The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 35

What Bull and Waterland have urged in defence of the Nicene Fathers is (like every thing else from such men) most worthy of all attention. They contend that no other term but [Greek: h.o.m.oousia] could secure the Christian faith against both the two contrary errors, Tritheism with subversion of the unity of the G.o.dhead on the one hand, and creature-worship on the other. For, to use Waterland's mode of argument, [4] either Eusebius of Nicomedia with the four other dissenters at Nice were right or wrong in their a.s.sertion, that Christ could not be of the [Greek: ousia] of the self-originated First by derivation, as a son from a father:--if they were right, they either must have discovered some third distinct and intelligible form of origination in addition to 'begotten' and 'created', or they had not and could not. Now the latter was notoriously the fact. Therefore to deny the [Greek: h.o.m.oousia] was implicitly to deny the generation of the second Person, and thus to a.s.sert his creation. But if he was a creature, he could not be adorable without idolatry. Nor did the chain of inevitable consequences stop here. His characteristic functions of Redeemer, Mediator, King, and final Judge, must all cease to be attributable to Christ; and the conclusion is, that between the h.o.m.oousian scheme and mere Psilanthropism there is no intelligible 'medium'. If this, then, be not a fundamental article of faith, what can be?

To this reasoning I really can discern no fair reply within the sphere of conceptual logic, if it can be made evident that the term [Greek: h.o.m.oousios] is really capable of achieving the end here set forth. One objection to the term is, that it was not translatable into the language of the Western Church. Consubstantial is not the translation: 'substantia' answers to [Greek: hypostasis], not to [Greek: ousia]; and hence, when [Greek: hypostasis] was used by the Nicene Fathers in distinction from [Greek: ousia], the Latin Church was obliged to render it by some other word, and thus introduced that most unhappy and improper term 'persona'. Would you know my own inward judgment on this question, it is this: first, that this pregnant idea, the root and form of all ideas, is not within the sphere of conceptual logic,--that is, of the understanding,--and is therefore of necessity inexpressible; for no idea can be adequately represented in words:--secondly, that I agree with Bull and Waterland against Bishop Taylor, that there was need of a public and solemn decision on this point:--but, lastly, that I am more than doubtful respecting the fitness or expediency of the term [Greek: h.o.m.oousios], and hold that the decision ought to have been negative. For at first all parties agreed in the positive point, namely, that Christ was the Son of G.o.d, and that the Son of G.o.d was truly G.o.d, "or very G.o.d of very G.o.d." All that was necessary to be added was, that the only begotten Son of G.o.d was not created nor begotten in time. More than this might be possible, and subject of insight; but it was not determinable by words, and was therefore to be left among the rewards of the Spirit to the pure in heart in inward vision and silent contemplation.

Ib. s. xl. p. 495.

All that is necessary to give a full and satistory import to this excellent paragraph, and to secure it from all inconvenient consequences, is to understand the distinction between the objective and general revelation, by which the whole Church is walled around and kept together ('principium totalitatis et cohaesionis'), and the subjective revelation, the light from the life ('John' i. 4.), by which the individual believers, each according to the grace given, grow in faith.

For the former, the Apostles' Creed, in its present form, is more than enough; for the latter, it might be truly said in the words of the fourth Gospel, that all the books which the world could contain would not suffice to set forth explicitly that mystery in which all treasures of knowledge are hidden, 'reconduntur'.

From the Apostles' Creed, nevertheless, if regarded in the former point of view, several clauses must be struck out, not as false, but as not necessary. "I believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose from the dead on the third day; and I receive him as the Christ, the Son of the living G.o.d, who died for the remission of the sins of as many as believe in the Father through him, in whom we have the promise of life everlasting." This is the sufficient creed.

More than this belongs to the Catechism, and then to the study of the Scriptures.

Ib. s. vi. p. 506.

So did the ancient Papias understand Christ's millenary reign upon earth, and so depressed the hopes of Christianity and their desires to the longing and expectation of temporal pleasures and satisfactions.

And he was followed by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, and indeed, the whole Church generally, till St. Austin and St.

Jerome's time, who, first of any whose works are extant, did reprove the error.

Bishop Taylor is, I think, mistaken in two points; first, that the Catholic Millenaries looked forward to carnal pleasures in the kingdom of Christ;--for even the Jewish Rabbis of any note represented the 'Millenium' as the preparative and transitional state to perfect spiritualization:--second, that the doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth rested wholly or princ.i.p.ally on the twentieth chapter of the Revelations, which actually, in my judgment, opposes it.

I more than suspect that Austin's and Jerome's strongest ground for rejecting the second coming of our Lord in his kingly character, was, that they were tired of waiting for it. How can we otherwise interpret the third and fourth clauses of the Lord's Prayer, or, perhaps, the [Greek: en toi kairoi toutoi], 'in hoc seculo', (x. 30) of St. Mark? If the first three Gospels, joined with the unbroken faith and tradition of the Church for nearly three centuries, can decide the question, the Millenarians have the best of the argument.

Vol. viii. s. ix. p. 22.

One thing only I observe (and we shall find it true in most writings, whose authority is urged in questions of theology), that the authority of the tradition is not it which moves the a.s.sent, but the nature of the thing; and because such a canon is delivered, they do not therefore believe the sanction or proposition so delivered, but disbelieve the tradition if they do not like the matter, and so do not judge of the matter by the tradition, but of the tradition by the matter.

This just and acute remark is, in fact, no less applicable to Scripture in all doctrinal points, and if infidelity is not to overspread England as well as France, the same criterion (that is, the internal evidence) must be extended to all points, to the narratives no less than to the precept. The written words must be tried by the Word from the beginning, in which is life, and that life the light of men. Reduce it to the noetic pentad, or universal form of contemplation, except where all the terms are absolute, and consequently there is no 'punctum indifferens, --in divinis tetras, in omnibus aliis pentas,' and the form stands thus.

[5]

Ib. s. iii. p. 36.

So that it cannot make it divine and necessary to be heartily believed. It may make it lawful, not make it true; that is, it may possibly, by such means, become a law, but not a truth.

This is a sophism which so evident a truth did not need. Apply the reasoning to an act of Parliament previously to the royal sanction. Will it hold good to say, if it was law after the sanction, it was law before? The a.s.sertion of the Papal theologians is, that the divine providence may possibly permit even the majority of a legally convened Council to err; but by force of a divine promise cannot permit both a majority and the Pope to err on the same point. The flaw in this is, that the Romish divines rely on a conditional promise unconditionally.

To Taylor's next argument the Romish respondent would say, that an exception, grounded on a specific evident necessity, does not invalidate the rule in the absence of any equally evident necessity.

Taylor's argument is a [Greek: metabasis eis allo genos]. It is not the truth, but the sign or mark, by which the Church at large may know that it is truth, which is here provided for; that is, not the truth simply, but the obligation of receiving it as such. Ten thousand may apprehend the latter, only ten of whom might be capable of determining the former.

Ib. 5.

So that now (that we may apply this) there are seven general Councils, which by the Church of Rome are condemned of error ... The council of Ariminum, consisting of six hundred Bishops.

It is the mark of a faction that it never hesitates to sacrifice a greater good common to them and to their opponents to a lesser advantage obtained over those opponents. Never was there a stranger instance of imprudence, at least, than the act of the Athanasian party in condemning so roundly the great Council of Ariminum as heretical, and for little more than the charitable wish of the many hundred Bishops there a.s.sembled to avoid a word that had set all Christendom by the ears. They declared that [Greek: ho agennaetos pataer, ka ho achron_os gennaets uhis, ka t pneuma ekporeuomenon] were substantially (hypostatik_os) distinct, but nevertheless, one G.o.d; and though there might be some incautious phrases used by them, the good Bishops declared that if their decree was indeed Arian, or introduced aught to the derogation of the Son's absolute divinity, it was against their knowledge and intention, and that they renounced it.

Ib. s. x. p. 46.

Gratian says, that the Council means by a concubine a wife married 'sine dote et solennitate'; but this is daubing with untempered mortar.

Here I think Taylor wrong and Gratian right; for not a hundred years ago the very same decree was pa.s.sed by the Lutheran clergy in Prussia, determining that left-hand marriages were to be discouraged, but did not exclude from communion. These marriages were invented for the sake of poor n.o.bles: they could have but that one wife, and the children followed the rank and t.i.tle of the mother, not of the father.

Ib. s. vii. p. 56.

Thirdly; for 'pasce oves', there is little in that allegation besides the boldness of the objectors.

I have ever thought that the derivation of the Papal monarchy from the thrice repeated command, 'pasce oves', the most brazen of all the Pope's bulls. It was because Peter had given too good proof that he was more disposed to draw the sword for Christ than to perform the humble duties of a shepherd, that our Lord here strongly, though tenderly, reminds him of his besetting temptation. The words are most manifestly a reproof and a warning, not a commission. In like manner the very letter of the famous paronomastic text proves that Peter's confession, not Peter himself, was the rock. His name was, perhaps, not so much stone as stoner; not so much rock as rockman; and Jesus hearing this unexpected confession of his mysterious Sonship (for this is one of the very few cases in which the internal evidence decides for the superior fidelity of the first Gospel), and recognizing in it an immediate revelation from heaven, exclaims, "Well, art thou the man of the rock; 'and upon this rock will I build my church,'" not on this man. Add too, that the law revealed to Moses and the confession of the divine attributes, are named the rock, both in the Pentateuch and in the Psalms.

Mark has simply, 'Thou art the Christ'; Luke, 'The Christ of G.o.d'; [6]

but that Jesus was the Messiah had long been known by the Apostles, at all events conjectured. Had not John so declared him at the baptism?

Besides, it was included among the opinions concerning our Lord which led to his question, the aim of which was not simply as to the Messiahship, but that the Messiah, instead of a mere descendant of David, destined to reestablish and possess David's throne, was the Jehovah himself, 'the Son of the living G.o.d; G.o.d manifested in the flesh'. 1 'Tim'. iii. 16.

Ib. s. viii. p. 62.

And yet again, another degree of uncertainty is, to whom the Bishops of Rome do succeed. For St. Paul was as much Bishop of Rome as St.

Peter was; there he presided, there he preached, and he it was that was the doctor of the uncirc.u.mcision and of the Gentiles, St. Peter of the circ.u.mcision and of the Jews only; and therefore the converted Jews at Rome might with better reason claim the privilege of St.

Peter, than the Romans and the Churches in her communion, who do not derive from Jewish parents.

I wonder that Taylor should have introduced so very strong an argument merely 'obiter'. If St. Peter ever was at Rome, it must have been for the Jewish converts or _convertendi_ exclusively, and on what do the earliest Fathers rest the fact of Peter's being at Rome? Do they appeal to any doc.u.ment? No; but to their own arbitrary and most improbable interpretation of the word Babylon in St. Peter's first epistle. [7] I am too deeply impressed with the general difficulty arising out of the strange eclipse of all historic doc.u.ments, of all particular events, from the arrival of St. Paul at Rome as related by St. Luke and the time when Justin Martyr begins to shed a scanty light, to press any particular instance of it. Yet, if Peter really did arrive at Rome, and was among those destroyed by Nero, it is strange that the Bishop and Church of Rome should have preserved no record of the particulars.

Ib. s. xv. p. 71.

But what shall we think of that decretal of Gregory the Third, who wrote to Boniface his legate in Germany, 'quod illi, quorum uxores infirmitate aliqua morbida debitum reddere noluerunt, aliis poterant nubere.'

Supposing the 'noluerunt' to mean 'nequeunt', or at least any state of mind and feeling that does not exclude moral attachment, I, as a Protestant, abominate this decree of Gregory III; for I place the moral, social, and spiritual helps and comforts as the proper and essential ends of Christian marriage, and regard the begetting of children as a contingent consequence. But on the contrary tenet of the Romish Church, I do not see how Gregory could consistently decree otherwise.

Ib. s. iii. p. 82.

Nor that Origen taught the pains of h.e.l.l not to have an eternal duration.

And yet there can be no doubt that Taylor himself held with Origen on this point. But, 'non licebat dogmatizare oppositum, quia determinatum fuerat.'

Ib. p. 84.

And except it be in the Apostles' Creed and articles of such nature, there is nothing which may with any color be called a consent, much less tradition universal.

It may be well to remember, whenever Taylor speaks of the Apostles'

Creed, that Pearson's work on that Creed was not then published. Nothing is more suspicious than copies of creeds in the early Fathers; it was so notoriously the custom of the transcribers to make them square with those in use in their own time.