The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VI Part 26

We all know that a good man may employ a bad agent. A good king might leave his realm and put in his place a tyrant and a wretch. The good man and the good king cannot certainly know what manner of man the agent is--what kind of person the vicar is--consequently the bad may be chosen. But if the king appointed a bad vicar, knowing him to be bad, knowing that he would oppress the people, knowing that he would imprison and burn the n.o.ble and generous, what excuse can be imagined for such a king?

Now, if the church is of divine origin, and if each pope is the vicar of Jesus Christ, he must have been chosen by Jesus Christ; and when he was chosen, Christ must have known exactly what his vicar would do. Can we believe that an infinitely wise and good Being would choose immoral, dishonest, ignorant, malicious, heartless, fiendish, and inhuman vicars?

The Cardinal admits that "the history of Christianity is the history of the church, and that the history of the church is the history of the Pontiffs," and he then declares that "the greatest statesmen and rulers that the world has ever seen are the Popes of Rome."

Let me call attention to a few pa.s.sages in Draper's "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe."

"Constantine was one of the vicars of Christ. Afterwards, Stephen IV.

was chosen. The eyes of Constantine were then put out by Stephen, acting in Christ's place. The tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was amputated by the man who had been subst.i.tuted for G.o.d. This bishop was left in a dungeon to perish of thirst. Pope Leo III. was seized in the street and forced into a church, where the nephews of Pope Adrian attempted to put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. His successor, Stephen V., was driven ignominiously from Rome. His successor, Paschal I., was accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace.

John VIII., unable to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute.

"At this time, the Bishop of Naples was in secret alliance with the Mohammedans, and they divided with this Catholic bishop the plunder they collected from other Catholics. This bishop was excommunicated by the pope; afterwards he gave him absolution because he betrayed the chief Mohammedans, and a.s.sa.s.sinated others. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope, and some of the treasures of the church were seized, and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys to admit the Saracens. Formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, who had been excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of Pope John, was himself elected pope in 891. Boniface VI.

was his successor. He had been deposed from the diaconate and from the priesthood for his immoral and lewd life. Stephen VII. was the next pope, and he had the dead body of Formosus taken from the grave, clothed in papal habiliments, propped up in a chair and tried before a Council.

The corpse was found guilty, three fingers were cut off and the body cast into the Tiber. Afterwards Stephen VII., this Vicar of Christ, was thrown into prison and strangled.

"From 896 to 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V., in less than two months after he became pope, was cast into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains. This Christopher usurped his place, and in a little while was expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who became pope in 905. This pope lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated Theodora, who with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, both prost.i.tutes, exercised an extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by John X. She gave him the Archbishopric of Revenna, and made him pope in 915. The daughter of Theodora overthrew this pope. She surprised him in the Lateran Palace. His brother, Peter, was killed; the pope was thrown into prison, where he was afterward murdered. Afterward, this Marozia, daughter of Theodora, made her own son pope, John XI. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his father, but his mother inclined to attribute him to her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she afterward married. Another of her sons, Alberic, jealous of his brother John, the pope, cast him and their mother into prison. Alberic's son was then elected pope as John XII.

"John was nineteen years old when he became the vicar of Christ. His reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere. He was tried. It appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration of bishops; that he had ordained one who was only ten years old; that he was charged with incest, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel. He put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic; he maimed another--both dying in consequence of their injuries. He was given to drunkenness and to gambling. He was deposed at last, and Leo VII. elected in his stead. Subsequently he got the upper hand. He seized his antagonists; he cut off the hand of one, the nose, the finger, and the tongue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced."

And yet, I admit that the most infamous popes, the most heartless and fiendish bishops, friars, and priests were models of mercy, charity, and justice when compared with the orthodox G.o.d--with the G.o.d they worshiped. These popes, these bishops, these priests could persecute only for a few years--they could burn only for a few moments--but their G.o.d threatened to imprison and burn forever; and their G.o.d is as much worse than they were, as h.e.l.l is worse than the Inquisition.

"John XIII. was strangled in prison. Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII., and starved him to death. John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of the castle of St. Angelo. The corpse of Boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets."

It must be remembered that the popes were a.s.sa.s.sinated by Catholics--murdered by the faithful--that one vicar of Christ strangled another vicar of Christ, and that these men were "the greatest rulers and the greatest statesmen of the earth."

"Pope John XVI. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his tongue torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted on an a.s.s, with his face to the tail. Benedict IX., a boy of less than twelve years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his successors, Victor III., declared that the life of Benedict was so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of banditti. The people, unable to bear longer his adulteries, his homicides and his abominations, rose against him, and in despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction, and it was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., in the year of grace 1045. Well may we ask, Were these the vicegerents of G.o.d upon earth--these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pa.s.s?"

It may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit that has not been committed by the vicars of Christ. They have inflicted every possible torture, violated every natural right. Greater monsters the human race has not produced.

Among the "some two hundred and fifty-eight" Vicars of Christ there were probably some good men. This would have happened even if the intention had been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfection neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by Christ himself, if they were selected by a church with a divine origin and under divine guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection of a bad one. If one hypocrite was duly elected pope--one murderer, one strangler, one starver--this demonstrates that all the popes were selected by men, and by men only, and that the claim of divine guidance is born of zeal and uttered without knowledge.

But who were the vicars of Christ? How many have there been? Cardinal Manning himself does not know. He is not sure. He says: "Starting from St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some two hundred and fifty-eight Pontiffs claiming to be recognized by the whole Catholic unity as successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ." Why did he use the word "some"? Why "claiming"? Does he not positively know? Is it possible that the present Vicar of Christ is not certain as to the number of his predecessors? Is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact?

Robert G. Ingersoll.

II.

"If we live thus tamely,-- To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,-- Farewell n.o.bility."

NO ONE will deny that "the pope speaks to many people in many nations; that he treats with empires and governments," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople such a voice goes forth."

How does the pope speak? What does he say?

He speaks against the liberty of man--against the progress of the human race. He speaks to calumniate thinkers, and to warn the faithful against the discoveries of science. He speaks for the destruction of civilization.

Who listens? Do astronomers, geologists and scientists put the hand to the ear fearing that an accent may be lost? Does France listen? Does Italy hear? Is not the church weakest at its centre? Do those who have raised Italy from the dead, and placed her again among the great nations, pay attention? Does Great Britain care for this voice--this moan, this groan--of the Middle Ages? Do the words of Leo XIII. impress the intelligence of the Great Republic? Can anything be more absurd than for the vicar of Christ to attack a demonstration of science with a pa.s.sage of Scripture, or a quotation from one of the "Fathers"?

Compare the popes with the kings and queens of England. Infinite wisdom had but little to do with the selection of these monarchs, and yet they were far better than any equal number of consecutive popes. This is faint praise, even for kings and queens, but it shows that chance succeeded in getting better rulers for England than "Infinite Wisdom"

did for the Church of Rome. Compare the popes with the presidents of the Republic elected by the people. If Adams had murdered Washington, and Jefferson had imprisoned Adams, and if Madison had cut out Jefferson's tongue, and Monroe had a.s.sa.s.sinated Madison, and John Quincy Adams had poisoned Monroe, and General Jackson had hung Adams and his Cabinet, we might say that presidents had been as virtuous as popes. But if this had happened, the verdict of the world would be that the people are not capable of selecting their presidents.

But this voice from Rome is growing feebler day by day; so feeble that the Cardinal admits that the vicar of G.o.d, and the supernatural church, "are being tormented by Falck laws, by Mancini laws and by Crispi laws."

In other words, this representative of G.o.d, this subst.i.tute of Christ, this church of divine origin, this supernatural inst.i.tution--pervaded by the Holy Ghost--are being "tormented" by three politicians. Is it possible that this patriotic trinity is more powerful than the other?

It is claimed that if the Catholic Church "be only a human system, built up by the intellect, will and energy of men, the adversaries must prove it--that the burden is upon them."

As a general thing, inst.i.tutions are natural. If this church is supernatural, it is the one exception. The affirmative is with those who claim that it is of divine origin. So far as we know, all governments and all creeds are the work of man. No one believes that Rome was a supernatural production, and yet its beginnings were as small as those of the Catholic Church. Commencing in weakness, Rome grew, and fought, and conquered, until it was believed that the sky bent above a subjugated world. And yet all was natural. For every effect there was an efficient cause.

The Catholic a.s.serts that all other religions have been produced by man--that Brahminism and Buddhism, the religion of Isis and Osiris, the marvelous mythologies of Greece and Rome, were the work of the human mind. From these religions Catholicism has borrowed. Long before Catholicism was born, it was believed that women had borne children whose fathers were G.o.ds. The Trinity was promulgated in Egypt centuries before the birth of Moses. Celibacy was taught by the ancient Nazarenes and Essenes, by the priests of Egypt and India, by mendicant monks, and by the piously insane of many countries long before the apostles lived.

The Chinese tell us that "when there were but one man and one woman upon the earth, the woman refused to sacrifice her virginity even to people the globe; and the G.o.ds, honoring her purity, granted that she should conceive beneath the gaze of her lover's eyes, and a virgin mother became the parent of humanity."

The founders of many religions have insisted that it was the duty of man to renounce the pleasures of sense, and millions before our era took the vows of chast.i.ty, poverty and obedience, and most cheerfully lived upon the labor of others.

The sacraments of baptism and confirmation are far older than the Church of Rome. The Eucharist is pagan. Long before popes began to murder each other, pagans ate cakes--the flesh of Ceres, and drank wine--the blood of Bacchus. Holy water flowed in the Ganges and Nile, priests interceded for the people, and anointed the dying.

It will not do to say that every successful religion that has taught unnatural doctrines, unnatural practices, must of necessity have been of divine origin. In most religions there has been a strange mingling of the good and bad, of the merciful and cruel, of the loving and malicious. Buddhism taught the universal brotherhood of man, insisted on the development of the mind, and this religion was propagated not by the sword, but by preaching, by persuasion, and by kindness--yet in many things it was contrary to the human will, contrary to the human pa.s.sions, and contrary to good sense. Buddhism succeeded. Can we, for this reason, say that it is a supernatural religion? Is the unnatural the supernatural?

It is insisted that, while other churches have changed, the Catholic Church alone has remained the same, and that this fact demonstrates its divine origin.

Has the creed of Buddhism changed in three thousand years? Is intellectual stagnation a demonstration of divine origin? When anything refuses to grow, are we certain that the seed was planted by G.o.d? If the Catholic Church is the same to-day that it has been for many centuries, this proves that there has been no intellectual development. If men do not differ upon religious subjects, it is because they do not think.

Differentiation is the law of growth, of progress. Every church must gain or lose: it cannot remain the same; it must decay or grow. The fact that the Catholic Church has not grown--that it has been petrified from the first--does not establish divine origin; it simply establishes the fact that it r.e.t.a.r.ds the progress of man. Everything in nature changes--every atom is in motion--every star moves. Nations, inst.i.tutions and individuals have youth, manhood, old age, death. This is and will be true of the Catholic Church. It was once weak--it grew stronger--it reached its climax of power--it began to decay--it never can rise again. It is confronted by the dawn of Science. In the presence of the nineteenth century it cowers.

It is not true that "All natural causes run to disintegration."

Natural causes run to integration as well as to disintegration.

All growth is integration, and all growth is natural. All decay is disintegration, and all decay is natural. Nature builds and nature destroys. When the acorn grows--when the sunlight and rain fall upon it and the oak rises--so far as the oak is concerned "all natural causes"

do not "run to disintegration." But there comes a time when the oak has reached its limit, and then the forces of nature run towards disintegration, and finally the old oak falls. But if the Cardinal is right--if "all natural causes run to disintegration," then every success must have been of divine origin, and nothing is natural but destruction.

This is Catholic science: "All natural causes run to disintegration."

What do these causes find to disintegrate? Nothing that is natural. The fact that the thing is not disintegrated shows that it was and is of supernatural origin. According to the Cardinal, the only business of nature is to disintegrate the supernatural. To prevent this, the supernatural needs the protection of the Infinite. According to this doctrine, if anything lives and grows, it does so in spite of nature.

Growth, then, is not in accordance with, but in opposition to nature.

Every plant is supernatural--it defeats the disintegrating influences of rain and light. The generalization of the Cardinal is half the truth. It would be equally true to say: All natural causes run to integration. But the whole truth is that growth and decay are equal.

The Cardinal a.s.serts that "Christendom was created by the world-wide church as we see it before our eyes at this day."

Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own hands; they did not make it, but they have for three hundred years been unmaking it by reformations and revolutions.

The meaning of this is that Christendom was far better three hundred years ago than now; that during these three centuries Christendom has been going toward barbarism. It means that the supernatural church of G.o.d has been a failure for three hundred years; that it has been unable to withstand the attacks of philosophers and statesmen, and that it has been helpless in the midst of "reformations and revolutions."

What was the condition of the world three hundred years ago, the period, according to the Cardinal, in which the church reached the height of its influence, and since which it has been unable to withstand the rising tide of reformation and the whirlwind of revolution?

In that blessed time, Philip II. was king of Spain--he with the cramped head and the monstrous jaw. Heretics were hunted like wild and poisonous beasts; the Inquisition was firmly established, and priests were busy with rack and fire. With a zeal born of the hatred of man and the love of G.o.d, the church, with every instrument of torture, touched every nerve in the human body.

In those happy days, the Duke of Alva was devastating the homes of Holland; heretics were buried alive--their tongues were torn from their mouths, their lids from their eyes; the Armada was on the sea for the destruction of the heretics of England, and the Moriscoes--a million and a half of industrious people--were being driven by sword and flame from their homes. The Jews had been expelled from Spain. This Catholic country had succeeded in driving intelligence and industry from its territory; and this had been done with a cruelty, with a ferocity, unequaled, in the annals of crime.

Nothing was left but ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, credulity, the Inquisition, the seven sacraments and the seven deadly sins. And yet a Cardinal of the nineteenth century, living in the land of Shakespeare, regrets the change that has been wrought by the intellectual efforts, by the discoveries, by the inventions and heroism of three hundred years.

Three hundred years ago, Charles IX., in France, son of Catherine de Medici, in the year of grace 1572--after nearly sixteen centuries of Catholic Christianity--after hundreds of vicars of Christ had sat in St.