towards God springs a similar +relation between men. + +In thus defining the religious connection of Jesus with His brethren I +am afraid of weakening it. For Him it was not a matter of theory; for +He never constructed any theory or formulated any doctrine of human +fraternity; it was with Him a passionate sentiment, a deep-felt +solidarity and kinship, a true family life, in which this Elder +Brother's heart reverberated on the one hand with the love and pity of +the Father, and, on the other, with the miseries and distresses of His +brethren. In His parables Jesus does not say "The Father" simply; He +habitually says "the father of the family," "the head of the house." +It is because the father does not exist without his children, and +because humanity, on earth at least, is the family, by means of which +the paternity of God is realised. + +But in the society of men Jesus encountered sin with all its effects in +the shape of moral deformity and physical suffering. From the contact +of His filial piety with this enormous human misery sprang a twofold +appeal: the voice of His Father in His soul, the plaint of His brethren +all around; and to this double cry the answer was--His ministry of +relief, of consolation, and salvation: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon +Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He +hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of +sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to +proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke iv. 18, 19, R.V.). + +It all flows from the same source. It was not only individuals who +needed to be healed and saved. The family of God was not less broken +down, oppressed, disorganised, by all the powers of evil, a prey to +hatred, selfish ambition, intestine wars. Would it not be necessary +here also to effect a work of restoration, to reconstruct this family +so highly-favoured of the Father for the salvation of the world, to +inaugurate the kingdom of God announced by so many of the prophets, and +expected so impatiently by all pious souls and all the victims of +unrighteousness? This was His messianic vocation. But how would this +victory of the Messiah be realised? Would it be the work of Divine +power, flashing forth and executing its pitiless reprisals? Since the +paternal heart of God had been opened and poured into His own, Jesus +had perceived another law and another force, the law and force of love, +which triumphs by self-sacrifice. Soon there arose in His +consciousness a new image of the Messiah, that of the Servant of +Jehovah, bearing the sins and miseries of His people, bruised, +humiliated, dying to procure them life and healing. It was the gospel +of the Cross. The further He advanced in this emptying of self, and in +this work of love and pain, the larger and more luminous became the +revelation of the Father in His soul. When at last He had the clear +and perfect consciousness that He had no longer any will to do but the +will of God, no other plan to follow than His mysterious designs, no +other cause to serve and to defend but His, He did not doubt the final +victory; His faith shone forth triumphantly, appropriating to itself, +to express itself in perfect freedom, the boldest promises of the +Ancient Testament and of the contemporary apocalyptic seers. By His +union with the Father, the heir of the past felt Himself master of the +future. On the throne of immolated love He has founded a kingdom that +will never end. Such is the inner secret of His hope, such the moral +and religious meaning of His prophecies of speedy victory, and of His +return upon the clouds of heaven. + +Jesus was fond of saying that a wise man knew how to bring forth from +the treasury of his heart things new and old. It was in this way that +He accomplished the most radical of religious revolutions while seeming +only to fulfil the law and the prophets. What was there then that was +so new and potent in the least of His discourses? The treasure of His +filial consciousness. The inner inspiration springing up in them +incessantly gives to every detail of His teaching, the oldest words, +the most familiar metaphors, a meaning altogether new, a reach and +bearing infinite. His speech confines itself to the antithesis that +had become traditional with all the prophets, of man's weakness and +God's strength, of sin and pardon, of repentance and confidence, of +sickness and healing, of humility and exaltation. But He had a way of +looking at them, and even of making them spring out of each other, that +entirely renovated them. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs +is the kingdom of heaven! Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall +be comforted! Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after +righteousness, for they shall be filled!" To press thus and to +stimulate the sense of need, of misery and sin, so far that it changes +into its opposite; to draw riches out of poverty, comfort out of +sorrow, victorious strength from weakness; to find in sorrow for sin +the germ of saintly life and in hunger and thirst the very source of +satisfaction; to make every human soul thus pass through this inward +drama of repentance and conversion in which it is regenerated and +renewed,--such is the unique but admirable and all potent mystery of +the Gospel. + +Christ did not construct a theory of man, of his moral life, any more +than He constructed a theory with respect to God and the universe. He +was content to place Himself at the centre of the human consciousness, +and to dig down to the source of life. He takes man as he is in all +climates and in all conditions. He does not declare him to be +radically impotent for good, but neither does He flatter him by veiling +his natural misery. He knows him to be ardent and feeble, full of +needs and of illusions, capable of conversion, subject to all passions, +the victim of all slaveries. He treats him as diseased, which is the +truth, and He does not think He can make him find the principle of a +serious cure, save in the very sense of his malady. So far from +blunting the edge of the moral law, He sharpens it as one sharpens a +dissecting knife in order the better to pierce the living flesh and +penetrate to the very joints and marrow; He infinitely enhances the +demands of the traditional ideal; from the outward act He descends to +the inward feeling; He makes lust equal to adultery, and anger or +hatred to murder itself. He tells His disciples to love their enemies, +to pray for those who persecute them, to answer violence by gentleness, +and injuries by love. He speaks thus not to weaken the vigour of +righteousness, but because He sees in love and gentleness a higher +righteousness and the sole means of securing the final triumph of good +over evil. That is why the righteousness of His friends exceeds the +righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. It is no longer dictated +by an outward letter, but it has, for soul, the very spirit of the +Father, and, for inward rule, the ideal the Master has lit up in the +conscience: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." + +This morality would easily become ascetic and appear impossible if it +were not blended with an opposite element which renders it human and +fruitful without either lowering or destroying it. That element is +mercy and forgiveness; it is pure, unconditional grace which in misery +makes room for hope, and in repentance opens the door to faith and to +the work of faith. These two elements, inexorable law and +unconditional grace, are so intimately blended in the Gospel of Christ +that the Gospel only subsists in its originality and with its power by +their perfect fusion and reciprocal and constant action. Without the +inflexible rigours of the moral ideal, repentance would not be +possible--at least it would never be profound enough to produce the +renovation of the heart; but, without faith in the divine mercy, +repentance itself, changing into despair, would be barren and +ineffectual. These two elements of the Christian life are as fruitful +by their union as they are impotent and liable to degeneration when +isolated or opposed. What does Christian law become without the +sentiment of love, without the impulse of mercy, but a sort of moral +Stoicism, rigid and severe? And what would be the doctrine of grace +apart from the sacred obligation of the law but the theory of a +mischievous indulgence or a Pagan mysticism? To decompose the Gospel +salt is to destroy its savour. + + * * * * * + + +4. _A Necessary Distinction_ + +At the close of this long meditation, one thing seems to me very clear, +the necessity, or rather the obligation under which I stand henceforth +of distinguishing between the purely moral essence of Christianity and +all its historical expressions or realisations, even the highest and +most faithful of them. If religion is an inward life, a real and felt +relation between God and man, and if Christianity is that life carried +to a higher degree, it is certain that religion in general, and +Christianity in particular, must have the two characteristics of all +living things. Life is a force, ideal in its essence, real in its +manifestations. It can only manifest itself in the organisms that it +creates and animates. But, while incarnating itself in its works, it +does not exhaust itself or remain imprisoned in any of them. Jesus was +well aware of this when He compared His gospel to the leaven which +raises the dough and to the seed which germinates in the soil into +which it falls. + +This necessary distinction will neither be made nor admitted by +everybody. Many who concede it in theory deny it in practice. +Protestants smile at the Catholics, who identify Christianity with the +Church. But while admitting and making the distinction, when it comes +to particular churches and particular systems of dogmas, they resist +and protest in their turn, if it becomes necessary to apply it to the +Bible, and to distinguish between the Word and its human and historical +expression. + +Should we go further still? May we, ought we in all fidelity to apply +the distinction to the Gospel of Christ itself and to the primitive +form in which it has come down to us? Most of those who have +accompanied us thus far will now recoil and leave us. They will employ +against us the very same arguments which appear to them so pitiful when +used with respect to the Church and to the Bible. For my part, I +cannot comprehend this fear of the freedom left to criticism. It seems +to me impossible to deny that in the teaching of Jesus there are parts +which are uncertain, things which have been either badly understood or +badly reported, an oriental and contingent form which needs to be +translated into our modern languages. Who does not see that neither in +His language nor in His thought is there anything absolute? Both of +them are constantly determined by the generally received ideas of His +time, the state of mind of His interlocutors; and unless you desire to +deny that Jesus was a man of His age and of His race, how can you +abstract Him from His environment and attribute to Him ideas which have +neither date nor place? I have already compared Christianity to an oak +which has lived and grown for eighteen centuries, and the Gospel to the +acorn from which it sprang. But in that acorn itself, as in the tree, +it is manifest that there are two things: a principle of life, and some +matter borrowed from the Hebraic soil, with which the creating +principle was obliged to amalgamate itself in order to enter into +history and to become fruitful. The characteristic of life is to +render possible and to institute the constant exchange of the materials +with which it builds up its works. When this exchange has ceased, life +has disappeared. If the Gospel of Jesus were something fixed and +finished like a code of laws or a collection of formulas, it would no +longer be a power of life. His words defy the centuries and never +wither; they are truly eternal, because they leave free and do not +imprison in a rigid and immutable letter the spirit of life which +animates them. + +Arrived at this point of view, I see the relations between Christianity +and historical criticism change completely, and find myself once more +in the greatest religious security. Criticism will always be a just +cause of alarm to those who elevate any historical and contingent form +whatever into the absolute, for the excellent reason that an historical +phenomenon, being always conditioned, can never have the +characteristics of the absolute. But criticism can do nothing against +the Christian principle, which, brought back to the consciousness, +always disengages itself from the relative and fleeting expressions in +which it has clothed itself by the way. Criticism makes it to appear +again in its ideal purity and eternal worth. Far from being injurious, +it becomes necessary to it. It is not doubtful that the teaching and +the work of Christ, having been preserved in the simple oral tradition +for half a century, have not been transmitted to us without some +corruptions and some legendary elements. What then does historical +criticism, with all its rigour, do? Nothing but purify this uncertain +tradition, remove the veils, set forth more certainly the authentic +soul of Christ, and, consequently, place the Christian principle in its +surest, clearest light. + +What has been said of the Master's teaching is still more true of that +of His disciples. The Christian plants have all sprung from the same +seed; but they vary according to the soil in which they grow. They are +all of the same species, but in that species there are innumerable +varieties. How could the external result possibly have been the same +whether the divine seed fell into the heart of a simple fisherman of +Galilee, or a rabbi of genius, or a thinker brought up in the school of +Alexandria? Could you possibly have the same Church, the same +theology, the same ritual in Arabia and in Greece, among a savage race +and in the university circles of Germany, at Rome or in England, in the +Middle Ages in a feudal society, and in our democracies in a time of +emancipated reason and free government? + +And here it will be convenient to pause and reflect a moment on that +wonderful variety in the historical forms of Christianity, none of +which are perfect and none contemptible. A superficial examination may +draw from this spectacle a lesson of indifference; a more conscientious +and attentive study finds in it an opposite lesson, the lesson of an +ever-pressing obligation on both individuals and churches never to +repose in a deceitful satisfaction, but to progress unceasingly; for +Christianity is nothing if it is not in us at once an ideal which is +never reached and an inner force which ever urges us beyond ourselves. + + +5. _The Corruptions of the Christian Principle_ + +The differences which separate the historical forms of Christianity +are, like those of religion in general, of two kinds: there are +differences of kind and differences of degree. The differences of kind +are those which arise from diversity of races, languages, +civilisations, temperaments, genius. The differences of degree are +those connected with the very intensity and purity of the Christian +faith and life. Churches and peoples are diversified at once by their +constitution and by their degree of culture and of moral life. It goes +without saying that these two classes of differences are not +juxtaposed; they are mixed incessantly and complicated endlessly. It +remains none the less true that they provoke and legitimate two sorts +of judgment. The first are accepted with tolerance and sympathy, since +it would not be reasonable to blame a man for the colour of his skin. +But the second may and should be discussed and analysed, for they imply +intellectual errors or moral defects, the corruption or the weakness of +the Christian principle, and they can only be corrected and remedied by +discussion and criticism. + +The Christian seed is never sown in a neutral and empty soil. No soul, +no social state, is a _tabula rasa_. The place is always occupied by +anterior traditions of ideas, rites, or customs, by institutions in +possession. Christianity cannot therefore root itself anywhere without +entering into conflict with the regnant powers, without giving battle +to prejudices, manners, and superstitions which naturally resist, and +which, when conquered, spring up again in other forms in the victorious +religion. Take the Ebionite Christianity of the first centuries: what +is it but a mixture, a compromise between Jewish and Christian +elements? What shall we say of the Catholic Church after Constantine? +Is it not true that, in the religious transformation at that time +effected, there was a double and mutual conversion, and that it is hard +to say whether the pagan world was more modified by Christianity or +Christianity more deeply penetrated and invaded by the manners and the +religion that it was supposed to replace? + +In this order the most striking victories are never complete. Even +after the most radical conversion, the old man survives, at least by +its roots, in the new man. The Pharisee long survived in St. Paul +after he became an Apostle of Christ. The same in human societies: +political or moral revolutions never abolish the past. After those +great battles in which passions and interests have often as much weight +as noble ideas and generous sentiments, there is always established a +sort of equilibrium by mutual concessions and spontaneous alliances +between the vanquished and the victorious tendencies. Hence come what +we have named the corruptions of the Christian principle in the course +of historical Christianity, for which alone should be reserved the name +of heresies. + +It must not be imagined, however, that these corruptions or heresies, +against which it is the duty of Christian criticism ceaselessly to +protest, are arbitrary things, or that their number is unlimited. On +the contrary, they fall, and must necessarily fall, into two +categories. The cause of the corruptions of the Christian principle in +social life can only be found in the previous tradition, in one of the +moral and religious tendencies that Christianity aspires to conquer and +replace. Now, these tendencies may be reduced to two: the tendencies +of the religions of Nature, or Pagan; and the tendency of the legal, or +Jewish, religion. Closely examine all that has disfigured or that +still disfigures historical Christianity, and you will see that each of +these corruptions is connected, by its character, with a Jewish or a +Pagan root. The Gospel as the religion of free spirit and pure +morality has never had, and could never have had, any other enemies +than Judaism or Paganism, ever ready to spring up in its bosom and +transform it either into the religion of Nature or into the religion of +the Law. + +Christianity, for example, in its pure essence, implies the +absoluteness of God--that is to say, His perfect spirituality and His +perfect independence. Hence, worship in spirit and in truth, the only +worship that can be universal, the only one that corresponds to the +Christian idea of God. Therefore every tendency, even in Christianity +itself, to shut up God in a phenomenal form, to bind Him to something +material, local, or temporary, to blend the Creator with the creature, +or to fill up the gap between them by a hierarchy of divine beings +which, under pretext of serving us as intermediaries, interrupt our +free and immediate communion with the Father, is, properly speaking, a +resurrection of Paganism, and a return to idolatry. Paganism and +idolatry, of which we pretend to have so much horror, are simply the +localisation and materialisation, more or less conscious, of the divine +spirit and of divine grace, whatever may be the visible organ to which +you bind them, or on which you make their action to depend,--Pope of +Rome or Pythoness of Delphi, images of gods or images of virgin and of +saints, sacramental liturgies, the deification of a church, a +priesthood, or a book. + +Take another example: Christianity is not only the liberty of God; it +is also His holiness; it is pure morality placed above all the +instincts of nature; it is, finally, the unity of morality and +religion. Hence, all that tends to break this unity, every blow at the +divine law, every attempt to cultivate religious emotion apart from +conscience, all magic and mystagogy, æsthetic piety, religious +romanticism, Christianity à la Chateaubriand, sensuous +mysticism,--these essays, so numerous in our day, at philosophic or at +literary gnosis, these new religions without repentance or conversion, +all these cults without any element of moral sanctification--these are +so many corruptions of the Christian principle, and consequences more +or less immediate of the Paganism always latent in the human heart. + +By the side of this Pagan is the Judaising heresy. Christianity is not +only moral law and intransigeant holiness; it is also unconditional +love, grace, mercy, the inward action of the Spirit of God in the +spirit of man in order to produce in it that which He desires to find, +and to realise that which His law commands; it is everything that +scandalised Pharisaism in the teaching and conduct of Jesus in regard +to the sinful and the lost: pardon without reproach, rehabilitation and +salvation through repentance and affection, the sincere impulse of the +heart that has been raised above external works; the very opposite of +legal compacts, meritorious and atoning virtue, formalist religion and +ritual piety. All that tends to separate the Father from the child; +that places the liberty and virtue of man outside and apart from God as +having some merit in His sight; all Pelagianism, every theory of +salvation by works, every condition laid down to divine grace except +faith to receive it: adhesion to a doctrinal formula, sacramental +usages, priestly absolution, outward mortification, asceticism whether +monkish or puritanical, which divides morality and, in the name of a +fantastic sanctity, introduces dualism into the work of God,--all this +should be called by its right name; it should be taken for what it +really is--a relapse into the legal and formalist spirit of Jewish +Pharisaism. + +Finally, I see on what condition Christianity may remain faithful to +itself while realising itself in history. It is only by an incessant +struggle of the Christian principle against all the elements of the +past which find, alas, in human propensities, and in the inertia of the +multitude, a complicity so constant and effectual. So far from +religious indifference being permissible, critical action and Christian +prayer become, in every church and every life, permanent duties. I now +understand the paradox of Christ: "I am not come to send peace on the +earth, but a sword." For the Christian principle, in fact, war is +life. To cease to fight is to succumb; it is to allow yourself to be +submerged by the rising tide of human superstitions; it is to die. Who +does not see the danger of allowing Christianity to become absorbed in +one church form, Christian truth in one formula, the Christian +principle in one of its particular realisations? All these contingent +expressions, being imperfect, must be reformed sooner or later. How +can they be unless the spirit of Christianity disengages itself without +ceasing and floats above them as an ideal? For eighteen centuries a +river of life has flowed through human history. Break down the +barriers which fanaticism and superstition are always setting up +athwart its course. If the waters cease to flow they stagnate, and +corrupt and poison the very land it was their mission to fertilise. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY + +1. _The Evolution of the Christian Principle_ + +The distinction between the Christian principle and its successive +realisations renders it easy to resolve the question, formerly so much +debated, as to the perfectibility of Christianity. It is perfect +piety, plenary union with God, consequently the absolute and definitive +Religion. But, regarded in its historical evolution, not only is it +perfectible, but it must ceaselessly progress, since, for it, to +progress is to realise itself. The germ could not be perfected in its +essence, as germ and ideal type of the tree that it potentially +contains. But the tree itself only comes into existence by the +development of the germ. No reform, no progress, no perfecting, could +raise Christianity above itself--that is to say, above its principle; +for these reforms and this progress only bring it into closer +conformity with that principle--that is, make it more Christian. On +the other hand, the principle itself must enter into evolution in +history in order to manifest its originality and its force, to realise +in individual and social life, in the realm of thought and in the realm +of action, in a word in the whole of civilisation, all its virtualities +and all its consequences. Jesus saw this when He spoke the Parable of +the Mustard Seed (Matt. xiii. 31-32). + +This distinction has another advantage. It alone permits the Christian +thinker to be equitable in his judgments in regard to all religious +forms, to place himself at a truly historical point of view, and to +reconcile, without weakness and without violence, what is due to truth +and what to charity. Every sincere endeavour to express or to realise +Christianity in a system or in a church becomes respectable so soon as +you know how to discover in it, under formulas however strange and +practices however gross, some effects of the Christian principle or +some signs of its presence. If disdain and contempt are not +permissible with regard to any type of Christianity however different +from our own, neither is illusion to be tolerated with regard to our +own church or to our personal piety. Perfection is nowhere to be +found. Each community may repeat, and the larger, older, and more +numerous it becomes the more will it need to repeat, the words of the +Apostle Paul: "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended," etc. +(Phil. iii. 13, 14). The habit we have got into of putting all the +truth on our side and all error on the side of others, of thus opposing +light and darkness, not only falsifies the judgment; it sours the heart +and poisons piety, it dries up the feeling of fraternity, and is the +perpetual sign of individual or collective vanity. Let each examine +himself, let him judge his church without complacence in the light and +spirit of Christ; he will soon attain to more humility and truth. He +will never identify any particular church or its dogma with +Christianity itself. However pure its teaching, however generous its +deeds, he will reckon that this is, after all, but a commencement of +Christianity, a mere nothing compared with what the Christian principle +should have accomplished in the world in eighteen centuries. + +Such is the feeling with which we should approach the history of +Christianity. The field is vast; the vegetation in it is infinite; we +must content ourselves with incompleteness. Being neither able nor +desirous to say everything, I have been obliged to seek a commanding +point of view from which it would be possible to take in that history +in its entirety, and to take a bird's-eye view of the course it has +followed. Faithful to this idea, namely, that the Christian principle +is like leaven or a seed thrown into a gross, heavy mass of anterior +traditions which it was meant gradually to raise and to transform, it +is this struggle and this progress that I desire especially to +describe. I shall endeavour to show how Christianity, always borrowing +its forms from the environment in which it realises itself, after +enduring them for a time, subsequently frees itself from and triumphs +over the inferior and temporary elements which fetter it, and manifests +from age to age a greater independence and a purer and higher +spirituality. This progress is slow, obscure, oft interrupted, +hindered by reactions or by moments of arrest; none the less striking, +however, does it appear when, rising above these secondary +complications, one measures the distance between the points of +departure and arrival. Not only has Christianity never been better +understood than in our own day, but never were civilisation or the soul +of humanity taken in their entirety more fundamentally Christian. When +one follows the history of Christianity from this higher point of view, +one sees that it has passed through three very distinct phases and +assumed three essentially different forms: the Jewish or Messianic, the +Graeco-Roman or Catholic, the Protestant or modern, form. Let us see +how it has passed from the one to the other. + + +2. _Jewish, or Messianic Christianity_ + +The first of these periods is usually omitted or suppressed. Being +unable to admit that Catholicism is not the work of Christ and the +apostles, or that the Church has varied its dogma or its institutions, +Catholic theologians naïvely imagine that the first Christian +communities of Jerusalem and Antioch resembled those of Rome, Milan, +and Lyons in the fourth century; that Peter was the first of the popes +and exercised for five-and-twenty years the supreme pontificate; that +the apostles appointed bishops everywhere as their successors and the +heirs of their power. In this way the history of Christianity became, +in the Catholic tradition, a tissue of legends. + +The theologians of Protestantism arrived by another road at an +analagous conclusion. Under the influence of the dogma of the verbal +inspiration of the New Testament, they were led to make of apostolic +Christianity an ideal and abstract type which all the ages ought to +force themselves to imitate and reproduce. And, as they profess to +have returned to this type both in regard to ideas and to institutions +and morals, they have made of this apostolic period the first chapter +of the history of Protestantism, just as the Catholics have made of it +the first chapter of the history of Catholicism. In both cases, it +loses all distinct physiognomy and all reality. + +By dissipating these prejudices, historical criticism has completely +resuscitated that first form of Christianity. It is no longer possible +to confound it with any other. It had its contrasts, its passions, its +storms. Neither Jesus nor the apostles lived in the ideal or in +paradisiacal peace. They quarrelled and were divided in the Church of +Jerusalem as in our own. The subjects of the quarrels were different, +but they did not consider them less grave than those which vex and +trouble us. Peter, James, and Paul were not less divided in the first +century over the question of circumcision and of the relations between +Jews and Gentiles, than were Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin in the +sixteenth over the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. From both camps, +then as now, they sent forth pamphlets and anathemas. There were two +opposite parties. There were the stubborn holders of tradition and its +authority, and there were the innovators, or the partisans, sometimes +as rash as they, of liberty of faith and individual inspiration; and +between the two there were the men of conciliation and the golden mean +who were preoccupied especially in preventing schisms and arranging +truces and treaties of peace, to be followed in their turn by new +crises and fresh storms. + +In this first form of Christianity, as in all that have followed it, +there was a certain dualism, a mixture of heterogeneous and soon +hostile elements. The struggle was bound to arise between the +Christian principle and Jewish tradition. The new seed sown in that +ancient soil could not germinate without rising in it and in places +breaking up the thick hard crust. In the books of the New Testament +that have preserved to us the picture of that first and powerful +germination, side by side with the principle to which belongs the +future we necessarily find old things which are on the way to death. +It will be seen what an error they commit and what a wrong they do +themselves who, misconceiving this historical complexity, sanctify and +deify both these opposite elements, and place on the same level the +eternally fruitful grain, and the chaff to-day dried up and utterly +inert, a mere remnant of the Jewish stalk that bore it. + +Conceived in this religious matrix of Judaism, the Christian principle, +if I may so speak, could only take in it a body essentially Jewish in +structure, substance, colour. I only speak, of course, of the body of +this primitive Christianity, not of its soul, which, as I have shown, +was altogether new. Now, its body was Jewish on two sides and in two +aspects: by the persistence of the authority of the Law of Moses, and +the practical observance of its precepts, from which the disciples of +Jesus did not dream of detaching themselves; and, secondly, by the +apocalyptic Messianism which dominated Jewish thought from the time of +the Maccabees, and with which the first Christians were perhaps more +imbued and more possessed than all the rest of their people. + +Faith in the evangel of Jesus, full and joyful communion with the +Father, habits of Jewish devotion, Messianic hopes,--all this formed, +in the consciousness of the first disciples, a mixture of various +elements and of things of very unequal value. These elements, in +gradually revealing their disparate nature, could not fail to enter +into contradiction and to engender conflicts in the very heart of +apostolic Christianity. It was these contradictions and conflicts +which set Christian thought in movement, and produced the life and +progress of that early age, so that one may always rightly consider it +as a creative and classic epoch, and hold it up as a normal example to +the churches of all time; on condition, however, that it be not +considered as an immutable mass of eternal verities, but taken in its +natural movement, in its constant effort of progressive enfranchisement +with regard to the past, in its heroic ascent towards religious forms +and ideas, freer, more human, more conformed to the universal +character, to the spirituality, and to the pure morality of the +religion of Jesus. + +"What, then," it will be said, "did not the Christ set His disciples +free at the outset from all the errors and superstitions of the past? +Did He not at once give them perfect dogmas, a completed form of +worship, an immutable and completed system of ethics?" No; Jesus did +nothing of the kind. So far from formally and systematically +criticising the traditional religion of His people, so far from making +_ex cathedra_ that selection which the vulgar looked for, Jesus +expressly refused it, as a method essentially false and irreligious. +He did not wish to abolish anything by mere authority; He preferred +rather to confirm the tradition in its totality, of which He was the +heir and not the executioner. "Think not that I am come to destroy the +Law or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt. v. +17). + +His method was quite different. It was the method of the sower to whom +He loved to compare Himself. In the furrow made by His word in the +ancient soil of Judaism, He quietly and gently deposited new germs. In +the traditional and theocratic notions of His race He placed contents +altogether different drawn from His own religious experience, and from +the sense of His filial relation to the Father. He then left time to +do its work, to develop one after another the consequences of the +principles He had planted in human souls. He sowed, and He and others +reap from age to age the harvest He has sown. + +Consider His attitude towards the Law of Moses. Not a jot or tittle of +it is to fail or be neglected. He strengthens it rather than relaxes +its claims; He deepens it, carries it inward, makes it infinitely more +spiritual and searching. He gathers it up into two great commandments, +and constrains the Law itself, if I may so speak, to surpass itself and +transform itself into pure evangelical morality. That is what He meant +by declaring that His work would be the fulfilment of the Law. Nothing +was less violent; but nothing, at bottom, was more revolutionary.... +It is easy now to see the consequences of this method; history has +revealed them. But those who heard the words of Jesus could not +perceive these consequences. They had no idea probably that the day +would come when to be faithful to the Master they would be obliged to +break with Moses. They did not suddenly break with Judaism. Indeed, +they had found in their new faith new motives for fervour and +exactitude in their Mosaic piety. The first Christians in Jerusalem +were honoured of all the people because of their assiduity in the +Temple worship and for their exemplary devotion. They are therefore +not enfranchised yet; they will have to free themselves from Judaism in +the school of events into which they will be led by the Spirit of Jesus +that is with them and dwells in them. The Christian principle will +have to reconquer its independence of the Judaism which dominates and +hems them in on every side. This will be the work of more than a +century of conflict and controversy. All Christians will not enter +into the movement with the same decision; they will not march abreast +on the path of liberty. Many will be stupid and turn back. Progress +would not have been made if the Divine Spirit that had raised up Jesus +had not raised up valiant men like Stephen, Saul of Tarsus, Barnabas, +the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that of the Fourth +Gospel, to carry on the struggle against the bondage of Judaism and +carry it to complete victory. When you pass from the one to the other, +from the discourse of Stephen to the Epistle to the Galatians, from the +Epistle to the Romans to the Johannean theology, you clearly see the +march of progress. At the end of the first century Christianity is so +independent of national and traditional Judaism that the one treats the +other, without any further scruple, as an alien and hostile religion. + +More adhesive still to the Christian principle, less easy to strip off, +was the second Jewish wrappage, apocalyptic Messianism. Jesus had so +thoroughly consecrated it by calling Himself the Messiah and by +inaugurating the kingdom of God, that His Gospel might be named a +"Christian Messianism." In His discourses He seems to have confirmed +it still more expressly than the Law of Moses. No doubt He proceeded +in both cases alike. In all the theocratic notions which constituted +this popular Messianism, He lodged a new content, a religious and moral +element which must, in the long run, make them burst their trammels and +elevate Messianism above itself. But He did not bring to it any +negative and abstract criticism, any more than He did to the divers +parts of the Mosaic tradition; He never said either that it must be +abandoned or that it must be retained; He deposited in it the new +principle; but He left in it many obscurities, abandoning to time and +to the force of things the care of drawing forth the consequences and +clearing up confusions. + +For His own part He wished simply to maintain intact beneath these +apocalyptic forms the principle and the inspiration of His inward +piety. It was in accordance with these that He interpreted the popular +beliefs, adapting them with a perfect sovereignty to the moral aim and +nature of His work. As with the Mosaic Law, so with Messianism; He is +its Master, not its slave. He uses it, but does not abandon Himself to +it. These hopes never trouble the clearness of His religious vision; +they do not take away His self-possession, or alter the direction, +always exclusively moral, of His acts. He accepts the title of +Messiah, but only after substituting the idea of the suffering and +humiliated for the national and triumphant Messiah. If He preaches the +kingdom of God, He takes care to explain the conditions and the true +goods of the kingdom--humility, repentance, childlike confidence, +righteousness, disinterested love, the joy of serving God and man. He +leaves to men of the flesh the pomp and splendour which dazzle the eyes +of the flesh. He admires the grandeur of John the Baptist more than +that of Herod. The kingdom of God will not come with ostentation. It +will begin like an unseen seed that a man puts into the ground. + +At the outset of His work Jesus encountered a mysterious temptation. +This was the conflict of His consciousness with the seductions of the +popular Messianism. He triumphed over it with difficulty; but +thenceforth He was always on His guard in that direction. Is it not +remarkable that this very temptation returned to Him through the mouth +of Peter? Jesus treats as Satan the first of His apostles, and refers +to the devil in person and the prince of darkness suggestions of this +nature which tend to make Him deviate from the road marked out by the +inspiration of His heart. He avoids the title Messiah until the day +when He is able to join with it the image of the Cross. He disdains +the title, "Son of David," preferring to all others that of "Son of +Man," a title that was not open to the same mistakes. On this road of +renunciation He must sacrifice not only His ease, His joys, and His +repose, but also, at each step, some of the beliefs of Israel, and some +of the glories of the Messiah. He never hesitates. His people reject +Him, and He turns to His Father and says to Him: "Even so, Father, for +so it seemed good in Thy sight." He agonises in Gethsemane, the +Messiah agonises in Him, and He prays thus: "Father, not My will, but +Thine be done." + +Hence comes His freedom of spirit, the elevation of His view in the +interpretation of events, as also His pious and trustful reserve in +face of the enigmas and obscurities that His glance cannot penetrate. +John the Baptist is beheaded in prison: singular destiny for that +formidable Elijah who was to inaugurate by thunder and lightning the +Messianic era, the dream of all patriots! Is Jesus offended by it? +Does He hesitate to declare that John at that very moment is "the Elias +which was for to come"? What a defiance to the oracles of the popular +Messianism! When the sons of Zebedee desire Him to reserve for them +the foremost places in His future kingdom, He merely speaks to them of +the baptism of martyrdom, and teaches them that they must leave such +things at the disposal of the Father. No doubt, He never contradicts +apocalyptic predictions; on the contrary He applies to Himself all the +promises of glory and of triumph; but always in subjection to the +Father's will. Asked as to the date of the Messiah's advent, He +answers that He does not know, that they must observe the blossoms on +the fig-tree and the signs of the times around Himself; that they must +watch and pray, possess their souls in patience, and abandon to the +Father the decisions of which He keeps the impenetrable secret. + +I speak of freedom of interpretation and of pious reserve, not of +hypocritical and sceptical accommodation. We cannot doubt that Jesus +accepted at the outset, and shared, at bottom, the Messianic beliefs in +which He had been trained like all the children of His race. That His +disciples, in reporting His discourses on this point, exaggerated and +materialised them, need not be denied. But, on the other hand you can +hardly explain the unanimity of the earliest Christian tradition in +expecting His return upon the clouds if Jesus had professed entirely +opposite ideas. After all, is there anything more astonishing in His +sharing on this matter the hopes of His time than in the fact of His +having explained certain mysterious maladies as His contemporaries did +by demoniacal possession, or of His attributing Psalm cx., as did +certain of the rabbis, to King David; to the first Isaiah the work of +the second, and to Moses the redaction of the Pentateuch? These +current and traditional ideas, however, which came to Him, not from +heaven, but from His race and His environment, never succeeded in +corrupting the immutable purity of His inner piety or in falsifying the +divine inspirations of His heart. Whenever there was contradiction +between the Messianic beliefs or the Law of Moses, on the one hand, and +the consciousness of Jesus, on the other, it was not the latter but the +former that gave way and were transformed. + +The disciples were not so free as the Master. Their faith remained a +long time bound to these hopes of the future. Why had they left all +and followed Him but because He had appeared to them to be the bearer +and the depository of the divine promises? His death, which seemed to +belie their beliefs, only served to give them another turn. They +corrected prophecy. Instead of one Advent of the Messiah they imagined +two, the first in humiliation, the second in glory. The one having +been realised, they expected the other with a more ardent confidence. +No one doubted it was near. The apostle Paul lived in this hope as +well as the author of the _Apocalypse_, the compilers of the synoptic +gospels, and the editors of "The Teaching of the Apostles." The time +is short: the Master comes: _Maranatha_. This was the watchword of all +the early Christians. This faith in the imminent return of Christ and +of the end of the world dominates all the thoughts as well as the +feelings of the apostles: it determines and colours their Christology, +their theory of Redemption, their ethics, their idea of salvation, so +that to expound their writings and estimate the worth of their +reasonings, the historian must always read them and explain them in +this light. It is for this reason that their Christianity merits the +name of Messianic, and could not be, in this Jewish form, an absolute +_norm_ for all the ages. + +The disciples of Jesus, however, found themselves in a school in which +they could not perpetually mistake the lessons. The Christian +principle had appeared to be at one with Messianism; it was something +altogether different and could not continue for ever to be mixed up +with it. Under the contradiction of events and the action of the +spirit of Jesus, they soon began to see the dawn of a process of +spiritualisation in their apocalyptic beliefs. This progress is +manifest in the letters of St. Paul when read in their order and with +attention. In the first, he hopes before he dies to witness the advent +of the Lord. But, from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the +image of death and martyrdom begins to interpose itself between his +faith and that glorious ideal, which evermore seems to recede into the +future. It never entirely disappears, but this preoccupation with the +return of Jesus diminishes and occupies a smaller space in his later +epistles. On the contrary, the work of Jesus, considered in the past +and in its redemptive efficacy, the Christian life conceived as a life +of faith and love, as an imitation of Jesus Christ and an inheriting of +His Spirit, receive ever-increasing developments. Insensibly, the +centre of gravity of apostolic Christianity changes; from the +hypnotising contemplation of the Messianic future, it passes to the +sanctifying meditation on the passion of Christ, on His teaching, and +redeeming work. This is best seen in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and +in the Fourth Gospel, in which the Jewish Messiah is transformed into +the eternal _Logos_, the light of all men here below, and the principle +of the universal religion. + +The work of emancipation that men alone could not accomplish, God +Himself achieved. The conquests of the Church in the Empire, and +especially the double and irreparable ruin of Jerusalem and the Jewish +nation under Titus and under Hadrian, opened on the future other +prospects. The world continued. It was necessary to settle down and +live in it. Montanism was merely a last outburst of fever. By the end +of the second century, Jewish Messianism was so nearly dead that its +obstinate adherents were regarded as heretics by the Church at large. +Organised into a hierarchy, the Church substituted itself resolutely +for the ancient people of Israel, and represented itself as heir to the +ancient promises. The advent of the kingdom of God becomes the advent +and the victory of the Catholic Church over all the other powers of +earth. The Messianic Theocracy is transformed into a Church Theocracy. +Messianism gives place to Catholicism. + + +3. _Catholic Christianity_ + +Transplanted from the poor and arid soil of Hebraism into the rich and +fruitful loam of Graeco-Roman civilisation, the Christian plant was +sure to grow apace and be transformed. Catholicism is as much Pagan as +Apostolic Messianism was Jewish--from the same causes, and according to +the same law. More Greek in the East, more Roman in the West, it bears +always and everywhere the traces of its origin. Study successively all +the features of the Catholic Church, and you will find on each of them +this indelible mark. + +The dogmas of the Councils and the theology of the Fathers, who does +not see at the first glance their true character? Who does not see +that the material is Greek in form, in colour, in every fibre of its +tissue? Whence came those terms and notions, of which Hebraism knew +nothing, but which the theologians of all the schools will henceforth +bandy to and fro--those abstract concepts, substance and hypostasis, +nature and person, essence and accident, matter and form? Whence came +the science of the Fathers of the Church, their exegesis, their +history, their logic, their psychology, and that lofty metaphysic which +has so completely transformed the Prophetic into a Platonic firmament? +All this came from Athens, Ephesus, Samos, and Miletus, _viâ_ +Alexandria and Rome. The Justins, the Athenagorases, the Clements and +the Basils, Athanasius even more than Arius, Jerome as well as +Augustine, had been nourished from their childhood on Greek and Latin +literature. They had read Plato, Heraclitus, Zeno, Philo, Cicero, +Posidonius, and Seneca as much and more perhaps than the Old Testament. +What is there astonishing in the fact that their theology should have +followed step by step the theology of neo-Platonism until this latter, +for Augustine, should have become the true introduction to the Gospel, +and that in the Middle Ages the names of Plato and Aristotle should +have been invested with an authority not less than those of Isaiah, St. +Paul, and St. John? + +Or shall we pass to the constitution of the Church? What is that but +the exact counterpart of the constitution of the Roman Empire: the +parish modelling itself on the municipality, the diocese on the +province, the metropolitan regions on the great prefectures, and, at +the top of the pyramid, the bishop of Rome and the papacy, whose ideal +dream is simply, in the religious order, the universal and absolute +monarchy of which the Cæsars had first set the pattern? Or would you +consider the moral life and the type of piety? It is true that at the +outset, and so long as the persecutions continued, there is a great +contrast between Jewish or Christian morals and manners and those of +Roman or Greek society. But, with time, the contrast is singularly +attenuated. If the Church conquered the world, the world had its +revenge within the Church. What is that monkish asceticism imposing +celibacy on the clergy, exalting virginity, multiplying pious works of +merit, and replacing, by factitious and sterile duties, the duties +dictated by nature and essential to society,--what are all these but +survivals of a dualism and the imitation of an ideal which, come from +the East, seduced the feverish imagination of an expiring world? The +monks, the anchorites and their theology of impotent celibates, did +they save Egypt, Syria, and Byzantium? + +During this time, what did worship, adoration, religion, properly +speaking, become? Between earth and heaven there reappeared the whole +ancient hierarchy of gods and demi-gods, of heroes, nymphs, and +goddesses, replaced by the Virgin Mother, angels, demons, saints. Each +town, each parish, every fountain, had its patron or its patroness, its +tutelary guardian, to whom they addressed themselves more familiarly +than to God in order to obtain temporal blessings and the grace for +every day. The saints have their specialities like the minor deities +of former times. Some cured fevers, some diseases of the skin. This +one had charge of travellers, that of harvests, a third of articles +that had been lost, a fourth of needed heirs in families in danger of +decay. With this mythology, all the superstitions were revived, down +to the grossest fetichism: pilgrimages, chaplets, litanies, the +veneration of images, signs of the cross, rites and sacraments +conceived after the manner of the ancient mysteries. And all this is +done with a sort of unconsciousness, very gradually, and as the effect +of a zeal that was supposed to be Christian. The heads of the Church +recommend missionaries not to destroy the temples of the false gods, +but to consecrate them to the true one, and to replace their images by +images of the saints, and the rites of the old cults by similar +ceremonies. Names and etiquettes were thus changed, but not the things +themselves. At Rome, beneath the basilica of St. Peter, a superb +statue was erected to the Prince of the Apostles. This was formerly a +statue of Jupiter. Its great toe has been worn down by the kisses of +the faithful. Before Christianity, they kissed the foot of the master +of the gods; now they kiss the foot of Peter. Is the cult of a +different order and the devotion of a higher quality? + +These, however, are but the forms of Catholicism; let us go deeper and +try to reach its generating principle. This principle should be found +in the central dogma of the Catholic system, that in it which commands +and regulates all the parts, which constitutes its unity and strength. +To designate this central dogma is not difficult. The catechism +teaches us that it is the dogma of the Church, of its infallibility and +traditional continuity, of its divine origin and supernatural powers. +Protestants affirm that they belong to the Church because they belong +to Christ. Catholics reverse the terms: no one is in communion with +Christ, no one really belongs to Him, unless he belongs to the Church. +Thus faith in the Church and submission to the Church are put into the +forefront and remain the one thing needful and essential. One is a +Catholic by the fact of his implicit acceptance of the sovereign +authority of the Church; one ceases to be a Catholic when that +submission ceases. From which it is easy to conclude that the +principle of Catholicism is the realisation of the Christian +principle--that is to say, of the reign of God and of Christ, in the +form of a visible institution, an organised social body, an external +power, exercising itself by means of that which is the very soul of the +institution--a priesthood endowed with supernatural functions and +attributes. + +The immediate consequence of this first principle was the rupture of +the organic union realised in the Gospel of Christ between the +religious element and the moral element. Nothing is more striking in +the Sermon on the Mount and in all the Parables of Jesus, nothing +better attests the superiority of Christianity to anterior cults, +nothing proves with greater force and clearness that it is the perfect +and definitive Religion, than that mutual penetration, that fusion, +that identification, in a word, of religion and morality, till then +separate and often opposed to each other. The Christ did not desire in +religion anything that was not in morality, or in morality anything +that was not religious. Thus did He bring back piety from without, and +made of it the inner inspiration which penetrates and transforms the +whole life, a hidden flame, a ferment acting from the centre to the +surface, the soul in the body, ever invisible and everywhere present. +He thus founded the absolute autonomy of the religious and of the moral +life which no longer are divided, but appear simply as the two sides of +consciousness; the one interior and turned towards God, the other +exterior and turned towards the world. In creating in us the sense of +our sonship to God, Jesus did not admit the intervention of any +external authority between the Father and the child. The universal +priesthood, with which, by His spirit, He invests the least of His +disciples, excludes in principle all supernatural priesthood. "Call no +man master on earth, for one is your Master in heaven; and all ye are +brethren." The children must have free access to the Father. + +But, from the moment the Christian principle, instead of entering as +divine inspiration into the consciousness, sets itself up as a visible +institution in society, it is evident that this organic union is +broken, and the autonomy of the individual consciousness compromised. +The religious element affirms itself on its own account, and imposes +itself from without on the mind of the faithful as a divine authority. +The ancient dualism, which the Gospel surmounted, reappears in a +profounder form; it brings in its train a universal +supernaturalism--that is to say, a mechanical conception of the +relations between God and the world. Instead of a penetration we have +a superposition of two elements. The clergy separates itself from the +laity and superposes itself upon it as the necessary intermediary +between earth and heaven. Religious society, constituted under the +form of a government, superposes itself upon the civil society that it +desires to rule; grace superposes itself upon nature, acting on it from +above in the sacraments; the morality of the Church, in so far as it is +a supernatural morality, superposes itself upon the natural morality of +conscience; revelation upon reason; divine dogmas upon human science; +the spiritual power of the priest upon the temporal power of the family +and of the State. Everywhere, within and without, the division breaks +out, and you see arise in man and in society an intestine struggle +which will never end; for these two original forces that it brings into +conflict, religion and nature, are equally powerful and eternal. + +Catholicism began, then, in the Church of the second century when, +under the unconscious action of tradition and of pagan habits, the need +was felt of objectivising and materialising the Christian principle in +an external fact, of imprisoning the kingdom of God in a visible +institution, the immanent revelation of the Holy Spirit in the +decisions and acts of a priesthood. This tendency, once born, would be +irresistible. Ideal and transcendent as it was at first, the Christian +principle would become ever more external and political. Absorbing all +Christianity, and holding in its hands all the graces of God, the +Church would naturally present itself to the world as the permanent +mediator and the grand magician. It was its part to effect the +salvation of sinners, and, for this, it would need, like the ancient +priests, to offer daily to God an agreeable oblation, an expiatory +sacrifice of infinite value to atone for the infinite sins of the +world. Thus the Church transformed the commemoration of the death of +Christ into a _real_ renewal of the sacrifice on Calvary; the Holy +Supper became the mass; the fraternal table was turned into an altar; +the elder or presbyter was changed into a priest and pontiff, and the +bread of the communion into a divine victim. The dogma of +transubstantiation was bound to follow; to the materialisation of +Christianity in the Church corresponds the materialisation of God in +the host. + +By virtue of the same principle, Christian piety becomes devotion, +_i.e._ a ritual and meritorious practice, as in the ancient cults. But +we must not be unjust and attribute something to Catholicism that it +condemns. It does not say that external practice is sufficient; the +Church esteems it vain and even culpable unless accompanied by the +affections and the will. + + * * * * * + +The first and principal act of piety is submission to the Church. Its +dogmas may be irrational, contradictory; its commandments may seem +arbitrary, foreign to the natural conscience, sometimes in +contradiction with it; no matter. + +Reason, conscience, all must abdicate, and all submit.... In the +Church, the Christian state must always be a state of minority, for the +tutelage that it accepts will never cease. And the authority of the +Church, being on this point sovereign and indefectible, could not +remain invisible and indeterminate. An imperious logic pushed it from +the first to incarnate itself in its organs, more and more apparent and +simplified. First it was lodged in individual bishops, then in +councils, until the Pope when speaking _ex cathedra_ became the sole +authority. In 1870 the Council of the Vatican, by promulgating the +dogma of Papal infallibility, drew the irresistible conclusion from the +premises laid down in previous centuries. The evolution of Catholicism +was completed. The transformation of Christianity into a sacerdotal +theocracy was achieved. The first is realised and exhausted in the +second, and the distinction we established, when speaking of the +essence of Christianity, between the Christian principle and its +historical realisations, is not merely effaced; it no longer has any +meaning. + +From which follow two consequences which every day become more clear +and patent. The first is that the Catholic Church, notwithstanding the +desires of Leo XIII., is fatally condemned to be intolerant and +intransigeant towards all others. The second is that it is +contradictory to expect any reform in that Church, or even to speak of +it; for the Church could not admit the necessity of reform without +renouncing all its pretentions. A river never turns back to its +source. Catholicism can only exist by struggling for supremacy. It +must be all or nothing. + +At the same time, things are not so simple as our systems. The logic +of ideas does not exhaust the reality of life. Behind abstract +principles there are pious souls.... In Catholicism there has always +been a latent Protestantism, by which I mean a protest, mute or spoken, +direct or indirect, of the Christian principle against the oppressions +of external and tyrannical authority.... Without the continuous +presence of the Christian spirit in the Catholic Church, the +Reformation would have been impossible. Without the triumph of the +sacerdotal spirit it would have been unnecessary. Protestantism sprang +out of Catholicism because it was virtually contained in it. + + +4. _Protestant Christianity_ + +It is strangely to mistake the nature of the Protestant Reformation of +the sixteenth century to see in it a sort of semi-rationalism, the +inconsistent exercise of free examination, or the revolutionary +introduction of a foreign philosophical principle into the warp and +woof of Christianity. You have only to read the biography of the +Reformers and to make a slight analysis of their soul to form an +entirely different idea of their work. The first and almost the only +question which preoccupies and troubles them is an exclusively +religious and practical question: "What must we do in order to be +justified before God? How may we attain to peace of soul and to the +assurance of pardon and of life eternal?" To find this peace, this +pardon and salvation, which the Church could not procure for them, they +determined to turn back and quench their thirst at the primitive +sources of the Gospel. They went back to the original documents +because they were persuaded that Christianity had been corrupted in the +course of centuries; they wished to have it in its purity. Their whole +reformation was to consist in this restoration of primitive truth. + +But history never recommences. This return to the past and this +re-reading of the Bible were accompanied by a religious experience and +an act of consciousness which made of their enterprise something +essentially new and original, and which rendered it immeasurably +fruitful. It is unnecessary to seek elsewhere than in psychological +experience the germ of Protestantism. It was in the humble cell of a +convent at Erfurt and in the soul of a poor monk that the drama was +first enacted from which sprang the revolution that has changed the +face of the world. + +Luther entered the convent with a faith in the authority of the Church +and in the efficacy of its rites as serious and entire as that of any +monk. "If it was possible," he said afterwards, "to reach Heaven by +monkery, I was resolved to reach it by that road." For years he shrank +from nothing that might render God propitious; he multiplied his acts +of devotion and his works of penance. There is a striking analogy +between the experiences of Luther under the monachal régime and those +of Saul of Tarsus under the discipline of the Pharisaic Law. The +_dénoûment_ was the same. For the second time, the system of pious +works was found powerless to appease a conscience which roused against +itself the rigour of its own ideal. This struggle against an external +law could only exasperate the sense of sin to the point of despair. +Paul and Luther, in precisely the same manner, experienced the inward +emptiness and radical worthlessness of the religious system in which +they had been trained. The more they had tried to realise it in its +perfection, the more had they found it wanting. Catholicism, +considered as a means of salvation, was rejected by the religious and +moral consciousness of Luther, before it was condemned by exegesis and +by reasoning. To reach this sentence without appeal the Saxon monk had +but to maintain inflexible the demands of the divine law and to +measure, without illusion, the abyss that separated him from God, and +that no human works could fill. It was in this way that he found +himself shut up to the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; he found +the peace that fled from him in the pure and simple acceptance of the +glad tidings of the paternal love of God, in the confidence that He +gives gratuitously that which man can never conquer for himself, +namely, the remission of sins and the certitude of eternal life. What +then is faith? Is it still intellectual adhesion to dogmas or +submission to an external authority? No. It is an act of confidence, +the act of a childlike heart, which finds with joy the Father whom it +knew not, and Whom, without presumption, it is happy henceforth to hold +with both its hands. That is what Luther found in Paul's great words: +"The just shall live by faith." In this radical transformation of the +notion of faith restored to its evangelical meaning is to be found the +principle of the greatest religious revolution effected in the world +since the preaching of Jesus. + +Let us therefore here set forth the radical opposition between the +Catholic principle and the Protestant principle in order that we may +thoroughly understand the internecine war that was henceforth to be +waged between them. In vain will eminent men in both camps, with the +most generous and conciliatory intentions, arise and endeavour to find +some middle ground, and effect a pacific reunion of the two halves of +Christendom. All compromises, all diplomatic negotiations, will fail, +because each of the two principles can only subsist by the negation of +the other. Having attained to salvation, to full communion with God, +independently of and in collision with the authority and the discipline +of the sacerdotal Church, how could Luther recognise them any longer as +divine and submit to them with sincerity and confidence? The ancient +edifice had been the more thoroughly ruined, inasmuch as it had become +useless and had been replaced. The originality of Luther consisted in +this: his religious enfranchisement sprang from his own piety, and he +founded his freedom on his sense of sonship, on the sense he had of his +quality and titles as a child and heir of God. How could such a +consciousness submit itself to the yoke again without denying itself? +Catholicism, on the other hand, cannot be less intransigeant. To +recognise in any degree whatever that it is possible to a Christian to +enjoy pardon and the sense of the divine fatherhood apart from its +dogmas and its priesthood, would not this be to abdicate all its +pretensions, and to transform itself to the point of destruction? + +No doubt, in actual life, this opposition is attenuated by the fact +that in all Catholicism there is a latent Protestantism, and in all +Protestantism a latent Catholicism. Between Port-Royal and Geneva, +between Bossuet and Leibniz, between Leo XIII. and the Anglican Church, +the distance seems but little. It is an illusion. Like two +electricities of the same name, no sooner do they come into contact +than they repel each other and separate more widely than before. In +Catholicism Christianity tends to realise itself as a theocratic +institution; it becomes an external law, a supernatural power, which, +from without, imposes itself on individuals and on peoples. In +Protestantism, on the contrary, Christianity is brought back from the +exterior to the interior; it plants itself in the soul as a principle +of subjective inspiration which, acting organically on individual and +social life, transforms it and elevates it progressively without +denaturalising and doing violence to it. Protestant subjectivity +becomes spontaneity and liberty, just as necessarily as Catholic +objectivity becomes supernaturalism and clerical tyranny. The +religious element is no longer separated from the moral element; it no +longer asserts itself as a truth or a morality superior to human truth +and human morality. The intensity of the religious life is no longer +measured by the number or the fervour of pious works or ritual +practices, but by the sincerity and elevation of the life of the +spirit. All asceticism is radically suppressed. Science is set free +along with conscience; the political life of the peoples, as well as +the inner life of the Christian. Man escapes from tutelage, and in all +departments comes into possession of himself, into the full and free +development of his being, into his majority. + +This subjective character of a religion strictly moral stamps itself +with energy on all the specific doctrines of Protestantism. It would +be superfluous to dwell upon the doctrine of justification by faith; +its subjective character is evident. No doubt the term justification +has a legal colour and awakens the idea of a tribunal. But it must not +be forgotten that this tribunal is nothing but the inner court where +man and God meet each other face to face, where man is accused by his +own conscience, and where the sentence which absolves him is the inward +witness of the Holy Spirit, heard by him alone. + +The doctrine of the sovereign authority of Scripture in matters of +faith might seem at first sight to set up an external authority. And +it is very true that certain Protestants have often understood it in +the Catholic sense, and have employed it to exercise some violence on +their own conscience or on the conscience of their brethren. But they +never succeed for long; they soon fall into a too flagrant +contradiction. The authority of the Bible is never separated in +Protestantism from the right of the individual to interpret it freely, +and from the personal duty of assimilating the truths he discovers in +it. What therefore are those Protestants doing who attempt to set up a +confession of faith as absolute and obligatory truth but imposing on +their brethren their own subjective interpretation, and, consequently, +denying to others the right which they exercise themselves? Nor let it +be forgotten, on the other hand, that the obligation laid on each +Christian to read the Bible and draw from it his faith is a perpetual +and fruitful appeal to the energy of thought and to the autonomy of the +inner life. The authority of Scripture, so far from being a menace to +Christian liberty, is its invincible rampart. Not only has the +Protestant Christian in the name of the Bible triumphed over eighteen +centuries of tradition, but it is the Bible, an appeal to the Bible +ever better understood, which has saved Protestant theology from +scholasticism, which has prevented it from congealing in a confession +of faith, and which, leaving the principle of the Gospel in an ideal +transcendence in relation to all its historical expressions or +realisations, has maintained, and still maintains, the spirit of reform +in the Churches of the Reformation. + +The doctrines of grace and of predestination, which are at the centre +of Calvinism, have no other meaning. Souls religiously inert see in +these doctrines nothing but an abuse of blind power, a sort of divine +_fatum_, breaking every spring in the human soul. Nothing appears to +be more oppressive or more immoral. But this is only an appearance. +There is really no predestination for irreligious souls. This doctrine +is but the expression of the inner basis of all true piety, which is +nothing if it is not the sense, the feeling, of the presence and the +sovereign and continuous action of God in each soul and in all the +universe. No other sentiment gives so much spring and vigour to the +human will, nothing raises it to such a height or makes it so +invincible to all assaults from within and without. "If God be for us, +who can be against us?" etc. (Rom. viii. 31-39). How is it that the +Calvinistic Puritans of New England were the founders of modern +liberty, and the Jesuits, those admirable theorisers on freewill, the +precursors of all the servitudes? It is with predestination as it is +with religion itself. Conceived as exterior to the life of the soul, +it gives birth, no doubt, to a crushing despotism; conceived as an +inward inspiration, sustaining the initiative and even the liberty of +the individual, it becomes, in the Christian soul, the source of a +force which nothing can break or subdue. + +But the point at which the antithesis between Protestantism and +Catholicism becomes most patent is the doctrine of the natural +priesthood of all Christians as opposed to that of the supernatural +priesthood of a privileged clergy. The free and perpetual communion of +believing souls with the Father is the foundation of the independence +of each and of the fraternal equality of all. The tap-root of +clericalism is cut. The individual is a priest before the interior +altar of his conscience; the father is a priest in his household; the +citizen, if so he wills, in the city. + +The Catholic notion of dogma vanishes with all the rest. To speak of +an immutable and infallible dogma, in Protestantism, is nonsense; that +is to say, if we accept the dictionary definition of dogma--the +promulgation by the Church of an absolute formula. The decision of a +Church cannot have more authority than that Church itself. Now, no +Protestant Church holds itself, or can hold itself without denying +itself, to be infallible. How then could it communicate to its +definitions an infallibility that it did not itself possess? +Protestant confessions of faith are always conditioned in time, and can +never be definitive; they are always revisable, consequently they are +always liable to criticism and to reform. Thus ceases the +solidification of traditional dogma. The old ice melts beneath the +breath of knowledge and of piety. The river takes again its natural +course, and evolution, under the control of a perpetual criticism, +becomes the law of religious thought, as of all other human activities. + +From these observations and analyses (necessarily abridged) the true +nature of Protestantism will have become sufficiently clear. It is not +a dogma set up in the face of another dogma, a Church in competition +with a rival Church, a purified Catholicism opposed to a traditional +Catholicism. It is more and better than a doctrine, it is a method; +more and better than a better Church, it is a new form of piety; it is +a different spirit, creating a new world and inaugurating for religious +souls a new régime. It is equally evident that Protestantism cannot be +imprisoned in any definitive form. It leads to variety of formulas, +rites, and associations as necessarily as the Catholic principle leads +to unity. No limit can be set to its development. Always interior, +invisible, ideal, the religious principle that it represents +accompanies the life and activity of the spirit into all the paths that +man may pursue and in all the progress he may make. Nothing human is +alien to it; nor is it alien to anything that is human. It solves the +problem of liberty and authority as it is solved by free and ordered +governments; it does not suppress either of the terms, but conciliates +them by reducing authority to its pedagogic _rôle_, and by making the +Christian spirit the soul and inner rule of liberty. + +By very reason of its superiority, and of the conditions of general +culture that it presupposes, this form of Christianity could only +appear after all the others. The spirit can only become self-conscious +by distinguishing itself from the body in which at first it seems as if +diffused, and by opposing to it an energetic moral protest. "That is +not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterwards +that which is spiritual" (1 Cor. xv. 46. Cf. Gal. iv. 1-5). This +divine plan, which the apostle discovered in the ancient history of +humanity, is repeated in the history of Christianity. The Messianic +form corresponds to infancy, to that brief, happy age in which the +impatient imagination nourishes itself on dreams and illusions which +the experience of life soon dissipates without killing or even +enfeebling the immortal hope at the heart of it. The Catholic form, +which succeeds it, endures longer and corresponds to the age of +adolescence, in which education is painfully prosecuted, and it demands +a strict external discipline and masters whose authority must not be +questioned or discussed. It was in this way that Catholic discipline +and authority conducted the slow, laborious education of the pagan and +barbarian world up to the sixteenth century. + +But a moment must arrive when the work of education had succeeded, when +the leading strings essential to childhood began to be a bondage and a +hindrance. The pedagogic mission of the Church, like that of the +family itself, had its limit and its term in the very function it +fulfilled. That function was to make adult Christians and free men, +not men without rule, but Christians having in themselves, in their +conscience and their inner life, the supreme rule of their thought and +conduct. This new age of autonomy, of firm possession of self, and of +internal self-government, is that which Protestantism represents, and +it could only commence in modern times--that is to say, with that +general movement which, since the end of the Middle Ages, is leading +humanity to an ever completer enfranchisement, and rendering it more +universally and more individually responsible for its destinies. + +It may be remarked that by this evolution, and under its Protestant +form, the Christian principle was only returning to its pure essence +and its primitive expression. It could only recognise itself, take +cognisance of its true nature, separate itself from that which was not +itself; it could only disencumber itself of every material, temporary, +or local element, of all by which it had become surcharged in the +course of ages, and which was neither religious nor moral, by +remounting to its source, and by renewing its strength, through +reflection and criticism, at its original springs. That is why +Protestantism has taken the form of this return to the past, for in it +Christianity does not surpass itself; it simply tries to know itself +better and to become more faithful to its principle. In the +consciousness of Christ, what did we find was the essence of the +perfect and eternal piety? Nothing more than moral repentance, +confidence in the love of the Father and the filial sense of His +immediate, active presence in the heart: the indestructible foundation +of our liberty, of our moral dignity, of our security, in face of the +enigmas of the universe and the mysteries of death. Is it not to this +eternal gospel that we must always return? To finish its course and +complete its work, will humanity ever discover another viaticum that +will better renew its courage and its hope? + + +5. _Conclusion_ + +Here I must stop. At the outset I spoke of a personal confession, and +it seems to me as if it were nearly complete. In sketching the broad +outlines of the religious history of humanity, I have had but one +object; I have wished to show the men of my generation why I remain +religious, Christian, and Protestant. I am religious because I am a +man and do not desire to be less than human, and because humanity, in +me and in my race, commences and completes itself in religion and by +religion. I am Christian because I cannot be religious in any other +way, and because Christianity is the perfect and supreme form of +religion in this world. Lastly, I am Protestant, not from any +confessional zeal, nor from racial attachment to the family of +Huguenots, although I thank God daily that I was born in that family, +but because in Protestantism alone can I enjoy the heritage of +Christ--that is to say, because in it I can be a Christian without +placing my conscience under any external yoke, and because I can +fortify myself in communion with and in adoration of an immanent Deity +by consecrating to Him the activity of my intellect, the natural +affections of my heart, and find in this moral consecration the free +expansion and development of my whole being. + +Under this new form, divested of the swaddling-clothes by which at +first it was bound, Christianity always seems to me to be best as it +is, a spiritual and eternal principle, which brings peace to the soul, +and which alone can give harmony and unity to the world. Nothing can +contradict it except evil and error; everything serves and strengthens +it. It is this principle which to my eyes manifests itself with +ever-growing clearness in that heroic love of Science which, in our +time, has created so many marvels and made so many martyrs; this it is +which reveals itself to me in the works of all the great artists, in +that ideal of beauty which enraptures them and brings such generous +tears into our eyes; it is this which I honour and bless in the efforts +of men who interest themselves in the future of humanity, and who in +the political direction of their country or in the work of social +education seek and find some means of raising and ameliorating the +condition of the people: I salute it in the illustrious apostles of all +great causes and in the obscure workers at all humble tasks, from the +mother who teaches her children to join their hands and bend their +knees before the Father in Heaven, to the preacher and the missionary +who faithfully distribute to the hungry soul the bread of the Gospel, +from the sister of charity who devotes her life to the solace of the +sick and suffering, to the thinker who fathoms the mysteries of the +heart and of the universe in order that he may shed on the paths of +erring humanity some rays of light and joy. + +Amid the twilight that envelopes us you predict the threatening night; +I see the day that is about to dawn with a new century. Where you see +nothing but discords, conflicts, and confusion, I see a concourse of +forces which, coming from all points of the horizon, are still ignorant +of each other, and, because ignorant, conflicting, but which, by these +very conflicts and collisions, are labouring together in the common +work of elevation and salvation: the mysterious work whose nature +Christ defined in His Gospel, and whose motive-power he created by +breathing into the human heart His own fraternal love. Since then +there has been a secret inquietude at the heart of all egoisms, a +sentence of condemnation on the brow of all abuses and all tyrannies. +The modern world can never settle down again into repose, or fall +asleep in evil and in slavery; it has had a vision it cannot forget; it +has been touched with a flame that cannot be quenched. Many who are +often the best collaborators in this work of redemption know not whence +it comes and whither it tends; they even blaspheme the Christ who +inspires it and the God who maintains it. They know not what they do, +nor what they say: in their ignorance they calumniate that which is +best both in their life and in themselves. + + + + +BOOK THIRD + +DOGMA + + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT IS A DOGMA? + +1. _Definition_ + +Dogma, in the strictest sense, is one or more doctrinal propositions +which, in a religious society, and as the result of the decisions of +the competent authority, have become the object of faith, and the rule +of belief and practice. + +It would not be enough to say that a religious society has dogmas as a +political society has laws. For the first, it is a much greater +necessity. Moral societies not only need to be governed; they need to +define themselves and to explain their _raison d'être_. Now, they can +only do this in their dogma. + +Dogma therefore is a phenomenon of social life. One cannot conceive +either dogma without a Church, or a Church without dogma. The two +notions are correlative and inseparable. + +There are three elements in dogma: a religious element, which springs +from piety; an intellectual or philosophic element, which supposes +reflection and discussion; and an element of authority, which comes +from the Church. Dogma is a doctrine of which the Church has made a +law. + +All the peoples of antiquity believed that their legislation came from +heaven. In like manner all the Churches have believed, and many of +them still believe, that their dogmas, in their official form, have +been directly given to them by God Himself. The history of evolution, +political and religious, has dissipated these illusions. Every law of +righteousness and truth should, doubtless, be referred to the +mysterious action of the Divine Spirit which works incessantly in the +spirits of men; but, in its historical form, it bears, nevertheless, +the stamp of the contingent conditions in which it is born. The genius +of a people is nowhere more manifest than in its constitution and its +laws, nor the soul and the original inspiration of a Church than in its +dogmatic creations. The work always bears the moral impress of the +workman. + +It follows that a Church cannot claim for its dogma more authority than +it possesses itself. Only a Church which is infallible can issue +immutable dogmas. When Protestantism sets up such a pretension, it +falls into a radical contradiction with its own principle, and that +contradiction ruins all attempts of this kind. + +In Catholicism the theory of the immutability of dogmas is opposed to +history; in Protestantism it is opposed to logic. In both cases the +affirmation is shown to be illusory. It is with dogmas, so long as +they are alive, as it is with all living things; they are in a +perpetual state of transformation. They only become immutable when +they are dead, and they begin to die when they cease to be studied for +their own sakes--that is, to be discussed. + +Dogma, therefore, which serves as a law and visible bond to the Church, +is neither the principle nor the foundation of religion. It is not +primitive; it never appears until late in the history of religious +evolution. "There were poets and orators," says Voltaire, "before +there was a grammar and a rhetoric." Man chanted before he reasoned. +Everywhere the prophet preceded the rabbi, and religion theology. It +may be said, no doubt, that dogma is in religion, since it comes out of +it; but it is in it as the fruits of Autumn are in the blossoms of +Spring. Dogmas and fruits, in order to form and ripen, need long +summers and much sunshine. The best way to describe their nature will +be to trace their genesis. + + +2. _The Genesis of Dogma_ + +Dogma has its tap-root in religion. In every positive Religion there +is an internal and an external element, a soul and a body. The soul is +inward piety, the movement of adoration and of prayer, the divine +sensibility of the heart; the body consists of external forms, of rites +and dogmas, institutions and codes. Life consists in the organic union +of these two elements. Without the soul, religion is but an empty +form, a mere corpse. Without the body, which is the expression and the +instrument of the soul, religion is indiscernible, unconscious, and +unrealised. + +Which of these two elements is primitive and generative? The answer is +not doubtful. Modern psychology has learnt it in a manner never to be +forgotten from Schleiermacher, Benjamin Constant, and Alexander Vinet. +The principle of all religion is in piety, just as the principle of +language is in thought, although it is not possible now to conceive of +them as being separate. Consider a moment. That religion which time +and custom have transformed, perhaps, into a mechanical round of +ceremonies, or into a system of abstractions and metaphysical theories, +what was it at first? Trace it to its source, and you will find that +these cold blocks of lava once came burning hot from an interior fire. + +But this is the parting of the ways. This is the point at which +religious minds separate into widely different groups. + +Regarding religion as a saving institution in the form of a visible +organised Church maintained by God and provided with all the means of +grace, Catholicism was bound to end in a sort of mechanical psychology, +and to explain the sentiment of piety as the inward effect of the +outward and supernatural institution. This is done by Bellarmine and +de Bonald, the most consistent of the Catholic theologians. +Protestantism, on the contrary, which makes of the faith of the heart, +of the immediate and personal relation of the soul to God, the very +principle of justification, and of all religious life, was bound none +the less logically to end, by analysis, in a more profound psychology, +and to refer to an inward principle all the forms and manifestations of +religion. Religious history thus becomes homogeneous, and runs +parallel with that of all the other activities of the human mind. + +None the less, this subjectivity of the religious principle frightens +many good men. Persons devoted to practice, and unconsciously +dominated by the habits and necessities of ecclesiastical government +and religious teaching, hesitate to enter upon a road so naturally +opened. As, from generation to generation, religion has been taught +and propagated externally by the Church, the family, or special agents, +it is impossible for them to imagine that it was not always so, and not +to trace back to God Himself that chain or tradition of external +instruction. In which they are certainly right. Their only error, but +it is a grave one, is to represent God as an ordinary teacher, the +first of a series, who once acted, like the rest of them, upon His +pupils from without; whereas God works in all souls, acts and teaches +without ceasing through all human masters, and is present throughout +the whole religious education of humanity. + +Who does not see that to represent things otherwise is to remain in the +crudest and least religious of anthropomorphisms? At bottom, these men +are afraid of losing revelation, which they rightly judge to be +inseparable from the very idea of religion. They object that piety and +the awakening of the religious sentiment must have an objective cause, +and that that cause can only be a revelation of God Himself. Nothing +is more true; but this revelation which is effected without, in the +events of Nature or of History, is only known within, in and by the +human consciousness. This inward inspiration alone enables religious +men to interpret Nature and History religiously. Now, this +interpretation is made by their intellect and according to the laws and +conditions which regulate it. The religious phenomenon therefore has +not two moments only, the objective revelation as a cause and the +subjective piety as an effect; it has three, which always follow each +other in the same order: the inner revelation of God, which produces +the subjective piety of man, which, in its turn, engenders the +historical religious forms, rites, formularies of faith, sacred books, +social creations, which we can know and describe as external facts. It +will be seen what an error they commit, what a mistake they make, who +identify the third term with the first, suppressing the second, which +is the necessary link and forms the transition between the other two. +Whoever will fathom this little problem in psychology, and reflect upon +it with a little attention, will see that all religious revelation of +God must necessarily pass through human subjectivity before arriving at +historical objectivity. + + * * * * * + +Passing now from the intellectual interpretation to the intellectual +expression of religion, and noting the successive stages through which +it must necessarily advance towards dogma, I remark once more that +man's first language is that of the imagination. The imagination of +the child or of the savage animates, dramatises, and transfigures +everything. It spontaneously engenders vivid and poetic images. At +the beginning, religion, consisting chiefly of emotions, presentiments, +movements of the heart, clothed itself in mythologic forms.... But the +age of individual reflection comes. The image tends to change into the +idea. Men interpret, define, translate it. The religious myth is +replaced by the religious doctrine. These are at first entirely +personal interpretations. Nevertheless, these opinions desire to +propagate themselves, to become general, and, as they are imperfect and +diverse, they engender conflicts which threaten to become schisms. +Myths, appealing to the imagination merely, and only professing to +translate the common emotion, draw souls together and fuse them into a +real unity; individual reason, private exegesis, inevitably separates +them. But the consciousness of the community, thus menaced, naturally +reacts by the instincts of conservation. There is therefore a struggle +between the two, and out of this conflict dogma is born. + +A new element must intervene. There must be a Church. Now, all +religions do not form churches. The phenomenon is only produced in the +universalist and moral religions. Strictly speaking, there is no +Church except in Christianity; and no dogmas save Christian dogmas. In +ancient societies, where religion was confounded either with the State, +or with the nationality, the religious unity was maintained and +guaranteed by the same means as the political unity. There were no +dogmas, because dogmas were of no use. As much may be said of Hebraism +and of Islam: in them there were rites, external signs and seals, which +sufficed to weld and to maintain the religious bond. + +Dogma only arises when the religious society, distinguishing itself +from the civil, becomes a moral society, recruiting itself by voluntary +adherents. This society, like every other, gives to itself what it +needs in order to live, to defend itself, and propagate itself. +Doctrine necessarily becomes for it an essential thing; for in its +doctrine it expresses its soul, its mission, its faith. It is +necessary also that it should carry its doctrine to a degree at once of +generality and precision high enough to embrace and to translate all +the moments of its religious experience and to eliminate all alien and +hostile elements. Controversy springs up and threatens to rend it. +The Church then chooses and formulates a definition of the point +contested: it enacts it as the adequate expression of its faith, and +sanctions it with all its objective authority: dogma is born. From +that moment also the two correlative notions of _orthodoxy_ and +_heresy_ are formed. Orthodoxy is official and collective doctrine; +heresy is individual doctrine or interpretation.... By and by symbols +or confessions of faith are formed, and these become the standards of +faith and practice in the various churches that adopt them. + +This long evolution is fully justified in the eyes of reason. It is a +movement of the mind as legitimate as it is necessary. The germ must +become a tree, the child grow to manhood, the image be transformed into +the idea, and poetry give place to prose. It is possible to be +mistaken as to the nature, origin, and value of dogma, but not as to +its necessity. The Church may make a different use of it in the +future, but it will not be able to dispense with it, for the doctrinal +form of religion answers to an imperative need of the epoch of +intellectual growth at which we have arrived. No one can either +reverse or arrest its development.... + +The word dogma is anterior to Catholicism. It had two senses in Greek +antiquity: a political and authoritarian sense, designating the decrees +of popular assemblies and of kings; this is the meaning which dominates +and characterises the Catholic notion of dogma. But the word had also +in the schools of Greece an essentially philosophical and doctrinal +meaning; it designated the characteristic doctrine of each school. The +Protestant Churches have inherited this latter sense of the word: it is +in perfect harmony with the spirit and the principle of Protestantism. +Dogma, in the Protestant sense, means the doctrinal type generally +received in a Church, and publicly expressed in its liturgy, its +catechisms, its official teaching, and especially in its Confession of +Faith.[1] + + +[1] Originally the word dogma signified a command, a precept, and not a +truth (Luke ii. 1, and the Septuagint of Dan. ii. 13; vi. 8; Esther +iii. 9; 2 Maccab. x. 8, etc.). Ignatius of Antioch still uses the word +in this sense. It is not until towards the time of Athanasius or of +Augustine that it begins to be used of the doctrinal decisions of the +Fathers, the Councils, and the Pope. (Cf. also Acts xv. 28, 29. This +is afterwards called a dogma, the only time it is used in the N.T. with +reference to a decision of the Church.) + + + +3. The Religious Value of Dogma + +The intolerance of Catholic dogmatism has had consequences so +revolting, and, in Protestantism, wherever this dogmatism has revived, +it has given rise to conflicts so sterile and so lamentable, that +certain minds have gone so far as to deny the utility of dogma in the +largest sense of the word, and have wished to suppress all doctrinal +definition of the Christian Faith. To call dogma either divine in +itself or evil in itself is to go to an unwarrantable extreme. In +religious development, whether individual or social, it has an organic +place that cannot be taken away from it, and a practical importance +that cannot be contested. + +Religious faith is a phenomenon of consciousness. God Himself is its +author and its cause; but it has for psychological factors all the +elements of consciousness--feeling, volition, idea. It must never be +forgotten that these verbal distinctions are pure abstractions; that +these elements co-exist, and are enveloped and implicated with each +other in the unity of the ego. In the living reality there has never +existed feeling which did not carry within it some embryo of an idea +and translate itself into some voluntary movement.... As it is +impossible for thought not to manifest itself organically by gesture or +language, so it is impossible for religion not to express itself in +rites and doctrines. + +No doubt, in the first period of physical life, sensation dominates, +and at the _début_ of religious life, feeling and imagination. But as +science springs from sensation, so religious doctrine springs from +piety. To say that "Christianity is a life, therefore it is not a +doctrine" is to reason very badly. We should rather say, "Christianity +is a life and therefore it engenders doctrine;" for man cannot live his +life without thinking it. The two things are not hostile; they go +together. In apostolic times the greatest of missionaries was the +greatest of theologians. St. Augustine at the end of the old world, +Calvin, Luther, Zwingle, at the beginning of the modern world, followed +the example of St. Paul. When the sap of piety fails, theology +withers. Protestant scholasticism corresponds to a decline of +religious life. Spencer, by re-opening the springs of piety, renewed +the streams of theology. Without Pietism Germany would have had no +Schleiermacher; without the religious revival at the beginning of this +century we should have had neither Samuel Vincent nor Alexander Vinet. + +If the life of a Church be compared to that of a plant, doctrine holds +in it the place of the seed. Like the seed, doctrine is the last to be +formed; it crowns and closes the annual cycle of vegetation; but it is +necessary that it should form and ripen; for it carries within it the +power of life and the germ of a new development. A Church without +dogmas would be a sterile plant. But let not the partisans of dogmatic +immutability triumph: let them pursue the comparison to the end: +"Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and _die_," said Jesus, +"it bears no fruit." To be fruitful, dogma must be decomposed--that is +to say, it must mix itself unceasingly with the evolution of human +thought and die in it; it is the condition of perpetual resurrection. + +Without being either absolute, or perfect in itself, then, dogma is +absolutely necessary to the propagation and edification of the +religious life. The Church has a pedagogic mission that could not be +fulfilled without it. It bears souls, nourishes them and brings them +up. Its rôle is that of a mother. In that educative mission, we may +add, the mother finds the principle and aim of her authority, the +reason and the limit of her tutelage. In this sense, dogma is never +without authority. But this same pedagogic authority is neither +absolute nor eternal; it has a double limit, in the nature of the +pupil's soul, which it ought to respect, and in the end it would +attain, the making of free men, adult Christians, sons of God in the +image of Christ and in immediate relationship to the Father. If dogma +is the heritage of the past transmitted by the Church, it is the +children's duty first to receive it, and then to add to its value by +continually reforming it, since that is the only way to keep it alive +and to render it truly useful and fruitful in the moral development of +humanity. It is therefore to this idea of necessary dogma, but of +dogma necessarily historical and changing, that we must henceforth +accustom ourselves; and we shall most easily habituate ourselves to it +by tracing its evolution in the past. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION + +1. _Three Prejudices_ + +I here encounter three prejudices which are, I think, the most +inveterate in the world. The first is that dogmas are immutable; the +second, that they die fatally the moment they are touched by criticism; +the third, that they form the essence of religion, which rises or falls +with them. I wish to show that dogmas have neither this pretended +immobility nor this delicate fragility; that they live by an inner life +extraordinarily resistant and fecund, and that the criticism of dogmas, +so far from injuring the Christian religion, frees it from the chains +of the past and permits it to manifest its marvellous gift of +rejuvenescence and adaptation to circumstances. + +The proof that dogmas are not immutable lies in the fact that they have +a history. That history is as full of conflicts, controversies, +revolutions, as the history of philosophy.... One Church has said of +its dogmas what a Jesuit General said of his Order: _sint ut sunt aut +non sint_! It is an illusion. Momentarily arrested at one point, the +movement begins again at another. In one half of Christendom, and +certainly the most living half, criticism of dogma has never ceased +since the sixteenth century. Even in the bosom of the Catholic Church, +its most skilful advocates, the Moehlers and the Newmans, unable to +deny that Catholicism is not to-day what it was in the first centuries, +have made this strange concession to history; they have applied to +dogmas the theory of development. At Paris in 1682 the dogma of the +infallibility of the Bishop of Rome would have been condemned as an +error. Since 1870 the orthodoxy of 1682 has become the gravest of +heresies. There is no fiction more evident than that of the +immutability of dogmas, whether in the Catholic or in the Protestant +Churches. Like all other manifestations of life, they have an +evolution as natural as it is inevitable. The proof that dogmas are +not religion, and that criticism does not kill them but transforms +them, will appear in what I now proceed to say. + + +2. _The Two Elements in Dogma; and its Historical Evolution_ + +Dogma is the language spoken by faith. In it there are two elements: a +mystical and practical element, the properly religious element; this is +the living and fruitful principle of dogma: then there is an +intellectual or theoretical element, a judgment of mind, a +philosophical proposition serving at once as an envelope and as an +expression of religion. + +Now, it is not an arbitrary relation which unites and amalgamates these +two elements in dogma; it is an organic and necessary relation. Go +back for a moment to the origin of religious phenomena, and to the +formation of the first and simplest doctrinal formulas. In presence of +one of the great spectacles of Nature, man, feeling his weakness and +dependence with respect to the mysterious power revealed in it, +trembled with fear and hope. This is primitive religious emotion. But +this emotion necessarily implies, for thought, a relation between the +subject which experiences it and the object that has caused it. Now, +thought, once awakened, will necessarily translate this relation into +an intellectual judgment. Thus, wishing to express this relation, the +believer will exclaim, _e.g._ "God is great!" marking the infinite +disproportion between his being and the universal being which made him +tremble.[1] He obeys the same necessity which makes him ordinarily +express his thought in language. Religious emotion then is transformed +in the mind into the notion of a relation, _i.e._ into an intellectual +notion which becomes the expressive image or representation of the +emotion. But the notion and the emotion are essentially different in +nature. In expressing it, and thanks to the imagination, the notion +may renew or fortify the emotion, and dogma may awaken piety; but the +two must not be confounded. The notion is like an algebraic expression +which ideally represents a given quantity, but it is not the quantity +itself. This must be clearly kept in mind if we are to avoid the most +disastrous confusions. In religion and in dogma the intellectual +element is simply the expression or envelope of the religious +experience.... + + +[1] It might be supposed that I make of this elementary experience the +primary root whence all dogmas, including the Christian, have sprung by +a process of evolution. Nothing of the kind. This is but a particular +example. The revelation of Nature is the principle of the dogmas of +the Religions of Nature. Christianity has behind it another revelation +and other experiences: the revelation of God and of a higher life, in +the historical appearance of Jesus Christ. Let a man morally prepared +to hear the Gospel begin to follow Him, listen to His words, penetrate +His soul, comprehend His death, and he will cry out: "God is Love!" as +the spectator of Nature was supposed to exclaim: "God is great!" And +this new proposition, translating a new religious relation, will, in +its turn, become the principle of all Christian dogmas. + + +The intellectual will therefore be the variable element in dogma. It +is the matter united to the germ, and it is ceaselessly transformed by +the very effect of the movement of life. The reason of this is simple. +We said just now that a religious emotion, like every other, translates +itself into a notion which fixes the relation of the subject to the +object, implied in the emotion itself. But what will this notion be? +With what materials, with what concepts, will the religious man +construct it? Clearly with those at his disposal. His religious +formula will depend on his state of intellectual culture. A child, he +will think and speak religiously as a child. Religious reason and +language have followed the same steps as the general reason.... + +I am well aware that many Christians imagine that God has revealed to +us dogmas in the Bible, and that they will accuse me of denying +revelation. God forbid! We believe with all our soul in Divine +Revelation and in its particular action in the souls of prophets and +apostles, and especially in Jesus Christ. Only, the question is +whether the revelation of God has consisted of doctrines and dogmatic +formulas. No. God does nothing needless, and since these doctrines +and formulas can be and have been conceived by human intelligence, He +has left to it the care of elaborating them. God, entering into +commerce and contact with a human soul, has produced in him a certain +religious experience whence, afterwards, by reflection, the dogma has +sprung. That therefore which constitutes revelation, that which ought +to be the norm of our life, is the creative and fruitful religious +experience which first arose in the souls of the prophets, of Christ, +and of His apostles. We may be tranquil. So long as this experience +shall be renewed in Christian souls, Christian dogmas may be modified, +but they will never die. But why should we retain dogmas which, in the +nature of things, must always be imperfect? Why not have religion pure +and simple without dogmas? What would happen if we listened to this +cry for pure unmixed religion? By suppressing Christian dogma you +would suppress Christianity; by discarding all religious doctrine you +would destroy religion. How many great and eternal things there are +which never exist, for us, in a pure and isolated state! All the +forces of Nature are in this case. Thought, in order to exist, must +incarnate itself in language. Words cannot be identified with thought, +but they are necessary to it. The hero in the romance, who was said to +be unable to think without speaking was not so ridiculous as was once +supposed, for that hero is everybody. The soul only reveals itself to +us by the body to which it is united. Who has ever seen life apart +from living matter? It is the same with the religious life and the +doctrines and rites in which it manifests itself. A religious life +which did not express itself would neither know itself nor communicate +itself. It is therefore perfectly irrational to talk of a religion +without dogma and without worship. Orthodoxy is a thousand times right +as against rationalism or mysticism, when it proclaims the necessity +for a Church of formulating its faith into a doctrine, without which +religious consciousnesses remain confused and undiscernible. + +The mistake that orthodoxy sometimes makes is in denying or desiring to +arrest the constant metamorphosis to which dogma, like all living +things, is subject. So long as they are alive, dogmas have the faculty +of changing and evolving. How is their evolution effected? The +analogy between dogma and language will help us to the answer. A +language is modified in three ways: (1) By disuse, _i.e._ by the +disappearance of words whose contents have vanished; (2) by +intussusception, _i.e._ by the faculty which words have, without +changing their form, of acquiring new significations; (3) by the +renaissance of old or the creation of new words, _i.e._ by neologisms. + +Nothing is easier than to establish these three kinds of variations in +the history of dogmas. Some religious formulas perish from disuse; +others acquire a new content; while still others are themselves +renewed. Many doctrines that were once alive and prevalent are seldom +heard of now; they gradually passed out of use. There is hardly a +dogma dating from the seventeenth or the sixteenth century that has now +the same signification that it had at the beginning. The new wine that +has been put into them has modified the old skins. There are limits, +however, to the elasticity of words and formulas. There comes a moment +when the new wine bursts the old skins, and when the Church has to +construct other vessels to receive it. In this way neologisms spring +up in languages, and new dogmas in theology. In the sixteenth century +the dogmas of Justification by Faith and of the universal priesthood +were resuscitated with a new energy. The verses of Horace, on which I +might appear to have been commenting, are eternally true: + + Ut silvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos, + * * * * * + Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere cadentque + Quæ nunc sunt in honore, vocabula... + * * * * * + + +The evolution of dogma is possible; why is it necessary? Simply +because the material of which it is composed is in a state of constant +flux and evolution.... We do not mean to say that everything in the +old formulas should be condemned. There are to be found in them many +great and excellent ideas which still retain their truth and power. We +simply say that there is nothing absolute in them, nothing that may be +imposed by authority on Christian thought. It is always with notions +borrowed from current science and philosophy that the Church constructs +her dogmas. But science and philosophy are continually evolving and +carrying dogma in their train. Everything changes, even our manner of +thinking. Why do certain things appear absurd or grotesque in the +imaginations of the past? Because we have lost the faculty for +comprehending them. It is as impossible for us to think in Greek as to +speak in Greek. Since the end of the Middle Ages two or three +intellectual revolutions have occurred which have profoundly separated +us from antiquity and changed the inner and the outer world in which we +live. It will suffice to recall them in a few words in order to deepen +our sense of the decadence of Græco-Roman dogmatic Christianity, and of +the necessity incumbent upon us to reform and renovate it, if only we +are strong enough to answer to the call of God. + + +3. _The Crisis of Dogma_ + +The first of these revolutions was a religious one. Our specific +consciousness as Protestant Christians dates from the Reformation. +Now, the Evangelical Reformation of the sixteenth century was the +rupture of the tradition of the Church, of which the Dogmatics of the +great Councils was the framework and the centre. In breaking the +authority of the Church, the Reformers broke up the basis on which +those ancient dogmas had been built. In appealing to the Word of God +against traditional doctrines, they at least called in question the +Dogmatics of the Councils. After protesting against all the +infiltrations of pagan manners and superstitions into the morals of the +Church, into its organisation and its hierarchy into its worship and +its rites, why should they regard as sacrosanct the ancient philosophy +which had entered into the construction of its dogmas? + +On the other hand, the Reformation renewed the Christian consciousness +by its fundamental doctrine of Justification by Faith. Until then +salvation had come through adhesion to the Symbols of the Church and +obedience to its commands. Justification by Faith (and faith here +means the trust of the heart) freed the Christian from the tutelage of +the priesthood and the bondage of Symbols. To maintain that you can +only be saved by believing certain theological doctrines, is the same +as to say that you can only be saved by doing certain works; it is to +add to or to substitute for faith some other condition of salvation. +The second principle of the Reformation therefore also shook the +ancient edifice; in Dogmatics it substituted the internal principle of +Christian experience for the external principle of authority; it made +of Christianity a moral life and no longer a metaphysic. Is it not +right and necessary to give the new principles of the Reformation a new +theological expression? This process has been going on ever since the +sixteenth century and can never cease. + +The Reformation displaced the centre of the Christian consciousness. +At the same time there began a scientific revolution which displaced +the centre of the universe. I speak of that which is connected with +the names of Copernicus and Kepler, and which was continued by such men +as Galileo, Newton, and Laplace. Modern astronomy, geology, biology, +etc., have completely changed the outlines and the horizon of our +philosophy, and rendered for ever impossible the popular cosmogonies +which, until then, had reigned supreme. And who does not see the +bearing of this revolution on our views of Scripture, on its +cosmography in particular, and on many of its minor teachings? The +traditional doctrines of creation have been greatly modified, as also +the doctrines as to the origin of evil, suffering, and death. These +discoveries, it is said, have ruined religion, and are destroying +Christian faith. Not so. What is being destroyed is the débris of an +ancient philosophy. But they do compel us, absolutely, if we would +remain in touch with the thought of our age, to modify the formulas by +which the Church has hitherto believed that she might render an account +of the origin and evolution of the universe. + +A third intellectual evolution has been effected in our own time by the +advent of the Historical Method. This has completely upset the +traditional view of the history of mankind. Floods of new light have +been poured upon the prehistoric and historic races of man. Modern +criticism and exegesis have given us an entirely new view of the origin +and contents of many parts of the Old and New Testaments. In every +department of knowledge the historic method has made the point of view +of evolution possible and victorious. It is in vain to oppose it, for +it is the law of life. Those who cling to the doctrine of dogmatic +immutability, whether in the Catholic or the Protestant Churches, are +exactly in the position of the Romish cardinals who covered Galileo +with anathemas and protested energetically against the rotation of the +earth. Neither their protests nor their anathemas prevented the earth +from turning round, and the cardinals along with it. In Protestantism, +a resistance so blind would be the grossest of inconsistencies. +Dogmatic revision is always alive, both in principle and in fact, in +the Churches of the Reformation: in principle, because all Confessions +of Faith are relative, and subordinate to the Word of God; in fact, +because the spirit of research, of criticism, and free discussion has +never ceased to breathe in Protestant Theology, and breathes to-day +more ardently than ever. The work will therefore be completed; I am +sure of it. We may lack the faith and courage to carry it on, but, +failing us, God will not fail to raise up other fellow-workers with +Himself in this great enterprise. Christianity cannot perish; it has +never failed to adapt itself to the state of mind of ages past; in the +future, it will find and make new forms in which to express and +propagate itself, forms adapted to the coming times.... + +"One day, the monk Sarapion, a man of deep piety and ardent zeal, was +told by the priest Paphnutius and the deacon Photinus that God, in +whose image man had been created, was a purely spiritual being, without +body, without external figure, without sensible organs. Serapion was +convinced by the ascendancy of Catholic tradition and by the arguments +that had been employed. The assistants rose to render thanks to God +for having rescued so holy a man from the wicked heresy of the +anthropomorphists. But, in the midst of their devotions, the unhappy +old man, feeling the image of the God to whom he had been accustomed to +pray vanishing from his heart, was deeply moved, and bursting into sobs +and tears, he threw himself upon the ground, and cried out: 'Woe is me! +Unhappy man! They have taken away my God. I have no one now to cling +to and invoke.'"[2] + + +[2] J. Cassanius, abb. Massil.: Collatio, X. c. III. + + +Touching image of our own experience and of the experience of humanity! +We are always making to ourselves some idol or other. It is very +difficult for us to realise that God is spirit: we attach ourselves +therefore to some fetish of human fabrication. And then, when science +comes and takes it away from us, we are troubled and perplexed, as if +they had taken from us God Himself. The study of dogmas and their +evolution, were it wider spread, would relieve us of our illusions and +calm our inquietude. It would teach us that our religious life depends +on our faith alone, and that the God Who is its source and end is +independent of all theory or representation, because He is infinitely +above all human conceptions, and because, in order never to be +separated from Him, it suffices that we worship Him in spirit and in +truth. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS + +1. _The Mixed Character of Dogmatics_ + +We have shown the necessity of a free criticism of dogmas. This +criticism, if it is religious, will at the same time be positive; it +will tend not to destroy, but to distinguish, in each dogma, that which +is truly religious and permanent from that which is philosophical and +fleeting. Such is the object of the discipline that, in the schools, +is called _Dogmatics_, or the Science of Dogmas. It remains to define +its task and to point out the resources which it has at its disposal. +Both points are connected with its relation to the Church and to +Philosophy. The science of dogmas has always necessarily followed the +life of the one and the vicissitudes of the other. + +In the religious experiences of the Church it finds the material that +it elaborates; from philosophy it borrows the methods according to +which it treats this material and the form in which it organises it. +This science is, therefore, a mixed science: positive and practical in +its object, speculative and theoretical in its procedure, it seeks to +connect the religious and moral experience with the rest of the +experience of humanity, and to effect the synthesis claimed, in order +to their full vigour, by the scientific order of thought and by the +moral order of practical life. + +This intermediate position of our science, between the Church and +philosophy, constitutes its independence and its originality. If, as +in Catholicism, it were absolutely subjected to the authority of the +Church, and were limited to receiving, without critical examination, +its successive decisions and traditions, it would be confounded with +the history of dogmas, and would be merely a survival of scholasticism. +On the other hand, if it did not start from the data furnished by +history and by the personal and collective experience of piety,--if it +did not study the Christian life in its objectivity and in its historic +continuity, but abandoned itself to purely subjective and general +speculations--it would be fatally confounded with philosophy. It +escapes this double peril, first, by taking as its object the study of +the doctrinal tradition of the Church, tracing it back to its +generative principle, following it in its successive forms and +necessary evolution; and, secondly, by freely applying to this +objective material the principles and rules of a truly rational method, +a method that may be avowed as such by philosophers. It thus +constitutes the philosophy of religion in general and of Christianity +in particular, setting itself to connect the consciousness of the +Church with the general consciousness of humanity, and establishing or +maintaining between them communications equally profitable to both. + +It follows that our discipline, in studying the tradition of the +Church, is independent of philosophy. On the other hand, the fact that +it borrows its methods and processes from philosophy, renders it +independent with regard to the Church. Its freedom springs from its +twofold subjection. Such a little principality, placed between two +great rival Powers without whose help it could not live, maintains its +independence of them both by virtue of their very rivalry, and may +become an arbiter, an element of pacification and good understanding, +between forces which are only hostile because they either do not know +or do not understand each other. Thus the science of dogmas will be +free, pacific, fruitful, on condition that it does not break its +connection on either hand, but remains in close communication with the +two sources of its life, without which it would be liable either to die +of inanition for want of food, or of impotence for lack of liberty. + + +2. _The Science of Dogmas and the Church_ + +A religious society cannot dispense either with doctrines or doctrinal +teaching. The more moral it is in its character, the more it needs a +dogmatic symbol which defines it and explains its _raison d'être_. It +will have its teachers as well as its pastors and missionaries. The +apostle Paul compares the Church to an organism in which each member +has its necessary function, according to the special gift it has +received. "God," says he, "gave some, apostles; some, prophets; some, +teachers" (1 Cor. xii. 28; Rom. xii. 6-8. "Teaching of the Apostles," +13 and 15). In passing through different lips the Gospel takes +different forms. It creates divers types of doctrine, divers schools +or parties (1 Cor. i. 10-14). It is necessary to instruct the +ignorant, to refute heretics, to heal schisms, to administer reproofs, +to correct the interpretation of texts. This could only be done by +means of discussion, reasoning, exegesis, speculation. It was not an +effort of pure science, but of practical science, in the interest of +the Church itself, with a view to its inner edification and to the +continuous reform of its worship and its faith. The labour of +dogmatics thus sprang up spontaneously in the bosom of the Church +itself, and it has continued its work, not from without, but from +within, through an office which is an essential ministry, an organ of +the Church. It could not be done well in any other way.... + +A religious society, by the very fact that it endures, creates a +doctrinal tradition, and this tradition soon assumes a divine character +and tends to become an absolute authority. This is the effect of a +psychological illusion characteristic of the religious consciousness so +long as reflection does not put it on its guard against itself. The +object of our faith being divine, we ingenuously transport this quality +into the formula by which it has been transmitted to us, and we hold +this formula to be divine before we have learnt to distinguish between +the essence of faith and its historical manifestations, between the +religious substance of the doctrine and its traditional expression. +Add to the prestige of the past the necessity of educating the new +generations. Every Christian begins as a catechumen, and, in certain +respects, he is and ought to be a learner all his life, for he cannot +fail to see that the collective consciousness is always richer and more +stable than his own. But, if the aim of Christian education is to +produce adult Christians--that is, Christians who, having received the +Holy Spirit, have entered into a direct and permanent relation to the +common Father, and into personal and living piety, they possess an +inward rule of conduct, and along with this a principle of free +judgment. As St. Paul says, our tutelage ends when we have attained to +our majority. The spiritual man judges all, but is judged of none. He +becomes independent of the authority under which he has grown up, as +the full-grown man becomes free from the mother who has borne and +nourished him. He will, doubtless, always gratefully welcome the +tradition of the past; but he feels within himself a higher principle +which gives him the right to amend and the power to increase, in some +degree, the inheritance he has received from his fathers. No one is +either a man or a Christian on any other condition. + +The solution of the problem named above is to be found in these +considerations. A tradition which desires to be absolute, which +misunderstands and stifles individual inspiration, is not only an +usurper--it also fails in its mission, which is to make adult +Christians, Christians who are inwardly inspired and autonomous. It is +like those tyrannical mothers who, if they could, would keep their sons +in a perpetual minority. On the other hand, the children, even when +they have attained their majority, should not despise their parents and +disdain the counsels of experience and of age. Individual inspiration +is apt to lead to self-sufficiency and sectarianism; it loses sight of +the link of solidarity which unites the generations, and the social +continuity in which alone progress is made in the religious life, as in +the life of civilisation. The first defect, the tyrannical usurpation +of tradition, predominates in the Catholic Church; the opposite defect, +that of the intransigeance of individual convictions and of Illuminism, +is the plague of Protestant communities. The truth would be found in a +middle course, and in the organisation of a traditional Church stable +enough to receive and keep the heritage of the past, large and flexible +enough to permit in it the legitimate expansion of the Christian +consciousness and the acquisition of new treasure. + +To this ideal, Catholicism cannot resign itself without succumbing to +death. Protestantism aspires to it without reaching it; and yet +nothing is more really in the logic of its principle. No Protestant +Church professes to be infallible. Its most solemn Confessions of +Faith have only a provisional value. The spirit of reform breathes in +it without truce, continually. The principal task of the community, as +of the individual, is to amend itself, to advance in knowledge and in +virtue. A Church which should exclude this spirit of reform would +cease to be a Protestant Church. And, of course, the duty of reform +implies the legitimacy of criticism, of an appeal to the Gospel better +understood, of a constant effort to bring the real up to the ideal. +The only matter of importance is to decide aright on the principle or +criterion according to which this criticism shall be made. + +Shall it be another dogma? No; not even if it be called a fundamental +one such as the authority of Scripture. For this very dogma, +formulated by tradition, is therefore human and contingent, and is open +to criticism like all the rest. With what then, or in the name of +what, shall dogma be criticised? Shall we, with Rationalism, take a +moral or philosophical axiom as the criterion? We should then violate +the autonomy of the religious consciousness; we should denaturalise +religion itself, by subjecting it to an external rule; and Dogmatics, +basing its fabric on an alien principle, would produce a hybrid +structure that would be rejected by believers and philosophers with +equal disdain. + +The principle of criticism of Christian dogmas can only be the +principle of Christianity itself, which is anterior to all dogmas, and +which it is the aim of dogmas to manifest and to apply. Now the +principle of Christianity is not a theoretical doctrine: it is a +religious experience--the experience of Christ and His disciples +through the centuries. It is the Gospel of salvation by the faith of +the heart, the revelation of a moral relation, of a new relation, of a +filial relation, created and realised between the man who is sinful and +lost, and the Father who calls and pardons him. Such is the initial +germ from which the whole Christian development has sprung, and by +which consequently that development should and can be judged. + +This generative principle of the life and of all the dogmas of the +Church being laid down, and the distinction established between the +ideal principle and its successive realisations, all of them +necessarily incomplete, the criticism of dogmas will be effected +automatically, without violence, and with fruit. It will be enough to +tell the story of the genesis and evolution of each of them. It will +then be seen what contingent and perishing elements have entered into +it in the course of history. Christianity is an organism whose soul is +immortal, but whose body is renewed unceasingly by the fact that its +materials are in constant movement, and that they are gathered from the +various environments through which it has to pass. The philosophical +notions which have served it as a temporary expression, and which are +doubly dead to-day, either because civilisation has advanced, or +because they were without vital connection with the initial Christian +experience, fall from the tree like withered leaves or lifeless +branches. As to the others, in which the sap still rises from the +mother root, they will be seen to be transformed, to grow and flower +from year to year under the same salubrious breath of criticism. Our +discipline, religiously faithful to the principle of Christian piety, +may often find itself in conflict with the administrative powers of the +Church, but never really with the Church itself. + + +3. _The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy_ + +If less burning, the problem of the relations of dogmatics to +philosophy is perhaps more difficult to solve than the problem just +discussed. It has given rise to quite as many controversies. The +danger is twofold. On the one hand, there is the pretension of +scholasticism, the attempt to absorb philosophy in theology and make it +subservient. It is still the pretension of a certain simple Protestant +orthodoxy, for which there is no philosophy outside the Christian +faith. At the other extreme is the attempt of rationalism to include +the Christian religion in general ethics and philosophy. In the first +case it is dogmatics which absorbs philosophy; in the second it is +philosophy which absorbs dogmatics. But, in both cases, the +specifically religious phenomena are lost sight of, the original +character of Christian piety is misconceived, and theology, no longer +having any special domain, succumbs and vanishes. It is the merit of +the Reformation of Luther, in the sixteenth, and of the thought of +Schleiermacher and Vinet in the nineteenth century, to have brought out +and rendered manifest, among all other psychological phenomena, the +character _sui generis_ of Christian faith and life, and thus to have +assigned to theology an object of study, eminent no doubt, but very +special and very circumscribed. A task was thus marked out for +theology widely different from that of philosophy--a task which +consists, not in explaining everything in heaven and earth, but, more +modestly and usefully, in giving an account of the religious experience +of the Christian Church. Saved at once from scholasticism and +rationalism, dogmatic theology may therefore build itself up in its own +domain by the side of the other sciences without menacing or fearing +any of them. + +Its relations to philosophy will become clear if we call to mind a very +simple distinction. Philosophy to-day comprises two parts very +different in nature: a study of the thinking subject, or, as it is +sometimes called, a critique of reason, or a theory of knowledge; in +the second place, a doctrine on the essence and the necessary relations +of beings, a metaphysic, or a theory of the universe. + +It is easy to see that all the positive sciences are differently +related to these two parts of philosophy. None of them, for instance, +can dispense with the first, with the criticism of our faculty of +knowing and of our means of reasoning, under penalty of mistaking the +worth of its own hypotheses, and even the regularity of its processes. +It is clear that a physicist cannot dispense with correct syllogisms or +with vigilance against illusions of the senses and other errors of +method. But, on the other hand, no savant would accept the yoke of any +metaphysic whatever which should come to him _à priori_ to dictate to +him its conclusions. Upon indications of this nature he desires to +form hypotheses and make new experiments; but, as a savant, he will +never pronounce before that supreme and decisive consultation of facts. + +It is exactly the same with the relations of dogmatics to philosophy. +It will have recourse to it for all that regards the theory of +knowledge in general and the theory of religious knowledge in +particular. Like every other science it needs to ascertain the scope +of its instrument in order that it may be under no illusion as to the +worth of the work it accomplishes. But also, like every other science, +it has the right and the duty to challenge and neglect all general +metaphysic which, flowing from another principle than that of the +Christian religion, would dictate to it articles of faith or rules of +morality. + +Let it not be said that every theory of knowledge soon begets a +metaphysic in its own image. We know theories which deny the very +possibility of metaphysics, and it is a question whether a truly +Christian dogmatic accommodates itself to it better than any other +theory. It may be maintained in fact that the act of faith which is +the expression of the conservating energy of the ego and the principle +of all religion is accomplished all the more freely when there is no +knowledge, properly speaking, there to hinder it. A common prejudice +requires that we should have metaphysics as a support to religion. It +is on religion, on the contrary, that metaphysics and ethics rest. Man +did not become religious when he heard that there were gods; he only +had the idea of God and believed in Him because he was religious. +Mystery was the natural cradle of piety. Faith is much less an +acquisition of knowledge than a means of salvation and a source of +strength and life. It is one thing to speculate on the universal +problem; it is another to place one's self by the heart in a living +relation of trust, of fear, or of love to the mysterious Being on whom +all other beings depend. Religion may possibly be under the necessity +of ending in a metaphysic, but a metaphysic does not necessarily end in +religion, for there are some kinds of metaphysic which either exclude +religion or render it impossible. + +A theory of religion, dogmatics can have no other starting point than +religious phenomena themselves. From this concrete and experimental +principle, from this state of soul produced by the immediate feeling of +a necessary relation to God, the entire system should spring and +develop. What is not in religious experience should find no place in +religious science, and should be banished from it. + +It would only be to its detriment, then, that the science of dogmas +should throw away its liberty by espousing beforehand metaphysical +theses or the final conclusions of any philosophy whatsoever. These +theses, springing from another source than religion, have no right, in +that religion, to become articles of faith. Rational truths not born +of religious feeling would be in dogmatics so many dead weights and +heterogeneous elements, which would lead to the greatest incoherence. +To build up a professedly revealed theology on a professedly natural +one is to construct a system without either unity or profound +connection. Such a dualism of principles is as intolerable to science +as to piety. Instead of dogmatics subordinating itself to metaphysics, +metaphysics ought to include dogmatics as well as the results of all +the other sciences. + +It is altogether different with the criticism of our means of knowing. +In every order of science it is mere levity of mind to commence or to +conclude researches a little general without having first determined +the precise conditions of real knowledge. The absence of a +philosophical critique of this nature explains why savants, so rigorous +in their special studies, show a philosophical _naïvety_ so great in +the conclusions that they draw from them, and so readily crown their +discoveries by a pseudo-metaphysic that they impose upon the multitude +with all the authority and prestige of science. More than any others, +theologians are guilty of this abuse when they wish to make their +science the sum of universal knowledge. They would be more soundly +religious were they more modest and more reserved. An excellent means +of putting ourselves on our guard against this illusion and its +deplorable consequences will be to institute, without further delay, a +rigorous criticism of religious knowledge. This task, I believe, has +never been seriously attempted in France. It is, however, as +indispensable to the right conduct of the mind as it is fitted +radically to cure us of our dogmatic pride and to inspire us with +tolerance and humility. This will be the object of the following +chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +CRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE + +He who says consciousness says science, or at least, the beginning of +science. Consciousness implies a representation. In other words, no +modification of the ego becomes conscious except by awakening in the +mind a representative image of the object that has produced it and of +the relation of that object to the ego. All our sensations and all our +feelings are accompanied by images. The religious sentiment does not +attain to the light of consciousness in any other way. It is because +it is a state or conscious movement of the soul that it becomes, it +also, a principle of knowledge. + +No kind of mental life begins with clear and abstract ideas. An idea +is derived from an image, and, in order to produce the image, an +external or an internal impression is necessary. It is true that the +idea or the image has, in its turn, the mysterious power of reproducing +and renewing the sensation or the feeling from which it sprang. On +this is based the art of teaching and the power of tradition. But this +must not be allowed to produce in us the illusion that originally the +idea preceded the sensation. The development of the mental life of +children is proof of the contrary. We only know that by which we or +our kind have been in some degree affected. Our ideas are simply the +algebraic notation of our impressions and movements. That which is +outside our life is outside our view. Without the external sensations +which represent the action of the world on the ego, we should have no +knowledge of the world. Without the subjective reaction of the ego +against that action of the world, a reaction which manifests itself in +the moral, æsthetic, and religious life of the soul, we should have no +moral or religious idea, no notion of the good or the beautiful. All +our metaphysical ideas come from that source. + +It remains, of course, to inquire what is the worth of ideas of this +order. It is the particularly complex and delicate question that we +here approach. There is no serious philosophy to-day that does not +start with a theory of knowledge. Religious knowledge cannot escape by +any special privilege. The criticism of it is all the more necessary, +because illusion, in this matter, is so easy, and because it clothes +itself in a sacred character. The theologian who undertakes the +scientific treatment of dogmas without first measuring the scope of the +instrument he employs, and estimating the worth of the materials he +uses, knows not what he is doing. + + +1. _Obsolete Theories of Knowledge_ + +Formerly three explanations of our knowledge prevailed in philosophy: +the hypothesis of a primitive revelation; the idealist theory; and the +sensualist theory. + +The first was revived three quarters of a century ago by de Bonald and +Joseph de Maistre. It no longer needs to be refuted. According to +this hypothesis, our ideas came to us, not from within, from the +naturally productive force of the mind, but from without, by way of +supernatural communication. This communication from God consisted at +the outset in the gift to man of a perfect language. The exact word +brought with it the right idea. "Man," said de Bonald, "thought his +speech before speaking his thought." If errors have crept in and +reigned among men, it is because they were not able to preserve without +corruption the sacred deposit of that primitive language and +philosophy. Is it necessary to show how thoroughly this theory is +contradicted by psychology and history? It is said that in certain +countries there still exists a Botany, according to which the Great +Spirit, having created the trees of the forest, comes in the night each +Spring to stick the leaves and blossoms on the branches. The immediate +communication of right ideas and supernatural virtues to man in his +infancy implies a contradiction; it forces us to imagine in him +thoughts prior to the action of his intellect and virtues previous to +the action of his will. Lastly, it is to misconceive the nature of the +mind to make of it something passive and inert. The mind is the +thinking and willing force--that is to say, a force productive of +thoughts and volitions. If it is not this, it is nothing. We must +affirm, no doubt, that God creates this force and directs its +evolution, but it is a contradiction to say at once that He creates it +and that it is unproductive. It cannot exist without being productive. +It is of its very essence to produce. Mind is only mind in so far as +it is a force that produces thought and volition. + +The aim of this hypothesis, moreover, was to found the divine authority +of an infallible tradition by making it go back to the earliest times. +These revealed ideas, by the very fact that they are the ideas of God, +have an absolute and eternal value. Man finds them guaranteed in the +religious caste, to which the deposit has been confided, and which has +preserved them intact. Thus arose the idea of an infallible authority. +So they say. But the idea of dogmatic authority never appears in early +times; it is of very late date; it is elaborated very slowly, according +to a psychological law that we have already discovered. Everywhere, +and in the traditions of all religions and Churches, it appears after +all other doctrines as the keystone which closes and binds together the +arch. It is an ultimate dogma logically derived from other dogmas, and +afterwards used as a warrant for them. Such was the dogma of Papal +Infallibility promulgated at the Vatican Council of 1870; such, in +Protestantism, was the dogma of Biblical infallibility, completed by +the theologians of the seventeenth century. To base the value of +religious notions on a supernatural authority, with a view to rendering +them indisputable, is a vicious circle; the authority, it is evident, +is the product of these notions themselves. All systems of authority +end by shutting themselves up in this circle and perishing in it. + +The idealist theory of the origin of ideas is but the philosophical +form of the preceding one. It also is an endeavour to trace back our +general ideas to the divine understanding as their primary source. +Pure ideas, type-ideas, according to Plato, constitute the intelligible +Cosmos of which material phenomena are but the unreal and ephemeral +shadows. Clearly to conceive these divine ideas is to reach the +transcendent reality of things--it is to possess true knowledge. From +Platonism to the realism of scholasticism, from this to the geometry of +Spinoza and the dialectic of Hegel, the form of the theory has varied +constantly; the substance of it has remained the same. Hegel always +said: "The rational is the real," and, for him, as for Plato, absolute +knowledge resolved itself into perfect logic. + +Psychology has long since dispelled the scientific illusion of +idealism. We do not wish to recall the pitiful failure of all the +attempts formerly made, and even in our own times, to deduce _à priori_ +the laws of the physical world. Everywhere, in this domain, the method +of observation has superseded the deductive method. The reason of it +is simple. An idea, however lofty, can only give out what it contains, +_i.e._ other ideas. We know very well that our ideas are in our mind, +but they are only in it in the state of ideas. How do we know that the +objects which they represent exist outside ourselves? Only by logic +can we pass from the idea of a thing to the external reality of that +thing. Experience is necessary. Without it our ideas are empty forms. +One may conjure with them for ever without ever reaching anything +objective. They are shells without kernels. Pure idealism, so far +from furnishing a solid theory of knowledge, ends in scepticism, _i.e._ +in the negation of knowledge. + +The excesses and failures of idealist theories of knowledge have always +given rise in history to the opposite theory of sensualist nominalism, +according to which our ideas are simply transformed sensations. +Unhappily, sensualism, in laying down this axiom, never explained the +nature and still less the cause of that marvellous transformation. +"There is nothing in the understanding," said Locke, "that was not +previously in the senses." To which Leibniz rightly replied: "Except +the understanding itself;" that is to say, the force which from +sensation draws knowledge. By suppressing this ideal principle, you +remove from science all element of necessity--that is to say, all +general worth. With Hume, the sensualist theory, so far from giving an +account of knowledge, ended in pure phenomenalism, _i.e._ once more, in +scepticism. It is, in fact, with isolated sensation as with pure idea; +you may press it as much as you will, you will never get out of it +anything but what it contains--that is to say, contingencies without +any connection between each other. Materialism is still more +embarrassed to furnish any theory whatever of knowledge, for it does +not even succeed in explaining sensation. Between a mechanical +movement and a phenomenon of consciousness there is an impassable +abyss. One of the most evident marks of the inferiority of the +philosophy of French positivism is that it has not even approached this +problem of knowledge, and that it has been able to constitute itself +without any other than the popular psychology. + + +2. _The Kantian Theory of Knowledge_ + +Thinkers may to-day be divided into two classes: those who date from +before Kant, and those who have received the initiation and, so to +speak, the philosophical baptism of his critique. These two classes of +minds will always have much ado to understand each other. The first +are dogmatists or Pyrrhonists. The second no longer comprehend either +dogmatism or Pyrrhonism. For them, the point of view has been +displaced. Thanks to Kant, we judge both our knowledge and our faculty +of knowing; we give an account to ourselves of the conditions in which +it performs its functions, of the forms which determine it, and of the +limits that it cannot pass. Kant compared, without exaggeration, the +revolution which he effected in philosophy to that which the discovery +of Copernicus effected in the system of the world. In philosophy also +the sun has ceased to move round the earth, and the ancient illusion +has been vanquished and dispersed. The idea and the reality no longer +coincide; they are disjoined. The intelligible no doubt is real; but +it is not certain that all the real is intelligible. Reality appears +to us now as surpassing not only our knowledge, but our means of +knowing. The religious notion of mystery has entered into +consciousness. Man has attained to intellectual humility. Like his +body, his mind is a mean between the infinitely great and the +infinitely little, between nothing and everything. The deductive +philosophy of the unity and necessary and continuous unfolding of an +eternal substance, gives place to the philosophy of observation, which +will be found to be that of the antinomies whose permanent conflict +produces the ascensional progress of the world and of life. + +To make Kantism end in scepticism shows a lack of intelligence. His +system enables us, on the contrary, to form the _scientific_ theory of +science. The truth is to be found neither in dogmatism nor in +Pyrrhonism, both of which Pascal combated with equal vigour. In modern +science there is a certitude invincible to the subtlest Pyrrhonism; but +there is also in it a sense of the limits of our knowing faculty and of +the relative character of our most solid constructions which forbids +man ever to be puffed up to the point of believing himself to be God. +To be in this mean is to be in the truth. The same critique which +establishes the validity of human knowledge lays down the limits beyond +which it cannot go. We have come to know ourselves better, and that is +the mark of all true progress in philosophy. _Know thyself_ is always +its first rule and its final fruit. + +The Kantian theory of knowledge, while satisfying the mind, at the same +time sets forth the essential antinomies whose normal play constitutes +the very life of the ego and explains its multiple manifestations. + +There are two elements in all knowledge: an _à posteriori_ element +which comes from experience, and an _à priori_ element which comes from +the thinking subject. The first is the _matter_ of knowledge; the +second is the _form_. Separate, these two elements are unproductive. +With the first alone we have but a reality not known; with the second +alone we have but a knowing without reality. Their union renders them +mutually fruitful by organising the data of experience into the +necessary forms of thought. The principle of causation, _e.g._, is not +in things; it is in the mind, and it is the mind which spontaneously +connects all phenomena. Science, at bottom, consists in nothing but +the causal connection of things. Where the chain breaks, positive +knowledge ends. This clear sense of ignorance on points on which we +really are ignorant is still a part of science and one of its principal +forces, for it proves that it knows itself very well, and also knows +the conditions apart from which it no longer exists. But, whether +triumphant or held in check, positive science can neither renounce its +task and method nor modify their nature. It can only seek to complete, +or rather to lengthen, the chain of phenomena. The success of this +ever-identical effort, an effort always in the same direction, is what +is called its conquests and its progress. It follows that the +irresistible tendency of science will be to extend over the whole of +the phenomena the ever-tighter network of an invincible necessity. +Determinism is its last word. + +On the other hand, the ego which knows is an acting ego. Its thought +itself, properly speaking, and this display of science, are only one of +the forms of its inner activity. It wills, and it must will. If the +world acts on it by sensation, it acts incessantly on the world by its +volitions. And let it not be said that the will simply represents a +mechanical reaction of the ego, exactly equivalent to the action of the +external world upon it,--that it is a simple transformation of +energy,--for this is not true. Without here raising the question of +liberty, it is certain that I do not give back in will simply what I +have received under the form of sensation. I deliberate on the motives +which urge me to act; I choose between them; I feel myself under +obligation; I feel that I should will the good. It is impossible to +conceive of moral action without the idea of end. I conceive it, +therefore, under a different form from that of mechanical action. +Responsibility and obligation are not less the necessary forms of will +than logical necessity is the necessary form of thought. But soon +there arises in man the most tragical of conflicts. Scientific +determinism renders moral activity unintelligible, and moral activity +comes into collision with the determinism of science. If mechanical +determinism be absolutely true, my will is null; I am simply an +automaton. If my responsibility is real, if my personal energy is not +an illusion, there is in the world something besides matter, and, for +man, there are other than mechanical laws. Thus divided in myself, I +ought not to practise what I know, and I cannot do what I ought. I +remain floating between a science which is not moral and a morality +that I feel to be unscientific. My intellect destroys my will. As the +one develops the other dies. The better I know the laws of the world +the less reason I have for living and acting. My morality, at each +act, gives the lie to my science, and my science, at each affirmation, +refutes my morality. Such is the deep malady, the spiritual misery, of +the best of our contemporaries. They feel that, with them, vital +energy is in inverse proportion to the extent and penetration of +thought. It is then that they declare that pessimism, a radical +pessimism, is the truth; that existence, will, desire, are the chief +evils, and that the supreme effort of science should be to cure us of +them by delivering us from all our illusions; after which, in its turn, +it will be extinguished itself, like a flame that has consumed the food +on which it fed. + +Still, the conscious subject is one. You cannot proclaim it vain +without at the same time proclaiming the vanity of its ideas as well as +of its efforts. The ruin of morality draws after it the ruin of +science. Moreover, the conflict of which we speak is different from a +theoretical contradiction whose solution may be indefinitely postponed. +The conflict is practical; it is of the vital not of the intellectual +order. It is an internal dissolution of the being itself, a struggle +between its elementary faculties, in which the mind is weakened, +droops, and dies. + +The solution, therefore, if there be one, can only be a practical one, +a solution springing from the will. What is needed is to give the mind +confidence in itself. It is necessary to increase the energy of its +inner life in order that it may find the strength to believe and to +affirm in face of the universe the sovereignty of spirit. This is the +same as saying that the solution of the conflict is religion; not an +external religion, doubtless, in whose hands the thought and will of +man should abdicate--that would in no wise re-establish their inner and +living harmony--but an inward religion, an activity of spirit which +grasps in itself the supremacy of the universal spirit, and by an act +of intimate confidence, an instinctive impulse of the being ready to +perish, affirms to itself its own dignity, and makes to spring up out +of its own substance the irresistible religion of spirit. Thus the +conflict of the theoretic reason and the practical reason eternally +engenders religion in the heart of man. Let us show more clearly still +this necessary genesis of religion. + +In observing, in reasoning, in generalising, I arrive at a certain +knowledge of that which surrounds me; this knowledge of external +objects forms within me the contents of what I call my knowledge of the +world. On the other hand, in acting, in living, in exercising my will, +is formed what I call my knowledge of myself. Consciousness of self, +and consciousness of the world, condition and determine each other, and +cannot exist without each other. But, at the same time, they enter +into mortal conflict. The ego desires to master the world, and the +world, in the end, devours the ego. Thought triumphs over Nature and +contemns it; Nature takes its revenge and swallows up thought in its +abyss. The consciousness of self wishes to bring over to itself the +knowledge of the world; and this absorbs and devours the consciousness +of self. The synthesis and reconciliation can only be found in the +consciousness of something superior to self and the world on which both +of them absolutely depend. This synthetic and pacificatory +consciousness is the consciousness of universal and sovereign Being; it +is the sense of the presence of God. To escape from his distress, man +has never had any but this means of salvation. The savage has recourse +to it, according to his degree of intellectual life, when, under terror +of the phenomena of Nature, and of ever-threatening death, he calls to +his aid the obscure power of his gods. The philosopher, nourished on +speculation, and arrived at the dualistic and divided consciousness of +the disciples of Kant, obeys the same instinctive impulse and the same +vital necessity when he seeks in the notion of God the conciliation of +the conflict which he feels between the ego and the world, between pure +reason and the practical reason. He needs a universal Being on whom he +feels himself to depend, and on whom he may equally make to depend the +whole universe. In uniting himself to Him, he affirms and confirms his +own life; he feels God to be active and present, in his thought under +the form of logical law, in his will under the form of moral law. He +is saved by faith in the interior God, in whom is realised the unity of +his being. It is therefore true to say that the human mind cannot +believe in itself without believing in God, and that, on the other +hand, it cannot believe in God without finding Him within itself. + +That is a _salto mortale_, some superficial spirits will say, +astonished at an apparent deduction which thus makes the religious +activity of the ego spring from the depths of its own distress and +despair. To which we respond: it is, on the contrary, a _salto +vitale_, the instinctive and at the same time reflective act which +moves the mind to affirm to itself the absolute value of spirit. +Considered at this first psychological moment of its birth, the +religious faith of spirit in itself and in its sovereignty is only the +higher form, and, as it were, the prolongation of the instinct of +conservation which reigns in all Nature. The mind, crushed beneath the +weight of things, stands up and triumphs in the feeling of the eternal +dignity of spirit. + +Inward religion, sacred instinct of life, divine, immortal force which +necessarily appears at the first movement of spirit, how they +misunderstand thee who only see in thee the slavery of man! On the +contrary, it is thou alone that breakest all the chains that Nature +binds on him, that savest him from death and from extinction, and that +openest out to his beneficent activity an infinite career by +associating him with the work of God: it is thou that renderest his +spontaneity creative, that renewest his forces, and that, plunging him +into the fountain whence he issued, maintainest in him an eternal youth! + +This issue to the conflict of our faculties is exclusively of the +practical order; it is an act of trust, not a demonstration; an +affirmation which presupposes, not scientific proofs, but an act of +moral energy. This act must be performed, or we must die. There is no +constraint except the desire to live, but this is irresistible, if not +for each individual in particular, at least for mankind in general. +The individual may commit suicide; humanity desires to live, and its +life is a perpetual act of faith. + +Nevertheless, this practical solution implies the possibility and the +hope of a theoretical one; and this in two ways: in the first place, +psychologically, because the ego of pure reason is also that of the +practical reason and feels itself to be one and the same knowing and +acting subject; then, speculatively, because in believing in the +sovereignty of spirit in ourselves and in the world we affirm that man +and the world have in spirit the principle and the aim of their being. +In God present in us, are reconciled, at least in hope, the ego and the +world. This religious faith of spirit in itself permits us to +anticipate the future solution, and to affirm that at the summit of +their complete development, and in their entire perfection, science and +the moral life will rejoin and penetrate each other. Mathematicians +tell us that two parallel lines meet in infinity. So in God are +reconciled the pure reason and the practical reason, which here seem to +us to develop themselves on parallel lines without ever being able to +meet and to unite. Let us never forget that we spring out of +nothingness, or, if you will, out of unconsciousness, and that we +slowly emerge into the light of consciousness. Man is in course of +being made spirit. If it be well considered, it will be seen that this +irreducible antithesis that fills us with despair is the very condition +of our spiritual development. The mind only disengages itself from the +bonds of its mother, Nature, by an incessant struggle. Struggle means +opposition and victory. Experience demonstrates that nothing +spiritualises, deepens, or purifies morality more than the +contradictions of science; and finally, that nothing helps science more +than a high and disinterested morality. These two sisters, enemies in +appearance, are twins, and they are seen to grow and triumph together +by the exercise they give to each other through their constant +contradictions. + + * * * * * + + +3. _The Two Orders of Knowledge_ + +... The ego can only be conscious of itself and of its modifications. +That which does not touch it in any way remains unknown. Now, the +modifications of the ego may be reduced to two groups. The one comes +to it from without, representing the action of things upon it; these +are sensations. The other springs up within, representing the action +of the ego on things, its spontaneous energy, its volitions, and its +acts. Thence come the two constituent elements of every consciousness, +the distinction between object and subject, the ego and the non-ego, +thought and the object of thought. We call _objective_ every idea or +quality that it is possible to refer to the object alone, independently +of the action or disposition of the subject. We call _subjective_ all +knowledge implying identity of subject and object, all discipline +bearing on the rules of the spontaneous activity of the ego, since +without that activity the rules which should direct it would not exist. +In the first case we are conscious of a distinction and even of a +radical opposition between the object and the subject of knowledge; in +the second, we are conscious of their fundamental identity in this +sense, that the thinking and willing subject presents itself to itself +as an object of thought and study. In order that the two orders of +knowledge, engendered by this duality of origin, may be brought into +logical unity, it is necessary either that the subject should enter +into the object, that the ego should be absorbed by the non-ego, so +that the laws of the non-ego should become the laws of the ego--and +that would be materialism; or that the object should enter into the +subject so that the laws of the subject should become the law of +things--and that would be idealism. Outside these two systems, equally +violent and absolute, the two orders of knowledge are irreducible, +because in us the consciousness of the ego and the consciousness of the +world are at present in conflict. Morality is neither reconciled to +science, nor science to morality. In their _rapprochement_, +progressive to infinity, a hiatus always subsists. + +One would be greatly deceived if he reduced this difference to the +ordinary opposition between the physical and the spiritual, between +external and internal phenomena. Sensation, the foundation and the +starting point of the objective order of knowledge, is just as internal +as volition. On the other hand, man is a part of what we call Nature; +and, as such, he is the theatre of a crowd of internal and external +phenomena which, so far as that is possible, should be observed, +described, explained, by the principle of causality, like all the other +phenomena of the physical order. For example, the mechanism of memory +and that of logic, the correlation between mental activities and the +physiological modifications of the cerebro-spinal system, the laws of +association of ideas, the stable forms of the human understanding, all +that psychology that is now called "scientific psychology," rightfully +enters into the domain of the sciences of Nature. It is a province +that may be explored like all the others. The psychological +observations made in it are objective not less than those of +physiology, for the reason that the phenomena that are observed, while +occurring in the ego, are nevertheless produced in it without the +voluntary intervention of the ego, and even without its express +consent. Moreover, they do not imply or provoke on the part of the ego +any moral judgment properly so called. + +On the other hand, take the sciences of Nature which deal with the +objects most widely removed from man, with astronomy or geology, +_e.g._; no longer consider the bare external results; consider rather +that spiritual force which we call thought, and which has the virtue of +producing these sciences; what are they but the external revelation of +the creative and organising energy of the thinking subject, the +revelation of spirit to spirit? The work, seen from this subjective +side, serves simply to set forth the worth of the worker. You speak +then of the ordinary savant or of the intellectual genius, of the good +or bad scientific workman. The philosophy of science becomes a +necessarily subjective discipline. "Science," in fact, is simply an +abstraction. In the reality there are only minds more or less +ignorant, conscious, at each step, of their strength and of their +impotence, of their defeats and victories,--minds condemned to a +perpetual effort to struggle out of the night from which they slowly +mount. When you think of this most disinterested side of the +scientific life you ask yourself what is the basis, in the last resort, +of this confidence of mind in itself--the foundation of all the rest. +You see clearly that this activity of pure intellect demands, like all +other human activity, attention, forgetfulness of self, a heroism, in +short, going to the point of contempt of common enjoyments, and of the +sacrifice of life itself. You have then left the domain of the +sciences of Nature and have entered the realms of spirit, and there +rise around you the problems which form the object of the moral +disciplines. + +Such is the intimate complexity of the two orders of knowledge that a +persevering reflection discovers them to be everywhere mingled, and it +is with difficulty that they are disentangled. All knowledge is an +aggregate (_ensemble_) of judgments; but the judgments which constitute +physical knowledge and those that constitute moral science are not of +the same nature. The first are judgments of _existence_, bearing +solely on the causality, the succession, the distribution of phenomena, +_i.e._ on the relations of objects to each other, apart from the +subject. The basis on which they rest is sensation, and, as sensation +has for necessary forms time and space, time and space will also be the +forms and limits of these judgments. Forming homogeneous quantities, +time and space give the notion of figure and of number, so that +mathematics is the foundation and the necessary framework of all the +physical sciences. They rise above this abstract science of the forms +of sensibility in the order of their complexity, and form a hierarchy +from rational mechanics to sociology, of which Comte and so many others +vainly endeavour to make a simple social mechanics. The destiny of +this universal objective science is to progress for ever without ever +being completed; for it is of the same nature as number--that is to +say, essentially indefinite and imperfect. It not only finds an +inexhaustible subject of study in the external world; it encounters a +mystery impenetrable to its methods and analyses in the very subject +that creates it, and which, in creating it, remains outside the +mechanism it sets in motion. + +In fact, when the thinking subject considers itself, or considers +things in relation to itself, it brings to bear upon itself and them a +second series of judgments of an altogether different character. It +estimates them and it estimates itself according to a _norm_ which is +in itself. It declares them to be good or bad, beautiful or ugly, rich +or poor in life, harmonious or discordant. In other words, it is no +longer the idea of number--it is the category of _the good_ which +becomes the necessary form of these new judgments, which, for this +reason, are called judgments of _estimation_ or of dignity, and it is +clear that between these two kinds of judgments there is no common +measure. They can no more encounter each other than two balls rolled +on different planes. + +Will it be said that the judgments founded on the concept of _the good_ +are insignificant and worthless because neither man nor the good of man +can be the measure of things? If this remark is useful for abating +human pride and preventing childish illusions, it does not efface the +primordial distinction between good and evil inherent to the human +mind, nor would one wish to deduce from it the vanity of all morality, +and the equal worth of all the manifestations of life. The proof, +moreover, that the rule of _the good_ is above man is that it judges +and condemns him pitilessly; it is that consciousness, independently of +the painful or agreeable sensations that it receives from things, +establishes between them a fitness (_convenance_), a hierarchy, and +constitutes the harmonious unity of the universe itself in the supreme +idea of the sovereign good. If the legitimacy of the confidence which +the conscience has in its rule is to be contested, I do not see why we +should not contest that of the confidence of pure thought in itself. +Then everything crumbles to pieces, both science and conscience, in the +same abyss. + +In reality, the good, the beautiful, the relations of fitness and of +harmony, are so many principles of knowledge, which progress, like +physical knowledge, by the culture of the mind. The form of the moral +judgments is universal, and identical in every man; it is this form +alone which constitutes man as a moral being; but the contents of this +form vary unceasingly in history, according to times and places. +Everywhere and always man has sought the good, but he has not always +placed it in the same things; he has formed different ideas of it, and +these ideas have become more and more noble and pure in proportion as +his life itself has been ennobled and purified. That is why there is a +history of morality, of religion, of æsthetics, as there is a history +of the natural sciences, although progress in these two classes has +been of an opposite nature and accomplished according to different +laws. However this may be, we may conclude that if mathematics, by the +concept of number, the abstract form of sensation, is the mould and +framework of the sciences of Nature, ethics, by _the categorical +imperative_, the abstract form of the activity of spirit, is the +foundation of the moral sciences, which are as diverse as the various +activities of the ego, each having special rules and criteria, no +doubt, but always falling under the common form of obligation. + +Distinct and often in conflict, these two orders of knowledge are none +the less _solidaire_; they are always developed by their action the one +upon the other, and tend to a higher unity, the need for which gives +rise to attempts, renewed from age to age, at a metaphysical synthesis. +If you take the disciplines as taught in the schools to-day, you will +find that they are almost all mixed sciences such as history, social +economy, politics, philosophy, etc. So soon as the savant rises above +the simple description of phenomena, and wishes to organise his cosmos +by formulating the unity and harmony of it, he necessarily borrows this +principle of organisation and of harmony from the experience of his +subjective life. On the contrary, religion, art, morality, can only be +realised in the conditions prescribed to them by science properly so +called, and the last problem always propounded to human thought at each +stage of its development is the conciliation of the _moral idea_ +acquired by the exercise of the will, and the _scientific idea_ +furnished by its experience of the world. + +There is no question, then, of separating the two orders of knowledge, +but of referring each of them to its true source, and preventing a +confusion which, mixing everything up, renders everything uncertain. +It is impossible in good psychology to trace to one centre the +divergent manifestations of our spiritual life, and to drive the moral +into the physical or the physical into the moral. Our spiritual life +is like an ellipse with two centres of light: on the one side, the +centre of _receptive life_, where all the sensations received are +elaborated into phenomenal knowledge; on the other, the centre of +_active life_, at which are concentrated all the revelations of the +mind's own inner energy. The line of the ellipse described by the +relation and the distance of these two centres is the approximate but +never perfect synthesis of the two kinds of data which thus arrive in +consciousness. He who does not distinguish these two centres, and +transforms the ellipse into a circumference with equal rays and an +unique centre, necessarily remains in chaos and old night. + +From these general considerations is naturally deduced the specific +character of religious knowledge, its inward nature and its range. + + +4. _The Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge_ + +The first contrast that we have seen to arise between the knowledge of +Nature and religious knowledge is that the first is _objective_, and +that the second can never pass out of _subjectivity_. This does not +mean that the second is less certain, but that it is of another order, +and is produced in another way and with other characteristics. + +In one sense, the knowledge of Nature is subjective, for it depends on +our mental constitution, and on the laws of our knowing faculty. But +religious and moral knowledge is subjective in a different manner and +for a deeper reason. The object of scientific knowledge is always +outside the ego, and it is in knowing it as an object outside the ego +that the objectivity of that knowledge consists. But the object of +religious or moral knowledge--God, the Good, the Beautiful--these are +not phenomena that may be grasped outside the ego and independently of +it. God only reveals Himself in and by piety; the Good, in the +consciousness of the good man; the Beautiful, in the creative activity +of the artist. This is only saying that the object of these kinds of +knowledge is immanent in the subject himself, and only reveals itself +by the personal activity of that subject. Absolutely eliminate the +religious and moral subject, or rather take from him all personal +activity, and you suppress, for him, the object of morality and +religion. + +Let us take up again that striking antithesis of the two orders of +knowledge. What is at once the basis and the sign of the objectivity +of the natural sciences? + +One may theoretically ask whether the world of science, the world that +_appears_ to us, is exactly the real world, existing outside of us. It +is thus that in the philosophy of Kant the famous question as to _the +thing in itself_ is stated. But it is equally certain that in the name +of that philosophy this question ought logically to be discarded. One +is astonished that the author of the _Critique of Pure Reason_ did not +immediately close that door opened to scientific scepticism. After his +critique, in fact, it is evident that that substratum which some are +forced to imagine as a support to phenomena--that the indeterminate and +indeterminable substance that they represent beneath the forms and +qualities of things,--is both a non-being and nonsense. _Das Ding an +sich ist ein Unding_. (The thing in itself is an unthing.) It is a +remnant of ancient metaphysics which ought to be eliminated from modern +philosophy. In allowing it to introduce itself into our theory of +knowledge, it overturns it as would a heterogeneous element. He that +persists in distinguishing between the thing in itself and the +phenomenal thing will never be able to give an account of the +objectivity of the sciences of Nature, and of the kind of certitude +that belongs to them. + +That which appears to us from without is not doubtless all the reality +of the world; but it is a real world. By his calculations, Leverrier +came first to suspect the existence of a large planet as yet +unperceived; then he came to measure its volume, to trace its orbit, +and finally to mark its place at a given time. He said to his brother +astronomers: "Look there!" and the planet appeared at the end of their +telescopes. + +How explain, moreover, without this reality of science, the power that +science gives to man over Nature? His power, is it not always exactly +in proportion to his knowledge? + +In what then does this objectivity of science consist if it is not +founded on the pretended knowledge of the thing in itself? In the +necessary link that scientific thought establishes between phenomena. +This necessity does not come from experience, for it is something +ideal, which our mind adds to all experience. But, as we can only +think according to these necessary laws, we necessarily objectivise in +all scientific study. We thus affirm, of necessity, the fundamental +unity of the laws of thought and the laws of phenomena. Experience +always confirms this immediate affirmation. Now this necessity, it is +objectivity itself; it is the only noumenon that we are authorised to +seek behind phenomena in Nature, and behind the manifestations of pure +reason in spirit. + +The first effect of this objective necessity is to eliminate from the +work of science the feelings and the subjective will of the ego. A +thinking and acting subject is no doubt necessary in making science; +but the characteristic of science is to see what it studies apart from +the subject, apart even from the psychical phenomena that it observes +in the ego itself. Posited outside the ego, the laws that it +promulgates appear to us therefore independent of it. This elimination +of the subject from the conclusions of science thus becomes the sign +and the measure of their objectivity. Where the elimination is +complete, as in astronomy and physics, the objectivity is entire. On +the contrary, history, _e.g._ where the elimination can never be +absolute, always tends towards objectivity, but never reaches it. + +It is altogether otherwise with religious knowledge. With it we enter +at once into the subjective order--that is to say, into an order of +psychological facts, of determinations and internal dispositions of the +subject itself, the succession of which constitutes his personal life. +To eliminate the ego would not here be possible; for this would be both +to eliminate the materials and to dry up the living spring of +knowledge. An ancient illusion pretended that we know God, as we know +the phenomena of Nature, and that the religious life springs from that +objective knowledge as by a sort of practical application. The very +opposite is true. God is not a phenomenon that we may observe apart +from ourselves, or a truth demonstrable by logical reasoning. He who +does not feel Him inside his heart will never find Him outside. The +object of religious knowledge only reveals itself in the subject, by +the religious phenomena themselves. It is with the religious +consciousness as with the moral consciousness. In this the subject +feels obliged, and this obligation itself constitutes the revelation of +the moral object which obliges us. There is no good known outside +that. The same in religion: we never become conscious of our piety +without--at the same time that we feel religiously moved--perceiving, +more or less obscurely, in that very emotion the object and the cause +of religion, _i.e._ God. + +Observe the natural and spontaneous movement of piety: a soul feels +itself to be trusting, that it is established in peace and light; is it +strong, humble, resigned, obedient? It immediately attributes its +strength, its faith, its humility, its obedience, to the action of the +Divine Spirit within itself. Anne Doubourg, dying at the stake, prayed +thus: "O God, Do not abandon me lest I should fall off from Thee." The +prophet of Israel said: "Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned." And +the father in the Gospels cried: "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine +unbelief." To feel thus in our personal and empirical activity the +action and the presence of the Spirit of God within our own spirit, is +the mystery, but it is also the source, of religion. + +It will be seen how much religious knowledge and the science of Nature +differ by their very origin. The one is the theory of the receptive +and logical life of the ego; the other is the theory of its active and +spontaneous life. As both the receptive and the active life are one, +however, the two orders of knowledge are neither isolated nor +independent. But they must never be confounded. Their results will +always remain heterogeneous; they are not of the same order, and cannot +supply the place of each other. If you were to admit, _e.g._, that +philosophers may succeed (as they have often been believed to do) in +establishing a veritable objective science of God, and if they were +thus to know God in Himself and apart from the religious ego, that +scientific knowledge of God, even if it were possible, would not be +religious knowledge; for to know God religiously is to know Him in His +relation to us--that is to say, in our consciousness, in so far as He +is present in it and determines it towards piety. This is the sense in +which it is permissible to maintain that religion is as independent of +metaphysics as it is of cosmology. It is the same with the knowledge +of the world. To know the world as an astronomer or a physicist is not +to know it religiously. To know it religiously is, while taking it as +it is, and in no wise contradicting the scientific laws according to +which it is governed, to determine its value in relation to the life of +spirit; it is to estimate it according as it is a means, a hindrance, +or a menace, to the progress of that life. In the same way, to know +ourselves religiously is not to construct scientific psychology; but +that psychology being once constructed, and properly constructed, it is +to realise ourselves in our relation both to God and to the world, +forcing ourselves to surmount the contradictions from which we suffer, +in order that we may attain to unity and peace of mind. Thus, not only +can religious knowledge never cast off its subjective character; it is +in reality nothing but that very subjectivity of piety considered in +its action and in its legitimate development. + +The inner nature of these two orders of knowledge having been defined, +it becomes evident that each of them is valid in its own domain, and +that they cannot legitimately encroach upon each other. To try to +establish by religious faith the reality of any phenomenon whatsoever, +of which experimental science or intellectual criticism are the sole +judges; or to wish to formulate by means of objective science a moral +judgment which springs from the subjective consciousness--these are two +equivalent encroachments and abuses. Experimental science has the +right to forbid the religious consciousness to do violence to it; but +the religious consciousness has an equal right to restrict science to +its true limits. We must prevent confusion if we would put an end to +the conflicts between them. To enclose God in any phenomenal form is, +properly speaking, superstition or _idolatry_; to confine or dissipate +the soul in external phenomenism, and to deny the seriousness and value +of its religious and moral activity, is _infidelity_, properly so +called. + +Truths of the religious and moral order are known by a subjective act +of what Pascal calls _the heart_. Science can know nothing about them, +for they are not in its order. In the same way the phenomena of Nature +are only known and measured by observation and calculation. Neither +the heart nor religious faith can decide with respect to them. Each +order has its certitude. We must not say that in the one the certitude +is greater than in the other. Science is not more sure of its object +than moral or religious faith is of its own; but it is sure in a +different way. Scientific certitude has at its basis intellectual +evidence. Religious certitude has for its foundation the feeling of +subjective life, or moral evidence. The first gives satisfaction to +the intellect; the second gives to the whole soul the sense of order +re-established, of health regained, of force and peace. It is the +happy feeling of deliverance, the inward assurance of "salvation." + +It is not surprising, lastly, that these two kinds of knowledge or of +certitude should spring up and propagate themselves by different means. +Objective science transmits itself by objective demonstration. The +subjective life of the savant has nothing to do with it. To convince +us of the reality of his discoveries, an astronomer does not need to be +a good man. On the contrary, a fundamentally immoral man will always +be a detestable professor of ethics. Religion is only propagated by +religious men. It may also be added that, in religious knowledge, the +intellectual demonstration or the idea has no value except in so far as +it serves as the expression and the vehicle of the personal life of the +subject. This is the secret and the mystery of eloquence. The _si vis +me flere, dolendum_, is true in all the moral disciplines, as much and +more than in æsthetics. One gains nothing by attempting to demonstrate +objectively the existence of God. That demonstration is ineffective +towards those who have no piety; for those who have, it is superfluous. +The true religious propaganda is effected by inward contagion. _Ex +vivo vivus nascitur_. Accuracy in theology is much less important in +religion than warmth of piety. Pitiful arguments have in all ages been +followed by admirable conversions. Those who are scandalised at this +have not yet penetrated into the essence of religious faith. + +For want of this clear and frank separation between our two orders of +knowledge, one sees, on the one hand, philosophers pretending to +transform ethics and philosophy into objective science, and, on the +other, savants naïvely giving forth their objective science as a +metaphysic and as a solution of the enigma of life. Two illusions, in +whose train everything is mixed up and founded. Objective ethics are +everything you could wish--except ethics. You might as well speak of a +round square. When an objective science transforms itself into +metaphysics, it ceases to be science and becomes subjective philosophy. +This goes without saying. + +And yet, in distinguishing the two orders we must not isolate them, nor +above all must we lose sight of their solidarity, their close +connection, and correspondence. The subject is one, and has a clear +consciousness of his unity; that is why he always tends towards a +synthesis. Phenomenal science cannot complete itself without borrowing +from the subjective consciousness of the ego the ideas of unity, of +plan, and of harmony. On the other hand, the moral and religious +consciousness, in order to express itself, needs to borrow from +phenomenal science the data which it uses, and, consequently, it should +always avoid contradicting them. Thus we tend towards the synthetic +harmony of a continuous effort and of an indefectible faith; but we +discard none the less resolutely the philosophy of logical unity. We +obstinately refuse to admit that the subjective order can ever be +deduced, by way of consequence and application, from the objective +order of knowledge: that is the error of materialistic Pantheism; and, +_vice versâ_, that the objective order of phenomenal science can or +ought to be deduced from the religious or moral order: that is the +opposite error of all the dogmatisms. The mental cannot be simply +reduced to the physical, or the physical entirely to the mental. We +must respect the fruitful antinomies of life from which the necessary +progress springs. The tendency towards harmony is there, not the +harmony itself. This is the reward promised, the aim proposed, to +effort. Our philosophy ought to regard the spiritual life in its +becoming--that is to say, in its growth and in its conflicts, without +wishing, like all idealist and materialist speculations, to make of the +actual and transient moment the eternal metaphysical reality. + + +5. _Teleology_ + +Subjective in essence and origin, religious knowledge is _teleological_ +in its procedure, and this second characteristic springs from the first. + +Teleology is the form of all organic life and of all conscious +activity. Now, what is moral knowledge but the theory of the conscious +life of spirit? + +Without the principle of causation, phenomena, in science, would not be +connected; without the idea of end, or principle of direction, +biological and psychical facts could not be organised--that is to say, +hierarchised. + +Mechanism and teleology: these then are the two new terms for the +antithesis formed by the knowledge of Nature and religious knowledge. +But it is a prejudice to believe that the one form of explanation +excludes the other or renders it superfluous. We have examples to the +contrary not only in the machines constructed by man, but also in all +living organisms, in which, according to Claude Bernard, the _directive +idea_ of life is realised in an absolute determinism. + +The mechanical explanation of phenomena and the determinism of science +only become exclusive of teleology when they are transformed into +metaphysical materialism--that is to say, when it is affirmed, _à +priori_, and by a subjective act, that there is nothing in the universe +but matter and the movements of matter. But then, it is clear that +materialism, which believes itself to be scientific, becomes a +philosophy, and like all other philosophies it falls under the +jurisdiction not only of the objective science of the world, but of the +consciousness of the ego. + +The ideas of cause and end spring from one and the same source. The +idea of cause awakens in us because the ego, as soon as it knows +itself, has the clear sense of being the author of its acts; it has +this sense by that of the very effort that it has made. But, at the +same time, it knows that it made that effort with a view to an end +which attracted it. Cause and end, therefore, are the two aspects of +the same conscious act. The one is the backward glance of the +consciousness; the other is its forward look. As we only know the +world by reflecting it in the mirror of our consciousness, it follows +that the two categories of cause and end impose themselves on our +understanding with an equal necessity. + +There is another consequence of this psychological observation. The +consciousness of the ego is one; neither the idea of cause nor the idea +of end, by itself, would suffice to explain the whole universe to me. +It is easy to see at a glance that the objective science of phenomena +is not and never can be completed. The chain into which it introduces +each particular phenomenon as a new link is indefinitely lengthened by +scientific progress, in time and space, but without the power to hang +on anywhere. Outside space and time, the principle of causation only +engenders insoluble antinomies. Besides, to explain one phenomenon by +another is to explain it by a cause which itself needs explanation. +The mechanical reason of things is therefore never a sufficient reason. +It is an indefinite series of insufficient particular reasons. The +network of science, however fine and firm it be, does not cover, and +cannot cover all reality. The Cosmos that science builds is like the +globe; it floats in immensity. "Where, O Lord, goes the earth through +the heavens?" + +To this question teleology alone responds. But every teleological +affirmation respecting the universe is a religious affirmation. +Science, studying only accomplished facts, never establishes anything +but phenomena and their antecedent or concomitant conditions. Once the +phenomenon is integrated in the causal series, the task of science is +accomplished. To ask it to go further is to ask it to go beyond its +limits and to denaturalise itself. You can only put teleology into the +universe by affirming the sovereignty of spirit. To say that there is +reason, that there is thought, in things--that they move towards an end +or realise an order, a harmony, a good: this is to say that matter is +subordinate to spirit. Now, to affirm this sovereignty of spirit is to +commit that act of initial religious faith of which I spoke at the +beginning; it is to feel in one's self and in the world something +besides matter, the mysterious energy of spirit. This act of +faith--legitimate because inevitable--belongs to the subjective order +of religious life, not to the objective order of science. Teleology +and the theory of final causes have been compromised because their +specific character has been mistaken; they have sometimes been +assimilated to, and sometimes substituted for, mechanical causes in the +explanation of phenomena. For an unknown scientific explanation has +been substituted an appeal to a supernatural intention or volition of +God. The savants rightly protested against this. God, who is the +final reason of everything, is the scientific explanation of nothing. +The object of science is to search for second causes; where these do +not appear there is no science. It is faith which replaces it. To say +that God created the world, or that the world tends toward the +sovereign good, is not to advance positive science a single step. On +the other hand, to explain the phenomena of rain, or thunder, or the +fall of bodies, is to dissipate some mythological conceptions; but it +is not to suppress the religious affirmation of spirit that the +mechanism of the universe has an end, and that the laws of gravitation +and the material forces serve some purpose of which they are ignorant, +and which is of more value than themselves. + +Between the discoveries of science and the postulates of the religious +and moral life there is always necessarily formed a synthesis which is +destroyed at each step, but which rises again higher and larger than +before. Mechanism itself, in order to be intelligible, calls for +teleology. The text of the material world awaits the interpretation +that spirit gives of it. By its discoveries positive science +establishes the text. Without this rigorous establishment of the text, +the exegesis of consciousness remains a phantasy. But, without that +exegesis, the text itself signifies nothing; it is almost as if it did +not exist. + +There is another reason, a practical reason, which makes of teleology +the very essence of the religious consciousness. We must never lose +sight of the fact that what we seek in and by religion is the key to +the enigma of life. The enigma of the universe only torments us, at +the religious point of view, because we believe that in this is the +secret of that. We are embarked in the vessel, and we see clearly +enough that our destiny depends upon its own. That is why religious +faith, perfectly indifferent to the architecture and to the ways and +means of the construction of the vessel, regards above all the +direction in which the sails are set, and seeks to discover the route +which is being followed. Has it a compass? And is there some one at +the helm? + +In other words, the religious instinct is the pressing need that spirit +has to guarantee itself against the perpetual menaces of Nature. Faith +judges everything from the point of view of the sovereign good, and the +sovereign good, for spirit, can only be the final and complete +expansion of the life of the spirit. Therefore, in every religious +notion there will never, at bottom, be anything but a teleological +judgment. It is not the essence of things--it is their reciprocal +value and their hierarchy which interest religious faith. In the +religious notion of God it is not the metaphysical nature--it is the +will of God in regard to men--which is of most concern; and in the +religious notion of the world it is not the mechanical cause of +phenomena--it is to know which way the world is going, and whether it +has any other end to serve than as the theatre and the organ of spirit. +What does faith itself desire to say when it defines God as the Eternal +and Almighty Spirit, except that man needs to affirm that his own +individual spirit does not depend on any but a spiritual power like +himself? It is true that to determine this final cause of the world is +also to determine its first cause. It is the same thing in other +terms; and indeed it is to make metaphysics in the etymological sense +of the word. The important point is to know that this decisive step +beyond the chain of visible phenomena, whether it be taken by the +philosopher or the theologian, is always an act of subjective life, an +affirmation of spirit, an act of faith, and not a demonstration of +science. + + +6. _Symbolism_ + +Thirdly, and lastly, religious knowledge is _symbolical_. All the +notions it forms and organises, from the first metaphor created by +religious feeling to the most abstract theological speculation, are +necessarily inadequate to their object. They are never equivalent, as +in the case of the exact sciences. + +The reason is easy to discover. The object of religion is +transcendent; it is not a phenomenon. Now, in order to express that +object, our imagination has nothing at its disposal but phenomenal +images, and our understanding, logical categories, which do not go +beyond space and time. Religious knowledge is therefore obliged to +express the invisible by the visible, the eternal by the temporary, +spiritual realities by sensible images. It can only speak in parables. +The theory of religious knowledge requires for its completion a theory +of symbols and symbolism. + +What is a symbol? To express the invisible and spiritual by the +sensible and material--such is its principal characteristic and its +essential function. It is a living organism, in which we must +distinguish between appearance and substance. It is a soul in a body. +The body is the manifestation of the soul, although it is not like it; +it makes the soul active and present. The most perfect example of +symbolism, in this respect, is found in language and writing--two +incarnations of thought. Neither the characters formed by my pen, nor +the sound made by the air in my larynx, have a positive resemblance to +my thought. But these letters and sounds become signs to those who +have the key to them. They express the intangible thought; they make +it present and living in the minds of those who read or hear. + +This is still truer of the creations of art. They also are mere +symbols. Art might be defined as the effort to enshrine the ideal in +the real, and by a material form to express the inexpressible. This is +clearly taught by the word _poesy_, which means creation. The works of +great artists really live; for they have a soul, a rich and intense +life, which the material form at once conceals and reveals. From +architecture to music there is not an art that is not symbolical. +Ethics, religion, all the disciplines relating to the subjective life +of spirit, have only this means of expression. It is their peculiarity +to become exterior and objective, and to dominate the external things +that science studies. Symbols, much better than science, attest the +victory and the royalty of spirit. If science reveals Nature, symbols +make of Nature, of its transformations and its laws, the glorified +image of the inner life of spirit. + +Born in the artist's soul, of the subjective activity of his ego, the +symbol addresses itself much less to the pure intellect than to the +inner life and to the emotions of those who contemplate it. It awakes +and sets in motion the subjective activity of the ego; it has produced +its whole effect when it has produced in us the emotions, the +transport, the enthusiasm, the faith, that the poet himself experienced +in engendering it. Such is the source and the explanation of "the +magic of art," of eloquence, of religious inspiration. All the +creators of living symbols pour their soul into our soul, their life +into our life. They subjugate and ravish us. By symbols, much better +than by scientific notions, the community and fraternity of spirits is +realised, and the fusion of souls into a collective consciousness +effected; a consciousness which includes all individual minds and tunes +them into harmony; the consciousness of a nation, of a church, of +humanity. It is not science that rules the world--it is symbols. + +Inferior to the exact ideas of science in logical clearness, symbolic +forms are superior to them in power and reach. Science is forcibly +arrested at the surface of things, at the appearances continually +arising in the universe. In it is found neither the principle of +energy, nor, consequently, the secret of life, or the key to our +destiny. You seek the meaning and the end of your action; you ask for +some sufficient reason for living; do you not feel that it is +contradictory to address yourself to the science of phenomena, seeing +that, from the strictly scientific point of view, phenomena have not in +themselves their own _raison d'être_? That which you seek is beyond +phenomena, and it is symbols alone that can, not make you comprehend +it, but reveal it to you. + +Since Nature may become and does become, in art and in religion, the +constant symbol of the inner life of spirit and of its normal +development,--since it is susceptible of this perpetual and glorious +transfiguration by spirit,--it is impossible not to admit the inner +correspondence of the laws of Nature and the laws of conscious life, +and to believe in their deep unity. It is, in fact, secret and +powerful analogies which rule and inspire symbolical creations. Art +and religion are more than conventions; they are revelations of that +which is hidden at once in spirit and in Nature, of the principle of +Being itself, of the absolute energy which is manifested, parallelly, +in the unfolding of the physical universe and of the moral universe. +All things cover some mystery; phenomena are simply veils. That is +why, by their very destination, they become symbols. + +The idea of symbol and the idea of mystery are correlative. Who says +symbol says at the same time occultation and revelation. In becoming +present and even sensible, the living verity still remains veiled. The +same image that reveals it to the heart remains for the intellect an +impassable barrier. One may say of it what the poet says of the sense +of the infinite, for, at bottom, it is the same thing. "We are +restless because we see it but can never comprehend it." + +This inquietude is soothed by a clear knowledge of the cause from which +it springs. Symbols are the only language suited to religion. We need +to know that which we adore; for no one adores that of which he has no +perception; but it is not less necessary that we should not comprehend +it, for one does not adore that which he comprehends too clearly, +because to comprehend is to dominate. Such is the twofold and +contradictory condition of piety, to which symbols seem to be made +expressly in order to respond. Piety has never had any other language. + +In considerations of this kind might be found the explanation of the +bond which in the beginning unites religion and art. But we must +confine ourselves to our special topic, and proceed to inquire what it +is that constitutes the life and power of religious symbols. + +It would be an illusion to believe that a religious symbol represents +God in Himself, and that its value, therefore, depends on the +exactitude with which it represents Him. The true content of the +symbol is entirely subjective: it is the conscious relation of the +subject to God, or rather, it is the way he feels himself affected by +God. Thus when the Psalmist exclaims: "The Lord is my rock"; or "God +is a devouring fire"; when the Christ teaches us to say, "Our +Father,"--these are not scientific, and in this case metaphysical, +definitions of God. What these images simply translate is the relation +of absolute confidence, of awe, of filial love, which, by His +mysterious action, the Spirit of God creates in revealing Himself in +the spirit of man. From these divers feelings spring spontaneously the +strong and simple images which translate them, and which, if these +subjective experiences are eliminated, have no content and no truth. + +From this point of view we may see in what religious inspiration +psychologically consists. Neither its aim nor its effect is to +communicate to men exact, objective, ready-made ideas on that which by +its nature is unknowable under the scientific mode; but it consists in +an enrichment and exaltation of the inner life of its subject; it sets +in motion his inward religious activity, since it is in that that God +reveals Himself; it excites new feelings, constituting new concrete +relations of God to man, and by the fact of this creative activity it +spontaneously engenders new images and new symbols, of which the real +content is precisely this revelation of the God-spirit in the inner +life of the spirit of man. + +The greatest initiators in the religious order have been the greatest +creators of symbols. Prophecy, in the Biblical sense of the word, has +never given divine revelation except in the form of images. And whence +spring these images but from the exaltation of the religious life of +the prophet which spontaneously expresses itself without? Every other +conception of inspiration is anti-psychological. + +To the question, Whence come the life and power of symbols? we reply: +From the primitive organic unity of the sentiment of piety, and of the +image which translates it first to consciousness. It is the organic +unity of soul and body. The greater the creative force that engenders +the symbol, the stronger is this unity. It constitutes its truth +because it constitutes its life. For a symbol, to be living it +suffices that it should be sincere, that the feeling should not be +separate from the image, nor the image from the feeling. To this cry +of confidence in God, "The Lord is my rock," there is no objection, so +long as this confidence is really felt, although a rock is a very poor +image of God. It follows that the value of a symbol must not be +measured by the nature of the image employed, but by the moral value, +in the scale of feeling, of the relation in which it places us to God. +It is the moral value of this relation which alone makes the intrinsic +value of a religion, and which permits us to assign to it its true +place in the development of humanity. + +The time comes, however, when the image detaches itself from the +feeling that produced it, and when it fixes itself as such in the +memory. In considering it in itself, reflection transforms the image +into an idea more or less abstract, and takes this idea for a +representation of the object of religion. But then arises the original +discrepancy that we noted at the outset between the object of religion, +which is transcendent, and the nature of the phenomenal image by which +we attempt to represent it. Hence there is a latent contradiction in +every symbolic idea. To get rid of this contradiction the +understanding is obliged to eliminate from these ideas the sensible +element which remains in them and renders them inadequate to their +object. + +By progressive generalisation and abstraction, reasoning attenuates the +primitive metaphor; it wears it down as on a grindstone. But, when the +metaphorical element has disappeared, the notion itself vanishes in so +far as it is a positive notion. There are mysterious lamps which only +burn under an alabaster globe. You may thin away the solid envelope to +make it more transparent. But mind you do not break it; for the flame +inside will then go out and leave you in the dark. + +So with all our general ideas of the object of religion. When every +metaphorical element is eliminated from them, they become simply +negative, contradictory, and lose all real content. Such are our pure +ideas of the infinite and the absolute. If you would give them a +positive character, you must put into them some element of positive +experience. This is what is done when it is said that God is the +ultimate energy of things, that He is the creative cause of everything, +that He is Justice, that He is Spirit, a Judge, a Father. + +Born of the primitive symbols of religion, all our religious ideas will +therefore necessarily keep their symbolical character to the end. As +is the seed, so is the plant. Dogmatics itself will never be for the +religious soul anything but a higher symbolism--that is to say, a form +which, without the inward presence of active and living faith, would be +worthless. If dogmas may sustain and produce faith, it is still more +true that, at the outset, it is faith which produces dogmas and +afterwards revives them. + +Many good men withstand these conclusions from a rigorous analysis of +religious knowledge and of its psychological genesis. Supposing you +are right, they say, and that the mental constitution of our spiritual +nature confines religious thought to symbolic forms, cannot a +supernatural revelation enable us to pass beyond these limits and bring +to us religious ideas adequate to their object, and consequently of a +pure and absolute truth? This seems to us a very strange desire--that +a revelation of God should be effected apart from the conditions of +knowledge--that is to say, apart from the forms under which alone it +can be accessible to us. Do they not see that the very idea of +revelation soon becomes contradictory? If God wished to make us a gift +that we could receive, must He not have suited the form of it to that +of our mind? Must He not have availed Himself of our ideas and of our +language in order to explain to us the nature of His benefits? Now, it +is certain that our ideas, as soon as they are transported outside +space and time, contradict and destroy themselves, and that we are +reduced to the necessity of conceiving and expressing things invisible +and eternal by images actual and terrestrial. If God, in speaking to +us of His mysteries, used other than these human means, we should not +understand Him at all, so that the revelation would no longer be a +revelation. And is it not for this reason that when God has desired to +reveal Himself to men He has never employed any but men as His organs, +and that He whom we name His Son never spoke except in images and +parables of the things of the kingdom of God? + +No one in fact was fonder and more intelligently fond of this +symbolical form than the Christ; He never wished to employ any other. +This preference did not arise, as is supposed, merely from the fact +that He found it a happy means of popularity to adapt Himself to all +minds. He also knew that no language was more natural or more +conformed to the moral exigencies of piety. He saw in it an +institution ordained by God Himself. And it is the truth. The Parable +addresses itself, not to the pure understanding, but to the active +faculty of the ego, to "the heart." It appeals to our subjective life; +it awakens the religious need before satisfying it. The soul which +hears it meditates, and experiences the living content that it +contains. On the contrary, the soul that is inert and dead finds +nothing in the symbol and receives nothing from it even theoretically, +so that it is literally true that the symbolic form, a shining +revelation unto some, remains a dull and empty letter for others. It +is from this point of view alone that it is possible to understand that +other saying of Jesus, so paradoxical to common sense, so rich and just +to the eyes of experience and of faith: "To him that hath shall be +given; from him that hath not shall be taken away that which he hath." +The gift of God comes only to the felt need and the active desire of +man. + + +7. _Conclusion_ + +The conclusion from all that has now been said is that religious +knowledge is subject to the law of transformation which regulates all +the manifestations of human life and thought. + +As there is disproportion and disparity between the object of religion +and its means of expression, it will always be possible and necessary +to distinguish, in all its creations, between the form and the +substance, the body and the soul. Religious symbolism will therefore +always be very variable _de facto_, but subject, _de jure_, to new +interpretations. + +This variability, however, is not unlimited. It is necessarily +confined within limits which, while not easy to define theoretically, +are none the less precise and fixed; for the great religious creations +are organisms, and every organism carries in itself, determined by its +own nature, the exact capacity of its metamorphoses. + +In every living organism, in fact, there is a principle of stability +and a principle of movement. The identity of a human being persists +through all the modifications, internal and external, which he +undergoes. So with the language of a people; and so with every +historical religion. Its fundamental and regulative principle is the +relation it establishes between the soul and God. The form or external +realisation of this principle depends, no doubt, on the race, the +geographical environment, the historical period. It will vary +therefore with these circumstances. But the religious type or organic +principle remaining the same, this religion will appear the same +throughout the incessant movement of its dogmas, rites, and symbols. +This is the very condition of its life. Forms which cannot bend, +symbols whose fresh and living interpretation is exhausted, a rigid +body that no longer assimilates or eliminates any external element, +represent a state of sterility and death, to be followed by a speedy +dissolution. + +Pious men are right in clinging obstinately to the stability of their +principle of piety, but they ought to cling as tenaciously to the +renewal of forms and ideas in their religion; for this is the only +proof that their treasure has kept its value, and their religious +principle its organising virtue. The life of a religion is measured by +this power of adaptation and renovation. If Christianity is the +universal and eternal religion, it is because its virtuality in this +respect is infinite. + + * * * * * + +Before I close, let me try to prevent two misunderstandings. In saying +that in dogmas we must distinguish the religious substance and the +intellectual form, I do not mean that we either can or ought to isolate +them from each other, or that we can ever hope to have them separately. +Piety is only conscious for us and discernible by others when incarnate +in its expression or intellectual image. A religion without doctrine, +a piety without thought, a feeling without expression, these are things +essentially contradictory. It is as vain to wish to seize pure piety, +as in philosophy it is to seek to define "the thing in itself." When +we speak of the inward religious fact, then, of pious experience, we do +not speak of a bare experience; we speak of a psychological phenomenon, +of a precise and, consequently, formulated experience. + +In the second place, for religious science, it is not a question of +isolated experience, of the experience of a single individual. The +material would be too precarious, and the field of observation too +limited. The question refers to the individual life in its continuity, +and to the life of the religious society considered in its historical +development. + +A social and universal as much and even more than it is an individual +fact, it is in the social life of the species, in organised religious +societies, in their institutions, their common worship, their liturgy, +their rules of faith and discipline, that religion objectively realises +its fundamental principle, manifests its inner soul, and develops all +its power. It is only as a social manifestation that it can become an +object of scientific study, and that it has need of explanation. +Moreover, a religious life which remains hidden in the individual +consciousness, which does not communicate itself, which does not create +any spiritual solidarity, any fraternity of soul, is as if it were not; +it is a mere film of feeling, an ephemeral poetic flower, which has no +more effect on the individual himself than it has on the human race. + +From these considerations springs a method. The dogmatic treatment of +religious knowledge will have for its subject the tradition of the +religious society as it is fixed, conserved, and developed in its +historic monuments. It will consider that tradition from the symbolic +point of view, as the objective revelation of the inner life of the +Church, and of its piety. The tradition will then appear not as +something dead and immutable, but as a power continuing in ourselves. +To grasp this soul in its fruitful continuity and in the perpetual +renewal of the external organism; to comprehend them in their living +unity; to tell the story of the genesis of dogmas and their endless +metamorphoses as a constant and necessary incarnation of the principle +that is manifested in them; to follow this uninterrupted chain in +history, and prolong it into our own life,--such is the method, at once +critical and positive, conservative and progressive, firm in piety and +always deferential to science, which critical symbolism enables us to +apply to all religious creations. + +The error of that form of religious knowledge called _Orthodoxy_ is +that of forgetting the historically and psychologically conditioned +character of all doctrines, and of desiring to raise into the absolute +that which is born in time, and which must necessarily modify itself in +order to live in time. Impotent to arrest the current of ideas and the +movement of minds, it can only establish its rule by political +measures, by regulations enacted and applied like civil laws--decisions +of popes, bishops, or synods, trials for heresy, dogmatic tribunals. +Orthodoxy has lost the sense of the symbolical character of Confessions +of Faith, which, however, it still names symbols. Its misfortune and +its failing is to be anti-historical. + +The error of _Rationalism_, at once the brother and the enemy of +orthodoxy, is of the same nature, but it is produced in an opposite +sense. It does not lose sight of the imperfect and precarious +character of traditional dogmas and symbols; it exaggerates it; but it +loses sight of their specifically religious contents. Orthodoxy is +mistaken as to the nature of the body of religion; rationalism as to +the nature of its soul. Beneath the old traditional ideas it seeks for +other ideas, moral or rational ideas, freer from sensible elements, and +less contradictory, which it mistakes for the essence of religion. It +replaces dogmas by other dogmas which it believes to be more simple, +and which it regards as absolute truth. But in giving to religion a +rational or doctrinal content, it empties it of its real content, of +specific religious experience; it kills faith, which no longer having +an object of its own, no longer has a _raison d'être_. It has less +liking than orthodoxy for symbolism and for religious creations; it is +radically impossible for it to comprehend, and consequently to +interpret, them. The chief vice and the misfortune of rationalism is +to be anti-religious. + +The theory of _Critical Symbolism_, whose broad outlines we have +traced, will bring us out of this old antithesis. It shows to us the +kind of truth and the legitimacy possessed by symbolical ideas, without +ignoring the psychological and historical determinism which rules their +form and their appearance. It must not be imagined that, from this +point of view, everything becomes fluid and inconstant in +religion--that nothing in it can be fixed or permanent. In the +progress of his life, man is destined to realise his spiritual nature, +to attain to what St. Paul calls "the stature of Christ," in which the +religious and moral ideal is realised. This moral stature is a +reality, the highest of all realities. We tend towards it without +ceasing, and the value of each moment of our inner life is measured by +the progress that it marks towards that supreme end. For this inner +life there is a norm which imposes itself on the consciousness with an +imperative necessity, and, consequently, there may be religious symbols +which are normal and normative in relation to others. These are the +symbols which represent with perfect simplicity and fitness either this +ideal end of the Christian life or some of the necessary moments +through which the soul passes on the way to it. There are symbols, in +a word, such as that of the Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of God, the +New Birth, the Effusion of the Holy Spirit, so intimately bound up with +our religious life, with its origin, its progress, or its end, which +one cannot conceive as disappearing, so long as the spiritual life of +humanity exists. All the exclusively religious words of Christ which +bear directly on the consciousness are of this number. And it is of +them that He was able to say without being contradicted by the ages: +"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." + +On the other hand, it is no less impossible to ignore the distinction +we have made in symbol between substance and form. Now, this +distinction opens the door to criticism. The most conservative of +Christians confess that men may adhere to a doctrine without having +appropriated its religious content; that they may be orthodox without +being pious. They therefore make it the duty of every member of the +Church to assimilate the contents of the symbol. But how can the duty +of personal assimilation be imposed without the right arising to +critically interpret the transmitted forms? Is it not a psychological +necessity for each believer to bring his inner religious consciousness +into harmony with his general culture? What if these syntheses and +conciliations are necessarily unstable and precarious because of the +constant development of life and knowledge? When a man is walking his +equilibrium is destroyed and re-established at each step. It is the +very condition of walking. + +Symbolism, which thus makes peace in the individual, may also effect it +in religious societies. In Catholicism the unity of the Church is only +maintained by a central infallible authority and by political means. +That authority creates peace by imposing silence. Dogmas only subsist +because no one concerns himself with them. Can Protestant communities +maintain their unity by the same method? The Catholic method ruins +Protestant communities, inevitably, by causing schisms frequent in +proportion as their life and thought become intense. The theory of +symbolism offers them a more honourable issue. It permits them to +combine veneration for traditional symbols with perfect independence of +spirit by leaving to believers, on their own responsibility, the right +to assimilate them and adapt them to their experiences. They will +attach themselves to tradition with all the more sincerity and zeal as +each one is able to find in it that of which his religious faith has +need. It will be a help and not a yoke. Men will love it; they will +defend it as the link between the generations, as a family heritage, as +the place where souls of every race and age, and stage of scientific +culture, meet and mingle and commune. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +REPLY TO CRITICISMS + +Before laying down the pen, I ought perhaps to reply to one or two +objections. + +The first reproach that has been addressed to me is contained in the +words, "Naturalistic Evolutionism." A conception more or less +materialistic of the universe is thus attributed to me, according to +which, like Herbert Spencer, I should explain all things by the single +law of evolution, and end sooner or later by reducing the laws of the +moral world to the laws of the physical world, since I make of the +first a simple transformation of the second. Need I say that this is +the very opposite of my thought? It is true that I like to use the +word evolution, and to consider all phenomena in their natural +succession. But this is not a metaphysical doctrine; it is a process +of study, a method which consists in these two essential rules: to +observe each fact as it presents itself; and to observe it in its +order, _i.e._ in the conditions in which it presents itself, because a +fact only possesses its truth and value in that order and succession. +On our planet, moral life emerges slowly and painfully out of organic +life. Must we therefore conclude that there is no more in the one than +in the other, and that they are of equal value? Certainly not. Both +these series of phenomena must be placed in their relations and +connections; but the method which makes them known to me gives me no +more right to confound them than to separate them, to ignore their +differences than to forget their analogies. It shows me, on the +contrary, that there is advance, _real_ progress from the one to the +other; that the first in date has its end in the second; that there is +a sort of living and continuous creation, each stage and degree of +which reveals new riches and new glories. This is so thoroughly the +oasis of my religious philosophy that there would be more ground or, at +all events, more excuse for accusing me of denying the reality of the +world than the continuous action of the Divine Creator. + +It is true that the one reproach has not saved me from the other. Both +have been addressed to me by persons who have not taken the trouble to +reconcile them. The accusation of Pantheism, contradictory as it may +seem, has been added to that of Naturalistic Evolutionism. I have been +made to appear the blind and docile disciple of an idealism more or +less Hegelian, which would annihilate the reality of second causes in +order to contemplate in the universe the flux and transformation of a +first cause or substance, of which one might either say that it is +everything or that it is nothing. But here, again, they lose sight of +the character of the method that I follow. It leads me to discover in +my consciousness the mysterious and real co-existence of a particular +cause, which is myself, and of a universal cause, which is God. That, +I repeat, is a mystery impenetrable to analysis, but undeniable by any +man who examines himself and enters into the ultimate basis of his +life. It is the mystery out of which religion springs by an invincible +necessity. Now, as this mystery is posited by me at the very outset of +my researches, and maintained to the end, how can they legitimately +reproach me with sacrificing either of the two terms which constitute +it to the other--the first effect of which would be to dissipate and +make impossible my theory of the psychological origin of religion? "In +me," said Charles Secretan, "lives some one greater than me"--a +mysterious guest whose universal and eternal action I feel beneath the +variable phenomena of my empirical activity, to Whom, when I am good, +confiding, humble, brave, I always attribute my goodness, my faith, my +courage, my humility, as to Him I attribute my whole life. + +I cannot comprehend the co-existence of the finite and the infinite; +but this duality is everywhere. I observe that in the physical as in +the moral world there is, in each phenomenon, a latent force, a sort of +potential energy, which raises it and urges it beyond itself. Nature +is perpetually becoming, that is to say, in perpetual travail. It is +not true that there is nothing new under the sun, and that the future +must simply repeat the past. Creation is not yet completed. "My +Father worketh hitherto," said Jesus. "It doth not yet appear what we +shall be." But the little that I perceive of the Divine work +demonstrates to me that it is progressive, that it raises and enriches +life at every step, and that this progress accounts exactly for the +essential antinomies amid which my reason loses itself and my heart +adores. To wish to reduce everything to unity is to turn the kingdom +of life into the domain of death. For my part, I have long since +renounced what is justly called "the philosophy of identity," that +abstract dialectic which, throwing all things back to their point of +logical departure, renders perfectly incomprehensible and superfluous +the ephemeral development which they have in our consciousness and in +history. The painful contradictions observed by Pascal in our moral +life, and the insoluble antinomies in our thought unveiled by Kant, +always seem to me to go nearer to the bottom of things than the +ontological deductions of Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel. + + * * * * * + +In this book I have hardly noted any but facts that have been verified +in myself and by myself. It is true that I suppose that every +reflective reader is capable of finding them and tracing them out in +his own personal experience. Those who are able and wishful to re-read +my book in themselves, and thus verify my analyses, may perhaps draw +some profit from it. Those who read me otherwise will not only lose +their time and pains--they will misunderstand at every step the meaning +of my phrases and the direction of my ideas. Beneath my reasonings or +my images they will put other ideas and other intentions than mine, and +they may afterwards, with an apparent good conscience, deduce from them +the most terrible consequences.... Philosophical language lends itself +to all and permits all; and the mischief of it is that it would be +useless to desire to prevent these quarrels. New explanations only +give rise to new misunderstandings, and simply serve to perpetuate a +dispute without interest and without fruit. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History + +Author: Auguste Sabatier + +Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38446] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +<I>Outlines of a Philosophy<BR> +of Religion based on<BR> +Psychology and History</I><BR> +</H1> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +<I>By Auguste Sabatier</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>Author of the "Apostle Paul" etc.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +NEW YORK +<BR> +JAMES POTT & COMPANY +<BR> +119-121 WEST 23D STREET. +<BR> +1910 +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +CONTENTS +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +<A HREF="#chap00b">PREFACE</A> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +BOOK I.—RELIGION +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0101">CHAPTER I</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. First Critical Reflections<BR> +2. Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness<BR> +3. Religion the Prayer of the Heart<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0102">CHAPTER II</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +RELIGION AND REVELATION +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. The Mystery of the Religious Life<BR> +2. Mythological Notion of Revelation<BR> +3. Dogmatic Notion<BR> +4. Psychological Notion<BR> +5. Conclusion<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0103">CHAPTER III</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +MIRACLE AND INSPIRATION +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity<BR> +2. Miracle and Science: Miracle and Piety<BR> +3. Religious Inspiration<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0104">CHAPTER IV</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. The Social Element in Religion<BR> +2. Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion<BR> +3. Progress in the Representation of the Divine<BR> +4. The History of Prayer<BR> +5. Conclusion<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +BOOK II.—CHRISTIANITY +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0201">CHAPTER I</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +HEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. Prophetism<BR> +2. The Dawn of the Gospel<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0202">CHAPTER II</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. The Problem<BR> +2. The Christian Principle<BR> +3. The Gospel of Jesus<BR> +4. A Necessary Distinction<BR> +5. The Corruptions of the Christian Principle<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0203">CHAPTER III</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +THE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. The Evolution of the Christian Principle<BR> +2. Jewish or Messianic Christianity<BR> +3. Catholic Christianity<BR> +4. Protestant Christianity<BR> +5. Conclusion<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +BOOK III.—DOGMA +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0301">CHAPTER I</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WHAT IS A DOGMA? +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. Definition<BR> +2. Genesis of Dogma<BR> +3. The Role and the Religious Value of Dogma<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0302">CHAPTER II</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +THE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. Three Prejudices<BR> +2. The Two Elements in Dogma<BR> +3. The Crisis of Dogma<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0303">CHAPTER III</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +THE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. Mixed Character of the Science of Dogmas<BR> +2. The Science of Dogmas and the Church<BR> +3. The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap0304">CHAPTER IV</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +CRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +1. Antiquated Theories<BR> +2. The Kantian Theory of Knowledge<BR> +3. The Two Orders of Knowledge<BR> +4. Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge<BR> +5. Teleology<BR> +6. Symbolism<BR> +7. Conclusion<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +<A HREF="#chap04">APPENDIX</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="contents"> +Reply to Criticisms +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap00b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PREFACE +</H3> + +<P> +This volume contains three parts which are related to each other as the +three stories of one and the same edifice. The first treats of +religion and its origin; the second of Christianity and its essence; +the third of Dogma and its nature. +</P> + +<P> +Proceeding thus from the general to the particular, from the elementary +forms of religion to its highest form, passing afterwards from +religious phenomena to religious doctrines, I have endeavoured to +develop a series of connected and progressive views which I do not wish +to be regarded as a system, but as the rigid application and the first +results of the method of strictly psychological and historical +observation that for years I have applied to this species of studies. +In no domain is there a greater incoherence of ideas, a sharper +conflict of feeling, or data more contradictory or, at all events, more +difficult to reconcile. In no other is it more urgent to introduce a +little sequence, clearness, harmony. Our century, from the beginning, +has had two great passions which still inflame and agitate its closing +years. It has driven abreast the twofold worship of the scientific +method and of the moral ideal; but, so far from being able to unite +them, it has pushed them to a point where they seem to contradict and +exclude each other. Every serious soul feels itself to be inwardly +divided; it would fain conciliate its most generous aspirations, the +two last motives for living and acting that still remain to it. Where +but in a renovated conception of religion will this needed +reconciliation be found? +</P> + +<P> +No one nowadays underestimates the social importance of the religious +question. Philosophers, moralists, politicians, show themselves to be +alive to it; they see it dominating all others, whose solution, in the +end, it may prevent or decide. But, singular contradiction! the more +zeal and the more decision these men manifest in handling the religious +question in the social order, the more indifference or impotence they +show in solving it for themselves both in their inner and their family +life... No one has the right to impose a doctrine or the presumption, +surely, to dictate to others how they must direct their thought; but a +sincere and persuaded mind may tell how it has directed its own, and +may set forth as an experience and a "document" the views at which it +has arrived.... +</P> + +<P> +The solidarity of minds has now become so great, the currents of ideas, +like the currents in the atmosphere, move so quickly and create, in +circumstances so different and so far apart, states of soul so similar +that many who read these studies, and who are struggling with the same +difficulties as those which have so long engaged the author's thoughts, +may find both interest and profit in seeing how he has succeeded in +satisfying himself. Those even who have never reflected on these +questions, or have lightly turned from them because they deemed them +insoluble, will not perhaps object to be directed to them by one who +wishes, not to check their freedom of thought, but to stimulate them to +exercise it. Who, at the close of his secret meditations, on the +confines of his knowledge, at the end of his affections, of the joys he +has tasted, of the trials he has endured, has not seen rising before +him the religious question—I mean the mysterious problem of his +destiny? Of all questions it is the most vital. Men may be turned +from it for a time by manifold distractions and by a sense of +powerlessness to solve the question, but it is impossible that they +should not return to it. Has life a meaning? Is it worth living? Our +efforts, have they an end? Our works and our thoughts, have they any +permanent value to the universe? This problem, which one generation +may evade, returns with the next. Each new recruit to the human race +brings the problem along with him, because he wishes to live, and to +live is to act, and all action requires a faith. It is of the young +that I have thought while preparing these pages, and it is to them that +I dedicate them. +</P> + +<P> +To a generation that believed it could repose in Positivism in +philosophy, utilitarianism in morals, and naturalism in art and poetry, +has succeeded a generation that torments itself more than ever with the +mystery of things, that is attracted by the ideal, that dreams of +social fraternity, of self-renunciation, of devotion to the little, to +the miserable, to the oppressed—devotion like the heroism of Christian +love. Hence what has been called the renaissance of Idealism, the +return, <I>i.e.</I>, to general ideas, to faith in the invisible, to the +taste for symbols, and to those longings, as confused as they are +ardent, to discover a religion or to return to the religion their +fathers have disdained. Our young people, it seems to me, are pushing +bravely forward, marching between two high walls: on the one side +modern science with its rigorous methods which it is no longer possible +to ignore or to avoid; on the other, the dogmas and the customs of the +religious institutions in which they were reared, and to which they +would, but cannot, sincerely return. The sages who have led them +hitherto point to the impasse they have reached, and bid them take a +part,—either for science against religion, or for religion against +science. They hesitate, with reason, in face of this alarming +alternative. Must we then choose between pious ignorance and bare +knowledge? Must we either continue to live a moral life belied by +science, or set up a theory of things which our consciences condemn? +Is there no issue to the dark and narrow valley which our anxious youth +traverse? I think there is. I think I have caught glimpses of a steep +and narrow path that leads to wide and shining table-lands above. +Indeed I have ascended in the footsteps of some others, and I signal in +my turn to younger, braver pioneers who, in course of time, will make a +broader, safer road, along which all the caravan may pass. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0101"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK FIRST +</H2> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +RELIGION +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN, AND ON THE NATURE OF RELIGION +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>First Critical Reflections</I> +</P> + +<P> +Why am I religious? Because I cannot help it: it is a moral necessity +of my being. They tell me it is a matter of heredity, of education, of +temperament. I have often said so to myself. But that explanation +simply puts the problem further back; it does not solve it +</P> + +<P> +The necessity which I experience in my individual life I find to be +still more invincible in the collective life of humanity. Humanity is +not less incurably religious than I am. The cults it has espoused and +abandoned have deceived it in vain; in vain has the criticism of +savants and philosophers shattered its dogmas and mythologies; in vain +has religion left such tracks of blood and fire throughout the annals +of humanity; it has survived all change, all revolution, all stages of +culture and progress. Cut down a thousand times, the ancient stem has +always sent new branches forth. Whence comes this indestructible +vitality? What is the cause of the universality and perpetuity of +religion? +</P> + +<P> +Before entering upon this question it will be necessary to remove a +fruitful cause of error with respect to the essence and origin of the +religious sense, especially among the peoples of Latin extraction. +This cause lies in the very word <I>religion</I>. It very badly designates +the psychological phenomenon to be studied; it envelops it in accessory +and even in alien ideas, which blind and mislead half-educated men. +The word comes to us from the least religious of the peoples of the +world. It has no synonym or equivalent in the language of the ancient +Hebrews, or in that of the Greeks, the Germans, the Celts, or the +Hindus, the human families which, in the religious order, have been the +most original and the most creative. It was Rome that imposed the word +upon us along with her language, her genius, and her institutions. +</P> + +<P> +The first Christians were not acquainted with it. It is absent from +the New Testament. When, in the third century, it enters into +Christian speech, it no doubt undergoes a sort of baptism, and seems to +cover a meaning more in conformity with the spirit of the Gospel. +Lactantius defines religion as "the link which unites man to God." But +in the ancient Roman writers the word never had this profound and +mystical meaning. Instead of marking the inward and subjective side of +religion, and signalising it as a phenomenon of the life of the soul, +it defined religion by the outside, as a tradition of rites, and as a +social institution bequeathed by ancestors. The Christian baptism +through which the word passed did not efface this ancient Roman stamp. +To the majority, even now, religion is hardly anything more than a +series of traditional rites, supernatural beliefs, political +institutions; it is a Church in possession of divine sacraments, +constituted by a sacerdotal hierarchy, for the discipline and +government of souls. Such is the form under which the genius of Rome +conceived and realised Christianity in the Western world; and the +fascination that this political and social conception of religion still +exercises is so great that minds the most enlightened know no better +than to agree with M. Brunetière, who, when wishing to set forth the +superiority of Catholicism to Protestantism, confines himself, like +Bossuet, to praising it as a perfect model of government. +</P> + +<P> +By a sort of logical necessity, whenever and wherever this political +conception of religion has predominated, an analogous explanation of +its origin has always arisen. It is natural that men should have +applied to it the ancient juridical adage: <I>is fecit cui prodest</I>. +Religion admirably serves to govern the peoples; therefore it was +originally invented for that purpose. It was the work of priests and +chiefs who wished by means of it to strengthen and to ratify their +authority. So reason the Romans in the days of Cicero and the +philosophers of the eighteenth century. And there is some foundation +for their arguments. Religion has often been utilised by politics: +pious frauds are to be found in all the cults. But what then? What do +the facts prove? It is not the pious fraud that produces the religion; +it is the religion that gives occasion and opportunity to pious frauds. +Without religion there would have been no pious frauds. When I hear it +said, "Priests made religion," I simply ask, "And who, pray, made the +priests?" In order to create a priesthood, and in order that that +invention should find general acceptance with the people that were to +be subject to it, must there not have been already in the hearts of men +a religious sentiment that would clothe the institution with a sacred +character? The terms must be reversed: it is not priesthood that +explains religion, but religion that explains priesthood. +</P> + +<P> +The theory propounded by Positivism is profounder and more serious. +Religion, which dates from the earliest ages, can only have been a +first attempt at an explanation of the extraordinary phenomena by which +man in his ignorance was astonished and frightened. It is the +beginning of the childish form of science, which, in course of time, +would naturally give place to higher and more rigorous forms. Children +and savages animate all things round about them with a psychical life; +they see particular wills behind every phenomenon that excites their +hope or fear. Thus the imagination of primitive man peopled the +universe with an infinite number of spirits, good and evil, whose +mysterious action made itself felt at every moment of their destiny. A +while ago we had the explanation of religion by priesthood; now we have +the explanation by mythology. But it is the same vicious circle: it is +an insufficient psychology once more mistaking the effect for the cause. +</P> + +<P> +To conceive of religion as a species of knowledge is an error not less +grave than to represent it as a sort of political institution. No +doubt religious faith is always accompanied by knowledge, but this +intellectual element, however indispensable, so far from being the +basis and the substance of religion, varies continually at all the +epochs of religious evolution. Doctrinal formulas and liturgies are +means of expression and of education, of which religion avails itself, +but which it can exchange for others after each philosophical crisis. +Rites and beliefs become obliterated or die out; religion possesses a +power of perpetual resurrection, whose principle cannot be exhausted in +any external form or in any dogmatic idea. +</P> + +<P> +Comte's theory of the three stages through which human thought has +passed is well known: the theological stage of primitive times, the +metaphysical stage in the Middle Ages, the positive or scientific stage +of modern times. If knowledge were the essence of religion, one could +easily understand the logical course of this evolution, an inferior +form of knowledge being condemned to disappear before a superior form. +The proof that it is nothing of the kind is the fact that religion does +not cease to reappear at all epochs and in the most widely different +conditions of culture. The three stages are not successive but +simultaneous; they do not correspond to three periods of history, but +to three permanent needs of the human soul. You find them combined in +various degrees in antiquity, in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; in +modern times, in Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Kant, Claude Bernard, and +Pasteur. The more science progresses and becomes conscious of its true +method and of its limits, the more does it become distinguished from +philosophy and religion. Scientific research, exclusively devoted to +the determination of phenomena and of their conditions in time and +space, is one thing; the philosophic need of comprehending the universe +as an intelligible whole, and of explaining all that exists by a +principle of sufficient reason, is another and a different thing; and, +lastly, differing from both, is the religious need which, rightly +understood, is but a manifestation, in the moral order, of the instinct +of every being to persevere in being. Why may not these divers +tendencies of soul, coexisting always and everywhere, manifest +themselves simultaneously and on parallel lines? +</P> + +<P> +We need not go beyond the Positivists themselves for examples and +proofs of this persistence of the religious sentiment. Comte, Spencer, +and Littré may be called as witnesses. The founder of Positivism, who +had predicted the fatal extinction of the disposition to religion in +the human soul, crowned his system and ended his career by founding a +new religion, clumsily copied from the sacerdotal organisation and the +ritual practices of Roman Catholicism. There actually exists a +Positivist Church, with a calendar of saints, with relics and +anniversaries, with a catechism, and with a high priest not less +infallible than the one at Rome. A few disciples, scandalised by this +supreme temptation of the master, desired to excuse him by declaring +that he had gone mad. It was a mistake. The fact is that, arriving at +the construction of a Positive Sociology, Comte comprehended the <I>rôle</I> +of the religious instinct and of religious feeling in the life of +peoples, and he believed that he would only be able to cement the +edifice of society in the future by religion. It is said that those +who have been amputated sometimes feel sharp twitches in the limbs they +have lost. Comte and his disciples have experienced something similar. +Nature, with her usual irony, has avenged herself on them for the +violence they have done to her. +</P> + +<P> +Of Herbert Spencer not much need be said; everybody knows that the +<I>Unknowable</I> in his system has become a sort of undetermined and +unconscious force, eluding every effort of the mind to grasp it, but +remaining, none the less, the cause explaining evolution, and the +source profound whence all things flow. Under different names, do we +not recognise the First Cause of the philosophers, and the image, +half-effaced, of the God of believers? Need we be surprised that the +English thinker pronounces religion to be eternal? that he finally +reduces the mental life of man to these two essential and primordial +activities—the scientific activity which pursues the knowledge of +phenomena and their transformation, and religious activity delivering +itself up to mystical contemplation and to silent adoration of +universal being? +</P> + +<P> +The example of Littré is more touching still. I remember reading a +sublime page in one of his works, in which the savant, after running +through the <I>terra firma</I> of positive knowledge, reaches its utmost +limit, and, seating himself on the extremest promontory, sees himself +surrounded by the mystery of the unknowable, as by an infinite ocean. +He has neither barque, nor sails, nor compass wherewith to explore this +boundless sea; nevertheless, he stands there gazing into it; he +contemplates it; he meditates in presence of this vast unknown, and +finally abandons himself to a movement of adoration and of confidence +which renews his mental vigour and which fills his heart with peace. +What is this, I ask, but a sudden outburst of religious feeling which +positive science, so far from extinguishing, has only served to deepen +and accentuate? And since we have here the religion of the unknowable, +is it not evident that religion is not necessarily knowledge? +</P> + +<P> +I now come to a third explanation which, older than either of the +others, will bring us nearer to the end at which we aim. "It is fear," +says a Latin poet, "that engenders the gods." There is a sense in +which this is true. It cannot be doubted that religion was at first +awakened in the heart of man under the impress of the terror caused by +the disordered and destructive forces of primitive Nature. Thrown +naked and disarmed on the barely-cooled planet, walking tremblingly +upon a soil that quaked beneath his tread, his would be a state of +misery and distress which filled his heart with an infinite terror. +But the explanation needs completing. In itself and of itself, fear is +not religious; it paralyses, crushes, stuns. In order that it may +become religiously fruitful, it is necessary that, from the outset, it +should be mixed with an opposite sentiment, an impulse of hope; it is +necessary that man, the prey of fear, should conceive, in some way or +other, the possibility of surmounting it—that is to say that he should +find above him some help, some succour, by which to confront the +dangers which threaten him. Fear only gives birth to religion in man +because it awakens hope and calls forth prayer—prayer that opens an +issue to human distress. There is that amount of truth in the ancient +hypothesis. It brings us near the source we are seeking, for it places +us on the practical arena of life, and not in the theoretical region of +science. The question man puts to himself in religion is always a +question of salvation, and if he seems sometimes to be pursuing in it +the enigma of the universe, it is only that he may solve the enigma of +his life. And now we must press nearer to the problem. We must +ascertain out of what fundamental contradiction the religious feeling +arises. We may reach it by a mental analysis that every one can +follow, and verify the more easily inasmuch as it is always in course +of reconstruction, by noting our own experiences. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness</I> +</P> + +<P> +What is man? Externally he does not differ much from the higher +animals, the series of which seems to have been closed by his +appearance on our planet. His physical organism is composed of the +same elements, acting according to the same laws; and of the same +organs, performing analogous functions. It is by the incomparable +development of his mental life that man is distinguished, and little by +little disengages himself from animality. Phenomena and laws of a new +kind now make their appearance. The mysterious life of the spirit, +emerging from the physical life, unfolds itself gradually like a divine +flower, and gives the world, for us, its meaning and its loveliness. +The region of the true, the beautiful, the good, is opened up to +consciousness; the moral world is constituted as a higher order to +which man belongs. It is these moral laws, capable of dominating +physical laws and bending them to higher ends that, in the human +animal, realise and constitute humanity. Man is only man in so far as +he obeys them, and such is the point of transition that he occupies +between two worlds, such the necessity of the crisis by which he must +disengage himself from material animality, that, if he does not rise +above the brute, he necessarily, by the very perversion of his higher +life, falls beneath him. +</P> + +<P> +From the beginning, physical life implies a double movement: a movement +inward from the outside to the centre of the ego, and a movement +outward from the centre to the circumference. The first represents the +action of external things upon the ego by sensation (passivity); the +second, the reaction of the ego upon things by the will (activity). +This internal flux and reflux is the whole mental life. From this +point we shall soon perceive the initial contradiction in which this +life is formed, and in which it goes on developing itself continually. +The passive side and the active side of the life of the mind are not +harmonious. Sensation crushes the will. The activity, the free +expansion of the ego, its desires to extend and aggrandise itself are +checked and crushed by the weight of the world, which on every side is +pressing in upon it. Springing up from the centre, the wave of life +breaks itself inevitably on the rocks of outward things. This +perpetual collision, this conflict of the ego and the universe,—this +is the primary cause and origin of all pain. Thus thrown back upon +itself, the activity of the ego returns upon the centre and heats it +like the axle of a wheel in motion. Sparks soon fly, and the inner +life of the ego is lit up. This is <I>consciousness</I>. Brought back by +painful sensations and by repeated failure of its efforts from the +outside, the ego begins to reflect upon itself; it doubles itself and +knows itself; soon it judges itself; it separates itself from the +organism with which at first it confounded itself; it opposes itself to +itself, as if there were really in itself two <I>beings</I>, an ideal ego +and an empirical ego. Hence comes its torment, its struggles, its +remorse, but also the impulse ever renewed, the indefinite progress of +its spiritual life, of which each moment seems to be but a degree from +which it ought to rise to a stage still higher. +</P> + +<P> +May we not here foresee the divine purpose of pain? Without it, it +would seem as if the life of the spirit could not have arisen out of +physical life. All births are painful. Consciousness, like every +other child, was born in tears. The child of pain, it can only be +developed by pain. Where do you find intelligence the most refined, +consciousness the keenest, inner life the most intense, if not amongst +the human beings whose external activities have been repressed by +sickness or by some limitation in their social position? How else will +you explain the <I>Pensées</I> of Pascal or of Maine de Biran, or the +<I>Journal</I> of Amiel? Whence comes that extraordinary development of +consciousness of which we are all aware in men like these, unless it be +that they feel more profoundly than others that radical contradiction +which constitutes at once the misery and the grandeur of human destiny? +</P> + +<P> +Continue this observation; follow each of our faculties in its +progressive expansion. Starting from a contradiction without which +they would not exist, you see them all end in a contradiction in which +they seem to perish, so that that which has engendered consciousness +seems as if it must destroy it. Everywhere the same discouraging +antinomy. Man cannot know himself without knowing himself to be +limited. But he cannot feel these fatal limitations without going +beyond them in thought and by desire, so that he is never satisfied +with what he possesses, and cannot be happy except with that which he +cannot attain. I desire to know; my labouring intellect is athirst to +comprehend and understand, and its first discoveries enchant it. But, +alas, my head soon runs itself against the wall of mystery. Not only +are there things it does not know, but there are things which it knows +for a certainty that it will never be able to know. How can a man jump +off his own shadow, or stand on his own shoulders, to look over the +impassable wall? That all which is intelligible to us is real, I +grant; but is all that is real intelligible to us? And then what +becomes my knowledge save a melancholy feeling of ignorance that knows +itself to be such? The same contradiction in my faculty for enjoyment. +As my seeming knowledge changed into its opposite, so now I see +pleasure and happiness changing into pain and sorrow. Let the +superficial and the vulgar lay on fate or things the blame of their +deceptions and of their inability to be happy; as for me, I can only +blame the inner constitution of my being. It is as the result of that +very constitution that enjoyment bears within itself the cause of its +own exhaustion, that pleasure is changed into disgust, and that pain is +born of all voluptuousness. Pessimism is in the right; for it is +proved by an experience only too long-lived that the only result of +happiness exclusively pursued is an increase of the capacity for +suffering. Need I speak of moral activity? I desire to do good, but +"evil is present with me." I do not do that which I approve, and I do +not approve that which I do: I feel myself free in my will, and I am +enslaved in action. The more effort I make towards an ideal +righteousness, the more that ideal, which I never reach, constitutes me +a sinner and strengthens in me the consciousness of sin; so that here +again, and here especially, the final result of my search is the +opposite of that which I set out to seek. +</P> + +<P> +Whence shall deliverance come? How shall I solve this contradiction of +my being which makes me at the same time live and die? To free man +from the miseries and limitations of his nature men count upon the +progress of science and the amelioration of the conditions of his life. +But who does not see that here is a new source of despair? How can we +forget that, so far from attenuating it, science in its progress +aggravates and renders mortal the original condition of life? To make +a discovery, to explain a new phenomenon, what is this but to add +another link to the causal and necessary network which science weaves +and spreads over things? To put sequence, order, and stability into +the world, is not this, for science, to put necessity into it, and to +make necessity the sovereign ruler of the world? Science, in the +strict sense of the word, is determinist. But then, prolong this +progress of science indefinitely; multiply it by ten, by a hundred, a +thousand; what do you do but multiply proportionately the weight of +universal determinism beneath which our soul groans and ceases to +strive? We should then end in the still more tragic +contradiction—between science and conscience, physical laws and moral +laws, action and reflection. The more the one enlarges and triumphs +the vainer seems the other. Hence that philosophical dualism in which +modern thought ends—a science which cannot engender an acknowledged +morality, and a morality which cannot be the object of positive +science. We touch the cause of that strange malady <I>le mal du siècle</I>, +a sort of internal consumption by which all cultivated minds are more +or less affected. It is an intestine war which arms the human ego +against itself and dries up all the springs of life. The more one +reflects on the reasons that may be urged in favour of living and +acting, the less capable one is of effort and of action. Clearness of +thought is in inverse proportion to the energy of the will. The +Pessimists tell us that if we were fully and perfectly conscious we +should lose the will to act, and even the desire to be. And which of +us is not more or less of a Pessimist nowadays? Who does not complain +of "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world"? Who does not +feel his weakness and the pressure of external things? Who has not +marked that union now become almost habitual of frivolity of character +and intellectual culture the most perfect and refined? That sad +monotone which comes to us on every wind, from the latest volume of +philosophy, from the most popular novel, from the most successful +play,—what is it but the melancholy sigh of a life that seems to be +ready to expire, of a world that seems about to disappear. Must one +give up thinking then if he would retain the courage to live, and +resign himself to death in order to preserve the right to think? +</P> + +<P> +From this feeling of distress, from this initial contradiction of the +inner life of man, religion springs. It is the rent in the rock +through which the living and life-giving waters flow. Not that +religion brings a theoretical solution to the problem. The issue it +opens and proposes to us is pre-eminently practical. It does not save +us by adding to our knowledge, but by a return to the very principle on +which our being depends, and by a moral act of confidence in the origin +and aim of life. At the same time this saving act is not an arbitrary +one; it springs from a necessity. Faith in life both is and acts like +the instinct of conservation in the physical world. It is a higher +form of that instinct Blind and fatal in organisms, in the moral life +it is accompanied by consciousness and by reflective will, and, thus +transformed, it appears under the guise of religion. +</P> + +<P> +Nor is this life-impulse (<I>élan de la vie</I>) produced in the void, or +objectless. It rests upon a feeling inherent in every conscious +individual, the feeling of dependence which every man experiences with +respect to universal being. Which of us can escape this feeling of +absolute dependence? Not only is our destiny, in principle, decided +outside ourselves and apart from ourselves according to the general +laws of cosmical evolution, in the course of which we appear at a given +time and place with a heritage of forces which we have not chosen or +produced, but, not being able to discover in ourselves or in any series +of individuals the sufficient reason of our existence, we are obliged +to seek outside ourselves, in universal being, the first cause and +ultimate aim of our existence and our life. To be religious is, at +first, to recognise, to accept with confidence, with simplicity and +humility, this subjection of our individual consciousness; it is to +bring this back and bind it to its eternal principle; it is to will to +be in the order and the harmony of life. This feeling of our +subordination thus furnishes the experimental and indestructible basis +of the idea of God. This idea may possibly remain more or less +indetermined, and may indeed never be perfected in our mind; but its +object does not on that account elude our consciousness. Before all +reflection, and before all rational determination, it is given to us +and, as it were, imposed on us in the very fact of our absolute +dependence; without fear we may establish this equation: the feeling of +our dependence is that of the mysterious presence of God in us. Such +is the deep source from which the idea of the divine springs up within +us irresistibly. But it springs at once as religion and as an effect +of religion. +</P> + +<P> +At the same time, it is well to note at what a cost the mind of man +accepts this subordination in relation to the principle of universal +life. We have seen this mind in conflict with external things. The +mind revolts against them because they are of a different nature to +itself, and because it is the proud prerogative of mind to comprehend, +to dominate, to rule things and not to be subordinate to them. +Pascal's phrase is to the point: "Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing +in nature; but he is a thinking reed. Were the universe to crush him, +man would still be nobler than the universe that killed him, for he +would be conscious of the calamity, and the universe would know nothing +of the advantage it possessed." That is why the material universe is +not the principle of sovereignty to which it is possible for man to +submit. The superior dignity of spirit to the totality of things can +only be preserved in our precarious individuality by an act of +confidence and communion with the universal Spirit. It is only on a +spiritual power that my consciousness does actually make both me and +the universe to depend, and in making us both to depend on the same +spiritual power, it reconciles us to each other, because, in that +universal being conceived as spirit, both I and the universe have a +common principle and a common aim. Descartes was right: the first step +of the human mind desirous of confirming to itself the sense of its own +worth and dignity is an essentially religious act. The circle of my +mental life, which opens with the conflict of these two +terms—consciousness of the ego, experience of the world—is completed +by a third in which the other terms are harmonised: the sense of their +common dependence upon God. But is not this account of the genesis of +religion too philosophic and too abstract to be capable of universal +application? If it explains the persistence of the religious sentiment +in epochs of high culture, can it also explain its appearance in the +pre-historic ages of humanity? Those who raise this objection have not +sufficiently marked the permanent nature of the initial contradiction +which constitutes, at the beginning as at the end, the empirical life +of man, and which renders it in all degrees so precarious and so +miserable. It is not a contradiction created by logic. To experience +it and to suffer from it man did not need to wait until he became a +philosopher. It manifested itself in the terrors of the savage in +presence of the cataclysms of nature, in the midst of the perils of the +primeval forest not less than in our troubled thought in presence of +the enigma of the universe and the mystery of death. The expression of +human misery and the consciousness thereof are different things; the +religious thrill which brings relief, at bottom is the same. Pascal, +with all his knowledge, did not experience less distress than primitive +man, when he exclaimed: "The eternal silence of the infinite spaces +terrifies me." The disciple of Kant, shutting himself up in despair +within the impassable limits of phenomenal knowledge, or the disciple +of Schopenhauer ending in the internecine conflict between intellect +and will, are they not smitten with a feeling of impotence still more +painful, and, when they cease to reason in order to decide to live, do +they not feel forming within themselves, and in spite of themselves, a +sigh which is the beginning of a prayer? +</P> + +<P> +Religion, therefore, is immortal. Far from drying up with time, the +spring from whence it flows in the human soul enlarges, deepens, and +becomes more rich under the twofold action of philosophic reflection +and of the painful experiences of life. Those who predict its +approaching end mistake for religion that which is only its outward and +fleeting expression. The periodical crises in which it seems as if it +must perish, renew its traditions and its forms, and, so far from +proving its weakness, demonstrate its fecundity and its faculty of +rejuvenescence. Never, in all history, has the human soul been seen +entirely naked. On this tree, in which the sap divine mounts ever, the +leaves of one season only fall, however dry they may be, under the +pressure of new leaves. Religious beliefs do not die; they are simply +transformed. Let the friends of religion then cease to be alarmed and +its enemies to rejoice. The hopes of the one and the fears of the +other show an equal misconception of that which is its essence and its +principle. If they seek it in themselves, they will find it all the +more living in their inner life, the more its traditional forms outside +themselves seem menaced. The sigh, the impulse, or the melancholy of +the soul in distress are more religious than an interested or +mechanical devotion. There are hours when the heresy which suffers, +and which seeks and prays, is much nearer the source of life than the +intellectual obstinacy of an orthodoxy incapable, as it would seem, of +comprehending the dogmas that it keeps embalmed. Let the men who +despise religion learn first to know it; let them see it as it is—the +inward happy crisis by which human life is transformed and an issue +opened up to it towards the ideal life. All human development springs +from it and ends in it. Art, morals, science itself fade and waste +away if this supreme inspiration be wanting to them; the irreligious +soul expires as if from lack of breath. Man is not; he has to make +himself; and in order to this he must mount from the darkness and +bondage of earth to light and liberty. It is by religion that humanity +begins in him, and it is by religion that it is established and +completed. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>Religion is the Prayer of the Heart</I> +</P> + +<P> +We shall now be able to define the essence of religion. It is a +commerce, a conscious and willed relation into which the soul in +distress enters with the mysterious power on which it feels that it and +its destiny depend. This commerce with God is realised by prayer. +Prayer is religion in act—that is to say, real religion. It is prayer +which distinguishes religious phenomena from all those which resemble +them or lie near to them, from the moral sense, for instance, or +æsthetic feeling. If religion is a practical need, the response to it +can only be a practical action. No theory would suffice. Religion is +nothing if it is not the vital act by which the whole spirit seeks to +save itself by attaching itself to its principle. This act is prayer, +by which I mean, not an empty utterance of words, not the repetition of +certain sacred formulas, but the movement of the soul putting itself +into personal relation and contact with the mysterious power whose +presence it feels even before it is able to give it a name. Where this +inward prayer is wanting there is no religion; on the other hand, +wherever this prayer springs up in the soul and moves it, even in the +absence of all form and doctrine clearly defined, there is true +religion, living piety. From this point of view, perhaps a history of +prayer would be the best history of the religious development of +mankind. That history would be seen to commence in the crudest cry for +help and to complete itself in perfect prayer which, on the lips of +Christ, is simply submission to and confidence in the Father's will. +</P> + +<P> +This concrete definition of religion has the advantage of correcting by +completing that of Schleiermacher. It reconciles the two antithetic +elements which constitute the religious sentiment: the passive and the +active elements, the feeling of dependence and the movement of liberty. +Prayer, springing up out of our state of misery and oppression, +delivers us from it. There is in it both submission and faith. +Submission makes us recognise and accept our dependence, faith +transforms that dependence into liberty. These two elements correspond +to the two poles of the religious life; for in all true piety man +prostrates himself before the omnipotence that encompasses him, and he +rises with a feeling of deliverance and of concord with his God. +Schleiermacher erred in insisting only upon resignation. Thenceforth +he could neither escape Pantheism in order to arrive at liberty, nor +find any link between the religious and the moral life. Religion, +then, is a free act as well as a feeling of dependence. And such is +the character and the virtue of the act of prayer that everything is +transformed by it. The crushing feeling of my defeat becomes the +joyful and triumphant feeling of my victory. Each of these states is +changed into its opposite, so that the truly religious man lives at +once in a free obedience and in an obedient liberty. If religion has +often been an oppressive power and an instrument of servitude, it has +been at least as often the mother of all the liberties. The force +which bows me down is that which also lifts me up, for it passes into +my soul. The God that I adore comes in the end to be an inward God +whose presence drives away all fear and places me beyond the reach of +all the menaces of things. The conscious realisation of this presence +of God,—that is the true salvation of my being and my life. +</P> + +<P> +I now understand why "natural religion" is not a religion. It deprives +man of prayer; it leaves God and man at a distance from each other. No +intimate commerce, no interior dialogue, no exchange between them, no +action of God in man, no return of man to God. At bottom, this +pretended religion is nothing but philosophy. It arises in periods of +rationalism, of criticism, of impersonal reason, and has never been +anything but an abstraction. The three dogmas in which it is summed +up—the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the +obligation of duty—are but the inorganic residue, the <I>caput mortuum</I>, +found at the bottom of the crucible in which all positive religions are +dissolved. This natural religion, so called, is not found in Nature; +it is no more natural than it is religious. A lifeless, artificial +creation, it shows hardly any of the characteristic marks of a +religion. For the moment, it may seem to have the advantage of +escaping the attacks of scientific criticism. On trial, it is found to +be less resistant than any other. The self-same reason that +constructed it destroys it, and its dogmas are perhaps more compromised +to-day in face of modern thought than those it professes to replace. +</P> + +<P> +Religion then is inward prayer and deliverance. It is inherent in man +and could only be torn from his heart by separating man from himself, +if I may so say, and destroying that which constitutes humanity in him. +I am religious, I repeat, because I am a man, and neither have the wish +nor the power to separate myself from my kind. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0102"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +RELIGION AND REVELATION +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>The Mystery of the Religious Life</I> +</P> + +<P> +"Thou wouldst not seek me hadst thou not already found me." In this +word that Pascal heard amid his restless search, the whole mystery of +piety is disclosed. If religion is the prayer of man, it may be said +that revelation is the response of God, but only on condition that we +add that this response is always, in germ at least, in the prayer +itself. +</P> + +<P> +This thought struck me like a flash of light. It was the solution of a +problem that had long appeared to me to be insoluble. I had never read +without a certain amount of doubt, and as an oratorical exaggeration, +that promise made by Jesus to His disciples with so strange an +assurance: "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: +knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, +receiveth: and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it +shall be opened" (Matt vii. 7, 8). Jesus had experienced a truth of +which I am only beginning to catch sight: no prayer remains unanswered, +because God to whom it is addressed is the One who has already inspired +it. The search for God cannot be fruitless: for, the moment I set out +to seek Him, He finds me and lays hold of me. Allow me to reflect a +little longer on this mystery. I seem as if I were listening to these +gospel words and promises for the first time. They sound in my ears +like deep and solemn music which, bearing to me the echo of the +religiously active soul of Jesus, brings succour to my own. The +religious life, then, is not a fixed state; it is a movement of the +soul, it is a desire, a need. The love of truth, is it not the +principle of science? To love truth above all things, is not that in +some way to be already in the truth? The point of departure, the +inward beginning of a real righteousness, is not this repentance, that +is to say the pain of not being righteous? I understand now why the +Christ has made humility and confidence the sole conditions of entrance +to His kingdom, why His Word has made riches spring from poverty, +health from sickness, and satisfaction from the very intensity of need. +Secret of the gospel, mysterious laws of spirit, pure moral essence of +the kingdom of God, paradoxes which disconcert the man immersed in the +ideas of the life of sense and self, but which contain the highest +realities of moral life, reveal yourselves with ever-growing clearness +to my consciousness, since, for me, on this first revelation all the +rest depend! +</P> + +<P> +I turn to another thought of Pascal. "Piety," he says, "is God +sensible to the heart." If so, it is evident that in all piety there +is some positive manifestation of God. The ideas of religion and +revelation are therefore correlative and religiously inseparable. +Religion is simply the subjective revelation of God in man, and +revelation is religion objective in God. It is the relation of subject +and object, of effect and cause, organically united; it is one and the +same psychological phenomenon, which can neither subsist nor be +produced save by their conjunction. It is as impossible to isolate as +it is to confound them. +</P> + +<P> +I conceive therefore that revelation is as universal as religion +itself, that it descends as low, goes as far, ascends as high, and +accompanies it always. No form of piety is empty; no religion is +absolutely false; no prayer is vain. Once more, revelation is in +prayer and progresses with prayer. From a revelation obtained in a +first prayer is born a purer prayer, and from this a higher revelation. +Thus light grows with life, truth with piety. This makes it possible +for me to enter into communion and sympathy with all sincerely +religious souls, however simple and however crude or gross their +worship and their faith; but if I can comprehend them, I cannot always +speak their language or share their ideas. All religions are not +equally good, nor are all prayers acceptable to my consciousness. To +return to exploded superstitions or to beliefs now recognised to be +illusory is as much a moral impossibility as it would be for a +full-grown man to return to the puerilities of his childhood. +Revelation therefore is not a communication once for all of immutable +doctrines which only need to be held fast. The object of the +revelation of God can only be God Himself, and if a definition must be +given of it, it may be said to consist of the creation, the +purification, and the progressive clearness of the consciousness of God +in man,—in the individual and in the race. +</P> + +<P> +From this point of view, I see very clearly that the revelation of God +never needs to be proved to any one. The attempt would be as +contradictory as it is superfluous. Two things are equally impossible: +for an irreligious man to discover a divine revelation in a faith he +does not share, or for a truly pious man not to find one in the +religion he has espoused and which lives in his heart. With what, +moreover, and how could it be proved that light shines except by +forcing those who are asleep to awake and open their eyes? All serious +Apologetics must insist as a necessary starting-point on the awakening +and conversion of the soul. +</P> + +<P> +Having always been religious, mankind has never been destitute of +revelation, that is to say of witness more or less obscure, more or +less correctly interpreted, of the presence in it and the action of +God. But if men have always maintained some relation and some commerce +with the deity, they have not always represented in the same manner the +mode in which communications have been received from Him. The notion +of revelation has progressed with the growth of mental enlightenment +and with the nature of the piety. It is therefore necessary to +criticise that notion and to see what it has now become for us. It is +to this examination that I shall devote this second meditation. The +idea of revelation has passed through three phases in the course of +history: the mythological, the dogmatic, and the critical. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Mythological Notion of Revelation</I> +</P> + +<P> +Among the faculties of man, the first to awaken in the mental life of +the child and of the savage is the imagination. All literatures begin +with chants, all histories with legends, and all religions with myths +or symbols. Poetry always makes its appearance before prose. One can +only see the effect of an inveterate rationalism in the promptitude +with which men are scandalised at any attempt to point out in the Bible +or around the cradle of Christianity legends and myths serving as +sacred vehicles for the purest and sublimest religious revelations, as +if the divine Spirit, in order to be intelligible to the simple and the +ignorant, could not as well avail Himself of the fictions of poetry as +of logical reasonings, of the chants of the angels at Bethlehem as of +the rabbinical exegesis and argumentations of the Apostle Paul. A myth +is false in appearance only. When the heart was pure and sincere the +veils of fable always allowed the face of truth to shine through. And +why so much disdain? Does not childhood run on into maturity and old +age? What are our most abstract ideas but primitive metaphors which +have been worn and thinned by usage and reflection? +</P> + +<P> +It is none the less true, as St. Paul says, that in advancing in age we +have left behind the speech and thought of infancy. The first men did +not know how to distinguish between the substance and the form of their +beliefs. This distinction has become easy to us. The most +conservative minds can no longer read the stories or the monuments of +the ancient religions without criticising and translating them. +</P> + +<P> +The men of other times, timid and ingenuous as children, saw everywhere +material signs by which they believed the will of the gods was +manifested. They early formed the art of divination—an essentially +religious art. It is found among all peoples, the ancient Hebrews not +excepted. The thunder was to them the voice of God. They consulted +Him by the Urim and Thummim, and by the sacred ephod. They did not +doubt, any more than the Greeks, either the divine origin or the +prophetic sense of dreams. Elsewhere they evoked the dead, they +interrogated the flight of birds, they listened to the sound of the +wind in the foliage of the oaks, or to the noise of waters in sonorous +caverns. That was an external and, in some sort, physical conception +of revelation, from which modern peoples have escaped, but with which +all set out. +</P> + +<P> +In the oldest traditions of Hebraism, God speaks to Adam, to Noah, to +Abraham, to Moses, as one man speaks to another, by articulate sounds +perceived by the ear. The sacred formula, <I>Thus saith the Lord</I>, +serves as the uniform introduction to civil, political, and ritual, as +well as to moral and religious, laws. Religion then embraced and +regulated all the life. The great empires of antiquity all claim a +divine origin. As to ancient legislations, there is not one that is +not said to have come from heaven. The Egyptians refer theirs to the +god Thoth or Hermes; Minos, in Crete, is said to have received his laws +from Jupiter; Lycurgus, in Sparta, from Apollo; Zoroaster, in Persia, +from Ahura Mazda; Numa Pompilius, at Rome, from the nymph Egeria. +Moses does not stand alone. I am not here comparing the value of the +things; I am simply pointing out the identity of the representations. +</P> + +<P> +Nor was it only religious and political institutions that they referred +to the will of the gods; they referred to it all kinds of decisions and +enterprises; declarations of war, raids to make, the order of battle, +the extermination of the vanquished, the sharing of the spoils, +conditions of peace, expiations to be made; everything was done in +obedience to supernatural orders the authenticity of which no one +thought of discussing. In the same way, a divine inspiration explained +the gift of predicting the future, the eloquence of orators, the +sagacity of statesmen, the genius of great soldiers, the verve of +poets, and even the skill of the more famous artisans. "Legends!" it +is said. No doubt. But these legends are universal. Men speak +everywhere the same language, because everywhere they think in the same +fashion. +</P> + +<P> +A great progress, however, is accomplished in Israel. The notion of +revelation gradually becomes interior and moral. Among the prophets, +revelation is conceived of as the action of the Spirit of Jehovah +entering and acting in the spirit of man. It is true that the mythical +conception still persists and betrays itself in this: divine +inspiration is represented as the invasion of a human being by another +being alien to him,—as a sort of mental alienation or possession. The +divine Spirit is represented as a force which comes from without, a +wind from above which no one can resist, of which the elect are as much +the victims as the organs. Its action is measured by the agitation and +commotion of the inspired, by the disorder of their faculties, by the +incoherence of their gestures and their speech. The delirium of man +becomes the sign of the presence of God. Madmen, valetudinarians, +epileptics, are regarded almost everywhere as the favourites of Heaven. +Their strange words or acts men believe to be divine oracles delivered +unconsciously and against the will. +</P> + +<P> +This violent opposition between the supernatural action of the divine +Spirit and the normal exercise of rational faculties is gradually +attenuated in the course of the ages. It is easy to see that in the +great prophets of Israel the formula <I>Thus saith the Lord</I>, while still +frequent and still expressing the same subjective certitude of +inspiration, has become a simple rhetorical form. God speaks +henceforth to His people by their eloquence, by their faith, by their +genius. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," cries the second +Isaiah; "because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to +the meek," etc. (Is. lxi. 1-3). +</P> + +<P> +This evolution appears to have been completed in the soul of Christ. +Here inspiration ceases to be miraculous without ceasing to be +supernatural. It is no longer produced by fits and starts or +intermittently. An ancient gospel ("The Gospel of the Hebrews") +admirably marks this change. At the moment of His baptism the Holy +Spirit says to Jesus: <I>Mi fili, te exspectabam in omnibus prophetis, ut +venires et requiescerem in te. Tu enim es requies mea</I>. (My Son, in +all the prophets I awaited Thy coming in order that I might repose in +Thee. Thou art indeed my rest.) +</P> + +<P> +Being continuous, the inspiration becomes normal. The ancient conflict +between the divine Spirit and the human vanishes. The immanent and +constant action of the one manifests itself in the regular and fruitful +action of the other. God lives and works in man, man lives and works +in God. Religion and Nature, the voice divine and the voice of +conscience, the subject and the object of revelation, penetrate each +other and become one. The supreme revelation of God shines forth in +the highest of all consciousnesses and the loveliest of human lives. +</P> + +<P> +This progress, is it not admirable? Should it not strike the attention +all the more inasmuch as, instead of being the effect of rational +criticism, it is, in Christianity, exclusively the work of piety? +This, become more profound, has conquered the ancient antithesis +created by the ignorance of early times. Divesting itself more and +more of foreign and inferior elements, the idea of revelation has been +found to be more human as it has become more inward, more constant, +more strictly moral and religious. Christ has not given us a critical +theory of revelation; He has done what is better; He has given us +revelation itself—a perfect and permanent revelation; He presents God +and man to us so intimately united in all the acts and moments of His +inner life, that they become inseparable. The Father acts in His Son, +and the Son reveals the Father to all who wish to know Him. +</P> + +<P> +Though he still retained many remnants of the ancient mythological +notion (visions, dreams, ecstasies, delirium of tongues), the Apostle +Paul seized with energy the distinguishing characteristic of the +Christian revelation, and propounded the theory of it with a sacred +boldness. That theory consists in the effusion and habitation of the +Holy Spirit in the souls of Christians who, in their turn, become +"children of God," and enjoy, by this Spirit, the same direct and +permanent communion with the Father. This Spirit is no longer an alien +guest or a perturbing force; He becomes in us a second nature. That is +why the Christian is set free from all the old tutelages; he judges +everything and is judged by nothing; he has his law within himself, so +that from this inspiration springs his autonomy and his liberty. +</P> + +<P> +But neither this spiritual piety nor the lofty conception which flows +from it could long be sustained. Preoccupied in founding its +authority, and only being able to succeed in it by returning to the +idea of an external revelation, the Catholic Church made it to consist +chiefly in rules and dogmas, and, by this change, it naturally +transformed the mythological notion of revelation into a dogmatic +notion not essentially different. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>Dogmatic Notion</I> +</P> + +<P> +"The Greeks," said Paul, "seek philosophy; the Jews demand miracles." +From these two tendencies combined, from Greek rationalism and Hebrew +supernaturalism, sprang the new notion that may be summed up and +defined thus: a divine doctrine legitimated by divine signs or miracles. +</P> + +<P> +These two elements of the theory are mutually dependent, and form an +indivisible whole. Given to man in a supernatural way, the doctrine +surpasses the reach of the human understanding; hence it must not be +imposed upon the mind by its own evidence or examined by natural +reason. The supernatural doctrine demands supernatural proof. This +proof can only be found in the miracles which have accompanied the +doctrine from its birth. Thus mysteries, incomprehensible in the order +of reason, will necessarily be established by inexplicable events in +the order of Nature. +</P> + +<P> +The theory, in this way, becomes coherent, but it is not complete. A +third term must be added. The divine doctrine must be embodied in a +form which distinguishes it from all others, and placed under an +authority that guarantees it. For Protestantism, the form and the +authority of revelation is—the Bible; for Catholicism, it is the Bible +sovereignly interpreted by the Church. The scholastic notion of +revelation is now complete. The doctors teach us to distinguish three +things in it: the object, which is dogma; the form, which is Scripture; +and the proof or criterion, which is miracle. This construction +appears to be compact in all its parts; in reality it is so fragile and +so artificial that it crumbles at a touch. +</P> + +<P> +To make of dogma, that is to say of an intellectual datum, the object +of revelation is, in the first place, to eliminate from it its +religious character by separating it from piety, and in the next place +it is to place it in permanent and irreconcilable conflict with the +reason, which is always progressing. In vain do they appear to deduce +this scholastic theory from the Bible; it is simply an unfaithful +translation of the Biblical notion. They tear up from the soil of the +religious life the revelation of God in order to constitute it into a +body of supernatural verities, subsisting by itself, to which they make +it an obligation and a merit to adhere, silencing, if needs be, both +the judgment and the conscience. Faith, which, in the Bible, was an +act of confidence and consecration to God, becomes an intellectual +adherence to an historical testimony or to a doctrinal formula. A +mortal dualism starts up in religion. It is admitted that orthodoxy +may exist apart from piety, that a man may obtain and possess the +object of faith apart from the conditions that faith presupposes, and, +at a push, serve divine truth while inwardly an unbeliever and a +reprobate. Get rid of this illusion, frivolous and irreligious man! +Whatever your authorities in earth or heaven, you are not in the truth, +because you are not in piety. God has not spoken anything to you. To +the prophets He has spoken, doubtless, and to Christ and the apostles +and the saints; to you He still remains a stranger and unknown. His +revelation has not been to you a light, for you are walking in +darkness. You are like the Jews who built the tombs of the prophets +and crowned their memory with empty honours. Had you been living in +the time of the men of God, you would have been the first to stone them. +</P> + +<P> +This idea of revelation is at bottom entirely pagan. In the region of +authentic Christianity you cannot separate the revealing act of God +from His redeeming and sanctifying action. God does not enlighten, on +the contrary He blinds those whom He does not save or sanctify. Let us +boldly conclude, therefore, against all traditional orthodoxies, that +the object of the revelation of God could only be God Himself, that is +to say the sense of His presence in us, awakening our soul to the life +of righteousness and love. When the word of God does not give us life, +it gives us nothing. It is true that that presence and that action of +the divine Spirit in our hearts become in them a light whose rays +illumine all the faculties of the soul. But do not hope to enjoy that +light apart from the central sun from which it flows. +</P> + +<P> +The scholastic notion is not only irreligious; it is +anti-psychological. In entering the human understanding this +supernatural knowledge introduces into it a hopeless dualism. The +sacred sciences are set up alongside the profane sciences without its +being possible to organise them together into a coherent and harmonious +body, for they are not of the same nature, they do not proceed from the +same method, they do not accept the same control. You have thus a +sacred cosmogony and a profane cosmogony, a sacred history of the +origins of man and a purely human history of his beginnings, and of his +first adventures, a divine metaphysic and another purely rational. How +to make them live together and unite them? If, by a subtle theology, +you succeed in rationalising dogma, do you not see that you destroy it +in its very essence? If you demonstrate that it is essentially +irrational, do you not feel that you are instituting an endless warfare +between the authority of dogma and the authority of reason? One +remembers the generous attempt of mediæval scholasticism, taken up +again by the Protestant theologians of the seventeenth century, and one +has not forgotten its twice fatal issue. One would need to have no +notion of the laws of human thought to be astonished at it. Nominalism +in the fifteenth century and rationalism in the eighteenth were the two +natural heirs of orthodoxy. +</P> + +<P> +The intervention of miracle as a <I>criterion</I> or proof of doctrine does +not remove the difficulties of the theory; it multiplies and aggravates +them. In consequence of the lapse of time, the incertitude of the +documents, and the demands of modern thought, miracle, which formerly +established the truth of religion, has become much more difficult to +demonstrate than religion itself. The relation between the two has +been reversed. The foundation of the edifice has become more ruinous +than the building. Examples? Consider, then, on the one hand, the +Decalogue, and on the other the thunders and lightnings of Sinai. +Peals of thunder may have served to convince the Hebrews that the law +of Moses came from the Eternal; for they looked upon thunder as +revealing the presence, in some sort material and local, of their God. +But who does not see that it is much easier to-day to prove the +excellence and the truth of the <I>Ten Words</I> of the Law than the divine +character of the most terrible of tempests? Make the opposite +experiment: you are familiar with the Books of Joshua, Judges, Kings. +You have read in them those orders issued by Jehovah for the total +extermination of peoples whose crime was the defence of their country +against the invaders. Prodigies abound in them: the walls of Jericho +fall down at the sound of trumpets, etc., etc. Are these events +sufficient to warrant us in admitting the affirmation of the Hebrew +historian that these terrible reprisals, these crimes and violences, +which were then common in all the Semitic tribes, were commanded either +by the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ or by the impartial God of the +universe? Our conscience resists and protests. Prodigies the most +brilliant cannot make it do violence to itself or bend the law of +righteousness and love beneath any manifestation, however striking, of +brute force. Let us go further; let us come to the miracles of Christ. +Let us interrogate the best Christians of our time: let us ask +ourselves, Is it the cures that Jesus wrought which make us believe +to-day in the divine truth of His word or which give authority to the +Sermon on the Mount? Is it not rather the Gospel that helps us to +believe in the miracles by persuading us that a man who spake like this +man must have been able to do things and work works as beautiful and as +wonderful as the words which He spoke? The most conservative +Apologists of the traditional school confess to-day that miracle has +lost its evidential force; it might move those who witnessed it, but +its action and its prestige have necessarily been diminishing day by +day for the generations which have followed them. +</P> + +<P> +What if we were to press the idea of miracle itself which is in process +of vanishing in proportion as the idea of Nature is transformed? What +is Nature? Who knows its secrets and its limits? The theory of the +evolution of things and beings, does it not show Nature to us as in +travail, and as if perpetually giving birth to marvels? And if this +creative energy which is in it can only religiously be referred to the +constant activity of God in the universe and in history, how can we +still oppose the laws of Nature to the will of God? Moreover, nothing +is to-day more indeterminate, more impossible to define than the notion +of miracle; it floats without ever being able to fix itself, between +the idea of an absolute violation of the laws of Nature now no longer +witnessed anywhere, to that entirely relative one of an extraordinary +event, which, seeing that it may be encountered everywhere, no longer +proves anything. +</P> + +<P> +Lastly, if from the <I>object</I> and the <I>criterion</I> of revelation, we pass +to the form which conserves and warrants it, <I>i.e.</I> to the Bible, +questions become still more numerous and insoluble. In the seventeenth +century the notion of the Bible and that of revelation were coincident +and commensurate. But this identity depended upon two dogmas much +impaired to-day. The one was the divine origin of the two Biblical +Canons, <I>i.e.</I> of the Old and New Testaments: the other, the verbal +inspiration of all holy Scripture, considered as divinely dictated. +</P> + +<P> +History and exegesis have dissipated the illusions and the ignorance on +which these two strange affirmations rested. The Bible appears to us +as the work, slowly and laboriously constructed, of the ancient Jewish +Synagogue, and of the Early Christian Church. It needed more than four +centuries to establish and to delimitate the New Testament. The books +which compose it were still in the time of Eusebius divided into two +classes: books admitted everywhere and books contested. Why then +should we not have the same liberty as Origen of doubting the +authenticity of 2 Peter, <I>e.g.</I>, or as Denis of Alexandria in +discussing the apostolic origin of the Apocalypse? As to the theory of +verbal inspiration, which makes the sacred writers God's penmen merely, +no savant nowadays can defend it, so thoroughly have biblical studies +set forth the personal originality of each of them, and the merits or +the imperfections of their works. Moreover, the distinction clearly +made in all the schools between the sacred writings and revelation must +be considered as an inalienable conquest of modern theology. There is +no one now who does not admit this truth, which would have seemed +intolerable to our fathers, namely, that the word of God is in the +Bible, but that all the Bible is not the word of God. +</P> + +<P> +If this be so one sees new questions surging up and awaiting solution. +What is the relation of the word of God to the Bible? By what sign may +we recognise the first and distinguish the second? Further, if there +be any word of God outside the Bible, if there has been any revelation +of God beyond the limits of the Hebrew people and primitive +Christianity—and how can we deny this without denying the worth of +religion?—what relation is there to establish, and what synthesis to +make, between the biblical revelation and the other revelations suited +to the various human families? Lastly, what place does the religion of +Jesus occupy in the religious evolution of humanity? Modern theology +seems deaf to these questions. Despairing of a solution, it hesitates +to approach them. But they must be answered. Contemporary philosophy +presses them upon the conscience of Christians. The scholastic theory, +it is clear, cannot bring any solution to these new problems. As soon +as the distinction is made in our consciousness between the word of God +and the letter of holy Scripture, the first becomes independent of all +human form and of all external guarantee. It is with it as with the +light of the sun. It is only recognised by the brightness with which +it floods us. But take care to introduce this criterion of religious +and moral evidence into the scholastic theory is to deposit an +explosive in the heart of it which shatters it to atoms.... I leave to +others the task of masking or repairing the ruins. A task more urgent +and more fruitful awaits us. We must build up, on a new principle, a +new theory of revelation, a theory that will at once bear the test of +criticism and give satisfaction to piety. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +4. <I>Psychological Notion</I> +</P> + +<P> +To return to psychology. In all piety there is some positive +manifestation of God. Otherwise, one might question the value of +religious phenomena. +</P> + +<P> +Three consequences follow: the revelation of God will be evident, +interior, progressive. +</P> + +<P> +It will be interior, because God, not having phenomenal existence, can +only reveal Himself to spirit, and in the piety that He Himself +inspires. +</P> + +<P> +If revealers and prophets believed they heard the voice of God outside +themselves they were the victims of a psychological illusion that +analysis discerns and dissipates. The old theologian was right who +said: +</P> + +<P> +<I>Nulla fides si non primum Deus ipse loquitur; Nulla que verba Dei nisi +quæ in penetralibus audit Ipsa fides.</I>[<A NAME="chap0102fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap0102fn1">1</A>] This interior revelation is +only made, it is true, in connection with some external event of Nature +or of History. If wonder is the beginning of philosophy it is also the +commencement of piety. Religious emotion does not spring up by chance +and unconditionally. But external signs are only revealers for those +who know how to comprehend them, and who are able to interpret them in +a religious sense. That is why the distinction sometimes made between +the <I>manifestation</I> of God in things and divine <I>inspiration</I> in +consciousness, between the sign or external miracle and the inward +word, is of little worth except for pedagogic purposes. The +manifestation of God in Nature or in History is always a matter of +faith. It would only appear to be such in the light on the hearth of +consciousness. Put out that inner light and everything speedily +becomes obscure: "If the light that is in thee be darkness, there will +be darkness round about thee," says Jesus. To the deaf man the +universe is mute. The starry heavens which bent the pensive brows of +Newton and of Kant before the majesty of God, said nothing to Laplace. +Lit up within, the soul of Christ saw everywhere the signs of God. +Caiaphas saw none. In the cross of Jesus, where St. Paul discerned the +manifestation of the wisdom and the power of God, the Pharisees had +only seen the crushing proof that this Messiah was a mere impostor. +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +<A NAME="chap0102fn1"></A> +[<A HREF="#chap0102fn1text">1</A>] There is no faith save in the heart where God has first made +Himself heard, and there are no divine words except those which faith +hears in the inmost sanctuary of the soul. +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +This inward revelation will be also <I>evident</I>. The contrary would +imply a contradiction. He who says revelation says the veil withdrawn, +the light come. True, the word <I>mystery</I> is often on the lips of +Jesus, and in the writings of the New Testament; but, when applied to +the essence of the Gospel it never has the meaning which is given to it +later in the language of theology. The mystery of which Jesus, Paul, +and the Apostles speak is a revealed mystery, <I>i.e.</I> a mystery which +has become evident to pure hearts and pious souls through the public +preaching of it. The Gospel is not obscurity; it is daylight, and it +is nonsense to demand a criterion of evangelical revelation other than +itself, any other evidence, <I>i.e.</I>, than its own truth, beauty, and +efficiency. +</P> + +<P> +Lastly, this revelation will be <I>progressive</I>. It will be developed +with the progress of the moral and religious life which God begets and +nourishes in the bosom of humanity. The word of God is not that of a +poor human founder who formulates in abstract terms ideas which are but +the pale shadows of things. It is essentially creative. It carries +with it all the substance of being and all the potency of life. It +realises that which it proclaims, and never manifests itself except by +its works. When God wished to give the Decalogue to Israel, He did not +write with His finger on tables of stone; He raised up Moses, and from +the consciousness of Moses the Decalogue sprang. In order that we +might have the Epistle to the Romans, there was no need to dictate it +to the Apostle; God had only to create the powerful individuality of +Saul of Tarsus, well knowing that when once the tree was made the fruit +would follow in due course. The same with the Gospel; He did not drop +it from the sky; He did not send it by an angel; He caused Jesus to be +born from the very bosom of the human race, and Jesus gave us the +Gospel that had blossomed in His inmost heart. Thus God reveals +Himself in the great consciousnesses that His Spirit raises, fills, +illumines one by one; they form a sacred theory through the ages and +leave on history a track of light which brightens, broadens to the +perfect day. +</P> + +<P> +A new and graver problem here arises. This revelation, made in the +depths of the human soul, remains individual and subjective. How will +it become objective and concrete? How will it be made an educating, +saving power? This problem would be insoluble if Leibniz was right, if +human souls were independent monads, closed against and impenetrable to +one another, if it had been necessary, in a word, to regard them as +absolute entities, posited from the beginning by the Creator. But they +are nothing of the kind. Social philosophy has sufficiently +demonstrated that no individual exists either by himself or for himself +alone. In each man it is humanity that is realised—that is to say, a +moral life common to all. Moral goods are in essence universal. They +do not exist, doubtless, apart from the consciousness of the +individual; but no consciousness acquires them without acquiring them, +in principle at least, for all others. +</P> + +<P> +Whence comes that religious kinship of souls, that facility of +communion between them, and that infinite extension and prolongation of +one and the same inspiration, if not from the presence in each of the +same indwelling God? Men are only divided by their external idols. In +proportion as they plumb their being and descend into the depths of +their spiritual nature, they discover the same altar, recite the same +prayer, aspire to the same end. It is for this profound reason that +individual revelations become universal. There are only prophets +chosen of God because there is a general vocation and election of all +men. If humanity were not potentially and in some degree an Immanuel +(God with us), there would never have issued from its bosom Him who +bore and revealed this blessed name. The religious experience He +passed through, He passed through for us; the victory He won was for +our advantage and is repeated indefinitely in every sincere soul that +joins itself to Him to live His life. Thus the revelation of God given +at one point and in one consciousness infallibly shines forth, +perpetuates and multiplies itself. A vibration set up in a soul +resounds in kindred souls. An illumined consciousness illuminates in +turn. There are religious filiations, just as there are historical +genealogies. Thus the inner revelation becomes consistent and +objective in history; it forms a chain, a continuous tradition, and +becoming incarnate in each human generation, remains not only the +richest of heritages, but the most fecund of historical powers. +</P> + +<P> +One step more. Let us follow this historical incarnation of religious +tradition into its most material form. The inner experiences of men of +God and the witness of them that they give to the world, express +themselves naturally in speech, and this in its turn is transformed +into Scripture. It is in this way that in all civilised religions +divine revelation is presented to man in the form of a sacred writing; +everywhere it is gathered into collections of sacred books which have +been called the bibles of humanity. While all these have been born +according to the same psychological and historical laws, it does not +follow that they have all the same value, or that an unintelligent +syncretism has the right to mix together the various elements in them +to make of them one common and characterless Bible. No; each of them +naturally belongs to a particular stage in the ladder of divine +revelations, and there we must leave them. The highest will always be +that which contains the deepest and purest expression of inward +religion, and consequently offers to man the most precious treasure. +The rank of the Hebrew and Christian Bible is thus found to be +logically determined by the moral worth of the Hebrew and the Christian +religions. But in leaving historical criticism and religious +experience to make here the necessary demonstration and render it daily +more evident, we must once more call to mind the always human +conditions of these written collections, of those at the top as well as +those at the bottom of the ladder, conditions which forbid us ever to +identify the letter and the spirit, the divine inspiration and the +particular form in which it has been clothed. +</P> + +<P> +God, wishing to speak to us, has never chosen any but human organs. +With whatever inspiration He has endowed them, that inspiration has +always therefore passed through human subjectivity; it has only been +able either to express or to translate itself in the language and the +turn of mind of a particular individual and of a particular time. Now, +no individual and historical form can be absolute. If the contents are +divine, the vessel is always earthen. The organ of the revelation of +God necessarily limits it. It must of necessity accommodate itself to +the limits of human receptivity. How could it possibly enter and +mingle with the changing waves of the intellectual and moral life of +humanity unless it flowed in the bed of the river and between its banks? +</P> + +<P> +However incontestable this historical complexity of the divine and +human elements in religion, most men seem incapable of comprehending +it, and of frankly accepting it. Men of little faith, we feel +ourselves lost the moment men take from us the illusion that we ever +have before us and outside of us the divine revelation in an objective +and unadulterated form, when alongside authority and tradition they +make a place for the freedom and the interpretation of consciousness. +Is there then some chemistry by which we can separate that which God +has joined so indissolubly? Has life ever been seen apart from living +beings or light apart from luminous vibrations? Why not make an effort +to see that the wisdom of God is infinitely greater than our own, and +that what He has given us is better than that of which we dreamed. +Life and light, even if they are not absolute, propagate themselves +with none the less force. +</P> + +<P> +Lastly, what is the criterion by which you may recognise an authentic +revelation of God in the books you read, in the things you are taught? +Listen: only one criterion is sufficient and infallible: every divine +revelation, every religious experience fit to nourish and sustain your +soul, must be able to repeat and continue itself as an actual +revelation and an individual experience in your own consciousness. +What cannot enter thus as a permanent and constituent element into the +woof of your inner life, to enrich, enfranchise, and transform it into +a higher life, cannot be for you a light, or, consequently, a divine +revelation. The spirit of life is not there. Do not believe that the +prophets and founders have transmitted to you their experience in order +to make yours needless, or that their revelation has been brought to +you in a book for you to receive passively and as if it were an alien +thing. Religious truth cannot be borrowed like money, or, rather, if +you do so borrow it you are none the richer. Remember what the +Samaritans said to the woman: "Now we believe, not because of thy +saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed +the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John iv. 42). Thus the divine +revelation which is not realised in us, and does not become immediate, +does not exist for us. And I admire the counsel of God, Who, wishing +to raise man into liberty, did not give to him an objective revelation +which would have become to him a yoke of bondage. The aim of tradition +is liberty, and liberty returns lovingly to tradition when, instead of +finding it a yoke, it sees in it only a help, an aliment, a guide. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +5. <I>Conclusion</I> +</P> + +<P> +Such, in its principle, and with all its consequences, is the new idea +of revelation given to us by psychology and history. Before it vanish +the insoluble antitheses and conflicts raised by scholasticism between +supernatural and natural revelation, between what the theologians call +immediate and mediate, between a universal and a special revelation. +Synthesis is made, and peace is re-established. +</P> + +<P> +There is not and could never have been two revelations different in +nature and opposed to each other. Revelation is one, in different +forms and various degrees. It is at once supernatural and natural: +supernatural by the cause which engenders it in souls, and which, +always remaining invisible and transcendent, never exhausts or +imprisons itself in the phenomena it produces; natural, by its effects, +because, realising itself in history, it always appears therein +conditioned by the historical environment and by the common laws which +regulate the human mind. +</P> + +<P> +This revelation also is immediate for all, for the least in the kingdom +of heaven, as for the greatest of the prophets; for God desires to +admit them all into direct and personal communion with Himself; and it +is equally mediate for all; for it comes to none, whether prophets or +their disciples, unconditionally, and without previous preparation. +</P> + +<P> +Lastly, it is not less false and futile to oppose universal revelation +to particular revelations as two exclusive quantities. Particular +revelations enter into general revelation as varieties into species. +Every special revelation, if it be really from God, is human, and tends +to become universal; every general revelation was once individual, for +it could only have been made in an individuality. Among the men and +peoples chosen by God as organs there is inequality in gifts but +solidarity in the common work. We must not mistake the one or the +other. The religious vocation of humanity does not exclude—it +prepares and supports—the particular vocation of Israel. In this +national vocation there is a place for that of the prophets, and, among +the prophets, for the vocation of Him who was their heir, and in Whom +the revelation of God was completed, because in His consciousness was +realised perfectly the very idea of piety. +</P> + +<P> +Is everything explained in religion, then, and nothing left obscure? +Far from that! There remains the ground from which emerges the +conscious and moral life of the soul; there remains that initial +mystery, the relation in our consciousness between the individual and +the universal element, between the finite and the infinite, between God +and man. How can we comprehend their co-existence and their union, and +yet how can we doubt it? Where is the thoughtful man to-day who has +not broken the thin crust of his daily life, and caught a glimpse of +those profound and obscure waters on which floats our consciousness? +Who has not felt within himself a veiled presence and a force much +greater than his own? What worker in a lofty cause has not perceived +within his own personal activity, and saluted with a feeling of +veneration, the mysterious activity of a universal and eternal power? +<I>In Deo vivimus, movemur et sumus</I>. There is perhaps no other mystery +in religion; at all events all others are but particular forms of this. +But this mystery cannot be dissipated, for, without it, religion itself +would no longer exist. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0103"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +MIRACLE AND INSPIRATION +</H4> + +<P> +In speaking of revelation we have already touched on the doctrines of +inspiration and of miracle, which are dependencies of it, and, as it +were, constituent parts. But these two notions are still so obscure in +the public mind, and give rise to so many and such lively +controversies, that it may be well to return to them and study them by +themselves and in some detail. +</P> + +<P> +In this matter there are two causes of dispute and misunderstanding. +The first is that everybody believes he ought to begin by giving his +own personal and arbitrary definition of miracle, and afterwards +explain by way of deduction why he believes or does not believe in it. +The debate thus turns on a question of terminology—that is to say, on +a vain and barren logomachy. The second cause is that the defenders of +miracle always keep to abstractions, instead of following their +contradictors on to the ground of criticism of miraculous stories and +placing themselves in presence of the facts which alone make up the +matter of the discussion. They believe they have gained everything +when they have proved that God, according to the very definition of the +idea that we have of Him, can do everything—which no one denies—while +the problem consists not in knowing what God can do <I>in abstracto</I>, but +what He has done <I>in concreto</I>, in Nature and in History. Now, in +order to know what is really done, and whether there are or ever have +been produced phenomena which must be referred to the immediate +intervention, and to a particular volition of God, independently of the +concurrence of second causes, this is evidently something that only the +critical observation of facts, past or present, can teach us. Every +other method of research and discussion is illusory. +</P> + +<P> +Faithful to our own, we here place ourselves at the historical point of +view. Convinced that ideas have a history, and are most clearly and +surely defined by their very evolution, we shall confine ourselves to +following and describing that evolution. We shall seek in the first +place to ascertain the notion of miracle that was current in antiquity; +after that we shall see what became of it in mediæval theology; and +lastly we shall see into what elements it has resolved itself in modern +times, as much at the point of view of science as of piety. As +religious inspiration, properly speaking, is but a particular miracle, +a miracle of the psychological order, the solution available for the +one will apply to the other. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity</I> +</P> + +<P> +The primitive conception of Nature was animistic. In everything +<I>astonishing</I>, extraordinary, men used to see the action of spirits +like themselves, with whom their religious imagination peopled the +heavens, the earth, the seas. They lived in miracle. It would be +easier to enumerate the things that were not than the things that were +to them miraculous. The word Nature, which has become so familiar and +so indispensable to designate the regular course of things, does not +exist in primitive languages. One does not meet with it even in the +language of the Old Testament. This is because the conception it +represents only came into existence later, and by a slow and laborious +process, in the philosophy of the Greeks. The cosmos, ordered and +harmonious and fixed, is the sublime creation of Hellenic reason. +Elsewhere, no doubt, with experience of life and the daily return of +phenomena, a certain order, the effect of custom, would exist around +man and be established in his mind. He learned to distinguish between +the habitual course of things and the prodigies which caused him +wonder, fear, or hope, and in which he always saw the effect either of +the favour or the anger of a demon or a god. His imagination, to which +his ignorance gave free play, and his credulity, which religious terror +held open to all impressions, stories, legends, wrapped his life in an +atmosphere of marvel, gentle or terrible, but incessant. Eclipses, +earthquakes, thunder, lightning, rainbows, deluges, accidents, +maladies, etc.—these were the work of particular actors, personal, +impassioned like man, hidden behind the scenes. Add to this the +inventions of sorcerers and priests; ... transport yourself into this +first effervescence of the human faculties, into this luxuriant +vegetation of poetical creation in the early human mind, and you will +have some idea of what, for centuries on centuries, must have been the +mental state of primitive historic humanity. Such, however, is the +comparative poverty of human conceptions, that, when you come to +catalogue these marvels, you see them reduced to a small number of +miracles which turn up everywhere and again and again among all +peoples. Their similarity approaches to monotony.... The question for +the moment is not whether these miraculous facts are real or not, but +how the men who have transmitted them to us represented them. There is +no doubt on this point. To them they were not simply astonishing facts +that admitted of a natural explanation. Modern theologians and savants +who seek and find for them explanations of this kind do not perceive +that they contradict themselves, and that to explain miracle in this +way is to destroy it. No; that which is miraculous in these events—to +the contemporaries of Tarquin in Rome, of Joshua in Palestine, to the +people in our own day—is this, that they are produced, contrary to the +natural course of things, solely by a special intervention of the +divine will. That is the mark and characteristic of ancient miracle. +Efface it, for any reason whatever, and miracle disappears. That which +makes it possible is ignorance of Nature and its laws: that which +supports it is the religious belief in the existence of these +supernatural wills and in their unexpected invasion of the succession +of accustomed things. "Without this belief," as M. Ménégoz remarks,[<A NAME="chap0103fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap0103fn1">1</A>] +"the birth of a myth or of a legend could not be explained. St. Denis, +decapitated, would not have been able to carry his head." In fact, the +miracles you find in the apocryphal legends are exactly of the same +nature as those which are met with in narratives held to be more +historical. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +<A NAME="chap0103fn1"></A> +[<A HREF="#chap0103fn1text">1</A>] <I>La notion biblique du miracle</I> (Leçon d'ouverture), 1894. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I must add that this notion of miracle is absolutely the same in +Biblical as in profane literature. In a general way, no doubt, the +supernatural in the history of Israel and in the early days of +Christianity is of a more sober, more profoundly moral and religious +character than it is everywhere else. But the sacred writers do not +represent miracles differently. Without exception, they also conceive +of them as a violation, by a particular volition of God, of the +ordinary course of things.... Still, so far from being more striking +or more numerous, miracles and prodigies in the Bible are rarer than +elsewhere, clearer, less fantastic, more under law to conscience and to +common sense. The worship of one God, invisible, spiritual, in whom +centres the ideal of wisdom, reason, righteousness, conceived by the +prophets, joined to the lack of imagination in the Hebrew race, has +freed the Bible from the luxuriant growths of oriental mythologies and +theogonies, as of the marvellous in the poesy of Greece. Nothing +purifies the mind like a great moral idea around which all the rest +organises itself. It is very remarkable that the great prophets, +Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work hardly any +miracles. If prodigy has penetrated into the life of Jesus at two or +three points, the explanation is to be found in the mistakes or the +legendary corruptions for which His biographers are alone responsible, +and which criticism may eliminate without violence. Prodigy, properly +so called, is quite foreign to the wholly moral conduct of His life, +and to the strictly religious conception of His work. He did not found +His religion on miracle, but on the light, the consolation, the pardon +and the joy which His gospel, issuing from His holy, loving heart, +brought to broken and repentant souls. His works proceeded only from +His charity. Far from wishing to impose belief in His miracles, He +often forbids men to divulge them. It is to the faith of the afflicted +that He refers their cure. He turns away from the seductive +invitations of miraculous <I>Messianism</I> as from the distrust or the +curiosity of an incredulous wisdom. To those who demanded of Him an +indubitable prodigy come from heaven, He answers that no sign shall be +given them save the preaching of repentance by the prophet Jonah. The +whole temptation in the wilderness is simply a victory of the moral +consciousness over the religion of physical prodigy. His filial piety +to the Father raised Him above miracle itself and above the dualism +that miracle supposes in Nature and in the divine action. He discovers +in everything the signs of the presence, the will, the affection, of +His Father. He accepts them, submits to them, celebrates them, without +preoccupying Himself with the ordinary or the extraordinary manner in +which they may be manifested. This absolute piety, absolutely pure and +confident, succeeds in realising the unity of the world and the +universal and continuous action of God, quite as well as the dialectic +of a Scotus Eriginus or a Spinoza or a Hegel; for it suppresses still +more radically the old and mortal antithesis of the natural and the +supernatural. Nature in its expansion and its evolution—what is it +but the very expression of the Will of the Father? How can you imagine +then that there could ever be conflict in it between the order which +reigns in it and the action of Him by whom that order is maintained day +by day and moment by moment? If the thought of Jesus was bounded by +the ancient notion of miracle, it must be acknowledged that His piety +was not imprisoned in it, but went beyond it. Not having come into the +world to teach science, He contented Himself with the opinions He had +inherited with the rest of His people, and which constituted the +science of Nature of His little popular environment, without concerning +Himself as to whether these opinions were erroneous or correct. +Miracle was not then something essentially religious as it is to-day. +Belief in miracles was not a sign of piety. Everybody shared in it, +men of the world as well as men of God. Herod believed in them not +less than the apostles. The Pharisees did not doubt them; they only +denied the miracles of Jesus; they attributed them to Beelzebub. +Christ did not doubt any more than they did that Satan and the demons +wrought as many and perhaps more miracles than the messengers of God. +He did not wish them to believe the doctrine because of the prodigy, +but in the prodigy because of the doctrine. It will be seen how far +they were at that time from the dualism of our day, and from the +conflict created by scholasticism between science and piety. +</P> + +<P> +When we examine this ancient notion of miracle, especially in the +superior expression it receives in the Bible, we discover in it two +things: it is made up of two judgments of a very different order: of an +intellectual and scientific order, disclosing that which then existed +in point of fact, a <I>naïf</I> and perfect ignorance of the nature and the +laws of things; and of a judgment of a religious order, implying an +absolute confidence in an all-good God who is almighty to respond to +the cry of His children and to deliver them. These two judgments are +so thoroughly blended in the biblical notion of miracle that orthodox +theologians and irreligious philosophers agree in declaring them to be +inseparable, and they would compel us to choose between a piety hostile +to the elementary results of science, and a science radically hostile +to piety. The dilemma is specious but false. To see it vanish it is +only necessary to perceive that these two judgments, not being of the +same nature, cannot be eternally <I>solidaire</I>. The settlement of the +controversy in which Christian thought has been engaged for the last +three centuries will consist in separating them. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Notion of Miracle in the Face of Modern Science and of Piety</I> +</P> + +<P> +Modern science neither affirms nor denies miracle; it ignores it, +necessarily. It is, for it, as if it did not exist. +</P> + +<P> +Religious persons, who often look towards science to ascertain what +their faith may hope or fear from it, only consider its results, and as +these are never definitive, but always variable, always being revised, +enlarged, enriched, they secretly indulge the hope that a moment may +come when science, which has not yet welcomed miracle, will welcome it; +that such a fact, supported by such and such testimony, will in the end +conquer its resistances and obtain a place in the category or the +catalogue of scientific facts. They would quickly lose this illusion, +if, turning away from the net results of science, they would fix their +attention on its processes and methods of investigation. What is it, +according to science, to know a phenomenon? It is to place it in a +necessary link of succession, concomitance, and causality with other +phenomena which explain it by analogy. Suppose a mysterious phenomenon +without analogy and connection with any other; savants brought into its +presence will declare themselves simply in a state of ignorance with +respect to it. They will say they have not discovered the cause of it, +that they cannot explain it; they will study it on every side a +thousand times if necessary until they have torn out the heart of the +mystery. Either they will succeed, or on this point there will never +be science made or explanation established. +</P> + +<P> +Savants, it is true, are the first to recognise and to proclaim, in all +domains, the limitations of their knowledge. The most advanced are the +most modest. They all have the feeling that their discoveries are but +a beginning, and that the part of Nature they have explored is as +nothing to that of which they are ignorant. They hold themselves in +readiness to modify the laws they have established, to enlarge their +hypotheses, to make new ones, to record all facts which observation may +supply. That many facts astonish them and disconcert them, we see +every day. But mark the attitude of the true savant in face of these +new phenomena. Does he doubt a single moment that they obey laws, +unknown perhaps, but certain? ... There can only be science of that +which is general and constant. +</P> + +<P> +It is therefore absolutely chimerical to expect of science the +establishment of any miracle whatever.... Miracle, according to the +only tenable definition, and this is the ancient and traditional one, +is a positive intervention of God in the phenomenal order and at a +particular point. Now science knows only second causes. How could it +ever seize in the course of these causes the immediate action of the +First Cause? Is God a phenomenon that the eye of man can ever perceive +in any phenomenal series? And is not this the reason why science +despairs of ever proving scientifically the existence of God? It +recognises itself to be impotent to step out of the relative, to +resolve anything outside space and time, and it has removed from its +domain all questions as to origin and aim, because it has no means of +reaching them. +</P> + +<P> +To perceive God and the action of God in the human soul and in the +course of things is the business of the pious heart (Matt. v. 8). The +affirmation of piety is essentially different from scientific +explanation. It places us in the subjective and moral order of life, +which no more depends on the order of science than the scientific order +depends on piety. There cannot be conflict between these two orders, +because they move on different planes and never meet. Science, which +knows its limits, cannot forbid the act of confidence and adoration of +piety. Piety, in its turn, conscious of its proper nature, will not +encroach on science; its affirmations can neither enrich, impoverish, +nor embarrass science, for they bear on different points and answer +different ends. My child is ill; I procure for it the best advice and +the best remedies; but confiding in God's mercy, I beg of Him to spare +me my child, or, in any case, to help me to accept His will. The child +recovers. What savant will forbid me to thank my heavenly Father? +Will this be because my thanksgiving will be a denial of the science of +the physician? Certainly not, for my gratitude will include the fact +of the doctor, the medicine, the care bestowed, the whole series of +second causes that have contributed to the recovery of my child. Was +not this the piety of Jesus when He taught us to pray: "Our Father +which art in Heaven: Thy will be done: Give us our daily bread"? Was +He ignorant of the fact that in order to have bread we must sow wheat? +No; but none the less He asked His food from God, because He knew also +that, in the last resort, it is the will of God that makes the +substance and the order of things, that it is He who clothes the lilies +of the field, feeds the fowls of the air, makes His sun to shine upon +the evil and the good, and sends upon the labourer's soil the early and +the latter rain. +</P> + +<P> +Reduced to its religious and moral significance, miracle, for Jesus, +was the answer to prayer, as M. Ménégoz (<I>pp. cit.</I> pp. 19-29) has +clearly shown, and this altogether apart from the phenomenal mode in +which the answer was produced. God only manifests Himself in +extraordinary events in order that we may learn to recognise Him in +ordinary ones. The child asks, the father grants; but the child does +not trouble himself about the means by which his wishes are gratified. +The pious man adores the ways he cannot comprehend. This confidence in +the love and justice of God may be accompanied in the mind of the +apostles and of Jesus Himself by imperfect or erroneous scientific +ideas as to the mode of divine action in Nature. But it is not +<I>solidaire</I>, with them, and may easily be detached in order to bring it +into harmony with the views of our present science, as in the mind of +Jesus and the apostles it was in harmony with the science of their +time. For piety, the laws of Nature which have since then been +revealed to us in their sovereign constancy, become the immediate +expression of the will of God. The Christian submits to them +instinctively, saying: "Thy will be done." Which is only saying that +these laws, which are sometimes spoken of with a sort of horror, as of +a blind and brutal fate, become religious and are consecrated in the +eyes of piety by a divine authority. Why then should not piety offer +to science and its revelations of Nature the same frank and joyous +welcome as that accorded to them by scientists themselves? The +opposition established by scholasticism between faith and science, is +it not as irreligious as it is irrational, and has it not been one of +the chief causes of the death of theology in the Church and of the +triumph of incredulity in the present age? +</P> + +<P> +While developing themselves on parallel lines, can science and faith +remain isolated? Man is one, and his scientific activity, like his +religious activity, tends to a synthesis. The synthesis will be found +in a teleological consideration of the universe. This universal +teleology, faith predicts it, science labours to realise it. It can +only be established by this twofold concurrence. Without faith, +knowledge of the universe is impossible; without phenomenal science all +interpretation of the universe becomes illusory. Faith, therefore, +must become more and more an act of confidence in God, and the +scientific study of phenomena ever more profound and rigorous. Of +course the teleological synthesis will never be completed here below, +but it will always find a provisional and satisfying conclusion in the +act of confidence and adoration towards God. +</P> + +<P> +Science is perpetually becoming. If at times it closes to piety dear +and familiar prospects, it necessarily and constantly opens new ones. +If it takes away its crutches, it gives it wings. The contemplation of +the harmony of the worlds which moves us religiously is, it seems to +me, worth more to modern thought than the fatidical oracle, or the cry +of the crow that frightened the good old woman of Rome. The more +science progresses the more it puts into things the order and harmony +of thought. It can only create a Cosmos more and more intelligible +and, consequently, susceptible of an increasingly religious +interpretation. +</P> + +<P> +At the same time as science instituted its severest methods, it +radically transformed its primary notion of Nature. This was conceived +by the Cartesian Rationalism as a finished and coherent whole, a system +of identical movements and phenomena which were produced by virtue of +the same springs acting in the same circle (the vortices of Descartes). +The familiar image under which they loved to represent it was that of a +watch, constructed and wound up by the divine artificer once for all. +Now, we see this dogma of the immutability of Nature going to join the +other dogmas of the past. The theory of the ascensional evolution of +beings, which renders miracle useless, shows Nature to us in the course +of constant transformation and perpetual travail. Nothing in it is +stable or final. Everything is preparatory to something else; each +form of life is the preface to a higher form. What then is the hidden +mystery which ferments in the bosom of this painful nature and +endeavours to expand? +</P> + +<P> +"The more cannot issue from the less," said the schoolmen, and no doubt +in abstract logic they were right. But reality smiles at logic. It +shows us everywhere the triumph of the opposite maxim. Perfection is +at the beginning of nothing. Cosmic evolution proceeds always from +that which is poorer to that which is richer, from the simple to the +complex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from dead matter to +living matter, from physical to mental life. At each stage Nature +surpasses itself by a mysterious creation that resembles a true miracle +in relation to an inferior stage. What then shall we conclude from +these observations except that in Nature there is a hidden force, an +incommensurable "potential energy," an ever open, never exhausted fount +of apparitions at once magnificent and unexpected? How can such a +universe escape the teleological interpretation of religious faith? +For the moment, science may accord nothing more to piety; but piety has +no need to ask more from it; for it has already in this way found +safeguarded the three things which the old notion of miracle guaranteed +to it: the real and active presence of God, the answer to prayer, and +liberty to hope. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>Religious Inspiration</I> +</P> + +<P> +Passing by the subject of prophecy, which is a species of miracle, and +admits of the same kind of explanation, it may be well to touch upon +the subject of prophetic inspiration. The ancients represent it as a +veritable state of possession. The spirit of the god or demon +violently entered into the body of a man or woman, sometimes of an +animal, and made of it an organ the more faithful in proportion as it +was unconscious. Everybody knows the description given by Virgil of +the Cumaean sybil at the moment of vaticination: "The god, the god, she +cried," etc. (Aeneid VI. v. 45 et 77.)[<A NAME="chap0103fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap0103fn2">2</A>] It was a sort of frenzy or +sacred delirium in which divine words involuntarily and sometimes +unconsciously proceeded from the mouth of the possessed. Madmen, +epileptics, idiots, hysterical persons, were regarded almost everywhere +as sacred beings, friends and confidants of superior spirits. Their +strange malady only seems explicable by the presence in them of one of +these spirits. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +<A NAME="chap0103fn2"></A> +[<A HREF="#chap0103fn2text">2</A>] Cf. Plato, <I>Meno. Timaeus</I>, 45.—Cicero, <I>De Divin</I> 1. 2. 18. 31. +Aristotle, <I>Problem</I>, xxx. p. 474. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The same ideas were current among the Hebrews, and are to be found both +in the Old and in the New Testament. The prophets of Ramah, disciples +of Samuel, and Saul himself, putting themselves by contagion into a +state of delirium and "prophecy," are in a physical and mental state +identical with that of the sybil of Cumae. The demons in possession of +the man who was healed by Jesus were the first to divine and to salute +His messianic dignity. The poor woman whom Paul healed at Philippi was +haunted by "a spirit, a Python." The speakers with tongues at Corinth +were thought by those present to be mad, and those at Jerusalem on the +day of Pentecost looked like drunken men (1 Sam. x. 5-7: Mark i. 24: +Acts xvi. 16-20: 1 Cor. xiv: Acts ii. 13). +</P> + +<P> +All these manifestations, formerly held to be supernatural, are now +recognised as morbid phenomena, of which mental pathology describes the +physiological causes, the natural course, the fatal issue. Even in +frightful disorders order has been discovered; laws and remedies have +been found for many of these sad afflictions. Formerly they deified +these demented and tormented souls; in the Middle Ages, and up to the +eighteenth century, they burned them; we pity them and care for them. +This is much the best for all concerned. +</P> + +<P> +Preoccupied with guaranteeing the infallibility of the sacred writings, +the theology of the Fathers, of the scholastic doctors, and of the +Protestant doctors of the seventeenth century, drew from this ancient +notion of religious inspiration a dogmatic theory applicable to the +divine oracles contained in the Bible. It seemed to them that the more +passive the personal spirit of the writers was, the purer would be the +word of God that they were charged to deliver when it reached us. At +this point of view, the most faithful organ of God, the one that ought +to inspire us with the greatest confidence, would be Balaam's ass. +"The writer might be stupid," exclaims Gaussen, "but that which came +from his hands would always be the Bible." Some have gone further by +way of inventing images borrowed from the material order, such as, "the +strings of a lyre," sounding beneath the divine bow, "the quills or +pens of the Holy Spirit," etc., etc. The theory is familiar. It was +developed throughout the Middle Ages until they came to say that God +was the author and is alone responsible for the Bible, and for +everything that is found in it; not only for the things and thoughts, +but also for the words and style; not only for each word, but also for +the vowels and the consonants. It only remained that they should have +added the punctuation, not the least important matter in a connected +discourse. Unhappily, the punctuation is absent from the oldest +manuscripts. +</P> + +<P> +Let us remind ourselves, however, that St. Paul, and Jesus Christ +before him, had deposited the germ of a conception of religious +inspiration more human, more psychological, and, at the same time, more +real. Paul, who had ecstasies, visions, "tongues," always spoke of +these doubtful privileges with a certain modesty, and that only when he +was constrained to it, as if he had the feeling that there was +something abnormal and morbid in these phenomena. On the other hand, +he opposes to them a theory of true Christian prophecy conceived as a +forcible, eloquent, irresistible proclamation of the mercy and justice +of God; prophecy on the lips of the apostle, the poet, or the orator, +springing from the assurance given him by the inward witness of the +Holy Spirit that he is in perfect harmony with the divine thought. The +force of this inspired prophecy comes from the luminous evidence which +springs up within, which warms and kindles up the spirit like an inward +fire. Under the influence of this illumination the apostle feels his +strength increase tenfold; he rises at a mighty bound above himself. +His faculties are carried to their maximum of energy and power. So far +from being an inert, passive instrument, his intellect has never been +intenser, richer; his thoughts more clear and more coherent; his words +more fluent, more abundant, more pictorial and expressive; his voice +more firm and resonant; his gestures more imperious. It is the hour +when he is most himself, when his particular genius has freest play, +when his moral originality is greatest, when he is most certainly the +organ of eternal truth. Thus understood, religious inspiration does +not differ psychologically from poetic inspiration. It presents the +same mystery, but it is not more miraculous. It is not produced like a +trouble violently introduced into the psychical life from without, but +as a really fruitful force, acting from within, in harmony with all the +laws and forces of the mind. +</P> + +<P> +Does not experience establish and piety confirm this? When does an +Amos, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a St. Paul, or a St. John, appear to us as +the most authentic bearer of the word of truth and life, but in their +most eloquent pages, where their personal genius, their faith, their +thought, shine forth most freely? Religious inspiration is simply the +organic penetration of man by God; but, I repeat, by an interior and +indwelling God, and in such wise that when that penetration is +complete, the man finds himself to be more really and fully himself +than ever. It is with this mysterious action of the Spirit in the +bosom of humanity as it is with the solar heat upon the plants that +spring up from the soil. In regions where the heat is greatest and the +other conditions favourable, plants which elsewhere are stunted attain +their richest development and their greatest fecundity. +</P> + +<P> +The inner root of this inspiration is only found in the piety common to +religious men. It differs from it not in nature, but simply in +intensity and energy. Prophetic inspiration is piety raised to the +second power. There is no other mystery in it than the religious +mystery <I>par excellence</I>. That is why this inspiration is essential to +and promotes effectually the progress of the moral and religious life. +They advance together through the ages as we now shall see. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0104"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>The Social Element in Religion</I> +</P> + +<P> +Religion is not merely a phenomenon of the individual and inner life: +it is also a social and historical phenomenon. Psychology lays bare +its root, but history alone reveals its power and range. +</P> + +<P> +This social action of religion springs from its very essence. The +phrase "communion of souls" is of religious origin and hue. The thing +expressed by it—one of the most wonderful phenomena of collective +moral life—is never perfectly realised save in religion and by +religion. An identic faith, a common act of adoration, not merely +brings souls together: it makes them live in each other, blends them +into one soul in which each of them finds itself, multiplied, as it +were, by all the rest. That is what is properly called "edification," +by which I mean that feeling of joy, of force, of fulness of life, +produced by the common act of worship in those who sincerely take part +in it. That is the reason why men of the same religion have no more +imperious need than that of praying and worshipping together. State +police have always failed to confine growing religious sects within the +sanctuary or the home. Their members have never been resigned to this +comparatively solitary life; they have braved all interdicts and +persecutions in order to turn it into social life and fraternal +communion. +</P> + +<P> +God, it is said, is the place where spirits blend. In rising towards +Him man of necessity passes beyond the limits of his own individuality. +He feels instinctively that the principle of his being is also the +principle of the life of his brethren; that that which gives him safety +must give it to all. In the same Religion, souls the most diverse, +being affected in the same manner, become related to each other, and +form a real family, united by closer, stronger bonds than those of +blood. The religious life is a higher region. Those who rise into it +feel the barriers fall which hemmed in their existence. They become +free; they penetrate the souls of their neighbours and feel themselves +to be penetrated by them; and all live one life, which, although it be +larger and almost universal, is none the less very personal and very +intense. Have you ever been present in a crowd excited and exalted by +religious enthusiasm? Have you felt the contagion? Then you can never +forget it. It is said the early Christians were of one heart and one +soul. Their community of faith, of hope, of love, went so far as to +make them forget the idea of property and put their goods in common. +In how many monastic orders or mystic sects has not this same need of +equality and unity gone to the point of identity in costume and +deportment, and even of the loss of name and personal individuality? +</P> + +<P> +It is not surprising therefore that religion, capable of creating in +modern times those moral societies called "Churches," should, in all +ages, have been the strongest bond of natural societies, primitive +families, savage tribes, great empires, civilised peoples. The first +stone of every hearth was a sacred stone. The first tombstone was a +monument of piety, and burial is an essentially religious ceremony. +Before they were regarded as protectors without, tribal gods were the +internal bonds of the tribe itself. All the individuals of the tribe +saw in the god a father and an ever present head, so that religion came +to double by this moral kinship their blood relationship. In this +matter the great civilisations do not differ from the rest. All have a +religious soul that differentiates and explains them. It is not merely +morals and philosophy that are affected by religion, but literature, +art, politics, social economy, and in a general way the whole destiny +of men. The secret of a race is hidden in its religion. It is there +that the forces of life and resistance to the causes of dissolution are +concentrated.... Let us enter with deep piety therefore on the history +of religion on the earth.... That history is still in embryo. The +comparative study of religions has arisen within our time; it is still +at its beginnings.... The idea of religious progress is a great and +luminous idea, but it is not possible to apply it to all the details of +history. Progress has not taken place along a single or continuous +line.... On four or five points the progress is undeniable; it must +suffice to point them out and mark their direction in order that we may +foresee the supreme end to which this faltering and laborious march is +tending. +</P> + +<P> +In religions there are differences of degree and differences of kind: +the one mark in the scale of evolution the successive movements of the +religious consciousness in time; the others express the diversity and +simultaneity of religions in space. The first are explained by +inequalities of moral development; the second by variety of races, +climates, civilisations. Take, for example, the Hebrew tradition; +follow it in broad outline, and you will note religious forms which +give birth one to another and constitute an historical development—the +religion of the ancient Beni-Israel, prophetism, rabbinical pharisaism, +Christianity, Mohammedanism: there, in a continuous evolution, you have +what may be called differences of degree. But, on the other hand, +consider the Mongolian or Chinese religions, those of ancient Mexico, +of India, Egypt, or Greece: you have differences of kind which you +cannot classify in a single scale. And, as some of these peoples have +disappeared, and others been arrested in their growth, and as they have +never marched abreast, it is impossible to compare them or to put into +one category the religious forms which their history presents. But +some attempt must be made to trace them out. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion</I> +</P> + +<P> +In this universal religious evolution the progress that is most +apparent because most outward is the enlargement of the form of +religion itself, the movement, often interrupted but never stopped, +from the narrowest particularism to the most human universalism.... It +is characteristic of all religion to propagate itself: that is the +implicit affirmation that it is made for all men. Even when it is +abased to the level of a recipe and of a magical secret that is hidden +with a jealous selfishness, or even from a ferocious patriotism, there +is the avowal that it might be serviceable to others.... But we must +see how this passage from the particular to the universal is effected. +</P> + +<P> +The beginnings of religion are everywhere the same. The number of +cults at first is almost endless, but they vary very little from each +other. It is impossible to write the history of barbarous religions, +and it is useless to enumerate them. Nothing is more monotonous than +the descriptions that have been attempted of them. Their most +characteristic feature is, that at first they are confined to the +family. Religion at this stage is a matter of instinct, and +instinctive matters are always uniform. In mental life, diversity only +appears with reflection and consciousness. +</P> + +<P> +To the domestic and tribal succeeds the national stage of religion. +Political federations are formed, and the religious as well as the +social consciousness of the people is enlarged. This phenomenon is +seen in Greece in its most interesting form. The religion of Greece, +as witness the Homeric poems, was a confederation of local cults and +deities, just as Hellas was a federation of previously unconnected +tribes. +</P> + +<P> +The conquests of Alexander and the extension of the Roman Empire +greatly enlarged the horizon of ancient thought. The philosophers in +the time of Cicero and Seneca had already risen from the national idea +to that of the human race. It must not be supposed, however, that the +universal religion sprang from the philosophic or religious syncretism +of the later ages of Graeco-Roman civilisation. The dissolution of the +national religions had preceded that of political nationalities, and, +so far from creating anything universal, the morbid curiosity of minds +denuded of all national tradition abandoned itself to individual +superstitions the most exotic and monstrous. Christianity was born, +not in Greece, in the schools, nor in Rome, at the foot of the throne +of the Cæsars, but in a race the narrowest, the most fanatical and +intolerant that ever existed, and in the heart of a Son of Israel whom +no extra-Palestinian influence seems ever to have reached. +</P> + +<P> +Nowhere is a universal religion the fruit of an unconscious evolution, +produced by the action of fatal and external laws. It presents itself +everywhere as an individual creation, as the free and moral work of a +few elect souls, in whom tradition by a profound crisis is purified and +enlarged. This was the rôle of Confucius, of Buddha, of Socrates, of +the prophets of Israel, of Mohammed in Arabia. All of them were +reformers of the religion of their ancestors.... They did not discover +the universal religion outside themselves, but in their consciousness +and personal piety. Passing through their souls as through a filter, +the traditional religion of their race was gradually clarified and +freed from foreign or material elements, and it was found that, in the +end, the new faith appeared the more human and universal as it had +become more strictly religious, more inward, and more pure.... Not +that all the ancient cults were capable of transformation or all the +prophets equally inspired. Often the revelation would appear uncertain +or incomplete. On only one point and in only one consciousness would +it be seen to end in a clear and definitive conclusion. Progress +implies selection. As we rise from one stage to another in the history +of religious evolution we see the ranks enlightened and the number +diminished of concurrent religions. At the lowest stage, the savage +cults are almost innumerable. The great national or ethnic religions +were much fewer. Only three are frankly universalist: Buddhism, +Mohammedanism, and Christianity. And these three are universalist, if +I may so say, in a very unequal degree. +</P> + +<P> +Mohammedanism was far from being an original religion. The element +which gives to it a higher moral and religious value came to it from +Judaism and Christianity. Its monotheism, its horror of idolatry, the +comparative purity of its ethics, have no other source, and, without +paradox, it has been possible to represent it as an inferior form of +Christianity accommodated to the needs and to the stature of +semi-civilised Semitic peoples. But, alongside this Christian +spiritualism it has conserved naturalistic elements, gross remnants of +old Arab cults which, having made its fortune, perhaps, in its early +days, now embarrass it and paralyse it. Moreover, in spite of its +conquests, it has always remained an Oriental religion with Mecca as +its centre and its head. If it would survive, it must reform itself; +it must enter into the path of moral and intellectual progress, free +itself from local superstitions, from its gross hopes, its hatred of +the infidel, its doctrine of good works; in other words, it will have +to cast off its old nature, and receive a new effusion of the Christian +spirit. It can only become universal in so far as it approaches the +moral principle of Christianity, in order, in the end, to become one +with it. +</P> + +<P> +Buddhism has a more profound originality, but it also is afflicted with +an inward dualism which will ruin it. From the beginning there have +been two Buddhisms: the one an esoteric philosophy for the use of sages +convinced by experience of the vanity of all things, suffering from the +essential evil of existence and aspiring to Nirvana. It is an +unfruitful mysticism because it is Atheistic. The other is popular +Buddhism, which sinks and dies into puerile superstitions and into the +grossest polytheism. From which we may conclude that Buddhism only +becomes universalist when it ceases to be a positive religion, and that +where it still remains a religion it is anything but universalist. +</P> + +<P> +With Christianity it is altogether different. The terms "universal +religion" and "Christian religion" coincide so exactly that if a form +of Christianity is not universalist on any side, on that particular +side it ceases to be Christian. In fact there cannot here be either +division or esoterism, nor consequently limitation or narrowness. We +are here in the absolute freedom of spirit. Christ did not propound +the theory of the unity of the human race; but He did something quite +different and much better: He gave us the gospel. Between His gospel +and the humanitarian philosophy there is all the difference that there +is between abstraction and life, between idea and love. All men enter +into the kingdom of God by the same door, and that door cannot be shut +by any one; for it is the door of humility, of confidence, of +self-renunciation, of the higher righteousness fulfilling itself by +fraternal charity. Rank in that kingdom is determined by the measure +of devotedness. The greatest is the one that humbles himself the most, +and the only way of being master is to serve. In the religion of Jesus +there is nothing religious but that which is authentically moral, and +nothing moral in human life that is not truly religious. The perfect +religion coincides with the absolute morality, and this naturally +extends to and is obligatory on all mankind. Jesus not only proclaimed +the only God, or even the God who is spirit, whose worship could not +thenceforth be confined to anything material or particular in time and +space: He showed us the Father who loves all His children with an equal +affection, and desires to dwell in the humblest as well as in the +highest consciousness. This divine Fatherhood, in proportion as it is +realised in our hearts, produces in them human brotherhood. The +religious and the human ideals here join, no more to be separated. +Having begun in the animal man, with the grossest form of religion, +humanity finds itself completed in the perfect religion. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>Progress in Representations of the Divine</I> +</P> + +<P> +To represent the divine, man has never had any but the resources which +are in himself. These representations have varied therefore with the +general progress of experience and of thought.... From beginning to +end the evolution of religious images and notions is based on the idea +of spirit. It is in this idea that the resemblance and the kinship of +man to his God is based; only by this can there be understanding, +converse, harmony between them. Primitive religions, doubtless, are +neither spiritualist nor materialist; they are animistic. A simple +animism gives to men their first conceptions. The child projects the +life which animates him; he endows the things around him with a +personality similar to his own. For him there is nothing dead or +inert; the world is peopled with living beings with which he contends, +and talks, and is angry, to which he gives his love and his caresses. +Do not let us smile too much at this simplicity. The latest steps of +philosophy are rejoining our earliest thoughts. We are coming to see +that in sum we know nothing but ourselves, that our science is but the +projection of our consciousness without, and that it is solely on this +condition that the world becomes intelligible to us. Man never +worships anything purely material, anything that cannot hear and answer +him. When he perceives that the object of his worship is inanimate, he +thinks his god has deserted him, and he sets himself to pursue him. He +usually finds him and retains him under other names and forms. By +faith in ghosts, and by the memory of his dreams, he has learnt to +double himself, and to oppose his will to his thought, his interior ego +to his body, which he calls his house. He may easily quit this for +another. Nothing is more ancient than the idea of the transmigration +of souls. But at the same time he doubles the being of his gods; he +distinguishes between the god and the object in which he habitually +resides. This is the period at which <I>idolatry</I> begins. It will only +be completed when the spirit-god has broken the bonds which bind him to +its visible prison and its material image; when He shall speak who says +that "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in +spirit and in truth." From that moment, mythology transforms itself +into theology, and external rites into inward piety. +</P> + +<P> +Necessarily polytheistic in its origins, religion tended nevertheless +towards monotheism. The subordination which disciplined the heads of +the tribes on earth also ranged the divinities under the authority of a +supreme head. Force at first gave this supremacy. Zeus was the king +of gods and men because he was stronger than all of them put together. +This is the natural order of ideas. Force first imposed itself on +weakness; then intelligence conquered force; lastly, justice and love, +which is the supreme form and flower of righteousness, obtain supremacy +over intelligence itself. The highest and the chiefest is no longer +the strongest, or the wisest, but the best. In becoming moral, man has +moralised his gods, who, in their turn, becoming models and +authorities, have greatly helped to moralise the race. +</P> + +<P> +It is very surprising that this evolution in the direction of moral +monotheism did not complete itself in the Indo-European family. But +the fact is that that family encountered an invincible barrier in the +very nature of its primitive mythology. The Greek and Hindu +philosophers, no doubt, pushed the notion of God to that of His +spirituality and unity, but they did not succeed in transforming the +religion of their race. Their rational criticism had power to +dissolve, but not to change. Their monotheism remained always an +object of speculation more or less esoteric. When, in the second and +third centuries of our era, in competition with Christianity, +Graeco-Roman polytheism endeavoured to reach a sort of monotheism, it +could only return to the most glorious mythus of its infancy, to the +worship of the Sun, and raise it to supremacy among the symbols of +their faith. +</P> + +<P> +The transition from polytheism to monotheism was only made in Palestine +and in the tradition of the Hebrews. There were two reasons for this, +both of which bear witness to the divine vocation of that people: its +religious predispositions and the powerful action of its prophets, of +those men of God raised up in it from Moses to Christ. The desert is +not monotheistic, as M. Renan was pleased at first to say, nor are +nomads, shepherds, or freebooters nearer to the only God than sedentary +and agricultural peoples. But, owing to the special turn of mind of +the Hebrew family, its primitive polytheism, of which the plural, +<I>elohim</I>, still reminds us, had an abstract character, and was reduced +to a sort of anonymous plurality from which no divine genealogy could +spring. All these elementary spirits, these <I>elohim</I> of the air, the +earth, the waters, were so similar to each other that the thought of +the Semite never succeeded in discerning and discriminating them. They +entered into one another, and ended by forming a sort of collective and +abstract power, analagous to that which is represented in our language +by the word "divinity." Add to this that, by the idea of holiness, +Jehovah, the national <I>elohim</I>, was equally separated from Nature, and +that, gradually divested of all corporeal form, He was predestined to +become the God of conscience, the invisible Creator of all things, the +Judge and the rewarder of all human actions. +</P> + +<P> +Neither these original predispositions, however, nor these general +causes, account for the marvellous progress of the religion of Israel. +The faith of the prophets is a creation of the moral order; it is the +work of individual consciousnesses, of the religious heroes whom the +divine Spirit raised up in succession for more than a thousand years. +We shall explain elsewhere this heroic and age-long struggle of the +prophets of Jehovah against the customs, the tendencies, and even the +temperament of their people. Suffice it here to indicate the constant +direction of their efforts, the precision and the fixedness of their +ideal, the power of the common inspiration that animated them, the +vigorous and vivacious feeling in each one of them that makes their +work divine and carries them beyond their individual thoughts and +hopes. Like us they laboured on an infinitely vaster plane than they +conceived. +</P> + +<P> +But their conception of a divine ideal of righteousness still left God +outside the consciousness. The image of His sanctity awakened in their +souls the sense of sin and raised a tragic conflict between the human +will enslaved by evil and the essentially inflexible law of God. God +and man were found to be more profoundly separated by this moral +antithesis of righteousness and sin than they had before been by the +antithesis of strength and feebleness. How was this hostility to +cease? A supreme revelation is about to respond to this cry of +distress. God will become internal to the consciousness; He will +manifest Himself, in man himself, as the principle of justification and +salvation. He who was called <I>El, Allah</I>, the Mighty God, in +patriarchal days,—He who from the times of Moses had been named +<I>Jehovah</I>, the living God, the vigilant guardian of the Covenant,—will +reveal Himself as the Father in the filial consciousness of Jesus +Christ. The revelation of love comes to crown the revelation of force +and righteousness. God desires to dwell in human souls. The Heavenly +Father lives within the Son of Man, and the dogma of the God-Man, +interpreted by the piety of each Christian, not by the subtle +metaphysics of the doctors and the schools, becomes the central and +distinguishing dogma of Christianity. Do not spoil its religious +meaning, leave the mystery intact, see what is wrapped up in it: the +sin of man effaced, the ancient conflicts ended, harmony restored, the +whole moral and spiritual life enrooted in the eternal life of God, the +Divine Life shed abroad in the heart of man. Try to comprehend this +consummation of the religious unity of the Divine and the human sought +for, cried for, in the dim desire of consciousness, and you will also +comprehend that, at this point of view, as at all the others, the +precedent religious evolution found its <I>raison d'être</I> and its final +aim in the soul and in the work of Christ. The orphaned human soul and +the distant unknown God are re-united and embraced in filial love, to +be no more divided or estranged. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +4. <I>The History of Prayer</I> +</P> + +<P> +The living expression of the relations of man to his God, prayer is the +very soul of religion. It brings to God the miseries of man, and +brings back to man the communion and the help of God. Nothing better +reveals the worth and moral dignity of a religion than the kind of +prayer it puts into the lips of its adherents. Now, progress is more +apparent here than anywhere else. The savage beats his fetish when it +is not complacent enough. The Christian in his greatest distresses +repeats the prayer of Jesus in the Garden: "Father, not my will, but +Thine be done!" What a long road man has travelled between these two +extreme points of religion! +</P> + +<P> +At the outset, prayer would seem to have had nothing religious in it +except the vague trust which men placed in its efficiency. It was +almost everywhere conceived and practised as a sort of constraint put +by the worshipper on the will that he wished to master. There were +mysterious syllables, which, pronounced correctly, would produce an +irresistible effect. To the voice were added rites and ceremonies, +<I>i.e.</I> gestures menacing or wheedling, whose object was to move the god +and bind his will to that of man. Primitive stories and legends are +full of this idea. Out of it sprang magic, sorcery, necromancy. +</P> + +<P> +With the supernatural beings around him man does as with other +neighbours. He seeks to induce them to help him, and that by the +self-same means. There is very little respect in these primary +relations. Ruse, violence, seduction by bribes or threats,—these are +the forms of that strange supplication. It is human selfishness +addressing itself naïvely to the selfishness of the gods. Regular +contracts are made between these two egoisms, each of which arms itself +against the other with the <I>Do ut des</I>. The god who fails in his +promise deserves to be chastised, and privations, and even blows, do +not fail to follow and punish his felony. +</P> + +<P> +Sacrifice at first was merely a form of prayer. Man never approaches +his superior or his master with empty hands. To secure his favour or +appease his wrath he brings the offerings he believes to be the most +agreeable. The gods, like mortals, <I>e.g.</I>, have need of nourishment. +For them, therefore, are reserved the first-fruits of the human repast; +libations, presents of honey and fine flour, the most luscious fruits, +the most delicious viands. What difficulty man has had in believing in +the goodness of his gods! He saw the effects of their anger in the +evils which befell him, and if good fortune came to him he felt obliged +to offer a sacrifice to turn aside the jealousy of higher powers. Was +a god supposed to have been offended? They trembled for years beneath +the strokes of his wrath; they offered in expiatory sacrifices all +possible equivalents; they invented penances, humiliations, tortures, +without being sure that the divine vengeance ever was appeased. These +are universal religious phenomena. +</P> + +<P> +The religious is so different from the moral sense that, at the outset, +it exists by itself, and expresses itself in the most selfish and +ferocious manner. How many crimes have been committed in the name of +religion! with what baseness and sordidness has it not been sincerely +connected! But here also we must note the new revelation made in the +souls of prophets and of sages in order to raise the religion of +naturalism to morality. Confucius, Buddha, the prophets of Israel, the +philosophers of Greece, came simultaneously to feel that the true +relation of man to God must be a moral relation, that righteousness is +the only link which binds earth to heaven, that sacred words, rites, +interested offerings, outward compensations, can do nothing, and mean +nothing, the moment the religious man rises above the law of Nature and +enters upon the higher life of the spirit. If God be righteous, there +is only one means henceforth of putting one's self into harmony and +peace with Him—to become like Him. Thus religion and morality were +destined to approach each other and to penetrate each other more and +more, until the perfect religion should be recognised by this sign: the +highest piety under the form of the ideal morality. At bottom, +Christianity has no other principle, and it is for this reason more +than for any other that it is not only the highest form of religion, +but the universal and final religion. "The absolute religion" and "the +absolute moral life" are identical terms. The ancient dualism is +surmounted in the unity of Christian consciousness. It is not +surprising, therefore, that prayer should, in its turn, be transformed, +and that, having at first been the most violently interested act of +life, it should come in the end to be a pure act of trust and +self-abandonment, of disinterestedness the most religious and complete. +Is there need of many words for a child to make its father understand? +It is the heathen, says Jesus, who make many prayers. The Father knows +your needs before you ask Him. It is a mark of unbelief to be anxious +about food and raiment and the future. The essential thing is not to +multiply petitions, but to live near Him and feel Him ever near. Is He +not Almighty and all-good? Does He not love you better than you love +yourselves? Does He not make all things work together for the good of +His children? If trials come, or dangers threaten, what ought we to +do? Submit to God, as Jesus did. What is such prayer as His but the +defeat of egoism and the perfect liberation of the individual spirit in +the feeling of its plenary union with God? +</P> + +<P> +Such was the prayer of Jesus. It did not consist in an outward flow of +words, but in a constant, silent state of soul which made Him say in +turning towards His Father: "I know that Thou hearest me always." +Confidence increases with renunciation. Admirable progress of +religion! Sublime reversal of rôles! At the beginning the ambition of +the pious man was to bend the Divine will to his own; at the end his +peace, his happiness, is to subordinate his wishes and desires to the +will of a Father who knows how to be gracious, righteous, perfect! +</P> + +<P> +There is another aspect of this progress. In all religions there is a +double gamut of feeling: the one, which rules in primitive religions, +and whose dominant note is fear and sadness; the other, which prevails +in the end, in which the dominant note is confidence and joy. It is a +natural effect of the progressive victory of the religious +consciousness gradually surmounting the contradictions in the midst of +which it is born and developed. At the outset, man, alone and +defenceless, finds no fewer enemies in heaven than on earth. He feels +as if surrounded by hostile and mysterious powers before which he +cringes in fear, awaiting their decisions with respect to him. But +everything changes when there rises within his soul the luminous dawn +of the moral revelation of God. With the darkness, vanish all the +frightful phantoms of the night. In the God whom he adores he sees his +own interior law glorified and become henceforth the supreme law of +things. That law of righteousness is, at bottom, a law of love. +Nothing can trouble me any more except the sense of my own +failure—that is, of my own sin, which alone can separate me from the +very principle of righteousness and life. But, see, justice manifests +itself as justifying grace! God gives it as He gives life to those who +thirst for it. Reconciliation is complete. The orphan has found his +Father; the Father, His child. The sinner, trembling, begins his +prayer, prostrated; he ends it upright, with the confidence and freedom +of a child that feels itself at home within the Father's house. The +Gospel bids us to rejoice; it makes of joy an obligation, while +distrust and sadness are the marks of selfishness and unbelief. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +5. <I>Conclusion</I> +</P> + +<P> +Such has been the course of religion through the centuries of human +history, and amid the complex and confused development of particular +faiths. The progress has not been on a straight line and by successive +additions, as in the scientific sphere. Religious evolution is more +like the evolution of art, in which the experience of the past is only +fruitful when translated by a higher inspiration and a mightier +creative force. There are periods of recrudescence of the religious +sentiment in which the passions of a past that seemed to have been +abolished are revived. These are the times of superstition. There are +also periods of religious inertia, when the soul seems to empty itself +of its eternal content, and divert itself into a frivolous activity and +a superficial wisdom. These are the ages of incredulity. Lastly, +there are epochs of crisis and confusion, in which mingle religious +traditions the most diverse, and currents of thought the most contrary. +We must pass over all these accidents and vicissitudes. In the +religious evolution of humanity there is a sequence, an order, a +progress which, in spite of all interruptions and reactions, manifest +themselves as soon as we rise high enough to embrace it in its vast +entirety. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +A few years ago there assembled in Chicago what the Americans called +the Parliament of Religions. The official representatives of all the +principal religions of the new world and the old met together under a +common feeling of religious brotherhood. They did not discuss the +value of their rites or dogmas; their object was to approach each +other, to edify each other, and, for the first time in the world's +history, to present the spectacle of a universal religious communion. +When it came to the point, three things became clear: first, the common +name under which they were able to call upon God—the Father; secondly, +the Lord's Prayer was adopted and recited by all; thirdly, Christ +Himself, apart from all theological definition, was unanimously +recognised and venerated as the Master and Initiator of the higher +religious life. +</P> + +<P> +In my own consciousness, this practical demonstration is completed. I +can hardly help being religious; but if I am seriously to be religious +I can only be so under the Christian form. I can hardly help praying; +but if I desire to pray, if moral anguish or intellectual doubt +constrain me to seek some form of prayer that I can use in all +sincerity, I never find but these words: "Our Father which art in +heaven." Lastly, I may disdain the inner life of the soul, and divert +myself from it by the distractions of science, art, and social life; +but if, wearied by the world of pleasure or of toil, I wish to find my +soul again and live a deeper life, I can accept no other guide and +master than Jesus Christ, because, in Him alone, optimism is without +frivolity, and seriousness without despair. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0201"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK SECOND +</H2> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CHRISTIANITY +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL +</H4> + +<P> +To understand Christianity we should need to see clearly and in one +view the link which connects it with the religious evolution of +mankind, the living originality by which it is distinguished, the +succession and the character of the forms it has assumed. Such are the +three points which we shall take up in turn. We must begin with its +origins. +</P> + +<P> +There is never a complete break in the chain of history. Every +phenomenon arises in its place and at its time. It has its +antecedents, which prepare it and <I>condition</I> it. However new +Christianity may have been, it is no exception to the rule. It springs +from the tradition of Israel by an evident affiliation. The old +theology did not dissimulate this kinship of origin; it rather +exaggerated it. The Christian Church made the Bible of the Jews the +first part of its own. The writings of the prophets were placed in the +sacred volume before those of the apostles, as if to intimate that the +one could not be understood without the other. <I>Novum Testamentum in +Vetere latet; Vetus in Novo patet</I>. At bottom, this old adage of the +schoolmen is true. It is an excellent rule of biblical exegesis to +trace the primary Christian ideas to their Hebraic root, and to regard +as foreign and adventitious those which are not attached to it. If +there is nothing essential in the New Testament the germ of which is +not to be found in the Old, there is nothing truly fruitful in the Old +which has not passed into the New. Such is the historical sequence and +connection that we must respect and follow. The study of the religion +of Israel is the natural introduction to the study of Christianity. +The only point to be considered here is how the one was preparatory to +the other.[<A NAME="chap0201fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap0201fn1">1</A>] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +<A NAME="chap0201fn1"></A> +[<A HREF="#chap0201fn1text">1</A>] Two non-essential sections have here been omitted, one on <I>The +Sacred History</I>, the other on <I>The Nation</I>.—Trans. +</P> + +<BR> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>Prophetism</I> +</P> + +<P> +The miracle of the history of Israel is Prophetism. In this is to be +found the incomparable force by which the religious evolution we may +trace in its annals was effected. +</P> + +<P> +But first let me explain what I understand by this word evolution, and +let me eliminate from it the fatalistic sense too often given to it. +If by evolution you mean a necessary and unconscious process, a +mechanical and continuous movement, which, without either effort or +danger, causes light to spring out of darkness, good from evil, and +raises a people or a race from a lower to a higher form of life, you +incur the reproach of confounding the laws of the moral world with +those of the physical order; you will be condemned to falsify history +in general and to understand nothing of the history of Israel in +particular. In the moral and religious progress which constitutes the +singular originality of that history, there is nothing facile, nothing +that can be logically deduced from the natural predispositions of the +nation. No doubt the prophets were the children of the nation and +intimately connected with it; but the inspiration which breathes in +them, raises them and animates them, is something entirely different +from the ethnic genius of their race. The contrast is so great that it +amounts to contradiction. The race, in Israel, as in Moab, or among +the Edomites or Philistines, had its interpreters and prophets. But +these were not the prophets of conscience. They flatter the people; +they do not elevate them. They are found to be false prophets. The +others, the witnesses for the righteous, holy God, only brought +Hebraism to the consciousness of its religious vocation by a sæcular +and painful struggle against hereditary idolatry and immorality. This +was not a collective evolution, but an essentially individualist +reform; it was a moral creation continually interrupted and +compromised; it was a work of faith and will. Each prophet enters into +the conflict and utters his cry of battle and reform as if he were +alone, responsible only to the God who has sent him, and yet all of +them succeed each other and pursue the same design, because they are +all obedient to the same identic inspiration. They fight against all; +against the multitude that cannot break away from custom and from +prejudice; against the priests who have always from the beginning made +of the priesthood a <I>métier</I> and of oracles a merchandise; against +kings whose vanity, whose crimes, and whose exactions they denounce; +against the great and rich oppressors of the weak and poor. They speak +in the name of Jehovah, because Jehovah speaks in their consciousness. +That is the origin of the prophetic spirit. It is a divine ferment +which, perpetuating itself, becoming clearer, stronger, from generation +to generation, gradually raises and transmutes the heavy mass of +primitive Semitism. No, this is not the work of time and Nature, +unless you see God at work in time, and, beneath this word Nature, by +the side of realised and manifested forces you perceive the hidden and +immeasurable virtualities which ferment in it and carry it beyond +itself into the higher life of liberty and love. In the apparition of +these prophets, in the energy of their faith, in the boldness of their +words, there is a positive revelation of a new world, the revelation of +a religious ideal which, after divesting itself, in the gospel of +Christ, of every national element, will naturally become the faith and +consolation of humanity. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +The education of the people of God had been a long and laborious work; +besides the preaching of the prophets, it had needed repeated +catastrophes in which the nationality of Israel had perished, as if the +spirit could not free itself save by the annihilation of the matter +that had from the outset grossly closed it in. When in the age of +Cyrus we see the poor remnants of Benjamin and Judah return from +Babylon, they are no longer a people; they are already almost a Church. +The religious Law is now fixed. It enshrines the life, the ideas, the +ethics and the ritual, the minute practices and precautions, which will +for ever separate the Jew from all the other nations, and maintain him +in a state of legal purity and high morality in the midst of universal +corruption. It is the beginning of Pharisaism. In it the spirit of +prophetic piety deteriorates, hardens, freezes. Nevertheless, when we +think of the progress that had been accomplished, when we think of the +distance that separates this rigid monotheism and this rigorous law +from the old hard, cruel, sometimes impure Semitic cults, the prophets' +work in Israel will appear to us in its immense proportions and +immortal worth. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Dawn of the Gospel</I> +</P> + +<P> +But Prophetism was not to end in the Talmud. The Isaiahs and Jeremiahs +were to have other heirs and successors than the Pharisees and the sons +of the Synagogue. Prophetism had in it the promise and the germ of a +higher and more human religion. The prophets had accents which their +immediate successors in history seem never to have heard. They +attacked nothing with more vehemence than formalistic piety or +practical religion divorced from righteousness. Listen to Amos, as he +makes Jehovah utter words like these: "I hate, I despise your feast +days," etc. (Amos v. 21 <I>et seq.</I>); or to Isaiah on the same theme in +his first chapter. Hosea declares that heart-piety and mercy are +better than sacrifices. Jeremiah predicts the time when God will make +a new Covenant with His people, and write His laws in their hearts, +instead of on tables of stone. Or think of Elijah in the cave of +Horeb. Fatigued with fighting, almost in despair, the terrible +adversary of Baal, who had just had 450 of the priests of Baal put to +death, has retired to the mountains and is asleep in a cave. You know +the narrative (1 Kings xix. 9-13). The still small voice! Is there in +all the Bible a finer image containing a profounder thought? What is +this supreme revelation of the God of Israel but an apparition by +anticipation of the God of the Gospel? And the still, small voice, +"the sound of gentle stillness," what is it but the first faint accents +of the gracious, tender words: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and +are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and +learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest +unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matt. +xi. 28-30). +</P> + +<P> +Beneath the breathings of this creative inspiration the religion of +legal righteousness and rigorous retributions is softened into the +religion of love. The God who punishes becomes the God who pardons and +restores. Beneath the tears of the poor, the vanquished, the afflicted +in Israel the gospel of divine compassion germinated and sprang up. +What tones of tenderness are heard in the later prophets, the prophets +of consolation, properly so called. "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people. +Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Say unto her that her warfare is +accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned." Read the chapter through +(Is. xl.), and the forty-second and the sixty-sixth, and Psalms xxiii. +and ciii. Such words as these announce and prepare the way for the +great religious revolution called by Jesus the New Covenant. The +relations between God and the human soul are in course of being +changed. From the beginning, a pact existed between Jehovah and His +people; a compact expressed and guaranteed in a Law on which depended +the destiny of the nation and of the individual. The Covenant has +become more inward and profound. To the law of strict remunerations is +now joined a bond of love. Between God and His people the relations +are those of Husband and wife. The wife has proved unfaithful to Him +who had loved her, who had found her poor and naked in the desert, and +had been desirous to enrich her. She has followed other gods. +Jehovah, by the mouth of His messengers, covers her with reproaches, in +order to excite her to repentance; but He has learnt to pity, and, in +the end, He pardons. The more the nation's miseries are multiplied, +the more its tears flow on the soil of alien lands, the more His heart +is melted in Him and the tenderer become His words. "Can a woman +forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the +son of her womb? yea, she may forget, yet will not I forget thee" (Is. +xlix. 15). +</P> + +<P> +The idea beneath these words is the Christian idea. God loves His +people with a boundless love. His mercy extends infinitely beyond the +sins of the children of men. In the consciousness of the great unknown +prophet whom we call the second Isaiah, we see sketched, five centuries +beforehand, the drama of repentance and forgiveness, which Jesus, in +profounder and yet simpler words, sums up for all mankind in the +Parable of the Prodigal Son. +</P> + +<P> +The long period of affliction and of misery between the Captivity and +the Advent of the Christ is like a time of painful gestation, during +which, in the bosom of the Hebraic tradition, fecundated by the spirit +of the prophets, was prepared in obscurity the gospel of the Beatitudes +and of the Parables. What a revolution! The ancient theocratic law +promised to the righteous length of days and great abundance of +material goods. The friends of Job regarded him as criminal because +they saw him in adversity. The problem of human destiny appeared to +the later prophets as less simple and more tragic. "Why do the wicked +prosper?" is the question ever on their lips. "Why do the righteous +suffer?" This spectacle has become so constant that the correlation of +the words has been reversed. "Rich and wicked" in the Psalmists, and +in the second Isaiah, are equivalent terms. "Poor and afflicted" are +synonymous with "the righteous" and "the friends of God." Riches and +high looks are the signs of malediction; humility, poverty, +persecution, tears, are the marks of piety and the pledges of divine +affection. It was at this time that the words were born that edified +the early Christians: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the +humble." Gather together in a common hope this family of little ones, +of the defeated and unhappy ones whose hearts were crushed and whose +eyes were filled with tears, and you have the true people of God, the +heirs of all the promises, the "little flock" to whom it is the +Father's pleasure to give the kingdom. It was from their ranks that +was to come the "Man of Sorrows," who should be scourged and put to +death for the sins of His people. The religion of suffering is born. +For the suffering of "the Servant of Jehovah," in whom is no iniquity, +cannot be the chastisement of His own crimes; it will henceforth be +accepted as the necessary part that fraternal solidarity imposes on the +best for the redemption of the rest. A tender, fragile flower, a bud +as yet scarce opened in the writings of the prophets, this thought will +expand into the Gospel and become the religion of mankind. +</P> + +<P> +Pity joined to a severe ideal of righteousness in the notion of God; +morality introduced into religion by the subordination of rites to +rectitude of heart and will; hope of a future of peace and happiness by +the realisation of righteousness: these are the three great ideas +bequeathed by Prophetism to the Gospel. This heritage is a rich and +lovely one, but it must not be over-estimated or misunderstood. We are +still a long way off the Gospel. The thought of the prophets did not +go beyond the narrow limits of a national Messianism; it remained +Jewish, not only by its forms and symbols, but also by the religious +privilege which is to guard the people of Israel in the future as in +the past. The destiny of humanity is still bound up with the destiny +of Jerusalem, and the triumph of the Jews implies the partial or total +defeat and subjection of the Gentiles in the days of the Messiah and +after they are admitted into the kingdom of God. The saints of Israel +are the children of the household; the heathen may enter, and even +share in the felicity which fills them, but only as servants and +tributaries. +</P> + +<P> +It should also be noted that, in the theology of the prophets, the +object of Jehovah's love is not the individual as a moral being, but +the chosen people. Only the nation counts in the eyes of the Eternal. +In its deliverance and triumph the citizens find salvation.... There +is something great and thrilling in this Messianic doctrine. It +elevated the soul of a people and of a religion to the point of the +sublime. It is something to have given hope to a defeated people and a +dying world. In this doctrine also we may note this admirable trait: +this national triumph is identified with the advent of righteousness to +all the earth. Nor have the hopes of Israel been belied. The dream of +the prophets was realised in ways of which they did not think, but in a +manner not less marvellous. The descendants of Japhet lodge to-day +beneath the tents of the children of Shem, and our eyes may see the day +approaching when the ancient promise made to Abraham and his seed shall +be fulfilled, and all the families of the earth be blessed in Him. +</P> + +<P> +Between the religion of the prophets and the religion of Jesus, +however, there is one more barrier to be broken down. In the "Kingdom +of God," the idea of the nation must give place to the idea of +humanity. The universal God must be represented as the immanent God, +as present in every human soul. His seat and temple could not be in +Jerusalem or in Palestine; it could only be in pure and humble hearts. +A supreme crisis was necessary. The Hebrew nation must perish in order +to free the human conscience from its Jewish yoke. A divine flower had +been formed in the heart of Prophetism; but it would have been a barren +ornament, had there not been deposited in its calix a living and a +fruitful germ. The transformation of the piety of the prophets into a +purely moral creation and a Covenant really new with God, this was the +work of Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus is "He that should come," He +whom the prophets half unconsciously desired, He in whom, to the profit +of all mankind, was completed the religious development of Israel. Its +whole history ends in Jesus. Apart from Him the inspiration of the +prophets dies into rabbinical Talmudism or wanders into the vagaries +and delirium of the apocalypses. After giving birth to the Gospel, +Judaism dries up and withers like a tree that has borne its fruit and +whose season is past. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0202"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>The Problem</I> +</P> + +<P> +We come at last to Christianity. What is its principle or essence? +This question must be answered or we cannot judge of it aright. +</P> + +<P> +Now, during the eighteen centuries of its history, Christianity has +taken so many and such various forms, it has received so many +developments in every sense, it has become a thing so rich and +luxuriant, that it is far from easy to discover beneath this thick +growth of institutions, dogmas, ceremonies, and devotions the tap-root +of the tree from which it all has sprung, and from which it still +derives its nutriment. It would be next to useless to interrogate the +Churches. They would each answer according to their official +theologies and Confessions of Faith. This, they would say, is the +essence of Christianity. The Catholics would say it is the institution +and infallible authority of the Church, because everything rests on +this first foundation, and because no one can be in Christian truth who +is outside the Church. The Protestants would not be agreed: one would +propose the dogma of Justification by Faith; another the authority of +Scripture; a third the metaphysical divinity and the eternal +pre-existence of Jesus Christ, under the pretext that they could not +conceive the possibility of the subsistence of Christianity without +these dogmas. In entering on this examination we enter on an +interminable dispute. +</P> + +<P> +The problem, happily, is simplified for the historian and the +psychologist. In asking what is the principle of Christianity, what do +we wish to know? Simply what it is that makes a Christian a Christian. +We desire to ascertain what is the inward element, present in the soul, +which compensates, at need, for the absence or defect of all the rest, +and which, being wanting, cannot be supplied or compensated for by +anything else. In short, we want to get at the religious experience +which determines and marks out the consciousness of all Christians, +which makes them members of one moral family, and which makes them to +be recognised as such in spite of differences of times and place, of +language and of culture, of rites and even of beliefs. To seize this +common feature there is no need of polemics; all we need is a little +history and psychology. +</P> + +<P> +In history, Christianity offers itself to us as the term and crown of +the religious evolution of humanity. In the consciousness of the +Christian it is something more; it there reveals itself as the perfect +religion. How must we understand this perfection? Is it the +perfection of a complete system of supernatural knowledge, of a +religious science which would have been strange to former generations, +and which was shared by Christians alone? In no wise. If there are +enlightened Christians, there are many who are very ignorant. And yet +they are all Christians by one and the same principle, which is +entirely independent of degrees of culture. No Christian will maintain +that his knowledge is perfect. They all agree with St. Paul that at +present it is very imperfect. We see divine things dimly. What, then, +do they affirm who say with so much assurance that Christianity is the +perfect religion? They affirm that, religion not being an idea but a +relation to God, the perfect religion is the perfect realisation of +their relation to God and of God's relation to them. And this is not, +on their part, a theoretical speculation; it is the immediate and +practical result of their inward experience. They feel that their +religious need is entirely satisfied, that God has entered with them, +and they with Him, into a relation so intimate and so happy that, in +the matter of practical religion, not only can they imagine nothing, +but that they can desire nothing above it or beyond. They simply set +themselves to realise more fully and more effectually in themselves +this supreme relation, this piety whose principle is immanent to +themselves; they know that in it they have the germ of perfect +spiritual development and eternal life. This is why they affirm +without the slightest doubt that Christianity is the ideal and perfect +religion, the definitive religion of humanity. +</P> + +<P> +Such is the first affirmation of the Christian consciousness. Here is +the second. +</P> + +<P> +This perfect relation between God and my soul, this supreme religious +good, this kind of piety which constitutes my joy and strength, which +enlightens, renovates, sustains my whole inner life, does not date from +myself, and I well know that it is not my own virtue that has created +it. Nor can I refer the origin of it to my parents, although I may +perhaps have received it through them or through my teachers; nor to my +Church, although I still remain its catechumen; for parents, teachers, +churches, will acknowledge, with myself, that they have only +transmitted that which they themselves received. Remounting thus the +living chain of Christian experiences, I reach a first experience, a +creative and inaugural experience, which has made possible and +engendered all the rest. That experience was realised in the +consciousness of Jesus Christ. I affirm, then, not only that Christ +was the author of Christianity, but that the first germ of it was +formed in His inner life, and that in that life, first of all, that +divine revelation was made which, repeating and multiplying itself, has +enlightened and quickened all mankind. Christianity is therefore not +only the ideal, but an historical religion, inseparably connected not +only with the maxims of morality and with the doctrines of Jesus, but +with His person itself, and with the permanent action of the new spirit +which animated Him, and which lives from generation to generation in +His disciples. +</P> + +<P> +These are the two affirmations, equally immediate and equally +essential, of every Christian consciousness. Now, the whole +theological problem is how to reconcile the two. How can that which is +ideal and perfect be realised in history? How can that which is +historical be held to be ideal and eternal? Does it not seem as if +these attributes were contradictory and exclusive of each other, and +that Christianity could not become an ideal religion without severing +all its links with a particular history, or that if it would remain an +historical religion it must renounce all pretensions to absolute +perfection? On the other hand, these two attributes, are they not +equally necessary to it? How can it subsist if it obeys the formal and +summary logic which summons us to choose between them? Will it be +anything more than a speculative philosophy if cut off from its +historic tradition? Will it continue to inspire me with confidence, +will it place me in security, if it ceases to appear to me to be the +perfect and definitive religion? +</P> + +<P> +Theology, from the beginning, has had no other task; at all events, it +has had no task more arduous or pressing than that of reconciling these +two data. There have always been two tendencies amongst theologians +corresponding to two families of minds: the <I>Idealist</I> tendency—that +of Origen and his emulators, which puts the emphasis en ideas and +constructs a religious metaphysic or gnosis, which of necessity +rationalises dogma, and for which history is but a temporary envelope, +a sort of external and sensible illustration; and the <I>Realist</I> +tendency, represented by the genius of Tertullian, which, obeying an +opposite instinct, materialises ideas, gives an anthropomorphic body to +everything, even to God, deifies phenomena, and changes contingent +history into an eternal metaphysic. From these two tendencies, +perpetual and parallel, have issued the two solutions given by +Rationalism and by Orthodoxy to the problem as to the essence of +Christianity. +</P> + +<P> +The first finds that essence in a few simple truths of reason or of +consciousness, which are of all time and all lands, and which impose +themselves on every man by their own natural evidence. Jesus of +Nazareth was the preacher and the martyr of these truths; but it is +clear that His personality is no more essential to Christianity than +that of Plato is to his philosophy. Only, mind, in thus severing +itself from Christ the Christian Religion ceases to be positive and +becomes an abstract and dead doctrine; it loses its religious pith and +power. +</P> + +<P> +Orthodoxy, whether Catholic or Protestant, avoids this reef but strikes +upon another. In making of Christ the Second Person of the Eternal +Trinity, the Son of the Father, consubstantial and equal, it removes +Him from history and transports Him into metaphysics. But thus to +deify history is also in a fashion to destroy it. The dogma annuls the +limited, contingent, and human character of the appearance of Jesus of +Nazareth. His life loses all reality. We have no longer a man before +our eyes, although the Church, theoretically, maintains the humanity of +Christ alongside His divinity. This fatally absorbs everything. We +have only a deity walking in the midst of His contemporaries, hidden +beneath a human figure. The traditional Christology has been so +incurably Docetic that it has been practically impossible, from this +point of view, to write a serious Life of Jesus without falling into +the heresy at once modern and semi-pagan of <I>Kenosis</I>, the theory +according to which the pre-existent and eternal deity commits suicide +by incarnating Himself in order gradually to be re-born and find +Himself God again at the end of His human life. Can this strait be +crossed? Is there a passage between Scylla and Charybdis? Not so long +as you cling to the intellectualist conception which forms the error +common to both Rationalism and Orthodoxy, and ensures their final +failure. If the essence of Christianity lies in the revelation of +natural truths or supernatural dogmas, the problem is insoluble. All +Apologetics will inevitably dash themselves to pieces against the +insurmountable contradiction that they will soon encounter. Strauss's +argumentation, which the philosophers do not cease to repeat, and which +the theologians pretend not to hear, springs into one's mind. So far +from weakening it, the historical studies of the past half century have +only added sharpness to its edge. "The idea does not pour all its +riches into a single individual. The Absolute does not descend into +history. It is against all analogy that the fulness of perfection +should be met with at the outset of any evolution whatsoever; those who +place it at the origin of Christianity are victims of the same illusion +as the ancients, who placed the Golden Age at the beginning of human +history." +</P> + +<P> +Before going further it may be convenient to estimate the strength and +weakness of this famous dilemma, and to inquire how we may escape from +it. The traditional theology succumbs to it. But this only proves +that that theology needs reforming. Let us place ourselves at a +different point of view, and examine for a moment the idea of +perfection which serves as the premise to Strauss's reasoning. When he +speaks of the total or plenary perfection which cannot be found in the +first link of an historical chain, he doubtless means a quantitative +perfection—that is to say, a complete collection of virtues, merits, +and faculties the numerical addition of which makes the notion entire. +Now, from this point of view, Strauss's observation is incontestable. +Neither the perfection of science comprising all scientific +discoveries, nor the perfection of civilisation embracing all the +progress and all the forms of human life, are ever found or could be +found at the beginning or at any given moment in the course of history. +One individual, however great, could not exhaust the life or labour of +the species so as to render evolution useless. But have you noticed +that this idea of perfection is contradictory, and therefore +chimerical? Under the category of quantity or of extension there could +be no real perfection either for the individual or for the species. No +sooner is anything that can be counted or measured conceived than the +mind instantly conceives something greater. There is no such thing as +perfect number. Here therefore it is needful to make an essential +distinction. We must distinguish between the quantity and the quality, +or rather, the intensity, of being. Now, between the degrees of both +these things there is not the slightest relation, nor consequently any +common measure. And that which is true in the one becomes false in the +other. Take a cubic metre of stone, multiply it by a thousand or a +million, you will still have the same stone—that is to say, there is +not more true reality in a million cubic metres of stone than there is +in one. But let a bit of moss spring up in a fissure in that stone; in +that bit of living moss there is more being, or, if you will, being of +a higher quality than that of a whole mass of rocks. Still, do not +forget that it needed a germ to produce it, and that this germ was a +sort of positive perfection in relation to all inorganic matter, whose +last end is life. This is why we may boldly say that evolution is not +the cause of anything; that no development ever gives more than what is +hidden in the new germ which engenders it; that a hundred thousand +imbeciles do not make a man of genius, and that if man descended from a +monkey all the monkeys in creation put together do not make up one +human consciousness. From this synthetic point of view, it will no +longer seem contradictory, but natural, and in full accordance with the +analogies of history, that we should meet in the person of the Founder +of Christianity that perfect relation to God, that perfection of piety +which every Christian still experiences within himself, and which he +declares he has drawn from communion with Him. +</P> + +<P> +Lastly, let us fortify ourselves, and finish this brief statement of +this somewhat novel view with Pascal's pregnant words. There are, he +says, three orders of greatness. From all bodies put together you +could not extract one thought, if there were not first a mind to +conceive it. From all thoughts you could not draw a single movement of +charity, if there were not there a heart to produce and feel it So far +from needing to manifest themselves by the same attributes, these +various kinds of greatness are absolutely independent of each other and +even incommensurable. That which makes one shine forth would diminish +or obscure the others. Alexander came with a pomp which dazzled the +eyes and astonished the imaginations of mere carnal men. Archimedes +had no need of the pomp of Alexander in order to impress the minds of +men; his greatness, purely intellectual, was of an altogether different +order. And, so, the Christ did not come with the <I>éclat</I> of Alexander +or Archimedes. His greatness is of another order still. It is in fact +so different that neither the glory of the conqueror nor the potency of +genius would add anything to it, and that it had need, the better to +shine forth to all, to appear in lowliness and humiliation. Therefore +He was humble, patient, gentle, holy towards God, merciful towards man, +terrible to all the hosts of darkness. Without sin, without external +goods, without the productions of science, He was in His own order. +Oh, with what pomp, with what transcendent magnificence, did He appear +to the eyes of the heart that discerns true wisdom! +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Christian Principle</I> +</P> + +<P> +We must therefore come to the religious consciousness of Jesus Christ +as to the fountainhead from which the Christian stream has flowed. It +is certain that we shall find in it the principle and essence of +Christianity itself, for it would be too paradoxical to maintain that +the Master alone was excluded from the benefit of the religion that He +has bequeathed to all His disciples. No; we may affirm in all security +that the principle of Christianity was at first the very principle of +the consciousness of Christ. To determine the one will be to define +the other. +</P> + +<P> +What we call the religious consciousness of a man is the feeling of the +relation in which he stands, and wills to stand, to the universal +principle on which he knows himself to depend, and with the universe in +which he sees himself to be a part of one great whole. If then we +would know exactly what was the essential element in the consciousness +of Jesus, what was the distinctive characteristic of His piety, we must +ask in what relation did He feel Himself to stand towards God and +towards the universe. The answer will be neither difficult nor +uncertain. If there are matters on which the true thought of the +Master remains obscure, nothing shines out with more evidence and +continuity through all His teaching and His life than the religious +attitude of His soul towards God and man. +</P> + +<P> +He felt Himself to be in a filial relation towards God, and He felt +that God was in a paternal relation towards Him. The name of Father +that He gives to God continually, exclusively, uniquely; the name of +Son that He takes to Himself; the nature of His adoration; the form of +His prayer; the motive of His devoted obedience even unto death; the +way in which He works His cures, hails His first successes, accepts the +apparent failure of His work, and explains the incredulity of His +people,—all announce, manifest, and confirm that intimate relation, +that communion and union of spirit, by which a father prolongs his life +in the life of his child, and the child feels himself to live by the +life of his father. This was clearly the essential element in His +consciousness, the distinctive and original feature of His piety; it is +also the principle and essence of Christianity. +</P> + +<P> +That which we observe in the consciousness of Jesus we find in the +experience of all Christians. They are Christians exactly in +proportion as the filial piety of Jesus is reproduced in them. They +are recognised by this unique but sufficient sign, by the confidence +with which they call God their Father, abandoning themselves to His +love for all that regards their present or future destiny, and living a +life of self-renunciation and of devotion to the good of others. All +whose inner life has been raised from the region of selfishness and +pride to the higher realm of love and life in God,—who have found in +that profound conversion, together with the pardon and oblivion of +their past, the germ of a higher life,—of the perfect, and, by +consequence, eternal life, are the true religious posterity of Christ; +they reproduce His spirit, continue His work, and are as dependent upon +Him and as like Him religiously as are the descendants of an ancestor +whose blood and whose life have not ceased for an instant to flow in +their veins. +</P> + +<P> +This feeling, filial in regard to God, fraternal in regard to man, is +that which makes a Christian, and consequently it is the common trait +of all Christians. It should be added that this principle of +Christianity admirably corresponds to the two fundamental affirmations +of the Christian consciousness already established. The contradiction +that appeared to us so menacing is thus resolved and reconciled. On +the one hand, Christianity, by this filial union with God, is seen to +be the ideal and perfect religion; on the other, it appears as a real +fact in the consciousness of Jesus Christ, so that this religious +reality comes to us with the imperative character of the ideal. +Through prejudice men may neglect religion, but if they desire to have +one they can neither desire nor imagine a relation at once closer and +more moral, more sacred and more joyous, freer and more trustful, than +that which was inaugurated in the filial consciousness of Jesus Christ. +What can they have in the shape of life superior to the life of perfect +and reciprocal affection,—God giving Himself to man and realising in +him His paternity, man giving himself to God without fear, and +realising in Him his humanity? Is not religious evolution accomplished +when these two terms, God and man, opposed to each other at the origin +of conscious life on earth, interpenetrate each other till they reach +the moral unity of love, in which God becomes interior to man and lives +in him, in which man becomes interior to God and finds in God the full +expansion of his being? Christianity is therefore the absolute and +final religion of mankind. +</P> + +<P> +At the same time, this filial piety in the person of Jesus and His +followers is an observable phenomenon; so that the ideally perfect +religion has manifested itself from the beginning as an historical and +positive religion. It is not an abstract ideal, a theoretical +doctrine, floating above humanity, but a principle and a tradition of +new life, an inexhaustibly fruitful germ inserted in human life to +raise it, not in idea but in fact, to a higher form. That which the +first human consciousness was on earth, separating itself from its +maternal animality, and bringing with it the kingdom of man, the +initiative consciousness of Christ, issuing from the bosom of antique +humanity, has been, and it has founded on our humble planet the kingdom +of God, the kingdom, <I>i.e.</I>, of free, pure spirit, of righteousness and +love. We are no longer therefore in face of a rational doctrine or a +speculative view, but of a positive force, of a power of life with +which no one can break (I do not say in form and from without, but in +fact and in the inner man) without at the same time breaking with the +higher life of spirit as well as with all hope and joy, and health of +soul. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>The Gospel of Jesus</I> +</P> + +<P> +The Christian principle appears in its simple and naked form, in the +form of feeling and of inspiration, in the soul of Jesus. It is +described, explained, expanded, in His Gospel. The Gospel in fact is +merely the popular translation and the immediate application of the +principle of the piety of Jesus in the social <I>milieu</I> in which He +lived. Everything springs from His filial consciousness as a natural +and wonderful efflorescence: His messianic vocation, His twofold +ministry of preaching and healing, His deeds and His discourses, His +ethics and His doctrine, the absolute gift of Himself in life and +death. We must place ourselves at this luminous centre if we would see +the rest dart forth like rays. In it is found the inner, living unity +of His teaching and His destination. He promulgates no law or dogma; +He founds no official institution. His intention is quite different: +He wishes, before everything else, to awaken the moral life, to rouse +the soul from its inertia, to break its chains, to lighten its burden, +to make it active, free, and fruitful. He regards His work as finished +when He has communicated His life, His piety, to a few poor +consciousnesses that He found asleep and dead. Never man spake like +this man, because never had man less concern about what we call +"orthodoxy"—that is, about abstract and accurate formulas. He prefers +the language of the people to the language of the schools; He makes use +of images, parables, paradoxes, of current and traditional ideas, of +every form of expression which, taken literally, is the most inadequate +in the world, but which, on the other hand, is the most living and +stimulating. Each of His sentences or parables is enclosed in a hard +shell that has to be broken before you can get at the kernel. Jesus +wished to force His hearers to interpret His words, because He called +them to an inward, personal, autonomous activity, because He wished to +put an end to the religion of the letter and of rites, and to found the +religion of the spirit. Even now, he that does not give himself to +this labour of interpretation and assimilation in reading the +Gospel,—he who does not penetrate through the letter and the form to +the inspiration and the inmost consciousness of the Master,—cannot +understand or profit by His teaching. He who does not collaborate with +Him while listening to Him, who does not pierce through His words to +His soul, will come away empty. He only gives to those who have, or at +least desire to have. He only leads the seeker to the truth. He only +pardons those who repent, or comforts those who mourn, or fills the +hungerers and the thirsters after righteousness. +</P> + +<P> +Such is the character of His Gospel. We cannot here set forth its +contents; we can only note the religious attitude of Jesus with regard +to things and men, to Nature and Society. +</P> + +<P> +At peace with God, Jesus found Himself at peace with the universe. The +idea of Nature, that formidable screen erected between ourselves and +God, destroying hope and quenching prayer, did not exist for Him. +Nature—that was the Will of His Father. He submitted to it with +confidence and joy, whereas we submit to it with desperate resignation. +He did not feel Himself to be an orphan or an exile in the world; He +conducted Himself in it with ease and in security, not as a slave, but +as a son in the house which the Father filled with His presence. It is +the Father that directs all things; He makes His sun to shine upon the +evil and the good; He watches over the sparrows; He clothes the lilies +of the field; He gives life and food, the body and raiment; He notices +the work we have to do, the trials we must bear. He never leaves us to +ourselves. His spirit vivifies and fortifies our own. He is at the +origin of our life and at the end. We are ever in the Father's hands. +</P> + +<P> +The outlook of Jesus, it is true, is not our own. He shared the +outlook of His race and time.... But His filial piety did not depend +upon His knowledge of the universe. The amount of culture does not +count in this order of feelings. Irreligion was not less easy or less +frequent then than now, and if His outlook on the universe was +narrower, it must not be imagined that it was less full of scandalous +fatalities, of moral difficulties, of rude shocks to piety and faith. +The world of the apocalypses, which was the world in which Jesus had to +live and act, was not less full of mysteries and terrors than our own. +His filial piety alone gave Him the means and strength by which to +overcome them. The duty of man, He considered, was to change his heart +rather than to change the order of things, <I>i.e.</I> the will of God. +There is no trace of sorcery or magic or the appetite for miracles in +the prayer He taught to His disciples. At bottom it amounts to this: +"Our Father, let Thy will be done!" His heart-obedience was composed +half of childlike confidence, half of heroic renunciation. In face of +His trials He submitted without weakness and without complaint, and in +face of death He breathed the prayer of faith, the only one that still +remains to us: "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." +</P> + +<P> +In face of the universe and its laws the individual ego is necessarily +called on to submit and to renounce itself. The only matter of +importance is to know upon what altar we shall make this sacrifice. +Those who offer it on the altar of that blind divinity, "the nature of +things," remain still unconsoled. Those who, with Jesus, make it in +the arms of the Heavenly Father, accomplish it with strength and joy. +From the awakening of consciousness to its highest point of +development, man carries within him this radical contradiction: he +feels that there is a mortal conflict between the idea that he +gradually forms of the world and the idea he forms of himself. The ego +wishes to conquer and does actually conquer the world; it even goes +beyond it by thought; but the world has its revenge; it dominates the +ego, it crushes it beneath the weight of its invincible laws, and it +swallows it up,—itself, its efforts, its works, its thought,—like an +ephemeral nonentity. Jesus felt this opposition; He suffered from this +conflict. He resolved the antithesis by a third term, in which was +realised the other two: the notion of the Father, whose beneficent will +is equally sovereign in man and in the universe. And it is this happy +solution of the enigma of life that still renders the religion of Jesus +the religion of hope. +</P> + +<P> +Amongst men, in the midst of society, Jesus felt other relations and +new obligations formed in His heart. His filial piety became a +fraternal piety. The first commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy +God with all thine heart," necessarily gave birth to the second: "And +thy neighbour as thyself." The Father who lives in me lives equally in +my neighbour; He loves him as much as He loves me. I ought therefore +to love Him in my neighbour as well as in myself. This paternal +presence of God in all human souls creates in them not only a link but +a substantial and moral unity which makes them members of one body, +whatever may be the external and contingent differences which separate +them. From the Fatherhood in heaven flows the brotherhood on earth. +From a relation of righteousness and love towards God springs a similar +relation between men. +</P> + +<P> +In thus defining the religious connection of Jesus with His brethren I +am afraid of weakening it. For Him it was not a matter of theory; for +He never constructed any theory or formulated any doctrine of human +fraternity; it was with Him a passionate sentiment, a deep-felt +solidarity and kinship, a true family life, in which this Elder +Brother's heart reverberated on the one hand with the love and pity of +the Father, and, on the other, with the miseries and distresses of His +brethren. In His parables Jesus does not say "The Father" simply; He +habitually says "the father of the family," "the head of the house." +It is because the father does not exist without his children, and +because humanity, on earth at least, is the family, by means of which +the paternity of God is realised. +</P> + +<P> +But in the society of men Jesus encountered sin with all its effects in +the shape of moral deformity and physical suffering. From the contact +of His filial piety with this enormous human misery sprang a twofold +appeal: the voice of His Father in His soul, the plaint of His brethren +all around; and to this double cry the answer was—His ministry of +relief, of consolation, and salvation: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon +Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He +hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of +sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to +proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke iv. 18, 19, R.V.). +</P> + +<P> +It all flows from the same source. It was not only individuals who +needed to be healed and saved. The family of God was not less broken +down, oppressed, disorganised, by all the powers of evil, a prey to +hatred, selfish ambition, intestine wars. Would it not be necessary +here also to effect a work of restoration, to reconstruct this family +so highly-favoured of the Father for the salvation of the world, to +inaugurate the kingdom of God announced by so many of the prophets, and +expected so impatiently by all pious souls and all the victims of +unrighteousness? This was His messianic vocation. But how would this +victory of the Messiah be realised? Would it be the work of Divine +power, flashing forth and executing its pitiless reprisals? Since the +paternal heart of God had been opened and poured into His own, Jesus +had perceived another law and another force, the law and force of love, +which triumphs by self-sacrifice. Soon there arose in His +consciousness a new image of the Messiah, that of the Servant of +Jehovah, bearing the sins and miseries of His people, bruised, +humiliated, dying to procure them life and healing. It was the gospel +of the Cross. The further He advanced in this emptying of self, and in +this work of love and pain, the larger and more luminous became the +revelation of the Father in His soul. When at last He had the clear +and perfect consciousness that He had no longer any will to do but the +will of God, no other plan to follow than His mysterious designs, no +other cause to serve and to defend but His, He did not doubt the final +victory; His faith shone forth triumphantly, appropriating to itself, +to express itself in perfect freedom, the boldest promises of the +Ancient Testament and of the contemporary apocalyptic seers. By His +union with the Father, the heir of the past felt Himself master of the +future. On the throne of immolated love He has founded a kingdom that +will never end. Such is the inner secret of His hope, such the moral +and religious meaning of His prophecies of speedy victory, and of His +return upon the clouds of heaven. +</P> + +<P> +Jesus was fond of saying that a wise man knew how to bring forth from +the treasury of his heart things new and old. It was in this way that +He accomplished the most radical of religious revolutions while seeming +only to fulfil the law and the prophets. What was there then that was +so new and potent in the least of His discourses? The treasure of His +filial consciousness. The inner inspiration springing up in them +incessantly gives to every detail of His teaching, the oldest words, +the most familiar metaphors, a meaning altogether new, a reach and +bearing infinite. His speech confines itself to the antithesis that +had become traditional with all the prophets, of man's weakness and +God's strength, of sin and pardon, of repentance and confidence, of +sickness and healing, of humility and exaltation. But He had a way of +looking at them, and even of making them spring out of each other, that +entirely renovated them. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs +is the kingdom of heaven! Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall +be comforted! Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after +righteousness, for they shall be filled!" To press thus and to +stimulate the sense of need, of misery and sin, so far that it changes +into its opposite; to draw riches out of poverty, comfort out of +sorrow, victorious strength from weakness; to find in sorrow for sin +the germ of saintly life and in hunger and thirst the very source of +satisfaction; to make every human soul thus pass through this inward +drama of repentance and conversion in which it is regenerated and +renewed,—such is the unique but admirable and all potent mystery of +the Gospel. +</P> + +<P> +Christ did not construct a theory of man, of his moral life, any more +than He constructed a theory with respect to God and the universe. He +was content to place Himself at the centre of the human consciousness, +and to dig down to the source of life. He takes man as he is in all +climates and in all conditions. He does not declare him to be +radically impotent for good, but neither does He flatter him by veiling +his natural misery. He knows him to be ardent and feeble, full of +needs and of illusions, capable of conversion, subject to all passions, +the victim of all slaveries. He treats him as diseased, which is the +truth, and He does not think He can make him find the principle of a +serious cure, save in the very sense of his malady. So far from +blunting the edge of the moral law, He sharpens it as one sharpens a +dissecting knife in order the better to pierce the living flesh and +penetrate to the very joints and marrow; He infinitely enhances the +demands of the traditional ideal; from the outward act He descends to +the inward feeling; He makes lust equal to adultery, and anger or +hatred to murder itself. He tells His disciples to love their enemies, +to pray for those who persecute them, to answer violence by gentleness, +and injuries by love. He speaks thus not to weaken the vigour of +righteousness, but because He sees in love and gentleness a higher +righteousness and the sole means of securing the final triumph of good +over evil. That is why the righteousness of His friends exceeds the +righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. It is no longer dictated +by an outward letter, but it has, for soul, the very spirit of the +Father, and, for inward rule, the ideal the Master has lit up in the +conscience: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." +</P> + +<P> +This morality would easily become ascetic and appear impossible if it +were not blended with an opposite element which renders it human and +fruitful without either lowering or destroying it. That element is +mercy and forgiveness; it is pure, unconditional grace which in misery +makes room for hope, and in repentance opens the door to faith and to +the work of faith. These two elements, inexorable law and +unconditional grace, are so intimately blended in the Gospel of Christ +that the Gospel only subsists in its originality and with its power by +their perfect fusion and reciprocal and constant action. Without the +inflexible rigours of the moral ideal, repentance would not be +possible—at least it would never be profound enough to produce the +renovation of the heart; but, without faith in the divine mercy, +repentance itself, changing into despair, would be barren and +ineffectual. These two elements of the Christian life are as fruitful +by their union as they are impotent and liable to degeneration when +isolated or opposed. What does Christian law become without the +sentiment of love, without the impulse of mercy, but a sort of moral +Stoicism, rigid and severe? And what would be the doctrine of grace +apart from the sacred obligation of the law but the theory of a +mischievous indulgence or a Pagan mysticism? To decompose the Gospel +salt is to destroy its savour. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +4. <I>A Necessary Distinction</I> +</P> + +<P> +At the close of this long meditation, one thing seems to me very clear, +the necessity, or rather the obligation under which I stand henceforth +of distinguishing between the purely moral essence of Christianity and +all its historical expressions or realisations, even the highest and +most faithful of them. If religion is an inward life, a real and felt +relation between God and man, and if Christianity is that life carried +to a higher degree, it is certain that religion in general, and +Christianity in particular, must have the two characteristics of all +living things. Life is a force, ideal in its essence, real in its +manifestations. It can only manifest itself in the organisms that it +creates and animates. But, while incarnating itself in its works, it +does not exhaust itself or remain imprisoned in any of them. Jesus was +well aware of this when He compared His gospel to the leaven which +raises the dough and to the seed which germinates in the soil into +which it falls. +</P> + +<P> +This necessary distinction will neither be made nor admitted by +everybody. Many who concede it in theory deny it in practice. +Protestants smile at the Catholics, who identify Christianity with the +Church. But while admitting and making the distinction, when it comes +to particular churches and particular systems of dogmas, they resist +and protest in their turn, if it becomes necessary to apply it to the +Bible, and to distinguish between the Word and its human and historical +expression. +</P> + +<P> +Should we go further still? May we, ought we in all fidelity to apply +the distinction to the Gospel of Christ itself and to the primitive +form in which it has come down to us? Most of those who have +accompanied us thus far will now recoil and leave us. They will employ +against us the very same arguments which appear to them so pitiful when +used with respect to the Church and to the Bible. For my part, I +cannot comprehend this fear of the freedom left to criticism. It seems +to me impossible to deny that in the teaching of Jesus there are parts +which are uncertain, things which have been either badly understood or +badly reported, an oriental and contingent form which needs to be +translated into our modern languages. Who does not see that neither in +His language nor in His thought is there anything absolute? Both of +them are constantly determined by the generally received ideas of His +time, the state of mind of His interlocutors; and unless you desire to +deny that Jesus was a man of His age and of His race, how can you +abstract Him from His environment and attribute to Him ideas which have +neither date nor place? I have already compared Christianity to an oak +which has lived and grown for eighteen centuries, and the Gospel to the +acorn from which it sprang. But in that acorn itself, as in the tree, +it is manifest that there are two things: a principle of life, and some +matter borrowed from the Hebraic soil, with which the creating +principle was obliged to amalgamate itself in order to enter into +history and to become fruitful. The characteristic of life is to +render possible and to institute the constant exchange of the materials +with which it builds up its works. When this exchange has ceased, life +has disappeared. If the Gospel of Jesus were something fixed and +finished like a code of laws or a collection of formulas, it would no +longer be a power of life. His words defy the centuries and never +wither; they are truly eternal, because they leave free and do not +imprison in a rigid and immutable letter the spirit of life which +animates them. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived at this point of view, I see the relations between Christianity +and historical criticism change completely, and find myself once more +in the greatest religious security. Criticism will always be a just +cause of alarm to those who elevate any historical and contingent form +whatever into the absolute, for the excellent reason that an historical +phenomenon, being always conditioned, can never have the +characteristics of the absolute. But criticism can do nothing against +the Christian principle, which, brought back to the consciousness, +always disengages itself from the relative and fleeting expressions in +which it has clothed itself by the way. Criticism makes it to appear +again in its ideal purity and eternal worth. Far from being injurious, +it becomes necessary to it. It is not doubtful that the teaching and +the work of Christ, having been preserved in the simple oral tradition +for half a century, have not been transmitted to us without some +corruptions and some legendary elements. What then does historical +criticism, with all its rigour, do? Nothing but purify this uncertain +tradition, remove the veils, set forth more certainly the authentic +soul of Christ, and, consequently, place the Christian principle in its +surest, clearest light. +</P> + +<P> +What has been said of the Master's teaching is still more true of that +of His disciples. The Christian plants have all sprung from the same +seed; but they vary according to the soil in which they grow. They are +all of the same species, but in that species there are innumerable +varieties. How could the external result possibly have been the same +whether the divine seed fell into the heart of a simple fisherman of +Galilee, or a rabbi of genius, or a thinker brought up in the school of +Alexandria? Could you possibly have the same Church, the same +theology, the same ritual in Arabia and in Greece, among a savage race +and in the university circles of Germany, at Rome or in England, in the +Middle Ages in a feudal society, and in our democracies in a time of +emancipated reason and free government? +</P> + +<P> +And here it will be convenient to pause and reflect a moment on that +wonderful variety in the historical forms of Christianity, none of +which are perfect and none contemptible. A superficial examination may +draw from this spectacle a lesson of indifference; a more conscientious +and attentive study finds in it an opposite lesson, the lesson of an +ever-pressing obligation on both individuals and churches never to +repose in a deceitful satisfaction, but to progress unceasingly; for +Christianity is nothing if it is not in us at once an ideal which is +never reached and an inner force which ever urges us beyond ourselves. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +5. <I>The Corruptions of the Christian Principle</I> +</P> + +<P> +The differences which separate the historical forms of Christianity +are, like those of religion in general, of two kinds: there are +differences of kind and differences of degree. The differences of kind +are those which arise from diversity of races, languages, +civilisations, temperaments, genius. The differences of degree are +those connected with the very intensity and purity of the Christian +faith and life. Churches and peoples are diversified at once by their +constitution and by their degree of culture and of moral life. It goes +without saying that these two classes of differences are not +juxtaposed; they are mixed incessantly and complicated endlessly. It +remains none the less true that they provoke and legitimate two sorts +of judgment. The first are accepted with tolerance and sympathy, since +it would not be reasonable to blame a man for the colour of his skin. +But the second may and should be discussed and analysed, for they imply +intellectual errors or moral defects, the corruption or the weakness of +the Christian principle, and they can only be corrected and remedied by +discussion and criticism. +</P> + +<P> +The Christian seed is never sown in a neutral and empty soil. No soul, +no social state, is a <I>tabula rasa</I>. The place is always occupied by +anterior traditions of ideas, rites, or customs, by institutions in +possession. Christianity cannot therefore root itself anywhere without +entering into conflict with the regnant powers, without giving battle +to prejudices, manners, and superstitions which naturally resist, and +which, when conquered, spring up again in other forms in the victorious +religion. Take the Ebionite Christianity of the first centuries: what +is it but a mixture, a compromise between Jewish and Christian +elements? What shall we say of the Catholic Church after Constantine? +Is it not true that, in the religious transformation at that time +effected, there was a double and mutual conversion, and that it is hard +to say whether the pagan world was more modified by Christianity or +Christianity more deeply penetrated and invaded by the manners and the +religion that it was supposed to replace? +</P> + +<P> +In this order the most striking victories are never complete. Even +after the most radical conversion, the old man survives, at least by +its roots, in the new man. The Pharisee long survived in St. Paul +after he became an Apostle of Christ. The same in human societies: +political or moral revolutions never abolish the past. After those +great battles in which passions and interests have often as much weight +as noble ideas and generous sentiments, there is always established a +sort of equilibrium by mutual concessions and spontaneous alliances +between the vanquished and the victorious tendencies. Hence come what +we have named the corruptions of the Christian principle in the course +of historical Christianity, for which alone should be reserved the name +of heresies. +</P> + +<P> +It must not be imagined, however, that these corruptions or heresies, +against which it is the duty of Christian criticism ceaselessly to +protest, are arbitrary things, or that their number is unlimited. On +the contrary, they fall, and must necessarily fall, into two +categories. The cause of the corruptions of the Christian principle in +social life can only be found in the previous tradition, in one of the +moral and religious tendencies that Christianity aspires to conquer and +replace. Now, these tendencies may be reduced to two: the tendencies +of the religions of Nature, or Pagan; and the tendency of the legal, or +Jewish, religion. Closely examine all that has disfigured or that +still disfigures historical Christianity, and you will see that each of +these corruptions is connected, by its character, with a Jewish or a +Pagan root. The Gospel as the religion of free spirit and pure +morality has never had, and could never have had, any other enemies +than Judaism or Paganism, ever ready to spring up in its bosom and +transform it either into the religion of Nature or into the religion of +the Law. +</P> + +<P> +Christianity, for example, in its pure essence, implies the +absoluteness of God—that is to say, His perfect spirituality and His +perfect independence. Hence, worship in spirit and in truth, the only +worship that can be universal, the only one that corresponds to the +Christian idea of God. Therefore every tendency, even in Christianity +itself, to shut up God in a phenomenal form, to bind Him to something +material, local, or temporary, to blend the Creator with the creature, +or to fill up the gap between them by a hierarchy of divine beings +which, under pretext of serving us as intermediaries, interrupt our +free and immediate communion with the Father, is, properly speaking, a +resurrection of Paganism, and a return to idolatry. Paganism and +idolatry, of which we pretend to have so much horror, are simply the +localisation and materialisation, more or less conscious, of the divine +spirit and of divine grace, whatever may be the visible organ to which +you bind them, or on which you make their action to depend,—Pope of +Rome or Pythoness of Delphi, images of gods or images of virgin and of +saints, sacramental liturgies, the deification of a church, a +priesthood, or a book. +</P> + +<P> +Take another example: Christianity is not only the liberty of God; it +is also His holiness; it is pure morality placed above all the +instincts of nature; it is, finally, the unity of morality and +religion. Hence, all that tends to break this unity, every blow at the +divine law, every attempt to cultivate religious emotion apart from +conscience, all magic and mystagogy, æsthetic piety, religious +romanticism, Christianity à la Chateaubriand, sensuous +mysticism,—these essays, so numerous in our day, at philosophic or at +literary gnosis, these new religions without repentance or conversion, +all these cults without any element of moral sanctification—these are +so many corruptions of the Christian principle, and consequences more +or less immediate of the Paganism always latent in the human heart. +</P> + +<P> +By the side of this Pagan is the Judaising heresy. Christianity is not +only moral law and intransigeant holiness; it is also unconditional +love, grace, mercy, the inward action of the Spirit of God in the +spirit of man in order to produce in it that which He desires to find, +and to realise that which His law commands; it is everything that +scandalised Pharisaism in the teaching and conduct of Jesus in regard +to the sinful and the lost: pardon without reproach, rehabilitation and +salvation through repentance and affection, the sincere impulse of the +heart that has been raised above external works; the very opposite of +legal compacts, meritorious and atoning virtue, formalist religion and +ritual piety. All that tends to separate the Father from the child; +that places the liberty and virtue of man outside and apart from God as +having some merit in His sight; all Pelagianism, every theory of +salvation by works, every condition laid down to divine grace except +faith to receive it: adhesion to a doctrinal formula, sacramental +usages, priestly absolution, outward mortification, asceticism whether +monkish or puritanical, which divides morality and, in the name of a +fantastic sanctity, introduces dualism into the work of God,—all this +should be called by its right name; it should be taken for what it +really is—a relapse into the legal and formalist spirit of Jewish +Pharisaism. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, I see on what condition Christianity may remain faithful to +itself while realising itself in history. It is only by an incessant +struggle of the Christian principle against all the elements of the +past which find, alas, in human propensities, and in the inertia of the +multitude, a complicity so constant and effectual. So far from +religious indifference being permissible, critical action and Christian +prayer become, in every church and every life, permanent duties. I now +understand the paradox of Christ: "I am not come to send peace on the +earth, but a sword." For the Christian principle, in fact, war is +life. To cease to fight is to succumb; it is to allow yourself to be +submerged by the rising tide of human superstitions; it is to die. Who +does not see the danger of allowing Christianity to become absorbed in +one church form, Christian truth in one formula, the Christian +principle in one of its particular realisations? All these contingent +expressions, being imperfect, must be reformed sooner or later. How +can they be unless the spirit of Christianity disengages itself without +ceasing and floats above them as an ideal? For eighteen centuries a +river of life has flowed through human history. Break down the +barriers which fanaticism and superstition are always setting up +athwart its course. If the waters cease to flow they stagnate, and +corrupt and poison the very land it was their mission to fertilise. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0203"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>The Evolution of the Christian Principle</I> +</P> + +<P> +The distinction between the Christian principle and its successive +realisations renders it easy to resolve the question, formerly so much +debated, as to the perfectibility of Christianity. It is perfect +piety, plenary union with God, consequently the absolute and definitive +Religion. But, regarded in its historical evolution, not only is it +perfectible, but it must ceaselessly progress, since, for it, to +progress is to realise itself. The germ could not be perfected in its +essence, as germ and ideal type of the tree that it potentially +contains. But the tree itself only comes into existence by the +development of the germ. No reform, no progress, no perfecting, could +raise Christianity above itself—that is to say, above its principle; +for these reforms and this progress only bring it into closer +conformity with that principle—that is, make it more Christian. On +the other hand, the principle itself must enter into evolution in +history in order to manifest its originality and its force, to realise +in individual and social life, in the realm of thought and in the realm +of action, in a word in the whole of civilisation, all its virtualities +and all its consequences. Jesus saw this when He spoke the Parable of +the Mustard Seed (Matt. xiii. 31-32). +</P> + +<P> +This distinction has another advantage. It alone permits the Christian +thinker to be equitable in his judgments in regard to all religious +forms, to place himself at a truly historical point of view, and to +reconcile, without weakness and without violence, what is due to truth +and what to charity. Every sincere endeavour to express or to realise +Christianity in a system or in a church becomes respectable so soon as +you know how to discover in it, under formulas however strange and +practices however gross, some effects of the Christian principle or +some signs of its presence. If disdain and contempt are not +permissible with regard to any type of Christianity however different +from our own, neither is illusion to be tolerated with regard to our +own church or to our personal piety. Perfection is nowhere to be +found. Each community may repeat, and the larger, older, and more +numerous it becomes the more will it need to repeat, the words of the +Apostle Paul: "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended," etc. +(Phil. iii. 13, 14). The habit we have got into of putting all the +truth on our side and all error on the side of others, of thus opposing +light and darkness, not only falsifies the judgment; it sours the heart +and poisons piety, it dries up the feeling of fraternity, and is the +perpetual sign of individual or collective vanity. Let each examine +himself, let him judge his church without complacence in the light and +spirit of Christ; he will soon attain to more humility and truth. He +will never identify any particular church or its dogma with +Christianity itself. However pure its teaching, however generous its +deeds, he will reckon that this is, after all, but a commencement of +Christianity, a mere nothing compared with what the Christian principle +should have accomplished in the world in eighteen centuries. +</P> + +<P> +Such is the feeling with which we should approach the history of +Christianity. The field is vast; the vegetation in it is infinite; we +must content ourselves with incompleteness. Being neither able nor +desirous to say everything, I have been obliged to seek a commanding +point of view from which it would be possible to take in that history +in its entirety, and to take a bird's-eye view of the course it has +followed. Faithful to this idea, namely, that the Christian principle +is like leaven or a seed thrown into a gross, heavy mass of anterior +traditions which it was meant gradually to raise and to transform, it +is this struggle and this progress that I desire especially to +describe. I shall endeavour to show how Christianity, always borrowing +its forms from the environment in which it realises itself, after +enduring them for a time, subsequently frees itself from and triumphs +over the inferior and temporary elements which fetter it, and manifests +from age to age a greater independence and a purer and higher +spirituality. This progress is slow, obscure, oft interrupted, +hindered by reactions or by moments of arrest; none the less striking, +however, does it appear when, rising above these secondary +complications, one measures the distance between the points of +departure and arrival. Not only has Christianity never been better +understood than in our own day, but never were civilisation or the soul +of humanity taken in their entirety more fundamentally Christian. When +one follows the history of Christianity from this higher point of view, +one sees that it has passed through three very distinct phases and +assumed three essentially different forms: the Jewish or Messianic, the +Graeco-Roman or Catholic, the Protestant or modern, form. Let us see +how it has passed from the one to the other. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>Jewish, or Messianic Christianity</I> +</P> + +<P> +The first of these periods is usually omitted or suppressed. Being +unable to admit that Catholicism is not the work of Christ and the +apostles, or that the Church has varied its dogma or its institutions, +Catholic theologians naïvely imagine that the first Christian +communities of Jerusalem and Antioch resembled those of Rome, Milan, +and Lyons in the fourth century; that Peter was the first of the popes +and exercised for five-and-twenty years the supreme pontificate; that +the apostles appointed bishops everywhere as their successors and the +heirs of their power. In this way the history of Christianity became, +in the Catholic tradition, a tissue of legends. +</P> + +<P> +The theologians of Protestantism arrived by another road at an +analagous conclusion. Under the influence of the dogma of the verbal +inspiration of the New Testament, they were led to make of apostolic +Christianity an ideal and abstract type which all the ages ought to +force themselves to imitate and reproduce. And, as they profess to +have returned to this type both in regard to ideas and to institutions +and morals, they have made of this apostolic period the first chapter +of the history of Protestantism, just as the Catholics have made of it +the first chapter of the history of Catholicism. In both cases, it +loses all distinct physiognomy and all reality. +</P> + +<P> +By dissipating these prejudices, historical criticism has completely +resuscitated that first form of Christianity. It is no longer possible +to confound it with any other. It had its contrasts, its passions, its +storms. Neither Jesus nor the apostles lived in the ideal or in +paradisiacal peace. They quarrelled and were divided in the Church of +Jerusalem as in our own. The subjects of the quarrels were different, +but they did not consider them less grave than those which vex and +trouble us. Peter, James, and Paul were not less divided in the first +century over the question of circumcision and of the relations between +Jews and Gentiles, than were Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin in the +sixteenth over the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. From both camps, +then as now, they sent forth pamphlets and anathemas. There were two +opposite parties. There were the stubborn holders of tradition and its +authority, and there were the innovators, or the partisans, sometimes +as rash as they, of liberty of faith and individual inspiration; and +between the two there were the men of conciliation and the golden mean +who were preoccupied especially in preventing schisms and arranging +truces and treaties of peace, to be followed in their turn by new +crises and fresh storms. +</P> + +<P> +In this first form of Christianity, as in all that have followed it, +there was a certain dualism, a mixture of heterogeneous and soon +hostile elements. The struggle was bound to arise between the +Christian principle and Jewish tradition. The new seed sown in that +ancient soil could not germinate without rising in it and in places +breaking up the thick hard crust. In the books of the New Testament +that have preserved to us the picture of that first and powerful +germination, side by side with the principle to which belongs the +future we necessarily find old things which are on the way to death. +It will be seen what an error they commit and what a wrong they do +themselves who, misconceiving this historical complexity, sanctify and +deify both these opposite elements, and place on the same level the +eternally fruitful grain, and the chaff to-day dried up and utterly +inert, a mere remnant of the Jewish stalk that bore it. +</P> + +<P> +Conceived in this religious matrix of Judaism, the Christian principle, +if I may so speak, could only take in it a body essentially Jewish in +structure, substance, colour. I only speak, of course, of the body of +this primitive Christianity, not of its soul, which, as I have shown, +was altogether new. Now, its body was Jewish on two sides and in two +aspects: by the persistence of the authority of the Law of Moses, and +the practical observance of its precepts, from which the disciples of +Jesus did not dream of detaching themselves; and, secondly, by the +apocalyptic Messianism which dominated Jewish thought from the time of +the Maccabees, and with which the first Christians were perhaps more +imbued and more possessed than all the rest of their people. +</P> + +<P> +Faith in the evangel of Jesus, full and joyful communion with the +Father, habits of Jewish devotion, Messianic hopes,—all this formed, +in the consciousness of the first disciples, a mixture of various +elements and of things of very unequal value. These elements, in +gradually revealing their disparate nature, could not fail to enter +into contradiction and to engender conflicts in the very heart of +apostolic Christianity. It was these contradictions and conflicts +which set Christian thought in movement, and produced the life and +progress of that early age, so that one may always rightly consider it +as a creative and classic epoch, and hold it up as a normal example to +the churches of all time; on condition, however, that it be not +considered as an immutable mass of eternal verities, but taken in its +natural movement, in its constant effort of progressive enfranchisement +with regard to the past, in its heroic ascent towards religious forms +and ideas, freer, more human, more conformed to the universal +character, to the spirituality, and to the pure morality of the +religion of Jesus. +</P> + +<P> +"What, then," it will be said, "did not the Christ set His disciples +free at the outset from all the errors and superstitions of the past? +Did He not at once give them perfect dogmas, a completed form of +worship, an immutable and completed system of ethics?" No; Jesus did +nothing of the kind. So far from formally and systematically +criticising the traditional religion of His people, so far from making +<I>ex cathedra</I> that selection which the vulgar looked for, Jesus +expressly refused it, as a method essentially false and irreligious. +He did not wish to abolish anything by mere authority; He preferred +rather to confirm the tradition in its totality, of which He was the +heir and not the executioner. "Think not that I am come to destroy the +Law or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt. v. +17). +</P> + +<P> +His method was quite different. It was the method of the sower to whom +He loved to compare Himself. In the furrow made by His word in the +ancient soil of Judaism, He quietly and gently deposited new germs. In +the traditional and theocratic notions of His race He placed contents +altogether different drawn from His own religious experience, and from +the sense of His filial relation to the Father. He then left time to +do its work, to develop one after another the consequences of the +principles He had planted in human souls. He sowed, and He and others +reap from age to age the harvest He has sown. +</P> + +<P> +Consider His attitude towards the Law of Moses. Not a jot or tittle of +it is to fail or be neglected. He strengthens it rather than relaxes +its claims; He deepens it, carries it inward, makes it infinitely more +spiritual and searching. He gathers it up into two great commandments, +and constrains the Law itself, if I may so speak, to surpass itself and +transform itself into pure evangelical morality. That is what He meant +by declaring that His work would be the fulfilment of the Law. Nothing +was less violent; but nothing, at bottom, was more revolutionary.... +It is easy now to see the consequences of this method; history has +revealed them. But those who heard the words of Jesus could not +perceive these consequences. They had no idea probably that the day +would come when to be faithful to the Master they would be obliged to +break with Moses. They did not suddenly break with Judaism. Indeed, +they had found in their new faith new motives for fervour and +exactitude in their Mosaic piety. The first Christians in Jerusalem +were honoured of all the people because of their assiduity in the +Temple worship and for their exemplary devotion. They are therefore +not enfranchised yet; they will have to free themselves from Judaism in +the school of events into which they will be led by the Spirit of Jesus +that is with them and dwells in them. The Christian principle will +have to reconquer its independence of the Judaism which dominates and +hems them in on every side. This will be the work of more than a +century of conflict and controversy. All Christians will not enter +into the movement with the same decision; they will not march abreast +on the path of liberty. Many will be stupid and turn back. Progress +would not have been made if the Divine Spirit that had raised up Jesus +had not raised up valiant men like Stephen, Saul of Tarsus, Barnabas, +the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that of the Fourth +Gospel, to carry on the struggle against the bondage of Judaism and +carry it to complete victory. When you pass from the one to the other, +from the discourse of Stephen to the Epistle to the Galatians, from the +Epistle to the Romans to the Johannean theology, you clearly see the +march of progress. At the end of the first century Christianity is so +independent of national and traditional Judaism that the one treats the +other, without any further scruple, as an alien and hostile religion. +</P> + +<P> +More adhesive still to the Christian principle, less easy to strip off, +was the second Jewish wrappage, apocalyptic Messianism. Jesus had so +thoroughly consecrated it by calling Himself the Messiah and by +inaugurating the kingdom of God, that His Gospel might be named a +"Christian Messianism." In His discourses He seems to have confirmed +it still more expressly than the Law of Moses. No doubt He proceeded +in both cases alike. In all the theocratic notions which constituted +this popular Messianism, He lodged a new content, a religious and moral +element which must, in the long run, make them burst their trammels and +elevate Messianism above itself. But He did not bring to it any +negative and abstract criticism, any more than He did to the divers +parts of the Mosaic tradition; He never said either that it must be +abandoned or that it must be retained; He deposited in it the new +principle; but He left in it many obscurities, abandoning to time and +to the force of things the care of drawing forth the consequences and +clearing up confusions. +</P> + +<P> +For His own part He wished simply to maintain intact beneath these +apocalyptic forms the principle and the inspiration of His inward +piety. It was in accordance with these that He interpreted the popular +beliefs, adapting them with a perfect sovereignty to the moral aim and +nature of His work. As with the Mosaic Law, so with Messianism; He is +its Master, not its slave. He uses it, but does not abandon Himself to +it. These hopes never trouble the clearness of His religious vision; +they do not take away His self-possession, or alter the direction, +always exclusively moral, of His acts. He accepts the title of +Messiah, but only after substituting the idea of the suffering and +humiliated for the national and triumphant Messiah. If He preaches the +kingdom of God, He takes care to explain the conditions and the true +goods of the kingdom—humility, repentance, childlike confidence, +righteousness, disinterested love, the joy of serving God and man. He +leaves to men of the flesh the pomp and splendour which dazzle the eyes +of the flesh. He admires the grandeur of John the Baptist more than +that of Herod. The kingdom of God will not come with ostentation. It +will begin like an unseen seed that a man puts into the ground. +</P> + +<P> +At the outset of His work Jesus encountered a mysterious temptation. +This was the conflict of His consciousness with the seductions of the +popular Messianism. He triumphed over it with difficulty; but +thenceforth He was always on His guard in that direction. Is it not +remarkable that this very temptation returned to Him through the mouth +of Peter? Jesus treats as Satan the first of His apostles, and refers +to the devil in person and the prince of darkness suggestions of this +nature which tend to make Him deviate from the road marked out by the +inspiration of His heart. He avoids the title Messiah until the day +when He is able to join with it the image of the Cross. He disdains +the title, "Son of David," preferring to all others that of "Son of +Man," a title that was not open to the same mistakes. On this road of +renunciation He must sacrifice not only His ease, His joys, and His +repose, but also, at each step, some of the beliefs of Israel, and some +of the glories of the Messiah. He never hesitates. His people reject +Him, and He turns to His Father and says to Him: "Even so, Father, for +so it seemed good in Thy sight." He agonises in Gethsemane, the +Messiah agonises in Him, and He prays thus: "Father, not My will, but +Thine be done." +</P> + +<P> +Hence comes His freedom of spirit, the elevation of His view in the +interpretation of events, as also His pious and trustful reserve in +face of the enigmas and obscurities that His glance cannot penetrate. +John the Baptist is beheaded in prison: singular destiny for that +formidable Elijah who was to inaugurate by thunder and lightning the +Messianic era, the dream of all patriots! Is Jesus offended by it? +Does He hesitate to declare that John at that very moment is "the Elias +which was for to come"? What a defiance to the oracles of the popular +Messianism! When the sons of Zebedee desire Him to reserve for them +the foremost places in His future kingdom, He merely speaks to them of +the baptism of martyrdom, and teaches them that they must leave such +things at the disposal of the Father. No doubt, He never contradicts +apocalyptic predictions; on the contrary He applies to Himself all the +promises of glory and of triumph; but always in subjection to the +Father's will. Asked as to the date of the Messiah's advent, He +answers that He does not know, that they must observe the blossoms on +the fig-tree and the signs of the times around Himself; that they must +watch and pray, possess their souls in patience, and abandon to the +Father the decisions of which He keeps the impenetrable secret. +</P> + +<P> +I speak of freedom of interpretation and of pious reserve, not of +hypocritical and sceptical accommodation. We cannot doubt that Jesus +accepted at the outset, and shared, at bottom, the Messianic beliefs in +which He had been trained like all the children of His race. That His +disciples, in reporting His discourses on this point, exaggerated and +materialised them, need not be denied. But, on the other hand you can +hardly explain the unanimity of the earliest Christian tradition in +expecting His return upon the clouds if Jesus had professed entirely +opposite ideas. After all, is there anything more astonishing in His +sharing on this matter the hopes of His time than in the fact of His +having explained certain mysterious maladies as His contemporaries did +by demoniacal possession, or of His attributing Psalm cx., as did +certain of the rabbis, to King David; to the first Isaiah the work of +the second, and to Moses the redaction of the Pentateuch? These +current and traditional ideas, however, which came to Him, not from +heaven, but from His race and His environment, never succeeded in +corrupting the immutable purity of His inner piety or in falsifying the +divine inspirations of His heart. Whenever there was contradiction +between the Messianic beliefs or the Law of Moses, on the one hand, and +the consciousness of Jesus, on the other, it was not the latter but the +former that gave way and were transformed. +</P> + +<P> +The disciples were not so free as the Master. Their faith remained a +long time bound to these hopes of the future. Why had they left all +and followed Him but because He had appeared to them to be the bearer +and the depository of the divine promises? His death, which seemed to +belie their beliefs, only served to give them another turn. They +corrected prophecy. Instead of one Advent of the Messiah they imagined +two, the first in humiliation, the second in glory. The one having +been realised, they expected the other with a more ardent confidence. +No one doubted it was near. The apostle Paul lived in this hope as +well as the author of the <I>Apocalypse</I>, the compilers of the synoptic +gospels, and the editors of "The Teaching of the Apostles." The time +is short: the Master comes: <I>Maranatha</I>. This was the watchword of all +the early Christians. This faith in the imminent return of Christ and +of the end of the world dominates all the thoughts as well as the +feelings of the apostles: it determines and colours their Christology, +their theory of Redemption, their ethics, their idea of salvation, so +that to expound their writings and estimate the worth of their +reasonings, the historian must always read them and explain them in +this light. It is for this reason that their Christianity merits the +name of Messianic, and could not be, in this Jewish form, an absolute +<I>norm</I> for all the ages. +</P> + +<P> +The disciples of Jesus, however, found themselves in a school in which +they could not perpetually mistake the lessons. The Christian +principle had appeared to be at one with Messianism; it was something +altogether different and could not continue for ever to be mixed up +with it. Under the contradiction of events and the action of the +spirit of Jesus, they soon began to see the dawn of a process of +spiritualisation in their apocalyptic beliefs. This progress is +manifest in the letters of St. Paul when read in their order and with +attention. In the first, he hopes before he dies to witness the advent +of the Lord. But, from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the +image of death and martyrdom begins to interpose itself between his +faith and that glorious ideal, which evermore seems to recede into the +future. It never entirely disappears, but this preoccupation with the +return of Jesus diminishes and occupies a smaller space in his later +epistles. On the contrary, the work of Jesus, considered in the past +and in its redemptive efficacy, the Christian life conceived as a life +of faith and love, as an imitation of Jesus Christ and an inheriting of +His Spirit, receive ever-increasing developments. Insensibly, the +centre of gravity of apostolic Christianity changes; from the +hypnotising contemplation of the Messianic future, it passes to the +sanctifying meditation on the passion of Christ, on His teaching, and +redeeming work. This is best seen in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and +in the Fourth Gospel, in which the Jewish Messiah is transformed into +the eternal <I>Logos</I>, the light of all men here below, and the principle +of the universal religion. +</P> + +<P> +The work of emancipation that men alone could not accomplish, God +Himself achieved. The conquests of the Church in the Empire, and +especially the double and irreparable ruin of Jerusalem and the Jewish +nation under Titus and under Hadrian, opened on the future other +prospects. The world continued. It was necessary to settle down and +live in it. Montanism was merely a last outburst of fever. By the end +of the second century, Jewish Messianism was so nearly dead that its +obstinate adherents were regarded as heretics by the Church at large. +Organised into a hierarchy, the Church substituted itself resolutely +for the ancient people of Israel, and represented itself as heir to the +ancient promises. The advent of the kingdom of God becomes the advent +and the victory of the Catholic Church over all the other powers of +earth. The Messianic Theocracy is transformed into a Church Theocracy. +Messianism gives place to Catholicism. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>Catholic Christianity</I> +</P> + +<P> +Transplanted from the poor and arid soil of Hebraism into the rich and +fruitful loam of Graeco-Roman civilisation, the Christian plant was +sure to grow apace and be transformed. Catholicism is as much Pagan as +Apostolic Messianism was Jewish—from the same causes, and according to +the same law. More Greek in the East, more Roman in the West, it bears +always and everywhere the traces of its origin. Study successively all +the features of the Catholic Church, and you will find on each of them +this indelible mark. +</P> + +<P> +The dogmas of the Councils and the theology of the Fathers, who does +not see at the first glance their true character? Who does not see +that the material is Greek in form, in colour, in every fibre of its +tissue? Whence came those terms and notions, of which Hebraism knew +nothing, but which the theologians of all the schools will henceforth +bandy to and fro—those abstract concepts, substance and hypostasis, +nature and person, essence and accident, matter and form? Whence came +the science of the Fathers of the Church, their exegesis, their +history, their logic, their psychology, and that lofty metaphysic which +has so completely transformed the Prophetic into a Platonic firmament? +All this came from Athens, Ephesus, Samos, and Miletus, <I>viâ</I> +Alexandria and Rome. The Justins, the Athenagorases, the Clements and +the Basils, Athanasius even more than Arius, Jerome as well as +Augustine, had been nourished from their childhood on Greek and Latin +literature. They had read Plato, Heraclitus, Zeno, Philo, Cicero, +Posidonius, and Seneca as much and more perhaps than the Old Testament. +What is there astonishing in the fact that their theology should have +followed step by step the theology of neo-Platonism until this latter, +for Augustine, should have become the true introduction to the Gospel, +and that in the Middle Ages the names of Plato and Aristotle should +have been invested with an authority not less than those of Isaiah, St. +Paul, and St. John? +</P> + +<P> +Or shall we pass to the constitution of the Church? What is that but +the exact counterpart of the constitution of the Roman Empire: the +parish modelling itself on the municipality, the diocese on the +province, the metropolitan regions on the great prefectures, and, at +the top of the pyramid, the bishop of Rome and the papacy, whose ideal +dream is simply, in the religious order, the universal and absolute +monarchy of which the Cæsars had first set the pattern? Or would you +consider the moral life and the type of piety? It is true that at the +outset, and so long as the persecutions continued, there is a great +contrast between Jewish or Christian morals and manners and those of +Roman or Greek society. But, with time, the contrast is singularly +attenuated. If the Church conquered the world, the world had its +revenge within the Church. What is that monkish asceticism imposing +celibacy on the clergy, exalting virginity, multiplying pious works of +merit, and replacing, by factitious and sterile duties, the duties +dictated by nature and essential to society,—what are all these but +survivals of a dualism and the imitation of an ideal which, come from +the East, seduced the feverish imagination of an expiring world? The +monks, the anchorites and their theology of impotent celibates, did +they save Egypt, Syria, and Byzantium? +</P> + +<P> +During this time, what did worship, adoration, religion, properly +speaking, become? Between earth and heaven there reappeared the whole +ancient hierarchy of gods and demi-gods, of heroes, nymphs, and +goddesses, replaced by the Virgin Mother, angels, demons, saints. Each +town, each parish, every fountain, had its patron or its patroness, its +tutelary guardian, to whom they addressed themselves more familiarly +than to God in order to obtain temporal blessings and the grace for +every day. The saints have their specialities like the minor deities +of former times. Some cured fevers, some diseases of the skin. This +one had charge of travellers, that of harvests, a third of articles +that had been lost, a fourth of needed heirs in families in danger of +decay. With this mythology, all the superstitions were revived, down +to the grossest fetichism: pilgrimages, chaplets, litanies, the +veneration of images, signs of the cross, rites and sacraments +conceived after the manner of the ancient mysteries. And all this is +done with a sort of unconsciousness, very gradually, and as the effect +of a zeal that was supposed to be Christian. The heads of the Church +recommend missionaries not to destroy the temples of the false gods, +but to consecrate them to the true one, and to replace their images by +images of the saints, and the rites of the old cults by similar +ceremonies. Names and etiquettes were thus changed, but not the things +themselves. At Rome, beneath the basilica of St. Peter, a superb +statue was erected to the Prince of the Apostles. This was formerly a +statue of Jupiter. Its great toe has been worn down by the kisses of +the faithful. Before Christianity, they kissed the foot of the master +of the gods; now they kiss the foot of Peter. Is the cult of a +different order and the devotion of a higher quality? +</P> + +<P> +These, however, are but the forms of Catholicism; let us go deeper and +try to reach its generating principle. This principle should be found +in the central dogma of the Catholic system, that in it which commands +and regulates all the parts, which constitutes its unity and strength. +To designate this central dogma is not difficult. The catechism +teaches us that it is the dogma of the Church, of its infallibility and +traditional continuity, of its divine origin and supernatural powers. +Protestants affirm that they belong to the Church because they belong +to Christ. Catholics reverse the terms: no one is in communion with +Christ, no one really belongs to Him, unless he belongs to the Church. +Thus faith in the Church and submission to the Church are put into the +forefront and remain the one thing needful and essential. One is a +Catholic by the fact of his implicit acceptance of the sovereign +authority of the Church; one ceases to be a Catholic when that +submission ceases. From which it is easy to conclude that the +principle of Catholicism is the realisation of the Christian +principle—that is to say, of the reign of God and of Christ, in the +form of a visible institution, an organised social body, an external +power, exercising itself by means of that which is the very soul of the +institution—a priesthood endowed with supernatural functions and +attributes. +</P> + +<P> +The immediate consequence of this first principle was the rupture of +the organic union realised in the Gospel of Christ between the +religious element and the moral element. Nothing is more striking in +the Sermon on the Mount and in all the Parables of Jesus, nothing +better attests the superiority of Christianity to anterior cults, +nothing proves with greater force and clearness that it is the perfect +and definitive Religion, than that mutual penetration, that fusion, +that identification, in a word, of religion and morality, till then +separate and often opposed to each other. The Christ did not desire in +religion anything that was not in morality, or in morality anything +that was not religious. Thus did He bring back piety from without, and +made of it the inner inspiration which penetrates and transforms the +whole life, a hidden flame, a ferment acting from the centre to the +surface, the soul in the body, ever invisible and everywhere present. +He thus founded the absolute autonomy of the religious and of the moral +life which no longer are divided, but appear simply as the two sides of +consciousness; the one interior and turned towards God, the other +exterior and turned towards the world. In creating in us the sense of +our sonship to God, Jesus did not admit the intervention of any +external authority between the Father and the child. The universal +priesthood, with which, by His spirit, He invests the least of His +disciples, excludes in principle all supernatural priesthood. "Call no +man master on earth, for one is your Master in heaven; and all ye are +brethren." The children must have free access to the Father. +</P> + +<P> +But, from the moment the Christian principle, instead of entering as +divine inspiration into the consciousness, sets itself up as a visible +institution in society, it is evident that this organic union is +broken, and the autonomy of the individual consciousness compromised. +The religious element affirms itself on its own account, and imposes +itself from without on the mind of the faithful as a divine authority. +The ancient dualism, which the Gospel surmounted, reappears in a +profounder form; it brings in its train a universal +supernaturalism—that is to say, a mechanical conception of the +relations between God and the world. Instead of a penetration we have +a superposition of two elements. The clergy separates itself from the +laity and superposes itself upon it as the necessary intermediary +between earth and heaven. Religious society, constituted under the +form of a government, superposes itself upon the civil society that it +desires to rule; grace superposes itself upon nature, acting on it from +above in the sacraments; the morality of the Church, in so far as it is +a supernatural morality, superposes itself upon the natural morality of +conscience; revelation upon reason; divine dogmas upon human science; +the spiritual power of the priest upon the temporal power of the family +and of the State. Everywhere, within and without, the division breaks +out, and you see arise in man and in society an intestine struggle +which will never end; for these two original forces that it brings into +conflict, religion and nature, are equally powerful and eternal. +</P> + +<P> +Catholicism began, then, in the Church of the second century when, +under the unconscious action of tradition and of pagan habits, the need +was felt of objectivising and materialising the Christian principle in +an external fact, of imprisoning the kingdom of God in a visible +institution, the immanent revelation of the Holy Spirit in the +decisions and acts of a priesthood. This tendency, once born, would be +irresistible. Ideal and transcendent as it was at first, the Christian +principle would become ever more external and political. Absorbing all +Christianity, and holding in its hands all the graces of God, the +Church would naturally present itself to the world as the permanent +mediator and the grand magician. It was its part to effect the +salvation of sinners, and, for this, it would need, like the ancient +priests, to offer daily to God an agreeable oblation, an expiatory +sacrifice of infinite value to atone for the infinite sins of the +world. Thus the Church transformed the commemoration of the death of +Christ into a <I>real</I> renewal of the sacrifice on Calvary; the Holy +Supper became the mass; the fraternal table was turned into an altar; +the elder or presbyter was changed into a priest and pontiff, and the +bread of the communion into a divine victim. The dogma of +transubstantiation was bound to follow; to the materialisation of +Christianity in the Church corresponds the materialisation of God in +the host. +</P> + +<P> +By virtue of the same principle, Christian piety becomes devotion, +<I>i.e.</I> a ritual and meritorious practice, as in the ancient cults. But +we must not be unjust and attribute something to Catholicism that it +condemns. It does not say that external practice is sufficient; the +Church esteems it vain and even culpable unless accompanied by the +affections and the will. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +The first and principal act of piety is submission to the Church. Its +dogmas may be irrational, contradictory; its commandments may seem +arbitrary, foreign to the natural conscience, sometimes in +contradiction with it; no matter. +</P> + +<P> +Reason, conscience, all must abdicate, and all submit.... In the +Church, the Christian state must always be a state of minority, for the +tutelage that it accepts will never cease. And the authority of the +Church, being on this point sovereign and indefectible, could not +remain invisible and indeterminate. An imperious logic pushed it from +the first to incarnate itself in its organs, more and more apparent and +simplified. First it was lodged in individual bishops, then in +councils, until the Pope when speaking <I>ex cathedra</I> became the sole +authority. In 1870 the Council of the Vatican, by promulgating the +dogma of Papal infallibility, drew the irresistible conclusion from the +premises laid down in previous centuries. The evolution of Catholicism +was completed. The transformation of Christianity into a sacerdotal +theocracy was achieved. The first is realised and exhausted in the +second, and the distinction we established, when speaking of the +essence of Christianity, between the Christian principle and its +historical realisations, is not merely effaced; it no longer has any +meaning. +</P> + +<P> +From which follow two consequences which every day become more clear +and patent. The first is that the Catholic Church, notwithstanding the +desires of Leo XIII., is fatally condemned to be intolerant and +intransigeant towards all others. The second is that it is +contradictory to expect any reform in that Church, or even to speak of +it; for the Church could not admit the necessity of reform without +renouncing all its pretentions. A river never turns back to its +source. Catholicism can only exist by struggling for supremacy. It +must be all or nothing. +</P> + +<P> +At the same time, things are not so simple as our systems. The logic +of ideas does not exhaust the reality of life. Behind abstract +principles there are pious souls.... In Catholicism there has always +been a latent Protestantism, by which I mean a protest, mute or spoken, +direct or indirect, of the Christian principle against the oppressions +of external and tyrannical authority.... Without the continuous +presence of the Christian spirit in the Catholic Church, the +Reformation would have been impossible. Without the triumph of the +sacerdotal spirit it would have been unnecessary. Protestantism sprang +out of Catholicism because it was virtually contained in it. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +4. <I>Protestant Christianity</I> +</P> + +<P> +It is strangely to mistake the nature of the Protestant Reformation of +the sixteenth century to see in it a sort of semi-rationalism, the +inconsistent exercise of free examination, or the revolutionary +introduction of a foreign philosophical principle into the warp and +woof of Christianity. You have only to read the biography of the +Reformers and to make a slight analysis of their soul to form an +entirely different idea of their work. The first and almost the only +question which preoccupies and troubles them is an exclusively +religious and practical question: "What must we do in order to be +justified before God? How may we attain to peace of soul and to the +assurance of pardon and of life eternal?" To find this peace, this +pardon and salvation, which the Church could not procure for them, they +determined to turn back and quench their thirst at the primitive +sources of the Gospel. They went back to the original documents +because they were persuaded that Christianity had been corrupted in the +course of centuries; they wished to have it in its purity. Their whole +reformation was to consist in this restoration of primitive truth. +</P> + +<P> +But history never recommences. This return to the past and this +re-reading of the Bible were accompanied by a religious experience and +an act of consciousness which made of their enterprise something +essentially new and original, and which rendered it immeasurably +fruitful. It is unnecessary to seek elsewhere than in psychological +experience the germ of Protestantism. It was in the humble cell of a +convent at Erfurt and in the soul of a poor monk that the drama was +first enacted from which sprang the revolution that has changed the +face of the world. +</P> + +<P> +Luther entered the convent with a faith in the authority of the Church +and in the efficacy of its rites as serious and entire as that of any +monk. "If it was possible," he said afterwards, "to reach Heaven by +monkery, I was resolved to reach it by that road." For years he shrank +from nothing that might render God propitious; he multiplied his acts +of devotion and his works of penance. There is a striking analogy +between the experiences of Luther under the monachal régime and those +of Saul of Tarsus under the discipline of the Pharisaic Law. The +<I>dénoûment</I> was the same. For the second time, the system of pious +works was found powerless to appease a conscience which roused against +itself the rigour of its own ideal. This struggle against an external +law could only exasperate the sense of sin to the point of despair. +Paul and Luther, in precisely the same manner, experienced the inward +emptiness and radical worthlessness of the religious system in which +they had been trained. The more they had tried to realise it in its +perfection, the more had they found it wanting. Catholicism, +considered as a means of salvation, was rejected by the religious and +moral consciousness of Luther, before it was condemned by exegesis and +by reasoning. To reach this sentence without appeal the Saxon monk had +but to maintain inflexible the demands of the divine law and to +measure, without illusion, the abyss that separated him from God, and +that no human works could fill. It was in this way that he found +himself shut up to the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; he found +the peace that fled from him in the pure and simple acceptance of the +glad tidings of the paternal love of God, in the confidence that He +gives gratuitously that which man can never conquer for himself, +namely, the remission of sins and the certitude of eternal life. What +then is faith? Is it still intellectual adhesion to dogmas or +submission to an external authority? No. It is an act of confidence, +the act of a childlike heart, which finds with joy the Father whom it +knew not, and Whom, without presumption, it is happy henceforth to hold +with both its hands. That is what Luther found in Paul's great words: +"The just shall live by faith." In this radical transformation of the +notion of faith restored to its evangelical meaning is to be found the +principle of the greatest religious revolution effected in the world +since the preaching of Jesus. +</P> + +<P> +Let us therefore here set forth the radical opposition between the +Catholic principle and the Protestant principle in order that we may +thoroughly understand the internecine war that was henceforth to be +waged between them. In vain will eminent men in both camps, with the +most generous and conciliatory intentions, arise and endeavour to find +some middle ground, and effect a pacific reunion of the two halves of +Christendom. All compromises, all diplomatic negotiations, will fail, +because each of the two principles can only subsist by the negation of +the other. Having attained to salvation, to full communion with God, +independently of and in collision with the authority and the discipline +of the sacerdotal Church, how could Luther recognise them any longer as +divine and submit to them with sincerity and confidence? The ancient +edifice had been the more thoroughly ruined, inasmuch as it had become +useless and had been replaced. The originality of Luther consisted in +this: his religious enfranchisement sprang from his own piety, and he +founded his freedom on his sense of sonship, on the sense he had of his +quality and titles as a child and heir of God. How could such a +consciousness submit itself to the yoke again without denying itself? +Catholicism, on the other hand, cannot be less intransigeant. To +recognise in any degree whatever that it is possible to a Christian to +enjoy pardon and the sense of the divine fatherhood apart from its +dogmas and its priesthood, would not this be to abdicate all its +pretensions, and to transform itself to the point of destruction? +</P> + +<P> +No doubt, in actual life, this opposition is attenuated by the fact +that in all Catholicism there is a latent Protestantism, and in all +Protestantism a latent Catholicism. Between Port-Royal and Geneva, +between Bossuet and Leibniz, between Leo XIII. and the Anglican Church, +the distance seems but little. It is an illusion. Like two +electricities of the same name, no sooner do they come into contact +than they repel each other and separate more widely than before. In +Catholicism Christianity tends to realise itself as a theocratic +institution; it becomes an external law, a supernatural power, which, +from without, imposes itself on individuals and on peoples. In +Protestantism, on the contrary, Christianity is brought back from the +exterior to the interior; it plants itself in the soul as a principle +of subjective inspiration which, acting organically on individual and +social life, transforms it and elevates it progressively without +denaturalising and doing violence to it. Protestant subjectivity +becomes spontaneity and liberty, just as necessarily as Catholic +objectivity becomes supernaturalism and clerical tyranny. The +religious element is no longer separated from the moral element; it no +longer asserts itself as a truth or a morality superior to human truth +and human morality. The intensity of the religious life is no longer +measured by the number or the fervour of pious works or ritual +practices, but by the sincerity and elevation of the life of the +spirit. All asceticism is radically suppressed. Science is set free +along with conscience; the political life of the peoples, as well as +the inner life of the Christian. Man escapes from tutelage, and in all +departments comes into possession of himself, into the full and free +development of his being, into his majority. +</P> + +<P> +This subjective character of a religion strictly moral stamps itself +with energy on all the specific doctrines of Protestantism. It would +be superfluous to dwell upon the doctrine of justification by faith; +its subjective character is evident. No doubt the term justification +has a legal colour and awakens the idea of a tribunal. But it must not +be forgotten that this tribunal is nothing but the inner court where +man and God meet each other face to face, where man is accused by his +own conscience, and where the sentence which absolves him is the inward +witness of the Holy Spirit, heard by him alone. +</P> + +<P> +The doctrine of the sovereign authority of Scripture in matters of +faith might seem at first sight to set up an external authority. And +it is very true that certain Protestants have often understood it in +the Catholic sense, and have employed it to exercise some violence on +their own conscience or on the conscience of their brethren. But they +never succeed for long; they soon fall into a too flagrant +contradiction. The authority of the Bible is never separated in +Protestantism from the right of the individual to interpret it freely, +and from the personal duty of assimilating the truths he discovers in +it. What therefore are those Protestants doing who attempt to set up a +confession of faith as absolute and obligatory truth but imposing on +their brethren their own subjective interpretation, and, consequently, +denying to others the right which they exercise themselves? Nor let it +be forgotten, on the other hand, that the obligation laid on each +Christian to read the Bible and draw from it his faith is a perpetual +and fruitful appeal to the energy of thought and to the autonomy of the +inner life. The authority of Scripture, so far from being a menace to +Christian liberty, is its invincible rampart. Not only has the +Protestant Christian in the name of the Bible triumphed over eighteen +centuries of tradition, but it is the Bible, an appeal to the Bible +ever better understood, which has saved Protestant theology from +scholasticism, which has prevented it from congealing in a confession +of faith, and which, leaving the principle of the Gospel in an ideal +transcendence in relation to all its historical expressions or +realisations, has maintained, and still maintains, the spirit of reform +in the Churches of the Reformation. +</P> + +<P> +The doctrines of grace and of predestination, which are at the centre +of Calvinism, have no other meaning. Souls religiously inert see in +these doctrines nothing but an abuse of blind power, a sort of divine +<I>fatum</I>, breaking every spring in the human soul. Nothing appears to +be more oppressive or more immoral. But this is only an appearance. +There is really no predestination for irreligious souls. This doctrine +is but the expression of the inner basis of all true piety, which is +nothing if it is not the sense, the feeling, of the presence and the +sovereign and continuous action of God in each soul and in all the +universe. No other sentiment gives so much spring and vigour to the +human will, nothing raises it to such a height or makes it so +invincible to all assaults from within and without. "If God be for us, +who can be against us?" etc. (Rom. viii. 31-39). How is it that the +Calvinistic Puritans of New England were the founders of modern +liberty, and the Jesuits, those admirable theorisers on freewill, the +precursors of all the servitudes? It is with predestination as it is +with religion itself. Conceived as exterior to the life of the soul, +it gives birth, no doubt, to a crushing despotism; conceived as an +inward inspiration, sustaining the initiative and even the liberty of +the individual, it becomes, in the Christian soul, the source of a +force which nothing can break or subdue. +</P> + +<P> +But the point at which the antithesis between Protestantism and +Catholicism becomes most patent is the doctrine of the natural +priesthood of all Christians as opposed to that of the supernatural +priesthood of a privileged clergy. The free and perpetual communion of +believing souls with the Father is the foundation of the independence +of each and of the fraternal equality of all. The tap-root of +clericalism is cut. The individual is a priest before the interior +altar of his conscience; the father is a priest in his household; the +citizen, if so he wills, in the city. +</P> + +<P> +The Catholic notion of dogma vanishes with all the rest. To speak of +an immutable and infallible dogma, in Protestantism, is nonsense; that +is to say, if we accept the dictionary definition of dogma—the +promulgation by the Church of an absolute formula. The decision of a +Church cannot have more authority than that Church itself. Now, no +Protestant Church holds itself, or can hold itself without denying +itself, to be infallible. How then could it communicate to its +definitions an infallibility that it did not itself possess? +Protestant confessions of faith are always conditioned in time, and can +never be definitive; they are always revisable, consequently they are +always liable to criticism and to reform. Thus ceases the +solidification of traditional dogma. The old ice melts beneath the +breath of knowledge and of piety. The river takes again its natural +course, and evolution, under the control of a perpetual criticism, +becomes the law of religious thought, as of all other human activities. +</P> + +<P> +From these observations and analyses (necessarily abridged) the true +nature of Protestantism will have become sufficiently clear. It is not +a dogma set up in the face of another dogma, a Church in competition +with a rival Church, a purified Catholicism opposed to a traditional +Catholicism. It is more and better than a doctrine, it is a method; +more and better than a better Church, it is a new form of piety; it is +a different spirit, creating a new world and inaugurating for religious +souls a new régime. It is equally evident that Protestantism cannot be +imprisoned in any definitive form. It leads to variety of formulas, +rites, and associations as necessarily as the Catholic principle leads +to unity. No limit can be set to its development. Always interior, +invisible, ideal, the religious principle that it represents +accompanies the life and activity of the spirit into all the paths that +man may pursue and in all the progress he may make. Nothing human is +alien to it; nor is it alien to anything that is human. It solves the +problem of liberty and authority as it is solved by free and ordered +governments; it does not suppress either of the terms, but conciliates +them by reducing authority to its pedagogic <I>rôle</I>, and by making the +Christian spirit the soul and inner rule of liberty. +</P> + +<P> +By very reason of its superiority, and of the conditions of general +culture that it presupposes, this form of Christianity could only +appear after all the others. The spirit can only become self-conscious +by distinguishing itself from the body in which at first it seems as if +diffused, and by opposing to it an energetic moral protest. "That is +not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterwards +that which is spiritual" (1 Cor. xv. 46. Cf. Gal. iv. 1-5). This +divine plan, which the apostle discovered in the ancient history of +humanity, is repeated in the history of Christianity. The Messianic +form corresponds to infancy, to that brief, happy age in which the +impatient imagination nourishes itself on dreams and illusions which +the experience of life soon dissipates without killing or even +enfeebling the immortal hope at the heart of it. The Catholic form, +which succeeds it, endures longer and corresponds to the age of +adolescence, in which education is painfully prosecuted, and it demands +a strict external discipline and masters whose authority must not be +questioned or discussed. It was in this way that Catholic discipline +and authority conducted the slow, laborious education of the pagan and +barbarian world up to the sixteenth century. +</P> + +<P> +But a moment must arrive when the work of education had succeeded, when +the leading strings essential to childhood began to be a bondage and a +hindrance. The pedagogic mission of the Church, like that of the +family itself, had its limit and its term in the very function it +fulfilled. That function was to make adult Christians and free men, +not men without rule, but Christians having in themselves, in their +conscience and their inner life, the supreme rule of their thought and +conduct. This new age of autonomy, of firm possession of self, and of +internal self-government, is that which Protestantism represents, and +it could only commence in modern times—that is to say, with that +general movement which, since the end of the Middle Ages, is leading +humanity to an ever completer enfranchisement, and rendering it more +universally and more individually responsible for its destinies. +</P> + +<P> +It may be remarked that by this evolution, and under its Protestant +form, the Christian principle was only returning to its pure essence +and its primitive expression. It could only recognise itself, take +cognisance of its true nature, separate itself from that which was not +itself; it could only disencumber itself of every material, temporary, +or local element, of all by which it had become surcharged in the +course of ages, and which was neither religious nor moral, by +remounting to its source, and by renewing its strength, through +reflection and criticism, at its original springs. That is why +Protestantism has taken the form of this return to the past, for in it +Christianity does not surpass itself; it simply tries to know itself +better and to become more faithful to its principle. In the +consciousness of Christ, what did we find was the essence of the +perfect and eternal piety? Nothing more than moral repentance, +confidence in the love of the Father and the filial sense of His +immediate, active presence in the heart: the indestructible foundation +of our liberty, of our moral dignity, of our security, in face of the +enigmas of the universe and the mysteries of death. Is it not to this +eternal gospel that we must always return? To finish its course and +complete its work, will humanity ever discover another viaticum that +will better renew its courage and its hope? +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +5. <I>Conclusion</I> +</P> + +<P> +Here I must stop. At the outset I spoke of a personal confession, and +it seems to me as if it were nearly complete. In sketching the broad +outlines of the religious history of humanity, I have had but one +object; I have wished to show the men of my generation why I remain +religious, Christian, and Protestant. I am religious because I am a +man and do not desire to be less than human, and because humanity, in +me and in my race, commences and completes itself in religion and by +religion. I am Christian because I cannot be religious in any other +way, and because Christianity is the perfect and supreme form of +religion in this world. Lastly, I am Protestant, not from any +confessional zeal, nor from racial attachment to the family of +Huguenots, although I thank God daily that I was born in that family, +but because in Protestantism alone can I enjoy the heritage of +Christ—that is to say, because in it I can be a Christian without +placing my conscience under any external yoke, and because I can +fortify myself in communion with and in adoration of an immanent Deity +by consecrating to Him the activity of my intellect, the natural +affections of my heart, and find in this moral consecration the free +expansion and development of my whole being. +</P> + +<P> +Under this new form, divested of the swaddling-clothes by which at +first it was bound, Christianity always seems to me to be best as it +is, a spiritual and eternal principle, which brings peace to the soul, +and which alone can give harmony and unity to the world. Nothing can +contradict it except evil and error; everything serves and strengthens +it. It is this principle which to my eyes manifests itself with +ever-growing clearness in that heroic love of Science which, in our +time, has created so many marvels and made so many martyrs; this it is +which reveals itself to me in the works of all the great artists, in +that ideal of beauty which enraptures them and brings such generous +tears into our eyes; it is this which I honour and bless in the efforts +of men who interest themselves in the future of humanity, and who in +the political direction of their country or in the work of social +education seek and find some means of raising and ameliorating the +condition of the people: I salute it in the illustrious apostles of all +great causes and in the obscure workers at all humble tasks, from the +mother who teaches her children to join their hands and bend their +knees before the Father in Heaven, to the preacher and the missionary +who faithfully distribute to the hungry soul the bread of the Gospel, +from the sister of charity who devotes her life to the solace of the +sick and suffering, to the thinker who fathoms the mysteries of the +heart and of the universe in order that he may shed on the paths of +erring humanity some rays of light and joy. +</P> + +<P> +Amid the twilight that envelopes us you predict the threatening night; +I see the day that is about to dawn with a new century. Where you see +nothing but discords, conflicts, and confusion, I see a concourse of +forces which, coming from all points of the horizon, are still ignorant +of each other, and, because ignorant, conflicting, but which, by these +very conflicts and collisions, are labouring together in the common +work of elevation and salvation: the mysterious work whose nature +Christ defined in His Gospel, and whose motive-power he created by +breathing into the human heart His own fraternal love. Since then +there has been a secret inquietude at the heart of all egoisms, a +sentence of condemnation on the brow of all abuses and all tyrannies. +The modern world can never settle down again into repose, or fall +asleep in evil and in slavery; it has had a vision it cannot forget; it +has been touched with a flame that cannot be quenched. Many who are +often the best collaborators in this work of redemption know not whence +it comes and whither it tends; they even blaspheme the Christ who +inspires it and the God who maintains it. They know not what they do, +nor what they say: in their ignorance they calumniate that which is +best both in their life and in themselves. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0301"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK THIRD +</H2> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +DOGMA +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +WHAT IS A DOGMA? +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>Definition</I> +</P> + +<P> +Dogma, in the strictest sense, is one or more doctrinal propositions +which, in a religious society, and as the result of the decisions of +the competent authority, have become the object of faith, and the rule +of belief and practice. +</P> + +<P> +It would not be enough to say that a religious society has dogmas as a +political society has laws. For the first, it is a much greater +necessity. Moral societies not only need to be governed; they need to +define themselves and to explain their <I>raison d'être</I>. Now, they can +only do this in their dogma. +</P> + +<P> +Dogma therefore is a phenomenon of social life. One cannot conceive +either dogma without a Church, or a Church without dogma. The two +notions are correlative and inseparable. +</P> + +<P> +There are three elements in dogma: a religious element, which springs +from piety; an intellectual or philosophic element, which supposes +reflection and discussion; and an element of authority, which comes +from the Church. Dogma is a doctrine of which the Church has made a +law. +</P> + +<P> +All the peoples of antiquity believed that their legislation came from +heaven. In like manner all the Churches have believed, and many of +them still believe, that their dogmas, in their official form, have +been directly given to them by God Himself. The history of evolution, +political and religious, has dissipated these illusions. Every law of +righteousness and truth should, doubtless, be referred to the +mysterious action of the Divine Spirit which works incessantly in the +spirits of men; but, in its historical form, it bears, nevertheless, +the stamp of the contingent conditions in which it is born. The genius +of a people is nowhere more manifest than in its constitution and its +laws, nor the soul and the original inspiration of a Church than in its +dogmatic creations. The work always bears the moral impress of the +workman. +</P> + +<P> +It follows that a Church cannot claim for its dogma more authority than +it possesses itself. Only a Church which is infallible can issue +immutable dogmas. When Protestantism sets up such a pretension, it +falls into a radical contradiction with its own principle, and that +contradiction ruins all attempts of this kind. +</P> + +<P> +In Catholicism the theory of the immutability of dogmas is opposed to +history; in Protestantism it is opposed to logic. In both cases the +affirmation is shown to be illusory. It is with dogmas, so long as +they are alive, as it is with all living things; they are in a +perpetual state of transformation. They only become immutable when +they are dead, and they begin to die when they cease to be studied for +their own sakes—that is, to be discussed. +</P> + +<P> +Dogma, therefore, which serves as a law and visible bond to the Church, +is neither the principle nor the foundation of religion. It is not +primitive; it never appears until late in the history of religious +evolution. "There were poets and orators," says Voltaire, "before +there was a grammar and a rhetoric." Man chanted before he reasoned. +Everywhere the prophet preceded the rabbi, and religion theology. It +may be said, no doubt, that dogma is in religion, since it comes out of +it; but it is in it as the fruits of Autumn are in the blossoms of +Spring. Dogmas and fruits, in order to form and ripen, need long +summers and much sunshine. The best way to describe their nature will +be to trace their genesis. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Genesis of Dogma</I> +</P> + +<P> +Dogma has its tap-root in religion. In every positive Religion there +is an internal and an external element, a soul and a body. The soul is +inward piety, the movement of adoration and of prayer, the divine +sensibility of the heart; the body consists of external forms, of rites +and dogmas, institutions and codes. Life consists in the organic union +of these two elements. Without the soul, religion is but an empty +form, a mere corpse. Without the body, which is the expression and the +instrument of the soul, religion is indiscernible, unconscious, and +unrealised. +</P> + +<P> +Which of these two elements is primitive and generative? The answer is +not doubtful. Modern psychology has learnt it in a manner never to be +forgotten from Schleiermacher, Benjamin Constant, and Alexander Vinet. +The principle of all religion is in piety, just as the principle of +language is in thought, although it is not possible now to conceive of +them as being separate. Consider a moment. That religion which time +and custom have transformed, perhaps, into a mechanical round of +ceremonies, or into a system of abstractions and metaphysical theories, +what was it at first? Trace it to its source, and you will find that +these cold blocks of lava once came burning hot from an interior fire. +</P> + +<P> +But this is the parting of the ways. This is the point at which +religious minds separate into widely different groups. +</P> + +<P> +Regarding religion as a saving institution in the form of a visible +organised Church maintained by God and provided with all the means of +grace, Catholicism was bound to end in a sort of mechanical psychology, +and to explain the sentiment of piety as the inward effect of the +outward and supernatural institution. This is done by Bellarmine and +de Bonald, the most consistent of the Catholic theologians. +Protestantism, on the contrary, which makes of the faith of the heart, +of the immediate and personal relation of the soul to God, the very +principle of justification, and of all religious life, was bound none +the less logically to end, by analysis, in a more profound psychology, +and to refer to an inward principle all the forms and manifestations of +religion. Religious history thus becomes homogeneous, and runs +parallel with that of all the other activities of the human mind. +</P> + +<P> +None the less, this subjectivity of the religious principle frightens +many good men. Persons devoted to practice, and unconsciously +dominated by the habits and necessities of ecclesiastical government +and religious teaching, hesitate to enter upon a road so naturally +opened. As, from generation to generation, religion has been taught +and propagated externally by the Church, the family, or special agents, +it is impossible for them to imagine that it was not always so, and not +to trace back to God Himself that chain or tradition of external +instruction. In which they are certainly right. Their only error, but +it is a grave one, is to represent God as an ordinary teacher, the +first of a series, who once acted, like the rest of them, upon His +pupils from without; whereas God works in all souls, acts and teaches +without ceasing through all human masters, and is present throughout +the whole religious education of humanity. +</P> + +<P> +Who does not see that to represent things otherwise is to remain in the +crudest and least religious of anthropomorphisms? At bottom, these men +are afraid of losing revelation, which they rightly judge to be +inseparable from the very idea of religion. They object that piety and +the awakening of the religious sentiment must have an objective cause, +and that that cause can only be a revelation of God Himself. Nothing +is more true; but this revelation which is effected without, in the +events of Nature or of History, is only known within, in and by the +human consciousness. This inward inspiration alone enables religious +men to interpret Nature and History religiously. Now, this +interpretation is made by their intellect and according to the laws and +conditions which regulate it. The religious phenomenon therefore has +not two moments only, the objective revelation as a cause and the +subjective piety as an effect; it has three, which always follow each +other in the same order: the inner revelation of God, which produces +the subjective piety of man, which, in its turn, engenders the +historical religious forms, rites, formularies of faith, sacred books, +social creations, which we can know and describe as external facts. It +will be seen what an error they commit, what a mistake they make, who +identify the third term with the first, suppressing the second, which +is the necessary link and forms the transition between the other two. +Whoever will fathom this little problem in psychology, and reflect upon +it with a little attention, will see that all religious revelation of +God must necessarily pass through human subjectivity before arriving at +historical objectivity. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +Passing now from the intellectual interpretation to the intellectual +expression of religion, and noting the successive stages through which +it must necessarily advance towards dogma, I remark once more that +man's first language is that of the imagination. The imagination of +the child or of the savage animates, dramatises, and transfigures +everything. It spontaneously engenders vivid and poetic images. At +the beginning, religion, consisting chiefly of emotions, presentiments, +movements of the heart, clothed itself in mythologic forms.... But the +age of individual reflection comes. The image tends to change into the +idea. Men interpret, define, translate it. The religious myth is +replaced by the religious doctrine. These are at first entirely +personal interpretations. Nevertheless, these opinions desire to +propagate themselves, to become general, and, as they are imperfect and +diverse, they engender conflicts which threaten to become schisms. +Myths, appealing to the imagination merely, and only professing to +translate the common emotion, draw souls together and fuse them into a +real unity; individual reason, private exegesis, inevitably separates +them. But the consciousness of the community, thus menaced, naturally +reacts by the instincts of conservation. There is therefore a struggle +between the two, and out of this conflict dogma is born. +</P> + +<P> +A new element must intervene. There must be a Church. Now, all +religions do not form churches. The phenomenon is only produced in the +universalist and moral religions. Strictly speaking, there is no +Church except in Christianity; and no dogmas save Christian dogmas. In +ancient societies, where religion was confounded either with the State, +or with the nationality, the religious unity was maintained and +guaranteed by the same means as the political unity. There were no +dogmas, because dogmas were of no use. As much may be said of Hebraism +and of Islam: in them there were rites, external signs and seals, which +sufficed to weld and to maintain the religious bond. +</P> + +<P> +Dogma only arises when the religious society, distinguishing itself +from the civil, becomes a moral society, recruiting itself by voluntary +adherents. This society, like every other, gives to itself what it +needs in order to live, to defend itself, and propagate itself. +Doctrine necessarily becomes for it an essential thing; for in its +doctrine it expresses its soul, its mission, its faith. It is +necessary also that it should carry its doctrine to a degree at once of +generality and precision high enough to embrace and to translate all +the moments of its religious experience and to eliminate all alien and +hostile elements. Controversy springs up and threatens to rend it. +The Church then chooses and formulates a definition of the point +contested: it enacts it as the adequate expression of its faith, and +sanctions it with all its objective authority: dogma is born. From +that moment also the two correlative notions of <I>orthodoxy</I> and +<I>heresy</I> are formed. Orthodoxy is official and collective doctrine; +heresy is individual doctrine or interpretation.... By and by symbols +or confessions of faith are formed, and these become the standards of +faith and practice in the various churches that adopt them. +</P> + +<P> +This long evolution is fully justified in the eyes of reason. It is a +movement of the mind as legitimate as it is necessary. The germ must +become a tree, the child grow to manhood, the image be transformed into +the idea, and poetry give place to prose. It is possible to be +mistaken as to the nature, origin, and value of dogma, but not as to +its necessity. The Church may make a different use of it in the +future, but it will not be able to dispense with it, for the doctrinal +form of religion answers to an imperative need of the epoch of +intellectual growth at which we have arrived. No one can either +reverse or arrest its development.... +</P> + +<P> +The word dogma is anterior to Catholicism. It had two senses in Greek +antiquity: a political and authoritarian sense, designating the decrees +of popular assemblies and of kings; this is the meaning which dominates +and characterises the Catholic notion of dogma. But the word had also +in the schools of Greece an essentially philosophical and doctrinal +meaning; it designated the characteristic doctrine of each school. The +Protestant Churches have inherited this latter sense of the word: it is +in perfect harmony with the spirit and the principle of Protestantism. +Dogma, in the Protestant sense, means the doctrinal type generally +received in a Church, and publicly expressed in its liturgy, its +catechisms, its official teaching, and especially in its Confession of +Faith.[<A NAME="chap0301fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap0301fn1">1</A>] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +<A NAME="chap0301fn1"></A> +[<A HREF="#chap0301fn1text">1</A>] Originally the word dogma signified a command, a precept, and not a +truth (Luke ii. 1, and the Septuagint of Dan. ii. 13; vi. 8; Esther +iii. 9; 2 Maccab. x. 8, etc.). Ignatius of Antioch still uses the word +in this sense. It is not until towards the time of Athanasius or of +Augustine that it begins to be used of the doctrinal decisions of the +Fathers, the Councils, and the Pope. (Cf. also Acts xv. 28, 29. This +is afterwards called a dogma, the only time it is used in the N.T. with +reference to a decision of the Church.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. The Religious Value of Dogma +</P> + +<P> +The intolerance of Catholic dogmatism has had consequences so +revolting, and, in Protestantism, wherever this dogmatism has revived, +it has given rise to conflicts so sterile and so lamentable, that +certain minds have gone so far as to deny the utility of dogma in the +largest sense of the word, and have wished to suppress all doctrinal +definition of the Christian Faith. To call dogma either divine in +itself or evil in itself is to go to an unwarrantable extreme. In +religious development, whether individual or social, it has an organic +place that cannot be taken away from it, and a practical importance +that cannot be contested. +</P> + +<P> +Religious faith is a phenomenon of consciousness. God Himself is its +author and its cause; but it has for psychological factors all the +elements of consciousness—feeling, volition, idea. It must never be +forgotten that these verbal distinctions are pure abstractions; that +these elements co-exist, and are enveloped and implicated with each +other in the unity of the ego. In the living reality there has never +existed feeling which did not carry within it some embryo of an idea +and translate itself into some voluntary movement.... As it is +impossible for thought not to manifest itself organically by gesture or +language, so it is impossible for religion not to express itself in +rites and doctrines. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt, in the first period of physical life, sensation dominates, +and at the <I>début</I> of religious life, feeling and imagination. But as +science springs from sensation, so religious doctrine springs from +piety. To say that "Christianity is a life, therefore it is not a +doctrine" is to reason very badly. We should rather say, "Christianity +is a life and therefore it engenders doctrine;" for man cannot live his +life without thinking it. The two things are not hostile; they go +together. In apostolic times the greatest of missionaries was the +greatest of theologians. St. Augustine at the end of the old world, +Calvin, Luther, Zwingle, at the beginning of the modern world, followed +the example of St. Paul. When the sap of piety fails, theology +withers. Protestant scholasticism corresponds to a decline of +religious life. Spencer, by re-opening the springs of piety, renewed +the streams of theology. Without Pietism Germany would have had no +Schleiermacher; without the religious revival at the beginning of this +century we should have had neither Samuel Vincent nor Alexander Vinet. +</P> + +<P> +If the life of a Church be compared to that of a plant, doctrine holds +in it the place of the seed. Like the seed, doctrine is the last to be +formed; it crowns and closes the annual cycle of vegetation; but it is +necessary that it should form and ripen; for it carries within it the +power of life and the germ of a new development. A Church without +dogmas would be a sterile plant. But let not the partisans of dogmatic +immutability triumph: let them pursue the comparison to the end: +"Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and <I>die</I>," said Jesus, +"it bears no fruit." To be fruitful, dogma must be decomposed—that is +to say, it must mix itself unceasingly with the evolution of human +thought and die in it; it is the condition of perpetual resurrection. +</P> + +<P> +Without being either absolute, or perfect in itself, then, dogma is +absolutely necessary to the propagation and edification of the +religious life. The Church has a pedagogic mission that could not be +fulfilled without it. It bears souls, nourishes them and brings them +up. Its rôle is that of a mother. In that educative mission, we may +add, the mother finds the principle and aim of her authority, the +reason and the limit of her tutelage. In this sense, dogma is never +without authority. But this same pedagogic authority is neither +absolute nor eternal; it has a double limit, in the nature of the +pupil's soul, which it ought to respect, and in the end it would +attain, the making of free men, adult Christians, sons of God in the +image of Christ and in immediate relationship to the Father. If dogma +is the heritage of the past transmitted by the Church, it is the +children's duty first to receive it, and then to add to its value by +continually reforming it, since that is the only way to keep it alive +and to render it truly useful and fruitful in the moral development of +humanity. It is therefore to this idea of necessary dogma, but of +dogma necessarily historical and changing, that we must henceforth +accustom ourselves; and we shall most easily habituate ourselves to it +by tracing its evolution in the past. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0302"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>Three Prejudices</I> +</P> + +<P> +I here encounter three prejudices which are, I think, the most +inveterate in the world. The first is that dogmas are immutable; the +second, that they die fatally the moment they are touched by criticism; +the third, that they form the essence of religion, which rises or falls +with them. I wish to show that dogmas have neither this pretended +immobility nor this delicate fragility; that they live by an inner life +extraordinarily resistant and fecund, and that the criticism of dogmas, +so far from injuring the Christian religion, frees it from the chains +of the past and permits it to manifest its marvellous gift of +rejuvenescence and adaptation to circumstances. +</P> + +<P> +The proof that dogmas are not immutable lies in the fact that they have +a history. That history is as full of conflicts, controversies, +revolutions, as the history of philosophy.... One Church has said of +its dogmas what a Jesuit General said of his Order: <I>sint ut sunt aut +non sint</I>! It is an illusion. Momentarily arrested at one point, the +movement begins again at another. In one half of Christendom, and +certainly the most living half, criticism of dogma has never ceased +since the sixteenth century. Even in the bosom of the Catholic Church, +its most skilful advocates, the Moehlers and the Newmans, unable to +deny that Catholicism is not to-day what it was in the first centuries, +have made this strange concession to history; they have applied to +dogmas the theory of development. At Paris in 1682 the dogma of the +infallibility of the Bishop of Rome would have been condemned as an +error. Since 1870 the orthodoxy of 1682 has become the gravest of +heresies. There is no fiction more evident than that of the +immutability of dogmas, whether in the Catholic or in the Protestant +Churches. Like all other manifestations of life, they have an +evolution as natural as it is inevitable. The proof that dogmas are +not religion, and that criticism does not kill them but transforms +them, will appear in what I now proceed to say. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Two Elements in Dogma; and its Historical Evolution</I> +</P> + +<P> +Dogma is the language spoken by faith. In it there are two elements: a +mystical and practical element, the properly religious element; this is +the living and fruitful principle of dogma: then there is an +intellectual or theoretical element, a judgment of mind, a +philosophical proposition serving at once as an envelope and as an +expression of religion. +</P> + +<P> +Now, it is not an arbitrary relation which unites and amalgamates these +two elements in dogma; it is an organic and necessary relation. Go +back for a moment to the origin of religious phenomena, and to the +formation of the first and simplest doctrinal formulas. In presence of +one of the great spectacles of Nature, man, feeling his weakness and +dependence with respect to the mysterious power revealed in it, +trembled with fear and hope. This is primitive religious emotion. But +this emotion necessarily implies, for thought, a relation between the +subject which experiences it and the object that has caused it. Now, +thought, once awakened, will necessarily translate this relation into +an intellectual judgment. Thus, wishing to express this relation, the +believer will exclaim, <I>e.g.</I> "God is great!" marking the infinite +disproportion between his being and the universal being which made him +tremble.[<A NAME="chap0302fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap0302fn1">1</A>] He obeys the same necessity which makes him ordinarily +express his thought in language. Religious emotion then is transformed +in the mind into the notion of a relation, <I>i.e.</I> into an intellectual +notion which becomes the expressive image or representation of the +emotion. But the notion and the emotion are essentially different in +nature. In expressing it, and thanks to the imagination, the notion +may renew or fortify the emotion, and dogma may awaken piety; but the +two must not be confounded. The notion is like an algebraic expression +which ideally represents a given quantity, but it is not the quantity +itself. This must be clearly kept in mind if we are to avoid the most +disastrous confusions. In religion and in dogma the intellectual +element is simply the expression or envelope of the religious +experience.... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +<A NAME="chap0302fn1"></A> +[<A HREF="#chap0302fn1text">1</A>] It might be supposed that I make of this elementary experience the +primary root whence all dogmas, including the Christian, have sprung by +a process of evolution. Nothing of the kind. This is but a particular +example. The revelation of Nature is the principle of the dogmas of +the Religions of Nature. Christianity has behind it another revelation +and other experiences: the revelation of God and of a higher life, in +the historical appearance of Jesus Christ. Let a man morally prepared +to hear the Gospel begin to follow Him, listen to His words, penetrate +His soul, comprehend His death, and he will cry out: "God is Love!" as +the spectator of Nature was supposed to exclaim: "God is great!" And +this new proposition, translating a new religious relation, will, in +its turn, become the principle of all Christian dogmas. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The intellectual will therefore be the variable element in dogma. It +is the matter united to the germ, and it is ceaselessly transformed by +the very effect of the movement of life. The reason of this is simple. +We said just now that a religious emotion, like every other, translates +itself into a notion which fixes the relation of the subject to the +object, implied in the emotion itself. But what will this notion be? +With what materials, with what concepts, will the religious man +construct it? Clearly with those at his disposal. His religious +formula will depend on his state of intellectual culture. A child, he +will think and speak religiously as a child. Religious reason and +language have followed the same steps as the general reason.... +</P> + +<P> +I am well aware that many Christians imagine that God has revealed to +us dogmas in the Bible, and that they will accuse me of denying +revelation. God forbid! We believe with all our soul in Divine +Revelation and in its particular action in the souls of prophets and +apostles, and especially in Jesus Christ. Only, the question is +whether the revelation of God has consisted of doctrines and dogmatic +formulas. No. God does nothing needless, and since these doctrines +and formulas can be and have been conceived by human intelligence, He +has left to it the care of elaborating them. God, entering into +commerce and contact with a human soul, has produced in him a certain +religious experience whence, afterwards, by reflection, the dogma has +sprung. That therefore which constitutes revelation, that which ought +to be the norm of our life, is the creative and fruitful religious +experience which first arose in the souls of the prophets, of Christ, +and of His apostles. We may be tranquil. So long as this experience +shall be renewed in Christian souls, Christian dogmas may be modified, +but they will never die. But why should we retain dogmas which, in the +nature of things, must always be imperfect? Why not have religion pure +and simple without dogmas? What would happen if we listened to this +cry for pure unmixed religion? By suppressing Christian dogma you +would suppress Christianity; by discarding all religious doctrine you +would destroy religion. How many great and eternal things there are +which never exist, for us, in a pure and isolated state! All the +forces of Nature are in this case. Thought, in order to exist, must +incarnate itself in language. Words cannot be identified with thought, +but they are necessary to it. The hero in the romance, who was said to +be unable to think without speaking was not so ridiculous as was once +supposed, for that hero is everybody. The soul only reveals itself to +us by the body to which it is united. Who has ever seen life apart +from living matter? It is the same with the religious life and the +doctrines and rites in which it manifests itself. A religious life +which did not express itself would neither know itself nor communicate +itself. It is therefore perfectly irrational to talk of a religion +without dogma and without worship. Orthodoxy is a thousand times right +as against rationalism or mysticism, when it proclaims the necessity +for a Church of formulating its faith into a doctrine, without which +religious consciousnesses remain confused and undiscernible. +</P> + +<P> +The mistake that orthodoxy sometimes makes is in denying or desiring to +arrest the constant metamorphosis to which dogma, like all living +things, is subject. So long as they are alive, dogmas have the faculty +of changing and evolving. How is their evolution effected? The +analogy between dogma and language will help us to the answer. A +language is modified in three ways: (1) By disuse, <I>i.e.</I> by the +disappearance of words whose contents have vanished; (2) by +intussusception, <I>i.e.</I> by the faculty which words have, without +changing their form, of acquiring new significations; (3) by the +renaissance of old or the creation of new words, <I>i.e.</I> by neologisms. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing is easier than to establish these three kinds of variations in +the history of dogmas. Some religious formulas perish from disuse; +others acquire a new content; while still others are themselves +renewed. Many doctrines that were once alive and prevalent are seldom +heard of now; they gradually passed out of use. There is hardly a +dogma dating from the seventeenth or the sixteenth century that has now +the same signification that it had at the beginning. The new wine that +has been put into them has modified the old skins. There are limits, +however, to the elasticity of words and formulas. There comes a moment +when the new wine bursts the old skins, and when the Church has to +construct other vessels to receive it. In this way neologisms spring +up in languages, and new dogmas in theology. In the sixteenth century +the dogmas of Justification by Faith and of the universal priesthood +were resuscitated with a new energy. The verses of Horace, on which I +might appear to have been commenting, are eternally true: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ut silvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 3em">*****</SPAN><BR> +Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere cadentque<BR> +Quæ nunc sunt in honore, vocabula...<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 3em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The evolution of dogma is possible; why is it necessary? Simply +because the material of which it is composed is in a state of constant +flux and evolution.... We do not mean to say that everything in the +old formulas should be condemned. There are to be found in them many +great and excellent ideas which still retain their truth and power. We +simply say that there is nothing absolute in them, nothing that may be +imposed by authority on Christian thought. It is always with notions +borrowed from current science and philosophy that the Church constructs +her dogmas. But science and philosophy are continually evolving and +carrying dogma in their train. Everything changes, even our manner of +thinking. Why do certain things appear absurd or grotesque in the +imaginations of the past? Because we have lost the faculty for +comprehending them. It is as impossible for us to think in Greek as to +speak in Greek. Since the end of the Middle Ages two or three +intellectual revolutions have occurred which have profoundly separated +us from antiquity and changed the inner and the outer world in which we +live. It will suffice to recall them in a few words in order to deepen +our sense of the decadence of Græco-Roman dogmatic Christianity, and of +the necessity incumbent upon us to reform and renovate it, if only we +are strong enough to answer to the call of God. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>The Crisis of Dogma</I> +</P> + +<P> +The first of these revolutions was a religious one. Our specific +consciousness as Protestant Christians dates from the Reformation. +Now, the Evangelical Reformation of the sixteenth century was the +rupture of the tradition of the Church, of which the Dogmatics of the +great Councils was the framework and the centre. In breaking the +authority of the Church, the Reformers broke up the basis on which +those ancient dogmas had been built. In appealing to the Word of God +against traditional doctrines, they at least called in question the +Dogmatics of the Councils. After protesting against all the +infiltrations of pagan manners and superstitions into the morals of the +Church, into its organisation and its hierarchy into its worship and +its rites, why should they regard as sacrosanct the ancient philosophy +which had entered into the construction of its dogmas? +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand, the Reformation renewed the Christian consciousness +by its fundamental doctrine of Justification by Faith. Until then +salvation had come through adhesion to the Symbols of the Church and +obedience to its commands. Justification by Faith (and faith here +means the trust of the heart) freed the Christian from the tutelage of +the priesthood and the bondage of Symbols. To maintain that you can +only be saved by believing certain theological doctrines, is the same +as to say that you can only be saved by doing certain works; it is to +add to or to substitute for faith some other condition of salvation. +The second principle of the Reformation therefore also shook the +ancient edifice; in Dogmatics it substituted the internal principle of +Christian experience for the external principle of authority; it made +of Christianity a moral life and no longer a metaphysic. Is it not +right and necessary to give the new principles of the Reformation a new +theological expression? This process has been going on ever since the +sixteenth century and can never cease. +</P> + +<P> +The Reformation displaced the centre of the Christian consciousness. +At the same time there began a scientific revolution which displaced +the centre of the universe. I speak of that which is connected with +the names of Copernicus and Kepler, and which was continued by such men +as Galileo, Newton, and Laplace. Modern astronomy, geology, biology, +etc., have completely changed the outlines and the horizon of our +philosophy, and rendered for ever impossible the popular cosmogonies +which, until then, had reigned supreme. And who does not see the +bearing of this revolution on our views of Scripture, on its +cosmography in particular, and on many of its minor teachings? The +traditional doctrines of creation have been greatly modified, as also +the doctrines as to the origin of evil, suffering, and death. These +discoveries, it is said, have ruined religion, and are destroying +Christian faith. Not so. What is being destroyed is the débris of an +ancient philosophy. But they do compel us, absolutely, if we would +remain in touch with the thought of our age, to modify the formulas by +which the Church has hitherto believed that she might render an account +of the origin and evolution of the universe. +</P> + +<P> +A third intellectual evolution has been effected in our own time by the +advent of the Historical Method. This has completely upset the +traditional view of the history of mankind. Floods of new light have +been poured upon the prehistoric and historic races of man. Modern +criticism and exegesis have given us an entirely new view of the origin +and contents of many parts of the Old and New Testaments. In every +department of knowledge the historic method has made the point of view +of evolution possible and victorious. It is in vain to oppose it, for +it is the law of life. Those who cling to the doctrine of dogmatic +immutability, whether in the Catholic or the Protestant Churches, are +exactly in the position of the Romish cardinals who covered Galileo +with anathemas and protested energetically against the rotation of the +earth. Neither their protests nor their anathemas prevented the earth +from turning round, and the cardinals along with it. In Protestantism, +a resistance so blind would be the grossest of inconsistencies. +Dogmatic revision is always alive, both in principle and in fact, in +the Churches of the Reformation: in principle, because all Confessions +of Faith are relative, and subordinate to the Word of God; in fact, +because the spirit of research, of criticism, and free discussion has +never ceased to breathe in Protestant Theology, and breathes to-day +more ardently than ever. The work will therefore be completed; I am +sure of it. We may lack the faith and courage to carry it on, but, +failing us, God will not fail to raise up other fellow-workers with +Himself in this great enterprise. Christianity cannot perish; it has +never failed to adapt itself to the state of mind of ages past; in the +future, it will find and make new forms in which to express and +propagate itself, forms adapted to the coming times.... +</P> + +<P> +"One day, the monk Sarapion, a man of deep piety and ardent zeal, was +told by the priest Paphnutius and the deacon Photinus that God, in +whose image man had been created, was a purely spiritual being, without +body, without external figure, without sensible organs. Serapion was +convinced by the ascendancy of Catholic tradition and by the arguments +that had been employed. The assistants rose to render thanks to God +for having rescued so holy a man from the wicked heresy of the +anthropomorphists. But, in the midst of their devotions, the unhappy +old man, feeling the image of the God to whom he had been accustomed to +pray vanishing from his heart, was deeply moved, and bursting into sobs +and tears, he threw himself upon the ground, and cried out: 'Woe is me! +Unhappy man! They have taken away my God. I have no one now to cling +to and invoke.'"[<A NAME="chap0302fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap0302fn2">2</A>] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +<A NAME="chap0302fn2"></A> +[<A HREF="#chap0302fn2text">2</A>] J. Cassanius, abb. Massil.: Collatio, X. c. III. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Touching image of our own experience and of the experience of humanity! +We are always making to ourselves some idol or other. It is very +difficult for us to realise that God is spirit: we attach ourselves +therefore to some fetish of human fabrication. And then, when science +comes and takes it away from us, we are troubled and perplexed, as if +they had taken from us God Himself. The study of dogmas and their +evolution, were it wider spread, would relieve us of our illusions and +calm our inquietude. It would teach us that our religious life depends +on our faith alone, and that the God Who is its source and end is +independent of all theory or representation, because He is infinitely +above all human conceptions, and because, in order never to be +separated from Him, it suffices that we worship Him in spirit and in +truth. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0303"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS +</H4> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>The Mixed Character of Dogmatics</I> +</P> + +<P> +We have shown the necessity of a free criticism of dogmas. This +criticism, if it is religious, will at the same time be positive; it +will tend not to destroy, but to distinguish, in each dogma, that which +is truly religious and permanent from that which is philosophical and +fleeting. Such is the object of the discipline that, in the schools, +is called <I>Dogmatics</I>, or the Science of Dogmas. It remains to define +its task and to point out the resources which it has at its disposal. +Both points are connected with its relation to the Church and to +Philosophy. The science of dogmas has always necessarily followed the +life of the one and the vicissitudes of the other. +</P> + +<P> +In the religious experiences of the Church it finds the material that +it elaborates; from philosophy it borrows the methods according to +which it treats this material and the form in which it organises it. +This science is, therefore, a mixed science: positive and practical in +its object, speculative and theoretical in its procedure, it seeks to +connect the religious and moral experience with the rest of the +experience of humanity, and to effect the synthesis claimed, in order +to their full vigour, by the scientific order of thought and by the +moral order of practical life. +</P> + +<P> +This intermediate position of our science, between the Church and +philosophy, constitutes its independence and its originality. If, as +in Catholicism, it were absolutely subjected to the authority of the +Church, and were limited to receiving, without critical examination, +its successive decisions and traditions, it would be confounded with +the history of dogmas, and would be merely a survival of scholasticism. +On the other hand, if it did not start from the data furnished by +history and by the personal and collective experience of piety,—if it +did not study the Christian life in its objectivity and in its historic +continuity, but abandoned itself to purely subjective and general +speculations—it would be fatally confounded with philosophy. It +escapes this double peril, first, by taking as its object the study of +the doctrinal tradition of the Church, tracing it back to its +generative principle, following it in its successive forms and +necessary evolution; and, secondly, by freely applying to this +objective material the principles and rules of a truly rational method, +a method that may be avowed as such by philosophers. It thus +constitutes the philosophy of religion in general and of Christianity +in particular, setting itself to connect the consciousness of the +Church with the general consciousness of humanity, and establishing or +maintaining between them communications equally profitable to both. +</P> + +<P> +It follows that our discipline, in studying the tradition of the +Church, is independent of philosophy. On the other hand, the fact that +it borrows its methods and processes from philosophy, renders it +independent with regard to the Church. Its freedom springs from its +twofold subjection. Such a little principality, placed between two +great rival Powers without whose help it could not live, maintains its +independence of them both by virtue of their very rivalry, and may +become an arbiter, an element of pacification and good understanding, +between forces which are only hostile because they either do not know +or do not understand each other. Thus the science of dogmas will be +free, pacific, fruitful, on condition that it does not break its +connection on either hand, but remains in close communication with the +two sources of its life, without which it would be liable either to die +of inanition for want of food, or of impotence for lack of liberty. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Science of Dogmas and the Church</I> +</P> + +<P> +A religious society cannot dispense either with doctrines or doctrinal +teaching. The more moral it is in its character, the more it needs a +dogmatic symbol which defines it and explains its <I>raison d'être</I>. It +will have its teachers as well as its pastors and missionaries. The +apostle Paul compares the Church to an organism in which each member +has its necessary function, according to the special gift it has +received. "God," says he, "gave some, apostles; some, prophets; some, +teachers" (1 Cor. xii. 28; Rom. xii. 6-8. "Teaching of the Apostles," +13 and 15). In passing through different lips the Gospel takes +different forms. It creates divers types of doctrine, divers schools +or parties (1 Cor. i. 10-14). It is necessary to instruct the +ignorant, to refute heretics, to heal schisms, to administer reproofs, +to correct the interpretation of texts. This could only be done by +means of discussion, reasoning, exegesis, speculation. It was not an +effort of pure science, but of practical science, in the interest of +the Church itself, with a view to its inner edification and to the +continuous reform of its worship and its faith. The labour of +dogmatics thus sprang up spontaneously in the bosom of the Church +itself, and it has continued its work, not from without, but from +within, through an office which is an essential ministry, an organ of +the Church. It could not be done well in any other way.... +</P> + +<P> +A religious society, by the very fact that it endures, creates a +doctrinal tradition, and this tradition soon assumes a divine character +and tends to become an absolute authority. This is the effect of a +psychological illusion characteristic of the religious consciousness so +long as reflection does not put it on its guard against itself. The +object of our faith being divine, we ingenuously transport this quality +into the formula by which it has been transmitted to us, and we hold +this formula to be divine before we have learnt to distinguish between +the essence of faith and its historical manifestations, between the +religious substance of the doctrine and its traditional expression. +Add to the prestige of the past the necessity of educating the new +generations. Every Christian begins as a catechumen, and, in certain +respects, he is and ought to be a learner all his life, for he cannot +fail to see that the collective consciousness is always richer and more +stable than his own. But, if the aim of Christian education is to +produce adult Christians—that is, Christians who, having received the +Holy Spirit, have entered into a direct and permanent relation to the +common Father, and into personal and living piety, they possess an +inward rule of conduct, and along with this a principle of free +judgment. As St. Paul says, our tutelage ends when we have attained to +our majority. The spiritual man judges all, but is judged of none. He +becomes independent of the authority under which he has grown up, as +the full-grown man becomes free from the mother who has borne and +nourished him. He will, doubtless, always gratefully welcome the +tradition of the past; but he feels within himself a higher principle +which gives him the right to amend and the power to increase, in some +degree, the inheritance he has received from his fathers. No one is +either a man or a Christian on any other condition. +</P> + +<P> +The solution of the problem named above is to be found in these +considerations. A tradition which desires to be absolute, which +misunderstands and stifles individual inspiration, is not only an +usurper—it also fails in its mission, which is to make adult +Christians, Christians who are inwardly inspired and autonomous. It is +like those tyrannical mothers who, if they could, would keep their sons +in a perpetual minority. On the other hand, the children, even when +they have attained their majority, should not despise their parents and +disdain the counsels of experience and of age. Individual inspiration +is apt to lead to self-sufficiency and sectarianism; it loses sight of +the link of solidarity which unites the generations, and the social +continuity in which alone progress is made in the religious life, as in +the life of civilisation. The first defect, the tyrannical usurpation +of tradition, predominates in the Catholic Church; the opposite defect, +that of the intransigeance of individual convictions and of Illuminism, +is the plague of Protestant communities. The truth would be found in a +middle course, and in the organisation of a traditional Church stable +enough to receive and keep the heritage of the past, large and flexible +enough to permit in it the legitimate expansion of the Christian +consciousness and the acquisition of new treasure. +</P> + +<P> +To this ideal, Catholicism cannot resign itself without succumbing to +death. Protestantism aspires to it without reaching it; and yet +nothing is more really in the logic of its principle. No Protestant +Church professes to be infallible. Its most solemn Confessions of +Faith have only a provisional value. The spirit of reform breathes in +it without truce, continually. The principal task of the community, as +of the individual, is to amend itself, to advance in knowledge and in +virtue. A Church which should exclude this spirit of reform would +cease to be a Protestant Church. And, of course, the duty of reform +implies the legitimacy of criticism, of an appeal to the Gospel better +understood, of a constant effort to bring the real up to the ideal. +The only matter of importance is to decide aright on the principle or +criterion according to which this criticism shall be made. +</P> + +<P> +Shall it be another dogma? No; not even if it be called a fundamental +one such as the authority of Scripture. For this very dogma, +formulated by tradition, is therefore human and contingent, and is open +to criticism like all the rest. With what then, or in the name of +what, shall dogma be criticised? Shall we, with Rationalism, take a +moral or philosophical axiom as the criterion? We should then violate +the autonomy of the religious consciousness; we should denaturalise +religion itself, by subjecting it to an external rule; and Dogmatics, +basing its fabric on an alien principle, would produce a hybrid +structure that would be rejected by believers and philosophers with +equal disdain. +</P> + +<P> +The principle of criticism of Christian dogmas can only be the +principle of Christianity itself, which is anterior to all dogmas, and +which it is the aim of dogmas to manifest and to apply. Now the +principle of Christianity is not a theoretical doctrine: it is a +religious experience—the experience of Christ and His disciples +through the centuries. It is the Gospel of salvation by the faith of +the heart, the revelation of a moral relation, of a new relation, of a +filial relation, created and realised between the man who is sinful and +lost, and the Father who calls and pardons him. Such is the initial +germ from which the whole Christian development has sprung, and by +which consequently that development should and can be judged. +</P> + +<P> +This generative principle of the life and of all the dogmas of the +Church being laid down, and the distinction established between the +ideal principle and its successive realisations, all of them +necessarily incomplete, the criticism of dogmas will be effected +automatically, without violence, and with fruit. It will be enough to +tell the story of the genesis and evolution of each of them. It will +then be seen what contingent and perishing elements have entered into +it in the course of history. Christianity is an organism whose soul is +immortal, but whose body is renewed unceasingly by the fact that its +materials are in constant movement, and that they are gathered from the +various environments through which it has to pass. The philosophical +notions which have served it as a temporary expression, and which are +doubly dead to-day, either because civilisation has advanced, or +because they were without vital connection with the initial Christian +experience, fall from the tree like withered leaves or lifeless +branches. As to the others, in which the sap still rises from the +mother root, they will be seen to be transformed, to grow and flower +from year to year under the same salubrious breath of criticism. Our +discipline, religiously faithful to the principle of Christian piety, +may often find itself in conflict with the administrative powers of the +Church, but never really with the Church itself. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy</I> +</P> + +<P> +If less burning, the problem of the relations of dogmatics to +philosophy is perhaps more difficult to solve than the problem just +discussed. It has given rise to quite as many controversies. The +danger is twofold. On the one hand, there is the pretension of +scholasticism, the attempt to absorb philosophy in theology and make it +subservient. It is still the pretension of a certain simple Protestant +orthodoxy, for which there is no philosophy outside the Christian +faith. At the other extreme is the attempt of rationalism to include +the Christian religion in general ethics and philosophy. In the first +case it is dogmatics which absorbs philosophy; in the second it is +philosophy which absorbs dogmatics. But, in both cases, the +specifically religious phenomena are lost sight of, the original +character of Christian piety is misconceived, and theology, no longer +having any special domain, succumbs and vanishes. It is the merit of +the Reformation of Luther, in the sixteenth, and of the thought of +Schleiermacher and Vinet in the nineteenth century, to have brought out +and rendered manifest, among all other psychological phenomena, the +character <I>sui generis</I> of Christian faith and life, and thus to have +assigned to theology an object of study, eminent no doubt, but very +special and very circumscribed. A task was thus marked out for +theology widely different from that of philosophy—a task which +consists, not in explaining everything in heaven and earth, but, more +modestly and usefully, in giving an account of the religious experience +of the Christian Church. Saved at once from scholasticism and +rationalism, dogmatic theology may therefore build itself up in its own +domain by the side of the other sciences without menacing or fearing +any of them. +</P> + +<P> +Its relations to philosophy will become clear if we call to mind a very +simple distinction. Philosophy to-day comprises two parts very +different in nature: a study of the thinking subject, or, as it is +sometimes called, a critique of reason, or a theory of knowledge; in +the second place, a doctrine on the essence and the necessary relations +of beings, a metaphysic, or a theory of the universe. +</P> + +<P> +It is easy to see that all the positive sciences are differently +related to these two parts of philosophy. None of them, for instance, +can dispense with the first, with the criticism of our faculty of +knowing and of our means of reasoning, under penalty of mistaking the +worth of its own hypotheses, and even the regularity of its processes. +It is clear that a physicist cannot dispense with correct syllogisms or +with vigilance against illusions of the senses and other errors of +method. But, on the other hand, no savant would accept the yoke of any +metaphysic whatever which should come to him <I>à priori</I> to dictate to +him its conclusions. Upon indications of this nature he desires to +form hypotheses and make new experiments; but, as a savant, he will +never pronounce before that supreme and decisive consultation of facts. +</P> + +<P> +It is exactly the same with the relations of dogmatics to philosophy. +It will have recourse to it for all that regards the theory of +knowledge in general and the theory of religious knowledge in +particular. Like every other science it needs to ascertain the scope +of its instrument in order that it may be under no illusion as to the +worth of the work it accomplishes. But also, like every other science, +it has the right and the duty to challenge and neglect all general +metaphysic which, flowing from another principle than that of the +Christian religion, would dictate to it articles of faith or rules of +morality. +</P> + +<P> +Let it not be said that every theory of knowledge soon begets a +metaphysic in its own image. We know theories which deny the very +possibility of metaphysics, and it is a question whether a truly +Christian dogmatic accommodates itself to it better than any other +theory. It may be maintained in fact that the act of faith which is +the expression of the conservating energy of the ego and the principle +of all religion is accomplished all the more freely when there is no +knowledge, properly speaking, there to hinder it. A common prejudice +requires that we should have metaphysics as a support to religion. It +is on religion, on the contrary, that metaphysics and ethics rest. Man +did not become religious when he heard that there were gods; he only +had the idea of God and believed in Him because he was religious. +Mystery was the natural cradle of piety. Faith is much less an +acquisition of knowledge than a means of salvation and a source of +strength and life. It is one thing to speculate on the universal +problem; it is another to place one's self by the heart in a living +relation of trust, of fear, or of love to the mysterious Being on whom +all other beings depend. Religion may possibly be under the necessity +of ending in a metaphysic, but a metaphysic does not necessarily end in +religion, for there are some kinds of metaphysic which either exclude +religion or render it impossible. +</P> + +<P> +A theory of religion, dogmatics can have no other starting point than +religious phenomena themselves. From this concrete and experimental +principle, from this state of soul produced by the immediate feeling of +a necessary relation to God, the entire system should spring and +develop. What is not in religious experience should find no place in +religious science, and should be banished from it. +</P> + +<P> +It would only be to its detriment, then, that the science of dogmas +should throw away its liberty by espousing beforehand metaphysical +theses or the final conclusions of any philosophy whatsoever. These +theses, springing from another source than religion, have no right, in +that religion, to become articles of faith. Rational truths not born +of religious feeling would be in dogmatics so many dead weights and +heterogeneous elements, which would lead to the greatest incoherence. +To build up a professedly revealed theology on a professedly natural +one is to construct a system without either unity or profound +connection. Such a dualism of principles is as intolerable to science +as to piety. Instead of dogmatics subordinating itself to metaphysics, +metaphysics ought to include dogmatics as well as the results of all +the other sciences. +</P> + +<P> +It is altogether different with the criticism of our means of knowing. +In every order of science it is mere levity of mind to commence or to +conclude researches a little general without having first determined +the precise conditions of real knowledge. The absence of a +philosophical critique of this nature explains why savants, so rigorous +in their special studies, show a philosophical <I>naïvety</I> so great in +the conclusions that they draw from them, and so readily crown their +discoveries by a pseudo-metaphysic that they impose upon the multitude +with all the authority and prestige of science. More than any others, +theologians are guilty of this abuse when they wish to make their +science the sum of universal knowledge. They would be more soundly +religious were they more modest and more reserved. An excellent means +of putting ourselves on our guard against this illusion and its +deplorable consequences will be to institute, without further delay, a +rigorous criticism of religious knowledge. This task, I believe, has +never been seriously attempted in France. It is, however, as +indispensable to the right conduct of the mind as it is fitted +radically to cure us of our dogmatic pride and to inspire us with +tolerance and humility. This will be the object of the following +chapter. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0304"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +CRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE +</H4> + +<P> +He who says consciousness says science, or at least, the beginning of +science. Consciousness implies a representation. In other words, no +modification of the ego becomes conscious except by awakening in the +mind a representative image of the object that has produced it and of +the relation of that object to the ego. All our sensations and all our +feelings are accompanied by images. The religious sentiment does not +attain to the light of consciousness in any other way. It is because +it is a state or conscious movement of the soul that it becomes, it +also, a principle of knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +No kind of mental life begins with clear and abstract ideas. An idea +is derived from an image, and, in order to produce the image, an +external or an internal impression is necessary. It is true that the +idea or the image has, in its turn, the mysterious power of reproducing +and renewing the sensation or the feeling from which it sprang. On +this is based the art of teaching and the power of tradition. But this +must not be allowed to produce in us the illusion that originally the +idea preceded the sensation. The development of the mental life of +children is proof of the contrary. We only know that by which we or +our kind have been in some degree affected. Our ideas are simply the +algebraic notation of our impressions and movements. That which is +outside our life is outside our view. Without the external sensations +which represent the action of the world on the ego, we should have no +knowledge of the world. Without the subjective reaction of the ego +against that action of the world, a reaction which manifests itself in +the moral, æsthetic, and religious life of the soul, we should have no +moral or religious idea, no notion of the good or the beautiful. All +our metaphysical ideas come from that source. +</P> + +<P> +It remains, of course, to inquire what is the worth of ideas of this +order. It is the particularly complex and delicate question that we +here approach. There is no serious philosophy to-day that does not +start with a theory of knowledge. Religious knowledge cannot escape by +any special privilege. The criticism of it is all the more necessary, +because illusion, in this matter, is so easy, and because it clothes +itself in a sacred character. The theologian who undertakes the +scientific treatment of dogmas without first measuring the scope of the +instrument he employs, and estimating the worth of the materials he +uses, knows not what he is doing. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +1. <I>Obsolete Theories of Knowledge</I> +</P> + +<P> +Formerly three explanations of our knowledge prevailed in philosophy: +the hypothesis of a primitive revelation; the idealist theory; and the +sensualist theory. +</P> + +<P> +The first was revived three quarters of a century ago by de Bonald and +Joseph de Maistre. It no longer needs to be refuted. According to +this hypothesis, our ideas came to us, not from within, from the +naturally productive force of the mind, but from without, by way of +supernatural communication. This communication from God consisted at +the outset in the gift to man of a perfect language. The exact word +brought with it the right idea. "Man," said de Bonald, "thought his +speech before speaking his thought." If errors have crept in and +reigned among men, it is because they were not able to preserve without +corruption the sacred deposit of that primitive language and +philosophy. Is it necessary to show how thoroughly this theory is +contradicted by psychology and history? It is said that in certain +countries there still exists a Botany, according to which the Great +Spirit, having created the trees of the forest, comes in the night each +Spring to stick the leaves and blossoms on the branches. The immediate +communication of right ideas and supernatural virtues to man in his +infancy implies a contradiction; it forces us to imagine in him +thoughts prior to the action of his intellect and virtues previous to +the action of his will. Lastly, it is to misconceive the nature of the +mind to make of it something passive and inert. The mind is the +thinking and willing force—that is to say, a force productive of +thoughts and volitions. If it is not this, it is nothing. We must +affirm, no doubt, that God creates this force and directs its +evolution, but it is a contradiction to say at once that He creates it +and that it is unproductive. It cannot exist without being productive. +It is of its very essence to produce. Mind is only mind in so far as +it is a force that produces thought and volition. +</P> + +<P> +The aim of this hypothesis, moreover, was to found the divine authority +of an infallible tradition by making it go back to the earliest times. +These revealed ideas, by the very fact that they are the ideas of God, +have an absolute and eternal value. Man finds them guaranteed in the +religious caste, to which the deposit has been confided, and which has +preserved them intact. Thus arose the idea of an infallible authority. +So they say. But the idea of dogmatic authority never appears in early +times; it is of very late date; it is elaborated very slowly, according +to a psychological law that we have already discovered. Everywhere, +and in the traditions of all religions and Churches, it appears after +all other doctrines as the keystone which closes and binds together the +arch. It is an ultimate dogma logically derived from other dogmas, and +afterwards used as a warrant for them. Such was the dogma of Papal +Infallibility promulgated at the Vatican Council of 1870; such, in +Protestantism, was the dogma of Biblical infallibility, completed by +the theologians of the seventeenth century. To base the value of +religious notions on a supernatural authority, with a view to rendering +them indisputable, is a vicious circle; the authority, it is evident, +is the product of these notions themselves. All systems of authority +end by shutting themselves up in this circle and perishing in it. +</P> + +<P> +The idealist theory of the origin of ideas is but the philosophical +form of the preceding one. It also is an endeavour to trace back our +general ideas to the divine understanding as their primary source. +Pure ideas, type-ideas, according to Plato, constitute the intelligible +Cosmos of which material phenomena are but the unreal and ephemeral +shadows. Clearly to conceive these divine ideas is to reach the +transcendent reality of things—it is to possess true knowledge. From +Platonism to the realism of scholasticism, from this to the geometry of +Spinoza and the dialectic of Hegel, the form of the theory has varied +constantly; the substance of it has remained the same. Hegel always +said: "The rational is the real," and, for him, as for Plato, absolute +knowledge resolved itself into perfect logic. +</P> + +<P> +Psychology has long since dispelled the scientific illusion of +idealism. We do not wish to recall the pitiful failure of all the +attempts formerly made, and even in our own times, to deduce <I>à priori</I> +the laws of the physical world. Everywhere, in this domain, the method +of observation has superseded the deductive method. The reason of it +is simple. An idea, however lofty, can only give out what it contains, +<I>i.e.</I> other ideas. We know very well that our ideas are in our mind, +but they are only in it in the state of ideas. How do we know that the +objects which they represent exist outside ourselves? Only by logic +can we pass from the idea of a thing to the external reality of that +thing. Experience is necessary. Without it our ideas are empty forms. +One may conjure with them for ever without ever reaching anything +objective. They are shells without kernels. Pure idealism, so far +from furnishing a solid theory of knowledge, ends in scepticism, <I>i.e.</I> +in the negation of knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +The excesses and failures of idealist theories of knowledge have always +given rise in history to the opposite theory of sensualist nominalism, +according to which our ideas are simply transformed sensations. +Unhappily, sensualism, in laying down this axiom, never explained the +nature and still less the cause of that marvellous transformation. +"There is nothing in the understanding," said Locke, "that was not +previously in the senses." To which Leibniz rightly replied: "Except +the understanding itself;" that is to say, the force which from +sensation draws knowledge. By suppressing this ideal principle, you +remove from science all element of necessity—that is to say, all +general worth. With Hume, the sensualist theory, so far from giving an +account of knowledge, ended in pure phenomenalism, <I>i.e.</I> once more, in +scepticism. It is, in fact, with isolated sensation as with pure idea; +you may press it as much as you will, you will never get out of it +anything but what it contains—that is to say, contingencies without +any connection between each other. Materialism is still more +embarrassed to furnish any theory whatever of knowledge, for it does +not even succeed in explaining sensation. Between a mechanical +movement and a phenomenon of consciousness there is an impassable +abyss. One of the most evident marks of the inferiority of the +philosophy of French positivism is that it has not even approached this +problem of knowledge, and that it has been able to constitute itself +without any other than the popular psychology. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +2. <I>The Kantian Theory of Knowledge</I> +</P> + +<P> +Thinkers may to-day be divided into two classes: those who date from +before Kant, and those who have received the initiation and, so to +speak, the philosophical baptism of his critique. These two classes of +minds will always have much ado to understand each other. The first +are dogmatists or Pyrrhonists. The second no longer comprehend either +dogmatism or Pyrrhonism. For them, the point of view has been +displaced. Thanks to Kant, we judge both our knowledge and our faculty +of knowing; we give an account to ourselves of the conditions in which +it performs its functions, of the forms which determine it, and of the +limits that it cannot pass. Kant compared, without exaggeration, the +revolution which he effected in philosophy to that which the discovery +of Copernicus effected in the system of the world. In philosophy also +the sun has ceased to move round the earth, and the ancient illusion +has been vanquished and dispersed. The idea and the reality no longer +coincide; they are disjoined. The intelligible no doubt is real; but +it is not certain that all the real is intelligible. Reality appears +to us now as surpassing not only our knowledge, but our means of +knowing. The religious notion of mystery has entered into +consciousness. Man has attained to intellectual humility. Like his +body, his mind is a mean between the infinitely great and the +infinitely little, between nothing and everything. The deductive +philosophy of the unity and necessary and continuous unfolding of an +eternal substance, gives place to the philosophy of observation, which +will be found to be that of the antinomies whose permanent conflict +produces the ascensional progress of the world and of life. +</P> + +<P> +To make Kantism end in scepticism shows a lack of intelligence. His +system enables us, on the contrary, to form the <I>scientific</I> theory of +science. The truth is to be found neither in dogmatism nor in +Pyrrhonism, both of which Pascal combated with equal vigour. In modern +science there is a certitude invincible to the subtlest Pyrrhonism; but +there is also in it a sense of the limits of our knowing faculty and of +the relative character of our most solid constructions which forbids +man ever to be puffed up to the point of believing himself to be God. +To be in this mean is to be in the truth. The same critique which +establishes the validity of human knowledge lays down the limits beyond +which it cannot go. We have come to know ourselves better, and that is +the mark of all true progress in philosophy. <I>Know thyself</I> is always +its first rule and its final fruit. +</P> + +<P> +The Kantian theory of knowledge, while satisfying the mind, at the same +time sets forth the essential antinomies whose normal play constitutes +the very life of the ego and explains its multiple manifestations. +</P> + +<P> +There are two elements in all knowledge: an <I>à posteriori</I> element +which comes from experience, and an <I>à priori</I> element which comes from +the thinking subject. The first is the <I>matter</I> of knowledge; the +second is the <I>form</I>. Separate, these two elements are unproductive. +With the first alone we have but a reality not known; with the second +alone we have but a knowing without reality. Their union renders them +mutually fruitful by organising the data of experience into the +necessary forms of thought. The principle of causation, <I>e.g.</I>, is not +in things; it is in the mind, and it is the mind which spontaneously +connects all phenomena. Science, at bottom, consists in nothing but +the causal connection of things. Where the chain breaks, positive +knowledge ends. This clear sense of ignorance on points on which we +really are ignorant is still a part of science and one of its principal +forces, for it proves that it knows itself very well, and also knows +the conditions apart from which it no longer exists. But, whether +triumphant or held in check, positive science can neither renounce its +task and method nor modify their nature. It can only seek to complete, +or rather to lengthen, the chain of phenomena. The success of this +ever-identical effort, an effort always in the same direction, is what +is called its conquests and its progress. It follows that the +irresistible tendency of science will be to extend over the whole of +the phenomena the ever-tighter network of an invincible necessity. +Determinism is its last word. +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand, the ego which knows is an acting ego. Its thought +itself, properly speaking, and this display of science, are only one of +the forms of its inner activity. It wills, and it must will. If the +world acts on it by sensation, it acts incessantly on the world by its +volitions. And let it not be said that the will simply represents a +mechanical reaction of the ego, exactly equivalent to the action of the +external world upon it,—that it is a simple transformation of +energy,—for this is not true. Without here raising the question of +liberty, it is certain that I do not give back in will simply what I +have received under the form of sensation. I deliberate on the motives +which urge me to act; I choose between them; I feel myself under +obligation; I feel that I should will the good. It is impossible to +conceive of moral action without the idea of end. I conceive it, +therefore, under a different form from that of mechanical action. +Responsibility and obligation are not less the necessary forms of will +than logical necessity is the necessary form of thought. But soon +there arises in man the most tragical of conflicts. Scientific +determinism renders moral activity unintelligible, and moral activity +comes into collision with the determinism of science. If mechanical +determinism be absolutely true, my will is null; I am simply an +automaton. If my responsibility is real, if my personal energy is not +an illusion, there is in the world something besides matter, and, for +man, there are other than mechanical laws. Thus divided in myself, I +ought not to practise what I know, and I cannot do what I ought. I +remain floating between a science which is not moral and a morality +that I feel to be unscientific. My intellect destroys my will. As the +one develops the other dies. The better I know the laws of the world +the less reason I have for living and acting. My morality, at each +act, gives the lie to my science, and my science, at each affirmation, +refutes my morality. Such is the deep malady, the spiritual misery, of +the best of our contemporaries. They feel that, with them, vital +energy is in inverse proportion to the extent and penetration of +thought. It is then that they declare that pessimism, a radical +pessimism, is the truth; that existence, will, desire, are the chief +evils, and that the supreme effort of science should be to cure us of +them by delivering us from all our illusions; after which, in its turn, +it will be extinguished itself, like a flame that has consumed the food +on which it fed. +</P> + +<P> +Still, the conscious subject is one. You cannot proclaim it vain +without at the same time proclaiming the vanity of its ideas as well as +of its efforts. The ruin of morality draws after it the ruin of +science. Moreover, the conflict of which we speak is different from a +theoretical contradiction whose solution may be indefinitely postponed. +The conflict is practical; it is of the vital not of the intellectual +order. It is an internal dissolution of the being itself, a struggle +between its elementary faculties, in which the mind is weakened, +droops, and dies. +</P> + +<P> +The solution, therefore, if there be one, can only be a practical one, +a solution springing from the will. What is needed is to give the mind +confidence in itself. It is necessary to increase the energy of its +inner life in order that it may find the strength to believe and to +affirm in face of the universe the sovereignty of spirit. This is the +same as saying that the solution of the conflict is religion; not an +external religion, doubtless, in whose hands the thought and will of +man should abdicate—that would in no wise re-establish their inner and +living harmony—but an inward religion, an activity of spirit which +grasps in itself the supremacy of the universal spirit, and by an act +of intimate confidence, an instinctive impulse of the being ready to +perish, affirms to itself its own dignity, and makes to spring up out +of its own substance the irresistible religion of spirit. Thus the +conflict of the theoretic reason and the practical reason eternally +engenders religion in the heart of man. Let us show more clearly still +this necessary genesis of religion. +</P> + +<P> +In observing, in reasoning, in generalising, I arrive at a certain +knowledge of that which surrounds me; this knowledge of external +objects forms within me the contents of what I call my knowledge of the +world. On the other hand, in acting, in living, in exercising my will, +is formed what I call my knowledge of myself. Consciousness of self, +and consciousness of the world, condition and determine each other, and +cannot exist without each other. But, at the same time, they enter +into mortal conflict. The ego desires to master the world, and the +world, in the end, devours the ego. Thought triumphs over Nature and +contemns it; Nature takes its revenge and swallows up thought in its +abyss. The consciousness of self wishes to bring over to itself the +knowledge of the world; and this absorbs and devours the consciousness +of self. The synthesis and reconciliation can only be found in the +consciousness of something superior to self and the world on which both +of them absolutely depend. This synthetic and pacificatory +consciousness is the consciousness of universal and sovereign Being; it +is the sense of the presence of God. To escape from his distress, man +has never had any but this means of salvation. The savage has recourse +to it, according to his degree of intellectual life, when, under terror +of the phenomena of Nature, and of ever-threatening death, he calls to +his aid the obscure power of his gods. The philosopher, nourished on +speculation, and arrived at the dualistic and divided consciousness of +the disciples of Kant, obeys the same instinctive impulse and the same +vital necessity when he seeks in the notion of God the conciliation of +the conflict which he feels between the ego and the world, between pure +reason and the practical reason. He needs a universal Being on whom he +feels himself to depend, and on whom he may equally make to depend the +whole universe. In uniting himself to Him, he affirms and confirms his +own life; he feels God to be active and present, in his thought under +the form of logical law, in his will under the form of moral law. He +is saved by faith in the interior God, in whom is realised the unity of +his being. It is therefore true to say that the human mind cannot +believe in itself without believing in God, and that, on the other +hand, it cannot believe in God without finding Him within itself. +</P> + +<P> +That is a <I>salto mortale</I>, some superficial spirits will say, +astonished at an apparent deduction which thus makes the religious +activity of the ego spring from the depths of its own distress and +despair. To which we respond: it is, on the contrary, a <I>salto +vitale</I>, the instinctive and at the same time reflective act which +moves the mind to affirm to itself the absolute value of spirit. +Considered at this first psychological moment of its birth, the +religious faith of spirit in itself and in its sovereignty is only the +higher form, and, as it were, the prolongation of the instinct of +conservation which reigns in all Nature. The mind, crushed beneath the +weight of things, stands up and triumphs in the feeling of the eternal +dignity of spirit. +</P> + +<P> +Inward religion, sacred instinct of life, divine, immortal force which +necessarily appears at the first movement of spirit, how they +misunderstand thee who only see in thee the slavery of man! On the +contrary, it is thou alone that breakest all the chains that Nature +binds on him, that savest him from death and from extinction, and that +openest out to his beneficent activity an infinite career by +associating him with the work of God: it is thou that renderest his +spontaneity creative, that renewest his forces, and that, plunging him +into the fountain whence he issued, maintainest in him an eternal youth! +</P> + +<P> +This issue to the conflict of our faculties is exclusively of the +practical order; it is an act of trust, not a demonstration; an +affirmation which presupposes, not scientific proofs, but an act of +moral energy. This act must be performed, or we must die. There is no +constraint except the desire to live, but this is irresistible, if not +for each individual in particular, at least for mankind in general. +The individual may commit suicide; humanity desires to live, and its +life is a perpetual act of faith. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, this practical solution implies the possibility and the +hope of a theoretical one; and this in two ways: in the first place, +psychologically, because the ego of pure reason is also that of the +practical reason and feels itself to be one and the same knowing and +acting subject; then, speculatively, because in believing in the +sovereignty of spirit in ourselves and in the world we affirm that man +and the world have in spirit the principle and the aim of their being. +In God present in us, are reconciled, at least in hope, the ego and the +world. This religious faith of spirit in itself permits us to +anticipate the future solution, and to affirm that at the summit of +their complete development, and in their entire perfection, science and +the moral life will rejoin and penetrate each other. Mathematicians +tell us that two parallel lines meet in infinity. So in God are +reconciled the pure reason and the practical reason, which here seem to +us to develop themselves on parallel lines without ever being able to +meet and to unite. Let us never forget that we spring out of +nothingness, or, if you will, out of unconsciousness, and that we +slowly emerge into the light of consciousness. Man is in course of +being made spirit. If it be well considered, it will be seen that this +irreducible antithesis that fills us with despair is the very condition +of our spiritual development. The mind only disengages itself from the +bonds of its mother, Nature, by an incessant struggle. Struggle means +opposition and victory. Experience demonstrates that nothing +spiritualises, deepens, or purifies morality more than the +contradictions of science; and finally, that nothing helps science more +than a high and disinterested morality. These two sisters, enemies in +appearance, are twins, and they are seen to grow and triumph together +by the exercise they give to each other through their constant +contradictions. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +3. <I>The Two Orders of Knowledge</I> +</P> + +<P> +... The ego can only be conscious of itself and of its modifications. +That which does not touch it in any way remains unknown. Now, the +modifications of the ego may be reduced to two groups. The one comes +to it from without, representing the action of things upon it; these +are sensations. The other springs up within, representing the action +of the ego on things, its spontaneous energy, its volitions, and its +acts. Thence come the two constituent elements of every consciousness, +the distinction between object and subject, the ego and the non-ego, +thought and the object of thought. We call <I>objective</I> every idea or +quality that it is possible to refer to the object alone, independently +of the action or disposition of the subject. We call <I>subjective</I> all +knowledge implying identity of subject and object, all discipline +bearing on the rules of the spontaneous activity of the ego, since +without that activity the rules which should direct it would not exist. +In the first case we are conscious of a distinction and even of a +radical opposition between the object and the subject of knowledge; in +the second, we are conscious of their fundamental identity in this +sense, that the thinking and willing subject presents itself to itself +as an object of thought and study. In order that the two orders of +knowledge, engendered by this duality of origin, may be brought into +logical unity, it is necessary either that the subject should enter +into the object, that the ego should be absorbed by the non-ego, so +that the laws of the non-ego should become the laws of the ego—and +that would be materialism; or that the object should enter into the +subject so that the laws of the subject should become the law of +things—and that would be idealism. Outside these two systems, equally +violent and absolute, the two orders of knowledge are irreducible, +because in us the consciousness of the ego and the consciousness of the +world are at present in conflict. Morality is neither reconciled to +science, nor science to morality. In their <I>rapprochement</I>, +progressive to infinity, a hiatus always subsists. +</P> + +<P> +One would be greatly deceived if he reduced this difference to the +ordinary opposition between the physical and the spiritual, between +external and internal phenomena. Sensation, the foundation and the +starting point of the objective order of knowledge, is just as internal +as volition. On the other hand, man is a part of what we call Nature; +and, as such, he is the theatre of a crowd of internal and external +phenomena which, so far as that is possible, should be observed, +described, explained, by the principle of causality, like all the other +phenomena of the physical order. For example, the mechanism of memory +and that of logic, the correlation between mental activities and the +physiological modifications of the cerebro-spinal system, the laws of +association of ideas, the stable forms of the human understanding, all +that psychology that is now called "scientific psychology," rightfully +enters into the domain of the sciences of Nature. It is a province +that may be explored like all the others. The psychological +observations made in it are objective not less than those of +physiology, for the reason that the phenomena that are observed, while +occurring in the ego, are nevertheless produced in it without the +voluntary intervention of the ego, and even without its express +consent. Moreover, they do not imply or provoke on the part of the ego +any moral judgment properly so called. +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand, take the sciences of Nature which deal with the +objects most widely removed from man, with astronomy or geology, +<I>e.g.</I>; no longer consider the bare external results; consider rather +that spiritual force which we call thought, and which has the virtue of +producing these sciences; what are they but the external revelation of +the creative and organising energy of the thinking subject, the +revelation of spirit to spirit? The work, seen from this subjective +side, serves simply to set forth the worth of the worker. You speak +then of the ordinary savant or of the intellectual genius, of the good +or bad scientific workman. The philosophy of science becomes a +necessarily subjective discipline. "Science," in fact, is simply an +abstraction. In the reality there are only minds more or less +ignorant, conscious, at each step, of their strength and of their +impotence, of their defeats and victories,—minds condemned to a +perpetual effort to struggle out of the night from which they slowly +mount. When you think of this most disinterested side of the +scientific life you ask yourself what is the basis, in the last resort, +of this confidence of mind in itself—the foundation of all the rest. +You see clearly that this activity of pure intellect demands, like all +other human activity, attention, forgetfulness of self, a heroism, in +short, going to the point of contempt of common enjoyments, and of the +sacrifice of life itself. You have then left the domain of the +sciences of Nature and have entered the realms of spirit, and there +rise around you the problems which form the object of the moral +disciplines. +</P> + +<P> +Such is the intimate complexity of the two orders of knowledge that a +persevering reflection discovers them to be everywhere mingled, and it +is with difficulty that they are disentangled. All knowledge is an +aggregate (<I>ensemble</I>) of judgments; but the judgments which constitute +physical knowledge and those that constitute moral science are not of +the same nature. The first are judgments of <I>existence</I>, bearing +solely on the causality, the succession, the distribution of phenomena, +<I>i.e.</I> on the relations of objects to each other, apart from the +subject. The basis on which they rest is sensation, and, as sensation +has for necessary forms time and space, time and space will also be the +forms and limits of these judgments. Forming homogeneous quantities, +time and space give the notion of figure and of number, so that +mathematics is the foundation and the necessary framework of all the +physical sciences. They rise above this abstract science of the forms +of sensibility in the order of their complexity, and form a hierarchy +from rational mechanics to sociology, of which Comte and so many others +vainly endeavour to make a simple social mechanics. The destiny of +this universal objective science is to progress for ever without ever +being completed; for it is of the same nature as number—that is to +say, essentially indefinite and imperfect. It not only finds an +inexhaustible subject of study in the external world; it encounters a +mystery impenetrable to its methods and analyses in the very subject +that creates it, and which, in creating it, remains outside the +mechanism it sets in motion. +</P> + +<P> +In fact, when the thinking subject considers itself, or considers +things in relation to itself, it brings to bear upon itself and them a +second series of judgments of an altogether different character. It +estimates them and it estimates itself according to a <I>norm</I> which is +in itself. It declares them to be good or bad, beautiful or ugly, rich +or poor in life, harmonious or discordant. In other words, it is no +longer the idea of number—it is the category of <I>the good</I> which +becomes the necessary form of these new judgments, which, for this +reason, are called judgments of <I>estimation</I> or of dignity, and it is +clear that between these two kinds of judgments there is no common +measure. They can no more encounter each other than two balls rolled +on different planes. +</P> + +<P> +Will it be said that the judgments founded on the concept of <I>the good</I> +are insignificant and worthless because neither man nor the good of man +can be the measure of things? If this remark is useful for abating +human pride and preventing childish illusions, it does not efface the +primordial distinction between good and evil inherent to the human +mind, nor would one wish to deduce from it the vanity of all morality, +and the equal worth of all the manifestations of life. The proof, +moreover, that the rule of <I>the good</I> is above man is that it judges +and condemns him pitilessly; it is that consciousness, independently of +the painful or agreeable sensations that it receives from things, +establishes between them a fitness (<I>convenance</I>), a hierarchy, and +constitutes the harmonious unity of the universe itself in the supreme +idea of the sovereign good. If the legitimacy of the confidence which +the conscience has in its rule is to be contested, I do not see why we +should not contest that of the confidence of pure thought in itself. +Then everything crumbles to pieces, both science and conscience, in the +same abyss. +</P> + +<P> +In reality, the good, the beautiful, the relations of fitness and of +harmony, are so many principles of knowledge, which progress, like +physical knowledge, by the culture of the mind. The form of the moral +judgments is universal, and identical in every man; it is this form +alone which constitutes man as a moral being; but the contents of this +form vary unceasingly in history, according to times and places. +Everywhere and always man has sought the good, but he has not always +placed it in the same things; he has formed different ideas of it, and +these ideas have become more and more noble and pure in proportion as +his life itself has been ennobled and purified. That is why there is a +history of morality, of religion, of æsthetics, as there is a history +of the natural sciences, although progress in these two classes has +been of an opposite nature and accomplished according to different +laws. However this may be, we may conclude that if mathematics, by the +concept of number, the abstract form of sensation, is the mould and +framework of the sciences of Nature, ethics, by <I>the categorical +imperative</I>, the abstract form of the activity of spirit, is the +foundation of the moral sciences, which are as diverse as the various +activities of the ego, each having special rules and criteria, no +doubt, but always falling under the common form of obligation. +</P> + +<P> +Distinct and often in conflict, these two orders of knowledge are none +the less <I>solidaire</I>; they are always developed by their action the one +upon the other, and tend to a higher unity, the need for which gives +rise to attempts, renewed from age to age, at a metaphysical synthesis. +If you take the disciplines as taught in the schools to-day, you will +find that they are almost all mixed sciences such as history, social +economy, politics, philosophy, etc. So soon as the savant rises above +the simple description of phenomena, and wishes to organise his cosmos +by formulating the unity and harmony of it, he necessarily borrows this +principle of organisation and of harmony from the experience of his +subjective life. On the contrary, religion, art, morality, can only be +realised in the conditions prescribed to them by science properly so +called, and the last problem always propounded to human thought at each +stage of its development is the conciliation of the <I>moral idea</I> +acquired by the exercise of the will, and the <I>scientific idea</I> +furnished by its experience of the world. +</P> + +<P> +There is no question, then, of separating the two orders of knowledge, +but of referring each of them to its true source, and preventing a +confusion which, mixing everything up, renders everything uncertain. +It is impossible in good psychology to trace to one centre the +divergent manifestations of our spiritual life, and to drive the moral +into the physical or the physical into the moral. Our spiritual life +is like an ellipse with two centres of light: on the one side, the +centre of <I>receptive life</I>, where all the sensations received are +elaborated into phenomenal knowledge; on the other, the centre of +<I>active life</I>, at which are concentrated all the revelations of the +mind's own inner energy. The line of the ellipse described by the +relation and the distance of these two centres is the approximate but +never perfect synthesis of the two kinds of data which thus arrive in +consciousness. He who does not distinguish these two centres, and +transforms the ellipse into a circumference with equal rays and an +unique centre, necessarily remains in chaos and old night. +</P> + +<P> +From these general considerations is naturally deduced the specific +character of religious knowledge, its inward nature and its range. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +4. <I>The Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge</I> +</P> + +<P> +The first contrast that we have seen to arise between the knowledge of +Nature and religious knowledge is that the first is <I>objective</I>, and +that the second can never pass out of <I>subjectivity</I>. This does not +mean that the second is less certain, but that it is of another order, +and is produced in another way and with other characteristics. +</P> + +<P> +In one sense, the knowledge of Nature is subjective, for it depends on +our mental constitution, and on the laws of our knowing faculty. But +religious and moral knowledge is subjective in a different manner and +for a deeper reason. The object of scientific knowledge is always +outside the ego, and it is in knowing it as an object outside the ego +that the objectivity of that knowledge consists. But the object of +religious or moral knowledge—God, the Good, the Beautiful—these are +not phenomena that may be grasped outside the ego and independently of +it. God only reveals Himself in and by piety; the Good, in the +consciousness of the good man; the Beautiful, in the creative activity +of the artist. This is only saying that the object of these kinds of +knowledge is immanent in the subject himself, and only reveals itself +by the personal activity of that subject. Absolutely eliminate the +religious and moral subject, or rather take from him all personal +activity, and you suppress, for him, the object of morality and +religion. +</P> + +<P> +Let us take up again that striking antithesis of the two orders of +knowledge. What is at once the basis and the sign of the objectivity +of the natural sciences? +</P> + +<P> +One may theoretically ask whether the world of science, the world that +<I>appears</I> to us, is exactly the real world, existing outside of us. It +is thus that in the philosophy of Kant the famous question as to <I>the +thing in itself</I> is stated. But it is equally certain that in the name +of that philosophy this question ought logically to be discarded. One +is astonished that the author of the <I>Critique of Pure Reason</I> did not +immediately close that door opened to scientific scepticism. After his +critique, in fact, it is evident that that substratum which some are +forced to imagine as a support to phenomena—that the indeterminate and +indeterminable substance that they represent beneath the forms and +qualities of things,—is both a non-being and nonsense. <I>Das Ding an +sich ist ein Unding</I>. (The thing in itself is an unthing.) It is a +remnant of ancient metaphysics which ought to be eliminated from modern +philosophy. In allowing it to introduce itself into our theory of +knowledge, it overturns it as would a heterogeneous element. He that +persists in distinguishing between the thing in itself and the +phenomenal thing will never be able to give an account of the +objectivity of the sciences of Nature, and of the kind of certitude +that belongs to them. +</P> + +<P> +That which appears to us from without is not doubtless all the reality +of the world; but it is a real world. By his calculations, Leverrier +came first to suspect the existence of a large planet as yet +unperceived; then he came to measure its volume, to trace its orbit, +and finally to mark its place at a given time. He said to his brother +astronomers: "Look there!" and the planet appeared at the end of their +telescopes. +</P> + +<P> +How explain, moreover, without this reality of science, the power that +science gives to man over Nature? His power, is it not always exactly +in proportion to his knowledge? +</P> + +<P> +In what then does this objectivity of science consist if it is not +founded on the pretended knowledge of the thing in itself? In the +necessary link that scientific thought establishes between phenomena. +This necessity does not come from experience, for it is something +ideal, which our mind adds to all experience. But, as we can only +think according to these necessary laws, we necessarily objectivise in +all scientific study. We thus affirm, of necessity, the fundamental +unity of the laws of thought and the laws of phenomena. Experience +always confirms this immediate affirmation. Now this necessity, it is +objectivity itself; it is the only noumenon that we are authorised to +seek behind phenomena in Nature, and behind the manifestations of pure +reason in spirit. +</P> + +<P> +The first effect of this objective necessity is to eliminate from the +work of science the feelings and the subjective will of the ego. A +thinking and acting subject is no doubt necessary in making science; +but the characteristic of science is to see what it studies apart from +the subject, apart even from the psychical phenomena that it observes +in the ego itself. Posited outside the ego, the laws that it +promulgates appear to us therefore independent of it. This elimination +of the subject from the conclusions of science thus becomes the sign +and the measure of their objectivity. Where the elimination is +complete, as in astronomy and physics, the objectivity is entire. On +the contrary, history, <I>e.g.</I> where the elimination can never be +absolute, always tends towards objectivity, but never reaches it. +</P> + +<P> +It is altogether otherwise with religious knowledge. With it we enter +at once into the subjective order—that is to say, into an order of +psychological facts, of determinations and internal dispositions of the +subject itself, the succession of which constitutes his personal life. +To eliminate the ego would not here be possible; for this would be both +to eliminate the materials and to dry up the living spring of +knowledge. An ancient illusion pretended that we know God, as we know +the phenomena of Nature, and that the religious life springs from that +objective knowledge as by a sort of practical application. The very +opposite is true. God is not a phenomenon that we may observe apart +from ourselves, or a truth demonstrable by logical reasoning. He who +does not feel Him inside his heart will never find Him outside. The +object of religious knowledge only reveals itself in the subject, by +the religious phenomena themselves. It is with the religious +consciousness as with the moral consciousness. In this the subject +feels obliged, and this obligation itself constitutes the revelation of +the moral object which obliges us. There is no good known outside +that. The same in religion: we never become conscious of our piety +without—at the same time that we feel religiously moved—perceiving, +more or less obscurely, in that very emotion the object and the cause +of religion, <I>i.e.</I> God. +</P> + +<P> +Observe the natural and spontaneous movement of piety: a soul feels +itself to be trusting, that it is established in peace and light; is it +strong, humble, resigned, obedient? It immediately attributes its +strength, its faith, its humility, its obedience, to the action of the +Divine Spirit within itself. Anne Doubourg, dying at the stake, prayed +thus: "O God, Do not abandon me lest I should fall off from Thee." The +prophet of Israel said: "Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned." And +the father in the Gospels cried: "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine +unbelief." To feel thus in our personal and empirical activity the +action and the presence of the Spirit of God within our own spirit, is +the mystery, but it is also the source, of religion. +</P> + +<P> +It will be seen how much religious knowledge and the science of Nature +differ by their very origin. The one is the theory of the receptive +and logical life of the ego; the other is the theory of its active and +spontaneous life. As both the receptive and the active life are one, +however, the two orders of knowledge are neither isolated nor +independent. But they must never be confounded. Their results will +always remain heterogeneous; they are not of the same order, and cannot +supply the place of each other. If you were to admit, <I>e.g.</I>, that +philosophers may succeed (as they have often been believed to do) in +establishing a veritable objective science of God, and if they were +thus to know God in Himself and apart from the religious ego, that +scientific knowledge of God, even if it were possible, would not be +religious knowledge; for to know God religiously is to know Him in His +relation to us—that is to say, in our consciousness, in so far as He +is present in it and determines it towards piety. This is the sense in +which it is permissible to maintain that religion is as independent of +metaphysics as it is of cosmology. It is the same with the knowledge +of the world. To know the world as an astronomer or a physicist is not +to know it religiously. To know it religiously is, while taking it as +it is, and in no wise contradicting the scientific laws according to +which it is governed, to determine its value in relation to the life of +spirit; it is to estimate it according as it is a means, a hindrance, +or a menace, to the progress of that life. In the same way, to know +ourselves religiously is not to construct scientific psychology; but +that psychology being once constructed, and properly constructed, it is +to realise ourselves in our relation both to God and to the world, +forcing ourselves to surmount the contradictions from which we suffer, +in order that we may attain to unity and peace of mind. Thus, not only +can religious knowledge never cast off its subjective character; it is +in reality nothing but that very subjectivity of piety considered in +its action and in its legitimate development. +</P> + +<P> +The inner nature of these two orders of knowledge having been defined, +it becomes evident that each of them is valid in its own domain, and +that they cannot legitimately encroach upon each other. To try to +establish by religious faith the reality of any phenomenon whatsoever, +of which experimental science or intellectual criticism are the sole +judges; or to wish to formulate by means of objective science a moral +judgment which springs from the subjective consciousness—these are two +equivalent encroachments and abuses. Experimental science has the +right to forbid the religious consciousness to do violence to it; but +the religious consciousness has an equal right to restrict science to +its true limits. We must prevent confusion if we would put an end to +the conflicts between them. To enclose God in any phenomenal form is, +properly speaking, superstition or <I>idolatry</I>; to confine or dissipate +the soul in external phenomenism, and to deny the seriousness and value +of its religious and moral activity, is <I>infidelity</I>, properly so +called. +</P> + +<P> +Truths of the religious and moral order are known by a subjective act +of what Pascal calls <I>the heart</I>. Science can know nothing about them, +for they are not in its order. In the same way the phenomena of Nature +are only known and measured by observation and calculation. Neither +the heart nor religious faith can decide with respect to them. Each +order has its certitude. We must not say that in the one the certitude +is greater than in the other. Science is not more sure of its object +than moral or religious faith is of its own; but it is sure in a +different way. Scientific certitude has at its basis intellectual +evidence. Religious certitude has for its foundation the feeling of +subjective life, or moral evidence. The first gives satisfaction to +the intellect; the second gives to the whole soul the sense of order +re-established, of health regained, of force and peace. It is the +happy feeling of deliverance, the inward assurance of "salvation." +</P> + +<P> +It is not surprising, lastly, that these two kinds of knowledge or of +certitude should spring up and propagate themselves by different means. +Objective science transmits itself by objective demonstration. The +subjective life of the savant has nothing to do with it. To convince +us of the reality of his discoveries, an astronomer does not need to be +a good man. On the contrary, a fundamentally immoral man will always +be a detestable professor of ethics. Religion is only propagated by +religious men. It may also be added that, in religious knowledge, the +intellectual demonstration or the idea has no value except in so far as +it serves as the expression and the vehicle of the personal life of the +subject. This is the secret and the mystery of eloquence. The <I>si vis +me flere, dolendum</I>, is true in all the moral disciplines, as much and +more than in æsthetics. One gains nothing by attempting to demonstrate +objectively the existence of God. That demonstration is ineffective +towards those who have no piety; for those who have, it is superfluous. +The true religious propaganda is effected by inward contagion. <I>Ex +vivo vivus nascitur</I>. Accuracy in theology is much less important in +religion than warmth of piety. Pitiful arguments have in all ages been +followed by admirable conversions. Those who are scandalised at this +have not yet penetrated into the essence of religious faith. +</P> + +<P> +For want of this clear and frank separation between our two orders of +knowledge, one sees, on the one hand, philosophers pretending to +transform ethics and philosophy into objective science, and, on the +other, savants naïvely giving forth their objective science as a +metaphysic and as a solution of the enigma of life. Two illusions, in +whose train everything is mixed up and founded. Objective ethics are +everything you could wish—except ethics. You might as well speak of a +round square. When an objective science transforms itself into +metaphysics, it ceases to be science and becomes subjective philosophy. +This goes without saying. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, in distinguishing the two orders we must not isolate them, nor +above all must we lose sight of their solidarity, their close +connection, and correspondence. The subject is one, and has a clear +consciousness of his unity; that is why he always tends towards a +synthesis. Phenomenal science cannot complete itself without borrowing +from the subjective consciousness of the ego the ideas of unity, of +plan, and of harmony. On the other hand, the moral and religious +consciousness, in order to express itself, needs to borrow from +phenomenal science the data which it uses, and, consequently, it should +always avoid contradicting them. Thus we tend towards the synthetic +harmony of a continuous effort and of an indefectible faith; but we +discard none the less resolutely the philosophy of logical unity. We +obstinately refuse to admit that the subjective order can ever be +deduced, by way of consequence and application, from the objective +order of knowledge: that is the error of materialistic Pantheism; and, +<I>vice versâ</I>, that the objective order of phenomenal science can or +ought to be deduced from the religious or moral order: that is the +opposite error of all the dogmatisms. The mental cannot be simply +reduced to the physical, or the physical entirely to the mental. We +must respect the fruitful antinomies of life from which the necessary +progress springs. The tendency towards harmony is there, not the +harmony itself. This is the reward promised, the aim proposed, to +effort. Our philosophy ought to regard the spiritual life in its +becoming—that is to say, in its growth and in its conflicts, without +wishing, like all idealist and materialist speculations, to make of the +actual and transient moment the eternal metaphysical reality. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +5. <I>Teleology</I> +</P> + +<P> +Subjective in essence and origin, religious knowledge is <I>teleological</I> +in its procedure, and this second characteristic springs from the first. +</P> + +<P> +Teleology is the form of all organic life and of all conscious +activity. Now, what is moral knowledge but the theory of the conscious +life of spirit? +</P> + +<P> +Without the principle of causation, phenomena, in science, would not be +connected; without the idea of end, or principle of direction, +biological and psychical facts could not be organised—that is to say, +hierarchised. +</P> + +<P> +Mechanism and teleology: these then are the two new terms for the +antithesis formed by the knowledge of Nature and religious knowledge. +But it is a prejudice to believe that the one form of explanation +excludes the other or renders it superfluous. We have examples to the +contrary not only in the machines constructed by man, but also in all +living organisms, in which, according to Claude Bernard, the <I>directive +idea</I> of life is realised in an absolute determinism. +</P> + +<P> +The mechanical explanation of phenomena and the determinism of science +only become exclusive of teleology when they are transformed into +metaphysical materialism—that is to say, when it is affirmed, <I>à +priori</I>, and by a subjective act, that there is nothing in the universe +but matter and the movements of matter. But then, it is clear that +materialism, which believes itself to be scientific, becomes a +philosophy, and like all other philosophies it falls under the +jurisdiction not only of the objective science of the world, but of the +consciousness of the ego. +</P> + +<P> +The ideas of cause and end spring from one and the same source. The +idea of cause awakens in us because the ego, as soon as it knows +itself, has the clear sense of being the author of its acts; it has +this sense by that of the very effort that it has made. But, at the +same time, it knows that it made that effort with a view to an end +which attracted it. Cause and end, therefore, are the two aspects of +the same conscious act. The one is the backward glance of the +consciousness; the other is its forward look. As we only know the +world by reflecting it in the mirror of our consciousness, it follows +that the two categories of cause and end impose themselves on our +understanding with an equal necessity. +</P> + +<P> +There is another consequence of this psychological observation. The +consciousness of the ego is one; neither the idea of cause nor the idea +of end, by itself, would suffice to explain the whole universe to me. +It is easy to see at a glance that the objective science of phenomena +is not and never can be completed. The chain into which it introduces +each particular phenomenon as a new link is indefinitely lengthened by +scientific progress, in time and space, but without the power to hang +on anywhere. Outside space and time, the principle of causation only +engenders insoluble antinomies. Besides, to explain one phenomenon by +another is to explain it by a cause which itself needs explanation. +The mechanical reason of things is therefore never a sufficient reason. +It is an indefinite series of insufficient particular reasons. The +network of science, however fine and firm it be, does not cover, and +cannot cover all reality. The Cosmos that science builds is like the +globe; it floats in immensity. "Where, O Lord, goes the earth through +the heavens?" +</P> + +<P> +To this question teleology alone responds. But every teleological +affirmation respecting the universe is a religious affirmation. +Science, studying only accomplished facts, never establishes anything +but phenomena and their antecedent or concomitant conditions. Once the +phenomenon is integrated in the causal series, the task of science is +accomplished. To ask it to go further is to ask it to go beyond its +limits and to denaturalise itself. You can only put teleology into the +universe by affirming the sovereignty of spirit. To say that there is +reason, that there is thought, in things—that they move towards an end +or realise an order, a harmony, a good: this is to say that matter is +subordinate to spirit. Now, to affirm this sovereignty of spirit is to +commit that act of initial religious faith of which I spoke at the +beginning; it is to feel in one's self and in the world something +besides matter, the mysterious energy of spirit. This act of +faith—legitimate because inevitable—belongs to the subjective order +of religious life, not to the objective order of science. Teleology +and the theory of final causes have been compromised because their +specific character has been mistaken; they have sometimes been +assimilated to, and sometimes substituted for, mechanical causes in the +explanation of phenomena. For an unknown scientific explanation has +been substituted an appeal to a supernatural intention or volition of +God. The savants rightly protested against this. God, who is the +final reason of everything, is the scientific explanation of nothing. +The object of science is to search for second causes; where these do +not appear there is no science. It is faith which replaces it. To say +that God created the world, or that the world tends toward the +sovereign good, is not to advance positive science a single step. On +the other hand, to explain the phenomena of rain, or thunder, or the +fall of bodies, is to dissipate some mythological conceptions; but it +is not to suppress the religious affirmation of spirit that the +mechanism of the universe has an end, and that the laws of gravitation +and the material forces serve some purpose of which they are ignorant, +and which is of more value than themselves. +</P> + +<P> +Between the discoveries of science and the postulates of the religious +and moral life there is always necessarily formed a synthesis which is +destroyed at each step, but which rises again higher and larger than +before. Mechanism itself, in order to be intelligible, calls for +teleology. The text of the material world awaits the interpretation +that spirit gives of it. By its discoveries positive science +establishes the text. Without this rigorous establishment of the text, +the exegesis of consciousness remains a phantasy. But, without that +exegesis, the text itself signifies nothing; it is almost as if it did +not exist. +</P> + +<P> +There is another reason, a practical reason, which makes of teleology +the very essence of the religious consciousness. We must never lose +sight of the fact that what we seek in and by religion is the key to +the enigma of life. The enigma of the universe only torments us, at +the religious point of view, because we believe that in this is the +secret of that. We are embarked in the vessel, and we see clearly +enough that our destiny depends upon its own. That is why religious +faith, perfectly indifferent to the architecture and to the ways and +means of the construction of the vessel, regards above all the +direction in which the sails are set, and seeks to discover the route +which is being followed. Has it a compass? And is there some one at +the helm? +</P> + +<P> +In other words, the religious instinct is the pressing need that spirit +has to guarantee itself against the perpetual menaces of Nature. Faith +judges everything from the point of view of the sovereign good, and the +sovereign good, for spirit, can only be the final and complete +expansion of the life of the spirit. Therefore, in every religious +notion there will never, at bottom, be anything but a teleological +judgment. It is not the essence of things—it is their reciprocal +value and their hierarchy which interest religious faith. In the +religious notion of God it is not the metaphysical nature—it is the +will of God in regard to men—which is of most concern; and in the +religious notion of the world it is not the mechanical cause of +phenomena—it is to know which way the world is going, and whether it +has any other end to serve than as the theatre and the organ of spirit. +What does faith itself desire to say when it defines God as the Eternal +and Almighty Spirit, except that man needs to affirm that his own +individual spirit does not depend on any but a spiritual power like +himself? It is true that to determine this final cause of the world is +also to determine its first cause. It is the same thing in other +terms; and indeed it is to make metaphysics in the etymological sense +of the word. The important point is to know that this decisive step +beyond the chain of visible phenomena, whether it be taken by the +philosopher or the theologian, is always an act of subjective life, an +affirmation of spirit, an act of faith, and not a demonstration of +science. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +6. <I>Symbolism</I> +</P> + +<P> +Thirdly, and lastly, religious knowledge is <I>symbolical</I>. All the +notions it forms and organises, from the first metaphor created by +religious feeling to the most abstract theological speculation, are +necessarily inadequate to their object. They are never equivalent, as +in the case of the exact sciences. +</P> + +<P> +The reason is easy to discover. The object of religion is +transcendent; it is not a phenomenon. Now, in order to express that +object, our imagination has nothing at its disposal but phenomenal +images, and our understanding, logical categories, which do not go +beyond space and time. Religious knowledge is therefore obliged to +express the invisible by the visible, the eternal by the temporary, +spiritual realities by sensible images. It can only speak in parables. +The theory of religious knowledge requires for its completion a theory +of symbols and symbolism. +</P> + +<P> +What is a symbol? To express the invisible and spiritual by the +sensible and material—such is its principal characteristic and its +essential function. It is a living organism, in which we must +distinguish between appearance and substance. It is a soul in a body. +The body is the manifestation of the soul, although it is not like it; +it makes the soul active and present. The most perfect example of +symbolism, in this respect, is found in language and writing—two +incarnations of thought. Neither the characters formed by my pen, nor +the sound made by the air in my larynx, have a positive resemblance to +my thought. But these letters and sounds become signs to those who +have the key to them. They express the intangible thought; they make +it present and living in the minds of those who read or hear. +</P> + +<P> +This is still truer of the creations of art. They also are mere +symbols. Art might be defined as the effort to enshrine the ideal in +the real, and by a material form to express the inexpressible. This is +clearly taught by the word <I>poesy</I>, which means creation. The works of +great artists really live; for they have a soul, a rich and intense +life, which the material form at once conceals and reveals. From +architecture to music there is not an art that is not symbolical. +Ethics, religion, all the disciplines relating to the subjective life +of spirit, have only this means of expression. It is their peculiarity +to become exterior and objective, and to dominate the external things +that science studies. Symbols, much better than science, attest the +victory and the royalty of spirit. If science reveals Nature, symbols +make of Nature, of its transformations and its laws, the glorified +image of the inner life of spirit. +</P> + +<P> +Born in the artist's soul, of the subjective activity of his ego, the +symbol addresses itself much less to the pure intellect than to the +inner life and to the emotions of those who contemplate it. It awakes +and sets in motion the subjective activity of the ego; it has produced +its whole effect when it has produced in us the emotions, the +transport, the enthusiasm, the faith, that the poet himself experienced +in engendering it. Such is the source and the explanation of "the +magic of art," of eloquence, of religious inspiration. All the +creators of living symbols pour their soul into our soul, their life +into our life. They subjugate and ravish us. By symbols, much better +than by scientific notions, the community and fraternity of spirits is +realised, and the fusion of souls into a collective consciousness +effected; a consciousness which includes all individual minds and tunes +them into harmony; the consciousness of a nation, of a church, of +humanity. It is not science that rules the world—it is symbols. +</P> + +<P> +Inferior to the exact ideas of science in logical clearness, symbolic +forms are superior to them in power and reach. Science is forcibly +arrested at the surface of things, at the appearances continually +arising in the universe. In it is found neither the principle of +energy, nor, consequently, the secret of life, or the key to our +destiny. You seek the meaning and the end of your action; you ask for +some sufficient reason for living; do you not feel that it is +contradictory to address yourself to the science of phenomena, seeing +that, from the strictly scientific point of view, phenomena have not in +themselves their own <I>raison d'être</I>? That which you seek is beyond +phenomena, and it is symbols alone that can, not make you comprehend +it, but reveal it to you. +</P> + +<P> +Since Nature may become and does become, in art and in religion, the +constant symbol of the inner life of spirit and of its normal +development,—since it is susceptible of this perpetual and glorious +transfiguration by spirit,—it is impossible not to admit the inner +correspondence of the laws of Nature and the laws of conscious life, +and to believe in their deep unity. It is, in fact, secret and +powerful analogies which rule and inspire symbolical creations. Art +and religion are more than conventions; they are revelations of that +which is hidden at once in spirit and in Nature, of the principle of +Being itself, of the absolute energy which is manifested, parallelly, +in the unfolding of the physical universe and of the moral universe. +All things cover some mystery; phenomena are simply veils. That is +why, by their very destination, they become symbols. +</P> + +<P> +The idea of symbol and the idea of mystery are correlative. Who says +symbol says at the same time occultation and revelation. In becoming +present and even sensible, the living verity still remains veiled. The +same image that reveals it to the heart remains for the intellect an +impassable barrier. One may say of it what the poet says of the sense +of the infinite, for, at bottom, it is the same thing. "We are +restless because we see it but can never comprehend it." +</P> + +<P> +This inquietude is soothed by a clear knowledge of the cause from which +it springs. Symbols are the only language suited to religion. We need +to know that which we adore; for no one adores that of which he has no +perception; but it is not less necessary that we should not comprehend +it, for one does not adore that which he comprehends too clearly, +because to comprehend is to dominate. Such is the twofold and +contradictory condition of piety, to which symbols seem to be made +expressly in order to respond. Piety has never had any other language. +</P> + +<P> +In considerations of this kind might be found the explanation of the +bond which in the beginning unites religion and art. But we must +confine ourselves to our special topic, and proceed to inquire what it +is that constitutes the life and power of religious symbols. +</P> + +<P> +It would be an illusion to believe that a religious symbol represents +God in Himself, and that its value, therefore, depends on the +exactitude with which it represents Him. The true content of the +symbol is entirely subjective: it is the conscious relation of the +subject to God, or rather, it is the way he feels himself affected by +God. Thus when the Psalmist exclaims: "The Lord is my rock"; or "God +is a devouring fire"; when the Christ teaches us to say, "Our +Father,"—these are not scientific, and in this case metaphysical, +definitions of God. What these images simply translate is the relation +of absolute confidence, of awe, of filial love, which, by His +mysterious action, the Spirit of God creates in revealing Himself in +the spirit of man. From these divers feelings spring spontaneously the +strong and simple images which translate them, and which, if these +subjective experiences are eliminated, have no content and no truth. +</P> + +<P> +From this point of view we may see in what religious inspiration +psychologically consists. Neither its aim nor its effect is to +communicate to men exact, objective, ready-made ideas on that which by +its nature is unknowable under the scientific mode; but it consists in +an enrichment and exaltation of the inner life of its subject; it sets +in motion his inward religious activity, since it is in that that God +reveals Himself; it excites new feelings, constituting new concrete +relations of God to man, and by the fact of this creative activity it +spontaneously engenders new images and new symbols, of which the real +content is precisely this revelation of the God-spirit in the inner +life of the spirit of man. +</P> + +<P> +The greatest initiators in the religious order have been the greatest +creators of symbols. Prophecy, in the Biblical sense of the word, has +never given divine revelation except in the form of images. And whence +spring these images but from the exaltation of the religious life of +the prophet which spontaneously expresses itself without? Every other +conception of inspiration is anti-psychological. +</P> + +<P> +To the question, Whence come the life and power of symbols? we reply: +From the primitive organic unity of the sentiment of piety, and of the +image which translates it first to consciousness. It is the organic +unity of soul and body. The greater the creative force that engenders +the symbol, the stronger is this unity. It constitutes its truth +because it constitutes its life. For a symbol, to be living it +suffices that it should be sincere, that the feeling should not be +separate from the image, nor the image from the feeling. To this cry +of confidence in God, "The Lord is my rock," there is no objection, so +long as this confidence is really felt, although a rock is a very poor +image of God. It follows that the value of a symbol must not be +measured by the nature of the image employed, but by the moral value, +in the scale of feeling, of the relation in which it places us to God. +It is the moral value of this relation which alone makes the intrinsic +value of a religion, and which permits us to assign to it its true +place in the development of humanity. +</P> + +<P> +The time comes, however, when the image detaches itself from the +feeling that produced it, and when it fixes itself as such in the +memory. In considering it in itself, reflection transforms the image +into an idea more or less abstract, and takes this idea for a +representation of the object of religion. But then arises the original +discrepancy that we noted at the outset between the object of religion, +which is transcendent, and the nature of the phenomenal image by which +we attempt to represent it. Hence there is a latent contradiction in +every symbolic idea. To get rid of this contradiction the +understanding is obliged to eliminate from these ideas the sensible +element which remains in them and renders them inadequate to their +object. +</P> + +<P> +By progressive generalisation and abstraction, reasoning attenuates the +primitive metaphor; it wears it down as on a grindstone. But, when the +metaphorical element has disappeared, the notion itself vanishes in so +far as it is a positive notion. There are mysterious lamps which only +burn under an alabaster globe. You may thin away the solid envelope to +make it more transparent. But mind you do not break it; for the flame +inside will then go out and leave you in the dark. +</P> + +<P> +So with all our general ideas of the object of religion. When every +metaphorical element is eliminated from them, they become simply +negative, contradictory, and lose all real content. Such are our pure +ideas of the infinite and the absolute. If you would give them a +positive character, you must put into them some element of positive +experience. This is what is done when it is said that God is the +ultimate energy of things, that He is the creative cause of everything, +that He is Justice, that He is Spirit, a Judge, a Father. +</P> + +<P> +Born of the primitive symbols of religion, all our religious ideas will +therefore necessarily keep their symbolical character to the end. As +is the seed, so is the plant. Dogmatics itself will never be for the +religious soul anything but a higher symbolism—that is to say, a form +which, without the inward presence of active and living faith, would be +worthless. If dogmas may sustain and produce faith, it is still more +true that, at the outset, it is faith which produces dogmas and +afterwards revives them. +</P> + +<P> +Many good men withstand these conclusions from a rigorous analysis of +religious knowledge and of its psychological genesis. Supposing you +are right, they say, and that the mental constitution of our spiritual +nature confines religious thought to symbolic forms, cannot a +supernatural revelation enable us to pass beyond these limits and bring +to us religious ideas adequate to their object, and consequently of a +pure and absolute truth? This seems to us a very strange desire—that +a revelation of God should be effected apart from the conditions of +knowledge—that is to say, apart from the forms under which alone it +can be accessible to us. Do they not see that the very idea of +revelation soon becomes contradictory? If God wished to make us a gift +that we could receive, must He not have suited the form of it to that +of our mind? Must He not have availed Himself of our ideas and of our +language in order to explain to us the nature of His benefits? Now, it +is certain that our ideas, as soon as they are transported outside +space and time, contradict and destroy themselves, and that we are +reduced to the necessity of conceiving and expressing things invisible +and eternal by images actual and terrestrial. If God, in speaking to +us of His mysteries, used other than these human means, we should not +understand Him at all, so that the revelation would no longer be a +revelation. And is it not for this reason that when God has desired to +reveal Himself to men He has never employed any but men as His organs, +and that He whom we name His Son never spoke except in images and +parables of the things of the kingdom of God? +</P> + +<P> +No one in fact was fonder and more intelligently fond of this +symbolical form than the Christ; He never wished to employ any other. +This preference did not arise, as is supposed, merely from the fact +that He found it a happy means of popularity to adapt Himself to all +minds. He also knew that no language was more natural or more +conformed to the moral exigencies of piety. He saw in it an +institution ordained by God Himself. And it is the truth. The Parable +addresses itself, not to the pure understanding, but to the active +faculty of the ego, to "the heart." It appeals to our subjective life; +it awakens the religious need before satisfying it. The soul which +hears it meditates, and experiences the living content that it +contains. On the contrary, the soul that is inert and dead finds +nothing in the symbol and receives nothing from it even theoretically, +so that it is literally true that the symbolic form, a shining +revelation unto some, remains a dull and empty letter for others. It +is from this point of view alone that it is possible to understand that +other saying of Jesus, so paradoxical to common sense, so rich and just +to the eyes of experience and of faith: "To him that hath shall be +given; from him that hath not shall be taken away that which he hath." +The gift of God comes only to the felt need and the active desire of +man. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +7. <I>Conclusion</I> +</P> + +<P> +The conclusion from all that has now been said is that religious +knowledge is subject to the law of transformation which regulates all +the manifestations of human life and thought. +</P> + +<P> +As there is disproportion and disparity between the object of religion +and its means of expression, it will always be possible and necessary +to distinguish, in all its creations, between the form and the +substance, the body and the soul. Religious symbolism will therefore +always be very variable <I>de facto</I>, but subject, <I>de jure</I>, to new +interpretations. +</P> + +<P> +This variability, however, is not unlimited. It is necessarily +confined within limits which, while not easy to define theoretically, +are none the less precise and fixed; for the great religious creations +are organisms, and every organism carries in itself, determined by its +own nature, the exact capacity of its metamorphoses. +</P> + +<P> +In every living organism, in fact, there is a principle of stability +and a principle of movement. The identity of a human being persists +through all the modifications, internal and external, which he +undergoes. So with the language of a people; and so with every +historical religion. Its fundamental and regulative principle is the +relation it establishes between the soul and God. The form or external +realisation of this principle depends, no doubt, on the race, the +geographical environment, the historical period. It will vary +therefore with these circumstances. But the religious type or organic +principle remaining the same, this religion will appear the same +throughout the incessant movement of its dogmas, rites, and symbols. +This is the very condition of its life. Forms which cannot bend, +symbols whose fresh and living interpretation is exhausted, a rigid +body that no longer assimilates or eliminates any external element, +represent a state of sterility and death, to be followed by a speedy +dissolution. +</P> + +<P> +Pious men are right in clinging obstinately to the stability of their +principle of piety, but they ought to cling as tenaciously to the +renewal of forms and ideas in their religion; for this is the only +proof that their treasure has kept its value, and their religious +principle its organising virtue. The life of a religion is measured by +this power of adaptation and renovation. If Christianity is the +universal and eternal religion, it is because its virtuality in this +respect is infinite. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +Before I close, let me try to prevent two misunderstandings. In saying +that in dogmas we must distinguish the religious substance and the +intellectual form, I do not mean that we either can or ought to isolate +them from each other, or that we can ever hope to have them separately. +Piety is only conscious for us and discernible by others when incarnate +in its expression or intellectual image. A religion without doctrine, +a piety without thought, a feeling without expression, these are things +essentially contradictory. It is as vain to wish to seize pure piety, +as in philosophy it is to seek to define "the thing in itself." When +we speak of the inward religious fact, then, of pious experience, we do +not speak of a bare experience; we speak of a psychological phenomenon, +of a precise and, consequently, formulated experience. +</P> + +<P> +In the second place, for religious science, it is not a question of +isolated experience, of the experience of a single individual. The +material would be too precarious, and the field of observation too +limited. The question refers to the individual life in its continuity, +and to the life of the religious society considered in its historical +development. +</P> + +<P> +A social and universal as much and even more than it is an individual +fact, it is in the social life of the species, in organised religious +societies, in their institutions, their common worship, their liturgy, +their rules of faith and discipline, that religion objectively realises +its fundamental principle, manifests its inner soul, and develops all +its power. It is only as a social manifestation that it can become an +object of scientific study, and that it has need of explanation. +Moreover, a religious life which remains hidden in the individual +consciousness, which does not communicate itself, which does not create +any spiritual solidarity, any fraternity of soul, is as if it were not; +it is a mere film of feeling, an ephemeral poetic flower, which has no +more effect on the individual himself than it has on the human race. +</P> + +<P> +From these considerations springs a method. The dogmatic treatment of +religious knowledge will have for its subject the tradition of the +religious society as it is fixed, conserved, and developed in its +historic monuments. It will consider that tradition from the symbolic +point of view, as the objective revelation of the inner life of the +Church, and of its piety. The tradition will then appear not as +something dead and immutable, but as a power continuing in ourselves. +To grasp this soul in its fruitful continuity and in the perpetual +renewal of the external organism; to comprehend them in their living +unity; to tell the story of the genesis of dogmas and their endless +metamorphoses as a constant and necessary incarnation of the principle +that is manifested in them; to follow this uninterrupted chain in +history, and prolong it into our own life,—such is the method, at once +critical and positive, conservative and progressive, firm in piety and +always deferential to science, which critical symbolism enables us to +apply to all religious creations. +</P> + +<P> +The error of that form of religious knowledge called <I>Orthodoxy</I> is +that of forgetting the historically and psychologically conditioned +character of all doctrines, and of desiring to raise into the absolute +that which is born in time, and which must necessarily modify itself in +order to live in time. Impotent to arrest the current of ideas and the +movement of minds, it can only establish its rule by political +measures, by regulations enacted and applied like civil laws—decisions +of popes, bishops, or synods, trials for heresy, dogmatic tribunals. +Orthodoxy has lost the sense of the symbolical character of Confessions +of Faith, which, however, it still names symbols. Its misfortune and +its failing is to be anti-historical. +</P> + +<P> +The error of <I>Rationalism</I>, at once the brother and the enemy of +orthodoxy, is of the same nature, but it is produced in an opposite +sense. It does not lose sight of the imperfect and precarious +character of traditional dogmas and symbols; it exaggerates it; but it +loses sight of their specifically religious contents. Orthodoxy is +mistaken as to the nature of the body of religion; rationalism as to +the nature of its soul. Beneath the old traditional ideas it seeks for +other ideas, moral or rational ideas, freer from sensible elements, and +less contradictory, which it mistakes for the essence of religion. It +replaces dogmas by other dogmas which it believes to be more simple, +and which it regards as absolute truth. But in giving to religion a +rational or doctrinal content, it empties it of its real content, of +specific religious experience; it kills faith, which no longer having +an object of its own, no longer has a <I>raison d'être</I>. It has less +liking than orthodoxy for symbolism and for religious creations; it is +radically impossible for it to comprehend, and consequently to +interpret, them. The chief vice and the misfortune of rationalism is +to be anti-religious. +</P> + +<P> +The theory of <I>Critical Symbolism</I>, whose broad outlines we have +traced, will bring us out of this old antithesis. It shows to us the +kind of truth and the legitimacy possessed by symbolical ideas, without +ignoring the psychological and historical determinism which rules their +form and their appearance. It must not be imagined that, from this +point of view, everything becomes fluid and inconstant in +religion—that nothing in it can be fixed or permanent. In the +progress of his life, man is destined to realise his spiritual nature, +to attain to what St. Paul calls "the stature of Christ," in which the +religious and moral ideal is realised. This moral stature is a +reality, the highest of all realities. We tend towards it without +ceasing, and the value of each moment of our inner life is measured by +the progress that it marks towards that supreme end. For this inner +life there is a norm which imposes itself on the consciousness with an +imperative necessity, and, consequently, there may be religious symbols +which are normal and normative in relation to others. These are the +symbols which represent with perfect simplicity and fitness either this +ideal end of the Christian life or some of the necessary moments +through which the soul passes on the way to it. There are symbols, in +a word, such as that of the Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of God, the +New Birth, the Effusion of the Holy Spirit, so intimately bound up with +our religious life, with its origin, its progress, or its end, which +one cannot conceive as disappearing, so long as the spiritual life of +humanity exists. All the exclusively religious words of Christ which +bear directly on the consciousness are of this number. And it is of +them that He was able to say without being contradicted by the ages: +"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand, it is no less impossible to ignore the distinction +we have made in symbol between substance and form. Now, this +distinction opens the door to criticism. The most conservative of +Christians confess that men may adhere to a doctrine without having +appropriated its religious content; that they may be orthodox without +being pious. They therefore make it the duty of every member of the +Church to assimilate the contents of the symbol. But how can the duty +of personal assimilation be imposed without the right arising to +critically interpret the transmitted forms? Is it not a psychological +necessity for each believer to bring his inner religious consciousness +into harmony with his general culture? What if these syntheses and +conciliations are necessarily unstable and precarious because of the +constant development of life and knowledge? When a man is walking his +equilibrium is destroyed and re-established at each step. It is the +very condition of walking. +</P> + +<P> +Symbolism, which thus makes peace in the individual, may also effect it +in religious societies. In Catholicism the unity of the Church is only +maintained by a central infallible authority and by political means. +That authority creates peace by imposing silence. Dogmas only subsist +because no one concerns himself with them. Can Protestant communities +maintain their unity by the same method? The Catholic method ruins +Protestant communities, inevitably, by causing schisms frequent in +proportion as their life and thought become intense. The theory of +symbolism offers them a more honourable issue. It permits them to +combine veneration for traditional symbols with perfect independence of +spirit by leaving to believers, on their own responsibility, the right +to assimilate them and adapt them to their experiences. They will +attach themselves to tradition with all the more sincerity and zeal as +each one is able to find in it that of which his religious faith has +need. It will be a help and not a yoke. Men will love it; they will +defend it as the link between the generations, as a family heritage, as +the place where souls of every race and age, and stage of scientific +culture, meet and mingle and commune. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +APPENDIX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +REPLY TO CRITICISMS +</H4> + +<P> +Before laying down the pen, I ought perhaps to reply to one or two +objections. +</P> + +<P> +The first reproach that has been addressed to me is contained in the +words, "Naturalistic Evolutionism." A conception more or less +materialistic of the universe is thus attributed to me, according to +which, like Herbert Spencer, I should explain all things by the single +law of evolution, and end sooner or later by reducing the laws of the +moral world to the laws of the physical world, since I make of the +first a simple transformation of the second. Need I say that this is +the very opposite of my thought? It is true that I like to use the +word evolution, and to consider all phenomena in their natural +succession. But this is not a metaphysical doctrine; it is a process +of study, a method which consists in these two essential rules: to +observe each fact as it presents itself; and to observe it in its +order, <I>i.e.</I> in the conditions in which it presents itself, because a +fact only possesses its truth and value in that order and succession. +On our planet, moral life emerges slowly and painfully out of organic +life. Must we therefore conclude that there is no more in the one than +in the other, and that they are of equal value? Certainly not. Both +these series of phenomena must be placed in their relations and +connections; but the method which makes them known to me gives me no +more right to confound them than to separate them, to ignore their +differences than to forget their analogies. It shows me, on the +contrary, that there is advance, <I>real</I> progress from the one to the +other; that the first in date has its end in the second; that there is +a sort of living and continuous creation, each stage and degree of +which reveals new riches and new glories. This is so thoroughly the +oasis of my religious philosophy that there would be more ground or, at +all events, more excuse for accusing me of denying the reality of the +world than the continuous action of the Divine Creator. +</P> + +<P> +It is true that the one reproach has not saved me from the other. Both +have been addressed to me by persons who have not taken the trouble to +reconcile them. The accusation of Pantheism, contradictory as it may +seem, has been added to that of Naturalistic Evolutionism. I have been +made to appear the blind and docile disciple of an idealism more or +less Hegelian, which would annihilate the reality of second causes in +order to contemplate in the universe the flux and transformation of a +first cause or substance, of which one might either say that it is +everything or that it is nothing. But here, again, they lose sight of +the character of the method that I follow. It leads me to discover in +my consciousness the mysterious and real co-existence of a particular +cause, which is myself, and of a universal cause, which is God. That, +I repeat, is a mystery impenetrable to analysis, but undeniable by any +man who examines himself and enters into the ultimate basis of his +life. It is the mystery out of which religion springs by an invincible +necessity. Now, as this mystery is posited by me at the very outset of +my researches, and maintained to the end, how can they legitimately +reproach me with sacrificing either of the two terms which constitute +it to the other—the first effect of which would be to dissipate and +make impossible my theory of the psychological origin of religion? "In +me," said Charles Secretan, "lives some one greater than me"—a +mysterious guest whose universal and eternal action I feel beneath the +variable phenomena of my empirical activity, to Whom, when I am good, +confiding, humble, brave, I always attribute my goodness, my faith, my +courage, my humility, as to Him I attribute my whole life. +</P> + +<P> +I cannot comprehend the co-existence of the finite and the infinite; +but this duality is everywhere. I observe that in the physical as in +the moral world there is, in each phenomenon, a latent force, a sort of +potential energy, which raises it and urges it beyond itself. Nature +is perpetually becoming, that is to say, in perpetual travail. It is +not true that there is nothing new under the sun, and that the future +must simply repeat the past. Creation is not yet completed. "My +Father worketh hitherto," said Jesus. "It doth not yet appear what we +shall be." But the little that I perceive of the Divine work +demonstrates to me that it is progressive, that it raises and enriches +life at every step, and that this progress accounts exactly for the +essential antinomies amid which my reason loses itself and my heart +adores. To wish to reduce everything to unity is to turn the kingdom +of life into the domain of death. For my part, I have long since +renounced what is justly called "the philosophy of identity," that +abstract dialectic which, throwing all things back to their point of +logical departure, renders perfectly incomprehensible and superfluous +the ephemeral development which they have in our consciousness and in +history. The painful contradictions observed by Pascal in our moral +life, and the insoluble antinomies in our thought unveiled by Kant, +always seem to me to go nearer to the bottom of things than the +ontological deductions of Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +In this book I have hardly noted any but facts that have been verified +in myself and by myself. It is true that I suppose that every +reflective reader is capable of finding them and tracing them out in +his own personal experience. Those who are able and wishful to re-read +my book in themselves, and thus verify my analyses, may perhaps draw +some profit from it. Those who read me otherwise will not only lose +their time and pains—they will misunderstand at every step the meaning +of my phrases and the direction of my ideas. Beneath my reasonings or +my images they will put other ideas and other intentions than mine, and +they may afterwards, with an apparent good conscience, deduce from them +the most terrible consequences.... Philosophical language lends itself +to all and permits all; and the mischief of it is that it would be +useless to desire to prevent these quarrels. New explanations only +give rise to new misunderstandings, and simply serve to perpetuate a +dispute without interest and without fruit. We can only repeat the +saying of the ancient sages of Arabia: <I>Magna est veritas et +prævalebit</I>. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion +based on Psychology and History, by Auguste Sabatier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 38446-h.htm or 38446-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/4/38446/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History + +Author: Auguste Sabatier + +Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38446] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + + _Outlines of a Philosophy + of Religion based on + Psychology and History_ + + +_By Auguste Sabatier_ + +_Author of the "Apostle Paul" etc._ + + + + +NEW YORK + +JAMES POTT & COMPANY + +119-121 WEST 23D STREET. + +1910 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE + + + +BOOK I.--RELIGION + + +CHAPTER I + +THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION + + 1. First Critical Reflections + 2. Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness + 3. Religion the Prayer of the Heart + + +CHAPTER II + +RELIGION AND REVELATION + + 1. The Mystery of the Religious Life + 2. Mythological Notion of Revelation + 3. Dogmatic Notion + 4. Psychological Notion + 5. Conclusion + + +CHAPTER III + +MIRACLE AND INSPIRATION + + 1. The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity + 2. Miracle and Science: Miracle and Piety + 3. Religious Inspiration + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY + + 1. The Social Element in Religion + 2. Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion + 3. Progress in the Representation of the Divine + 4. The History of Prayer + 5. Conclusion + + + +BOOK II.--CHRISTIANITY + + +CHAPTER I + +HEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL + + 1. Prophetism + 2. The Dawn of the Gospel + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY + + 1. The Problem + 2. The Christian Principle + 3. The Gospel of Jesus + 4. A Necessary Distinction + 5. The Corruptions of the Christian Principle + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY + + 1. The Evolution of the Christian Principle + 2. Jewish or Messianic Christianity + 3. Catholic Christianity + 4. Protestant Christianity + 5. Conclusion + + + +BOOK III.--DOGMA + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT IS A DOGMA? + + 1. Definition + 2. Genesis of Dogma + 3. The Role and the Religious Value of Dogma + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION + + 1. Three Prejudices + 2. The Two Elements in Dogma + 3. The Crisis of Dogma + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS + + 1. Mixed Character of the Science of Dogmas + 2. The Science of Dogmas and the Church + 3. The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy + + +CHAPTER IV + +CRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE + + 1. Antiquated Theories + 2. The Kantian Theory of Knowledge + 3. The Two Orders of Knowledge + 4. Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge + 5. Teleology + 6. Symbolism + 7. Conclusion + + +APPENDIX + +Reply to Criticisms + + + + +PREFACE + +This volume contains three parts which are related to each other as the +three stories of one and the same edifice. The first treats of +religion and its origin; the second of Christianity and its essence; +the third of Dogma and its nature. + +Proceeding thus from the general to the particular, from the elementary +forms of religion to its highest form, passing afterwards from +religious phenomena to religious doctrines, I have endeavoured to +develop a series of connected and progressive views which I do not wish +to be regarded as a system, but as the rigid application and the first +results of the method of strictly psychological and historical +observation that for years I have applied to this species of studies. +In no domain is there a greater incoherence of ideas, a sharper +conflict of feeling, or data more contradictory or, at all events, more +difficult to reconcile. In no other is it more urgent to introduce a +little sequence, clearness, harmony. Our century, from the beginning, +has had two great passions which still inflame and agitate its closing +years. It has driven abreast the twofold worship of the scientific +method and of the moral ideal; but, so far from being able to unite +them, it has pushed them to a point where they seem to contradict and +exclude each other. Every serious soul feels itself to be inwardly +divided; it would fain conciliate its most generous aspirations, the +two last motives for living and acting that still remain to it. Where +but in a renovated conception of religion will this needed +reconciliation be found? + +No one nowadays underestimates the social importance of the religious +question. Philosophers, moralists, politicians, show themselves to be +alive to it; they see it dominating all others, whose solution, in the +end, it may prevent or decide. But, singular contradiction! the more +zeal and the more decision these men manifest in handling the religious +question in the social order, the more indifference or impotence they +show in solving it for themselves both in their inner and their family +life... No one has the right to impose a doctrine or the presumption, +surely, to dictate to others how they must direct their thought; but a +sincere and persuaded mind may tell how it has directed its own, and +may set forth as an experience and a "document" the views at which it +has arrived.... + +The solidarity of minds has now become so great, the currents of ideas, +like the currents in the atmosphere, move so quickly and create, in +circumstances so different and so far apart, states of soul so similar +that many who read these studies, and who are struggling with the same +difficulties as those which have so long engaged the author's thoughts, +may find both interest and profit in seeing how he has succeeded in +satisfying himself. Those even who have never reflected on these +questions, or have lightly turned from them because they deemed them +insoluble, will not perhaps object to be directed to them by one who +wishes, not to check their freedom of thought, but to stimulate them to +exercise it. Who, at the close of his secret meditations, on the +confines of his knowledge, at the end of his affections, of the joys he +has tasted, of the trials he has endured, has not seen rising before +him the religious question--I mean the mysterious problem of his +destiny? Of all questions it is the most vital. Men may be turned +from it for a time by manifold distractions and by a sense of +powerlessness to solve the question, but it is impossible that they +should not return to it. Has life a meaning? Is it worth living? Our +efforts, have they an end? Our works and our thoughts, have they any +permanent value to the universe? This problem, which one generation +may evade, returns with the next. Each new recruit to the human race +brings the problem along with him, because he wishes to live, and to +live is to act, and all action requires a faith. It is of the young +that I have thought while preparing these pages, and it is to them that +I dedicate them. + +To a generation that believed it could repose in Positivism in +philosophy, utilitarianism in morals, and naturalism in art and poetry, +has succeeded a generation that torments itself more than ever with the +mystery of things, that is attracted by the ideal, that dreams of +social fraternity, of self-renunciation, of devotion to the little, to +the miserable, to the oppressed--devotion like the heroism of Christian +love. Hence what has been called the renaissance of Idealism, the +return, _i.e._, to general ideas, to faith in the invisible, to the +taste for symbols, and to those longings, as confused as they are +ardent, to discover a religion or to return to the religion their +fathers have disdained. Our young people, it seems to me, are pushing +bravely forward, marching between two high walls: on the one side +modern science with its rigorous methods which it is no longer possible +to ignore or to avoid; on the other, the dogmas and the customs of the +religious institutions in which they were reared, and to which they +would, but cannot, sincerely return. The sages who have led them +hitherto point to the impasse they have reached, and bid them take a +part,--either for science against religion, or for religion against +science. They hesitate, with reason, in face of this alarming +alternative. Must we then choose between pious ignorance and bare +knowledge? Must we either continue to live a moral life belied by +science, or set up a theory of things which our consciences condemn? +Is there no issue to the dark and narrow valley which our anxious youth +traverse? I think there is. I think I have caught glimpses of a steep +and narrow path that leads to wide and shining table-lands above. +Indeed I have ascended in the footsteps of some others, and I signal in +my turn to younger, braver pioneers who, in course of time, will make a +broader, safer road, along which all the caravan may pass. + + + + +BOOK FIRST + +RELIGION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN, AND ON THE NATURE OF RELIGION + +1. _First Critical Reflections_ + +Why am I religious? Because I cannot help it: it is a moral necessity +of my being. They tell me it is a matter of heredity, of education, of +temperament. I have often said so to myself. But that explanation +simply puts the problem further back; it does not solve it + +The necessity which I experience in my individual life I find to be +still more invincible in the collective life of humanity. Humanity is +not less incurably religious than I am. The cults it has espoused and +abandoned have deceived it in vain; in vain has the criticism of +savants and philosophers shattered its dogmas and mythologies; in vain +has religion left such tracks of blood and fire throughout the annals +of humanity; it has survived all change, all revolution, all stages of +culture and progress. Cut down a thousand times, the ancient stem has +always sent new branches forth. Whence comes this indestructible +vitality? What is the cause of the universality and perpetuity of +religion? + +Before entering upon this question it will be necessary to remove a +fruitful cause of error with respect to the essence and origin of the +religious sense, especially among the peoples of Latin extraction. +This cause lies in the very word _religion_. It very badly designates +the psychological phenomenon to be studied; it envelops it in accessory +and even in alien ideas, which blind and mislead half-educated men. +The word comes to us from the least religious of the peoples of the +world. It has no synonym or equivalent in the language of the ancient +Hebrews, or in that of the Greeks, the Germans, the Celts, or the +Hindus, the human families which, in the religious order, have been the +most original and the most creative. It was Rome that imposed the word +upon us along with her language, her genius, and her institutions. + +The first Christians were not acquainted with it. It is absent from +the New Testament. When, in the third century, it enters into +Christian speech, it no doubt undergoes a sort of baptism, and seems to +cover a meaning more in conformity with the spirit of the Gospel. +Lactantius defines religion as "the link which unites man to God." But +in the ancient Roman writers the word never had this profound and +mystical meaning. Instead of marking the inward and subjective side of +religion, and signalising it as a phenomenon of the life of the soul, +it defined religion by the outside, as a tradition of rites, and as a +social institution bequeathed by ancestors. The Christian baptism +through which the word passed did not efface this ancient Roman stamp. +To the majority, even now, religion is hardly anything more than a +series of traditional rites, supernatural beliefs, political +institutions; it is a Church in possession of divine sacraments, +constituted by a sacerdotal hierarchy, for the discipline and +government of souls. Such is the form under which the genius of Rome +conceived and realised Christianity in the Western world; and the +fascination that this political and social conception of religion still +exercises is so great that minds the most enlightened know no better +than to agree with M. Brunetiere, who, when wishing to set forth the +superiority of Catholicism to Protestantism, confines himself, like +Bossuet, to praising it as a perfect model of government. + +By a sort of logical necessity, whenever and wherever this political +conception of religion has predominated, an analogous explanation of +its origin has always arisen. It is natural that men should have +applied to it the ancient juridical adage: _is fecit cui prodest_. +Religion admirably serves to govern the peoples; therefore it was +originally invented for that purpose. It was the work of priests and +chiefs who wished by means of it to strengthen and to ratify their +authority. So reason the Romans in the days of Cicero and the +philosophers of the eighteenth century. And there is some foundation +for their arguments. Religion has often been utilised by politics: +pious frauds are to be found in all the cults. But what then? What do +the facts prove? It is not the pious fraud that produces the religion; +it is the religion that gives occasion and opportunity to pious frauds. +Without religion there would have been no pious frauds. When I hear it +said, "Priests made religion," I simply ask, "And who, pray, made the +priests?" In order to create a priesthood, and in order that that +invention should find general acceptance with the people that were to +be subject to it, must there not have been already in the hearts of men +a religious sentiment that would clothe the institution with a sacred +character? The terms must be reversed: it is not priesthood that +explains religion, but religion that explains priesthood. + +The theory propounded by Positivism is profounder and more serious. +Religion, which dates from the earliest ages, can only have been a +first attempt at an explanation of the extraordinary phenomena by which +man in his ignorance was astonished and frightened. It is the +beginning of the childish form of science, which, in course of time, +would naturally give place to higher and more rigorous forms. Children +and savages animate all things round about them with a psychical life; +they see particular wills behind every phenomenon that excites their +hope or fear. Thus the imagination of primitive man peopled the +universe with an infinite number of spirits, good and evil, whose +mysterious action made itself felt at every moment of their destiny. A +while ago we had the explanation of religion by priesthood; now we have +the explanation by mythology. But it is the same vicious circle: it is +an insufficient psychology once more mistaking the effect for the cause. + +To conceive of religion as a species of knowledge is an error not less +grave than to represent it as a sort of political institution. No +doubt religious faith is always accompanied by knowledge, but this +intellectual element, however indispensable, so far from being the +basis and the substance of religion, varies continually at all the +epochs of religious evolution. Doctrinal formulas and liturgies are +means of expression and of education, of which religion avails itself, +but which it can exchange for others after each philosophical crisis. +Rites and beliefs become obliterated or die out; religion possesses a +power of perpetual resurrection, whose principle cannot be exhausted in +any external form or in any dogmatic idea. + +Comte's theory of the three stages through which human thought has +passed is well known: the theological stage of primitive times, the +metaphysical stage in the Middle Ages, the positive or scientific stage +of modern times. If knowledge were the essence of religion, one could +easily understand the logical course of this evolution, an inferior +form of knowledge being condemned to disappear before a superior form. +The proof that it is nothing of the kind is the fact that religion does +not cease to reappear at all epochs and in the most widely different +conditions of culture. The three stages are not successive but +simultaneous; they do not correspond to three periods of history, but +to three permanent needs of the human soul. You find them combined in +various degrees in antiquity, in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; in +modern times, in Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Kant, Claude Bernard, and +Pasteur. The more science progresses and becomes conscious of its true +method and of its limits, the more does it become distinguished from +philosophy and religion. Scientific research, exclusively devoted to +the determination of phenomena and of their conditions in time and +space, is one thing; the philosophic need of comprehending the universe +as an intelligible whole, and of explaining all that exists by a +principle of sufficient reason, is another and a different thing; and, +lastly, differing from both, is the religious need which, rightly +understood, is but a manifestation, in the moral order, of the instinct +of every being to persevere in being. Why may not these divers +tendencies of soul, coexisting always and everywhere, manifest +themselves simultaneously and on parallel lines? + +We need not go beyond the Positivists themselves for examples and +proofs of this persistence of the religious sentiment. Comte, Spencer, +and Littre may be called as witnesses. The founder of Positivism, who +had predicted the fatal extinction of the disposition to religion in +the human soul, crowned his system and ended his career by founding a +new religion, clumsily copied from the sacerdotal organisation and the +ritual practices of Roman Catholicism. There actually exists a +Positivist Church, with a calendar of saints, with relics and +anniversaries, with a catechism, and with a high priest not less +infallible than the one at Rome. A few disciples, scandalised by this +supreme temptation of the master, desired to excuse him by declaring +that he had gone mad. It was a mistake. The fact is that, arriving at +the construction of a Positive Sociology, Comte comprehended the _role_ +of the religious instinct and of religious feeling in the life of +peoples, and he believed that he would only be able to cement the +edifice of society in the future by religion. It is said that those +who have been amputated sometimes feel sharp twitches in the limbs they +have lost. Comte and his disciples have experienced something similar. +Nature, with her usual irony, has avenged herself on them for the +violence they have done to her. + +Of Herbert Spencer not much need be said; everybody knows that the +_Unknowable_ in his system has become a sort of undetermined and +unconscious force, eluding every effort of the mind to grasp it, but +remaining, none the less, the cause explaining evolution, and the +source profound whence all things flow. Under different names, do we +not recognise the First Cause of the philosophers, and the image, +half-effaced, of the God of believers? Need we be surprised that the +English thinker pronounces religion to be eternal? that he finally +reduces the mental life of man to these two essential and primordial +activities--the scientific activity which pursues the knowledge of +phenomena and their transformation, and religious activity delivering +itself up to mystical contemplation and to silent adoration of +universal being? + +The example of Littre is more touching still. I remember reading a +sublime page in one of his works, in which the savant, after running +through the _terra firma_ of positive knowledge, reaches its utmost +limit, and, seating himself on the extremest promontory, sees himself +surrounded by the mystery of the unknowable, as by an infinite ocean. +He has neither barque, nor sails, nor compass wherewith to explore this +boundless sea; nevertheless, he stands there gazing into it; he +contemplates it; he meditates in presence of this vast unknown, and +finally abandons himself to a movement of adoration and of confidence +which renews his mental vigour and which fills his heart with peace. +What is this, I ask, but a sudden outburst of religious feeling which +positive science, so far from extinguishing, has only served to deepen +and accentuate? And since we have here the religion of the unknowable, +is it not evident that religion is not necessarily knowledge? + +I now come to a third explanation which, older than either of the +others, will bring us nearer to the end at which we aim. "It is fear," +says a Latin poet, "that engenders the gods." There is a sense in +which this is true. It cannot be doubted that religion was at first +awakened in the heart of man under the impress of the terror caused by +the disordered and destructive forces of primitive Nature. Thrown +naked and disarmed on the barely-cooled planet, walking tremblingly +upon a soil that quaked beneath his tread, his would be a state of +misery and distress which filled his heart with an infinite terror. +But the explanation needs completing. In itself and of itself, fear is +not religious; it paralyses, crushes, stuns. In order that it may +become religiously fruitful, it is necessary that, from the outset, it +should be mixed with an opposite sentiment, an impulse of hope; it is +necessary that man, the prey of fear, should conceive, in some way or +other, the possibility of surmounting it--that is to say that he should +find above him some help, some succour, by which to confront the +dangers which threaten him. Fear only gives birth to religion in man +because it awakens hope and calls forth prayer--prayer that opens an +issue to human distress. There is that amount of truth in the ancient +hypothesis. It brings us near the source we are seeking, for it places +us on the practical arena of life, and not in the theoretical region of +science. The question man puts to himself in religion is always a +question of salvation, and if he seems sometimes to be pursuing in it +the enigma of the universe, it is only that he may solve the enigma of +his life. And now we must press nearer to the problem. We must +ascertain out of what fundamental contradiction the religious feeling +arises. We may reach it by a mental analysis that every one can +follow, and verify the more easily inasmuch as it is always in course +of reconstruction, by noting our own experiences. + + +2. _Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness_ + +What is man? Externally he does not differ much from the higher +animals, the series of which seems to have been closed by his +appearance on our planet. His physical organism is composed of the +same elements, acting according to the same laws; and of the same +organs, performing analogous functions. It is by the incomparable +development of his mental life that man is distinguished, and little by +little disengages himself from animality. Phenomena and laws of a new +kind now make their appearance. The mysterious life of the spirit, +emerging from the physical life, unfolds itself gradually like a divine +flower, and gives the world, for us, its meaning and its loveliness. +The region of the true, the beautiful, the good, is opened up to +consciousness; the moral world is constituted as a higher order to +which man belongs. It is these moral laws, capable of dominating +physical laws and bending them to higher ends that, in the human +animal, realise and constitute humanity. Man is only man in so far as +he obeys them, and such is the point of transition that he occupies +between two worlds, such the necessity of the crisis by which he must +disengage himself from material animality, that, if he does not rise +above the brute, he necessarily, by the very perversion of his higher +life, falls beneath him. + +From the beginning, physical life implies a double movement: a movement +inward from the outside to the centre of the ego, and a movement +outward from the centre to the circumference. The first represents the +action of external things upon the ego by sensation (passivity); the +second, the reaction of the ego upon things by the will (activity). +This internal flux and reflux is the whole mental life. From this +point we shall soon perceive the initial contradiction in which this +life is formed, and in which it goes on developing itself continually. +The passive side and the active side of the life of the mind are not +harmonious. Sensation crushes the will. The activity, the free +expansion of the ego, its desires to extend and aggrandise itself are +checked and crushed by the weight of the world, which on every side is +pressing in upon it. Springing up from the centre, the wave of life +breaks itself inevitably on the rocks of outward things. This +perpetual collision, this conflict of the ego and the universe,--this +is the primary cause and origin of all pain. Thus thrown back upon +itself, the activity of the ego returns upon the centre and heats it +like the axle of a wheel in motion. Sparks soon fly, and the inner +life of the ego is lit up. This is _consciousness_. Brought back by +painful sensations and by repeated failure of its efforts from the +outside, the ego begins to reflect upon itself; it doubles itself and +knows itself; soon it judges itself; it separates itself from the +organism with which at first it confounded itself; it opposes itself to +itself, as if there were really in itself two _beings_, an ideal ego +and an empirical ego. Hence comes its torment, its struggles, its +remorse, but also the impulse ever renewed, the indefinite progress of +its spiritual life, of which each moment seems to be but a degree from +which it ought to rise to a stage still higher. + +May we not here foresee the divine purpose of pain? Without it, it +would seem as if the life of the spirit could not have arisen out of +physical life. All births are painful. Consciousness, like every +other child, was born in tears. The child of pain, it can only be +developed by pain. Where do you find intelligence the most refined, +consciousness the keenest, inner life the most intense, if not amongst +the human beings whose external activities have been repressed by +sickness or by some limitation in their social position? How else will +you explain the _Pensees_ of Pascal or of Maine de Biran, or the +_Journal_ of Amiel? Whence comes that extraordinary development of +consciousness of which we are all aware in men like these, unless it be +that they feel more profoundly than others that radical contradiction +which constitutes at once the misery and the grandeur of human destiny? + +Continue this observation; follow each of our faculties in its +progressive expansion. Starting from a contradiction without which +they would not exist, you see them all end in a contradiction in which +they seem to perish, so that that which has engendered consciousness +seems as if it must destroy it. Everywhere the same discouraging +antinomy. Man cannot know himself without knowing himself to be +limited. But he cannot feel these fatal limitations without going +beyond them in thought and by desire, so that he is never satisfied +with what he possesses, and cannot be happy except with that which he +cannot attain. I desire to know; my labouring intellect is athirst to +comprehend and understand, and its first discoveries enchant it. But, +alas, my head soon runs itself against the wall of mystery. Not only +are there things it does not know, but there are things which it knows +for a certainty that it will never be able to know. How can a man jump +off his own shadow, or stand on his own shoulders, to look over the +impassable wall? That all which is intelligible to us is real, I +grant; but is all that is real intelligible to us? And then what +becomes my knowledge save a melancholy feeling of ignorance that knows +itself to be such? The same contradiction in my faculty for enjoyment. +As my seeming knowledge changed into its opposite, so now I see +pleasure and happiness changing into pain and sorrow. Let the +superficial and the vulgar lay on fate or things the blame of their +deceptions and of their inability to be happy; as for me, I can only +blame the inner constitution of my being. It is as the result of that +very constitution that enjoyment bears within itself the cause of its +own exhaustion, that pleasure is changed into disgust, and that pain is +born of all voluptuousness. Pessimism is in the right; for it is +proved by an experience only too long-lived that the only result of +happiness exclusively pursued is an increase of the capacity for +suffering. Need I speak of moral activity? I desire to do good, but +"evil is present with me." I do not do that which I approve, and I do +not approve that which I do: I feel myself free in my will, and I am +enslaved in action. The more effort I make towards an ideal +righteousness, the more that ideal, which I never reach, constitutes me +a sinner and strengthens in me the consciousness of sin; so that here +again, and here especially, the final result of my search is the +opposite of that which I set out to seek. + +Whence shall deliverance come? How shall I solve this contradiction of +my being which makes me at the same time live and die? To free man +from the miseries and limitations of his nature men count upon the +progress of science and the amelioration of the conditions of his life. +But who does not see that here is a new source of despair? How can we +forget that, so far from attenuating it, science in its progress +aggravates and renders mortal the original condition of life? To make +a discovery, to explain a new phenomenon, what is this but to add +another link to the causal and necessary network which science weaves +and spreads over things? To put sequence, order, and stability into +the world, is not this, for science, to put necessity into it, and to +make necessity the sovereign ruler of the world? Science, in the +strict sense of the word, is determinist. But then, prolong this +progress of science indefinitely; multiply it by ten, by a hundred, a +thousand; what do you do but multiply proportionately the weight of +universal determinism beneath which our soul groans and ceases to +strive? We should then end in the still more tragic +contradiction--between science and conscience, physical laws and moral +laws, action and reflection. The more the one enlarges and triumphs +the vainer seems the other. Hence that philosophical dualism in which +modern thought ends--a science which cannot engender an acknowledged +morality, and a morality which cannot be the object of positive +science. We touch the cause of that strange malady _le mal du siecle_, +a sort of internal consumption by which all cultivated minds are more +or less affected. It is an intestine war which arms the human ego +against itself and dries up all the springs of life. The more one +reflects on the reasons that may be urged in favour of living and +acting, the less capable one is of effort and of action. Clearness of +thought is in inverse proportion to the energy of the will. The +Pessimists tell us that if we were fully and perfectly conscious we +should lose the will to act, and even the desire to be. And which of +us is not more or less of a Pessimist nowadays? Who does not complain +of "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world"? Who does not +feel his weakness and the pressure of external things? Who has not +marked that union now become almost habitual of frivolity of character +and intellectual culture the most perfect and refined? That sad +monotone which comes to us on every wind, from the latest volume of +philosophy, from the most popular novel, from the most successful +play,--what is it but the melancholy sigh of a life that seems to be +ready to expire, of a world that seems about to disappear. Must one +give up thinking then if he would retain the courage to live, and +resign himself to death in order to preserve the right to think? + +From this feeling of distress, from this initial contradiction of the +inner life of man, religion springs. It is the rent in the rock +through which the living and life-giving waters flow. Not that +religion brings a theoretical solution to the problem. The issue it +opens and proposes to us is pre-eminently practical. It does not save +us by adding to our knowledge, but by a return to the very principle on +which our being depends, and by a moral act of confidence in the origin +and aim of life. At the same time this saving act is not an arbitrary +one; it springs from a necessity. Faith in life both is and acts like +the instinct of conservation in the physical world. It is a higher +form of that instinct Blind and fatal in organisms, in the moral life +it is accompanied by consciousness and by reflective will, and, thus +transformed, it appears under the guise of religion. + +Nor is this life-impulse (_elan de la vie_) produced in the void, or +objectless. It rests upon a feeling inherent in every conscious +individual, the feeling of dependence which every man experiences with +respect to universal being. Which of us can escape this feeling of +absolute dependence? Not only is our destiny, in principle, decided +outside ourselves and apart from ourselves according to the general +laws of cosmical evolution, in the course of which we appear at a given +time and place with a heritage of forces which we have not chosen or +produced, but, not being able to discover in ourselves or in any series +of individuals the sufficient reason of our existence, we are obliged +to seek outside ourselves, in universal being, the first cause and +ultimate aim of our existence and our life. To be religious is, at +first, to recognise, to accept with confidence, with simplicity and +humility, this subjection of our individual consciousness; it is to +bring this back and bind it to its eternal principle; it is to will to +be in the order and the harmony of life. This feeling of our +subordination thus furnishes the experimental and indestructible basis +of the idea of God. This idea may possibly remain more or less +indetermined, and may indeed never be perfected in our mind; but its +object does not on that account elude our consciousness. Before all +reflection, and before all rational determination, it is given to us +and, as it were, imposed on us in the very fact of our absolute +dependence; without fear we may establish this equation: the feeling of +our dependence is that of the mysterious presence of God in us. Such +is the deep source from which the idea of the divine springs up within +us irresistibly. But it springs at once as religion and as an effect +of religion. + +At the same time, it is well to note at what a cost the mind of man +accepts this subordination in relation to the principle of universal +life. We have seen this mind in conflict with external things. The +mind revolts against them because they are of a different nature to +itself, and because it is the proud prerogative of mind to comprehend, +to dominate, to rule things and not to be subordinate to them. +Pascal's phrase is to the point: "Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing +in nature; but he is a thinking reed. Were the universe to crush him, +man would still be nobler than the universe that killed him, for he +would be conscious of the calamity, and the universe would know nothing +of the advantage it possessed." That is why the material universe is +not the principle of sovereignty to which it is possible for man to +submit. The superior dignity of spirit to the totality of things can +only be preserved in our precarious individuality by an act of +confidence and communion with the universal Spirit. It is only on a +spiritual power that my consciousness does actually make both me and +the universe to depend, and in making us both to depend on the same +spiritual power, it reconciles us to each other, because, in that +universal being conceived as spirit, both I and the universe have a +common principle and a common aim. Descartes was right: the first step +of the human mind desirous of confirming to itself the sense of its own +worth and dignity is an essentially religious act. The circle of my +mental life, which opens with the conflict of these two +terms--consciousness of the ego, experience of the world--is completed +by a third in which the other terms are harmonised: the sense of their +common dependence upon God. But is not this account of the genesis of +religion too philosophic and too abstract to be capable of universal +application? If it explains the persistence of the religious sentiment +in epochs of high culture, can it also explain its appearance in the +pre-historic ages of humanity? Those who raise this objection have not +sufficiently marked the permanent nature of the initial contradiction +which constitutes, at the beginning as at the end, the empirical life +of man, and which renders it in all degrees so precarious and so +miserable. It is not a contradiction created by logic. To experience +it and to suffer from it man did not need to wait until he became a +philosopher. It manifested itself in the terrors of the savage in +presence of the cataclysms of nature, in the midst of the perils of the +primeval forest not less than in our troubled thought in presence of +the enigma of the universe and the mystery of death. The expression of +human misery and the consciousness thereof are different things; the +religious thrill which brings relief, at bottom is the same. Pascal, +with all his knowledge, did not experience less distress than primitive +man, when he exclaimed: "The eternal silence of the infinite spaces +terrifies me." The disciple of Kant, shutting himself up in despair +within the impassable limits of phenomenal knowledge, or the disciple +of Schopenhauer ending in the internecine conflict between intellect +and will, are they not smitten with a feeling of impotence still more +painful, and, when they cease to reason in order to decide to live, do +they not feel forming within themselves, and in spite of themselves, a +sigh which is the beginning of a prayer? + +Religion, therefore, is immortal. Far from drying up with time, the +spring from whence it flows in the human soul enlarges, deepens, and +becomes more rich under the twofold action of philosophic reflection +and of the painful experiences of life. Those who predict its +approaching end mistake for religion that which is only its outward and +fleeting expression. The periodical crises in which it seems as if it +must perish, renew its traditions and its forms, and, so far from +proving its weakness, demonstrate its fecundity and its faculty of +rejuvenescence. Never, in all history, has the human soul been seen +entirely naked. On this tree, in which the sap divine mounts ever, the +leaves of one season only fall, however dry they may be, under the +pressure of new leaves. Religious beliefs do not die; they are simply +transformed. Let the friends of religion then cease to be alarmed and +its enemies to rejoice. The hopes of the one and the fears of the +other show an equal misconception of that which is its essence and its +principle. If they seek it in themselves, they will find it all the +more living in their inner life, the more its traditional forms outside +themselves seem menaced. The sigh, the impulse, or the melancholy of +the soul in distress are more religious than an interested or +mechanical devotion. There are hours when the heresy which suffers, +and which seeks and prays, is much nearer the source of life than the +intellectual obstinacy of an orthodoxy incapable, as it would seem, of +comprehending the dogmas that it keeps embalmed. Let the men who +despise religion learn first to know it; let them see it as it is--the +inward happy crisis by which human life is transformed and an issue +opened up to it towards the ideal life. All human development springs +from it and ends in it. Art, morals, science itself fade and waste +away if this supreme inspiration be wanting to them; the irreligious +soul expires as if from lack of breath. Man is not; he has to make +himself; and in order to this he must mount from the darkness and +bondage of earth to light and liberty. It is by religion that humanity +begins in him, and it is by religion that it is established and +completed. + + +3. _Religion is the Prayer of the Heart_ + +We shall now be able to define the essence of religion. It is a +commerce, a conscious and willed relation into which the soul in +distress enters with the mysterious power on which it feels that it and +its destiny depend. This commerce with God is realised by prayer. +Prayer is religion in act--that is to say, real religion. It is prayer +which distinguishes religious phenomena from all those which resemble +them or lie near to them, from the moral sense, for instance, or +aesthetic feeling. If religion is a practical need, the response to it +can only be a practical action. No theory would suffice. Religion is +nothing if it is not the vital act by which the whole spirit seeks to +save itself by attaching itself to its principle. This act is prayer, +by which I mean, not an empty utterance of words, not the repetition of +certain sacred formulas, but the movement of the soul putting itself +into personal relation and contact with the mysterious power whose +presence it feels even before it is able to give it a name. Where this +inward prayer is wanting there is no religion; on the other hand, +wherever this prayer springs up in the soul and moves it, even in the +absence of all form and doctrine clearly defined, there is true +religion, living piety. From this point of view, perhaps a history of +prayer would be the best history of the religious development of +mankind. That history would be seen to commence in the crudest cry for +help and to complete itself in perfect prayer which, on the lips of +Christ, is simply submission to and confidence in the Father's will. + +This concrete definition of religion has the advantage of correcting by +completing that of Schleiermacher. It reconciles the two antithetic +elements which constitute the religious sentiment: the passive and the +active elements, the feeling of dependence and the movement of liberty. +Prayer, springing up out of our state of misery and oppression, +delivers us from it. There is in it both submission and faith. +Submission makes us recognise and accept our dependence, faith +transforms that dependence into liberty. These two elements correspond +to the two poles of the religious life; for in all true piety man +prostrates himself before the omnipotence that encompasses him, and he +rises with a feeling of deliverance and of concord with his God. +Schleiermacher erred in insisting only upon resignation. Thenceforth +he could neither escape Pantheism in order to arrive at liberty, nor +find any link between the religious and the moral life. Religion, +then, is a free act as well as a feeling of dependence. And such is +the character and the virtue of the act of prayer that everything is +transformed by it. The crushing feeling of my defeat becomes the +joyful and triumphant feeling of my victory. Each of these states is +changed into its opposite, so that the truly religious man lives at +once in a free obedience and in an obedient liberty. If religion has +often been an oppressive power and an instrument of servitude, it has +been at least as often the mother of all the liberties. The force +which bows me down is that which also lifts me up, for it passes into +my soul. The God that I adore comes in the end to be an inward God +whose presence drives away all fear and places me beyond the reach of +all the menaces of things. The conscious realisation of this presence +of God,--that is the true salvation of my being and my life. + +I now understand why "natural religion" is not a religion. It deprives +man of prayer; it leaves God and man at a distance from each other. No +intimate commerce, no interior dialogue, no exchange between them, no +action of God in man, no return of man to God. At bottom, this +pretended religion is nothing but philosophy. It arises in periods of +rationalism, of criticism, of impersonal reason, and has never been +anything but an abstraction. The three dogmas in which it is summed +up--the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the +obligation of duty--are but the inorganic residue, the _caput mortuum_, +found at the bottom of the crucible in which all positive religions are +dissolved. This natural religion, so called, is not found in Nature; +it is no more natural than it is religious. A lifeless, artificial +creation, it shows hardly any of the characteristic marks of a +religion. For the moment, it may seem to have the advantage of +escaping the attacks of scientific criticism. On trial, it is found to +be less resistant than any other. The self-same reason that +constructed it destroys it, and its dogmas are perhaps more compromised +to-day in face of modern thought than those it professes to replace. + +Religion then is inward prayer and deliverance. It is inherent in man +and could only be torn from his heart by separating man from himself, +if I may so say, and destroying that which constitutes humanity in him. +I am religious, I repeat, because I am a man, and neither have the wish +nor the power to separate myself from my kind. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +RELIGION AND REVELATION + +1. _The Mystery of the Religious Life_ + +"Thou wouldst not seek me hadst thou not already found me." In this +word that Pascal heard amid his restless search, the whole mystery of +piety is disclosed. If religion is the prayer of man, it may be said +that revelation is the response of God, but only on condition that we +add that this response is always, in germ at least, in the prayer +itself. + +This thought struck me like a flash of light. It was the solution of a +problem that had long appeared to me to be insoluble. I had never read +without a certain amount of doubt, and as an oratorical exaggeration, +that promise made by Jesus to His disciples with so strange an +assurance: "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: +knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, +receiveth: and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it +shall be opened" (Matt vii. 7, 8). Jesus had experienced a truth of +which I am only beginning to catch sight: no prayer remains unanswered, +because God to whom it is addressed is the One who has already inspired +it. The search for God cannot be fruitless: for, the moment I set out +to seek Him, He finds me and lays hold of me. Allow me to reflect a +little longer on this mystery. I seem as if I were listening to these +gospel words and promises for the first time. They sound in my ears +like deep and solemn music which, bearing to me the echo of the +religiously active soul of Jesus, brings succour to my own. The +religious life, then, is not a fixed state; it is a movement of the +soul, it is a desire, a need. The love of truth, is it not the +principle of science? To love truth above all things, is not that in +some way to be already in the truth? The point of departure, the +inward beginning of a real righteousness, is not this repentance, that +is to say the pain of not being righteous? I understand now why the +Christ has made humility and confidence the sole conditions of entrance +to His kingdom, why His Word has made riches spring from poverty, +health from sickness, and satisfaction from the very intensity of need. +Secret of the gospel, mysterious laws of spirit, pure moral essence of +the kingdom of God, paradoxes which disconcert the man immersed in the +ideas of the life of sense and self, but which contain the highest +realities of moral life, reveal yourselves with ever-growing clearness +to my consciousness, since, for me, on this first revelation all the +rest depend! + +I turn to another thought of Pascal. "Piety," he says, "is God +sensible to the heart." If so, it is evident that in all piety there +is some positive manifestation of God. The ideas of religion and +revelation are therefore correlative and religiously inseparable. +Religion is simply the subjective revelation of God in man, and +revelation is religion objective in God. It is the relation of subject +and object, of effect and cause, organically united; it is one and the +same psychological phenomenon, which can neither subsist nor be +produced save by their conjunction. It is as impossible to isolate as +it is to confound them. + +I conceive therefore that revelation is as universal as religion +itself, that it descends as low, goes as far, ascends as high, and +accompanies it always. No form of piety is empty; no religion is +absolutely false; no prayer is vain. Once more, revelation is in +prayer and progresses with prayer. From a revelation obtained in a +first prayer is born a purer prayer, and from this a higher revelation. +Thus light grows with life, truth with piety. This makes it possible +for me to enter into communion and sympathy with all sincerely +religious souls, however simple and however crude or gross their +worship and their faith; but if I can comprehend them, I cannot always +speak their language or share their ideas. All religions are not +equally good, nor are all prayers acceptable to my consciousness. To +return to exploded superstitions or to beliefs now recognised to be +illusory is as much a moral impossibility as it would be for a +full-grown man to return to the puerilities of his childhood. +Revelation therefore is not a communication once for all of immutable +doctrines which only need to be held fast. The object of the +revelation of God can only be God Himself, and if a definition must be +given of it, it may be said to consist of the creation, the +purification, and the progressive clearness of the consciousness of God +in man,--in the individual and in the race. + +From this point of view, I see very clearly that the revelation of God +never needs to be proved to any one. The attempt would be as +contradictory as it is superfluous. Two things are equally impossible: +for an irreligious man to discover a divine revelation in a faith he +does not share, or for a truly pious man not to find one in the +religion he has espoused and which lives in his heart. With what, +moreover, and how could it be proved that light shines except by +forcing those who are asleep to awake and open their eyes? All serious +Apologetics must insist as a necessary starting-point on the awakening +and conversion of the soul. + +Having always been religious, mankind has never been destitute of +revelation, that is to say of witness more or less obscure, more or +less correctly interpreted, of the presence in it and the action of +God. But if men have always maintained some relation and some commerce +with the deity, they have not always represented in the same manner the +mode in which communications have been received from Him. The notion +of revelation has progressed with the growth of mental enlightenment +and with the nature of the piety. It is therefore necessary to +criticise that notion and to see what it has now become for us. It is +to this examination that I shall devote this second meditation. The +idea of revelation has passed through three phases in the course of +history: the mythological, the dogmatic, and the critical. + + +2. _The Mythological Notion of Revelation_ + +Among the faculties of man, the first to awaken in the mental life of +the child and of the savage is the imagination. All literatures begin +with chants, all histories with legends, and all religions with myths +or symbols. Poetry always makes its appearance before prose. One can +only see the effect of an inveterate rationalism in the promptitude +with which men are scandalised at any attempt to point out in the Bible +or around the cradle of Christianity legends and myths serving as +sacred vehicles for the purest and sublimest religious revelations, as +if the divine Spirit, in order to be intelligible to the simple and the +ignorant, could not as well avail Himself of the fictions of poetry as +of logical reasonings, of the chants of the angels at Bethlehem as of +the rabbinical exegesis and argumentations of the Apostle Paul. A myth +is false in appearance only. When the heart was pure and sincere the +veils of fable always allowed the face of truth to shine through. And +why so much disdain? Does not childhood run on into maturity and old +age? What are our most abstract ideas but primitive metaphors which +have been worn and thinned by usage and reflection? + +It is none the less true, as St. Paul says, that in advancing in age we +have left behind the speech and thought of infancy. The first men did +not know how to distinguish between the substance and the form of their +beliefs. This distinction has become easy to us. The most +conservative minds can no longer read the stories or the monuments of +the ancient religions without criticising and translating them. + +The men of other times, timid and ingenuous as children, saw everywhere +material signs by which they believed the will of the gods was +manifested. They early formed the art of divination--an essentially +religious art. It is found among all peoples, the ancient Hebrews not +excepted. The thunder was to them the voice of God. They consulted +Him by the Urim and Thummim, and by the sacred ephod. They did not +doubt, any more than the Greeks, either the divine origin or the +prophetic sense of dreams. Elsewhere they evoked the dead, they +interrogated the flight of birds, they listened to the sound of the +wind in the foliage of the oaks, or to the noise of waters in sonorous +caverns. That was an external and, in some sort, physical conception +of revelation, from which modern peoples have escaped, but with which +all set out. + +In the oldest traditions of Hebraism, God speaks to Adam, to Noah, to +Abraham, to Moses, as one man speaks to another, by articulate sounds +perceived by the ear. The sacred formula, _Thus saith the Lord_, +serves as the uniform introduction to civil, political, and ritual, as +well as to moral and religious, laws. Religion then embraced and +regulated all the life. The great empires of antiquity all claim a +divine origin. As to ancient legislations, there is not one that is +not said to have come from heaven. The Egyptians refer theirs to the +god Thoth or Hermes; Minos, in Crete, is said to have received his laws +from Jupiter; Lycurgus, in Sparta, from Apollo; Zoroaster, in Persia, +from Ahura Mazda; Numa Pompilius, at Rome, from the nymph Egeria. +Moses does not stand alone. I am not here comparing the value of the +things; I am simply pointing out the identity of the representations. + +Nor was it only religious and political institutions that they referred +to the will of the gods; they referred to it all kinds of decisions and +enterprises; declarations of war, raids to make, the order of battle, +the extermination of the vanquished, the sharing of the spoils, +conditions of peace, expiations to be made; everything was done in +obedience to supernatural orders the authenticity of which no one +thought of discussing. In the same way, a divine inspiration explained +the gift of predicting the future, the eloquence of orators, the +sagacity of statesmen, the genius of great soldiers, the verve of +poets, and even the skill of the more famous artisans. "Legends!" it +is said. No doubt. But these legends are universal. Men speak +everywhere the same language, because everywhere they think in the same +fashion. + +A great progress, however, is accomplished in Israel. The notion of +revelation gradually becomes interior and moral. Among the prophets, +revelation is conceived of as the action of the Spirit of Jehovah +entering and acting in the spirit of man. It is true that the mythical +conception still persists and betrays itself in this: divine +inspiration is represented as the invasion of a human being by another +being alien to him,--as a sort of mental alienation or possession. The +divine Spirit is represented as a force which comes from without, a +wind from above which no one can resist, of which the elect are as much +the victims as the organs. Its action is measured by the agitation and +commotion of the inspired, by the disorder of their faculties, by the +incoherence of their gestures and their speech. The delirium of man +becomes the sign of the presence of God. Madmen, valetudinarians, +epileptics, are regarded almost everywhere as the favourites of Heaven. +Their strange words or acts men believe to be divine oracles delivered +unconsciously and against the will. + +This violent opposition between the supernatural action of the divine +Spirit and the normal exercise of rational faculties is gradually +attenuated in the course of the ages. It is easy to see that in the +great prophets of Israel the formula _Thus saith the Lord_, while still +frequent and still expressing the same subjective certitude of +inspiration, has become a simple rhetorical form. God speaks +henceforth to His people by their eloquence, by their faith, by their +genius. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," cries the second +Isaiah; "because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to +the meek," etc. (Is. lxi. 1-3). + +This evolution appears to have been completed in the soul of Christ. +Here inspiration ceases to be miraculous without ceasing to be +supernatural. It is no longer produced by fits and starts or +intermittently. An ancient gospel ("The Gospel of the Hebrews") +admirably marks this change. At the moment of His baptism the Holy +Spirit says to Jesus: _Mi fili, te exspectabam in omnibus prophetis, ut +venires et requiescerem in te. Tu enim es requies mea_. (My Son, in +all the prophets I awaited Thy coming in order that I might repose in +Thee. Thou art indeed my rest.) + +Being continuous, the inspiration becomes normal. The ancient conflict +between the divine Spirit and the human vanishes. The immanent and +constant action of the one manifests itself in the regular and fruitful +action of the other. God lives and works in man, man lives and works +in God. Religion and Nature, the voice divine and the voice of +conscience, the subject and the object of revelation, penetrate each +other and become one. The supreme revelation of God shines forth in +the highest of all consciousnesses and the loveliest of human lives. + +This progress, is it not admirable? Should it not strike the attention +all the more inasmuch as, instead of being the effect of rational +criticism, it is, in Christianity, exclusively the work of piety? +This, become more profound, has conquered the ancient antithesis +created by the ignorance of early times. Divesting itself more and +more of foreign and inferior elements, the idea of revelation has been +found to be more human as it has become more inward, more constant, +more strictly moral and religious. Christ has not given us a critical +theory of revelation; He has done what is better; He has given us +revelation itself--a perfect and permanent revelation; He presents God +and man to us so intimately united in all the acts and moments of His +inner life, that they become inseparable. The Father acts in His Son, +and the Son reveals the Father to all who wish to know Him. + +Though he still retained many remnants of the ancient mythological +notion (visions, dreams, ecstasies, delirium of tongues), the Apostle +Paul seized with energy the distinguishing characteristic of the +Christian revelation, and propounded the theory of it with a sacred +boldness. That theory consists in the effusion and habitation of the +Holy Spirit in the souls of Christians who, in their turn, become +"children of God," and enjoy, by this Spirit, the same direct and +permanent communion with the Father. This Spirit is no longer an alien +guest or a perturbing force; He becomes in us a second nature. That is +why the Christian is set free from all the old tutelages; he judges +everything and is judged by nothing; he has his law within himself, so +that from this inspiration springs his autonomy and his liberty. + +But neither this spiritual piety nor the lofty conception which flows +from it could long be sustained. Preoccupied in founding its +authority, and only being able to succeed in it by returning to the +idea of an external revelation, the Catholic Church made it to consist +chiefly in rules and dogmas, and, by this change, it naturally +transformed the mythological notion of revelation into a dogmatic +notion not essentially different. + + +3. _Dogmatic Notion_ + +"The Greeks," said Paul, "seek philosophy; the Jews demand miracles." +From these two tendencies combined, from Greek rationalism and Hebrew +supernaturalism, sprang the new notion that may be summed up and +defined thus: a divine doctrine legitimated by divine signs or miracles. + +These two elements of the theory are mutually dependent, and form an +indivisible whole. Given to man in a supernatural way, the doctrine +surpasses the reach of the human understanding; hence it must not be +imposed upon the mind by its own evidence or examined by natural +reason. The supernatural doctrine demands supernatural proof. This +proof can only be found in the miracles which have accompanied the +doctrine from its birth. Thus mysteries, incomprehensible in the order +of reason, will necessarily be established by inexplicable events in +the order of Nature. + +The theory, in this way, becomes coherent, but it is not complete. A +third term must be added. The divine doctrine must be embodied in a +form which distinguishes it from all others, and placed under an +authority that guarantees it. For Protestantism, the form and the +authority of revelation is--the Bible; for Catholicism, it is the Bible +sovereignly interpreted by the Church. The scholastic notion of +revelation is now complete. The doctors teach us to distinguish three +things in it: the object, which is dogma; the form, which is Scripture; +and the proof or criterion, which is miracle. This construction +appears to be compact in all its parts; in reality it is so fragile and +so artificial that it crumbles at a touch. + +To make of dogma, that is to say of an intellectual datum, the object +of revelation is, in the first place, to eliminate from it its +religious character by separating it from piety, and in the next place +it is to place it in permanent and irreconcilable conflict with the +reason, which is always progressing. In vain do they appear to deduce +this scholastic theory from the Bible; it is simply an unfaithful +translation of the Biblical notion. They tear up from the soil of the +religious life the revelation of God in order to constitute it into a +body of supernatural verities, subsisting by itself, to which they make +it an obligation and a merit to adhere, silencing, if needs be, both +the judgment and the conscience. Faith, which, in the Bible, was an +act of confidence and consecration to God, becomes an intellectual +adherence to an historical testimony or to a doctrinal formula. A +mortal dualism starts up in religion. It is admitted that orthodoxy +may exist apart from piety, that a man may obtain and possess the +object of faith apart from the conditions that faith presupposes, and, +at a push, serve divine truth while inwardly an unbeliever and a +reprobate. Get rid of this illusion, frivolous and irreligious man! +Whatever your authorities in earth or heaven, you are not in the truth, +because you are not in piety. God has not spoken anything to you. To +the prophets He has spoken, doubtless, and to Christ and the apostles +and the saints; to you He still remains a stranger and unknown. His +revelation has not been to you a light, for you are walking in +darkness. You are like the Jews who built the tombs of the prophets +and crowned their memory with empty honours. Had you been living in +the time of the men of God, you would have been the first to stone them. + +This idea of revelation is at bottom entirely pagan. In the region of +authentic Christianity you cannot separate the revealing act of God +from His redeeming and sanctifying action. God does not enlighten, on +the contrary He blinds those whom He does not save or sanctify. Let us +boldly conclude, therefore, against all traditional orthodoxies, that +the object of the revelation of God could only be God Himself, that is +to say the sense of His presence in us, awakening our soul to the life +of righteousness and love. When the word of God does not give us life, +it gives us nothing. It is true that that presence and that action of +the divine Spirit in our hearts become in them a light whose rays +illumine all the faculties of the soul. But do not hope to enjoy that +light apart from the central sun from which it flows. + +The scholastic notion is not only irreligious; it is +anti-psychological. In entering the human understanding this +supernatural knowledge introduces into it a hopeless dualism. The +sacred sciences are set up alongside the profane sciences without its +being possible to organise them together into a coherent and harmonious +body, for they are not of the same nature, they do not proceed from the +same method, they do not accept the same control. You have thus a +sacred cosmogony and a profane cosmogony, a sacred history of the +origins of man and a purely human history of his beginnings, and of his +first adventures, a divine metaphysic and another purely rational. How +to make them live together and unite them? If, by a subtle theology, +you succeed in rationalising dogma, do you not see that you destroy it +in its very essence? If you demonstrate that it is essentially +irrational, do you not feel that you are instituting an endless warfare +between the authority of dogma and the authority of reason? One +remembers the generous attempt of mediaeval scholasticism, taken up +again by the Protestant theologians of the seventeenth century, and one +has not forgotten its twice fatal issue. One would need to have no +notion of the laws of human thought to be astonished at it. Nominalism +in the fifteenth century and rationalism in the eighteenth were the two +natural heirs of orthodoxy. + +The intervention of miracle as a _criterion_ or proof of doctrine does +not remove the difficulties of the theory; it multiplies and aggravates +them. In consequence of the lapse of time, the incertitude of the +documents, and the demands of modern thought, miracle, which formerly +established the truth of religion, has become much more difficult to +demonstrate than religion itself. The relation between the two has +been reversed. The foundation of the edifice has become more ruinous +than the building. Examples? Consider, then, on the one hand, the +Decalogue, and on the other the thunders and lightnings of Sinai. +Peals of thunder may have served to convince the Hebrews that the law +of Moses came from the Eternal; for they looked upon thunder as +revealing the presence, in some sort material and local, of their God. +But who does not see that it is much easier to-day to prove the +excellence and the truth of the _Ten Words_ of the Law than the divine +character of the most terrible of tempests? Make the opposite +experiment: you are familiar with the Books of Joshua, Judges, Kings. +You have read in them those orders issued by Jehovah for the total +extermination of peoples whose crime was the defence of their country +against the invaders. Prodigies abound in them: the walls of Jericho +fall down at the sound of trumpets, etc., etc. Are these events +sufficient to warrant us in admitting the affirmation of the Hebrew +historian that these terrible reprisals, these crimes and violences, +which were then common in all the Semitic tribes, were commanded either +by the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ or by the impartial God of the +universe? Our conscience resists and protests. Prodigies the most +brilliant cannot make it do violence to itself or bend the law of +righteousness and love beneath any manifestation, however striking, of +brute force. Let us go further; let us come to the miracles of Christ. +Let us interrogate the best Christians of our time: let us ask +ourselves, Is it the cures that Jesus wrought which make us believe +to-day in the divine truth of His word or which give authority to the +Sermon on the Mount? Is it not rather the Gospel that helps us to +believe in the miracles by persuading us that a man who spake like this +man must have been able to do things and work works as beautiful and as +wonderful as the words which He spoke? The most conservative +Apologists of the traditional school confess to-day that miracle has +lost its evidential force; it might move those who witnessed it, but +its action and its prestige have necessarily been diminishing day by +day for the generations which have followed them. + +What if we were to press the idea of miracle itself which is in process +of vanishing in proportion as the idea of Nature is transformed? What +is Nature? Who knows its secrets and its limits? The theory of the +evolution of things and beings, does it not show Nature to us as in +travail, and as if perpetually giving birth to marvels? And if this +creative energy which is in it can only religiously be referred to the +constant activity of God in the universe and in history, how can we +still oppose the laws of Nature to the will of God? Moreover, nothing +is to-day more indeterminate, more impossible to define than the notion +of miracle; it floats without ever being able to fix itself, between +the idea of an absolute violation of the laws of Nature now no longer +witnessed anywhere, to that entirely relative one of an extraordinary +event, which, seeing that it may be encountered everywhere, no longer +proves anything. + +Lastly, if from the _object_ and the _criterion_ of revelation, we pass +to the form which conserves and warrants it, _i.e._ to the Bible, +questions become still more numerous and insoluble. In the seventeenth +century the notion of the Bible and that of revelation were coincident +and commensurate. But this identity depended upon two dogmas much +impaired to-day. The one was the divine origin of the two Biblical +Canons, _i.e._ of the Old and New Testaments: the other, the verbal +inspiration of all holy Scripture, considered as divinely dictated. + +History and exegesis have dissipated the illusions and the ignorance on +which these two strange affirmations rested. The Bible appears to us +as the work, slowly and laboriously constructed, of the ancient Jewish +Synagogue, and of the Early Christian Church. It needed more than four +centuries to establish and to delimitate the New Testament. The books +which compose it were still in the time of Eusebius divided into two +classes: books admitted everywhere and books contested. Why then +should we not have the same liberty as Origen of doubting the +authenticity of 2 Peter, _e.g._, or as Denis of Alexandria in +discussing the apostolic origin of the Apocalypse? As to the theory of +verbal inspiration, which makes the sacred writers God's penmen merely, +no savant nowadays can defend it, so thoroughly have biblical studies +set forth the personal originality of each of them, and the merits or +the imperfections of their works. Moreover, the distinction clearly +made in all the schools between the sacred writings and revelation must +be considered as an inalienable conquest of modern theology. There is +no one now who does not admit this truth, which would have seemed +intolerable to our fathers, namely, that the word of God is in the +Bible, but that all the Bible is not the word of God. + +If this be so one sees new questions surging up and awaiting solution. +What is the relation of the word of God to the Bible? By what sign may +we recognise the first and distinguish the second? Further, if there +be any word of God outside the Bible, if there has been any revelation +of God beyond the limits of the Hebrew people and primitive +Christianity--and how can we deny this without denying the worth of +religion?--what relation is there to establish, and what synthesis to +make, between the biblical revelation and the other revelations suited +to the various human families? Lastly, what place does the religion of +Jesus occupy in the religious evolution of humanity? Modern theology +seems deaf to these questions. Despairing of a solution, it hesitates +to approach them. But they must be answered. Contemporary philosophy +presses them upon the conscience of Christians. The scholastic theory, +it is clear, cannot bring any solution to these new problems. As soon +as the distinction is made in our consciousness between the word of God +and the letter of holy Scripture, the first becomes independent of all +human form and of all external guarantee. It is with it as with the +light of the sun. It is only recognised by the brightness with which +it floods us. But take care to introduce this criterion of religious +and moral evidence into the scholastic theory is to deposit an +explosive in the heart of it which shatters it to atoms.... I leave to +others the task of masking or repairing the ruins. A task more urgent +and more fruitful awaits us. We must build up, on a new principle, a +new theory of revelation, a theory that will at once bear the test of +criticism and give satisfaction to piety. + + +4. _Psychological Notion_ + +To return to psychology. In all piety there is some positive +manifestation of God. Otherwise, one might question the value of +religious phenomena. + +Three consequences follow: the revelation of God will be evident, +interior, progressive. + +It will be interior, because God, not having phenomenal existence, can +only reveal Himself to spirit, and in the piety that He Himself +inspires. + +If revealers and prophets believed they heard the voice of God outside +themselves they were the victims of a psychological illusion that +analysis discerns and dissipates. The old theologian was right who +said: + +_Nulla fides si non primum Deus ipse loquitur; Nulla que verba Dei nisi +quae in penetralibus audit Ipsa fides._[1] This interior revelation is +only made, it is true, in connection with some external event of Nature +or of History. If wonder is the beginning of philosophy it is also the +commencement of piety. Religious emotion does not spring up by chance +and unconditionally. But external signs are only revealers for those +who know how to comprehend them, and who are able to interpret them in +a religious sense. That is why the distinction sometimes made between +the _manifestation_ of God in things and divine _inspiration_ in +consciousness, between the sign or external miracle and the inward +word, is of little worth except for pedagogic purposes. The +manifestation of God in Nature or in History is always a matter of +faith. It would only appear to be such in the light on the hearth of +consciousness. Put out that inner light and everything speedily +becomes obscure: "If the light that is in thee be darkness, there will +be darkness round about thee," says Jesus. To the deaf man the +universe is mute. The starry heavens which bent the pensive brows of +Newton and of Kant before the majesty of God, said nothing to Laplace. +Lit up within, the soul of Christ saw everywhere the signs of God. +Caiaphas saw none. In the cross of Jesus, where St. Paul discerned the +manifestation of the wisdom and the power of God, the Pharisees had +only seen the crushing proof that this Messiah was a mere impostor. + + +[1] There is no faith save in the heart where God has first made +Himself heard, and there are no divine words except those which faith +hears in the inmost sanctuary of the soul. + + +This inward revelation will be also _evident_. The contrary would +imply a contradiction. He who says revelation says the veil withdrawn, +the light come. True, the word _mystery_ is often on the lips of +Jesus, and in the writings of the New Testament; but, when applied to +the essence of the Gospel it never has the meaning which is given to it +later in the language of theology. The mystery of which Jesus, Paul, +and the Apostles speak is a revealed mystery, _i.e._ a mystery which +has become evident to pure hearts and pious souls through the public +preaching of it. The Gospel is not obscurity; it is daylight, and it +is nonsense to demand a criterion of evangelical revelation other than +itself, any other evidence, _i.e._, than its own truth, beauty, and +efficiency. + +Lastly, this revelation will be _progressive_. It will be developed +with the progress of the moral and religious life which God begets and +nourishes in the bosom of humanity. The word of God is not that of a +poor human founder who formulates in abstract terms ideas which are but +the pale shadows of things. It is essentially creative. It carries +with it all the substance of being and all the potency of life. It +realises that which it proclaims, and never manifests itself except by +its works. When God wished to give the Decalogue to Israel, He did not +write with His finger on tables of stone; He raised up Moses, and from +the consciousness of Moses the Decalogue sprang. In order that we +might have the Epistle to the Romans, there was no need to dictate it +to the Apostle; God had only to create the powerful individuality of +Saul of Tarsus, well knowing that when once the tree was made the fruit +would follow in due course. The same with the Gospel; He did not drop +it from the sky; He did not send it by an angel; He caused Jesus to be +born from the very bosom of the human race, and Jesus gave us the +Gospel that had blossomed in His inmost heart. Thus God reveals +Himself in the great consciousnesses that His Spirit raises, fills, +illumines one by one; they form a sacred theory through the ages and +leave on history a track of light which brightens, broadens to the +perfect day. + +A new and graver problem here arises. This revelation, made in the +depths of the human soul, remains individual and subjective. How will +it become objective and concrete? How will it be made an educating, +saving power? This problem would be insoluble if Leibniz was right, if +human souls were independent monads, closed against and impenetrable to +one another, if it had been necessary, in a word, to regard them as +absolute entities, posited from the beginning by the Creator. But they +are nothing of the kind. Social philosophy has sufficiently +demonstrated that no individual exists either by himself or for himself +alone. In each man it is humanity that is realised--that is to say, a +moral life common to all. Moral goods are in essence universal. They +do not exist, doubtless, apart from the consciousness of the +individual; but no consciousness acquires them without acquiring them, +in principle at least, for all others. + +Whence comes that religious kinship of souls, that facility of +communion between them, and that infinite extension and prolongation of +one and the same inspiration, if not from the presence in each of the +same indwelling God? Men are only divided by their external idols. In +proportion as they plumb their being and descend into the depths of +their spiritual nature, they discover the same altar, recite the same +prayer, aspire to the same end. It is for this profound reason that +individual revelations become universal. There are only prophets +chosen of God because there is a general vocation and election of all +men. If humanity were not potentially and in some degree an Immanuel +(God with us), there would never have issued from its bosom Him who +bore and revealed this blessed name. The religious experience He +passed through, He passed through for us; the victory He won was for +our advantage and is repeated indefinitely in every sincere soul that +joins itself to Him to live His life. Thus the revelation of God given +at one point and in one consciousness infallibly shines forth, +perpetuates and multiplies itself. A vibration set up in a soul +resounds in kindred souls. An illumined consciousness illuminates in +turn. There are religious filiations, just as there are historical +genealogies. Thus the inner revelation becomes consistent and +objective in history; it forms a chain, a continuous tradition, and +becoming incarnate in each human generation, remains not only the +richest of heritages, but the most fecund of historical powers. + +One step more. Let us follow this historical incarnation of religious +tradition into its most material form. The inner experiences of men of +God and the witness of them that they give to the world, express +themselves naturally in speech, and this in its turn is transformed +into Scripture. It is in this way that in all civilised religions +divine revelation is presented to man in the form of a sacred writing; +everywhere it is gathered into collections of sacred books which have +been called the bibles of humanity. While all these have been born +according to the same psychological and historical laws, it does not +follow that they have all the same value, or that an unintelligent +syncretism has the right to mix together the various elements in them +to make of them one common and characterless Bible. No; each of them +naturally belongs to a particular stage in the ladder of divine +revelations, and there we must leave them. The highest will always be +that which contains the deepest and purest expression of inward +religion, and consequently offers to man the most precious treasure. +The rank of the Hebrew and Christian Bible is thus found to be +logically determined by the moral worth of the Hebrew and the Christian +religions. But in leaving historical criticism and religious +experience to make here the necessary demonstration and render it daily +more evident, we must once more call to mind the always human +conditions of these written collections, of those at the top as well as +those at the bottom of the ladder, conditions which forbid us ever to +identify the letter and the spirit, the divine inspiration and the +particular form in which it has been clothed. + +God, wishing to speak to us, has never chosen any but human organs. +With whatever inspiration He has endowed them, that inspiration has +always therefore passed through human subjectivity; it has only been +able either to express or to translate itself in the language and the +turn of mind of a particular individual and of a particular time. Now, +no individual and historical form can be absolute. If the contents are +divine, the vessel is always earthen. The organ of the revelation of +God necessarily limits it. It must of necessity accommodate itself to +the limits of human receptivity. How could it possibly enter and +mingle with the changing waves of the intellectual and moral life of +humanity unless it flowed in the bed of the river and between its banks? + +However incontestable this historical complexity of the divine and +human elements in religion, most men seem incapable of comprehending +it, and of frankly accepting it. Men of little faith, we feel +ourselves lost the moment men take from us the illusion that we ever +have before us and outside of us the divine revelation in an objective +and unadulterated form, when alongside authority and tradition they +make a place for the freedom and the interpretation of consciousness. +Is there then some chemistry by which we can separate that which God +has joined so indissolubly? Has life ever been seen apart from living +beings or light apart from luminous vibrations? Why not make an effort +to see that the wisdom of God is infinitely greater than our own, and +that what He has given us is better than that of which we dreamed. +Life and light, even if they are not absolute, propagate themselves +with none the less force. + +Lastly, what is the criterion by which you may recognise an authentic +revelation of God in the books you read, in the things you are taught? +Listen: only one criterion is sufficient and infallible: every divine +revelation, every religious experience fit to nourish and sustain your +soul, must be able to repeat and continue itself as an actual +revelation and an individual experience in your own consciousness. +What cannot enter thus as a permanent and constituent element into the +woof of your inner life, to enrich, enfranchise, and transform it into +a higher life, cannot be for you a light, or, consequently, a divine +revelation. The spirit of life is not there. Do not believe that the +prophets and founders have transmitted to you their experience in order +to make yours needless, or that their revelation has been brought to +you in a book for you to receive passively and as if it were an alien +thing. Religious truth cannot be borrowed like money, or, rather, if +you do so borrow it you are none the richer. Remember what the +Samaritans said to the woman: "Now we believe, not because of thy +saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed +the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John iv. 42). Thus the divine +revelation which is not realised in us, and does not become immediate, +does not exist for us. And I admire the counsel of God, Who, wishing +to raise man into liberty, did not give to him an objective revelation +which would have become to him a yoke of bondage. The aim of tradition +is liberty, and liberty returns lovingly to tradition when, instead of +finding it a yoke, it sees in it only a help, an aliment, a guide. + + +5. _Conclusion_ + +Such, in its principle, and with all its consequences, is the new idea +of revelation given to us by psychology and history. Before it vanish +the insoluble antitheses and conflicts raised by scholasticism between +supernatural and natural revelation, between what the theologians call +immediate and mediate, between a universal and a special revelation. +Synthesis is made, and peace is re-established. + +There is not and could never have been two revelations different in +nature and opposed to each other. Revelation is one, in different +forms and various degrees. It is at once supernatural and natural: +supernatural by the cause which engenders it in souls, and which, +always remaining invisible and transcendent, never exhausts or +imprisons itself in the phenomena it produces; natural, by its effects, +because, realising itself in history, it always appears therein +conditioned by the historical environment and by the common laws which +regulate the human mind. + +This revelation also is immediate for all, for the least in the kingdom +of heaven, as for the greatest of the prophets; for God desires to +admit them all into direct and personal communion with Himself; and it +is equally mediate for all; for it comes to none, whether prophets or +their disciples, unconditionally, and without previous preparation. + +Lastly, it is not less false and futile to oppose universal revelation +to particular revelations as two exclusive quantities. Particular +revelations enter into general revelation as varieties into species. +Every special revelation, if it be really from God, is human, and tends +to become universal; every general revelation was once individual, for +it could only have been made in an individuality. Among the men and +peoples chosen by God as organs there is inequality in gifts but +solidarity in the common work. We must not mistake the one or the +other. The religious vocation of humanity does not exclude--it +prepares and supports--the particular vocation of Israel. In this +national vocation there is a place for that of the prophets, and, among +the prophets, for the vocation of Him who was their heir, and in Whom +the revelation of God was completed, because in His consciousness was +realised perfectly the very idea of piety. + +Is everything explained in religion, then, and nothing left obscure? +Far from that! There remains the ground from which emerges the +conscious and moral life of the soul; there remains that initial +mystery, the relation in our consciousness between the individual and +the universal element, between the finite and the infinite, between God +and man. How can we comprehend their co-existence and their union, and +yet how can we doubt it? Where is the thoughtful man to-day who has +not broken the thin crust of his daily life, and caught a glimpse of +those profound and obscure waters on which floats our consciousness? +Who has not felt within himself a veiled presence and a force much +greater than his own? What worker in a lofty cause has not perceived +within his own personal activity, and saluted with a feeling of +veneration, the mysterious activity of a universal and eternal power? +_In Deo vivimus, movemur et sumus_. There is perhaps no other mystery +in religion; at all events all others are but particular forms of this. +But this mystery cannot be dissipated, for, without it, religion itself +would no longer exist. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MIRACLE AND INSPIRATION + +In speaking of revelation we have already touched on the doctrines of +inspiration and of miracle, which are dependencies of it, and, as it +were, constituent parts. But these two notions are still so obscure in +the public mind, and give rise to so many and such lively +controversies, that it may be well to return to them and study them by +themselves and in some detail. + +In this matter there are two causes of dispute and misunderstanding. +The first is that everybody believes he ought to begin by giving his +own personal and arbitrary definition of miracle, and afterwards +explain by way of deduction why he believes or does not believe in it. +The debate thus turns on a question of terminology--that is to say, on +a vain and barren logomachy. The second cause is that the defenders of +miracle always keep to abstractions, instead of following their +contradictors on to the ground of criticism of miraculous stories and +placing themselves in presence of the facts which alone make up the +matter of the discussion. They believe they have gained everything +when they have proved that God, according to the very definition of the +idea that we have of Him, can do everything--which no one denies--while +the problem consists not in knowing what God can do _in abstracto_, but +what He has done _in concreto_, in Nature and in History. Now, in +order to know what is really done, and whether there are or ever have +been produced phenomena which must be referred to the immediate +intervention, and to a particular volition of God, independently of the +concurrence of second causes, this is evidently something that only the +critical observation of facts, past or present, can teach us. Every +other method of research and discussion is illusory. + +Faithful to our own, we here place ourselves at the historical point of +view. Convinced that ideas have a history, and are most clearly and +surely defined by their very evolution, we shall confine ourselves to +following and describing that evolution. We shall seek in the first +place to ascertain the notion of miracle that was current in antiquity; +after that we shall see what became of it in mediaeval theology; and +lastly we shall see into what elements it has resolved itself in modern +times, as much at the point of view of science as of piety. As +religious inspiration, properly speaking, is but a particular miracle, +a miracle of the psychological order, the solution available for the +one will apply to the other. + + +1. _The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity_ + +The primitive conception of Nature was animistic. In everything +_astonishing_, extraordinary, men used to see the action of spirits +like themselves, with whom their religious imagination peopled the +heavens, the earth, the seas. They lived in miracle. It would be +easier to enumerate the things that were not than the things that were +to them miraculous. The word Nature, which has become so familiar and +so indispensable to designate the regular course of things, does not +exist in primitive languages. One does not meet with it even in the +language of the Old Testament. This is because the conception it +represents only came into existence later, and by a slow and laborious +process, in the philosophy of the Greeks. The cosmos, ordered and +harmonious and fixed, is the sublime creation of Hellenic reason. +Elsewhere, no doubt, with experience of life and the daily return of +phenomena, a certain order, the effect of custom, would exist around +man and be established in his mind. He learned to distinguish between +the habitual course of things and the prodigies which caused him +wonder, fear, or hope, and in which he always saw the effect either of +the favour or the anger of a demon or a god. His imagination, to which +his ignorance gave free play, and his credulity, which religious terror +held open to all impressions, stories, legends, wrapped his life in an +atmosphere of marvel, gentle or terrible, but incessant. Eclipses, +earthquakes, thunder, lightning, rainbows, deluges, accidents, +maladies, etc.--these were the work of particular actors, personal, +impassioned like man, hidden behind the scenes. Add to this the +inventions of sorcerers and priests; ... transport yourself into this +first effervescence of the human faculties, into this luxuriant +vegetation of poetical creation in the early human mind, and you will +have some idea of what, for centuries on centuries, must have been the +mental state of primitive historic humanity. Such, however, is the +comparative poverty of human conceptions, that, when you come to +catalogue these marvels, you see them reduced to a small number of +miracles which turn up everywhere and again and again among all +peoples. Their similarity approaches to monotony.... The question for +the moment is not whether these miraculous facts are real or not, but +how the men who have transmitted them to us represented them. There is +no doubt on this point. To them they were not simply astonishing facts +that admitted of a natural explanation. Modern theologians and savants +who seek and find for them explanations of this kind do not perceive +that they contradict themselves, and that to explain miracle in this +way is to destroy it. No; that which is miraculous in these events--to +the contemporaries of Tarquin in Rome, of Joshua in Palestine, to the +people in our own day--is this, that they are produced, contrary to the +natural course of things, solely by a special intervention of the +divine will. That is the mark and characteristic of ancient miracle. +Efface it, for any reason whatever, and miracle disappears. That which +makes it possible is ignorance of Nature and its laws: that which +supports it is the religious belief in the existence of these +supernatural wills and in their unexpected invasion of the succession +of accustomed things. "Without this belief," as M. Menegoz remarks,[1] +"the birth of a myth or of a legend could not be explained. St. Denis, +decapitated, would not have been able to carry his head." In fact, the +miracles you find in the apocryphal legends are exactly of the same +nature as those which are met with in narratives held to be more +historical. + + +[1] _La notion biblique du miracle_ (Lecon d'ouverture), 1894. + + +I must add that this notion of miracle is absolutely the same in +Biblical as in profane literature. In a general way, no doubt, the +supernatural in the history of Israel and in the early days of +Christianity is of a more sober, more profoundly moral and religious +character than it is everywhere else. But the sacred writers do not +represent miracles differently. Without exception, they also conceive +of them as a violation, by a particular volition of God, of the +ordinary course of things.... Still, so far from being more striking +or more numerous, miracles and prodigies in the Bible are rarer than +elsewhere, clearer, less fantastic, more under law to conscience and to +common sense. The worship of one God, invisible, spiritual, in whom +centres the ideal of wisdom, reason, righteousness, conceived by the +prophets, joined to the lack of imagination in the Hebrew race, has +freed the Bible from the luxuriant growths of oriental mythologies and +theogonies, as of the marvellous in the poesy of Greece. Nothing +purifies the mind like a great moral idea around which all the rest +organises itself. It is very remarkable that the great prophets, +Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work hardly any +miracles. If prodigy has penetrated into the life of Jesus at two or +three points, the explanation is to be found in the mistakes or the +legendary corruptions for which His biographers are alone responsible, +and which criticism may eliminate without violence. Prodigy, properly +so called, is quite foreign to the wholly moral conduct of His life, +and to the strictly religious conception of His work. He did not found +His religion on miracle, but on the light, the consolation, the pardon +and the joy which His gospel, issuing from His holy, loving heart, +brought to broken and repentant souls. His works proceeded only from +His charity. Far from wishing to impose belief in His miracles, He +often forbids men to divulge them. It is to the faith of the afflicted +that He refers their cure. He turns away from the seductive +invitations of miraculous _Messianism_ as from the distrust or the +curiosity of an incredulous wisdom. To those who demanded of Him an +indubitable prodigy come from heaven, He answers that no sign shall be +given them save the preaching of repentance by the prophet Jonah. The +whole temptation in the wilderness is simply a victory of the moral +consciousness over the religion of physical prodigy. His filial piety +to the Father raised Him above miracle itself and above the dualism +that miracle supposes in Nature and in the divine action. He discovers +in everything the signs of the presence, the will, the affection, of +His Father. He accepts them, submits to them, celebrates them, without +preoccupying Himself with the ordinary or the extraordinary manner in +which they may be manifested. This absolute piety, absolutely pure and +confident, succeeds in realising the unity of the world and the +universal and continuous action of God, quite as well as the dialectic +of a Scotus Eriginus or a Spinoza or a Hegel; for it suppresses still +more radically the old and mortal antithesis of the natural and the +supernatural. Nature in its expansion and its evolution--what is it +but the very expression of the Will of the Father? How can you imagine +then that there could ever be conflict in it between the order which +reigns in it and the action of Him by whom that order is maintained day +by day and moment by moment? If the thought of Jesus was bounded by +the ancient notion of miracle, it must be acknowledged that His piety +was not imprisoned in it, but went beyond it. Not having come into the +world to teach science, He contented Himself with the opinions He had +inherited with the rest of His people, and which constituted the +science of Nature of His little popular environment, without concerning +Himself as to whether these opinions were erroneous or correct. +Miracle was not then something essentially religious as it is to-day. +Belief in miracles was not a sign of piety. Everybody shared in it, +men of the world as well as men of God. Herod believed in them not +less than the apostles. The Pharisees did not doubt them; they only +denied the miracles of Jesus; they attributed them to Beelzebub. +Christ did not doubt any more than they did that Satan and the demons +wrought as many and perhaps more miracles than the messengers of God. +He did not wish them to believe the doctrine because of the prodigy, +but in the prodigy because of the doctrine. It will be seen how far +they were at that time from the dualism of our day, and from the +conflict created by scholasticism between science and piety. + +When we examine this ancient notion of miracle, especially in the +superior expression it receives in the Bible, we discover in it two +things: it is made up of two judgments of a very different order: of an +intellectual and scientific order, disclosing that which then existed +in point of fact, a _naif_ and perfect ignorance of the nature and the +laws of things; and of a judgment of a religious order, implying an +absolute confidence in an all-good God who is almighty to respond to +the cry of His children and to deliver them. These two judgments are +so thoroughly blended in the biblical notion of miracle that orthodox +theologians and irreligious philosophers agree in declaring them to be +inseparable, and they would compel us to choose between a piety hostile +to the elementary results of science, and a science radically hostile +to piety. The dilemma is specious but false. To see it vanish it is +only necessary to perceive that these two judgments, not being of the +same nature, cannot be eternally _solidaire_. The settlement of the +controversy in which Christian thought has been engaged for the last +three centuries will consist in separating them. + + * * * * * + + +2. _The Notion of Miracle in the Face of Modern Science and of Piety_ + +Modern science neither affirms nor denies miracle; it ignores it, +necessarily. It is, for it, as if it did not exist. + +Religious persons, who often look towards science to ascertain what +their faith may hope or fear from it, only consider its results, and as +these are never definitive, but always variable, always being revised, +enlarged, enriched, they secretly indulge the hope that a moment may +come when science, which has not yet welcomed miracle, will welcome it; +that such a fact, supported by such and such testimony, will in the end +conquer its resistances and obtain a place in the category or the +catalogue of scientific facts. They would quickly lose this illusion, +if, turning away from the net results of science, they would fix their +attention on its processes and methods of investigation. What is it, +according to science, to know a phenomenon? It is to place it in a +necessary link of succession, concomitance, and causality with other +phenomena which explain it by analogy. Suppose a mysterious phenomenon +without analogy and connection with any other; savants brought into its +presence will declare themselves simply in a state of ignorance with +respect to it. They will say they have not discovered the cause of it, +that they cannot explain it; they will study it on every side a +thousand times if necessary until they have torn out the heart of the +mystery. Either they will succeed, or on this point there will never +be science made or explanation established. + +Savants, it is true, are the first to recognise and to proclaim, in all +domains, the limitations of their knowledge. The most advanced are the +most modest. They all have the feeling that their discoveries are but +a beginning, and that the part of Nature they have explored is as +nothing to that of which they are ignorant. They hold themselves in +readiness to modify the laws they have established, to enlarge their +hypotheses, to make new ones, to record all facts which observation may +supply. That many facts astonish them and disconcert them, we see +every day. But mark the attitude of the true savant in face of these +new phenomena. Does he doubt a single moment that they obey laws, +unknown perhaps, but certain? ... There can only be science of that +which is general and constant. + +It is therefore absolutely chimerical to expect of science the +establishment of any miracle whatever.... Miracle, according to the +only tenable definition, and this is the ancient and traditional one, +is a positive intervention of God in the phenomenal order and at a +particular point. Now science knows only second causes. How could it +ever seize in the course of these causes the immediate action of the +First Cause? Is God a phenomenon that the eye of man can ever perceive +in any phenomenal series? And is not this the reason why science +despairs of ever proving scientifically the existence of God? It +recognises itself to be impotent to step out of the relative, to +resolve anything outside space and time, and it has removed from its +domain all questions as to origin and aim, because it has no means of +reaching them. + +To perceive God and the action of God in the human soul and in the +course of things is the business of the pious heart (Matt. v. 8). The +affirmation of piety is essentially different from scientific +explanation. It places us in the subjective and moral order of life, +which no more depends on the order of science than the scientific order +depends on piety. There cannot be conflict between these two orders, +because they move on different planes and never meet. Science, which +knows its limits, cannot forbid the act of confidence and adoration of +piety. Piety, in its turn, conscious of its proper nature, will not +encroach on science; its affirmations can neither enrich, impoverish, +nor embarrass science, for they bear on different points and answer +different ends. My child is ill; I procure for it the best advice and +the best remedies; but confiding in God's mercy, I beg of Him to spare +me my child, or, in any case, to help me to accept His will. The child +recovers. What savant will forbid me to thank my heavenly Father? +Will this be because my thanksgiving will be a denial of the science of +the physician? Certainly not, for my gratitude will include the fact +of the doctor, the medicine, the care bestowed, the whole series of +second causes that have contributed to the recovery of my child. Was +not this the piety of Jesus when He taught us to pray: "Our Father +which art in Heaven: Thy will be done: Give us our daily bread"? Was +He ignorant of the fact that in order to have bread we must sow wheat? +No; but none the less He asked His food from God, because He knew also +that, in the last resort, it is the will of God that makes the +substance and the order of things, that it is He who clothes the lilies +of the field, feeds the fowls of the air, makes His sun to shine upon +the evil and the good, and sends upon the labourer's soil the early and +the latter rain. + +Reduced to its religious and moral significance, miracle, for Jesus, +was the answer to prayer, as M. Menegoz (_pp. cit._ pp. 19-29) has +clearly shown, and this altogether apart from the phenomenal mode in +which the answer was produced. God only manifests Himself in +extraordinary events in order that we may learn to recognise Him in +ordinary ones. The child asks, the father grants; but the child does +not trouble himself about the means by which his wishes are gratified. +The pious man adores the ways he cannot comprehend. This confidence in +the love and justice of God may be accompanied in the mind of the +apostles and of Jesus Himself by imperfect or erroneous scientific +ideas as to the mode of divine action in Nature. But it is not +_solidaire_, with them, and may easily be detached in order to bring it +into harmony with the views of our present science, as in the mind of +Jesus and the apostles it was in harmony with the science of their +time. For piety, the laws of Nature which have since then been +revealed to us in their sovereign constancy, become the immediate +expression of the will of God. The Christian submits to them +instinctively, saying: "Thy will be done." Which is only saying that +these laws, which are sometimes spoken of with a sort of horror, as of +a blind and brutal fate, become religious and are consecrated in the +eyes of piety by a divine authority. Why then should not piety offer +to science and its revelations of Nature the same frank and joyous +welcome as that accorded to them by scientists themselves? The +opposition established by scholasticism between faith and science, is +it not as irreligious as it is irrational, and has it not been one of +the chief causes of the death of theology in the Church and of the +triumph of incredulity in the present age? + +While developing themselves on parallel lines, can science and faith +remain isolated? Man is one, and his scientific activity, like his +religious activity, tends to a synthesis. The synthesis will be found +in a teleological consideration of the universe. This universal +teleology, faith predicts it, science labours to realise it. It can +only be established by this twofold concurrence. Without faith, +knowledge of the universe is impossible; without phenomenal science all +interpretation of the universe becomes illusory. Faith, therefore, +must become more and more an act of confidence in God, and the +scientific study of phenomena ever more profound and rigorous. Of +course the teleological synthesis will never be completed here below, +but it will always find a provisional and satisfying conclusion in the +act of confidence and adoration towards God. + +Science is perpetually becoming. If at times it closes to piety dear +and familiar prospects, it necessarily and constantly opens new ones. +If it takes away its crutches, it gives it wings. The contemplation of +the harmony of the worlds which moves us religiously is, it seems to +me, worth more to modern thought than the fatidical oracle, or the cry +of the crow that frightened the good old woman of Rome. The more +science progresses the more it puts into things the order and harmony +of thought. It can only create a Cosmos more and more intelligible +and, consequently, susceptible of an increasingly religious +interpretation. + +At the same time as science instituted its severest methods, it +radically transformed its primary notion of Nature. This was conceived +by the Cartesian Rationalism as a finished and coherent whole, a system +of identical movements and phenomena which were produced by virtue of +the same springs acting in the same circle (the vortices of Descartes). +The familiar image under which they loved to represent it was that of a +watch, constructed and wound up by the divine artificer once for all. +Now, we see this dogma of the immutability of Nature going to join the +other dogmas of the past. The theory of the ascensional evolution of +beings, which renders miracle useless, shows Nature to us in the course +of constant transformation and perpetual travail. Nothing in it is +stable or final. Everything is preparatory to something else; each +form of life is the preface to a higher form. What then is the hidden +mystery which ferments in the bosom of this painful nature and +endeavours to expand? + +"The more cannot issue from the less," said the schoolmen, and no doubt +in abstract logic they were right. But reality smiles at logic. It +shows us everywhere the triumph of the opposite maxim. Perfection is +at the beginning of nothing. Cosmic evolution proceeds always from +that which is poorer to that which is richer, from the simple to the +complex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from dead matter to +living matter, from physical to mental life. At each stage Nature +surpasses itself by a mysterious creation that resembles a true miracle +in relation to an inferior stage. What then shall we conclude from +these observations except that in Nature there is a hidden force, an +incommensurable "potential energy," an ever open, never exhausted fount +of apparitions at once magnificent and unexpected? How can such a +universe escape the teleological interpretation of religious faith? +For the moment, science may accord nothing more to piety; but piety has +no need to ask more from it; for it has already in this way found +safeguarded the three things which the old notion of miracle guaranteed +to it: the real and active presence of God, the answer to prayer, and +liberty to hope. + + * * * * * + + +3. _Religious Inspiration_ + +Passing by the subject of prophecy, which is a species of miracle, and +admits of the same kind of explanation, it may be well to touch upon +the subject of prophetic inspiration. The ancients represent it as a +veritable state of possession. The spirit of the god or demon +violently entered into the body of a man or woman, sometimes of an +animal, and made of it an organ the more faithful in proportion as it +was unconscious. Everybody knows the description given by Virgil of +the Cumaean sybil at the moment of vaticination: "The god, the god, she +cried," etc. (Aeneid VI. v. 45 et 77.)[2] It was a sort of frenzy or +sacred delirium in which divine words involuntarily and sometimes +unconsciously proceeded from the mouth of the possessed. Madmen, +epileptics, idiots, hysterical persons, were regarded almost everywhere +as sacred beings, friends and confidants of superior spirits. Their +strange malady only seems explicable by the presence in them of one of +these spirits. + + +[2] Cf. Plato, _Meno. Timaeus_, 45.--Cicero, _De Divin_ 1. 2. 18. 31. +Aristotle, _Problem_, xxx. p. 474. + + +The same ideas were current among the Hebrews, and are to be found both +in the Old and in the New Testament. The prophets of Ramah, disciples +of Samuel, and Saul himself, putting themselves by contagion into a +state of delirium and "prophecy," are in a physical and mental state +identical with that of the sybil of Cumae. The demons in possession of +the man who was healed by Jesus were the first to divine and to salute +His messianic dignity. The poor woman whom Paul healed at Philippi was +haunted by "a spirit, a Python." The speakers with tongues at Corinth +were thought by those present to be mad, and those at Jerusalem on the +day of Pentecost looked like drunken men (1 Sam. x. 5-7: Mark i. 24: +Acts xvi. 16-20: 1 Cor. xiv: Acts ii. 13). + +All these manifestations, formerly held to be supernatural, are now +recognised as morbid phenomena, of which mental pathology describes the +physiological causes, the natural course, the fatal issue. Even in +frightful disorders order has been discovered; laws and remedies have +been found for many of these sad afflictions. Formerly they deified +these demented and tormented souls; in the Middle Ages, and up to the +eighteenth century, they burned them; we pity them and care for them. +This is much the best for all concerned. + +Preoccupied with guaranteeing the infallibility of the sacred writings, +the theology of the Fathers, of the scholastic doctors, and of the +Protestant doctors of the seventeenth century, drew from this ancient +notion of religious inspiration a dogmatic theory applicable to the +divine oracles contained in the Bible. It seemed to them that the more +passive the personal spirit of the writers was, the purer would be the +word of God that they were charged to deliver when it reached us. At +this point of view, the most faithful organ of God, the one that ought +to inspire us with the greatest confidence, would be Balaam's ass. +"The writer might be stupid," exclaims Gaussen, "but that which came +from his hands would always be the Bible." Some have gone further by +way of inventing images borrowed from the material order, such as, "the +strings of a lyre," sounding beneath the divine bow, "the quills or +pens of the Holy Spirit," etc., etc. The theory is familiar. It was +developed throughout the Middle Ages until they came to say that God +was the author and is alone responsible for the Bible, and for +everything that is found in it; not only for the things and thoughts, +but also for the words and style; not only for each word, but also for +the vowels and the consonants. It only remained that they should have +added the punctuation, not the least important matter in a connected +discourse. Unhappily, the punctuation is absent from the oldest +manuscripts. + +Let us remind ourselves, however, that St. Paul, and Jesus Christ +before him, had deposited the germ of a conception of religious +inspiration more human, more psychological, and, at the same time, more +real. Paul, who had ecstasies, visions, "tongues," always spoke of +these doubtful privileges with a certain modesty, and that only when he +was constrained to it, as if he had the feeling that there was +something abnormal and morbid in these phenomena. On the other hand, +he opposes to them a theory of true Christian prophecy conceived as a +forcible, eloquent, irresistible proclamation of the mercy and justice +of God; prophecy on the lips of the apostle, the poet, or the orator, +springing from the assurance given him by the inward witness of the +Holy Spirit that he is in perfect harmony with the divine thought. The +force of this inspired prophecy comes from the luminous evidence which +springs up within, which warms and kindles up the spirit like an inward +fire. Under the influence of this illumination the apostle feels his +strength increase tenfold; he rises at a mighty bound above himself. +His faculties are carried to their maximum of energy and power. So far +from being an inert, passive instrument, his intellect has never been +intenser, richer; his thoughts more clear and more coherent; his words +more fluent, more abundant, more pictorial and expressive; his voice +more firm and resonant; his gestures more imperious. It is the hour +when he is most himself, when his particular genius has freest play, +when his moral originality is greatest, when he is most certainly the +organ of eternal truth. Thus understood, religious inspiration does +not differ psychologically from poetic inspiration. It presents the +same mystery, but it is not more miraculous. It is not produced like a +trouble violently introduced into the psychical life from without, but +as a really fruitful force, acting from within, in harmony with all the +laws and forces of the mind. + +Does not experience establish and piety confirm this? When does an +Amos, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a St. Paul, or a St. John, appear to us as +the most authentic bearer of the word of truth and life, but in their +most eloquent pages, where their personal genius, their faith, their +thought, shine forth most freely? Religious inspiration is simply the +organic penetration of man by God; but, I repeat, by an interior and +indwelling God, and in such wise that when that penetration is +complete, the man finds himself to be more really and fully himself +than ever. It is with this mysterious action of the Spirit in the +bosom of humanity as it is with the solar heat upon the plants that +spring up from the soil. In regions where the heat is greatest and the +other conditions favourable, plants which elsewhere are stunted attain +their richest development and their greatest fecundity. + +The inner root of this inspiration is only found in the piety common to +religious men. It differs from it not in nature, but simply in +intensity and energy. Prophetic inspiration is piety raised to the +second power. There is no other mystery in it than the religious +mystery _par excellence_. That is why this inspiration is essential to +and promotes effectually the progress of the moral and religious life. +They advance together through the ages as we now shall see. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY + +1. _The Social Element in Religion_ + +Religion is not merely a phenomenon of the individual and inner life: +it is also a social and historical phenomenon. Psychology lays bare +its root, but history alone reveals its power and range. + +This social action of religion springs from its very essence. The +phrase "communion of souls" is of religious origin and hue. The thing +expressed by it--one of the most wonderful phenomena of collective +moral life--is never perfectly realised save in religion and by +religion. An identic faith, a common act of adoration, not merely +brings souls together: it makes them live in each other, blends them +into one soul in which each of them finds itself, multiplied, as it +were, by all the rest. That is what is properly called "edification," +by which I mean that feeling of joy, of force, of fulness of life, +produced by the common act of worship in those who sincerely take part +in it. That is the reason why men of the same religion have no more +imperious need than that of praying and worshipping together. State +police have always failed to confine growing religious sects within the +sanctuary or the home. Their members have never been resigned to this +comparatively solitary life; they have braved all interdicts and +persecutions in order to turn it into social life and fraternal +communion. + +God, it is said, is the place where spirits blend. In rising towards +Him man of necessity passes beyond the limits of his own individuality. +He feels instinctively that the principle of his being is also the +principle of the life of his brethren; that that which gives him safety +must give it to all. In the same Religion, souls the most diverse, +being affected in the same manner, become related to each other, and +form a real family, united by closer, stronger bonds than those of +blood. The religious life is a higher region. Those who rise into it +feel the barriers fall which hemmed in their existence. They become +free; they penetrate the souls of their neighbours and feel themselves +to be penetrated by them; and all live one life, which, although it be +larger and almost universal, is none the less very personal and very +intense. Have you ever been present in a crowd excited and exalted by +religious enthusiasm? Have you felt the contagion? Then you can never +forget it. It is said the early Christians were of one heart and one +soul. Their community of faith, of hope, of love, went so far as to +make them forget the idea of property and put their goods in common. +In how many monastic orders or mystic sects has not this same need of +equality and unity gone to the point of identity in costume and +deportment, and even of the loss of name and personal individuality? + +It is not surprising therefore that religion, capable of creating in +modern times those moral societies called "Churches," should, in all +ages, have been the strongest bond of natural societies, primitive +families, savage tribes, great empires, civilised peoples. The first +stone of every hearth was a sacred stone. The first tombstone was a +monument of piety, and burial is an essentially religious ceremony. +Before they were regarded as protectors without, tribal gods were the +internal bonds of the tribe itself. All the individuals of the tribe +saw in the god a father and an ever present head, so that religion came +to double by this moral kinship their blood relationship. In this +matter the great civilisations do not differ from the rest. All have a +religious soul that differentiates and explains them. It is not merely +morals and philosophy that are affected by religion, but literature, +art, politics, social economy, and in a general way the whole destiny +of men. The secret of a race is hidden in its religion. It is there +that the forces of life and resistance to the causes of dissolution are +concentrated.... Let us enter with deep piety therefore on the history +of religion on the earth.... That history is still in embryo. The +comparative study of religions has arisen within our time; it is still +at its beginnings.... The idea of religious progress is a great and +luminous idea, but it is not possible to apply it to all the details of +history. Progress has not taken place along a single or continuous +line.... On four or five points the progress is undeniable; it must +suffice to point them out and mark their direction in order that we may +foresee the supreme end to which this faltering and laborious march is +tending. + +In religions there are differences of degree and differences of kind: +the one mark in the scale of evolution the successive movements of the +religious consciousness in time; the others express the diversity and +simultaneity of religions in space. The first are explained by +inequalities of moral development; the second by variety of races, +climates, civilisations. Take, for example, the Hebrew tradition; +follow it in broad outline, and you will note religious forms which +give birth one to another and constitute an historical development--the +religion of the ancient Beni-Israel, prophetism, rabbinical pharisaism, +Christianity, Mohammedanism: there, in a continuous evolution, you have +what may be called differences of degree. But, on the other hand, +consider the Mongolian or Chinese religions, those of ancient Mexico, +of India, Egypt, or Greece: you have differences of kind which you +cannot classify in a single scale. And, as some of these peoples have +disappeared, and others been arrested in their growth, and as they have +never marched abreast, it is impossible to compare them or to put into +one category the religious forms which their history presents. But +some attempt must be made to trace them out. + + +2. _Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion_ + +In this universal religious evolution the progress that is most +apparent because most outward is the enlargement of the form of +religion itself, the movement, often interrupted but never stopped, +from the narrowest particularism to the most human universalism.... It +is characteristic of all religion to propagate itself: that is the +implicit affirmation that it is made for all men. Even when it is +abased to the level of a recipe and of a magical secret that is hidden +with a jealous selfishness, or even from a ferocious patriotism, there +is the avowal that it might be serviceable to others.... But we must +see how this passage from the particular to the universal is effected. + +The beginnings of religion are everywhere the same. The number of +cults at first is almost endless, but they vary very little from each +other. It is impossible to write the history of barbarous religions, +and it is useless to enumerate them. Nothing is more monotonous than +the descriptions that have been attempted of them. Their most +characteristic feature is, that at first they are confined to the +family. Religion at this stage is a matter of instinct, and +instinctive matters are always uniform. In mental life, diversity only +appears with reflection and consciousness. + +To the domestic and tribal succeeds the national stage of religion. +Political federations are formed, and the religious as well as the +social consciousness of the people is enlarged. This phenomenon is +seen in Greece in its most interesting form. The religion of Greece, +as witness the Homeric poems, was a confederation of local cults and +deities, just as Hellas was a federation of previously unconnected +tribes. + +The conquests of Alexander and the extension of the Roman Empire +greatly enlarged the horizon of ancient thought. The philosophers in +the time of Cicero and Seneca had already risen from the national idea +to that of the human race. It must not be supposed, however, that the +universal religion sprang from the philosophic or religious syncretism +of the later ages of Graeco-Roman civilisation. The dissolution of the +national religions had preceded that of political nationalities, and, +so far from creating anything universal, the morbid curiosity of minds +denuded of all national tradition abandoned itself to individual +superstitions the most exotic and monstrous. Christianity was born, +not in Greece, in the schools, nor in Rome, at the foot of the throne +of the Caesars, but in a race the narrowest, the most fanatical and +intolerant that ever existed, and in the heart of a Son of Israel whom +no extra-Palestinian influence seems ever to have reached. + +Nowhere is a universal religion the fruit of an unconscious evolution, +produced by the action of fatal and external laws. It presents itself +everywhere as an individual creation, as the free and moral work of a +few elect souls, in whom tradition by a profound crisis is purified and +enlarged. This was the role of Confucius, of Buddha, of Socrates, of +the prophets of Israel, of Mohammed in Arabia. All of them were +reformers of the religion of their ancestors.... They did not discover +the universal religion outside themselves, but in their consciousness +and personal piety. Passing through their souls as through a filter, +the traditional religion of their race was gradually clarified and +freed from foreign or material elements, and it was found that, in the +end, the new faith appeared the more human and universal as it had +become more strictly religious, more inward, and more pure.... Not +that all the ancient cults were capable of transformation or all the +prophets equally inspired. Often the revelation would appear uncertain +or incomplete. On only one point and in only one consciousness would +it be seen to end in a clear and definitive conclusion. Progress +implies selection. As we rise from one stage to another in the history +of religious evolution we see the ranks enlightened and the number +diminished of concurrent religions. At the lowest stage, the savage +cults are almost innumerable. The great national or ethnic religions +were much fewer. Only three are frankly universalist: Buddhism, +Mohammedanism, and Christianity. And these three are universalist, if +I may so say, in a very unequal degree. + +Mohammedanism was far from being an original religion. The element +which gives to it a higher moral and religious value came to it from +Judaism and Christianity. Its monotheism, its horror of idolatry, the +comparative purity of its ethics, have no other source, and, without +paradox, it has been possible to represent it as an inferior form of +Christianity accommodated to the needs and to the stature of +semi-civilised Semitic peoples. But, alongside this Christian +spiritualism it has conserved naturalistic elements, gross remnants of +old Arab cults which, having made its fortune, perhaps, in its early +days, now embarrass it and paralyse it. Moreover, in spite of its +conquests, it has always remained an Oriental religion with Mecca as +its centre and its head. If it would survive, it must reform itself; +it must enter into the path of moral and intellectual progress, free +itself from local superstitions, from its gross hopes, its hatred of +the infidel, its doctrine of good works; in other words, it will have +to cast off its old nature, and receive a new effusion of the Christian +spirit. It can only become universal in so far as it approaches the +moral principle of Christianity, in order, in the end, to become one +with it. + +Buddhism has a more profound originality, but it also is afflicted with +an inward dualism which will ruin it. From the beginning there have +been two Buddhisms: the one an esoteric philosophy for the use of sages +convinced by experience of the vanity of all things, suffering from the +essential evil of existence and aspiring to Nirvana. It is an +unfruitful mysticism because it is Atheistic. The other is popular +Buddhism, which sinks and dies into puerile superstitions and into the +grossest polytheism. From which we may conclude that Buddhism only +becomes universalist when it ceases to be a positive religion, and that +where it still remains a religion it is anything but universalist. + +With Christianity it is altogether different. The terms "universal +religion" and "Christian religion" coincide so exactly that if a form +of Christianity is not universalist on any side, on that particular +side it ceases to be Christian. In fact there cannot here be either +division or esoterism, nor consequently limitation or narrowness. We +are here in the absolute freedom of spirit. Christ did not propound +the theory of the unity of the human race; but He did something quite +different and much better: He gave us the gospel. Between His gospel +and the humanitarian philosophy there is all the difference that there +is between abstraction and life, between idea and love. All men enter +into the kingdom of God by the same door, and that door cannot be shut +by any one; for it is the door of humility, of confidence, of +self-renunciation, of the higher righteousness fulfilling itself by +fraternal charity. Rank in that kingdom is determined by the measure +of devotedness. The greatest is the one that humbles himself the most, +and the only way of being master is to serve. In the religion of Jesus +there is nothing religious but that which is authentically moral, and +nothing moral in human life that is not truly religious. The perfect +religion coincides with the absolute morality, and this naturally +extends to and is obligatory on all mankind. Jesus not only proclaimed +the only God, or even the God who is spirit, whose worship could not +thenceforth be confined to anything material or particular in time and +space: He showed us the Father who loves all His children with an equal +affection, and desires to dwell in the humblest as well as in the +highest consciousness. This divine Fatherhood, in proportion as it is +realised in our hearts, produces in them human brotherhood. The +religious and the human ideals here join, no more to be separated. +Having begun in the animal man, with the grossest form of religion, +humanity finds itself completed in the perfect religion. + + +3. _Progress in Representations of the Divine_ + +To represent the divine, man has never had any but the resources which +are in himself. These representations have varied therefore with the +general progress of experience and of thought.... From beginning to +end the evolution of religious images and notions is based on the idea +of spirit. It is in this idea that the resemblance and the kinship of +man to his God is based; only by this can there be understanding, +converse, harmony between them. Primitive religions, doubtless, are +neither spiritualist nor materialist; they are animistic. A simple +animism gives to men their first conceptions. The child projects the +life which animates him; he endows the things around him with a +personality similar to his own. For him there is nothing dead or +inert; the world is peopled with living beings with which he contends, +and talks, and is angry, to which he gives his love and his caresses. +Do not let us smile too much at this simplicity. The latest steps of +philosophy are rejoining our earliest thoughts. We are coming to see +that in sum we know nothing but ourselves, that our science is but the +projection of our consciousness without, and that it is solely on this +condition that the world becomes intelligible to us. Man never +worships anything purely material, anything that cannot hear and answer +him. When he perceives that the object of his worship is inanimate, he +thinks his god has deserted him, and he sets himself to pursue him. He +usually finds him and retains him under other names and forms. By +faith in ghosts, and by the memory of his dreams, he has learnt to +double himself, and to oppose his will to his thought, his interior ego +to his body, which he calls his house. He may easily quit this for +another. Nothing is more ancient than the idea of the transmigration +of souls. But at the same time he doubles the being of his gods; he +distinguishes between the god and the object in which he habitually +resides. This is the period at which _idolatry_ begins. It will only +be completed when the spirit-god has broken the bonds which bind him to +its visible prison and its material image; when He shall speak who says +that "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in +spirit and in truth." From that moment, mythology transforms itself +into theology, and external rites into inward piety. + +Necessarily polytheistic in its origins, religion tended nevertheless +towards monotheism. The subordination which disciplined the heads of +the tribes on earth also ranged the divinities under the authority of a +supreme head. Force at first gave this supremacy. Zeus was the king +of gods and men because he was stronger than all of them put together. +This is the natural order of ideas. Force first imposed itself on +weakness; then intelligence conquered force; lastly, justice and love, +which is the supreme form and flower of righteousness, obtain supremacy +over intelligence itself. The highest and the chiefest is no longer +the strongest, or the wisest, but the best. In becoming moral, man has +moralised his gods, who, in their turn, becoming models and +authorities, have greatly helped to moralise the race. + +It is very surprising that this evolution in the direction of moral +monotheism did not complete itself in the Indo-European family. But +the fact is that that family encountered an invincible barrier in the +very nature of its primitive mythology. The Greek and Hindu +philosophers, no doubt, pushed the notion of God to that of His +spirituality and unity, but they did not succeed in transforming the +religion of their race. Their rational criticism had power to +dissolve, but not to change. Their monotheism remained always an +object of speculation more or less esoteric. When, in the second and +third centuries of our era, in competition with Christianity, +Graeco-Roman polytheism endeavoured to reach a sort of monotheism, it +could only return to the most glorious mythus of its infancy, to the +worship of the Sun, and raise it to supremacy among the symbols of +their faith. + +The transition from polytheism to monotheism was only made in Palestine +and in the tradition of the Hebrews. There were two reasons for this, +both of which bear witness to the divine vocation of that people: its +religious predispositions and the powerful action of its prophets, of +those men of God raised up in it from Moses to Christ. The desert is +not monotheistic, as M. Renan was pleased at first to say, nor are +nomads, shepherds, or freebooters nearer to the only God than sedentary +and agricultural peoples. But, owing to the special turn of mind of +the Hebrew family, its primitive polytheism, of which the plural, +_elohim_, still reminds us, had an abstract character, and was reduced +to a sort of anonymous plurality from which no divine genealogy could +spring. All these elementary spirits, these _elohim_ of the air, the +earth, the waters, were so similar to each other that the thought of +the Semite never succeeded in discerning and discriminating them. They +entered into one another, and ended by forming a sort of collective and +abstract power, analagous to that which is represented in our language +by the word "divinity." Add to this that, by the idea of holiness, +Jehovah, the national _elohim_, was equally separated from Nature, and +that, gradually divested of all corporeal form, He was predestined to +become the God of conscience, the invisible Creator of all things, the +Judge and the rewarder of all human actions. + +Neither these original predispositions, however, nor these general +causes, account for the marvellous progress of the religion of Israel. +The faith of the prophets is a creation of the moral order; it is the +work of individual consciousnesses, of the religious heroes whom the +divine Spirit raised up in succession for more than a thousand years. +We shall explain elsewhere this heroic and age-long struggle of the +prophets of Jehovah against the customs, the tendencies, and even the +temperament of their people. Suffice it here to indicate the constant +direction of their efforts, the precision and the fixedness of their +ideal, the power of the common inspiration that animated them, the +vigorous and vivacious feeling in each one of them that makes their +work divine and carries them beyond their individual thoughts and +hopes. Like us they laboured on an infinitely vaster plane than they +conceived. + +But their conception of a divine ideal of righteousness still left God +outside the consciousness. The image of His sanctity awakened in their +souls the sense of sin and raised a tragic conflict between the human +will enslaved by evil and the essentially inflexible law of God. God +and man were found to be more profoundly separated by this moral +antithesis of righteousness and sin than they had before been by the +antithesis of strength and feebleness. How was this hostility to +cease? A supreme revelation is about to respond to this cry of +distress. God will become internal to the consciousness; He will +manifest Himself, in man himself, as the principle of justification and +salvation. He who was called _El, Allah_, the Mighty God, in +patriarchal days,--He who from the times of Moses had been named +_Jehovah_, the living God, the vigilant guardian of the Covenant,--will +reveal Himself as the Father in the filial consciousness of Jesus +Christ. The revelation of love comes to crown the revelation of force +and righteousness. God desires to dwell in human souls. The Heavenly +Father lives within the Son of Man, and the dogma of the God-Man, +interpreted by the piety of each Christian, not by the subtle +metaphysics of the doctors and the schools, becomes the central and +distinguishing dogma of Christianity. Do not spoil its religious +meaning, leave the mystery intact, see what is wrapped up in it: the +sin of man effaced, the ancient conflicts ended, harmony restored, the +whole moral and spiritual life enrooted in the eternal life of God, the +Divine Life shed abroad in the heart of man. Try to comprehend this +consummation of the religious unity of the Divine and the human sought +for, cried for, in the dim desire of consciousness, and you will also +comprehend that, at this point of view, as at all the others, the +precedent religious evolution found its _raison d'etre_ and its final +aim in the soul and in the work of Christ. The orphaned human soul and +the distant unknown God are re-united and embraced in filial love, to +be no more divided or estranged. + + +4. _The History of Prayer_ + +The living expression of the relations of man to his God, prayer is the +very soul of religion. It brings to God the miseries of man, and +brings back to man the communion and the help of God. Nothing better +reveals the worth and moral dignity of a religion than the kind of +prayer it puts into the lips of its adherents. Now, progress is more +apparent here than anywhere else. The savage beats his fetish when it +is not complacent enough. The Christian in his greatest distresses +repeats the prayer of Jesus in the Garden: "Father, not my will, but +Thine be done!" What a long road man has travelled between these two +extreme points of religion! + +At the outset, prayer would seem to have had nothing religious in it +except the vague trust which men placed in its efficiency. It was +almost everywhere conceived and practised as a sort of constraint put +by the worshipper on the will that he wished to master. There were +mysterious syllables, which, pronounced correctly, would produce an +irresistible effect. To the voice were added rites and ceremonies, +_i.e._ gestures menacing or wheedling, whose object was to move the god +and bind his will to that of man. Primitive stories and legends are +full of this idea. Out of it sprang magic, sorcery, necromancy. + +With the supernatural beings around him man does as with other +neighbours. He seeks to induce them to help him, and that by the +self-same means. There is very little respect in these primary +relations. Ruse, violence, seduction by bribes or threats,--these are +the forms of that strange supplication. It is human selfishness +addressing itself naively to the selfishness of the gods. Regular +contracts are made between these two egoisms, each of which arms itself +against the other with the _Do ut des_. The god who fails in his +promise deserves to be chastised, and privations, and even blows, do +not fail to follow and punish his felony. + +Sacrifice at first was merely a form of prayer. Man never approaches +his superior or his master with empty hands. To secure his favour or +appease his wrath he brings the offerings he believes to be the most +agreeable. The gods, like mortals, _e.g._, have need of nourishment. +For them, therefore, are reserved the first-fruits of the human repast; +libations, presents of honey and fine flour, the most luscious fruits, +the most delicious viands. What difficulty man has had in believing in +the goodness of his gods! He saw the effects of their anger in the +evils which befell him, and if good fortune came to him he felt obliged +to offer a sacrifice to turn aside the jealousy of higher powers. Was +a god supposed to have been offended? They trembled for years beneath +the strokes of his wrath; they offered in expiatory sacrifices all +possible equivalents; they invented penances, humiliations, tortures, +without being sure that the divine vengeance ever was appeased. These +are universal religious phenomena. + +The religious is so different from the moral sense that, at the outset, +it exists by itself, and expresses itself in the most selfish and +ferocious manner. How many crimes have been committed in the name of +religion! with what baseness and sordidness has it not been sincerely +connected! But here also we must note the new revelation made in the +souls of prophets and of sages in order to raise the religion of +naturalism to morality. Confucius, Buddha, the prophets of Israel, the +philosophers of Greece, came simultaneously to feel that the true +relation of man to God must be a moral relation, that righteousness is +the only link which binds earth to heaven, that sacred words, rites, +interested offerings, outward compensations, can do nothing, and mean +nothing, the moment the religious man rises above the law of Nature and +enters upon the higher life of the spirit. If God be righteous, there +is only one means henceforth of putting one's self into harmony and +peace with Him--to become like Him. Thus religion and morality were +destined to approach each other and to penetrate each other more and +more, until the perfect religion should be recognised by this sign: the +highest piety under the form of the ideal morality. At bottom, +Christianity has no other principle, and it is for this reason more +than for any other that it is not only the highest form of religion, +but the universal and final religion. "The absolute religion" and "the +absolute moral life" are identical terms. The ancient dualism is +surmounted in the unity of Christian consciousness. It is not +surprising, therefore, that prayer should, in its turn, be transformed, +and that, having at first been the most violently interested act of +life, it should come in the end to be a pure act of trust and +self-abandonment, of disinterestedness the most religious and complete. +Is there need of many words for a child to make its father understand? +It is the heathen, says Jesus, who make many prayers. The Father knows +your needs before you ask Him. It is a mark of unbelief to be anxious +about food and raiment and the future. The essential thing is not to +multiply petitions, but to live near Him and feel Him ever near. Is He +not Almighty and all-good? Does He not love you better than you love +yourselves? Does He not make all things work together for the good of +His children? If trials come, or dangers threaten, what ought we to +do? Submit to God, as Jesus did. What is such prayer as His but the +defeat of egoism and the perfect liberation of the individual spirit in +the feeling of its plenary union with God? + +Such was the prayer of Jesus. It did not consist in an outward flow of +words, but in a constant, silent state of soul which made Him say in +turning towards His Father: "I know that Thou hearest me always." +Confidence increases with renunciation. Admirable progress of +religion! Sublime reversal of roles! At the beginning the ambition of +the pious man was to bend the Divine will to his own; at the end his +peace, his happiness, is to subordinate his wishes and desires to the +will of a Father who knows how to be gracious, righteous, perfect! + +There is another aspect of this progress. In all religions there is a +double gamut of feeling: the one, which rules in primitive religions, +and whose dominant note is fear and sadness; the other, which prevails +in the end, in which the dominant note is confidence and joy. It is a +natural effect of the progressive victory of the religious +consciousness gradually surmounting the contradictions in the midst of +which it is born and developed. At the outset, man, alone and +defenceless, finds no fewer enemies in heaven than on earth. He feels +as if surrounded by hostile and mysterious powers before which he +cringes in fear, awaiting their decisions with respect to him. But +everything changes when there rises within his soul the luminous dawn +of the moral revelation of God. With the darkness, vanish all the +frightful phantoms of the night. In the God whom he adores he sees his +own interior law glorified and become henceforth the supreme law of +things. That law of righteousness is, at bottom, a law of love. +Nothing can trouble me any more except the sense of my own +failure--that is, of my own sin, which alone can separate me from the +very principle of righteousness and life. But, see, justice manifests +itself as justifying grace! God gives it as He gives life to those who +thirst for it. Reconciliation is complete. The orphan has found his +Father; the Father, His child. The sinner, trembling, begins his +prayer, prostrated; he ends it upright, with the confidence and freedom +of a child that feels itself at home within the Father's house. The +Gospel bids us to rejoice; it makes of joy an obligation, while +distrust and sadness are the marks of selfishness and unbelief. + + +5. _Conclusion_ + +Such has been the course of religion through the centuries of human +history, and amid the complex and confused development of particular +faiths. The progress has not been on a straight line and by successive +additions, as in the scientific sphere. Religious evolution is more +like the evolution of art, in which the experience of the past is only +fruitful when translated by a higher inspiration and a mightier +creative force. There are periods of recrudescence of the religious +sentiment in which the passions of a past that seemed to have been +abolished are revived. These are the times of superstition. There are +also periods of religious inertia, when the soul seems to empty itself +of its eternal content, and divert itself into a frivolous activity and +a superficial wisdom. These are the ages of incredulity. Lastly, +there are epochs of crisis and confusion, in which mingle religious +traditions the most diverse, and currents of thought the most contrary. +We must pass over all these accidents and vicissitudes. In the +religious evolution of humanity there is a sequence, an order, a +progress which, in spite of all interruptions and reactions, manifest +themselves as soon as we rise high enough to embrace it in its vast +entirety. + + * * * * * + +A few years ago there assembled in Chicago what the Americans called +the Parliament of Religions. The official representatives of all the +principal religions of the new world and the old met together under a +common feeling of religious brotherhood. They did not discuss the +value of their rites or dogmas; their object was to approach each +other, to edify each other, and, for the first time in the world's +history, to present the spectacle of a universal religious communion. +When it came to the point, three things became clear: first, the common +name under which they were able to call upon God--the Father; secondly, +the Lord's Prayer was adopted and recited by all; thirdly, Christ +Himself, apart from all theological definition, was unanimously +recognised and venerated as the Master and Initiator of the higher +religious life. + +In my own consciousness, this practical demonstration is completed. I +can hardly help being religious; but if I am seriously to be religious +I can only be so under the Christian form. I can hardly help praying; +but if I desire to pray, if moral anguish or intellectual doubt +constrain me to seek some form of prayer that I can use in all +sincerity, I never find but these words: "Our Father which art in +heaven." Lastly, I may disdain the inner life of the soul, and divert +myself from it by the distractions of science, art, and social life; +but if, wearied by the world of pleasure or of toil, I wish to find my +soul again and live a deeper life, I can accept no other guide and +master than Jesus Christ, because, in Him alone, optimism is without +frivolity, and seriousness without despair. + + + + +BOOK SECOND + +CHRISTIANITY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL + +To understand Christianity we should need to see clearly and in one +view the link which connects it with the religious evolution of +mankind, the living originality by which it is distinguished, the +succession and the character of the forms it has assumed. Such are the +three points which we shall take up in turn. We must begin with its +origins. + +There is never a complete break in the chain of history. Every +phenomenon arises in its place and at its time. It has its +antecedents, which prepare it and _condition_ it. However new +Christianity may have been, it is no exception to the rule. It springs +from the tradition of Israel by an evident affiliation. The old +theology did not dissimulate this kinship of origin; it rather +exaggerated it. The Christian Church made the Bible of the Jews the +first part of its own. The writings of the prophets were placed in the +sacred volume before those of the apostles, as if to intimate that the +one could not be understood without the other. _Novum Testamentum in +Vetere latet; Vetus in Novo patet_. At bottom, this old adage of the +schoolmen is true. It is an excellent rule of biblical exegesis to +trace the primary Christian ideas to their Hebraic root, and to regard +as foreign and adventitious those which are not attached to it. If +there is nothing essential in the New Testament the germ of which is +not to be found in the Old, there is nothing truly fruitful in the Old +which has not passed into the New. Such is the historical sequence and +connection that we must respect and follow. The study of the religion +of Israel is the natural introduction to the study of Christianity. +The only point to be considered here is how the one was preparatory to +the other.[1] + + +[1] Two non-essential sections have here been omitted, one on _The +Sacred History_, the other on _The Nation_.--Trans. + + + +1. _Prophetism_ + +The miracle of the history of Israel is Prophetism. In this is to be +found the incomparable force by which the religious evolution we may +trace in its annals was effected. + +But first let me explain what I understand by this word evolution, and +let me eliminate from it the fatalistic sense too often given to it. +If by evolution you mean a necessary and unconscious process, a +mechanical and continuous movement, which, without either effort or +danger, causes light to spring out of darkness, good from evil, and +raises a people or a race from a lower to a higher form of life, you +incur the reproach of confounding the laws of the moral world with +those of the physical order; you will be condemned to falsify history +in general and to understand nothing of the history of Israel in +particular. In the moral and religious progress which constitutes the +singular originality of that history, there is nothing facile, nothing +that can be logically deduced from the natural predispositions of the +nation. No doubt the prophets were the children of the nation and +intimately connected with it; but the inspiration which breathes in +them, raises them and animates them, is something entirely different +from the ethnic genius of their race. The contrast is so great that it +amounts to contradiction. The race, in Israel, as in Moab, or among +the Edomites or Philistines, had its interpreters and prophets. But +these were not the prophets of conscience. They flatter the people; +they do not elevate them. They are found to be false prophets. The +others, the witnesses for the righteous, holy God, only brought +Hebraism to the consciousness of its religious vocation by a saecular +and painful struggle against hereditary idolatry and immorality. This +was not a collective evolution, but an essentially individualist +reform; it was a moral creation continually interrupted and +compromised; it was a work of faith and will. Each prophet enters into +the conflict and utters his cry of battle and reform as if he were +alone, responsible only to the God who has sent him, and yet all of +them succeed each other and pursue the same design, because they are +all obedient to the same identic inspiration. They fight against all; +against the multitude that cannot break away from custom and from +prejudice; against the priests who have always from the beginning made +of the priesthood a _metier_ and of oracles a merchandise; against +kings whose vanity, whose crimes, and whose exactions they denounce; +against the great and rich oppressors of the weak and poor. They speak +in the name of Jehovah, because Jehovah speaks in their consciousness. +That is the origin of the prophetic spirit. It is a divine ferment +which, perpetuating itself, becoming clearer, stronger, from generation +to generation, gradually raises and transmutes the heavy mass of +primitive Semitism. No, this is not the work of time and Nature, +unless you see God at work in time, and, beneath this word Nature, by +the side of realised and manifested forces you perceive the hidden and +immeasurable virtualities which ferment in it and carry it beyond +itself into the higher life of liberty and love. In the apparition of +these prophets, in the energy of their faith, in the boldness of their +words, there is a positive revelation of a new world, the revelation of +a religious ideal which, after divesting itself, in the gospel of +Christ, of every national element, will naturally become the faith and +consolation of humanity. + + * * * * * + +The education of the people of God had been a long and laborious work; +besides the preaching of the prophets, it had needed repeated +catastrophes in which the nationality of Israel had perished, as if the +spirit could not free itself save by the annihilation of the matter +that had from the outset grossly closed it in. When in the age of +Cyrus we see the poor remnants of Benjamin and Judah return from +Babylon, they are no longer a people; they are already almost a Church. +The religious Law is now fixed. It enshrines the life, the ideas, the +ethics and the ritual, the minute practices and precautions, which will +for ever separate the Jew from all the other nations, and maintain him +in a state of legal purity and high morality in the midst of universal +corruption. It is the beginning of Pharisaism. In it the spirit of +prophetic piety deteriorates, hardens, freezes. Nevertheless, when we +think of the progress that had been accomplished, when we think of the +distance that separates this rigid monotheism and this rigorous law +from the old hard, cruel, sometimes impure Semitic cults, the prophets' +work in Israel will appear to us in its immense proportions and +immortal worth. + + +2. _The Dawn of the Gospel_ + +But Prophetism was not to end in the Talmud. The Isaiahs and Jeremiahs +were to have other heirs and successors than the Pharisees and the sons +of the Synagogue. Prophetism had in it the promise and the germ of a +higher and more human religion. The prophets had accents which their +immediate successors in history seem never to have heard. They +attacked nothing with more vehemence than formalistic piety or +practical religion divorced from righteousness. Listen to Amos, as he +makes Jehovah utter words like these: "I hate, I despise your feast +days," etc. (Amos v. 21 _et seq._); or to Isaiah on the same theme in +his first chapter. Hosea declares that heart-piety and mercy are +better than sacrifices. Jeremiah predicts the time when God will make +a new Covenant with His people, and write His laws in their hearts, +instead of on tables of stone. Or think of Elijah in the cave of +Horeb. Fatigued with fighting, almost in despair, the terrible +adversary of Baal, who had just had 450 of the priests of Baal put to +death, has retired to the mountains and is asleep in a cave. You know +the narrative (1 Kings xix. 9-13). The still small voice! Is there in +all the Bible a finer image containing a profounder thought? What is +this supreme revelation of the God of Israel but an apparition by +anticipation of the God of the Gospel? And the still, small voice, +"the sound of gentle stillness," what is it but the first faint accents +of the gracious, tender words: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and +are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and +learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest +unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matt. +xi. 28-30). + +Beneath the breathings of this creative inspiration the religion of +legal righteousness and rigorous retributions is softened into the +religion of love. The God who punishes becomes the God who pardons and +restores. Beneath the tears of the poor, the vanquished, the afflicted +in Israel the gospel of divine compassion germinated and sprang up. +What tones of tenderness are heard in the later prophets, the prophets +of consolation, properly so called. "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people. +Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Say unto her that her warfare is +accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned." Read the chapter through +(Is. xl.), and the forty-second and the sixty-sixth, and Psalms xxiii. +and ciii. Such words as these announce and prepare the way for the +great religious revolution called by Jesus the New Covenant. The +relations between God and the human soul are in course of being +changed. From the beginning, a pact existed between Jehovah and His +people; a compact expressed and guaranteed in a Law on which depended +the destiny of the nation and of the individual. The Covenant has +become more inward and profound. To the law of strict remunerations is +now joined a bond of love. Between God and His people the relations +are those of Husband and wife. The wife has proved unfaithful to Him +who had loved her, who had found her poor and naked in the desert, and +had been desirous to enrich her. She has followed other gods. +Jehovah, by the mouth of His messengers, covers her with reproaches, in +order to excite her to repentance; but He has learnt to pity, and, in +the end, He pardons. The more the nation's miseries are multiplied, +the more its tears flow on the soil of alien lands, the more His heart +is melted in Him and the tenderer become His words. "Can a woman +forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the +son of her womb? yea, she may forget, yet will not I forget thee" (Is. +xlix. 15). + +The idea beneath these words is the Christian idea. God loves His +people with a boundless love. His mercy extends infinitely beyond the +sins of the children of men. In the consciousness of the great unknown +prophet whom we call the second Isaiah, we see sketched, five centuries +beforehand, the drama of repentance and forgiveness, which Jesus, in +profounder and yet simpler words, sums up for all mankind in the +Parable of the Prodigal Son. + +The long period of affliction and of misery between the Captivity and +the Advent of the Christ is like a time of painful gestation, during +which, in the bosom of the Hebraic tradition, fecundated by the spirit +of the prophets, was prepared in obscurity the gospel of the Beatitudes +and of the Parables. What a revolution! The ancient theocratic law +promised to the righteous length of days and great abundance of +material goods. The friends of Job regarded him as criminal because +they saw him in adversity. The problem of human destiny appeared to +the later prophets as less simple and more tragic. "Why do the wicked +prosper?" is the question ever on their lips. "Why do the righteous +suffer?" This spectacle has become so constant that the correlation of +the words has been reversed. "Rich and wicked" in the Psalmists, and +in the second Isaiah, are equivalent terms. "Poor and afflicted" are +synonymous with "the righteous" and "the friends of God." Riches and +high looks are the signs of malediction; humility, poverty, +persecution, tears, are the marks of piety and the pledges of divine +affection. It was at this time that the words were born that edified +the early Christians: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the +humble." Gather together in a common hope this family of little ones, +of the defeated and unhappy ones whose hearts were crushed and whose +eyes were filled with tears, and you have the true people of God, the +heirs of all the promises, the "little flock" to whom it is the +Father's pleasure to give the kingdom. It was from their ranks that +was to come the "Man of Sorrows," who should be scourged and put to +death for the sins of His people. The religion of suffering is born. +For the suffering of "the Servant of Jehovah," in whom is no iniquity, +cannot be the chastisement of His own crimes; it will henceforth be +accepted as the necessary part that fraternal solidarity imposes on the +best for the redemption of the rest. A tender, fragile flower, a bud +as yet scarce opened in the writings of the prophets, this thought will +expand into the Gospel and become the religion of mankind. + +Pity joined to a severe ideal of righteousness in the notion of God; +morality introduced into religion by the subordination of rites to +rectitude of heart and will; hope of a future of peace and happiness by +the realisation of righteousness: these are the three great ideas +bequeathed by Prophetism to the Gospel. This heritage is a rich and +lovely one, but it must not be over-estimated or misunderstood. We are +still a long way off the Gospel. The thought of the prophets did not +go beyond the narrow limits of a national Messianism; it remained +Jewish, not only by its forms and symbols, but also by the religious +privilege which is to guard the people of Israel in the future as in +the past. The destiny of humanity is still bound up with the destiny +of Jerusalem, and the triumph of the Jews implies the partial or total +defeat and subjection of the Gentiles in the days of the Messiah and +after they are admitted into the kingdom of God. The saints of Israel +are the children of the household; the heathen may enter, and even +share in the felicity which fills them, but only as servants and +tributaries. + +It should also be noted that, in the theology of the prophets, the +object of Jehovah's love is not the individual as a moral being, but +the chosen people. Only the nation counts in the eyes of the Eternal. +In its deliverance and triumph the citizens find salvation.... There +is something great and thrilling in this Messianic doctrine. It +elevated the soul of a people and of a religion to the point of the +sublime. It is something to have given hope to a defeated people and a +dying world. In this doctrine also we may note this admirable trait: +this national triumph is identified with the advent of righteousness to +all the earth. Nor have the hopes of Israel been belied. The dream of +the prophets was realised in ways of which they did not think, but in a +manner not less marvellous. The descendants of Japhet lodge to-day +beneath the tents of the children of Shem, and our eyes may see the day +approaching when the ancient promise made to Abraham and his seed shall +be fulfilled, and all the families of the earth be blessed in Him. + +Between the religion of the prophets and the religion of Jesus, +however, there is one more barrier to be broken down. In the "Kingdom +of God," the idea of the nation must give place to the idea of +humanity. The universal God must be represented as the immanent God, +as present in every human soul. His seat and temple could not be in +Jerusalem or in Palestine; it could only be in pure and humble hearts. +A supreme crisis was necessary. The Hebrew nation must perish in order +to free the human conscience from its Jewish yoke. A divine flower had +been formed in the heart of Prophetism; but it would have been a barren +ornament, had there not been deposited in its calix a living and a +fruitful germ. The transformation of the piety of the prophets into a +purely moral creation and a Covenant really new with God, this was the +work of Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus is "He that should come," He +whom the prophets half unconsciously desired, He in whom, to the profit +of all mankind, was completed the religious development of Israel. Its +whole history ends in Jesus. Apart from Him the inspiration of the +prophets dies into rabbinical Talmudism or wanders into the vagaries +and delirium of the apocalypses. After giving birth to the Gospel, +Judaism dries up and withers like a tree that has borne its fruit and +whose season is past. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY + +1. _The Problem_ + +We come at last to Christianity. What is its principle or essence? +This question must be answered or we cannot judge of it aright. + +Now, during the eighteen centuries of its history, Christianity has +taken so many and such various forms, it has received so many +developments in every sense, it has become a thing so rich and +luxuriant, that it is far from easy to discover beneath this thick +growth of institutions, dogmas, ceremonies, and devotions the tap-root +of the tree from which it all has sprung, and from which it still +derives its nutriment. It would be next to useless to interrogate the +Churches. They would each answer according to their official +theologies and Confessions of Faith. This, they would say, is the +essence of Christianity. The Catholics would say it is the institution +and infallible authority of the Church, because everything rests on +this first foundation, and because no one can be in Christian truth who +is outside the Church. The Protestants would not be agreed: one would +propose the dogma of Justification by Faith; another the authority of +Scripture; a third the metaphysical divinity and the eternal +pre-existence of Jesus Christ, under the pretext that they could not +conceive the possibility of the subsistence of Christianity without +these dogmas. In entering on this examination we enter on an +interminable dispute. + +The problem, happily, is simplified for the historian and the +psychologist. In asking what is the principle of Christianity, what do +we wish to know? Simply what it is that makes a Christian a Christian. +We desire to ascertain what is the inward element, present in the soul, +which compensates, at need, for the absence or defect of all the rest, +and which, being wanting, cannot be supplied or compensated for by +anything else. In short, we want to get at the religious experience +which determines and marks out the consciousness of all Christians, +which makes them members of one moral family, and which makes them to +be recognised as such in spite of differences of times and place, of +language and of culture, of rites and even of beliefs. To seize this +common feature there is no need of polemics; all we need is a little +history and psychology. + +In history, Christianity offers itself to us as the term and crown of +the religious evolution of humanity. In the consciousness of the +Christian it is something more; it there reveals itself as the perfect +religion. How must we understand this perfection? Is it the +perfection of a complete system of supernatural knowledge, of a +religious science which would have been strange to former generations, +and which was shared by Christians alone? In no wise. If there are +enlightened Christians, there are many who are very ignorant. And yet +they are all Christians by one and the same principle, which is +entirely independent of degrees of culture. No Christian will maintain +that his knowledge is perfect. They all agree with St. Paul that at +present it is very imperfect. We see divine things dimly. What, then, +do they affirm who say with so much assurance that Christianity is the +perfect religion? They affirm that, religion not being an idea but a +relation to God, the perfect religion is the perfect realisation of +their relation to God and of God's relation to them. And this is not, +on their part, a theoretical speculation; it is the immediate and +practical result of their inward experience. They feel that their +religious need is entirely satisfied, that God has entered with them, +and they with Him, into a relation so intimate and so happy that, in +the matter of practical religion, not only can they imagine nothing, +but that they can desire nothing above it or beyond. They simply set +themselves to realise more fully and more effectually in themselves +this supreme relation, this piety whose principle is immanent to +themselves; they know that in it they have the germ of perfect +spiritual development and eternal life. This is why they affirm +without the slightest doubt that Christianity is the ideal and perfect +religion, the definitive religion of humanity. + +Such is the first affirmation of the Christian consciousness. Here is +the second. + +This perfect relation between God and my soul, this supreme religious +good, this kind of piety which constitutes my joy and strength, which +enlightens, renovates, sustains my whole inner life, does not date from +myself, and I well know that it is not my own virtue that has created +it. Nor can I refer the origin of it to my parents, although I may +perhaps have received it through them or through my teachers; nor to my +Church, although I still remain its catechumen; for parents, teachers, +churches, will acknowledge, with myself, that they have only +transmitted that which they themselves received. Remounting thus the +living chain of Christian experiences, I reach a first experience, a +creative and inaugural experience, which has made possible and +engendered all the rest. That experience was realised in the +consciousness of Jesus Christ. I affirm, then, not only that Christ +was the author of Christianity, but that the first germ of it was +formed in His inner life, and that in that life, first of all, that +divine revelation was made which, repeating and multiplying itself, has +enlightened and quickened all mankind. Christianity is therefore not +only the ideal, but an historical religion, inseparably connected not +only with the maxims of morality and with the doctrines of Jesus, but +with His person itself, and with the permanent action of the new spirit +which animated Him, and which lives from generation to generation in +His disciples. + +These are the two affirmations, equally immediate and equally +essential, of every Christian consciousness. Now, the whole +theological problem is how to reconcile the two. How can that which is +ideal and perfect be realised in history? How can that which is +historical be held to be ideal and eternal? Does it not seem as if +these attributes were contradictory and exclusive of each other, and +that Christianity could not become an ideal religion without severing +all its links with a particular history, or that if it would remain an +historical religion it must renounce all pretensions to absolute +perfection? On the other hand, these two attributes, are they not +equally necessary to it? How can it subsist if it obeys the formal and +summary logic which summons us to choose between them? Will it be +anything more than a speculative philosophy if cut off from its +historic tradition? Will it continue to inspire me with confidence, +will it place me in security, if it ceases to appear to me to be the +perfect and definitive religion? + +Theology, from the beginning, has had no other task; at all events, it +has had no task more arduous or pressing than that of reconciling these +two data. There have always been two tendencies amongst theologians +corresponding to two families of minds: the _Idealist_ tendency--that +of Origen and his emulators, which puts the emphasis en ideas and +constructs a religious metaphysic or gnosis, which of necessity +rationalises dogma, and for which history is but a temporary envelope, +a sort of external and sensible illustration; and the _Realist_ +tendency, represented by the genius of Tertullian, which, obeying an +opposite instinct, materialises ideas, gives an anthropomorphic body to +everything, even to God, deifies phenomena, and changes contingent +history into an eternal metaphysic. From these two tendencies, +perpetual and parallel, have issued the two solutions given by +Rationalism and by Orthodoxy to the problem as to the essence of +Christianity. + +The first finds that essence in a few simple truths of reason or of +consciousness, which are of all time and all lands, and which impose +themselves on every man by their own natural evidence. Jesus of +Nazareth was the preacher and the martyr of these truths; but it is +clear that His personality is no more essential to Christianity than +that of Plato is to his philosophy. Only, mind, in thus severing +itself from Christ the Christian Religion ceases to be positive and +becomes an abstract and dead doctrine; it loses its religious pith and +power. + +Orthodoxy, whether Catholic or Protestant, avoids this reef but strikes +upon another. In making of Christ the Second Person of the Eternal +Trinity, the Son of the Father, consubstantial and equal, it removes +Him from history and transports Him into metaphysics. But thus to +deify history is also in a fashion to destroy it. The dogma annuls the +limited, contingent, and human character of the appearance of Jesus of +Nazareth. His life loses all reality. We have no longer a man before +our eyes, although the Church, theoretically, maintains the humanity of +Christ alongside His divinity. This fatally absorbs everything. We +have only a deity walking in the midst of His contemporaries, hidden +beneath a human figure. The traditional Christology has been so +incurably Docetic that it has been practically impossible, from this +point of view, to write a serious Life of Jesus without falling into +the heresy at once modern and semi-pagan of _Kenosis_, the theory +according to which the pre-existent and eternal deity commits suicide +by incarnating Himself in order gradually to be re-born and find +Himself God again at the end of His human life. Can this strait be +crossed? Is there a passage between Scylla and Charybdis? Not so long +as you cling to the intellectualist conception which forms the error +common to both Rationalism and Orthodoxy, and ensures their final +failure. If the essence of Christianity lies in the revelation of +natural truths or supernatural dogmas, the problem is insoluble. All +Apologetics will inevitably dash themselves to pieces against the +insurmountable contradiction that they will soon encounter. Strauss's +argumentation, which the philosophers do not cease to repeat, and which +the theologians pretend not to hear, springs into one's mind. So far +from weakening it, the historical studies of the past half century have +only added sharpness to its edge. "The idea does not pour all its +riches into a single individual. The Absolute does not descend into +history. It is against all analogy that the fulness of perfection +should be met with at the outset of any evolution whatsoever; those who +place it at the origin of Christianity are victims of the same illusion +as the ancients, who placed the Golden Age at the beginning of human +history." + +Before going further it may be convenient to estimate the strength and +weakness of this famous dilemma, and to inquire how we may escape from +it. The traditional theology succumbs to it. But this only proves +that that theology needs reforming. Let us place ourselves at a +different point of view, and examine for a moment the idea of +perfection which serves as the premise to Strauss's reasoning. When he +speaks of the total or plenary perfection which cannot be found in the +first link of an historical chain, he doubtless means a quantitative +perfection--that is to say, a complete collection of virtues, merits, +and faculties the numerical addition of which makes the notion entire. +Now, from this point of view, Strauss's observation is incontestable. +Neither the perfection of science comprising all scientific +discoveries, nor the perfection of civilisation embracing all the +progress and all the forms of human life, are ever found or could be +found at the beginning or at any given moment in the course of history. +One individual, however great, could not exhaust the life or labour of +the species so as to render evolution useless. But have you noticed +that this idea of perfection is contradictory, and therefore +chimerical? Under the category of quantity or of extension there could +be no real perfection either for the individual or for the species. No +sooner is anything that can be counted or measured conceived than the +mind instantly conceives something greater. There is no such thing as +perfect number. Here therefore it is needful to make an essential +distinction. We must distinguish between the quantity and the quality, +or rather, the intensity, of being. Now, between the degrees of both +these things there is not the slightest relation, nor consequently any +common measure. And that which is true in the one becomes false in the +other. Take a cubic metre of stone, multiply it by a thousand or a +million, you will still have the same stone--that is to say, there is +not more true reality in a million cubic metres of stone than there is +in one. But let a bit of moss spring up in a fissure in that stone; in +that bit of living moss there is more being, or, if you will, being of +a higher quality than that of a whole mass of rocks. Still, do not +forget that it needed a germ to produce it, and that this germ was a +sort of positive perfection in relation to all inorganic matter, whose +last end is life. This is why we may boldly say that evolution is not +the cause of anything; that no development ever gives more than what is +hidden in the new germ which engenders it; that a hundred thousand +imbeciles do not make a man of genius, and that if man descended from a +monkey all the monkeys in creation put together do not make up one +human consciousness. From this synthetic point of view, it will no +longer seem contradictory, but natural, and in full accordance with the +analogies of history, that we should meet in the person of the Founder +of Christianity that perfect relation to God, that perfection of piety +which every Christian still experiences within himself, and which he +declares he has drawn from communion with Him. + +Lastly, let us fortify ourselves, and finish this brief statement of +this somewhat novel view with Pascal's pregnant words. There are, he +says, three orders of greatness. From all bodies put together you +could not extract one thought, if there were not first a mind to +conceive it. From all thoughts you could not draw a single movement of +charity, if there were not there a heart to produce and feel it So far +from needing to manifest themselves by the same attributes, these +various kinds of greatness are absolutely independent of each other and +even incommensurable. That which makes one shine forth would diminish +or obscure the others. Alexander came with a pomp which dazzled the +eyes and astonished the imaginations of mere carnal men. Archimedes +had no need of the pomp of Alexander in order to impress the minds of +men; his greatness, purely intellectual, was of an altogether different +order. And, so, the Christ did not come with the _eclat_ of Alexander +or Archimedes. His greatness is of another order still. It is in fact +so different that neither the glory of the conqueror nor the potency of +genius would add anything to it, and that it had need, the better to +shine forth to all, to appear in lowliness and humiliation. Therefore +He was humble, patient, gentle, holy towards God, merciful towards man, +terrible to all the hosts of darkness. Without sin, without external +goods, without the productions of science, He was in His own order. +Oh, with what pomp, with what transcendent magnificence, did He appear +to the eyes of the heart that discerns true wisdom! + + +2. _The Christian Principle_ + +We must therefore come to the religious consciousness of Jesus Christ +as to the fountainhead from which the Christian stream has flowed. It +is certain that we shall find in it the principle and essence of +Christianity itself, for it would be too paradoxical to maintain that +the Master alone was excluded from the benefit of the religion that He +has bequeathed to all His disciples. No; we may affirm in all security +that the principle of Christianity was at first the very principle of +the consciousness of Christ. To determine the one will be to define +the other. + +What we call the religious consciousness of a man is the feeling of the +relation in which he stands, and wills to stand, to the universal +principle on which he knows himself to depend, and with the universe in +which he sees himself to be a part of one great whole. If then we +would know exactly what was the essential element in the consciousness +of Jesus, what was the distinctive characteristic of His piety, we must +ask in what relation did He feel Himself to stand towards God and +towards the universe. The answer will be neither difficult nor +uncertain. If there are matters on which the true thought of the +Master remains obscure, nothing shines out with more evidence and +continuity through all His teaching and His life than the religious +attitude of His soul towards God and man. + +He felt Himself to be in a filial relation towards God, and He felt +that God was in a paternal relation towards Him. The name of Father +that He gives to God continually, exclusively, uniquely; the name of +Son that He takes to Himself; the nature of His adoration; the form of +His prayer; the motive of His devoted obedience even unto death; the +way in which He works His cures, hails His first successes, accepts the +apparent failure of His work, and explains the incredulity of His +people,--all announce, manifest, and confirm that intimate relation, +that communion and union of spirit, by which a father prolongs his life +in the life of his child, and the child feels himself to live by the +life of his father. This was clearly the essential element in His +consciousness, the distinctive and original feature of His piety; it is +also the principle and essence of Christianity. + +That which we observe in the consciousness of Jesus we find in the +experience of all Christians. They are Christians exactly in +proportion as the filial piety of Jesus is reproduced in them. They +are recognised by this unique but sufficient sign, by the confidence +with which they call God their Father, abandoning themselves to His +love for all that regards their present or future destiny, and living a +life of self-renunciation and of devotion to the good of others. All +whose inner life has been raised from the region of selfishness and +pride to the higher realm of love and life in God,--who have found in +that profound conversion, together with the pardon and oblivion of +their past, the germ of a higher life,--of the perfect, and, by +consequence, eternal life, are the true religious posterity of Christ; +they reproduce His spirit, continue His work, and are as dependent upon +Him and as like Him religiously as are the descendants of an ancestor +whose blood and whose life have not ceased for an instant to flow in +their veins. + +This feeling, filial in regard to God, fraternal in regard to man, is +that which makes a Christian, and consequently it is the common trait +of all Christians. It should be added that this principle of +Christianity admirably corresponds to the two fundamental affirmations +of the Christian consciousness already established. The contradiction +that appeared to us so menacing is thus resolved and reconciled. On +the one hand, Christianity, by this filial union with God, is seen to +be the ideal and perfect religion; on the other, it appears as a real +fact in the consciousness of Jesus Christ, so that this religious +reality comes to us with the imperative character of the ideal. +Through prejudice men may neglect religion, but if they desire to have +one they can neither desire nor imagine a relation at once closer and +more moral, more sacred and more joyous, freer and more trustful, than +that which was inaugurated in the filial consciousness of Jesus Christ. +What can they have in the shape of life superior to the life of perfect +and reciprocal affection,--God giving Himself to man and realising in +him His paternity, man giving himself to God without fear, and +realising in Him his humanity? Is not religious evolution accomplished +when these two terms, God and man, opposed to each other at the origin +of conscious life on earth, interpenetrate each other till they reach +the moral unity of love, in which God becomes interior to man and lives +in him, in which man becomes interior to God and finds in God the full +expansion of his being? Christianity is therefore the absolute and +final religion of mankind. + +At the same time, this filial piety in the person of Jesus and His +followers is an observable phenomenon; so that the ideally perfect +religion has manifested itself from the beginning as an historical and +positive religion. It is not an abstract ideal, a theoretical +doctrine, floating above humanity, but a principle and a tradition of +new life, an inexhaustibly fruitful germ inserted in human life to +raise it, not in idea but in fact, to a higher form. That which the +first human consciousness was on earth, separating itself from its +maternal animality, and bringing with it the kingdom of man, the +initiative consciousness of Christ, issuing from the bosom of antique +humanity, has been, and it has founded on our humble planet the kingdom +of God, the kingdom, _i.e._, of free, pure spirit, of righteousness and +love. We are no longer therefore in face of a rational doctrine or a +speculative view, but of a positive force, of a power of life with +which no one can break (I do not say in form and from without, but in +fact and in the inner man) without at the same time breaking with the +higher life of spirit as well as with all hope and joy, and health of +soul. + + * * * * * + + +3. _The Gospel of Jesus_ + +The Christian principle appears in its simple and naked form, in the +form of feeling and of inspiration, in the soul of Jesus. It is +described, explained, expanded, in His Gospel. The Gospel in fact is +merely the popular translation and the immediate application of the +principle of the piety of Jesus in the social _milieu_ in which He +lived. Everything springs from His filial consciousness as a natural +and wonderful efflorescence: His messianic vocation, His twofold +ministry of preaching and healing, His deeds and His discourses, His +ethics and His doctrine, the absolute gift of Himself in life and +death. We must place ourselves at this luminous centre if we would see +the rest dart forth like rays. In it is found the inner, living unity +of His teaching and His destination. He promulgates no law or dogma; +He founds no official institution. His intention is quite different: +He wishes, before everything else, to awaken the moral life, to rouse +the soul from its inertia, to break its chains, to lighten its burden, +to make it active, free, and fruitful. He regards His work as finished +when He has communicated His life, His piety, to a few poor +consciousnesses that He found asleep and dead. Never man spake like +this man, because never had man less concern about what we call +"orthodoxy"--that is, about abstract and accurate formulas. He prefers +the language of the people to the language of the schools; He makes use +of images, parables, paradoxes, of current and traditional ideas, of +every form of expression which, taken literally, is the most inadequate +in the world, but which, on the other hand, is the most living and +stimulating. Each of His sentences or parables is enclosed in a hard +shell that has to be broken before you can get at the kernel. Jesus +wished to force His hearers to interpret His words, because He called +them to an inward, personal, autonomous activity, because He wished to +put an end to the religion of the letter and of rites, and to found the +religion of the spirit. Even now, he that does not give himself to +this labour of interpretation and assimilation in reading the +Gospel,--he who does not penetrate through the letter and the form to +the inspiration and the inmost consciousness of the Master,--cannot +understand or profit by His teaching. He who does not collaborate with +Him while listening to Him, who does not pierce through His words to +His soul, will come away empty. He only gives to those who have, or at +least desire to have. He only leads the seeker to the truth. He only +pardons those who repent, or comforts those who mourn, or fills the +hungerers and the thirsters after righteousness. + +Such is the character of His Gospel. We cannot here set forth its +contents; we can only note the religious attitude of Jesus with regard +to things and men, to Nature and Society. + +At peace with God, Jesus found Himself at peace with the universe. The +idea of Nature, that formidable screen erected between ourselves and +God, destroying hope and quenching prayer, did not exist for Him. +Nature--that was the Will of His Father. He submitted to it with +confidence and joy, whereas we submit to it with desperate resignation. +He did not feel Himself to be an orphan or an exile in the world; He +conducted Himself in it with ease and in security, not as a slave, but +as a son in the house which the Father filled with His presence. It is +the Father that directs all things; He makes His sun to shine upon the +evil and the good; He watches over the sparrows; He clothes the lilies +of the field; He gives life and food, the body and raiment; He notices +the work we have to do, the trials we must bear. He never leaves us to +ourselves. His spirit vivifies and fortifies our own. He is at the +origin of our life and at the end. We are ever in the Father's hands. + +The outlook of Jesus, it is true, is not our own. He shared the +outlook of His race and time.... But His filial piety did not depend +upon His knowledge of the universe. The amount of culture does not +count in this order of feelings. Irreligion was not less easy or less +frequent then than now, and if His outlook on the universe was +narrower, it must not be imagined that it was less full of scandalous +fatalities, of moral difficulties, of rude shocks to piety and faith. +The world of the apocalypses, which was the world in which Jesus had to +live and act, was not less full of mysteries and terrors than our own. +His filial piety alone gave Him the means and strength by which to +overcome them. The duty of man, He considered, was to change his heart +rather than to change the order of things, _i.e._ the will of God. +There is no trace of sorcery or magic or the appetite for miracles in +the prayer He taught to His disciples. At bottom it amounts to this: +"Our Father, let Thy will be done!" His heart-obedience was composed +half of childlike confidence, half of heroic renunciation. In face of +His trials He submitted without weakness and without complaint, and in +face of death He breathed the prayer of faith, the only one that still +remains to us: "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." + +In face of the universe and its laws the individual ego is necessarily +called on to submit and to renounce itself. The only matter of +importance is to know upon what altar we shall make this sacrifice. +Those who offer it on the altar of that blind divinity, "the nature of +things," remain still unconsoled. Those who, with Jesus, make it in +the arms of the Heavenly Father, accomplish it with strength and joy. +From the awakening of consciousness to its highest point of +development, man carries within him this radical contradiction: he +feels that there is a mortal conflict between the idea that he +gradually forms of the world and the idea he forms of himself. The ego +wishes to conquer and does actually conquer the world; it even goes +beyond it by thought; but the world has its revenge; it dominates the +ego, it crushes it beneath the weight of its invincible laws, and it +swallows it up,--itself, its efforts, its works, its thought,--like an +ephemeral nonentity. Jesus felt this opposition; He suffered from this +conflict. He resolved the antithesis by a third term, in which was +realised the other two: the notion of the Father, whose beneficent will +is equally sovereign in man and in the universe. And it is this happy +solution of the enigma of life that still renders the religion of Jesus +the religion of hope. + +Amongst men, in the midst of society, Jesus felt other relations and +new obligations formed in His heart. His filial piety became a +fraternal piety. The first commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy +God with all thine heart," necessarily gave birth to the second: "And +thy neighbour as thyself." The Father who lives in me lives equally in +my neighbour; He loves him as much as He loves me. I ought therefore +to love Him in my neighbour as well as in myself. This paternal +presence of God in all human souls creates in them not only a link but +a substantial and moral unity which makes them members of one body, +whatever may be the external and contingent differences which separate +them. From the Fatherhood in heaven flows the brotherhood on earth. +From a relation of righteousness and love towards God springs a similar +relation between men. + +In thus defining the religious connection of Jesus with His brethren I +am afraid of weakening it. For Him it was not a matter of theory; for +He never constructed any theory or formulated any doctrine of human +fraternity; it was with Him a passionate sentiment, a deep-felt +solidarity and kinship, a true family life, in which this Elder +Brother's heart reverberated on the one hand with the love and pity of +the Father, and, on the other, with the miseries and distresses of His +brethren. In His parables Jesus does not say "The Father" simply; He +habitually says "the father of the family," "the head of the house." +It is because the father does not exist without his children, and +because humanity, on earth at least, is the family, by means of which +the paternity of God is realised. + +But in the society of men Jesus encountered sin with all its effects in +the shape of moral deformity and physical suffering. From the contact +of His filial piety with this enormous human misery sprang a twofold +appeal: the voice of His Father in His soul, the plaint of His brethren +all around; and to this double cry the answer was--His ministry of +relief, of consolation, and salvation: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon +Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He +hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of +sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to +proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke iv. 18, 19, R.V.). + +It all flows from the same source. It was not only individuals who +needed to be healed and saved. The family of God was not less broken +down, oppressed, disorganised, by all the powers of evil, a prey to +hatred, selfish ambition, intestine wars. Would it not be necessary +here also to effect a work of restoration, to reconstruct this family +so highly-favoured of the Father for the salvation of the world, to +inaugurate the kingdom of God announced by so many of the prophets, and +expected so impatiently by all pious souls and all the victims of +unrighteousness? This was His messianic vocation. But how would this +victory of the Messiah be realised? Would it be the work of Divine +power, flashing forth and executing its pitiless reprisals? Since the +paternal heart of God had been opened and poured into His own, Jesus +had perceived another law and another force, the law and force of love, +which triumphs by self-sacrifice. Soon there arose in His +consciousness a new image of the Messiah, that of the Servant of +Jehovah, bearing the sins and miseries of His people, bruised, +humiliated, dying to procure them life and healing. It was the gospel +of the Cross. The further He advanced in this emptying of self, and in +this work of love and pain, the larger and more luminous became the +revelation of the Father in His soul. When at last He had the clear +and perfect consciousness that He had no longer any will to do but the +will of God, no other plan to follow than His mysterious designs, no +other cause to serve and to defend but His, He did not doubt the final +victory; His faith shone forth triumphantly, appropriating to itself, +to express itself in perfect freedom, the boldest promises of the +Ancient Testament and of the contemporary apocalyptic seers. By His +union with the Father, the heir of the past felt Himself master of the +future. On the throne of immolated love He has founded a kingdom that +will never end. Such is the inner secret of His hope, such the moral +and religious meaning of His prophecies of speedy victory, and of His +return upon the clouds of heaven. + +Jesus was fond of saying that a wise man knew how to bring forth from +the treasury of his heart things new and old. It was in this way that +He accomplished the most radical of religious revolutions while seeming +only to fulfil the law and the prophets. What was there then that was +so new and potent in the least of His discourses? The treasure of His +filial consciousness. The inner inspiration springing up in them +incessantly gives to every detail of His teaching, the oldest words, +the most familiar metaphors, a meaning altogether new, a reach and +bearing infinite. His speech confines itself to the antithesis that +had become traditional with all the prophets, of man's weakness and +God's strength, of sin and pardon, of repentance and confidence, of +sickness and healing, of humility and exaltation. But He had a way of +looking at them, and even of making them spring out of each other, that +entirely renovated them. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs +is the kingdom of heaven! Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall +be comforted! Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after +righteousness, for they shall be filled!" To press thus and to +stimulate the sense of need, of misery and sin, so far that it changes +into its opposite; to draw riches out of poverty, comfort out of +sorrow, victorious strength from weakness; to find in sorrow for sin +the germ of saintly life and in hunger and thirst the very source of +satisfaction; to make every human soul thus pass through this inward +drama of repentance and conversion in which it is regenerated and +renewed,--such is the unique but admirable and all potent mystery of +the Gospel. + +Christ did not construct a theory of man, of his moral life, any more +than He constructed a theory with respect to God and the universe. He +was content to place Himself at the centre of the human consciousness, +and to dig down to the source of life. He takes man as he is in all +climates and in all conditions. He does not declare him to be +radically impotent for good, but neither does He flatter him by veiling +his natural misery. He knows him to be ardent and feeble, full of +needs and of illusions, capable of conversion, subject to all passions, +the victim of all slaveries. He treats him as diseased, which is the +truth, and He does not think He can make him find the principle of a +serious cure, save in the very sense of his malady. So far from +blunting the edge of the moral law, He sharpens it as one sharpens a +dissecting knife in order the better to pierce the living flesh and +penetrate to the very joints and marrow; He infinitely enhances the +demands of the traditional ideal; from the outward act He descends to +the inward feeling; He makes lust equal to adultery, and anger or +hatred to murder itself. He tells His disciples to love their enemies, +to pray for those who persecute them, to answer violence by gentleness, +and injuries by love. He speaks thus not to weaken the vigour of +righteousness, but because He sees in love and gentleness a higher +righteousness and the sole means of securing the final triumph of good +over evil. That is why the righteousness of His friends exceeds the +righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. It is no longer dictated +by an outward letter, but it has, for soul, the very spirit of the +Father, and, for inward rule, the ideal the Master has lit up in the +conscience: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." + +This morality would easily become ascetic and appear impossible if it +were not blended with an opposite element which renders it human and +fruitful without either lowering or destroying it. That element is +mercy and forgiveness; it is pure, unconditional grace which in misery +makes room for hope, and in repentance opens the door to faith and to +the work of faith. These two elements, inexorable law and +unconditional grace, are so intimately blended in the Gospel of Christ +that the Gospel only subsists in its originality and with its power by +their perfect fusion and reciprocal and constant action. Without the +inflexible rigours of the moral ideal, repentance would not be +possible--at least it would never be profound enough to produce the +renovation of the heart; but, without faith in the divine mercy, +repentance itself, changing into despair, would be barren and +ineffectual. These two elements of the Christian life are as fruitful +by their union as they are impotent and liable to degeneration when +isolated or opposed. What does Christian law become without the +sentiment of love, without the impulse of mercy, but a sort of moral +Stoicism, rigid and severe? And what would be the doctrine of grace +apart from the sacred obligation of the law but the theory of a +mischievous indulgence or a Pagan mysticism? To decompose the Gospel +salt is to destroy its savour. + + * * * * * + + +4. _A Necessary Distinction_ + +At the close of this long meditation, one thing seems to me very clear, +the necessity, or rather the obligation under which I stand henceforth +of distinguishing between the purely moral essence of Christianity and +all its historical expressions or realisations, even the highest and +most faithful of them. If religion is an inward life, a real and felt +relation between God and man, and if Christianity is that life carried +to a higher degree, it is certain that religion in general, and +Christianity in particular, must have the two characteristics of all +living things. Life is a force, ideal in its essence, real in its +manifestations. It can only manifest itself in the organisms that it +creates and animates. But, while incarnating itself in its works, it +does not exhaust itself or remain imprisoned in any of them. Jesus was +well aware of this when He compared His gospel to the leaven which +raises the dough and to the seed which germinates in the soil into +which it falls. + +This necessary distinction will neither be made nor admitted by +everybody. Many who concede it in theory deny it in practice. +Protestants smile at the Catholics, who identify Christianity with the +Church. But while admitting and making the distinction, when it comes +to particular churches and particular systems of dogmas, they resist +and protest in their turn, if it becomes necessary to apply it to the +Bible, and to distinguish between the Word and its human and historical +expression. + +Should we go further still? May we, ought we in all fidelity to apply +the distinction to the Gospel of Christ itself and to the primitive +form in which it has come down to us? Most of those who have +accompanied us thus far will now recoil and leave us. They will employ +against us the very same arguments which appear to them so pitiful when +used with respect to the Church and to the Bible. For my part, I +cannot comprehend this fear of the freedom left to criticism. It seems +to me impossible to deny that in the teaching of Jesus there are parts +which are uncertain, things which have been either badly understood or +badly reported, an oriental and contingent form which needs to be +translated into our modern languages. Who does not see that neither in +His language nor in His thought is there anything absolute? Both of +them are constantly determined by the generally received ideas of His +time, the state of mind of His interlocutors; and unless you desire to +deny that Jesus was a man of His age and of His race, how can you +abstract Him from His environment and attribute to Him ideas which have +neither date nor place? I have already compared Christianity to an oak +which has lived and grown for eighteen centuries, and the Gospel to the +acorn from which it sprang. But in that acorn itself, as in the tree, +it is manifest that there are two things: a principle of life, and some +matter borrowed from the Hebraic soil, with which the creating +principle was obliged to amalgamate itself in order to enter into +history and to become fruitful. The characteristic of life is to +render possible and to institute the constant exchange of the materials +with which it builds up its works. When this exchange has ceased, life +has disappeared. If the Gospel of Jesus were something fixed and +finished like a code of laws or a collection of formulas, it would no +longer be a power of life. His words defy the centuries and never +wither; they are truly eternal, because they leave free and do not +imprison in a rigid and immutable letter the spirit of life which +animates them. + +Arrived at this point of view, I see the relations between Christianity +and historical criticism change completely, and find myself once more +in the greatest religious security. Criticism will always be a just +cause of alarm to those who elevate any historical and contingent form +whatever into the absolute, for the excellent reason that an historical +phenomenon, being always conditioned, can never have the +characteristics of the absolute. But criticism can do nothing against +the Christian principle, which, brought back to the consciousness, +always disengages itself from the relative and fleeting expressions in +which it has clothed itself by the way. Criticism makes it to appear +again in its ideal purity and eternal worth. Far from being injurious, +it becomes necessary to it. It is not doubtful that the teaching and +the work of Christ, having been preserved in the simple oral tradition +for half a century, have not been transmitted to us without some +corruptions and some legendary elements. What then does historical +criticism, with all its rigour, do? Nothing but purify this uncertain +tradition, remove the veils, set forth more certainly the authentic +soul of Christ, and, consequently, place the Christian principle in its +surest, clearest light. + +What has been said of the Master's teaching is still more true of that +of His disciples. The Christian plants have all sprung from the same +seed; but they vary according to the soil in which they grow. They are +all of the same species, but in that species there are innumerable +varieties. How could the external result possibly have been the same +whether the divine seed fell into the heart of a simple fisherman of +Galilee, or a rabbi of genius, or a thinker brought up in the school of +Alexandria? Could you possibly have the same Church, the same +theology, the same ritual in Arabia and in Greece, among a savage race +and in the university circles of Germany, at Rome or in England, in the +Middle Ages in a feudal society, and in our democracies in a time of +emancipated reason and free government? + +And here it will be convenient to pause and reflect a moment on that +wonderful variety in the historical forms of Christianity, none of +which are perfect and none contemptible. A superficial examination may +draw from this spectacle a lesson of indifference; a more conscientious +and attentive study finds in it an opposite lesson, the lesson of an +ever-pressing obligation on both individuals and churches never to +repose in a deceitful satisfaction, but to progress unceasingly; for +Christianity is nothing if it is not in us at once an ideal which is +never reached and an inner force which ever urges us beyond ourselves. + + +5. _The Corruptions of the Christian Principle_ + +The differences which separate the historical forms of Christianity +are, like those of religion in general, of two kinds: there are +differences of kind and differences of degree. The differences of kind +are those which arise from diversity of races, languages, +civilisations, temperaments, genius. The differences of degree are +those connected with the very intensity and purity of the Christian +faith and life. Churches and peoples are diversified at once by their +constitution and by their degree of culture and of moral life. It goes +without saying that these two classes of differences are not +juxtaposed; they are mixed incessantly and complicated endlessly. It +remains none the less true that they provoke and legitimate two sorts +of judgment. The first are accepted with tolerance and sympathy, since +it would not be reasonable to blame a man for the colour of his skin. +But the second may and should be discussed and analysed, for they imply +intellectual errors or moral defects, the corruption or the weakness of +the Christian principle, and they can only be corrected and remedied by +discussion and criticism. + +The Christian seed is never sown in a neutral and empty soil. No soul, +no social state, is a _tabula rasa_. The place is always occupied by +anterior traditions of ideas, rites, or customs, by institutions in +possession. Christianity cannot therefore root itself anywhere without +entering into conflict with the regnant powers, without giving battle +to prejudices, manners, and superstitions which naturally resist, and +which, when conquered, spring up again in other forms in the victorious +religion. Take the Ebionite Christianity of the first centuries: what +is it but a mixture, a compromise between Jewish and Christian +elements? What shall we say of the Catholic Church after Constantine? +Is it not true that, in the religious transformation at that time +effected, there was a double and mutual conversion, and that it is hard +to say whether the pagan world was more modified by Christianity or +Christianity more deeply penetrated and invaded by the manners and the +religion that it was supposed to replace? + +In this order the most striking victories are never complete. Even +after the most radical conversion, the old man survives, at least by +its roots, in the new man. The Pharisee long survived in St. Paul +after he became an Apostle of Christ. The same in human societies: +political or moral revolutions never abolish the past. After those +great battles in which passions and interests have often as much weight +as noble ideas and generous sentiments, there is always established a +sort of equilibrium by mutual concessions and spontaneous alliances +between the vanquished and the victorious tendencies. Hence come what +we have named the corruptions of the Christian principle in the course +of historical Christianity, for which alone should be reserved the name +of heresies. + +It must not be imagined, however, that these corruptions or heresies, +against which it is the duty of Christian criticism ceaselessly to +protest, are arbitrary things, or that their number is unlimited. On +the contrary, they fall, and must necessarily fall, into two +categories. The cause of the corruptions of the Christian principle in +social life can only be found in the previous tradition, in one of the +moral and religious tendencies that Christianity aspires to conquer and +replace. Now, these tendencies may be reduced to two: the tendencies +of the religions of Nature, or Pagan; and the tendency of the legal, or +Jewish, religion. Closely examine all that has disfigured or that +still disfigures historical Christianity, and you will see that each of +these corruptions is connected, by its character, with a Jewish or a +Pagan root. The Gospel as the religion of free spirit and pure +morality has never had, and could never have had, any other enemies +than Judaism or Paganism, ever ready to spring up in its bosom and +transform it either into the religion of Nature or into the religion of +the Law. + +Christianity, for example, in its pure essence, implies the +absoluteness of God--that is to say, His perfect spirituality and His +perfect independence. Hence, worship in spirit and in truth, the only +worship that can be universal, the only one that corresponds to the +Christian idea of God. Therefore every tendency, even in Christianity +itself, to shut up God in a phenomenal form, to bind Him to something +material, local, or temporary, to blend the Creator with the creature, +or to fill up the gap between them by a hierarchy of divine beings +which, under pretext of serving us as intermediaries, interrupt our +free and immediate communion with the Father, is, properly speaking, a +resurrection of Paganism, and a return to idolatry. Paganism and +idolatry, of which we pretend to have so much horror, are simply the +localisation and materialisation, more or less conscious, of the divine +spirit and of divine grace, whatever may be the visible organ to which +you bind them, or on which you make their action to depend,--Pope of +Rome or Pythoness of Delphi, images of gods or images of virgin and of +saints, sacramental liturgies, the deification of a church, a +priesthood, or a book. + +Take another example: Christianity is not only the liberty of God; it +is also His holiness; it is pure morality placed above all the +instincts of nature; it is, finally, the unity of morality and +religion. Hence, all that tends to break this unity, every blow at the +divine law, every attempt to cultivate religious emotion apart from +conscience, all magic and mystagogy, aesthetic piety, religious +romanticism, Christianity a la Chateaubriand, sensuous +mysticism,--these essays, so numerous in our day, at philosophic or at +literary gnosis, these new religions without repentance or conversion, +all these cults without any element of moral sanctification--these are +so many corruptions of the Christian principle, and consequences more +or less immediate of the Paganism always latent in the human heart. + +By the side of this Pagan is the Judaising heresy. Christianity is not +only moral law and intransigeant holiness; it is also unconditional +love, grace, mercy, the inward action of the Spirit of God in the +spirit of man in order to produce in it that which He desires to find, +and to realise that which His law commands; it is everything that +scandalised Pharisaism in the teaching and conduct of Jesus in regard +to the sinful and the lost: pardon without reproach, rehabilitation and +salvation through repentance and affection, the sincere impulse of the +heart that has been raised above external works; the very opposite of +legal compacts, meritorious and atoning virtue, formalist religion and +ritual piety. All that tends to separate the Father from the child; +that places the liberty and virtue of man outside and apart from God as +having some merit in His sight; all Pelagianism, every theory of +salvation by works, every condition laid down to divine grace except +faith to receive it: adhesion to a doctrinal formula, sacramental +usages, priestly absolution, outward mortification, asceticism whether +monkish or puritanical, which divides morality and, in the name of a +fantastic sanctity, introduces dualism into the work of God,--all this +should be called by its right name; it should be taken for what it +really is--a relapse into the legal and formalist spirit of Jewish +Pharisaism. + +Finally, I see on what condition Christianity may remain faithful to +itself while realising itself in history. It is only by an incessant +struggle of the Christian principle against all the elements of the +past which find, alas, in human propensities, and in the inertia of the +multitude, a complicity so constant and effectual. So far from +religious indifference being permissible, critical action and Christian +prayer become, in every church and every life, permanent duties. I now +understand the paradox of Christ: "I am not come to send peace on the +earth, but a sword." For the Christian principle, in fact, war is +life. To cease to fight is to succumb; it is to allow yourself to be +submerged by the rising tide of human superstitions; it is to die. Who +does not see the danger of allowing Christianity to become absorbed in +one church form, Christian truth in one formula, the Christian +principle in one of its particular realisations? All these contingent +expressions, being imperfect, must be reformed sooner or later. How +can they be unless the spirit of Christianity disengages itself without +ceasing and floats above them as an ideal? For eighteen centuries a +river of life has flowed through human history. Break down the +barriers which fanaticism and superstition are always setting up +athwart its course. If the waters cease to flow they stagnate, and +corrupt and poison the very land it was their mission to fertilise. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY + +1. _The Evolution of the Christian Principle_ + +The distinction between the Christian principle and its successive +realisations renders it easy to resolve the question, formerly so much +debated, as to the perfectibility of Christianity. It is perfect +piety, plenary union with God, consequently the absolute and definitive +Religion. But, regarded in its historical evolution, not only is it +perfectible, but it must ceaselessly progress, since, for it, to +progress is to realise itself. The germ could not be perfected in its +essence, as germ and ideal type of the tree that it potentially +contains. But the tree itself only comes into existence by the +development of the germ. No reform, no progress, no perfecting, could +raise Christianity above itself--that is to say, above its principle; +for these reforms and this progress only bring it into closer +conformity with that principle--that is, make it more Christian. On +the other hand, the principle itself must enter into evolution in +history in order to manifest its originality and its force, to realise +in individual and social life, in the realm of thought and in the realm +of action, in a word in the whole of civilisation, all its virtualities +and all its consequences. Jesus saw this when He spoke the Parable of +the Mustard Seed (Matt. xiii. 31-32). + +This distinction has another advantage. It alone permits the Christian +thinker to be equitable in his judgments in regard to all religious +forms, to place himself at a truly historical point of view, and to +reconcile, without weakness and without violence, what is due to truth +and what to charity. Every sincere endeavour to express or to realise +Christianity in a system or in a church becomes respectable so soon as +you know how to discover in it, under formulas however strange and +practices however gross, some effects of the Christian principle or +some signs of its presence. If disdain and contempt are not +permissible with regard to any type of Christianity however different +from our own, neither is illusion to be tolerated with regard to our +own church or to our personal piety. Perfection is nowhere to be +found. Each community may repeat, and the larger, older, and more +numerous it becomes the more will it need to repeat, the words of the +Apostle Paul: "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended," etc. +(Phil. iii. 13, 14). The habit we have got into of putting all the +truth on our side and all error on the side of others, of thus opposing +light and darkness, not only falsifies the judgment; it sours the heart +and poisons piety, it dries up the feeling of fraternity, and is the +perpetual sign of individual or collective vanity. Let each examine +himself, let him judge his church without complacence in the light and +spirit of Christ; he will soon attain to more humility and truth. He +will never identify any particular church or its dogma with +Christianity itself. However pure its teaching, however generous its +deeds, he will reckon that this is, after all, but a commencement of +Christianity, a mere nothing compared with what the Christian principle +should have accomplished in the world in eighteen centuries. + +Such is the feeling with which we should approach the history of +Christianity. The field is vast; the vegetation in it is infinite; we +must content ourselves with incompleteness. Being neither able nor +desirous to say everything, I have been obliged to seek a commanding +point of view from which it would be possible to take in that history +in its entirety, and to take a bird's-eye view of the course it has +followed. Faithful to this idea, namely, that the Christian principle +is like leaven or a seed thrown into a gross, heavy mass of anterior +traditions which it was meant gradually to raise and to transform, it +is this struggle and this progress that I desire especially to +describe. I shall endeavour to show how Christianity, always borrowing +its forms from the environment in which it realises itself, after +enduring them for a time, subsequently frees itself from and triumphs +over the inferior and temporary elements which fetter it, and manifests +from age to age a greater independence and a purer and higher +spirituality. This progress is slow, obscure, oft interrupted, +hindered by reactions or by moments of arrest; none the less striking, +however, does it appear when, rising above these secondary +complications, one measures the distance between the points of +departure and arrival. Not only has Christianity never been better +understood than in our own day, but never were civilisation or the soul +of humanity taken in their entirety more fundamentally Christian. When +one follows the history of Christianity from this higher point of view, +one sees that it has passed through three very distinct phases and +assumed three essentially different forms: the Jewish or Messianic, the +Graeco-Roman or Catholic, the Protestant or modern, form. Let us see +how it has passed from the one to the other. + + +2. _Jewish, or Messianic Christianity_ + +The first of these periods is usually omitted or suppressed. Being +unable to admit that Catholicism is not the work of Christ and the +apostles, or that the Church has varied its dogma or its institutions, +Catholic theologians naively imagine that the first Christian +communities of Jerusalem and Antioch resembled those of Rome, Milan, +and Lyons in the fourth century; that Peter was the first of the popes +and exercised for five-and-twenty years the supreme pontificate; that +the apostles appointed bishops everywhere as their successors and the +heirs of their power. In this way the history of Christianity became, +in the Catholic tradition, a tissue of legends. + +The theologians of Protestantism arrived by another road at an +analagous conclusion. Under the influence of the dogma of the verbal +inspiration of the New Testament, they were led to make of apostolic +Christianity an ideal and abstract type which all the ages ought to +force themselves to imitate and reproduce. And, as they profess to +have returned to this type both in regard to ideas and to institutions +and morals, they have made of this apostolic period the first chapter +of the history of Protestantism, just as the Catholics have made of it +the first chapter of the history of Catholicism. In both cases, it +loses all distinct physiognomy and all reality. + +By dissipating these prejudices, historical criticism has completely +resuscitated that first form of Christianity. It is no longer possible +to confound it with any other. It had its contrasts, its passions, its +storms. Neither Jesus nor the apostles lived in the ideal or in +paradisiacal peace. They quarrelled and were divided in the Church of +Jerusalem as in our own. The subjects of the quarrels were different, +but they did not consider them less grave than those which vex and +trouble us. Peter, James, and Paul were not less divided in the first +century over the question of circumcision and of the relations between +Jews and Gentiles, than were Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin in the +sixteenth over the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. From both camps, +then as now, they sent forth pamphlets and anathemas. There were two +opposite parties. There were the stubborn holders of tradition and its +authority, and there were the innovators, or the partisans, sometimes +as rash as they, of liberty of faith and individual inspiration; and +between the two there were the men of conciliation and the golden mean +who were preoccupied especially in preventing schisms and arranging +truces and treaties of peace, to be followed in their turn by new +crises and fresh storms. + +In this first form of Christianity, as in all that have followed it, +there was a certain dualism, a mixture of heterogeneous and soon +hostile elements. The struggle was bound to arise between the +Christian principle and Jewish tradition. The new seed sown in that +ancient soil could not germinate without rising in it and in places +breaking up the thick hard crust. In the books of the New Testament +that have preserved to us the picture of that first and powerful +germination, side by side with the principle to which belongs the +future we necessarily find old things which are on the way to death. +It will be seen what an error they commit and what a wrong they do +themselves who, misconceiving this historical complexity, sanctify and +deify both these opposite elements, and place on the same level the +eternally fruitful grain, and the chaff to-day dried up and utterly +inert, a mere remnant of the Jewish stalk that bore it. + +Conceived in this religious matrix of Judaism, the Christian principle, +if I may so speak, could only take in it a body essentially Jewish in +structure, substance, colour. I only speak, of course, of the body of +this primitive Christianity, not of its soul, which, as I have shown, +was altogether new. Now, its body was Jewish on two sides and in two +aspects: by the persistence of the authority of the Law of Moses, and +the practical observance of its precepts, from which the disciples of +Jesus did not dream of detaching themselves; and, secondly, by the +apocalyptic Messianism which dominated Jewish thought from the time of +the Maccabees, and with which the first Christians were perhaps more +imbued and more possessed than all the rest of their people. + +Faith in the evangel of Jesus, full and joyful communion with the +Father, habits of Jewish devotion, Messianic hopes,--all this formed, +in the consciousness of the first disciples, a mixture of various +elements and of things of very unequal value. These elements, in +gradually revealing their disparate nature, could not fail to enter +into contradiction and to engender conflicts in the very heart of +apostolic Christianity. It was these contradictions and conflicts +which set Christian thought in movement, and produced the life and +progress of that early age, so that one may always rightly consider it +as a creative and classic epoch, and hold it up as a normal example to +the churches of all time; on condition, however, that it be not +considered as an immutable mass of eternal verities, but taken in its +natural movement, in its constant effort of progressive enfranchisement +with regard to the past, in its heroic ascent towards religious forms +and ideas, freer, more human, more conformed to the universal +character, to the spirituality, and to the pure morality of the +religion of Jesus. + +"What, then," it will be said, "did not the Christ set His disciples +free at the outset from all the errors and superstitions of the past? +Did He not at once give them perfect dogmas, a completed form of +worship, an immutable and completed system of ethics?" No; Jesus did +nothing of the kind. So far from formally and systematically +criticising the traditional religion of His people, so far from making +_ex cathedra_ that selection which the vulgar looked for, Jesus +expressly refused it, as a method essentially false and irreligious. +He did not wish to abolish anything by mere authority; He preferred +rather to confirm the tradition in its totality, of which He was the +heir and not the executioner. "Think not that I am come to destroy the +Law or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt. v. +17). + +His method was quite different. It was the method of the sower to whom +He loved to compare Himself. In the furrow made by His word in the +ancient soil of Judaism, He quietly and gently deposited new germs. In +the traditional and theocratic notions of His race He placed contents +altogether different drawn from His own religious experience, and from +the sense of His filial relation to the Father. He then left time to +do its work, to develop one after another the consequences of the +principles He had planted in human souls. He sowed, and He and others +reap from age to age the harvest He has sown. + +Consider His attitude towards the Law of Moses. Not a jot or tittle of +it is to fail or be neglected. He strengthens it rather than relaxes +its claims; He deepens it, carries it inward, makes it infinitely more +spiritual and searching. He gathers it up into two great commandments, +and constrains the Law itself, if I may so speak, to surpass itself and +transform itself into pure evangelical morality. That is what He meant +by declaring that His work would be the fulfilment of the Law. Nothing +was less violent; but nothing, at bottom, was more revolutionary.... +It is easy now to see the consequences of this method; history has +revealed them. But those who heard the words of Jesus could not +perceive these consequences. They had no idea probably that the day +would come when to be faithful to the Master they would be obliged to +break with Moses. They did not suddenly break with Judaism. Indeed, +they had found in their new faith new motives for fervour and +exactitude in their Mosaic piety. The first Christians in Jerusalem +were honoured of all the people because of their assiduity in the +Temple worship and for their exemplary devotion. They are therefore +not enfranchised yet; they will have to free themselves from Judaism in +the school of events into which they will be led by the Spirit of Jesus +that is with them and dwells in them. The Christian principle will +have to reconquer its independence of the Judaism which dominates and +hems them in on every side. This will be the work of more than a +century of conflict and controversy. All Christians will not enter +into the movement with the same decision; they will not march abreast +on the path of liberty. Many will be stupid and turn back. Progress +would not have been made if the Divine Spirit that had raised up Jesus +had not raised up valiant men like Stephen, Saul of Tarsus, Barnabas, +the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that of the Fourth +Gospel, to carry on the struggle against the bondage of Judaism and +carry it to complete victory. When you pass from the one to the other, +from the discourse of Stephen to the Epistle to the Galatians, from the +Epistle to the Romans to the Johannean theology, you clearly see the +march of progress. At the end of the first century Christianity is so +independent of national and traditional Judaism that the one treats the +other, without any further scruple, as an alien and hostile religion. + +More adhesive still to the Christian principle, less easy to strip off, +was the second Jewish wrappage, apocalyptic Messianism. Jesus had so +thoroughly consecrated it by calling Himself the Messiah and by +inaugurating the kingdom of God, that His Gospel might be named a +"Christian Messianism." In His discourses He seems to have confirmed +it still more expressly than the Law of Moses. No doubt He proceeded +in both cases alike. In all the theocratic notions which constituted +this popular Messianism, He lodged a new content, a religious and moral +element which must, in the long run, make them burst their trammels and +elevate Messianism above itself. But He did not bring to it any +negative and abstract criticism, any more than He did to the divers +parts of the Mosaic tradition; He never said either that it must be +abandoned or that it must be retained; He deposited in it the new +principle; but He left in it many obscurities, abandoning to time and +to the force of things the care of drawing forth the consequences and +clearing up confusions. + +For His own part He wished simply to maintain intact beneath these +apocalyptic forms the principle and the inspiration of His inward +piety. It was in accordance with these that He interpreted the popular +beliefs, adapting them with a perfect sovereignty to the moral aim and +nature of His work. As with the Mosaic Law, so with Messianism; He is +its Master, not its slave. He uses it, but does not abandon Himself to +it. These hopes never trouble the clearness of His religious vision; +they do not take away His self-possession, or alter the direction, +always exclusively moral, of His acts. He accepts the title of +Messiah, but only after substituting the idea of the suffering and +humiliated for the national and triumphant Messiah. If He preaches the +kingdom of God, He takes care to explain the conditions and the true +goods of the kingdom--humility, repentance, childlike confidence, +righteousness, disinterested love, the joy of serving God and man. He +leaves to men of the flesh the pomp and splendour which dazzle the eyes +of the flesh. He admires the grandeur of John the Baptist more than +that of Herod. The kingdom of God will not come with ostentation. It +will begin like an unseen seed that a man puts into the ground. + +At the outset of His work Jesus encountered a mysterious temptation. +This was the conflict of His consciousness with the seductions of the +popular Messianism. He triumphed over it with difficulty; but +thenceforth He was always on His guard in that direction. Is it not +remarkable that this very temptation returned to Him through the mouth +of Peter? Jesus treats as Satan the first of His apostles, and refers +to the devil in person and the prince of darkness suggestions of this +nature which tend to make Him deviate from the road marked out by the +inspiration of His heart. He avoids the title Messiah until the day +when He is able to join with it the image of the Cross. He disdains +the title, "Son of David," preferring to all others that of "Son of +Man," a title that was not open to the same mistakes. On this road of +renunciation He must sacrifice not only His ease, His joys, and His +repose, but also, at each step, some of the beliefs of Israel, and some +of the glories of the Messiah. He never hesitates. His people reject +Him, and He turns to His Father and says to Him: "Even so, Father, for +so it seemed good in Thy sight." He agonises in Gethsemane, the +Messiah agonises in Him, and He prays thus: "Father, not My will, but +Thine be done." + +Hence comes His freedom of spirit, the elevation of His view in the +interpretation of events, as also His pious and trustful reserve in +face of the enigmas and obscurities that His glance cannot penetrate. +John the Baptist is beheaded in prison: singular destiny for that +formidable Elijah who was to inaugurate by thunder and lightning the +Messianic era, the dream of all patriots! Is Jesus offended by it? +Does He hesitate to declare that John at that very moment is "the Elias +which was for to come"? What a defiance to the oracles of the popular +Messianism! When the sons of Zebedee desire Him to reserve for them +the foremost places in His future kingdom, He merely speaks to them of +the baptism of martyrdom, and teaches them that they must leave such +things at the disposal of the Father. No doubt, He never contradicts +apocalyptic predictions; on the contrary He applies to Himself all the +promises of glory and of triumph; but always in subjection to the +Father's will. Asked as to the date of the Messiah's advent, He +answers that He does not know, that they must observe the blossoms on +the fig-tree and the signs of the times around Himself; that they must +watch and pray, possess their souls in patience, and abandon to the +Father the decisions of which He keeps the impenetrable secret. + +I speak of freedom of interpretation and of pious reserve, not of +hypocritical and sceptical accommodation. We cannot doubt that Jesus +accepted at the outset, and shared, at bottom, the Messianic beliefs in +which He had been trained like all the children of His race. That His +disciples, in reporting His discourses on this point, exaggerated and +materialised them, need not be denied. But, on the other hand you can +hardly explain the unanimity of the earliest Christian tradition in +expecting His return upon the clouds if Jesus had professed entirely +opposite ideas. After all, is there anything more astonishing in His +sharing on this matter the hopes of His time than in the fact of His +having explained certain mysterious maladies as His contemporaries did +by demoniacal possession, or of His attributing Psalm cx., as did +certain of the rabbis, to King David; to the first Isaiah the work of +the second, and to Moses the redaction of the Pentateuch? These +current and traditional ideas, however, which came to Him, not from +heaven, but from His race and His environment, never succeeded in +corrupting the immutable purity of His inner piety or in falsifying the +divine inspirations of His heart. Whenever there was contradiction +between the Messianic beliefs or the Law of Moses, on the one hand, and +the consciousness of Jesus, on the other, it was not the latter but the +former that gave way and were transformed. + +The disciples were not so free as the Master. Their faith remained a +long time bound to these hopes of the future. Why had they left all +and followed Him but because He had appeared to them to be the bearer +and the depository of the divine promises? His death, which seemed to +belie their beliefs, only served to give them another turn. They +corrected prophecy. Instead of one Advent of the Messiah they imagined +two, the first in humiliation, the second in glory. The one having +been realised, they expected the other with a more ardent confidence. +No one doubted it was near. The apostle Paul lived in this hope as +well as the author of the _Apocalypse_, the compilers of the synoptic +gospels, and the editors of "The Teaching of the Apostles." The time +is short: the Master comes: _Maranatha_. This was the watchword of all +the early Christians. This faith in the imminent return of Christ and +of the end of the world dominates all the thoughts as well as the +feelings of the apostles: it determines and colours their Christology, +their theory of Redemption, their ethics, their idea of salvation, so +that to expound their writings and estimate the worth of their +reasonings, the historian must always read them and explain them in +this light. It is for this reason that their Christianity merits the +name of Messianic, and could not be, in this Jewish form, an absolute +_norm_ for all the ages. + +The disciples of Jesus, however, found themselves in a school in which +they could not perpetually mistake the lessons. The Christian +principle had appeared to be at one with Messianism; it was something +altogether different and could not continue for ever to be mixed up +with it. Under the contradiction of events and the action of the +spirit of Jesus, they soon began to see the dawn of a process of +spiritualisation in their apocalyptic beliefs. This progress is +manifest in the letters of St. Paul when read in their order and with +attention. In the first, he hopes before he dies to witness the advent +of the Lord. But, from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the +image of death and martyrdom begins to interpose itself between his +faith and that glorious ideal, which evermore seems to recede into the +future. It never entirely disappears, but this preoccupation with the +return of Jesus diminishes and occupies a smaller space in his later +epistles. On the contrary, the work of Jesus, considered in the past +and in its redemptive efficacy, the Christian life conceived as a life +of faith and love, as an imitation of Jesus Christ and an inheriting of +His Spirit, receive ever-increasing developments. Insensibly, the +centre of gravity of apostolic Christianity changes; from the +hypnotising contemplation of the Messianic future, it passes to the +sanctifying meditation on the passion of Christ, on His teaching, and +redeeming work. This is best seen in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and +in the Fourth Gospel, in which the Jewish Messiah is transformed into +the eternal _Logos_, the light of all men here below, and the principle +of the universal religion. + +The work of emancipation that men alone could not accomplish, God +Himself achieved. The conquests of the Church in the Empire, and +especially the double and irreparable ruin of Jerusalem and the Jewish +nation under Titus and under Hadrian, opened on the future other +prospects. The world continued. It was necessary to settle down and +live in it. Montanism was merely a last outburst of fever. By the end +of the second century, Jewish Messianism was so nearly dead that its +obstinate adherents were regarded as heretics by the Church at large. +Organised into a hierarchy, the Church substituted itself resolutely +for the ancient people of Israel, and represented itself as heir to the +ancient promises. The advent of the kingdom of God becomes the advent +and the victory of the Catholic Church over all the other powers of +earth. The Messianic Theocracy is transformed into a Church Theocracy. +Messianism gives place to Catholicism. + + +3. _Catholic Christianity_ + +Transplanted from the poor and arid soil of Hebraism into the rich and +fruitful loam of Graeco-Roman civilisation, the Christian plant was +sure to grow apace and be transformed. Catholicism is as much Pagan as +Apostolic Messianism was Jewish--from the same causes, and according to +the same law. More Greek in the East, more Roman in the West, it bears +always and everywhere the traces of its origin. Study successively all +the features of the Catholic Church, and you will find on each of them +this indelible mark. + +The dogmas of the Councils and the theology of the Fathers, who does +not see at the first glance their true character? Who does not see +that the material is Greek in form, in colour, in every fibre of its +tissue? Whence came those terms and notions, of which Hebraism knew +nothing, but which the theologians of all the schools will henceforth +bandy to and fro--those abstract concepts, substance and hypostasis, +nature and person, essence and accident, matter and form? Whence came +the science of the Fathers of the Church, their exegesis, their +history, their logic, their psychology, and that lofty metaphysic which +has so completely transformed the Prophetic into a Platonic firmament? +All this came from Athens, Ephesus, Samos, and Miletus, _via_ +Alexandria and Rome. The Justins, the Athenagorases, the Clements and +the Basils, Athanasius even more than Arius, Jerome as well as +Augustine, had been nourished from their childhood on Greek and Latin +literature. They had read Plato, Heraclitus, Zeno, Philo, Cicero, +Posidonius, and Seneca as much and more perhaps than the Old Testament. +What is there astonishing in the fact that their theology should have +followed step by step the theology of neo-Platonism until this latter, +for Augustine, should have become the true introduction to the Gospel, +and that in the Middle Ages the names of Plato and Aristotle should +have been invested with an authority not less than those of Isaiah, St. +Paul, and St. John? + +Or shall we pass to the constitution of the Church? What is that but +the exact counterpart of the constitution of the Roman Empire: the +parish modelling itself on the municipality, the diocese on the +province, the metropolitan regions on the great prefectures, and, at +the top of the pyramid, the bishop of Rome and the papacy, whose ideal +dream is simply, in the religious order, the universal and absolute +monarchy of which the Caesars had first set the pattern? Or would you +consider the moral life and the type of piety? It is true that at the +outset, and so long as the persecutions continued, there is a great +contrast between Jewish or Christian morals and manners and those of +Roman or Greek society. But, with time, the contrast is singularly +attenuated. If the Church conquered the world, the world had its +revenge within the Church. What is that monkish asceticism imposing +celibacy on the clergy, exalting virginity, multiplying pious works of +merit, and replacing, by factitious and sterile duties, the duties +dictated by nature and essential to society,--what are all these but +survivals of a dualism and the imitation of an ideal which, come from +the East, seduced the feverish imagination of an expiring world? The +monks, the anchorites and their theology of impotent celibates, did +they save Egypt, Syria, and Byzantium? + +During this time, what did worship, adoration, religion, properly +speaking, become? Between earth and heaven there reappeared the whole +ancient hierarchy of gods and demi-gods, of heroes, nymphs, and +goddesses, replaced by the Virgin Mother, angels, demons, saints. Each +town, each parish, every fountain, had its patron or its patroness, its +tutelary guardian, to whom they addressed themselves more familiarly +than to God in order to obtain temporal blessings and the grace for +every day. The saints have their specialities like the minor deities +of former times. Some cured fevers, some diseases of the skin. This +one had charge of travellers, that of harvests, a third of articles +that had been lost, a fourth of needed heirs in families in danger of +decay. With this mythology, all the superstitions were revived, down +to the grossest fetichism: pilgrimages, chaplets, litanies, the +veneration of images, signs of the cross, rites and sacraments +conceived after the manner of the ancient mysteries. And all this is +done with a sort of unconsciousness, very gradually, and as the effect +of a zeal that was supposed to be Christian. The heads of the Church +recommend missionaries not to destroy the temples of the false gods, +but to consecrate them to the true one, and to replace their images by +images of the saints, and the rites of the old cults by similar +ceremonies. Names and etiquettes were thus changed, but not the things +themselves. At Rome, beneath the basilica of St. Peter, a superb +statue was erected to the Prince of the Apostles. This was formerly a +statue of Jupiter. Its great toe has been worn down by the kisses of +the faithful. Before Christianity, they kissed the foot of the master +of the gods; now they kiss the foot of Peter. Is the cult of a +different order and the devotion of a higher quality? + +These, however, are but the forms of Catholicism; let us go deeper and +try to reach its generating principle. This principle should be found +in the central dogma of the Catholic system, that in it which commands +and regulates all the parts, which constitutes its unity and strength. +To designate this central dogma is not difficult. The catechism +teaches us that it is the dogma of the Church, of its infallibility and +traditional continuity, of its divine origin and supernatural powers. +Protestants affirm that they belong to the Church because they belong +to Christ. Catholics reverse the terms: no one is in communion with +Christ, no one really belongs to Him, unless he belongs to the Church. +Thus faith in the Church and submission to the Church are put into the +forefront and remain the one thing needful and essential. One is a +Catholic by the fact of his implicit acceptance of the sovereign +authority of the Church; one ceases to be a Catholic when that +submission ceases. From which it is easy to conclude that the +principle of Catholicism is the realisation of the Christian +principle--that is to say, of the reign of God and of Christ, in the +form of a visible institution, an organised social body, an external +power, exercising itself by means of that which is the very soul of the +institution--a priesthood endowed with supernatural functions and +attributes. + +The immediate consequence of this first principle was the rupture of +the organic union realised in the Gospel of Christ between the +religious element and the moral element. Nothing is more striking in +the Sermon on the Mount and in all the Parables of Jesus, nothing +better attests the superiority of Christianity to anterior cults, +nothing proves with greater force and clearness that it is the perfect +and definitive Religion, than that mutual penetration, that fusion, +that identification, in a word, of religion and morality, till then +separate and often opposed to each other. The Christ did not desire in +religion anything that was not in morality, or in morality anything +that was not religious. Thus did He bring back piety from without, and +made of it the inner inspiration which penetrates and transforms the +whole life, a hidden flame, a ferment acting from the centre to the +surface, the soul in the body, ever invisible and everywhere present. +He thus founded the absolute autonomy of the religious and of the moral +life which no longer are divided, but appear simply as the two sides of +consciousness; the one interior and turned towards God, the other +exterior and turned towards the world. In creating in us the sense of +our sonship to God, Jesus did not admit the intervention of any +external authority between the Father and the child. The universal +priesthood, with which, by His spirit, He invests the least of His +disciples, excludes in principle all supernatural priesthood. "Call no +man master on earth, for one is your Master in heaven; and all ye are +brethren." The children must have free access to the Father. + +But, from the moment the Christian principle, instead of entering as +divine inspiration into the consciousness, sets itself up as a visible +institution in society, it is evident that this organic union is +broken, and the autonomy of the individual consciousness compromised. +The religious element affirms itself on its own account, and imposes +itself from without on the mind of the faithful as a divine authority. +The ancient dualism, which the Gospel surmounted, reappears in a +profounder form; it brings in its train a universal +supernaturalism--that is to say, a mechanical conception of the +relations between God and the world. Instead of a penetration we have +a superposition of two elements. The clergy separates itself from the +laity and superposes itself upon it as the necessary intermediary +between earth and heaven. Religious society, constituted under the +form of a government, superposes itself upon the civil society that it +desires to rule; grace superposes itself upon nature, acting on it from +above in the sacraments; the morality of the Church, in so far as it is +a supernatural morality, superposes itself upon the natural morality of +conscience; revelation upon reason; divine dogmas upon human science; +the spiritual power of the priest upon the temporal power of the family +and of the State. Everywhere, within and without, the division breaks +out, and you see arise in man and in society an intestine struggle +which will never end; for these two original forces that it brings into +conflict, religion and nature, are equally powerful and eternal. + +Catholicism began, then, in the Church of the second century when, +under the unconscious action of tradition and of pagan habits, the need +was felt of objectivising and materialising the Christian principle in +an external fact, of imprisoning the kingdom of God in a visible +institution, the immanent revelation of the Holy Spirit in the +decisions and acts of a priesthood. This tendency, once born, would be +irresistible. Ideal and transcendent as it was at first, the Christian +principle would become ever more external and political. Absorbing all +Christianity, and holding in its hands all the graces of God, the +Church would naturally present itself to the world as the permanent +mediator and the grand magician. It was its part to effect the +salvation of sinners, and, for this, it would need, like the ancient +priests, to offer daily to God an agreeable oblation, an expiatory +sacrifice of infinite value to atone for the infinite sins of the +world. Thus the Church transformed the commemoration of the death of +Christ into a _real_ renewal of the sacrifice on Calvary; the Holy +Supper became the mass; the fraternal table was turned into an altar; +the elder or presbyter was changed into a priest and pontiff, and the +bread of the communion into a divine victim. The dogma of +transubstantiation was bound to follow; to the materialisation of +Christianity in the Church corresponds the materialisation of God in +the host. + +By virtue of the same principle, Christian piety becomes devotion, +_i.e._ a ritual and meritorious practice, as in the ancient cults. But +we must not be unjust and attribute something to Catholicism that it +condemns. It does not say that external practice is sufficient; the +Church esteems it vain and even culpable unless accompanied by the +affections and the will. + + * * * * * + +The first and principal act of piety is submission to the Church. Its +dogmas may be irrational, contradictory; its commandments may seem +arbitrary, foreign to the natural conscience, sometimes in +contradiction with it; no matter. + +Reason, conscience, all must abdicate, and all submit.... In the +Church, the Christian state must always be a state of minority, for the +tutelage that it accepts will never cease. And the authority of the +Church, being on this point sovereign and indefectible, could not +remain invisible and indeterminate. An imperious logic pushed it from +the first to incarnate itself in its organs, more and more apparent and +simplified. First it was lodged in individual bishops, then in +councils, until the Pope when speaking _ex cathedra_ became the sole +authority. In 1870 the Council of the Vatican, by promulgating the +dogma of Papal infallibility, drew the irresistible conclusion from the +premises laid down in previous centuries. The evolution of Catholicism +was completed. The transformation of Christianity into a sacerdotal +theocracy was achieved. The first is realised and exhausted in the +second, and the distinction we established, when speaking of the +essence of Christianity, between the Christian principle and its +historical realisations, is not merely effaced; it no longer has any +meaning. + +From which follow two consequences which every day become more clear +and patent. The first is that the Catholic Church, notwithstanding the +desires of Leo XIII., is fatally condemned to be intolerant and +intransigeant towards all others. The second is that it is +contradictory to expect any reform in that Church, or even to speak of +it; for the Church could not admit the necessity of reform without +renouncing all its pretentions. A river never turns back to its +source. Catholicism can only exist by struggling for supremacy. It +must be all or nothing. + +At the same time, things are not so simple as our systems. The logic +of ideas does not exhaust the reality of life. Behind abstract +principles there are pious souls.... In Catholicism there has always +been a latent Protestantism, by which I mean a protest, mute or spoken, +direct or indirect, of the Christian principle against the oppressions +of external and tyrannical authority.... Without the continuous +presence of the Christian spirit in the Catholic Church, the +Reformation would have been impossible. Without the triumph of the +sacerdotal spirit it would have been unnecessary. Protestantism sprang +out of Catholicism because it was virtually contained in it. + + +4. _Protestant Christianity_ + +It is strangely to mistake the nature of the Protestant Reformation of +the sixteenth century to see in it a sort of semi-rationalism, the +inconsistent exercise of free examination, or the revolutionary +introduction of a foreign philosophical principle into the warp and +woof of Christianity. You have only to read the biography of the +Reformers and to make a slight analysis of their soul to form an +entirely different idea of their work. The first and almost the only +question which preoccupies and troubles them is an exclusively +religious and practical question: "What must we do in order to be +justified before God? How may we attain to peace of soul and to the +assurance of pardon and of life eternal?" To find this peace, this +pardon and salvation, which the Church could not procure for them, they +determined to turn back and quench their thirst at the primitive +sources of the Gospel. They went back to the original documents +because they were persuaded that Christianity had been corrupted in the +course of centuries; they wished to have it in its purity. Their whole +reformation was to consist in this restoration of primitive truth. + +But history never recommences. This return to the past and this +re-reading of the Bible were accompanied by a religious experience and +an act of consciousness which made of their enterprise something +essentially new and original, and which rendered it immeasurably +fruitful. It is unnecessary to seek elsewhere than in psychological +experience the germ of Protestantism. It was in the humble cell of a +convent at Erfurt and in the soul of a poor monk that the drama was +first enacted from which sprang the revolution that has changed the +face of the world. + +Luther entered the convent with a faith in the authority of the Church +and in the efficacy of its rites as serious and entire as that of any +monk. "If it was possible," he said afterwards, "to reach Heaven by +monkery, I was resolved to reach it by that road." For years he shrank +from nothing that might render God propitious; he multiplied his acts +of devotion and his works of penance. There is a striking analogy +between the experiences of Luther under the monachal regime and those +of Saul of Tarsus under the discipline of the Pharisaic Law. The +_denoument_ was the same. For the second time, the system of pious +works was found powerless to appease a conscience which roused against +itself the rigour of its own ideal. This struggle against an external +law could only exasperate the sense of sin to the point of despair. +Paul and Luther, in precisely the same manner, experienced the inward +emptiness and radical worthlessness of the religious system in which +they had been trained. The more they had tried to realise it in its +perfection, the more had they found it wanting. Catholicism, +considered as a means of salvation, was rejected by the religious and +moral consciousness of Luther, before it was condemned by exegesis and +by reasoning. To reach this sentence without appeal the Saxon monk had +but to maintain inflexible the demands of the divine law and to +measure, without illusion, the abyss that separated him from God, and +that no human works could fill. It was in this way that he found +himself shut up to the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; he found +the peace that fled from him in the pure and simple acceptance of the +glad tidings of the paternal love of God, in the confidence that He +gives gratuitously that which man can never conquer for himself, +namely, the remission of sins and the certitude of eternal life. What +then is faith? Is it still intellectual adhesion to dogmas or +submission to an external authority? No. It is an act of confidence, +the act of a childlike heart, which finds with joy the Father whom it +knew not, and Whom, without presumption, it is happy henceforth to hold +with both its hands. That is what Luther found in Paul's great words: +"The just shall live by faith." In this radical transformation of the +notion of faith restored to its evangelical meaning is to be found the +principle of the greatest religious revolution effected in the world +since the preaching of Jesus. + +Let us therefore here set forth the radical opposition between the +Catholic principle and the Protestant principle in order that we may +thoroughly understand the internecine war that was henceforth to be +waged between them. In vain will eminent men in both camps, with the +most generous and conciliatory intentions, arise and endeavour to find +some middle ground, and effect a pacific reunion of the two halves of +Christendom. All compromises, all diplomatic negotiations, will fail, +because each of the two principles can only subsist by the negation of +the other. Having attained to salvation, to full communion with God, +independently of and in collision with the authority and the discipline +of the sacerdotal Church, how could Luther recognise them any longer as +divine and submit to them with sincerity and confidence? The ancient +edifice had been the more thoroughly ruined, inasmuch as it had become +useless and had been replaced. The originality of Luther consisted in +this: his religious enfranchisement sprang from his own piety, and he +founded his freedom on his sense of sonship, on the sense he had of his +quality and titles as a child and heir of God. How could such a +consciousness submit itself to the yoke again without denying itself? +Catholicism, on the other hand, cannot be less intransigeant. To +recognise in any degree whatever that it is possible to a Christian to +enjoy pardon and the sense of the divine fatherhood apart from its +dogmas and its priesthood, would not this be to abdicate all its +pretensions, and to transform itself to the point of destruction? + +No doubt, in actual life, this opposition is attenuated by the fact +that in all Catholicism there is a latent Protestantism, and in all +Protestantism a latent Catholicism. Between Port-Royal and Geneva, +between Bossuet and Leibniz, between Leo XIII. and the Anglican Church, +the distance seems but little. It is an illusion. Like two +electricities of the same name, no sooner do they come into contact +than they repel each other and separate more widely than before. In +Catholicism Christianity tends to realise itself as a theocratic +institution; it becomes an external law, a supernatural power, which, +from without, imposes itself on individuals and on peoples. In +Protestantism, on the contrary, Christianity is brought back from the +exterior to the interior; it plants itself in the soul as a principle +of subjective inspiration which, acting organically on individual and +social life, transforms it and elevates it progressively without +denaturalising and doing violence to it. Protestant subjectivity +becomes spontaneity and liberty, just as necessarily as Catholic +objectivity becomes supernaturalism and clerical tyranny. The +religious element is no longer separated from the moral element; it no +longer asserts itself as a truth or a morality superior to human truth +and human morality. The intensity of the religious life is no longer +measured by the number or the fervour of pious works or ritual +practices, but by the sincerity and elevation of the life of the +spirit. All asceticism is radically suppressed. Science is set free +along with conscience; the political life of the peoples, as well as +the inner life of the Christian. Man escapes from tutelage, and in all +departments comes into possession of himself, into the full and free +development of his being, into his majority. + +This subjective character of a religion strictly moral stamps itself +with energy on all the specific doctrines of Protestantism. It would +be superfluous to dwell upon the doctrine of justification by faith; +its subjective character is evident. No doubt the term justification +has a legal colour and awakens the idea of a tribunal. But it must not +be forgotten that this tribunal is nothing but the inner court where +man and God meet each other face to face, where man is accused by his +own conscience, and where the sentence which absolves him is the inward +witness of the Holy Spirit, heard by him alone. + +The doctrine of the sovereign authority of Scripture in matters of +faith might seem at first sight to set up an external authority. And +it is very true that certain Protestants have often understood it in +the Catholic sense, and have employed it to exercise some violence on +their own conscience or on the conscience of their brethren. But they +never succeed for long; they soon fall into a too flagrant +contradiction. The authority of the Bible is never separated in +Protestantism from the right of the individual to interpret it freely, +and from the personal duty of assimilating the truths he discovers in +it. What therefore are those Protestants doing who attempt to set up a +confession of faith as absolute and obligatory truth but imposing on +their brethren their own subjective interpretation, and, consequently, +denying to others the right which they exercise themselves? Nor let it +be forgotten, on the other hand, that the obligation laid on each +Christian to read the Bible and draw from it his faith is a perpetual +and fruitful appeal to the energy of thought and to the autonomy of the +inner life. The authority of Scripture, so far from being a menace to +Christian liberty, is its invincible rampart. Not only has the +Protestant Christian in the name of the Bible triumphed over eighteen +centuries of tradition, but it is the Bible, an appeal to the Bible +ever better understood, which has saved Protestant theology from +scholasticism, which has prevented it from congealing in a confession +of faith, and which, leaving the principle of the Gospel in an ideal +transcendence in relation to all its historical expressions or +realisations, has maintained, and still maintains, the spirit of reform +in the Churches of the Reformation. + +The doctrines of grace and of predestination, which are at the centre +of Calvinism, have no other meaning. Souls religiously inert see in +these doctrines nothing but an abuse of blind power, a sort of divine +_fatum_, breaking every spring in the human soul. Nothing appears to +be more oppressive or more immoral. But this is only an appearance. +There is really no predestination for irreligious souls. This doctrine +is but the expression of the inner basis of all true piety, which is +nothing if it is not the sense, the feeling, of the presence and the +sovereign and continuous action of God in each soul and in all the +universe. No other sentiment gives so much spring and vigour to the +human will, nothing raises it to such a height or makes it so +invincible to all assaults from within and without. "If God be for us, +who can be against us?" etc. (Rom. viii. 31-39). How is it that the +Calvinistic Puritans of New England were the founders of modern +liberty, and the Jesuits, those admirable theorisers on freewill, the +precursors of all the servitudes? It is with predestination as it is +with religion itself. Conceived as exterior to the life of the soul, +it gives birth, no doubt, to a crushing despotism; conceived as an +inward inspiration, sustaining the initiative and even the liberty of +the individual, it becomes, in the Christian soul, the source of a +force which nothing can break or subdue. + +But the point at which the antithesis between Protestantism and +Catholicism becomes most patent is the doctrine of the natural +priesthood of all Christians as opposed to that of the supernatural +priesthood of a privileged clergy. The free and perpetual communion of +believing souls with the Father is the foundation of the independence +of each and of the fraternal equality of all. The tap-root of +clericalism is cut. The individual is a priest before the interior +altar of his conscience; the father is a priest in his household; the +citizen, if so he wills, in the city. + +The Catholic notion of dogma vanishes with all the rest. To speak of +an immutable and infallible dogma, in Protestantism, is nonsense; that +is to say, if we accept the dictionary definition of dogma--the +promulgation by the Church of an absolute formula. The decision of a +Church cannot have more authority than that Church itself. Now, no +Protestant Church holds itself, or can hold itself without denying +itself, to be infallible. How then could it communicate to its +definitions an infallibility that it did not itself possess? +Protestant confessions of faith are always conditioned in time, and can +never be definitive; they are always revisable, consequently they are +always liable to criticism and to reform. Thus ceases the +solidification of traditional dogma. The old ice melts beneath the +breath of knowledge and of piety. The river takes again its natural +course, and evolution, under the control of a perpetual criticism, +becomes the law of religious thought, as of all other human activities. + +From these observations and analyses (necessarily abridged) the true +nature of Protestantism will have become sufficiently clear. It is not +a dogma set up in the face of another dogma, a Church in competition +with a rival Church, a purified Catholicism opposed to a traditional +Catholicism. It is more and better than a doctrine, it is a method; +more and better than a better Church, it is a new form of piety; it is +a different spirit, creating a new world and inaugurating for religious +souls a new regime. It is equally evident that Protestantism cannot be +imprisoned in any definitive form. It leads to variety of formulas, +rites, and associations as necessarily as the Catholic principle leads +to unity. No limit can be set to its development. Always interior, +invisible, ideal, the religious principle that it represents +accompanies the life and activity of the spirit into all the paths that +man may pursue and in all the progress he may make. Nothing human is +alien to it; nor is it alien to anything that is human. It solves the +problem of liberty and authority as it is solved by free and ordered +governments; it does not suppress either of the terms, but conciliates +them by reducing authority to its pedagogic _role_, and by making the +Christian spirit the soul and inner rule of liberty. + +By very reason of its superiority, and of the conditions of general +culture that it presupposes, this form of Christianity could only +appear after all the others. The spirit can only become self-conscious +by distinguishing itself from the body in which at first it seems as if +diffused, and by opposing to it an energetic moral protest. "That is +not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterwards +that which is spiritual" (1 Cor. xv. 46. Cf. Gal. iv. 1-5). This +divine plan, which the apostle discovered in the ancient history of +humanity, is repeated in the history of Christianity. The Messianic +form corresponds to infancy, to that brief, happy age in which the +impatient imagination nourishes itself on dreams and illusions which +the experience of life soon dissipates without killing or even +enfeebling the immortal hope at the heart of it. The Catholic form, +which succeeds it, endures longer and corresponds to the age of +adolescence, in which education is painfully prosecuted, and it demands +a strict external discipline and masters whose authority must not be +questioned or discussed. It was in this way that Catholic discipline +and authority conducted the slow, laborious education of the pagan and +barbarian world up to the sixteenth century. + +But a moment must arrive when the work of education had succeeded, when +the leading strings essential to childhood began to be a bondage and a +hindrance. The pedagogic mission of the Church, like that of the +family itself, had its limit and its term in the very function it +fulfilled. That function was to make adult Christians and free men, +not men without rule, but Christians having in themselves, in their +conscience and their inner life, the supreme rule of their thought and +conduct. This new age of autonomy, of firm possession of self, and of +internal self-government, is that which Protestantism represents, and +it could only commence in modern times--that is to say, with that +general movement which, since the end of the Middle Ages, is leading +humanity to an ever completer enfranchisement, and rendering it more +universally and more individually responsible for its destinies. + +It may be remarked that by this evolution, and under its Protestant +form, the Christian principle was only returning to its pure essence +and its primitive expression. It could only recognise itself, take +cognisance of its true nature, separate itself from that which was not +itself; it could only disencumber itself of every material, temporary, +or local element, of all by which it had become surcharged in the +course of ages, and which was neither religious nor moral, by +remounting to its source, and by renewing its strength, through +reflection and criticism, at its original springs. That is why +Protestantism has taken the form of this return to the past, for in it +Christianity does not surpass itself; it simply tries to know itself +better and to become more faithful to its principle. In the +consciousness of Christ, what did we find was the essence of the +perfect and eternal piety? Nothing more than moral repentance, +confidence in the love of the Father and the filial sense of His +immediate, active presence in the heart: the indestructible foundation +of our liberty, of our moral dignity, of our security, in face of the +enigmas of the universe and the mysteries of death. Is it not to this +eternal gospel that we must always return? To finish its course and +complete its work, will humanity ever discover another viaticum that +will better renew its courage and its hope? + + +5. _Conclusion_ + +Here I must stop. At the outset I spoke of a personal confession, and +it seems to me as if it were nearly complete. In sketching the broad +outlines of the religious history of humanity, I have had but one +object; I have wished to show the men of my generation why I remain +religious, Christian, and Protestant. I am religious because I am a +man and do not desire to be less than human, and because humanity, in +me and in my race, commences and completes itself in religion and by +religion. I am Christian because I cannot be religious in any other +way, and because Christianity is the perfect and supreme form of +religion in this world. Lastly, I am Protestant, not from any +confessional zeal, nor from racial attachment to the family of +Huguenots, although I thank God daily that I was born in that family, +but because in Protestantism alone can I enjoy the heritage of +Christ--that is to say, because in it I can be a Christian without +placing my conscience under any external yoke, and because I can +fortify myself in communion with and in adoration of an immanent Deity +by consecrating to Him the activity of my intellect, the natural +affections of my heart, and find in this moral consecration the free +expansion and development of my whole being. + +Under this new form, divested of the swaddling-clothes by which at +first it was bound, Christianity always seems to me to be best as it +is, a spiritual and eternal principle, which brings peace to the soul, +and which alone can give harmony and unity to the world. Nothing can +contradict it except evil and error; everything serves and strengthens +it. It is this principle which to my eyes manifests itself with +ever-growing clearness in that heroic love of Science which, in our +time, has created so many marvels and made so many martyrs; this it is +which reveals itself to me in the works of all the great artists, in +that ideal of beauty which enraptures them and brings such generous +tears into our eyes; it is this which I honour and bless in the efforts +of men who interest themselves in the future of humanity, and who in +the political direction of their country or in the work of social +education seek and find some means of raising and ameliorating the +condition of the people: I salute it in the illustrious apostles of all +great causes and in the obscure workers at all humble tasks, from the +mother who teaches her children to join their hands and bend their +knees before the Father in Heaven, to the preacher and the missionary +who faithfully distribute to the hungry soul the bread of the Gospel, +from the sister of charity who devotes her life to the solace of the +sick and suffering, to the thinker who fathoms the mysteries of the +heart and of the universe in order that he may shed on the paths of +erring humanity some rays of light and joy. + +Amid the twilight that envelopes us you predict the threatening night; +I see the day that is about to dawn with a new century. Where you see +nothing but discords, conflicts, and confusion, I see a concourse of +forces which, coming from all points of the horizon, are still ignorant +of each other, and, because ignorant, conflicting, but which, by these +very conflicts and collisions, are labouring together in the common +work of elevation and salvation: the mysterious work whose nature +Christ defined in His Gospel, and whose motive-power he created by +breathing into the human heart His own fraternal love. Since then +there has been a secret inquietude at the heart of all egoisms, a +sentence of condemnation on the brow of all abuses and all tyrannies. +The modern world can never settle down again into repose, or fall +asleep in evil and in slavery; it has had a vision it cannot forget; it +has been touched with a flame that cannot be quenched. Many who are +often the best collaborators in this work of redemption know not whence +it comes and whither it tends; they even blaspheme the Christ who +inspires it and the God who maintains it. They know not what they do, +nor what they say: in their ignorance they calumniate that which is +best both in their life and in themselves. + + + + +BOOK THIRD + +DOGMA + + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT IS A DOGMA? + +1. _Definition_ + +Dogma, in the strictest sense, is one or more doctrinal propositions +which, in a religious society, and as the result of the decisions of +the competent authority, have become the object of faith, and the rule +of belief and practice. + +It would not be enough to say that a religious society has dogmas as a +political society has laws. For the first, it is a much greater +necessity. Moral societies not only need to be governed; they need to +define themselves and to explain their _raison d'etre_. Now, they can +only do this in their dogma. + +Dogma therefore is a phenomenon of social life. One cannot conceive +either dogma without a Church, or a Church without dogma. The two +notions are correlative and inseparable. + +There are three elements in dogma: a religious element, which springs +from piety; an intellectual or philosophic element, which supposes +reflection and discussion; and an element of authority, which comes +from the Church. Dogma is a doctrine of which the Church has made a +law. + +All the peoples of antiquity believed that their legislation came from +heaven. In like manner all the Churches have believed, and many of +them still believe, that their dogmas, in their official form, have +been directly given to them by God Himself. The history of evolution, +political and religious, has dissipated these illusions. Every law of +righteousness and truth should, doubtless, be referred to the +mysterious action of the Divine Spirit which works incessantly in the +spirits of men; but, in its historical form, it bears, nevertheless, +the stamp of the contingent conditions in which it is born. The genius +of a people is nowhere more manifest than in its constitution and its +laws, nor the soul and the original inspiration of a Church than in its +dogmatic creations. The work always bears the moral impress of the +workman. + +It follows that a Church cannot claim for its dogma more authority than +it possesses itself. Only a Church which is infallible can issue +immutable dogmas. When Protestantism sets up such a pretension, it +falls into a radical contradiction with its own principle, and that +contradiction ruins all attempts of this kind. + +In Catholicism the theory of the immutability of dogmas is opposed to +history; in Protestantism it is opposed to logic. In both cases the +affirmation is shown to be illusory. It is with dogmas, so long as +they are alive, as it is with all living things; they are in a +perpetual state of transformation. They only become immutable when +they are dead, and they begin to die when they cease to be studied for +their own sakes--that is, to be discussed. + +Dogma, therefore, which serves as a law and visible bond to the Church, +is neither the principle nor the foundation of religion. It is not +primitive; it never appears until late in the history of religious +evolution. "There were poets and orators," says Voltaire, "before +there was a grammar and a rhetoric." Man chanted before he reasoned. +Everywhere the prophet preceded the rabbi, and religion theology. It +may be said, no doubt, that dogma is in religion, since it comes out of +it; but it is in it as the fruits of Autumn are in the blossoms of +Spring. Dogmas and fruits, in order to form and ripen, need long +summers and much sunshine. The best way to describe their nature will +be to trace their genesis. + + +2. _The Genesis of Dogma_ + +Dogma has its tap-root in religion. In every positive Religion there +is an internal and an external element, a soul and a body. The soul is +inward piety, the movement of adoration and of prayer, the divine +sensibility of the heart; the body consists of external forms, of rites +and dogmas, institutions and codes. Life consists in the organic union +of these two elements. Without the soul, religion is but an empty +form, a mere corpse. Without the body, which is the expression and the +instrument of the soul, religion is indiscernible, unconscious, and +unrealised. + +Which of these two elements is primitive and generative? The answer is +not doubtful. Modern psychology has learnt it in a manner never to be +forgotten from Schleiermacher, Benjamin Constant, and Alexander Vinet. +The principle of all religion is in piety, just as the principle of +language is in thought, although it is not possible now to conceive of +them as being separate. Consider a moment. That religion which time +and custom have transformed, perhaps, into a mechanical round of +ceremonies, or into a system of abstractions and metaphysical theories, +what was it at first? Trace it to its source, and you will find that +these cold blocks of lava once came burning hot from an interior fire. + +But this is the parting of the ways. This is the point at which +religious minds separate into widely different groups. + +Regarding religion as a saving institution in the form of a visible +organised Church maintained by God and provided with all the means of +grace, Catholicism was bound to end in a sort of mechanical psychology, +and to explain the sentiment of piety as the inward effect of the +outward and supernatural institution. This is done by Bellarmine and +de Bonald, the most consistent of the Catholic theologians. +Protestantism, on the contrary, which makes of the faith of the heart, +of the immediate and personal relation of the soul to God, the very +principle of justification, and of all religious life, was bound none +the less logically to end, by analysis, in a more profound psychology, +and to refer to an inward principle all the forms and manifestations of +religion. Religious history thus becomes homogeneous, and runs +parallel with that of all the other activities of the human mind. + +None the less, this subjectivity of the religious principle frightens +many good men. Persons devoted to practice, and unconsciously +dominated by the habits and necessities of ecclesiastical government +and religious teaching, hesitate to enter upon a road so naturally +opened. As, from generation to generation, religion has been taught +and propagated externally by the Church, the family, or special agents, +it is impossible for them to imagine that it was not always so, and not +to trace back to God Himself that chain or tradition of external +instruction. In which they are certainly right. Their only error, but +it is a grave one, is to represent God as an ordinary teacher, the +first of a series, who once acted, like the rest of them, upon His +pupils from without; whereas God works in all souls, acts and teaches +without ceasing through all human masters, and is present throughout +the whole religious education of humanity. + +Who does not see that to represent things otherwise is to remain in the +crudest and least religious of anthropomorphisms? At bottom, these men +are afraid of losing revelation, which they rightly judge to be +inseparable from the very idea of religion. They object that piety and +the awakening of the religious sentiment must have an objective cause, +and that that cause can only be a revelation of God Himself. Nothing +is more true; but this revelation which is effected without, in the +events of Nature or of History, is only known within, in and by the +human consciousness. This inward inspiration alone enables religious +men to interpret Nature and History religiously. Now, this +interpretation is made by their intellect and according to the laws and +conditions which regulate it. The religious phenomenon therefore has +not two moments only, the objective revelation as a cause and the +subjective piety as an effect; it has three, which always follow each +other in the same order: the inner revelation of God, which produces +the subjective piety of man, which, in its turn, engenders the +historical religious forms, rites, formularies of faith, sacred books, +social creations, which we can know and describe as external facts. It +will be seen what an error they commit, what a mistake they make, who +identify the third term with the first, suppressing the second, which +is the necessary link and forms the transition between the other two. +Whoever will fathom this little problem in psychology, and reflect upon +it with a little attention, will see that all religious revelation of +God must necessarily pass through human subjectivity before arriving at +historical objectivity. + + * * * * * + +Passing now from the intellectual interpretation to the intellectual +expression of religion, and noting the successive stages through which +it must necessarily advance towards dogma, I remark once more that +man's first language is that of the imagination. The imagination of +the child or of the savage animates, dramatises, and transfigures +everything. It spontaneously engenders vivid and poetic images. At +the beginning, religion, consisting chiefly of emotions, presentiments, +movements of the heart, clothed itself in mythologic forms.... But the +age of individual reflection comes. The image tends to change into the +idea. Men interpret, define, translate it. The religious myth is +replaced by the religious doctrine. These are at first entirely +personal interpretations. Nevertheless, these opinions desire to +propagate themselves, to become general, and, as they are imperfect and +diverse, they engender conflicts which threaten to become schisms. +Myths, appealing to the imagination merely, and only professing to +translate the common emotion, draw souls together and fuse them into a +real unity; individual reason, private exegesis, inevitably separates +them. But the consciousness of the community, thus menaced, naturally +reacts by the instincts of conservation. There is therefore a struggle +between the two, and out of this conflict dogma is born. + +A new element must intervene. There must be a Church. Now, all +religions do not form churches. The phenomenon is only produced in the +universalist and moral religions. Strictly speaking, there is no +Church except in Christianity; and no dogmas save Christian dogmas. In +ancient societies, where religion was confounded either with the State, +or with the nationality, the religious unity was maintained and +guaranteed by the same means as the political unity. There were no +dogmas, because dogmas were of no use. As much may be said of Hebraism +and of Islam: in them there were rites, external signs and seals, which +sufficed to weld and to maintain the religious bond. + +Dogma only arises when the religious society, distinguishing itself +from the civil, becomes a moral society, recruiting itself by voluntary +adherents. This society, like every other, gives to itself what it +needs in order to live, to defend itself, and propagate itself. +Doctrine necessarily becomes for it an essential thing; for in its +doctrine it expresses its soul, its mission, its faith. It is +necessary also that it should carry its doctrine to a degree at once of +generality and precision high enough to embrace and to translate all +the moments of its religious experience and to eliminate all alien and +hostile elements. Controversy springs up and threatens to rend it. +The Church then chooses and formulates a definition of the point +contested: it enacts it as the adequate expression of its faith, and +sanctions it with all its objective authority: dogma is born. From +that moment also the two correlative notions of _orthodoxy_ and +_heresy_ are formed. Orthodoxy is official and collective doctrine; +heresy is individual doctrine or interpretation.... By and by symbols +or confessions of faith are formed, and these become the standards of +faith and practice in the various churches that adopt them. + +This long evolution is fully justified in the eyes of reason. It is a +movement of the mind as legitimate as it is necessary. The germ must +become a tree, the child grow to manhood, the image be transformed into +the idea, and poetry give place to prose. It is possible to be +mistaken as to the nature, origin, and value of dogma, but not as to +its necessity. The Church may make a different use of it in the +future, but it will not be able to dispense with it, for the doctrinal +form of religion answers to an imperative need of the epoch of +intellectual growth at which we have arrived. No one can either +reverse or arrest its development.... + +The word dogma is anterior to Catholicism. It had two senses in Greek +antiquity: a political and authoritarian sense, designating the decrees +of popular assemblies and of kings; this is the meaning which dominates +and characterises the Catholic notion of dogma. But the word had also +in the schools of Greece an essentially philosophical and doctrinal +meaning; it designated the characteristic doctrine of each school. The +Protestant Churches have inherited this latter sense of the word: it is +in perfect harmony with the spirit and the principle of Protestantism. +Dogma, in the Protestant sense, means the doctrinal type generally +received in a Church, and publicly expressed in its liturgy, its +catechisms, its official teaching, and especially in its Confession of +Faith.[1] + + +[1] Originally the word dogma signified a command, a precept, and not a +truth (Luke ii. 1, and the Septuagint of Dan. ii. 13; vi. 8; Esther +iii. 9; 2 Maccab. x. 8, etc.). Ignatius of Antioch still uses the word +in this sense. It is not until towards the time of Athanasius or of +Augustine that it begins to be used of the doctrinal decisions of the +Fathers, the Councils, and the Pope. (Cf. also Acts xv. 28, 29. This +is afterwards called a dogma, the only time it is used in the N.T. with +reference to a decision of the Church.) + + + +3. The Religious Value of Dogma + +The intolerance of Catholic dogmatism has had consequences so +revolting, and, in Protestantism, wherever this dogmatism has revived, +it has given rise to conflicts so sterile and so lamentable, that +certain minds have gone so far as to deny the utility of dogma in the +largest sense of the word, and have wished to suppress all doctrinal +definition of the Christian Faith. To call dogma either divine in +itself or evil in itself is to go to an unwarrantable extreme. In +religious development, whether individual or social, it has an organic +place that cannot be taken away from it, and a practical importance +that cannot be contested. + +Religious faith is a phenomenon of consciousness. God Himself is its +author and its cause; but it has for psychological factors all the +elements of consciousness--feeling, volition, idea. It must never be +forgotten that these verbal distinctions are pure abstractions; that +these elements co-exist, and are enveloped and implicated with each +other in the unity of the ego. In the living reality there has never +existed feeling which did not carry within it some embryo of an idea +and translate itself into some voluntary movement.... As it is +impossible for thought not to manifest itself organically by gesture or +language, so it is impossible for religion not to express itself in +rites and doctrines. + +No doubt, in the first period of physical life, sensation dominates, +and at the _debut_ of religious life, feeling and imagination. But as +science springs from sensation, so religious doctrine springs from +piety. To say that "Christianity is a life, therefore it is not a +doctrine" is to reason very badly. We should rather say, "Christianity +is a life and therefore it engenders doctrine;" for man cannot live his +life without thinking it. The two things are not hostile; they go +together. In apostolic times the greatest of missionaries was the +greatest of theologians. St. Augustine at the end of the old world, +Calvin, Luther, Zwingle, at the beginning of the modern world, followed +the example of St. Paul. When the sap of piety fails, theology +withers. Protestant scholasticism corresponds to a decline of +religious life. Spencer, by re-opening the springs of piety, renewed +the streams of theology. Without Pietism Germany would have had no +Schleiermacher; without the religious revival at the beginning of this +century we should have had neither Samuel Vincent nor Alexander Vinet. + +If the life of a Church be compared to that of a plant, doctrine holds +in it the place of the seed. Like the seed, doctrine is the last to be +formed; it crowns and closes the annual cycle of vegetation; but it is +necessary that it should form and ripen; for it carries within it the +power of life and the germ of a new development. A Church without +dogmas would be a sterile plant. But let not the partisans of dogmatic +immutability triumph: let them pursue the comparison to the end: +"Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and _die_," said Jesus, +"it bears no fruit." To be fruitful, dogma must be decomposed--that is +to say, it must mix itself unceasingly with the evolution of human +thought and die in it; it is the condition of perpetual resurrection. + +Without being either absolute, or perfect in itself, then, dogma is +absolutely necessary to the propagation and edification of the +religious life. The Church has a pedagogic mission that could not be +fulfilled without it. It bears souls, nourishes them and brings them +up. Its role is that of a mother. In that educative mission, we may +add, the mother finds the principle and aim of her authority, the +reason and the limit of her tutelage. In this sense, dogma is never +without authority. But this same pedagogic authority is neither +absolute nor eternal; it has a double limit, in the nature of the +pupil's soul, which it ought to respect, and in the end it would +attain, the making of free men, adult Christians, sons of God in the +image of Christ and in immediate relationship to the Father. If dogma +is the heritage of the past transmitted by the Church, it is the +children's duty first to receive it, and then to add to its value by +continually reforming it, since that is the only way to keep it alive +and to render it truly useful and fruitful in the moral development of +humanity. It is therefore to this idea of necessary dogma, but of +dogma necessarily historical and changing, that we must henceforth +accustom ourselves; and we shall most easily habituate ourselves to it +by tracing its evolution in the past. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION + +1. _Three Prejudices_ + +I here encounter three prejudices which are, I think, the most +inveterate in the world. The first is that dogmas are immutable; the +second, that they die fatally the moment they are touched by criticism; +the third, that they form the essence of religion, which rises or falls +with them. I wish to show that dogmas have neither this pretended +immobility nor this delicate fragility; that they live by an inner life +extraordinarily resistant and fecund, and that the criticism of dogmas, +so far from injuring the Christian religion, frees it from the chains +of the past and permits it to manifest its marvellous gift of +rejuvenescence and adaptation to circumstances. + +The proof that dogmas are not immutable lies in the fact that they have +a history. That history is as full of conflicts, controversies, +revolutions, as the history of philosophy.... One Church has said of +its dogmas what a Jesuit General said of his Order: _sint ut sunt aut +non sint_! It is an illusion. Momentarily arrested at one point, the +movement begins again at another. In one half of Christendom, and +certainly the most living half, criticism of dogma has never ceased +since the sixteenth century. Even in the bosom of the Catholic Church, +its most skilful advocates, the Moehlers and the Newmans, unable to +deny that Catholicism is not to-day what it was in the first centuries, +have made this strange concession to history; they have applied to +dogmas the theory of development. At Paris in 1682 the dogma of the +infallibility of the Bishop of Rome would have been condemned as an +error. Since 1870 the orthodoxy of 1682 has become the gravest of +heresies. There is no fiction more evident than that of the +immutability of dogmas, whether in the Catholic or in the Protestant +Churches. Like all other manifestations of life, they have an +evolution as natural as it is inevitable. The proof that dogmas are +not religion, and that criticism does not kill them but transforms +them, will appear in what I now proceed to say. + + +2. _The Two Elements in Dogma; and its Historical Evolution_ + +Dogma is the language spoken by faith. In it there are two elements: a +mystical and practical element, the properly religious element; this is +the living and fruitful principle of dogma: then there is an +intellectual or theoretical element, a judgment of mind, a +philosophical proposition serving at once as an envelope and as an +expression of religion. + +Now, it is not an arbitrary relation which unites and amalgamates these +two elements in dogma; it is an organic and necessary relation. Go +back for a moment to the origin of religious phenomena, and to the +formation of the first and simplest doctrinal formulas. In presence of +one of the great spectacles of Nature, man, feeling his weakness and +dependence with respect to the mysterious power revealed in it, +trembled with fear and hope. This is primitive religious emotion. But +this emotion necessarily implies, for thought, a relation between the +subject which experiences it and the object that has caused it. Now, +thought, once awakened, will necessarily translate this relation into +an intellectual judgment. Thus, wishing to express this relation, the +believer will exclaim, _e.g._ "God is great!" marking the infinite +disproportion between his being and the universal being which made him +tremble.[1] He obeys the same necessity which makes him ordinarily +express his thought in language. Religious emotion then is transformed +in the mind into the notion of a relation, _i.e._ into an intellectual +notion which becomes the expressive image or representation of the +emotion. But the notion and the emotion are essentially different in +nature. In expressing it, and thanks to the imagination, the notion +may renew or fortify the emotion, and dogma may awaken piety; but the +two must not be confounded. The notion is like an algebraic expression +which ideally represents a given quantity, but it is not the quantity +itself. This must be clearly kept in mind if we are to avoid the most +disastrous confusions. In religion and in dogma the intellectual +element is simply the expression or envelope of the religious +experience.... + + +[1] It might be supposed that I make of this elementary experience the +primary root whence all dogmas, including the Christian, have sprung by +a process of evolution. Nothing of the kind. This is but a particular +example. The revelation of Nature is the principle of the dogmas of +the Religions of Nature. Christianity has behind it another revelation +and other experiences: the revelation of God and of a higher life, in +the historical appearance of Jesus Christ. Let a man morally prepared +to hear the Gospel begin to follow Him, listen to His words, penetrate +His soul, comprehend His death, and he will cry out: "God is Love!" as +the spectator of Nature was supposed to exclaim: "God is great!" And +this new proposition, translating a new religious relation, will, in +its turn, become the principle of all Christian dogmas. + + +The intellectual will therefore be the variable element in dogma. It +is the matter united to the germ, and it is ceaselessly transformed by +the very effect of the movement of life. The reason of this is simple. +We said just now that a religious emotion, like every other, translates +itself into a notion which fixes the relation of the subject to the +object, implied in the emotion itself. But what will this notion be? +With what materials, with what concepts, will the religious man +construct it? Clearly with those at his disposal. His religious +formula will depend on his state of intellectual culture. A child, he +will think and speak religiously as a child. Religious reason and +language have followed the same steps as the general reason.... + +I am well aware that many Christians imagine that God has revealed to +us dogmas in the Bible, and that they will accuse me of denying +revelation. God forbid! We believe with all our soul in Divine +Revelation and in its particular action in the souls of prophets and +apostles, and especially in Jesus Christ. Only, the question is +whether the revelation of God has consisted of doctrines and dogmatic +formulas. No. God does nothing needless, and since these doctrines +and formulas can be and have been conceived by human intelligence, He +has left to it the care of elaborating them. God, entering into +commerce and contact with a human soul, has produced in him a certain +religious experience whence, afterwards, by reflection, the dogma has +sprung. That therefore which constitutes revelation, that which ought +to be the norm of our life, is the creative and fruitful religious +experience which first arose in the souls of the prophets, of Christ, +and of His apostles. We may be tranquil. So long as this experience +shall be renewed in Christian souls, Christian dogmas may be modified, +but they will never die. But why should we retain dogmas which, in the +nature of things, must always be imperfect? Why not have religion pure +and simple without dogmas? What would happen if we listened to this +cry for pure unmixed religion? By suppressing Christian dogma you +would suppress Christianity; by discarding all religious doctrine you +would destroy religion. How many great and eternal things there are +which never exist, for us, in a pure and isolated state! All the +forces of Nature are in this case. Thought, in order to exist, must +incarnate itself in language. Words cannot be identified with thought, +but they are necessary to it. The hero in the romance, who was said to +be unable to think without speaking was not so ridiculous as was once +supposed, for that hero is everybody. The soul only reveals itself to +us by the body to which it is united. Who has ever seen life apart +from living matter? It is the same with the religious life and the +doctrines and rites in which it manifests itself. A religious life +which did not express itself would neither know itself nor communicate +itself. It is therefore perfectly irrational to talk of a religion +without dogma and without worship. Orthodoxy is a thousand times right +as against rationalism or mysticism, when it proclaims the necessity +for a Church of formulating its faith into a doctrine, without which +religious consciousnesses remain confused and undiscernible. + +The mistake that orthodoxy sometimes makes is in denying or desiring to +arrest the constant metamorphosis to which dogma, like all living +things, is subject. So long as they are alive, dogmas have the faculty +of changing and evolving. How is their evolution effected? The +analogy between dogma and language will help us to the answer. A +language is modified in three ways: (1) By disuse, _i.e._ by the +disappearance of words whose contents have vanished; (2) by +intussusception, _i.e._ by the faculty which words have, without +changing their form, of acquiring new significations; (3) by the +renaissance of old or the creation of new words, _i.e._ by neologisms. + +Nothing is easier than to establish these three kinds of variations in +the history of dogmas. Some religious formulas perish from disuse; +others acquire a new content; while still others are themselves +renewed. Many doctrines that were once alive and prevalent are seldom +heard of now; they gradually passed out of use. There is hardly a +dogma dating from the seventeenth or the sixteenth century that has now +the same signification that it had at the beginning. The new wine that +has been put into them has modified the old skins. There are limits, +however, to the elasticity of words and formulas. There comes a moment +when the new wine bursts the old skins, and when the Church has to +construct other vessels to receive it. In this way neologisms spring +up in languages, and new dogmas in theology. In the sixteenth century +the dogmas of Justification by Faith and of the universal priesthood +were resuscitated with a new energy. The verses of Horace, on which I +might appear to have been commenting, are eternally true: + + Ut silvae foliis pronos mutantur in annos, + * * * * * + Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere cadentque + Quae nunc sunt in honore, vocabula... + * * * * * + + +The evolution of dogma is possible; why is it necessary? Simply +because the material of which it is composed is in a state of constant +flux and evolution.... We do not mean to say that everything in the +old formulas should be condemned. There are to be found in them many +great and excellent ideas which still retain their truth and power. We +simply say that there is nothing absolute in them, nothing that may be +imposed by authority on Christian thought. It is always with notions +borrowed from current science and philosophy that the Church constructs +her dogmas. But science and philosophy are continually evolving and +carrying dogma in their train. Everything changes, even our manner of +thinking. Why do certain things appear absurd or grotesque in the +imaginations of the past? Because we have lost the faculty for +comprehending them. It is as impossible for us to think in Greek as to +speak in Greek. Since the end of the Middle Ages two or three +intellectual revolutions have occurred which have profoundly separated +us from antiquity and changed the inner and the outer world in which we +live. It will suffice to recall them in a few words in order to deepen +our sense of the decadence of Graeco-Roman dogmatic Christianity, and of +the necessity incumbent upon us to reform and renovate it, if only we +are strong enough to answer to the call of God. + + +3. _The Crisis of Dogma_ + +The first of these revolutions was a religious one. Our specific +consciousness as Protestant Christians dates from the Reformation. +Now, the Evangelical Reformation of the sixteenth century was the +rupture of the tradition of the Church, of which the Dogmatics of the +great Councils was the framework and the centre. In breaking the +authority of the Church, the Reformers broke up the basis on which +those ancient dogmas had been built. In appealing to the Word of God +against traditional doctrines, they at least called in question the +Dogmatics of the Councils. After protesting against all the +infiltrations of pagan manners and superstitions into the morals of the +Church, into its organisation and its hierarchy into its worship and +its rites, why should they regard as sacrosanct the ancient philosophy +which had entered into the construction of its dogmas? + +On the other hand, the Reformation renewed the Christian consciousness +by its fundamental doctrine of Justification by Faith. Until then +salvation had come through adhesion to the Symbols of the Church and +obedience to its commands. Justification by Faith (and faith here +means the trust of the heart) freed the Christian from the tutelage of +the priesthood and the bondage of Symbols. To maintain that you can +only be saved by believing certain theological doctrines, is the same +as to say that you can only be saved by doing certain works; it is to +add to or to substitute for faith some other condition of salvation. +The second principle of the Reformation therefore also shook the +ancient edifice; in Dogmatics it substituted the internal principle of +Christian experience for the external principle of authority; it made +of Christianity a moral life and no longer a metaphysic. Is it not +right and necessary to give the new principles of the Reformation a new +theological expression? This process has been going on ever since the +sixteenth century and can never cease. + +The Reformation displaced the centre of the Christian consciousness. +At the same time there began a scientific revolution which displaced +the centre of the universe. I speak of that which is connected with +the names of Copernicus and Kepler, and which was continued by such men +as Galileo, Newton, and Laplace. Modern astronomy, geology, biology, +etc., have completely changed the outlines and the horizon of our +philosophy, and rendered for ever impossible the popular cosmogonies +which, until then, had reigned supreme. And who does not see the +bearing of this revolution on our views of Scripture, on its +cosmography in particular, and on many of its minor teachings? The +traditional doctrines of creation have been greatly modified, as also +the doctrines as to the origin of evil, suffering, and death. These +discoveries, it is said, have ruined religion, and are destroying +Christian faith. Not so. What is being destroyed is the debris of an +ancient philosophy. But they do compel us, absolutely, if we would +remain in touch with the thought of our age, to modify the formulas by +which the Church has hitherto believed that she might render an account +of the origin and evolution of the universe. + +A third intellectual evolution has been effected in our own time by the +advent of the Historical Method. This has completely upset the +traditional view of the history of mankind. Floods of new light have +been poured upon the prehistoric and historic races of man. Modern +criticism and exegesis have given us an entirely new view of the origin +and contents of many parts of the Old and New Testaments. In every +department of knowledge the historic method has made the point of view +of evolution possible and victorious. It is in vain to oppose it, for +it is the law of life. Those who cling to the doctrine of dogmatic +immutability, whether in the Catholic or the Protestant Churches, are +exactly in the position of the Romish cardinals who covered Galileo +with anathemas and protested energetically against the rotation of the +earth. Neither their protests nor their anathemas prevented the earth +from turning round, and the cardinals along with it. In Protestantism, +a resistance so blind would be the grossest of inconsistencies. +Dogmatic revision is always alive, both in principle and in fact, in +the Churches of the Reformation: in principle, because all Confessions +of Faith are relative, and subordinate to the Word of God; in fact, +because the spirit of research, of criticism, and free discussion has +never ceased to breathe in Protestant Theology, and breathes to-day +more ardently than ever. The work will therefore be completed; I am +sure of it. We may lack the faith and courage to carry it on, but, +failing us, God will not fail to raise up other fellow-workers with +Himself in this great enterprise. Christianity cannot perish; it has +never failed to adapt itself to the state of mind of ages past; in the +future, it will find and make new forms in which to express and +propagate itself, forms adapted to the coming times.... + +"One day, the monk Sarapion, a man of deep piety and ardent zeal, was +told by the priest Paphnutius and the deacon Photinus that God, in +whose image man had been created, was a purely spiritual being, without +body, without external figure, without sensible organs. Serapion was +convinced by the ascendancy of Catholic tradition and by the arguments +that had been employed. The assistants rose to render thanks to God +for having rescued so holy a man from the wicked heresy of the +anthropomorphists. But, in the midst of their devotions, the unhappy +old man, feeling the image of the God to whom he had been accustomed to +pray vanishing from his heart, was deeply moved, and bursting into sobs +and tears, he threw himself upon the ground, and cried out: 'Woe is me! +Unhappy man! They have taken away my God. I have no one now to cling +to and invoke.'"[2] + + +[2] J. Cassanius, abb. Massil.: Collatio, X. c. III. + + +Touching image of our own experience and of the experience of humanity! +We are always making to ourselves some idol or other. It is very +difficult for us to realise that God is spirit: we attach ourselves +therefore to some fetish of human fabrication. And then, when science +comes and takes it away from us, we are troubled and perplexed, as if +they had taken from us God Himself. The study of dogmas and their +evolution, were it wider spread, would relieve us of our illusions and +calm our inquietude. It would teach us that our religious life depends +on our faith alone, and that the God Who is its source and end is +independent of all theory or representation, because He is infinitely +above all human conceptions, and because, in order never to be +separated from Him, it suffices that we worship Him in spirit and in +truth. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS + +1. _The Mixed Character of Dogmatics_ + +We have shown the necessity of a free criticism of dogmas. This +criticism, if it is religious, will at the same time be positive; it +will tend not to destroy, but to distinguish, in each dogma, that which +is truly religious and permanent from that which is philosophical and +fleeting. Such is the object of the discipline that, in the schools, +is called _Dogmatics_, or the Science of Dogmas. It remains to define +its task and to point out the resources which it has at its disposal. +Both points are connected with its relation to the Church and to +Philosophy. The science of dogmas has always necessarily followed the +life of the one and the vicissitudes of the other. + +In the religious experiences of the Church it finds the material that +it elaborates; from philosophy it borrows the methods according to +which it treats this material and the form in which it organises it. +This science is, therefore, a mixed science: positive and practical in +its object, speculative and theoretical in its procedure, it seeks to +connect the religious and moral experience with the rest of the +experience of humanity, and to effect the synthesis claimed, in order +to their full vigour, by the scientific order of thought and by the +moral order of practical life. + +This intermediate position of our science, between the Church and +philosophy, constitutes its independence and its originality. If, as +in Catholicism, it were absolutely subjected to the authority of the +Church, and were limited to receiving, without critical examination, +its successive decisions and traditions, it would be confounded with +the history of dogmas, and would be merely a survival of scholasticism. +On the other hand, if it did not start from the data furnished by +history and by the personal and collective experience of piety,--if it +did not study the Christian life in its objectivity and in its historic +continuity, but abandoned itself to purely subjective and general +speculations--it would be fatally confounded with philosophy. It +escapes this double peril, first, by taking as its object the study of +the doctrinal tradition of the Church, tracing it back to its +generative principle, following it in its successive forms and +necessary evolution; and, secondly, by freely applying to this +objective material the principles and rules of a truly rational method, +a method that may be avowed as such by philosophers. It thus +constitutes the philosophy of religion in general and of Christianity +in particular, setting itself to connect the consciousness of the +Church with the general consciousness of humanity, and establishing or +maintaining between them communications equally profitable to both. + +It follows that our discipline, in studying the tradition of the +Church, is independent of philosophy. On the other hand, the fact that +it borrows its methods and processes from philosophy, renders it +independent with regard to the Church. Its freedom springs from its +twofold subjection. Such a little principality, placed between two +great rival Powers without whose help it could not live, maintains its +independence of them both by virtue of their very rivalry, and may +become an arbiter, an element of pacification and good understanding, +between forces which are only hostile because they either do not know +or do not understand each other. Thus the science of dogmas will be +free, pacific, fruitful, on condition that it does not break its +connection on either hand, but remains in close communication with the +two sources of its life, without which it would be liable either to die +of inanition for want of food, or of impotence for lack of liberty. + + +2. _The Science of Dogmas and the Church_ + +A religious society cannot dispense either with doctrines or doctrinal +teaching. The more moral it is in its character, the more it needs a +dogmatic symbol which defines it and explains its _raison d'etre_. It +will have its teachers as well as its pastors and missionaries. The +apostle Paul compares the Church to an organism in which each member +has its necessary function, according to the special gift it has +received. "God," says he, "gave some, apostles; some, prophets; some, +teachers" (1 Cor. xii. 28; Rom. xii. 6-8. "Teaching of the Apostles," +13 and 15). In passing through different lips the Gospel takes +different forms. It creates divers types of doctrine, divers schools +or parties (1 Cor. i. 10-14). It is necessary to instruct the +ignorant, to refute heretics, to heal schisms, to administer reproofs, +to correct the interpretation of texts. This could only be done by +means of discussion, reasoning, exegesis, speculation. It was not an +effort of pure science, but of practical science, in the interest of +the Church itself, with a view to its inner edification and to the +continuous reform of its worship and its faith. The labour of +dogmatics thus sprang up spontaneously in the bosom of the Church +itself, and it has continued its work, not from without, but from +within, through an office which is an essential ministry, an organ of +the Church. It could not be done well in any other way.... + +A religious society, by the very fact that it endures, creates a +doctrinal tradition, and this tradition soon assumes a divine character +and tends to become an absolute authority. This is the effect of a +psychological illusion characteristic of the religious consciousness so +long as reflection does not put it on its guard against itself. The +object of our faith being divine, we ingenuously transport this quality +into the formula by which it has been transmitted to us, and we hold +this formula to be divine before we have learnt to distinguish between +the essence of faith and its historical manifestations, between the +religious substance of the doctrine and its traditional expression. +Add to the prestige of the past the necessity of educating the new +generations. Every Christian begins as a catechumen, and, in certain +respects, he is and ought to be a learner all his life, for he cannot +fail to see that the collective consciousness is always richer and more +stable than his own. But, if the aim of Christian education is to +produce adult Christians--that is, Christians who, having received the +Holy Spirit, have entered into a direct and permanent relation to the +common Father, and into personal and living piety, they possess an +inward rule of conduct, and along with this a principle of free +judgment. As St. Paul says, our tutelage ends when we have attained to +our majority. The spiritual man judges all, but is judged of none. He +becomes independent of the authority under which he has grown up, as +the full-grown man becomes free from the mother who has borne and +nourished him. He will, doubtless, always gratefully welcome the +tradition of the past; but he feels within himself a higher principle +which gives him the right to amend and the power to increase, in some +degree, the inheritance he has received from his fathers. No one is +either a man or a Christian on any other condition. + +The solution of the problem named above is to be found in these +considerations. A tradition which desires to be absolute, which +misunderstands and stifles individual inspiration, is not only an +usurper--it also fails in its mission, which is to make adult +Christians, Christians who are inwardly inspired and autonomous. It is +like those tyrannical mothers who, if they could, would keep their sons +in a perpetual minority. On the other hand, the children, even when +they have attained their majority, should not despise their parents and +disdain the counsels of experience and of age. Individual inspiration +is apt to lead to self-sufficiency and sectarianism; it loses sight of +the link of solidarity which unites the generations, and the social +continuity in which alone progress is made in the religious life, as in +the life of civilisation. The first defect, the tyrannical usurpation +of tradition, predominates in the Catholic Church; the opposite defect, +that of the intransigeance of individual convictions and of Illuminism, +is the plague of Protestant communities. The truth would be found in a +middle course, and in the organisation of a traditional Church stable +enough to receive and keep the heritage of the past, large and flexible +enough to permit in it the legitimate expansion of the Christian +consciousness and the acquisition of new treasure. + +To this ideal, Catholicism cannot resign itself without succumbing to +death. Protestantism aspires to it without reaching it; and yet +nothing is more really in the logic of its principle. No Protestant +Church professes to be infallible. Its most solemn Confessions of +Faith have only a provisional value. The spirit of reform breathes in +it without truce, continually. The principal task of the community, as +of the individual, is to amend itself, to advance in knowledge and in +virtue. A Church which should exclude this spirit of reform would +cease to be a Protestant Church. And, of course, the duty of reform +implies the legitimacy of criticism, of an appeal to the Gospel better +understood, of a constant effort to bring the real up to the ideal. +The only matter of importance is to decide aright on the principle or +criterion according to which this criticism shall be made. + +Shall it be another dogma? No; not even if it be called a fundamental +one such as the authority of Scripture. For this very dogma, +formulated by tradition, is therefore human and contingent, and is open +to criticism like all the rest. With what then, or in the name of +what, shall dogma be criticised? Shall we, with Rationalism, take a +moral or philosophical axiom as the criterion? We should then violate +the autonomy of the religious consciousness; we should denaturalise +religion itself, by subjecting it to an external rule; and Dogmatics, +basing its fabric on an alien principle, would produce a hybrid +structure that would be rejected by believers and philosophers with +equal disdain. + +The principle of criticism of Christian dogmas can only be the +principle of Christianity itself, which is anterior to all dogmas, and +which it is the aim of dogmas to manifest and to apply. Now the +principle of Christianity is not a theoretical doctrine: it is a +religious experience--the experience of Christ and His disciples +through the centuries. It is the Gospel of salvation by the faith of +the heart, the revelation of a moral relation, of a new relation, of a +filial relation, created and realised between the man who is sinful and +lost, and the Father who calls and pardons him. Such is the initial +germ from which the whole Christian development has sprung, and by +which consequently that development should and can be judged. + +This generative principle of the life and of all the dogmas of the +Church being laid down, and the distinction established between the +ideal principle and its successive realisations, all of them +necessarily incomplete, the criticism of dogmas will be effected +automatically, without violence, and with fruit. It will be enough to +tell the story of the genesis and evolution of each of them. It will +then be seen what contingent and perishing elements have entered into +it in the course of history. Christianity is an organism whose soul is +immortal, but whose body is renewed unceasingly by the fact that its +materials are in constant movement, and that they are gathered from the +various environments through which it has to pass. The philosophical +notions which have served it as a temporary expression, and which are +doubly dead to-day, either because civilisation has advanced, or +because they were without vital connection with the initial Christian +experience, fall from the tree like withered leaves or lifeless +branches. As to the others, in which the sap still rises from the +mother root, they will be seen to be transformed, to grow and flower +from year to year under the same salubrious breath of criticism. Our +discipline, religiously faithful to the principle of Christian piety, +may often find itself in conflict with the administrative powers of the +Church, but never really with the Church itself. + + +3. _The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy_ + +If less burning, the problem of the relations of dogmatics to +philosophy is perhaps more difficult to solve than the problem just +discussed. It has given rise to quite as many controversies. The +danger is twofold. On the one hand, there is the pretension of +scholasticism, the attempt to absorb philosophy in theology and make it +subservient. It is still the pretension of a certain simple Protestant +orthodoxy, for which there is no philosophy outside the Christian +faith. At the other extreme is the attempt of rationalism to include +the Christian religion in general ethics and philosophy. In the first +case it is dogmatics which absorbs philosophy; in the second it is +philosophy which absorbs dogmatics. But, in both cases, the +specifically religious phenomena are lost sight of, the original +character of Christian piety is misconceived, and theology, no longer +having any special domain, succumbs and vanishes. It is the merit of +the Reformation of Luther, in the sixteenth, and of the thought of +Schleiermacher and Vinet in the nineteenth century, to have brought out +and rendered manifest, among all other psychological phenomena, the +character _sui generis_ of Christian faith and life, and thus to have +assigned to theology an object of study, eminent no doubt, but very +special and very circumscribed. A task was thus marked out for +theology widely different from that of philosophy--a task which +consists, not in explaining everything in heaven and earth, but, more +modestly and usefully, in giving an account of the religious experience +of the Christian Church. Saved at once from scholasticism and +rationalism, dogmatic theology may therefore build itself up in its own +domain by the side of the other sciences without menacing or fearing +any of them. + +Its relations to philosophy will become clear if we call to mind a very +simple distinction. Philosophy to-day comprises two parts very +different in nature: a study of the thinking subject, or, as it is +sometimes called, a critique of reason, or a theory of knowledge; in +the second place, a doctrine on the essence and the necessary relations +of beings, a metaphysic, or a theory of the universe. + +It is easy to see that all the positive sciences are differently +related to these two parts of philosophy. None of them, for instance, +can dispense with the first, with the criticism of our faculty of +knowing and of our means of reasoning, under penalty of mistaking the +worth of its own hypotheses, and even the regularity of its processes. +It is clear that a physicist cannot dispense with correct syllogisms or +with vigilance against illusions of the senses and other errors of +method. But, on the other hand, no savant would accept the yoke of any +metaphysic whatever which should come to him _a priori_ to dictate to +him its conclusions. Upon indications of this nature he desires to +form hypotheses and make new experiments; but, as a savant, he will +never pronounce before that supreme and decisive consultation of facts. + +It is exactly the same with the relations of dogmatics to philosophy. +It will have recourse to it for all that regards the theory of +knowledge in general and the theory of religious knowledge in +particular. Like every other science it needs to ascertain the scope +of its instrument in order that it may be under no illusion as to the +worth of the work it accomplishes. But also, like every other science, +it has the right and the duty to challenge and neglect all general +metaphysic which, flowing from another principle than that of the +Christian religion, would dictate to it articles of faith or rules of +morality. + +Let it not be said that every theory of knowledge soon begets a +metaphysic in its own image. We know theories which deny the very +possibility of metaphysics, and it is a question whether a truly +Christian dogmatic accommodates itself to it better than any other +theory. It may be maintained in fact that the act of faith which is +the expression of the conservating energy of the ego and the principle +of all religion is accomplished all the more freely when there is no +knowledge, properly speaking, there to hinder it. A common prejudice +requires that we should have metaphysics as a support to religion. It +is on religion, on the contrary, that metaphysics and ethics rest. Man +did not become religious when he heard that there were gods; he only +had the idea of God and believed in Him because he was religious. +Mystery was the natural cradle of piety. Faith is much less an +acquisition of knowledge than a means of salvation and a source of +strength and life. It is one thing to speculate on the universal +problem; it is another to place one's self by the heart in a living +relation of trust, of fear, or of love to the mysterious Being on whom +all other beings depend. Religion may possibly be under the necessity +of ending in a metaphysic, but a metaphysic does not necessarily end in +religion, for there are some kinds of metaphysic which either exclude +religion or render it impossible. + +A theory of religion, dogmatics can have no other starting point than +religious phenomena themselves. From this concrete and experimental +principle, from this state of soul produced by the immediate feeling of +a necessary relation to God, the entire system should spring and +develop. What is not in religious experience should find no place in +religious science, and should be banished from it. + +It would only be to its detriment, then, that the science of dogmas +should throw away its liberty by espousing beforehand metaphysical +theses or the final conclusions of any philosophy whatsoever. These +theses, springing from another source than religion, have no right, in +that religion, to become articles of faith. Rational truths not born +of religious feeling would be in dogmatics so many dead weights and +heterogeneous elements, which would lead to the greatest incoherence. +To build up a professedly revealed theology on a professedly natural +one is to construct a system without either unity or profound +connection. Such a dualism of principles is as intolerable to science +as to piety. Instead of dogmatics subordinating itself to metaphysics, +metaphysics ought to include dogmatics as well as the results of all +the other sciences. + +It is altogether different with the criticism of our means of knowing. +In every order of science it is mere levity of mind to commence or to +conclude researches a little general without having first determined +the precise conditions of real knowledge. The absence of a +philosophical critique of this nature explains why savants, so rigorous +in their special studies, show a philosophical _naivety_ so great in +the conclusions that they draw from them, and so readily crown their +discoveries by a pseudo-metaphysic that they impose upon the multitude +with all the authority and prestige of science. More than any others, +theologians are guilty of this abuse when they wish to make their +science the sum of universal knowledge. They would be more soundly +religious were they more modest and more reserved. An excellent means +of putting ourselves on our guard against this illusion and its +deplorable consequences will be to institute, without further delay, a +rigorous criticism of religious knowledge. This task, I believe, has +never been seriously attempted in France. It is, however, as +indispensable to the right conduct of the mind as it is fitted +radically to cure us of our dogmatic pride and to inspire us with +tolerance and humility. This will be the object of the following +chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +CRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE + +He who says consciousness says science, or at least, the beginning of +science. Consciousness implies a representation. In other words, no +modification of the ego becomes conscious except by awakening in the +mind a representative image of the object that has produced it and of +the relation of that object to the ego. All our sensations and all our +feelings are accompanied by images. The religious sentiment does not +attain to the light of consciousness in any other way. It is because +it is a state or conscious movement of the soul that it becomes, it +also, a principle of knowledge. + +No kind of mental life begins with clear and abstract ideas. An idea +is derived from an image, and, in order to produce the image, an +external or an internal impression is necessary. It is true that the +idea or the image has, in its turn, the mysterious power of reproducing +and renewing the sensation or the feeling from which it sprang. On +this is based the art of teaching and the power of tradition. But this +must not be allowed to produce in us the illusion that originally the +idea preceded the sensation. The development of the mental life of +children is proof of the contrary. We only know that by which we or +our kind have been in some degree affected. Our ideas are simply the +algebraic notation of our impressions and movements. That which is +outside our life is outside our view. Without the external sensations +which represent the action of the world on the ego, we should have no +knowledge of the world. Without the subjective reaction of the ego +against that action of the world, a reaction which manifests itself in +the moral, aesthetic, and religious life of the soul, we should have no +moral or religious idea, no notion of the good or the beautiful. All +our metaphysical ideas come from that source. + +It remains, of course, to inquire what is the worth of ideas of this +order. It is the particularly complex and delicate question that we +here approach. There is no serious philosophy to-day that does not +start with a theory of knowledge. Religious knowledge cannot escape by +any special privilege. The criticism of it is all the more necessary, +because illusion, in this matter, is so easy, and because it clothes +itself in a sacred character. The theologian who undertakes the +scientific treatment of dogmas without first measuring the scope of the +instrument he employs, and estimating the worth of the materials he +uses, knows not what he is doing. + + +1. _Obsolete Theories of Knowledge_ + +Formerly three explanations of our knowledge prevailed in philosophy: +the hypothesis of a primitive revelation; the idealist theory; and the +sensualist theory. + +The first was revived three quarters of a century ago by de Bonald and +Joseph de Maistre. It no longer needs to be refuted. According to +this hypothesis, our ideas came to us, not from within, from the +naturally productive force of the mind, but from without, by way of +supernatural communication. This communication from God consisted at +the outset in the gift to man of a perfect language. The exact word +brought with it the right idea. "Man," said de Bonald, "thought his +speech before speaking his thought." If errors have crept in and +reigned among men, it is because they were not able to preserve without +corruption the sacred deposit of that primitive language and +philosophy. Is it necessary to show how thoroughly this theory is +contradicted by psychology and history? It is said that in certain +countries there still exists a Botany, according to which the Great +Spirit, having created the trees of the forest, comes in the night each +Spring to stick the leaves and blossoms on the branches. The immediate +communication of right ideas and supernatural virtues to man in his +infancy implies a contradiction; it forces us to imagine in him +thoughts prior to the action of his intellect and virtues previous to +the action of his will. Lastly, it is to misconceive the nature of the +mind to make of it something passive and inert. The mind is the +thinking and willing force--that is to say, a force productive of +thoughts and volitions. If it is not this, it is nothing. We must +affirm, no doubt, that God creates this force and directs its +evolution, but it is a contradiction to say at once that He creates it +and that it is unproductive. It cannot exist without being productive. +It is of its very essence to produce. Mind is only mind in so far as +it is a force that produces thought and volition. + +The aim of this hypothesis, moreover, was to found the divine authority +of an infallible tradition by making it go back to the earliest times. +These revealed ideas, by the very fact that they are the ideas of God, +have an absolute and eternal value. Man finds them guaranteed in the +religious caste, to which the deposit has been confided, and which has +preserved them intact. Thus arose the idea of an infallible authority. +So they say. But the idea of dogmatic authority never appears in early +times; it is of very late date; it is elaborated very slowly, according +to a psychological law that we have already discovered. Everywhere, +and in the traditions of all religions and Churches, it appears after +all other doctrines as the keystone which closes and binds together the +arch. It is an ultimate dogma logically derived from other dogmas, and +afterwards used as a warrant for them. Such was the dogma of Papal +Infallibility promulgated at the Vatican Council of 1870; such, in +Protestantism, was the dogma of Biblical infallibility, completed by +the theologians of the seventeenth century. To base the value of +religious notions on a supernatural authority, with a view to rendering +them indisputable, is a vicious circle; the authority, it is evident, +is the product of these notions themselves. All systems of authority +end by shutting themselves up in this circle and perishing in it. + +The idealist theory of the origin of ideas is but the philosophical +form of the preceding one. It also is an endeavour to trace back our +general ideas to the divine understanding as their primary source. +Pure ideas, type-ideas, according to Plato, constitute the intelligible +Cosmos of which material phenomena are but the unreal and ephemeral +shadows. Clearly to conceive these divine ideas is to reach the +transcendent reality of things--it is to possess true knowledge. From +Platonism to the realism of scholasticism, from this to the geometry of +Spinoza and the dialectic of Hegel, the form of the theory has varied +constantly; the substance of it has remained the same. Hegel always +said: "The rational is the real," and, for him, as for Plato, absolute +knowledge resolved itself into perfect logic. + +Psychology has long since dispelled the scientific illusion of +idealism. We do not wish to recall the pitiful failure of all the +attempts formerly made, and even in our own times, to deduce _a priori_ +the laws of the physical world. Everywhere, in this domain, the method +of observation has superseded the deductive method. The reason of it +is simple. An idea, however lofty, can only give out what it contains, +_i.e._ other ideas. We know very well that our ideas are in our mind, +but they are only in it in the state of ideas. How do we know that the +objects which they represent exist outside ourselves? Only by logic +can we pass from the idea of a thing to the external reality of that +thing. Experience is necessary. Without it our ideas are empty forms. +One may conjure with them for ever without ever reaching anything +objective. They are shells without kernels. Pure idealism, so far +from furnishing a solid theory of knowledge, ends in scepticism, _i.e._ +in the negation of knowledge. + +The excesses and failures of idealist theories of knowledge have always +given rise in history to the opposite theory of sensualist nominalism, +according to which our ideas are simply transformed sensations. +Unhappily, sensualism, in laying down this axiom, never explained the +nature and still less the cause of that marvellous transformation. +"There is nothing in the understanding," said Locke, "that was not +previously in the senses." To which Leibniz rightly replied: "Except +the understanding itself;" that is to say, the force which from +sensation draws knowledge. By suppressing this ideal principle, you +remove from science all element of necessity--that is to say, all +general worth. With Hume, the sensualist theory, so far from giving an +account of knowledge, ended in pure phenomenalism, _i.e._ once more, in +scepticism. It is, in fact, with isolated sensation as with pure idea; +you may press it as much as you will, you will never get out of it +anything but what it contains--that is to say, contingencies without +any connection between each other. Materialism is still more +embarrassed to furnish any theory whatever of knowledge, for it does +not even succeed in explaining sensation. Between a mechanical +movement and a phenomenon of consciousness there is an impassable +abyss. One of the most evident marks of the inferiority of the +philosophy of French positivism is that it has not even approached this +problem of knowledge, and that it has been able to constitute itself +without any other than the popular psychology. + + +2. _The Kantian Theory of Knowledge_ + +Thinkers may to-day be divided into two classes: those who date from +before Kant, and those who have received the initiation and, so to +speak, the philosophical baptism of his critique. These two classes of +minds will always have much ado to understand each other. The first +are dogmatists or Pyrrhonists. The second no longer comprehend either +dogmatism or Pyrrhonism. For them, the point of view has been +displaced. Thanks to Kant, we judge both our knowledge and our faculty +of knowing; we give an account to ourselves of the conditions in which +it performs its functions, of the forms which determine it, and of the +limits that it cannot pass. Kant compared, without exaggeration, the +revolution which he effected in philosophy to that which the discovery +of Copernicus effected in the system of the world. In philosophy also +the sun has ceased to move round the earth, and the ancient illusion +has been vanquished and dispersed. The idea and the reality no longer +coincide; they are disjoined. The intelligible no doubt is real; but +it is not certain that all the real is intelligible. Reality appears +to us now as surpassing not only our knowledge, but our means of +knowing. The religious notion of mystery has entered into +consciousness. Man has attained to intellectual humility. Like his +body, his mind is a mean between the infinitely great and the +infinitely little, between nothing and everything. The deductive +philosophy of the unity and necessary and continuous unfolding of an +eternal substance, gives place to the philosophy of observation, which +will be found to be that of the antinomies whose permanent conflict +produces the ascensional progress of the world and of life. + +To make Kantism end in scepticism shows a lack of intelligence. His +system enables us, on the contrary, to form the _scientific_ theory of +science. The truth is to be found neither in dogmatism nor in +Pyrrhonism, both of which Pascal combated with equal vigour. In modern +science there is a certitude invincible to the subtlest Pyrrhonism; but +there is also in it a sense of the limits of our knowing faculty and of +the relative character of our most solid constructions which forbids +man ever to be puffed up to the point of believing himself to be God. +To be in this mean is to be in the truth. The same critique which +establishes the validity of human knowledge lays down the limits beyond +which it cannot go. We have come to know ourselves better, and that is +the mark of all true progress in philosophy. _Know thyself_ is always +its first rule and its final fruit. + +The Kantian theory of knowledge, while satisfying the mind, at the same +time sets forth the essential antinomies whose normal play constitutes +the very life of the ego and explains its multiple manifestations. + +There are two elements in all knowledge: an _a posteriori_ element +which comes from experience, and an _a priori_ element which comes from +the thinking subject. The first is the _matter_ of knowledge; the +second is the _form_. Separate, these two elements are unproductive. +With the first alone we have but a reality not known; with the second +alone we have but a knowing without reality. Their union renders them +mutually fruitful by organising the data of experience into the +necessary forms of thought. The principle of causation, _e.g._, is not +in things; it is in the mind, and it is the mind which spontaneously +connects all phenomena. Science, at bottom, consists in nothing but +the causal connection of things. Where the chain breaks, positive +knowledge ends. This clear sense of ignorance on points on which we +really are ignorant is still a part of science and one of its principal +forces, for it proves that it knows itself very well, and also knows +the conditions apart from which it no longer exists. But, whether +triumphant or held in check, positive science can neither renounce its +task and method nor modify their nature. It can only seek to complete, +or rather to lengthen, the chain of phenomena. The success of this +ever-identical effort, an effort always in the same direction, is what +is called its conquests and its progress. It follows that the +irresistible tendency of science will be to extend over the whole of +the phenomena the ever-tighter network of an invincible necessity. +Determinism is its last word. + +On the other hand, the ego which knows is an acting ego. Its thought +itself, properly speaking, and this display of science, are only one of +the forms of its inner activity. It wills, and it must will. If the +world acts on it by sensation, it acts incessantly on the world by its +volitions. And let it not be said that the will simply represents a +mechanical reaction of the ego, exactly equivalent to the action of the +external world upon it,--that it is a simple transformation of +energy,--for this is not true. Without here raising the question of +liberty, it is certain that I do not give back in will simply what I +have received under the form of sensation. I deliberate on the motives +which urge me to act; I choose between them; I feel myself under +obligation; I feel that I should will the good. It is impossible to +conceive of moral action without the idea of end. I conceive it, +therefore, under a different form from that of mechanical action. +Responsibility and obligation are not less the necessary forms of will +than logical necessity is the necessary form of thought. But soon +there arises in man the most tragical of conflicts. Scientific +determinism renders moral activity unintelligible, and moral activity +comes into collision with the determinism of science. If mechanical +determinism be absolutely true, my will is null; I am simply an +automaton. If my responsibility is real, if my personal energy is not +an illusion, there is in the world something besides matter, and, for +man, there are other than mechanical laws. Thus divided in myself, I +ought not to practise what I know, and I cannot do what I ought. I +remain floating between a science which is not moral and a morality +that I feel to be unscientific. My intellect destroys my will. As the +one develops the other dies. The better I know the laws of the world +the less reason I have for living and acting. My morality, at each +act, gives the lie to my science, and my science, at each affirmation, +refutes my morality. Such is the deep malady, the spiritual misery, of +the best of our contemporaries. They feel that, with them, vital +energy is in inverse proportion to the extent and penetration of +thought. It is then that they declare that pessimism, a radical +pessimism, is the truth; that existence, will, desire, are the chief +evils, and that the supreme effort of science should be to cure us of +them by delivering us from all our illusions; after which, in its turn, +it will be extinguished itself, like a flame that has consumed the food +on which it fed. + +Still, the conscious subject is one. You cannot proclaim it vain +without at the same time proclaiming the vanity of its ideas as well as +of its efforts. The ruin of morality draws after it the ruin of +science. Moreover, the conflict of which we speak is different from a +theoretical contradiction whose solution may be indefinitely postponed. +The conflict is practical; it is of the vital not of the intellectual +order. It is an internal dissolution of the being itself, a struggle +between its elementary faculties, in which the mind is weakened, +droops, and dies. + +The solution, therefore, if there be one, can only be a practical one, +a solution springing from the will. What is needed is to give the mind +confidence in itself. It is necessary to increase the energy of its +inner life in order that it may find the strength to believe and to +affirm in face of the universe the sovereignty of spirit. This is the +same as saying that the solution of the conflict is religion; not an +external religion, doubtless, in whose hands the thought and will of +man should abdicate--that would in no wise re-establish their inner and +living harmony--but an inward religion, an activity of spirit which +grasps in itself the supremacy of the universal spirit, and by an act +of intimate confidence, an instinctive impulse of the being ready to +perish, affirms to itself its own dignity, and makes to spring up out +of its own substance the irresistible religion of spirit. Thus the +conflict of the theoretic reason and the practical reason eternally +engenders religion in the heart of man. Let us show more clearly still +this necessary genesis of religion. + +In observing, in reasoning, in generalising, I arrive at a certain +knowledge of that which surrounds me; this knowledge of external +objects forms within me the contents of what I call my knowledge of the +world. On the other hand, in acting, in living, in exercising my will, +is formed what I call my knowledge of myself. Consciousness of self, +and consciousness of the world, condition and determine each other, and +cannot exist without each other. But, at the same time, they enter +into mortal conflict. The ego desires to master the world, and the +world, in the end, devours the ego. Thought triumphs over Nature and +contemns it; Nature takes its revenge and swallows up thought in its +abyss. The consciousness of self wishes to bring over to itself the +knowledge of the world; and this absorbs and devours the consciousness +of self. The synthesis and reconciliation can only be found in the +consciousness of something superior to self and the world on which both +of them absolutely depend. This synthetic and pacificatory +consciousness is the consciousness of universal and sovereign Being; it +is the sense of the presence of God. To escape from his distress, man +has never had any but this means of salvation. The savage has recourse +to it, according to his degree of intellectual life, when, under terror +of the phenomena of Nature, and of ever-threatening death, he calls to +his aid the obscure power of his gods. The philosopher, nourished on +speculation, and arrived at the dualistic and divided consciousness of +the disciples of Kant, obeys the same instinctive impulse and the same +vital necessity when he seeks in the notion of God the conciliation of +the conflict which he feels between the ego and the world, between pure +reason and the practical reason. He needs a universal Being on whom he +feels himself to depend, and on whom he may equally make to depend the +whole universe. In uniting himself to Him, he affirms and confirms his +own life; he feels God to be active and present, in his thought under +the form of logical law, in his will under the form of moral law. He +is saved by faith in the interior God, in whom is realised the unity of +his being. It is therefore true to say that the human mind cannot +believe in itself without believing in God, and that, on the other +hand, it cannot believe in God without finding Him within itself. + +That is a _salto mortale_, some superficial spirits will say, +astonished at an apparent deduction which thus makes the religious +activity of the ego spring from the depths of its own distress and +despair. To which we respond: it is, on the contrary, a _salto +vitale_, the instinctive and at the same time reflective act which +moves the mind to affirm to itself the absolute value of spirit. +Considered at this first psychological moment of its birth, the +religious faith of spirit in itself and in its sovereignty is only the +higher form, and, as it were, the prolongation of the instinct of +conservation which reigns in all Nature. The mind, crushed beneath the +weight of things, stands up and triumphs in the feeling of the eternal +dignity of spirit. + +Inward religion, sacred instinct of life, divine, immortal force which +necessarily appears at the first movement of spirit, how they +misunderstand thee who only see in thee the slavery of man! On the +contrary, it is thou alone that breakest all the chains that Nature +binds on him, that savest him from death and from extinction, and that +openest out to his beneficent activity an infinite career by +associating him with the work of God: it is thou that renderest his +spontaneity creative, that renewest his forces, and that, plunging him +into the fountain whence he issued, maintainest in him an eternal youth! + +This issue to the conflict of our faculties is exclusively of the +practical order; it is an act of trust, not a demonstration; an +affirmation which presupposes, not scientific proofs, but an act of +moral energy. This act must be performed, or we must die. There is no +constraint except the desire to live, but this is irresistible, if not +for each individual in particular, at least for mankind in general. +The individual may commit suicide; humanity desires to live, and its +life is a perpetual act of faith. + +Nevertheless, this practical solution implies the possibility and the +hope of a theoretical one; and this in two ways: in the first place, +psychologically, because the ego of pure reason is also that of the +practical reason and feels itself to be one and the same knowing and +acting subject; then, speculatively, because in believing in the +sovereignty of spirit in ourselves and in the world we affirm that man +and the world have in spirit the principle and the aim of their being. +In God present in us, are reconciled, at least in hope, the ego and the +world. This religious faith of spirit in itself permits us to +anticipate the future solution, and to affirm that at the summit of +their complete development, and in their entire perfection, science and +the moral life will rejoin and penetrate each other. Mathematicians +tell us that two parallel lines meet in infinity. So in God are +reconciled the pure reason and the practical reason, which here seem to +us to develop themselves on parallel lines without ever being able to +meet and to unite. Let us never forget that we spring out of +nothingness, or, if you will, out of unconsciousness, and that we +slowly emerge into the light of consciousness. Man is in course of +being made spirit. If it be well considered, it will be seen that this +irreducible antithesis that fills us with despair is the very condition +of our spiritual development. The mind only disengages itself from the +bonds of its mother, Nature, by an incessant struggle. Struggle means +opposition and victory. Experience demonstrates that nothing +spiritualises, deepens, or purifies morality more than the +contradictions of science; and finally, that nothing helps science more +than a high and disinterested morality. These two sisters, enemies in +appearance, are twins, and they are seen to grow and triumph together +by the exercise they give to each other through their constant +contradictions. + + * * * * * + + +3. _The Two Orders of Knowledge_ + +... The ego can only be conscious of itself and of its modifications. +That which does not touch it in any way remains unknown. Now, the +modifications of the ego may be reduced to two groups. The one comes +to it from without, representing the action of things upon it; these +are sensations. The other springs up within, representing the action +of the ego on things, its spontaneous energy, its volitions, and its +acts. Thence come the two constituent elements of every consciousness, +the distinction between object and subject, the ego and the non-ego, +thought and the object of thought. We call _objective_ every idea or +quality that it is possible to refer to the object alone, independently +of the action or disposition of the subject. We call _subjective_ all +knowledge implying identity of subject and object, all discipline +bearing on the rules of the spontaneous activity of the ego, since +without that activity the rules which should direct it would not exist. +In the first case we are conscious of a distinction and even of a +radical opposition between the object and the subject of knowledge; in +the second, we are conscious of their fundamental identity in this +sense, that the thinking and willing subject presents itself to itself +as an object of thought and study. In order that the two orders of +knowledge, engendered by this duality of origin, may be brought into +logical unity, it is necessary either that the subject should enter +into the object, that the ego should be absorbed by the non-ego, so +that the laws of the non-ego should become the laws of the ego--and +that would be materialism; or that the object should enter into the +subject so that the laws of the subject should become the law of +things--and that would be idealism. Outside these two systems, equally +violent and absolute, the two orders of knowledge are irreducible, +because in us the consciousness of the ego and the consciousness of the +world are at present in conflict. Morality is neither reconciled to +science, nor science to morality. In their _rapprochement_, +progressive to infinity, a hiatus always subsists. + +One would be greatly deceived if he reduced this difference to the +ordinary opposition between the physical and the spiritual, between +external and internal phenomena. Sensation, the foundation and the +starting point of the objective order of knowledge, is just as internal +as volition. On the other hand, man is a part of what we call Nature; +and, as such, he is the theatre of a crowd of internal and external +phenomena which, so far as that is possible, should be observed, +described, explained, by the principle of causality, like all the other +phenomena of the physical order. For example, the mechanism of memory +and that of logic, the correlation between mental activities and the +physiological modifications of the cerebro-spinal system, the laws of +association of ideas, the stable forms of the human understanding, all +that psychology that is now called "scientific psychology," rightfully +enters into the domain of the sciences of Nature. It is a province +that may be explored like all the others. The psychological +observations made in it are objective not less than those of +physiology, for the reason that the phenomena that are observed, while +occurring in the ego, are nevertheless produced in it without the +voluntary intervention of the ego, and even without its express +consent. Moreover, they do not imply or provoke on the part of the ego +any moral judgment properly so called. + +On the other hand, take the sciences of Nature which deal with the +objects most widely removed from man, with astronomy or geology, +_e.g._; no longer consider the bare external results; consider rather +that spiritual force which we call thought, and which has the virtue of +producing these sciences; what are they but the external revelation of +the creative and organising energy of the thinking subject, the +revelation of spirit to spirit? The work, seen from this subjective +side, serves simply to set forth the worth of the worker. You speak +then of the ordinary savant or of the intellectual genius, of the good +or bad scientific workman. The philosophy of science becomes a +necessarily subjective discipline. "Science," in fact, is simply an +abstraction. In the reality there are only minds more or less +ignorant, conscious, at each step, of their strength and of their +impotence, of their defeats and victories,--minds condemned to a +perpetual effort to struggle out of the night from which they slowly +mount. When you think of this most disinterested side of the +scientific life you ask yourself what is the basis, in the last resort, +of this confidence of mind in itself--the foundation of all the rest. +You see clearly that this activity of pure intellect demands, like all +other human activity, attention, forgetfulness of self, a heroism, in +short, going to the point of contempt of common enjoyments, and of the +sacrifice of life itself. You have then left the domain of the +sciences of Nature and have entered the realms of spirit, and there +rise around you the problems which form the object of the moral +disciplines. + +Such is the intimate complexity of the two orders of knowledge that a +persevering reflection discovers them to be everywhere mingled, and it +is with difficulty that they are disentangled. All knowledge is an +aggregate (_ensemble_) of judgments; but the judgments which constitute +physical knowledge and those that constitute moral science are not of +the same nature. The first are judgments of _existence_, bearing +solely on the causality, the succession, the distribution of phenomena, +_i.e._ on the relations of objects to each other, apart from the +subject. The basis on which they rest is sensation, and, as sensation +has for necessary forms time and space, time and space will also be the +forms and limits of these judgments. Forming homogeneous quantities, +time and space give the notion of figure and of number, so that +mathematics is the foundation and the necessary framework of all the +physical sciences. They rise above this abstract science of the forms +of sensibility in the order of their complexity, and form a hierarchy +from rational mechanics to sociology, of which Comte and so many others +vainly endeavour to make a simple social mechanics. The destiny of +this universal objective science is to progress for ever without ever +being completed; for it is of the same nature as number--that is to +say, essentially indefinite and imperfect. It not only finds an +inexhaustible subject of study in the external world; it encounters a +mystery impenetrable to its methods and analyses in the very subject +that creates it, and which, in creating it, remains outside the +mechanism it sets in motion. + +In fact, when the thinking subject considers itself, or considers +things in relation to itself, it brings to bear upon itself and them a +second series of judgments of an altogether different character. It +estimates them and it estimates itself according to a _norm_ which is +in itself. It declares them to be good or bad, beautiful or ugly, rich +or poor in life, harmonious or discordant. In other words, it is no +longer the idea of number--it is the category of _the good_ which +becomes the necessary form of these new judgments, which, for this +reason, are called judgments of _estimation_ or of dignity, and it is +clear that between these two kinds of judgments there is no common +measure. They can no more encounter each other than two balls rolled +on different planes. + +Will it be said that the judgments founded on the concept of _the good_ +are insignificant and worthless because neither man nor the good of man +can be the measure of things? If this remark is useful for abating +human pride and preventing childish illusions, it does not efface the +primordial distinction between good and evil inherent to the human +mind, nor would one wish to deduce from it the vanity of all morality, +and the equal worth of all the manifestations of life. The proof, +moreover, that the rule of _the good_ is above man is that it judges +and condemns him pitilessly; it is that consciousness, independently of +the painful or agreeable sensations that it receives from things, +establishes between them a fitness (_convenance_), a hierarchy, and +constitutes the harmonious unity of the universe itself in the supreme +idea of the sovereign good. If the legitimacy of the confidence which +the conscience has in its rule is to be contested, I do not see why we +should not contest that of the confidence of pure thought in itself. +Then everything crumbles to pieces, both science and conscience, in the +same abyss. + +In reality, the good, the beautiful, the relations of fitness and of +harmony, are so many principles of knowledge, which progress, like +physical knowledge, by the culture of the mind. The form of the moral +judgments is universal, and identical in every man; it is this form +alone which constitutes man as a moral being; but the contents of this +form vary unceasingly in history, according to times and places. +Everywhere and always man has sought the good, but he has not always +placed it in the same things; he has formed different ideas of it, and +these ideas have become more and more noble and pure in proportion as +his life itself has been ennobled and purified. That is why there is a +history of morality, of religion, of aesthetics, as there is a history +of the natural sciences, although progress in these two classes has +been of an opposite nature and accomplished according to different +laws. However this may be, we may conclude that if mathematics, by the +concept of number, the abstract form of sensation, is the mould and +framework of the sciences of Nature, ethics, by _the categorical +imperative_, the abstract form of the activity of spirit, is the +foundation of the moral sciences, which are as diverse as the various +activities of the ego, each having special rules and criteria, no +doubt, but always falling under the common form of obligation. + +Distinct and often in conflict, these two orders of knowledge are none +the less _solidaire_; they are always developed by their action the one +upon the other, and tend to a higher unity, the need for which gives +rise to attempts, renewed from age to age, at a metaphysical synthesis. +If you take the disciplines as taught in the schools to-day, you will +find that they are almost all mixed sciences such as history, social +economy, politics, philosophy, etc. So soon as the savant rises above +the simple description of phenomena, and wishes to organise his cosmos +by formulating the unity and harmony of it, he necessarily borrows this +principle of organisation and of harmony from the experience of his +subjective life. On the contrary, religion, art, morality, can only be +realised in the conditions prescribed to them by science properly so +called, and the last problem always propounded to human thought at each +stage of its development is the conciliation of the _moral idea_ +acquired by the exercise of the will, and the _scientific idea_ +furnished by its experience of the world. + +There is no question, then, of separating the two orders of knowledge, +but of referring each of them to its true source, and preventing a +confusion which, mixing everything up, renders everything uncertain. +It is impossible in good psychology to trace to one centre the +divergent manifestations of our spiritual life, and to drive the moral +into the physical or the physical into the moral. Our spiritual life +is like an ellipse with two centres of light: on the one side, the +centre of _receptive life_, where all the sensations received are +elaborated into phenomenal knowledge; on the other, the centre of +_active life_, at which are concentrated all the revelations of the +mind's own inner energy. The line of the ellipse described by the +relation and the distance of these two centres is the approximate but +never perfect synthesis of the two kinds of data which thus arrive in +consciousness. He who does not distinguish these two centres, and +transforms the ellipse into a circumference with equal rays and an +unique centre, necessarily remains in chaos and old night. + +From these general considerations is naturally deduced the specific +character of religious knowledge, its inward nature and its range. + + +4. _The Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge_ + +The first contrast that we have seen to arise between the knowledge of +Nature and religious knowledge is that the first is _objective_, and +that the second can never pass out of _subjectivity_. This does not +mean that the second is less certain, but that it is of another order, +and is produced in another way and with other characteristics. + +In one sense, the knowledge of Nature is subjective, for it depends on +our mental constitution, and on the laws of our knowing faculty. But +religious and moral knowledge is subjective in a different manner and +for a deeper reason. The object of scientific knowledge is always +outside the ego, and it is in knowing it as an object outside the ego +that the objectivity of that knowledge consists. But the object of +religious or moral knowledge--God, the Good, the Beautiful--these are +not phenomena that may be grasped outside the ego and independently of +it. God only reveals Himself in and by piety; the Good, in the +consciousness of the good man; the Beautiful, in the creative activity +of the artist. This is only saying that the object of these kinds of +knowledge is immanent in the subject himself, and only reveals itself +by the personal activity of that subject. Absolutely eliminate the +religious and moral subject, or rather take from him all personal +activity, and you suppress, for him, the object of morality and +religion. + +Let us take up again that striking antithesis of the two orders of +knowledge. What is at once the basis and the sign of the objectivity +of the natural sciences? + +One may theoretically ask whether the world of science, the world that +_appears_ to us, is exactly the real world, existing outside of us. It +is thus that in the philosophy of Kant the famous question as to _the +thing in itself_ is stated. But it is equally certain that in the name +of that philosophy this question ought logically to be discarded. One +is astonished that the author of the _Critique of Pure Reason_ did not +immediately close that door opened to scientific scepticism. After his +critique, in fact, it is evident that that substratum which some are +forced to imagine as a support to phenomena--that the indeterminate and +indeterminable substance that they represent beneath the forms and +qualities of things,--is both a non-being and nonsense. _Das Ding an +sich ist ein Unding_. (The thing in itself is an unthing.) It is a +remnant of ancient metaphysics which ought to be eliminated from modern +philosophy. In allowing it to introduce itself into our theory of +knowledge, it overturns it as would a heterogeneous element. He that +persists in distinguishing between the thing in itself and the +phenomenal thing will never be able to give an account of the +objectivity of the sciences of Nature, and of the kind of certitude +that belongs to them. + +That which appears to us from without is not doubtless all the reality +of the world; but it is a real world. By his calculations, Leverrier +came first to suspect the existence of a large planet as yet +unperceived; then he came to measure its volume, to trace its orbit, +and finally to mark its place at a given time. He said to his brother +astronomers: "Look there!" and the planet appeared at the end of their +telescopes. + +How explain, moreover, without this reality of science, the power that +science gives to man over Nature? His power, is it not always exactly +in proportion to his knowledge? + +In what then does this objectivity of science consist if it is not +founded on the pretended knowledge of the thing in itself? In the +necessary link that scientific thought establishes between phenomena. +This necessity does not come from experience, for it is something +ideal, which our mind adds to all experience. But, as we can only +think according to these necessary laws, we necessarily objectivise in +all scientific study. We thus affirm, of necessity, the fundamental +unity of the laws of thought and the laws of phenomena. Experience +always confirms this immediate affirmation. Now this necessity, it is +objectivity itself; it is the only noumenon that we are authorised to +seek behind phenomena in Nature, and behind the manifestations of pure +reason in spirit. + +The first effect of this objective necessity is to eliminate from the +work of science the feelings and the subjective will of the ego. A +thinking and acting subject is no doubt necessary in making science; +but the characteristic of science is to see what it studies apart from +the subject, apart even from the psychical phenomena that it observes +in the ego itself. Posited outside the ego, the laws that it +promulgates appear to us therefore independent of it. This elimination +of the subject from the conclusions of science thus becomes the sign +and the measure of their objectivity. Where the elimination is +complete, as in astronomy and physics, the objectivity is entire. On +the contrary, history, _e.g._ where the elimination can never be +absolute, always tends towards objectivity, but never reaches it. + +It is altogether otherwise with religious knowledge. With it we enter +at once into the subjective order--that is to say, into an order of +psychological facts, of determinations and internal dispositions of the +subject itself, the succession of which constitutes his personal life. +To eliminate the ego would not here be possible; for this would be both +to eliminate the materials and to dry up the living spring of +knowledge. An ancient illusion pretended that we know God, as we know +the phenomena of Nature, and that the religious life springs from that +objective knowledge as by a sort of practical application. The very +opposite is true. God is not a phenomenon that we may observe apart +from ourselves, or a truth demonstrable by logical reasoning. He who +does not feel Him inside his heart will never find Him outside. The +object of religious knowledge only reveals itself in the subject, by +the religious phenomena themselves. It is with the religious +consciousness as with the moral consciousness. In this the subject +feels obliged, and this obligation itself constitutes the revelation of +the moral object which obliges us. There is no good known outside +that. The same in religion: we never become conscious of our piety +without--at the same time that we feel religiously moved--perceiving, +more or less obscurely, in that very emotion the object and the cause +of religion, _i.e._ God. + +Observe the natural and spontaneous movement of piety: a soul feels +itself to be trusting, that it is established in peace and light; is it +strong, humble, resigned, obedient? It immediately attributes its +strength, its faith, its humility, its obedience, to the action of the +Divine Spirit within itself. Anne Doubourg, dying at the stake, prayed +thus: "O God, Do not abandon me lest I should fall off from Thee." The +prophet of Israel said: "Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned." And +the father in the Gospels cried: "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine +unbelief." To feel thus in our personal and empirical activity the +action and the presence of the Spirit of God within our own spirit, is +the mystery, but it is also the source, of religion. + +It will be seen how much religious knowledge and the science of Nature +differ by their very origin. The one is the theory of the receptive +and logical life of the ego; the other is the theory of its active and +spontaneous life. As both the receptive and the active life are one, +however, the two orders of knowledge are neither isolated nor +independent. But they must never be confounded. Their results will +always remain heterogeneous; they are not of the same order, and cannot +supply the place of each other. If you were to admit, _e.g._, that +philosophers may succeed (as they have often been believed to do) in +establishing a veritable objective science of God, and if they were +thus to know God in Himself and apart from the religious ego, that +scientific knowledge of God, even if it were possible, would not be +religious knowledge; for to know God religiously is to know Him in His +relation to us--that is to say, in our consciousness, in so far as He +is present in it and determines it towards piety. This is the sense in +which it is permissible to maintain that religion is as independent of +metaphysics as it is of cosmology. It is the same with the knowledge +of the world. To know the world as an astronomer or a physicist is not +to know it religiously. To know it religiously is, while taking it as +it is, and in no wise contradicting the scientific laws according to +which it is governed, to determine its value in relation to the life of +spirit; it is to estimate it according as it is a means, a hindrance, +or a menace, to the progress of that life. In the same way, to know +ourselves religiously is not to construct scientific psychology; but +that psychology being once constructed, and properly constructed, it is +to realise ourselves in our relation both to God and to the world, +forcing ourselves to surmount the contradictions from which we suffer, +in order that we may attain to unity and peace of mind. Thus, not only +can religious knowledge never cast off its subjective character; it is +in reality nothing but that very subjectivity of piety considered in +its action and in its legitimate development. + +The inner nature of these two orders of knowledge having been defined, +it becomes evident that each of them is valid in its own domain, and +that they cannot legitimately encroach upon each other. To try to +establish by religious faith the reality of any phenomenon whatsoever, +of which experimental science or intellectual criticism are the sole +judges; or to wish to formulate by means of objective science a moral +judgment which springs from the subjective consciousness--these are two +equivalent encroachments and abuses. Experimental science has the +right to forbid the religious consciousness to do violence to it; but +the religious consciousness has an equal right to restrict science to +its true limits. We must prevent confusion if we would put an end to +the conflicts between them. To enclose God in any phenomenal form is, +properly speaking, superstition or _idolatry_; to confine or dissipate +the soul in external phenomenism, and to deny the seriousness and value +of its religious and moral activity, is _infidelity_, properly so +called. + +Truths of the religious and moral order are known by a subjective act +of what Pascal calls _the heart_. Science can know nothing about them, +for they are not in its order. In the same way the phenomena of Nature +are only known and measured by observation and calculation. Neither +the heart nor religious faith can decide with respect to them. Each +order has its certitude. We must not say that in the one the certitude +is greater than in the other. Science is not more sure of its object +than moral or religious faith is of its own; but it is sure in a +different way. Scientific certitude has at its basis intellectual +evidence. Religious certitude has for its foundation the feeling of +subjective life, or moral evidence. The first gives satisfaction to +the intellect; the second gives to the whole soul the sense of order +re-established, of health regained, of force and peace. It is the +happy feeling of deliverance, the inward assurance of "salvation." + +It is not surprising, lastly, that these two kinds of knowledge or of +certitude should spring up and propagate themselves by different means. +Objective science transmits itself by objective demonstration. The +subjective life of the savant has nothing to do with it. To convince +us of the reality of his discoveries, an astronomer does not need to be +a good man. On the contrary, a fundamentally immoral man will always +be a detestable professor of ethics. Religion is only propagated by +religious men. It may also be added that, in religious knowledge, the +intellectual demonstration or the idea has no value except in so far as +it serves as the expression and the vehicle of the personal life of the +subject. This is the secret and the mystery of eloquence. The _si vis +me flere, dolendum_, is true in all the moral disciplines, as much and +more than in aesthetics. One gains nothing by attempting to demonstrate +objectively the existence of God. That demonstration is ineffective +towards those who have no piety; for those who have, it is superfluous. +The true religious propaganda is effected by inward contagion. _Ex +vivo vivus nascitur_. Accuracy in theology is much less important in +religion than warmth of piety. Pitiful arguments have in all ages been +followed by admirable conversions. Those who are scandalised at this +have not yet penetrated into the essence of religious faith. + +For want of this clear and frank separation between our two orders of +knowledge, one sees, on the one hand, philosophers pretending to +transform ethics and philosophy into objective science, and, on the +other, savants naively giving forth their objective science as a +metaphysic and as a solution of the enigma of life. Two illusions, in +whose train everything is mixed up and founded. Objective ethics are +everything you could wish--except ethics. You might as well speak of a +round square. When an objective science transforms itself into +metaphysics, it ceases to be science and becomes subjective philosophy. +This goes without saying. + +And yet, in distinguishing the two orders we must not isolate them, nor +above all must we lose sight of their solidarity, their close +connection, and correspondence. The subject is one, and has a clear +consciousness of his unity; that is why he always tends towards a +synthesis. Phenomenal science cannot complete itself without borrowing +from the subjective consciousness of the ego the ideas of unity, of +plan, and of harmony. On the other hand, the moral and religious +consciousness, in order to express itself, needs to borrow from +phenomenal science the data which it uses, and, consequently, it should +always avoid contradicting them. Thus we tend towards the synthetic +harmony of a continuous effort and of an indefectible faith; but we +discard none the less resolutely the philosophy of logical unity. We +obstinately refuse to admit that the subjective order can ever be +deduced, by way of consequence and application, from the objective +order of knowledge: that is the error of materialistic Pantheism; and, +_vice versa_, that the objective order of phenomenal science can or +ought to be deduced from the religious or moral order: that is the +opposite error of all the dogmatisms. The mental cannot be simply +reduced to the physical, or the physical entirely to the mental. We +must respect the fruitful antinomies of life from which the necessary +progress springs. The tendency towards harmony is there, not the +harmony itself. This is the reward promised, the aim proposed, to +effort. Our philosophy ought to regard the spiritual life in its +becoming--that is to say, in its growth and in its conflicts, without +wishing, like all idealist and materialist speculations, to make of the +actual and transient moment the eternal metaphysical reality. + + +5. _Teleology_ + +Subjective in essence and origin, religious knowledge is _teleological_ +in its procedure, and this second characteristic springs from the first. + +Teleology is the form of all organic life and of all conscious +activity. Now, what is moral knowledge but the theory of the conscious +life of spirit? + +Without the principle of causation, phenomena, in science, would not be +connected; without the idea of end, or principle of direction, +biological and psychical facts could not be organised--that is to say, +hierarchised. + +Mechanism and teleology: these then are the two new terms for the +antithesis formed by the knowledge of Nature and religious knowledge. +But it is a prejudice to believe that the one form of explanation +excludes the other or renders it superfluous. We have examples to the +contrary not only in the machines constructed by man, but also in all +living organisms, in which, according to Claude Bernard, the _directive +idea_ of life is realised in an absolute determinism. + +The mechanical explanation of phenomena and the determinism of science +only become exclusive of teleology when they are transformed into +metaphysical materialism--that is to say, when it is affirmed, _a +priori_, and by a subjective act, that there is nothing in the universe +but matter and the movements of matter. But then, it is clear that +materialism, which believes itself to be scientific, becomes a +philosophy, and like all other philosophies it falls under the +jurisdiction not only of the objective science of the world, but of the +consciousness of the ego. + +The ideas of cause and end spring from one and the same source. The +idea of cause awakens in us because the ego, as soon as it knows +itself, has the clear sense of being the author of its acts; it has +this sense by that of the very effort that it has made. But, at the +same time, it knows that it made that effort with a view to an end +which attracted it. Cause and end, therefore, are the two aspects of +the same conscious act. The one is the backward glance of the +consciousness; the other is its forward look. As we only know the +world by reflecting it in the mirror of our consciousness, it follows +that the two categories of cause and end impose themselves on our +understanding with an equal necessity. + +There is another consequence of this psychological observation. The +consciousness of the ego is one; neither the idea of cause nor the idea +of end, by itself, would suffice to explain the whole universe to me. +It is easy to see at a glance that the objective science of phenomena +is not and never can be completed. The chain into which it introduces +each particular phenomenon as a new link is indefinitely lengthened by +scientific progress, in time and space, but without the power to hang +on anywhere. Outside space and time, the principle of causation only +engenders insoluble antinomies. Besides, to explain one phenomenon by +another is to explain it by a cause which itself needs explanation. +The mechanical reason of things is therefore never a sufficient reason. +It is an indefinite series of insufficient particular reasons. The +network of science, however fine and firm it be, does not cover, and +cannot cover all reality. The Cosmos that science builds is like the +globe; it floats in immensity. "Where, O Lord, goes the earth through +the heavens?" + +To this question teleology alone responds. But every teleological +affirmation respecting the universe is a religious affirmation. +Science, studying only accomplished facts, never establishes anything +but phenomena and their antecedent or concomitant conditions. Once the +phenomenon is integrated in the causal series, the task of science is +accomplished. To ask it to go further is to ask it to go beyond its +limits and to denaturalise itself. You can only put teleology into the +universe by affirming the sovereignty of spirit. To say that there is +reason, that there is thought, in things--that they move towards an end +or realise an order, a harmony, a good: this is to say that matter is +subordinate to spirit. Now, to affirm this sovereignty of spirit is to +commit that act of initial religious faith of which I spoke at the +beginning; it is to feel in one's self and in the world something +besides matter, the mysterious energy of spirit. This act of +faith--legitimate because inevitable--belongs to the subjective order +of religious life, not to the objective order of science. Teleology +and the theory of final causes have been compromised because their +specific character has been mistaken; they have sometimes been +assimilated to, and sometimes substituted for, mechanical causes in the +explanation of phenomena. For an unknown scientific explanation has +been substituted an appeal to a supernatural intention or volition of +God. The savants rightly protested against this. God, who is the +final reason of everything, is the scientific explanation of nothing. +The object of science is to search for second causes; where these do +not appear there is no science. It is faith which replaces it. To say +that God created the world, or that the world tends toward the +sovereign good, is not to advance positive science a single step. On +the other hand, to explain the phenomena of rain, or thunder, or the +fall of bodies, is to dissipate some mythological conceptions; but it +is not to suppress the religious affirmation of spirit that the +mechanism of the universe has an end, and that the laws of gravitation +and the material forces serve some purpose of which they are ignorant, +and which is of more value than themselves. + +Between the discoveries of science and the postulates of the religious +and moral life there is always necessarily formed a synthesis which is +destroyed at each step, but which rises again higher and larger than +before. Mechanism itself, in order to be intelligible, calls for +teleology. The text of the material world awaits the interpretation +that spirit gives of it. By its discoveries positive science +establishes the text. Without this rigorous establishment of the text, +the exegesis of consciousness remains a phantasy. But, without that +exegesis, the text itself signifies nothing; it is almost as if it did +not exist. + +There is another reason, a practical reason, which makes of teleology +the very essence of the religious consciousness. We must never lose +sight of the fact that what we seek in and by religion is the key to +the enigma of life. The enigma of the universe only torments us, at +the religious point of view, because we believe that in this is the +secret of that. We are embarked in the vessel, and we see clearly +enough that our destiny depends upon its own. That is why religious +faith, perfectly indifferent to the architecture and to the ways and +means of the construction of the vessel, regards above all the +direction in which the sails are set, and seeks to discover the route +which is being followed. Has it a compass? And is there some one at +the helm? + +In other words, the religious instinct is the pressing need that spirit +has to guarantee itself against the perpetual menaces of Nature. Faith +judges everything from the point of view of the sovereign good, and the +sovereign good, for spirit, can only be the final and complete +expansion of the life of the spirit. Therefore, in every religious +notion there will never, at bottom, be anything but a teleological +judgment. It is not the essence of things--it is their reciprocal +value and their hierarchy which interest religious faith. In the +religious notion of God it is not the metaphysical nature--it is the +will of God in regard to men--which is of most concern; and in the +religious notion of the world it is not the mechanical cause of +phenomena--it is to know which way the world is going, and whether it +has any other end to serve than as the theatre and the organ of spirit. +What does faith itself desire to say when it defines God as the Eternal +and Almighty Spirit, except that man needs to affirm that his own +individual spirit does not depend on any but a spiritual power like +himself? It is true that to determine this final cause of the world is +also to determine its first cause. It is the same thing in other +terms; and indeed it is to make metaphysics in the etymological sense +of the word. The important point is to know that this decisive step +beyond the chain of visible phenomena, whether it be taken by the +philosopher or the theologian, is always an act of subjective life, an +affirmation of spirit, an act of faith, and not a demonstration of +science. + + +6. _Symbolism_ + +Thirdly, and lastly, religious knowledge is _symbolical_. All the +notions it forms and organises, from the first metaphor created by +religious feeling to the most abstract theological speculation, are +necessarily inadequate to their object. They are never equivalent, as +in the case of the exact sciences. + +The reason is easy to discover. The object of religion is +transcendent; it is not a phenomenon. Now, in order to express that +object, our imagination has nothing at its disposal but phenomenal +images, and our understanding, logical categories, which do not go +beyond space and time. Religious knowledge is therefore obliged to +express the invisible by the visible, the eternal by the temporary, +spiritual realities by sensible images. It can only speak in parables. +The theory of religious knowledge requires for its completion a theory +of symbols and symbolism. + +What is a symbol? To express the invisible and spiritual by the +sensible and material--such is its principal characteristic and its +essential function. It is a living organism, in which we must +distinguish between appearance and substance. It is a soul in a body. +The body is the manifestation of the soul, although it is not like it; +it makes the soul active and present. The most perfect example of +symbolism, in this respect, is found in language and writing--two +incarnations of thought. Neither the characters formed by my pen, nor +the sound made by the air in my larynx, have a positive resemblance to +my thought. But these letters and sounds become signs to those who +have the key to them. They express the intangible thought; they make +it present and living in the minds of those who read or hear. + +This is still truer of the creations of art. They also are mere +symbols. Art might be defined as the effort to enshrine the ideal in +the real, and by a material form to express the inexpressible. This is +clearly taught by the word _poesy_, which means creation. The works of +great artists really live; for they have a soul, a rich and intense +life, which the material form at once conceals and reveals. From +architecture to music there is not an art that is not symbolical. +Ethics, religion, all the disciplines relating to the subjective life +of spirit, have only this means of expression. It is their peculiarity +to become exterior and objective, and to dominate the external things +that science studies. Symbols, much better than science, attest the +victory and the royalty of spirit. If science reveals Nature, symbols +make of Nature, of its transformations and its laws, the glorified +image of the inner life of spirit. + +Born in the artist's soul, of the subjective activity of his ego, the +symbol addresses itself much less to the pure intellect than to the +inner life and to the emotions of those who contemplate it. It awakes +and sets in motion the subjective activity of the ego; it has produced +its whole effect when it has produced in us the emotions, the +transport, the enthusiasm, the faith, that the poet himself experienced +in engendering it. Such is the source and the explanation of "the +magic of art," of eloquence, of religious inspiration. All the +creators of living symbols pour their soul into our soul, their life +into our life. They subjugate and ravish us. By symbols, much better +than by scientific notions, the community and fraternity of spirits is +realised, and the fusion of souls into a collective consciousness +effected; a consciousness which includes all individual minds and tunes +them into harmony; the consciousness of a nation, of a church, of +humanity. It is not science that rules the world--it is symbols. + +Inferior to the exact ideas of science in logical clearness, symbolic +forms are superior to them in power and reach. Science is forcibly +arrested at the surface of things, at the appearances continually +arising in the universe. In it is found neither the principle of +energy, nor, consequently, the secret of life, or the key to our +destiny. You seek the meaning and the end of your action; you ask for +some sufficient reason for living; do you not feel that it is +contradictory to address yourself to the science of phenomena, seeing +that, from the strictly scientific point of view, phenomena have not in +themselves their own _raison d'etre_? That which you seek is beyond +phenomena, and it is symbols alone that can, not make you comprehend +it, but reveal it to you. + +Since Nature may become and does become, in art and in religion, the +constant symbol of the inner life of spirit and of its normal +development,--since it is susceptible of this perpetual and glorious +transfiguration by spirit,--it is impossible not to admit the inner +correspondence of the laws of Nature and the laws of conscious life, +and to believe in their deep unity. It is, in fact, secret and +powerful analogies which rule and inspire symbolical creations. Art +and religion are more than conventions; they are revelations of that +which is hidden at once in spirit and in Nature, of the principle of +Being itself, of the absolute energy which is manifested, parallelly, +in the unfolding of the physical universe and of the moral universe. +All things cover some mystery; phenomena are simply veils. That is +why, by their very destination, they become symbols. + +The idea of symbol and the idea of mystery are correlative. Who says +symbol says at the same time occultation and revelation. In becoming +present and even sensible, the living verity still remains veiled. The +same image that reveals it to the heart remains for the intellect an +impassable barrier. One may say of it what the poet says of the sense +of the infinite, for, at bottom, it is the same thing. "We are +restless because we see it but can never comprehend it." + +This inquietude is soothed by a clear knowledge of the cause from which +it springs. Symbols are the only language suited to religion. We need +to know that which we adore; for no one adores that of which he has no +perception; but it is not less necessary that we should not comprehend +it, for one does not adore that which he comprehends too clearly, +because to comprehend is to dominate. Such is the twofold and +contradictory condition of piety, to which symbols seem to be made +expressly in order to respond. Piety has never had any other language. + +In considerations of this kind might be found the explanation of the +bond which in the beginning unites religion and art. But we must +confine ourselves to our special topic, and proceed to inquire what it +is that constitutes the life and power of religious symbols. + +It would be an illusion to believe that a religious symbol represents +God in Himself, and that its value, therefore, depends on the +exactitude with which it represents Him. The true content of the +symbol is entirely subjective: it is the conscious relation of the +subject to God, or rather, it is the way he feels himself affected by +God. Thus when the Psalmist exclaims: "The Lord is my rock"; or "God +is a devouring fire"; when the Christ teaches us to say, "Our +Father,"--these are not scientific, and in this case metaphysical, +definitions of God. What these images simply translate is the relation +of absolute confidence, of awe, of filial love, which, by His +mysterious action, the Spirit of God creates in revealing Himself in +the spirit of man. From these divers feelings spring spontaneously the +strong and simple images which translate them, and which, if these +subjective experiences are eliminated, have no content and no truth. + +From this point of view we may see in what religious inspiration +psychologically consists. Neither its aim nor its effect is to +communicate to men exact, objective, ready-made ideas on that which by +its nature is unknowable under the scientific mode; but it consists in +an enrichment and exaltation of the inner life of its subject; it sets +in motion his inward religious activity, since it is in that that God +reveals Himself; it excites new feelings, constituting new concrete +relations of God to man, and by the fact of this creative activity it +spontaneously engenders new images and new symbols, of which the real +content is precisely this revelation of the God-spirit in the inner +life of the spirit of man. + +The greatest initiators in the religious order have been the greatest +creators of symbols. Prophecy, in the Biblical sense of the word, has +never given divine revelation except in the form of images. And whence +spring these images but from the exaltation of the religious life of +the prophet which spontaneously expresses itself without? Every other +conception of inspiration is anti-psychological. + +To the question, Whence come the life and power of symbols? we reply: +From the primitive organic unity of the sentiment of piety, and of the +image which translates it first to consciousness. It is the organic +unity of soul and body. The greater the creative force that engenders +the symbol, the stronger is this unity. It constitutes its truth +because it constitutes its life. For a symbol, to be living it +suffices that it should be sincere, that the feeling should not be +separate from the image, nor the image from the feeling. To this cry +of confidence in God, "The Lord is my rock," there is no objection, so +long as this confidence is really felt, although a rock is a very poor +image of God. It follows that the value of a symbol must not be +measured by the nature of the image employed, but by the moral value, +in the scale of feeling, of the relation in which it places us to God. +It is the moral value of this relation which alone makes the intrinsic +value of a religion, and which permits us to assign to it its true +place in the development of humanity. + +The time comes, however, when the image detaches itself from the +feeling that produced it, and when it fixes itself as such in the +memory. In considering it in itself, reflection transforms the image +into an idea more or less abstract, and takes this idea for a +representation of the object of religion. But then arises the original +discrepancy that we noted at the outset between the object of religion, +which is transcendent, and the nature of the phenomenal image by which +we attempt to represent it. Hence there is a latent contradiction in +every symbolic idea. To get rid of this contradiction the +understanding is obliged to eliminate from these ideas the sensible +element which remains in them and renders them inadequate to their +object. + +By progressive generalisation and abstraction, reasoning attenuates the +primitive metaphor; it wears it down as on a grindstone. But, when the +metaphorical element has disappeared, the notion itself vanishes in so +far as it is a positive notion. There are mysterious lamps which only +burn under an alabaster globe. You may thin away the solid envelope to +make it more transparent. But mind you do not break it; for the flame +inside will then go out and leave you in the dark. + +So with all our general ideas of the object of religion. When every +metaphorical element is eliminated from them, they become simply +negative, contradictory, and lose all real content. Such are our pure +ideas of the infinite and the absolute. If you would give them a +positive character, you must put into them some element of positive +experience. This is what is done when it is said that God is the +ultimate energy of things, that He is the creative cause of everything, +that He is Justice, that He is Spirit, a Judge, a Father. + +Born of the primitive symbols of religion, all our religious ideas will +therefore necessarily keep their symbolical character to the end. As +is the seed, so is the plant. Dogmatics itself will never be for the +religious soul anything but a higher symbolism--that is to say, a form +which, without the inward presence of active and living faith, would be +worthless. If dogmas may sustain and produce faith, it is still more +true that, at the outset, it is faith which produces dogmas and +afterwards revives them. + +Many good men withstand these conclusions from a rigorous analysis of +religious knowledge and of its psychological genesis. Supposing you +are right, they say, and that the mental constitution of our spiritual +nature confines religious thought to symbolic forms, cannot a +supernatural revelation enable us to pass beyond these limits and bring +to us religious ideas adequate to their object, and consequently of a +pure and absolute truth? This seems to us a very strange desire--that +a revelation of God should be effected apart from the conditions of +knowledge--that is to say, apart from the forms under which alone it +can be accessible to us. Do they not see that the very idea of +revelation soon becomes contradictory? If God wished to make us a gift +that we could receive, must He not have suited the form of it to that +of our mind? Must He not have availed Himself of our ideas and of our +language in order to explain to us the nature of His benefits? Now, it +is certain that our ideas, as soon as they are transported outside +space and time, contradict and destroy themselves, and that we are +reduced to the necessity of conceiving and expressing things invisible +and eternal by images actual and terrestrial. If God, in speaking to +us of His mysteries, used other than these human means, we should not +understand Him at all, so that the revelation would no longer be a +revelation. And is it not for this reason that when God has desired to +reveal Himself to men He has never employed any but men as His organs, +and that He whom we name His Son never spoke except in images and +parables of the things of the kingdom of God? + +No one in fact was fonder and more intelligently fond of this +symbolical form than the Christ; He never wished to employ any other. +This preference did not arise, as is supposed, merely from the fact +that He found it a happy means of popularity to adapt Himself to all +minds. He also knew that no language was more natural or more +conformed to the moral exigencies of piety. He saw in it an +institution ordained by God Himself. And it is the truth. The Parable +addresses itself, not to the pure understanding, but to the active +faculty of the ego, to "the heart." It appeals to our subjective life; +it awakens the religious need before satisfying it. The soul which +hears it meditates, and experiences the living content that it +contains. On the contrary, the soul that is inert and dead finds +nothing in the symbol and receives nothing from it even theoretically, +so that it is literally true that the symbolic form, a shining +revelation unto some, remains a dull and empty letter for others. It +is from this point of view alone that it is possible to understand that +other saying of Jesus, so paradoxical to common sense, so rich and just +to the eyes of experience and of faith: "To him that hath shall be +given; from him that hath not shall be taken away that which he hath." +The gift of God comes only to the felt need and the active desire of +man. + + +7. _Conclusion_ + +The conclusion from all that has now been said is that religious +knowledge is subject to the law of transformation which regulates all +the manifestations of human life and thought. + +As there is disproportion and disparity between the object of religion +and its means of expression, it will always be possible and necessary +to distinguish, in all its creations, between the form and the +substance, the body and the soul. Religious symbolism will therefore +always be very variable _de facto_, but subject, _de jure_, to new +interpretations. + +This variability, however, is not unlimited. It is necessarily +confined within limits which, while not easy to define theoretically, +are none the less precise and fixed; for the great religious creations +are organisms, and every organism carries in itself, determined by its +own nature, the exact capacity of its metamorphoses. + +In every living organism, in fact, there is a principle of stability +and a principle of movement. The identity of a human being persists +through all the modifications, internal and external, which he +undergoes. So with the language of a people; and so with every +historical religion. Its fundamental and regulative principle is the +relation it establishes between the soul and God. The form or external +realisation of this principle depends, no doubt, on the race, the +geographical environment, the historical period. It will vary +therefore with these circumstances. But the religious type or organic +principle remaining the same, this religion will appear the same +throughout the incessant movement of its dogmas, rites, and symbols. +This is the very condition of its life. Forms which cannot bend, +symbols whose fresh and living interpretation is exhausted, a rigid +body that no longer assimilates or eliminates any external element, +represent a state of sterility and death, to be followed by a speedy +dissolution. + +Pious men are right in clinging obstinately to the stability of their +principle of piety, but they ought to cling as tenaciously to the +renewal of forms and ideas in their religion; for this is the only +proof that their treasure has kept its value, and their religious +principle its organising virtue. The life of a religion is measured by +this power of adaptation and renovation. If Christianity is the +universal and eternal religion, it is because its virtuality in this +respect is infinite. + + * * * * * + +Before I close, let me try to prevent two misunderstandings. In saying +that in dogmas we must distinguish the religious substance and the +intellectual form, I do not mean that we either can or ought to isolate +them from each other, or that we can ever hope to have them separately. +Piety is only conscious for us and discernible by others when incarnate +in its expression or intellectual image. A religion without doctrine, +a piety without thought, a feeling without expression, these are things +essentially contradictory. It is as vain to wish to seize pure piety, +as in philosophy it is to seek to define "the thing in itself." When +we speak of the inward religious fact, then, of pious experience, we do +not speak of a bare experience; we speak of a psychological phenomenon, +of a precise and, consequently, formulated experience. + +In the second place, for religious science, it is not a question of +isolated experience, of the experience of a single individual. The +material would be too precarious, and the field of observation too +limited. The question refers to the individual life in its continuity, +and to the life of the religious society considered in its historical +development. + +A social and universal as much and even more than it is an individual +fact, it is in the social life of the species, in organised religious +societies, in their institutions, their common worship, their liturgy, +their rules of faith and discipline, that religion objectively realises +its fundamental principle, manifests its inner soul, and develops all +its power. It is only as a social manifestation that it can become an +object of scientific study, and that it has need of explanation. +Moreover, a religious life which remains hidden in the individual +consciousness, which does not communicate itself, which does not create +any spiritual solidarity, any fraternity of soul, is as if it were not; +it is a mere film of feeling, an ephemeral poetic flower, which has no +more effect on the individual himself than it has on the human race. + +From these considerations springs a method. The dogmatic treatment of +religious knowledge will have for its subject the tradition of the +religious society as it is fixed, conserved, and developed in its +historic monuments. It will consider that tradition from the symbolic +point of view, as the objective revelation of the inner life of the +Church, and of its piety. The tradition will then appear not as +something dead and immutable, but as a power continuing in ourselves. +To grasp this soul in its fruitful continuity and in the perpetual +renewal of the external organism; to comprehend them in their living +unity; to tell the story of the genesis of dogmas and their endless +metamorphoses as a constant and necessary incarnation of the principle +that is manifested in them; to follow this uninterrupted chain in +history, and prolong it into our own life,--such is the method, at once +critical and positive, conservative and progressive, firm in piety and +always deferential to science, which critical symbolism enables us to +apply to all religious creations. + +The error of that form of religious knowledge called _Orthodoxy_ is +that of forgetting the historically and psychologically conditioned +character of all doctrines, and of desiring to raise into the absolute +that which is born in time, and which must necessarily modify itself in +order to live in time. Impotent to arrest the current of ideas and the +movement of minds, it can only establish its rule by political +measures, by regulations enacted and applied like civil laws--decisions +of popes, bishops, or synods, trials for heresy, dogmatic tribunals. +Orthodoxy has lost the sense of the symbolical character of Confessions +of Faith, which, however, it still names symbols. Its misfortune and +its failing is to be anti-historical. + +The error of _Rationalism_, at once the brother and the enemy of +orthodoxy, is of the same nature, but it is produced in an opposite +sense. It does not lose sight of the imperfect and precarious +character of traditional dogmas and symbols; it exaggerates it; but it +loses sight of their specifically religious contents. Orthodoxy is +mistaken as to the nature of the body of religion; rationalism as to +the nature of its soul. Beneath the old traditional ideas it seeks for +other ideas, moral or rational ideas, freer from sensible elements, and +less contradictory, which it mistakes for the essence of religion. It +replaces dogmas by other dogmas which it believes to be more simple, +and which it regards as absolute truth. But in giving to religion a +rational or doctrinal content, it empties it of its real content, of +specific religious experience; it kills faith, which no longer having +an object of its own, no longer has a _raison d'etre_. It has less +liking than orthodoxy for symbolism and for religious creations; it is +radically impossible for it to comprehend, and consequently to +interpret, them. The chief vice and the misfortune of rationalism is +to be anti-religious. + +The theory of _Critical Symbolism_, whose broad outlines we have +traced, will bring us out of this old antithesis. It shows to us the +kind of truth and the legitimacy possessed by symbolical ideas, without +ignoring the psychological and historical determinism which rules their +form and their appearance. It must not be imagined that, from this +point of view, everything becomes fluid and inconstant in +religion--that nothing in it can be fixed or permanent. In the +progress of his life, man is destined to realise his spiritual nature, +to attain to what St. Paul calls "the stature of Christ," in which the +religious and moral ideal is realised. This moral stature is a +reality, the highest of all realities. We tend towards it without +ceasing, and the value of each moment of our inner life is measured by +the progress that it marks towards that supreme end. For this inner +life there is a norm which imposes itself on the consciousness with an +imperative necessity, and, consequently, there may be religious symbols +which are normal and normative in relation to others. These are the +symbols which represent with perfect simplicity and fitness either this +ideal end of the Christian life or some of the necessary moments +through which the soul passes on the way to it. There are symbols, in +a word, such as that of the Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of God, the +New Birth, the Effusion of the Holy Spirit, so intimately bound up with +our religious life, with its origin, its progress, or its end, which +one cannot conceive as disappearing, so long as the spiritual life of +humanity exists. All the exclusively religious words of Christ which +bear directly on the consciousness are of this number. And it is of +them that He was able to say without being contradicted by the ages: +"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." + +On the other hand, it is no less impossible to ignore the distinction +we have made in symbol between substance and form. Now, this +distinction opens the door to criticism. The most conservative of +Christians confess that men may adhere to a doctrine without having +appropriated its religious content; that they may be orthodox without +being pious. They therefore make it the duty of every member of the +Church to assimilate the contents of the symbol. But how can the duty +of personal assimilation be imposed without the right arising to +critically interpret the transmitted forms? Is it not a psychological +necessity for each believer to bring his inner religious consciousness +into harmony with his general culture? What if these syntheses and +conciliations are necessarily unstable and precarious because of the +constant development of life and knowledge? When a man is walking his +equilibrium is destroyed and re-established at each step. It is the +very condition of walking. + +Symbolism, which thus makes peace in the individual, may also effect it +in religious societies. In Catholicism the unity of the Church is only +maintained by a central infallible authority and by political means. +That authority creates peace by imposing silence. Dogmas only subsist +because no one concerns himself with them. Can Protestant communities +maintain their unity by the same method? The Catholic method ruins +Protestant communities, inevitably, by causing schisms frequent in +proportion as their life and thought become intense. The theory of +symbolism offers them a more honourable issue. It permits them to +combine veneration for traditional symbols with perfect independence of +spirit by leaving to believers, on their own responsibility, the right +to assimilate them and adapt them to their experiences. They will +attach themselves to tradition with all the more sincerity and zeal as +each one is able to find in it that of which his religious faith has +need. It will be a help and not a yoke. Men will love it; they will +defend it as the link between the generations, as a family heritage, as +the place where souls of every race and age, and stage of scientific +culture, meet and mingle and commune. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +REPLY TO CRITICISMS + +Before laying down the pen, I ought perhaps to reply to one or two +objections. + +The first reproach that has been addressed to me is contained in the +words, "Naturalistic Evolutionism." A conception more or less +materialistic of the universe is thus attributed to me, according to +which, like Herbert Spencer, I should explain all things by the single +law of evolution, and end sooner or later by reducing the laws of the +moral world to the laws of the physical world, since I make of the +first a simple transformation of the second. Need I say that this is +the very opposite of my thought? It is true that I like to use the +word evolution, and to consider all phenomena in their natural +succession. But this is not a metaphysical doctrine; it is a process +of study, a method which consists in these two essential rules: to +observe each fact as it presents itself; and to observe it in its +order, _i.e._ in the conditions in which it presents itself, because a +fact only possesses its truth and value in that order and succession. +On our planet, moral life emerges slowly and painfully out of organic +life. Must we therefore conclude that there is no more in the one than +in the other, and that they are of equal value? Certainly not. Both +these series of phenomena must be placed in their relations and +connections; but the method which makes them known to me gives me no +more right to confound them than to separate them, to ignore their +differences than to forget their analogies. It shows me, on the +contrary, that there is advance, _real_ progress from the one to the +other; that the first in date has its end in the second; that there is +a sort of living and continuous creation, each stage and degree of +which reveals new riches and new glories. This is so thoroughly the +oasis of my religious philosophy that there would be more ground or, at +all events, more excuse for accusing me of denying the reality of the +world than the continuous action of the Divine Creator. + +It is true that the one reproach has not saved me from the other. Both +have been addressed to me by persons who have not taken the trouble to +reconcile them. The accusation of Pantheism, contradictory as it may +seem, has been added to that of Naturalistic Evolutionism. I have been +made to appear the blind and docile disciple of an idealism more or +less Hegelian, which would annihilate the reality of second causes in +order to contemplate in the universe the flux and transformation of a +first cause or substance, of which one might either say that it is +everything or that it is nothing. But here, again, they lose sight of +the character of the method that I follow. It leads me to discover in +my consciousness the mysterious and real co-existence of a particular +cause, which is myself, and of a universal cause, which is God. That, +I repeat, is a mystery impenetrable to analysis, but undeniable by any +man who examines himself and enters into the ultimate basis of his +life. It is the mystery out of which religion springs by an invincible +necessity. Now, as this mystery is posited by me at the very outset of +my researches, and maintained to the end, how can they legitimately +reproach me with sacrificing either of the two terms which constitute +it to the other--the first effect of which would be to dissipate and +make impossible my theory of the psychological origin of religion? "In +me," said Charles Secretan, "lives some one greater than me"--a +mysterious guest whose universal and eternal action I feel beneath the +variable phenomena of my empirical activity, to Whom, when I am good, +confiding, humble, brave, I always attribute my goodness, my faith, my +courage, my humility, as to Him I attribute my whole life. + +I cannot comprehend the co-existence of the finite and the infinite; +but this duality is everywhere. I observe that in the physical as in +the moral world there is, in each phenomenon, a latent force, a sort of +potential energy, which raises it and urges it beyond itself. Nature +is perpetually becoming, that is to say, in perpetual travail. It is +not true that there is nothing new under the sun, and that the future +must simply repeat the past. Creation is not yet completed. "My +Father worketh hitherto," said Jesus. "It doth not yet appear what we +shall be." But the little that I perceive of the Divine work +demonstrates to me that it is progressive, that it raises and enriches +life at every step, and that this progress accounts exactly for the +essential antinomies amid which my reason loses itself and my heart +adores. To wish to reduce everything to unity is to turn the kingdom +of life into the domain of death. For my part, I have long since +renounced what is justly called "the philosophy of identity," that +abstract dialectic which, throwing all things back to their point of +logical departure, renders perfectly incomprehensible and superfluous +the ephemeral development which they have in our consciousness and in +history. The painful contradictions observed by Pascal in our moral +life, and the insoluble antinomies in our thought unveiled by Kant, +always seem to me to go nearer to the bottom of things than the +ontological deductions of Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel. + + * * * * * + +In this book I have hardly noted any but facts that have been verified +in myself and by myself. It is true that I suppose that every +reflective reader is capable of finding them and tracing them out in +his own personal experience. Those who are able and wishful to re-read +my book in themselves, and thus verify my analyses, may perhaps draw +some profit from it. Those who read me otherwise will not only lose +their time and pains--they will misunderstand at every step the meaning +of my phrases and the direction of my ideas. Beneath my reasonings or +my images they will put other ideas and other intentions than mine, and +they may afterwards, with an apparent good conscience, deduce from them +the most terrible consequences.... Philosophical language lends itself +to all and permits all; and the mischief of it is that it would be +useless to desire to prevent these quarrels. New explanations only +give rise to new misunderstandings, and simply serve to perpetuate a +dispute without interest and without fruit. We can only repeat the +saying of the ancient sages of Arabia: _Magna est veritas et +praevalebit_. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion +based on Psychology and History, by Auguste Sabatier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 38446.txt or 38446.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/4/38446/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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