The Eclipse of Faith Part 25

"Can you not?" said Harrington. "I cannot imagine any thing more likely than that, eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, such an event, on Strauss's principles, may be shown to be very problematical."

"Will you endeavor to show how it may probably be?" rejoined Robinson.

"Well, I have no objection, if you will give me till this evening to prepare so important a doc.u.ment."

In the evening, after supper, he amused us by reading us a brief paper, ent.i.tled

THE PAPAL AGGRESSION SHOWN TO BE IMPOSSIBLE.

"I shall proceed on the supposition that some Dr. d.i.c.kkopf or Dr. Scharfsinn, for either name will do, has to deal (as my uncle here believes our modern critics have to deal in the Gospels) with an account literally true. This learned man I shall imagine as existing in some nation at the antipodes eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, and intellectually, if not literally, descended from some erudite critics of our age. Let me further suppose that the princ.i.p.al memorials of the current events are found in the page of some continuator of Macaulay (may the Fates have pity on him! I am afraid he will be far worse than even Smollett after Hume), who publishes his work only sixty years hence. Let us suppose him (as surely we well may) proceeding thus: 'During the year 1850-51, our countrymen are represented to us, by the accounts of those who lived at the time (some few still survive), as having been in a condition of political and religious excitement almost unprecedented in their history. It was occasioned by the attempt of the Pope to reestablish the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which had been extinct since the Reformation. As these events, though all-absorbing to the actors in them, (as are so many others of very secondary importance,) have now shrunk to their true dimensions, and are, in fact, infinitely less momentous than others which were silently transpiring at the time almost without notice, I shall content myself with simply condensing a brief contemporaneous doc.u.ment which gives the chief points, without pa.s.sion or prejudice, in a narrative so simple that it vouches for its own veracity:--

"Without permission of the Crown, or any negotiations with the Government whatever, Pope Plus the Ninth divided the whole of England into twelve sees, and a.s.signed these to as many Roman Catholic bishops with local t.i.tles and territorial jurisdiction. The chief of them was one Nicholas Wiseman (by birth, it is said, a Spaniard), who was created Archbishop of Westminster and Cardinal.

"'The said Wiseman issued a pastoral letter, which was read on the 27th day of October, 1850, in all the churches and chapels of the Romanists, congratulating Catholic England on the reestablishment of the Roman hierarchy. In it he used the startling expression, "Our beloved country has been restored to its...o...b..t in the ecclesiastical firmament, from which its light had long vanished."

"'The nation was the more surprised at all this, inasmuch as the position of Pio Nono was not such as to warrant any expectation of a step so audacious. Little more than a year had elapsed since his own subjects in Rome itself rebelled against him, murdered his Prime Minister, and compelled him, in the disguise of a menial, to fly from Rome; nor was he restored except by the arms of the French, who besieged and took Rome in 1849.

"'That the Pope, while holding his own little dominions on so precarious a tenure, should venture to a.s.sume such an exercise of supremacy over the most powerful nation in the world,--a nation so jealous of its independence, which had so long been, and which still was, most averse to his claims,--seemed almost incredible to the people of England; and they were proportionably indignant.

"'Some affirmed that the aforesaid Cardinal Wiseman was the chief cause of it all,--the spectacle of many conversions from the Church of England to that of Rome having deceived him into a notion that the national mind was far more generally disposed to receive Romanism; and to make up the long-standing breach with the Papacy, than was really the case.

The princ.i.p.al cause of the conversions above mentioned was what was called the "Oxford Movement." In the University of Oxford had sprung up a body of men who had consecrated their lives to the diffusion of doctrines indefinitely near those of Rome. They spoke of the Reformation contemptuously; advocated very many, obsolete rites and usages; magnified the power of the church and the prerogatives of the priesthood. Many of them, at length, finding that they could not, with any shadow of consistency, remain in the English church, abandoned it; but many others remained, and propagated the same opinions with impunity. They were regarded as traitors by their brethren, though no steps were taken to prevent them from teaching their notions, nor to deprive them of their benefices and emoluments. Among those who gave up their livings, of their own accord, from the feeling that they could not hold them with a safe conscience, the princ.i.p.al was one afterwards called Father Newman.

"'Now this Newman must by no means be confounded with another of the same name, Professor Newman,--in fact his own brother,--who was also educated at Oxford, but whose history was in most singular contrast with his. While the one brother went over to Rome, exceeded in zeal and credulity even the Romanists themselves, and sighed for a restoration of mediaeval puerilities, the other lapsed into downright infidelity, and denied even the possibility of an external revelation.

"'Very many thought, that, if the Oxford party had been wise enough to proceed more gently in the propagation of their notions, they would have accomplished much greater things, and perhaps eventually brought the popular mind to embrace the Romish Church. But their later publications (and especially No. 90) opened the eyes of many, and the frequent defections from the English Church, which were almost daily announced in the papers, opened the eyes of many more.

"'But whether or not Wiseman and other princ.i.p.al persons were misled by erroneous representations of the state of the English mind, certain it is that he advised the Pope to take this perilous step. The Pope was persuaded; he a.s.sured the people of England, that he should not cease to supplicate the Virgin Mary and all the saints whose virtues had made this country ill.u.s.trious, that they would deign to obtain, by their intercessions with G.o.d, a happy issue to his enterprise.

"'The excitement produced by the publication of the Pope's proceedings throughout England was prodigious, and can hardly be conceived by us at this day. Every county, city, and almost every town, held meetings in the utmost alarm and indignation; and resolved on pet.i.tioning the Queen and Parliament to do something or other to prevent the Pope's measures from taking effect; and especially to annul all claims to local and territorial jurisdiction in this country. The universities; the clergy in their dioceses; the Bishops collectively,--even Philpotts of Exeter, though intoxicated with zeal for those Oxford notions which had done all the mischief; the munic.i.p.alities; almost all organized bodies, whether of Churchmen or Dissenters;--discussed and resolved.

Amongst these meetings one was held at the Guildhall of London, which was crowded with the merchant princes of that great city, and all that could represent its wealth, intelligence, and energy. One Masterman opened the proceedings, made a vehement speech against the Bishop of Rome and his pretensions, and proposed a stringent resolution, which was carried by acclamation.

"'At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor, at which were present many of the Ministers of the Crown, the Lord Chancellor Wilde spoke very boldly, and, as some thought, unadvisedly, on his possible future relations to the Cardinal.

"'Cardinal Wiseman published a subtle defence of himself and the Popish measure, which he addressed to the people of England; and, whether consistently or inconsistently, pleaded in the most strenuous manner for the inviolable observance of the principles of "religious liberty."

"'A singular and indeed inexplicable circ.u.mstance occurred in the course of this controversy. In a lecture, delivered at the Hanover Square Rooms, a certain Presbyterian clergyman had a.s.serted that the oath prescribed in the Pontificale Romanum, which the Cardinal Wiseman must have taken to the Pope when he received the Pallium as Archbishop of Westminster, notoriously contained a clause enjoining the duty of persecution. This clause, a facetious Englishman said, ought to be translated, "I will persecute and pitch into all heretics to the utmost of my power"; and every one knew that the Pope of Rome looked upon the English as the greatest heretics in the world.

"'When Wiseman heard of the representations thus made, he caused his secretary to write to the Protestant lecturer, to say that the clause in the oath to which he had referred was not insisted upon, in his (the Cardinal's) case, by the Pope, and that, if his calumniator chose to go to the Cardinal's library, he would see that it was cancelled in his copy of the Pontifical. The Protestant accepted his challenge and went to the said library. He was then shown the oath, and found the clause in question, totidem verbis; not cancelled, however, but marked off by a line in black ink drawn over it, and (as it seemed) very recently.

"'Pamphlets were published on this curious circ.u.mstance on both sides; the Roman Catholics contended that the mere fact of Wiseman's challenge was a sufficient proof of his consciousness of rect.i.tude.

"'On the whole, after half a year of perpetual agitation, both in and out of Parliament, a measure was pa.s.sed which was notoriously inadequate to suppress the offence, and which was broken with impunity.

"'It is gratifying to add, that, notwithstanding the dangerous and vehement excitement which so long inflamed the minds of the people, no life was lost except on one occasion. The sufferer--contrary to what might have been expected--was of the dominant party a policeman, who was endeavoring to repress the party violence of some Irish Catholics in the North of England.'"

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"Now it need not be said," proceeded Harrington, "that these sentences contain what is perfectly well known by you--for myself I say nothing--to be the merest matter of fact, narrated in the simplest language, without any art or embellishment. Would you like to hear how Dr. d.i.c.kkopf, of New Zealand, or Kamtschatka, or Caffre-land, might treat such a doc.u.ment eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, amidst that imperfect light which we well know rests upon so many portions of the past, and which may, very possibly, be felt in the future? I think it would not be difficult for him to show that the 'Papal Aggression' was impossible."

"We will, at least, listen to you," said Robinson.

"Let us suppose, then, some learned Theban stumbling upon this brief record of an obscure event, and, as usual, making (if only because he had discovered what n.o.body in the world either knew or cared about) a huge commentary upon it; concluding from the internal evidence, the simplicity of the style, the absence of all imaginable motives for misrepresentation, and some external corroborative fragments painfully gleaned from the history of the period, that these sentences formed a genuine, literal, historic account of certain events which transpired in England in the year 1850. This, of course, would of itself be sufficient to make ten Dr. d.i.c.kkopfs turn to and prove the contrary; and any one of them, I imagine, might, and probably would, thus reply. Excuse his clumsy style. He would say:--

"'That there may have been, and very probably was, some nucleus of fact which may have served as a groundwork for these pseudo-historical memorials, is not denied: but to regard that doc.u.ment of which it is professedly a condensation as a genuine record of the period in question, can only, we conceive, be the infelicity of an essentially uncritical mind. Most evidently, whether we regard the known events and relations of that age (as far as they have come down to us) or the internal characteristics of the doc.u.ment itself, we discover unequivocal traces of an unhistoric origin. Let us look at both these sources of evidence in order. If we mistake not, the doc.u.ment, even as it now stands, bears on its very front, that the original doc.u.ment, so far from being a literal description of the events of the time to which it professedly related, was allegorical, or at most historico- allegorical, and most likely designed broadly to caricature and satirize some perceived tendencies or conditions of the English religious development in certain parties of that age. But whether it be, or be not, reducible to the cla.s.s of allegorieo-ecclesiastico- political satire, certainly no person of critical discernment can for a moment allow it to be a literal statement of historic events. And first to look at the internal evidence.

"'Is it possible to overlook the singular character of the names which everywhere meet us? They, in fact, tell their own tale, and almost, as it were, proclaim of themselves that they are allegorical.

Wiseman, Newman (two of them, be it observed), Masterman, Philpotts, Wilde. Who, that has been gifted with even a moderate share of critical ac.u.men, can fail to see that these are all fict.i.tious names, invented by the allegorist either to set forth certain qualities or attributes of certain persons whose true names are concealed, or, as I rather think, to embody certain tendencies of the times, or represent certain party characteristics. Thus the name "Wiseman" is evidently chosen to represent the proverbial craft which was attributed to the Church of Rome; and Nicholas has also been chosen (as I apprehend) for the purpose of indicating the sources whence that craft was derived.

In all probability the name was selected just in the same manner as Bunyan in his immortal Pilgrim's Progress (which still delights the world) has chosen "Worldly Wiseman" for one of his characters. It is said that he was a Spaniard: but who so fit as a Spaniard to be represented as the agent of the Holy See? while, as there never was a Spaniard of that name, every one can see that historic probability has not been regarded. The word "Newman" again (and observe the significant fact that there were two of them) was, in all probability, I may say certainly, designed to embody two opposite tendencies, both of which, perhaps, claimed, in impatience of the effete humanity of that age (a dead and stereotyped Protestantism), to introduce a new order of things. These parties (if I may form a conjecture from the doc.u.ment itself) were essaying to extricate the mind of the age from the difficulties of its intellectual position; an age, a.s.serting inconsistently, on the one hand, the freedom of spiritual life, and, on the other, claiming for the Bible an authorized supremacy over all the phenomena of that spiritual life. One of these parties sought to solve this difficulty by endeavoring to resuscitate the spirit of the past; the other, by attempting to set human intellect and consciousness free from the yoke of all external authority. In all probability the names were suggested to the somewhat profane allegorico-sat.i.tical writer by that text in the English version, "Put on the Newman," the new man of the spirit.

We are almost driven to this interpretation, indeed, by the extreme and ludicrous improbability of two men--brothers, brought up at the same university--gradually receding, pari pa.s.su, from the same point in opposite directions, to the uttermost extreme; one till he had embraced the most puerile legends of the Middle Ages, the other, till he had proceeded to open infidelity. Probably such a curious coincidence of events was never heard of since the world began; and this must, at all events, be rejected.

"'Similar observations apply to the name Masterman, which, in ancient English, was applied to him who was not a "servant" or "journeyman,"

and is not unfitly used to indicate collectively the a.s.semblage of wealthy merchants who, like those of Tyre, were "princes"; as well as to imply that the powerful cla.s.s to which they belonged were the "Mastermen" in the country, and, in fact, spoke in a potential voice in all such crises as that supposed. It might also, perhaps, be designed obliquely to intimate, that, 'whatever the clergy and the theologians of different parties might wish to realize, it was, after all, the powerful and independent cla.s.s of the laity who were the "mastermen," and would not succ.u.mb to any spiritual guides whatever, even though called by the specious names of Wis.e.m.e.n and Newmen. The mere singularity of the names alone ought to decide the point. And what further confirms our view is, that it is impossible to point out any Englishmen of any distinction who ever had any of these names. Here we do not argue from conjecture, after merely looking into the most recent biographical repertories (as, for example, the "Bibliotheca Clarisimorum Virorum," in three hundred and fifty volumes folio); for it is no argument that this meagre collection makes no mention of any such names; since, in the successive compilations of such works, (as the world grows older,) it has been found necessary to extrude from time to time thousands of lesser names, which had twinkled in preceding ages. But, deeply anxious to establish truth, we have at infinite pains caused to be fished up, from the depths of the archives of our national museums, very rare reprints of some of the works of the age nearest that in which these events are said to have occurred, and in none of these works is there an individual mentioned of the name of Newman or Masterman, and only one comparatively obscure person of the name of Wiseman,--a presumptive proof that they were fict.i.tious names. Is it possible that these curious and varied coincidences can be the mere effect of chance?'

"I shall spare you," said Harrington, "Dr. d.i.c.kkopf's learned etymological disquisitions on the names Wilde and Philpotts, which, aided by the imputed 'rashness' of the one, and the 'intoxicated zeal'

of the other, he clearly demonstrated to be fict.i.tious.

"After which, I will suppose him to proceed thus:--

'We presume we have said enough to convince any acute and candid mind of the extreme improbability of the doc.u.ment being designed to convey to posterity a literal statement of facts; not that we for a moment think it necessary to suppose that any evil design actuated the writer, whoever he might be. It was most likely intended, as we have already said, to be an allegorico-political caricature of certain events which did undeniably occur, and which formed a slender basis of historic fact on which to found it.

"'Nor is the particularity of some of the dates and alleged circ.u.mstances of much weight in our judgment. He must be a miserable inventor of fiction indeed, who cannot clothe a narrative in some verisimilitude of this kind. It is said, that the historian makes a seeming reference to those who were living at the very time.

"Some," he says, "still survive." But who does not see that the word "survive" may refer to the accounts (which he, it appears, knew little how to interpret), not the persons; though, be it observed, that on such a supposition he does not vouch for having seen them, and may have spoken merely from report. This very clause, too, has undeniably much the appearance of an interpolation. There are many other little circ.u.mstances, which, to those who have been accustomed to detect unhistoric characteristics in ancient doc.u.ments, and to draw a sharp line between the mythic or allegoric and the historic, sufficiently proclaim the origin of this supposed narrative of facts.

"'But the internal evidence, conclusive as it is, is as nothing to the external. If we examine the doc.u.ment by the light of the facts which contemporary history supplies, nay, even by the probability or otherwise of its own contents, we shah see the extreme absurdity of supposing that the account from which it was borrowed was ever meant to be a record of facts. We hesitate not to say, that the political facts of which it makes mention are many of them in the highest degree incredible. That there may have been a rebellion at Rome is very possible; but a.s.suredly the only nation in Europe, (if we except England,) that was not likely to take the Pope's part against a republican movement, or resent him on his throne, was the French.

To suppose them thus acting is contrary to all that we know of the history of that nation, and of human nature. The traces of the terrible revolutions which in that century, and at the close of the preceding one, shook France again and again to her centre, and the outlines of which still live in authentic history, all show the extent to which infidelity and democratic violence prevailed in France; nay, we know that during the dominion of the Emperor Napoleon, if we are to regard his history as literally true, and not a collection of fables and legends,* as some even of that age maintained, that great conqueror arrested and imprisoned the Pope. That France should have undertaken the task of subduing a republican movement, just when she had come out of a similar revolution, or rather many such,--and of reseating the Pope on his throne, when she had been more impatient of the restraints of all religion than any other nation in Europe,--is perfectly incredible! Not less improbable is it that, supposing (as may perhaps be true) that there was a basis of fact in the a.s.serted rebellion of the Romans, and Pio Nono's restoration to his dominions (though not by France, that the intelligent reader will on politico-logical grounds p.r.o.nounce impossible, but more probably by the Spaniards),--yet can we suppose that a power which was always celebrated for its astuteness and subtlety would choose that very moment of humiliation and ignominy to rush into an act so audacious as that of reestablishing the Romish hierarchy in England,--in a nation by far the most powerful in the world at that time,--a nation which, if it had pleased, could have blown Rome into the air in three months? It must needs have strengthened a thousand-fold the strong antipathies of the English to the See of Rome. It would, indeed, have justified that storm of indignation with which it is said to have been met.

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* Dr. d.i.c.kkopf may be here supposed to refer to the "Historic Doubts"

of Archbishop Whately, which may well deceive even more astute critics.--Ed.

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"'There is much that is palpably improbable in many other parts of the statement (simple as it seems to be) when submitted to the searching spirit of modern criticism. How ridiculous is the story of Cardinal Wiseman's pretending that the oath in receiving the Pallium had been modified for his convenience; little less so, indeed, than his challenge to his Presbyterian antagonist to examine it, and that, too, in the very book in which the contested clause was not cancelled!

All this is such a maze of absurdity, that it is impossible to believe it. In the first place, do we not know that, throughout the whole history of the Papal power, the inflexible character, not only of its doctrines, but of its official forms and solemnities, was always maintained, and that this pertinacity was continually placing it at a disadvantage in the contest with the more flexible spirit of Protestantism? It would not renounce, in terms or words, the very things which it did renounce in deeds, and never could prevail upon itself to get over this unaccommodating spirit! Yet here we are to believe that, at the Cardinal's request a certain part of a most solemn ceremonial--that of receiving the Pallium was remitted by the Pope! If it were so, the Cardinal would certainly have desired to conceal it. If he could not have done that, he would, at least, never have given so easy a triumph to his adversary as to challenge him to inspect the very copy of the Pontifical, in which, after all, the oath was not cancelled, in order that he might be satisfied that it was!

Who can believe that a Cardinal of the Romish Church, Wiseman or fool, would have been simple enough for such a step as this? It is plain that the historian himself was not unaware that such an objection would immediately suggest itself, and endeavors to guard against it,--a suspicious circ.u.mstance in itself--which may serve to warn us how little we can depend on the historic character of the doc.u.ment.

"'Again; what can be more improbable, than that, when a great nation was convulsed from one end to the other, as the English are said to have been, there should have been no violence, not even accidentally, attending those huge and excited a.s.semblages; a thing so natural, nay, so certain! Who can believe that only one man was sacrificed, and he on the predominant side? I have discovered in my laborious researches on this important subject, that only seventy years before, when a cry of the same nature, but much less potent, was raised, London was filled with conflagration and blood-shed. Who ever heard, indeed, of commotion such as this is pretended to have been, and its ending in vox et praeterea nihil?

"'It is superfluous to point out the absurdity of supposing a Cardinal of the Romish Church lecturing the people of England on "the claims of religious liberty"; or so great a nation, in such a paroxysm, spending many months in the concoction of a measure confessed to be a feeble one, and suffered to be broken with impunity!

"'But, lastly, my laborious researches have led to the important discovery, that, in this very year of pretended hot commotion, England--in peace with all the world, profound peace within and profound peace without--celebrated a sort of jubilee of the nations, in a vast building of gla.s.s (wonderful for those times), called the Great Exhibition, to which every country had contributed specimens of the comparatively rude manufacture--of that rude age! London was filled with foreigners from all parts of the earth; the whole kingdom was in a commotion, indeed, but a commotion of hospitable festivity, in which it shook hands with all the world!

This is a piece of positive evidence which ought to settle the whole matter. In short, the external and internal evidence alike warrants us in rejecting this absurd story as utterly incredible.'"

"Upon my word," said young Robinson, "you have said more than I thought you could have said on such a theme. I really almost doubt whether Dr. d.i.c.kkopf has not the best of it, and whether we ought not to agree that the 'Papal Aggression' is a sheer delusion."

"O," said Harrington, "I have mot given you half the arguments by which an historian, eighteen hundred years hence, might prove that what has actually occurred never could have occurred, and that what has not occurred must, in the very nature of things, have occurred, by a necessity alike political, historical, ethical, logical, and psychological. And no doubt Dr. d.i.c.kkopf is right on the principles on which acute critics may argue; that is, the a.s.sumption that certain probabilities will justify conclusions on such subjects. One might naturally have supposed the Pope to have been more politic than to take this step,--the French more consistent than to suppress the Republican movement of Italy,--the English less moderate in expressing their indignation,--and certainly that there would never have been such an array of odd names to garnish one brief doc.u.ment.

And now, I bethink me, it is far from impossible that some Dr.