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THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 

 
 OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME 
 AUTHOR 
 
 UP THE SLOPES OF MOUNT SION, 
 or a Progress from Puritanism to 
 Catholicism. 
 
 Messrs. Burns Oates & Washbourne. 5s. 
 “ADDITIONAL VERSES, AND 
 THOUGHTS AND FANCIES,” 
 Messrs. Juta & Co., Cape Town. 5s. 
 
 DOE ART OOR suiLbi: 2nd _ edition. 
 Out of print. 
 
 
 
THE FOUR MYSTERIES 
 OF THE FAITH — 
 
 MONSIGNOR*KOLBE, D.D., D.Litt. 
 
 OF CAPE TOWN 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD BY 
 
 HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL GASQUET 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LTD. 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.4 
 NEW YORK, TORONTO 
 BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS 
 1926 
 
Nihil obstat 
 GEORGIUS D. SMITH, S.T.D. 
 
 Censor deputatus. 
 
 Imprimatur 
 
 EDM. CAN. SURMONT 
 Vic. Gen. 
 
 WESTMONASTERII 
 die 9° Junii, 1926. 
 
 Made in Great Britain, 
 
TO SAINT THERESE 
 OF LISIEUX 
 
 in gratitude for a favour 
 without which this book 
 could not have been written. 
 
PONTIFICIA 
 UNIVERSITA GREGORIANA. 
 
 ROMA (10), 
 Die Augusti 28, 1925. 
 
 Opus Rmi. viri, Domini Kolbe, quod inscribitur 
 “The Four Mysteries of the Faith ”’ pellegi ego infra- 
 scriptus ea que par fuit attentione animi et rerum 
 ponderatione. Nuhil, me judice, continet nisi fidei 
 catholice apprime conforme et utilitati hujus potis- 
 simum temporis accommodatissimum. 
 
 M. DE LA TAILLE, S.J., 
 in Pontificia Universitate Gregoriana 
 de Urbe Sacre Theologie lector. 
 
 vl 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Mgr. Kolbe has produced in this little book, The 
 Four Mysteries of the Faith, something that was much 
 needed. Often, when instructing people in the Catholic 
 Religion, one has wished to have something to put 
 in their hands after the simpler elements of the Faith 
 have been mastered in the Catechism, and this seems 
 to be the very book. It is fresh and interesting and 
 full of stimulating thought. The learned Father de 
 La Taille, S.J., of the Gregorian University of Rome, 
 has examined the little volume and has well summed 
 up his opinion of it in words which I can quite endorse 
 and accept as my own: “ This,” he writes, “is an 
 interesting and even fascinating book. There is a 
 freshness about it which makes old truths look quite 
 new, and of the daily bread broken to the Christian 
 people in the Catechism makes a feast for the cultured 
 mind. The general trend of the doctrine is not only 
 orthodox, but strikingly true to the inner sense of 
 Catholic dogma. One wonders at times where the 
 author has gathered certain views, which, while far 
 from current in modern text-books, are, however, 
 known to the professional theologian to be in direct 
 continuity with the teaching of the old school of the 
 Fathers.” This is high praise indeed, but it is fully 
 
 vill 
 
Vill FOREWORD 
 
 deserved. Dr. Kolbe set out to produce a book that 
 should have for its motto, “zon nova sed nove,’ and 
 the above opinion of a learned Professor of the 
 Gregorian University shows that in this he has 
 succeeded. 
 
 From the title it is not easy to guess the contents 
 of the volume. The Four Mysteries of the Faith are 
 the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church, the Holy 
 Eucharist. But under these headings are treated, 
 and well treated, practically the whole range of 
 Catholic teaching in regard to the Soul, the Sacraments 
 of the Church, etc., etc. A glance at the index will 
 show how much necessary religious knowledge is 
 contained in these pages. I cordially, therefore, 
 recommend the book to all teachers of Catholic 
 doctrine, and I feel sure that it will furnish them with 
 many new and true thoughts. 
 
 A. CARD GASQUET 
 
 Rome, Palazzo di San Calisto, 
 May 13, 1926. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I have for many years been brooding over a treatise on 
 the Four Mysteries of the Faith, but many causes have 
 intervened to delay work upon it. To account for the 
 delay I must take my readers into my confidence. 
 
 When I originally sketched out the plan, many of the 
 thoughts that crowded in upon me were in a form so 
 new that I could not find them explicitly stated else- 
 where. I decided therefore that it was necessary to 
 proceed very cautiously. We may be as original as we 
 like in what is our own, but when we are delivering a 
 message from above, we must beware of intruding 
 extraneous ideas. We are indeed exhorted to teach 
 non nova sed nove—not new things, but the old things 
 in anew way. But God’s truths are very delicate, and 
 a human new way might easily bring in a new thing. 
 I am very suspicious of anything which occurs to my 
 mind if I cannot find it in the Great Masters. As one 
 of my little child-friends put it, in the uncanny way 
 childhood has of unconsciously happing on an epigram, 
 “T have found out that you may be as sure as nuts, 
 and yet be quite wrong all the time.”’ This was one 
 reason for waiting year after year. 
 
 Perhaps the chief cause of delay, however, was a 
 footnote I found in one of Hurter’s Opuscula Patrum 
 
 ix 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 (small treatises of the Fathers of the Church). This note 
 spoke of a book on the Mysteries of Christendom, by 
 Scheeben, and seemed to say that he enumerated them 
 as three. When I saw that I stopped dead. Scheeben 
 is one of the great German theologians, and I would 
 not cross his path for anything in the world. I tried 
 to procure his book in all sorts of ways, but the war 
 made it hard to get a German book. At last, by the 
 kindness of a friend in Rome, I got an Italian trans- 
 lation. 
 
 This translation set my mind at rest, and I began 
 again. I had been apprehensive for two reasons, first 
 the number of the Mysteries, and second the doubt 
 whether it was a new book and not a translation that 
 was wanted on the subject. As to the number, I found 
 that Hurter’s note was in error and that my view was 
 in full substantial accord with Scheeben’s ; for though 
 he elaborates his division into nine branches (not 
 three) he distinctly teaches that five of these are sub- 
 ordinated to the other four. As for the character of 
 the book, it is a very treasure-house of theology, but 
 it is very long, and very heavy, and is addressed only 
 to skilled theologians. My idea is to put forth something 
 short, something light, and to appeal to the average 
 mind—in other words, a concise little treatise of lay- 
 theology. 
 
 There is no doubt about the need of such a book. 
 I know no treatise on the subject in English, though 
 I have often wanted one to lend to inquirers. 
 
 While I was thus halting between two courses, 
 circumstances made it necessary for me to tell how 
 I myself learned the Faith nearly fifty years ago. 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 My way would have been made very much easier at 
 that time if somebody could have put into my hands a 
 volume on the four Mysteries. As it was, I hobbled 
 ‘up the slopes’ on three of them, and did not get 
 explicit insight into the fourth (or rather the third) 
 until I was well on into my theological course. While 
 writing the book called ‘“‘ Up the Slopes of Mount 
 Sion’”’ Isaw more and more clearly that it was a personal 
 preliminary to a higher theoretical work. That is why 
 when the present volume appeared serially in South 
 Africa it was linked with the previous one by the title 
 “On the Heights of Mount Sion.” It has now been 
 thought better to make the sub-title the principal one, 
 viz., ‘‘ The Four Mysteries of the Faith.” I make this 
 explanation to prevent my South African friends from 
 thinking that it is a different book. 
 
 It is always a pleasing duty to express gratitude, so 
 I wish to thank the Jesuit Fathers of South Africa 
 and Rome, and especially Father de La Taille, 5.J., 
 Professor of Theology in the Gregorian University, 
 my Alma Mater. He turned the searchlight of his 
 intense theological learning on to my manuscript, and 
 the book owes much to his corrections and suggestions. 
 Moreover, he allows me to add a paragraph of his to 
 this Preface. Humility scruples at the seemliness of my 
 publishing it, but the temptation is irresistible. He 
 writes : 
 
 ‘‘ This is an interesting, and even fascinating book. 
 There is a freshness about it, which makes old truths 
 look quite new, and of the daily bread broken to the 
 Christian people in the Catechism makes a feast for 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 the cultured mind. The general trend of the doctrine 
 is not only orthodox, but strikingly true to the inner 
 sense of Catholic dogma. One wonders at times from 
 where the author has gathered certain views, which, 
 while far from current in modern text-books, are, 
 however, known to the professional theologian to 
 be in direct continuity with the teaching of the 
 Old School and of the Fathers.”’ 
 
 To revert for a moment to the import of the title 
 I should like to add that when I speak of the ‘‘ Four 
 Mysteries,” people often ask me, ‘‘ Which are the 
 four?’’ That very question shows the need of the 
 book. 
 
 F.C.K. 
 
 St. Mary’s, Cape Town. 
 8th January, 1926. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 I. EXPLANATIONS - - - BE THO ee Oy ee I 
 Fundamental analogies—St. Paul’s use of them— 
 The adjective Incarnational—Why the book was at 
 first named ‘‘ On the Heights ’—Why the change of 
 title >The book is addressed to Catholics, but 
 other readers are not beyond its scope—The meanings 
 of ‘‘ Mystery ’—Both used by us—The definition 
 intended here—A proviso. 
 II., NUMBERING THE MYSTERIES - - - - - 8 
 
 Partial meanings—An apparent exception—-Com- 
 pressions—Amplifications—The order chosen here— 
 It is the Church’s order—Subject of book stated. 
 
 Ill. HOW MYSTERIES CAN BE REVEALED ce nt ty ED 
 The necessity of metaphor—An objection met— 
 Comparison of our two worlds. 
 
 IV. HOW TO BEGIN - rot eke st 
 Our starting- -point—The four kinds of ‘reality 
 My own soul first—Then the external world—Then 
 God—Christ the Centre of the Universe—Therefore, 
 the Revealer—The Reality of His Story—The 
 futility of objections—Subject of the book restated. 
 
 V. FROM METAPHOR TO MYSTERY - 21 
 The way of the child—The way of the race The 
 Fatherhood of God, revealed by the Son—Tests— 
 Conclusion. 
 
 VI. WHY SYMBOLS RATHER THAN SPEECH?- - = 26 
 Developing revelation appropriate to developing 
 people—Cultivation of the mental soil—Even 
 philosophers need preparation—A point for us to 
 consider—Must we not consider the Revealer ? 
 
 VII. SPIRIT AND MATTER sed ee - Ss Qk 
 A preliminary enquiry—Grades of reality—Mean- 
 ing of Incarnation—Effect of Incarnation—A great 
 analogy—Description of the parable, 
 
 X1li 
 
xiV CONTENTS 
 
 VIII. THE MEANING OF THE PARABLE - - - 
 The Stream of Creation—-The Stream of Time— 
 The Stream of Humanity—The Stream of Thought. 
 
 IX. THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD br Ft, ae ae 
 Good versus Evil—Insoluble problems put aside— 
 The principles of the conflict—The conflict itself— 
 The Redeemer fights and conquers as Man—Divine 
 chivalry—Christ and the demons—The taint of 
 
 Satan’s kingdom—The Church’s blessings. 
 
 X. THE TAINT ON HUMANITY my BER = 
 
 The taint on matter—Original Sins Redemption 
 
 of the soul—_ Redemption of the body—The Immacu- 
 
 late Conception—The secret of the King—The 
 Assumption—Asceticism. 
 
 XI. THE FIRST MYSTERY—THE BLESSED TRINITY 
 Method—-Some plurality in the One Godhead— 
 Divine manifestations—Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus— 
 Hebraism ?—The Word and the Spirit—Striking 
 expressions—Were the symbols heeded ?—-The 
 
 definite announcement. 
 
 XII. THE SECOND MYSTERY—THE INCARNATION 
 The primeval promise—The Patriarchs—Moses 
 and the Prophets—The character of the Ideal—The 
 
 Reality. 
 
 XIII. THE THIRD MYSTERY—THE CHURCH - =- 
 Variety of aspect—Mystery or Metaphor ?—The 
 
 Woman and her Seed—The Chosen People—The 
 Prophets—The Gospel—Mary andthe Third Mystery. 
 
 XIV. THE THIRD MYSTERY AS DIVINE SONSHIP - 
 
 Fatherhood—As both Metaphor and Mystery—The 
 
 fullest assertion of it—The mode of the New Birth— 
 
 The Magna Charta of Baptism—The teaching per- 
 petuated. 
 
 XV. THE THIRD MYSTERY AS ANG MYSTICAL 
 BODY - - 
 Analogy and Mystery—The process of revelation 
 —St. Paul—Summary of St. Paul’s teaching— 
 Especially in the ‘“‘ Ephesians ’’—Inference—-A link 
 with the Fourth Mystery. 
 
 XVI. THE FOURTH MYSTERY—THE EUCHARIST 
 The Tree of Life—Melchisedech—The Journey to 
 
 41 
 
 48 
 
 53 
 
 59 
 
 65 
 
 71 
 
 77 
 
 83 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 the Promised Land—David—Elias-—Malachi—The 
 New Testament—Third and Fourth Mysteries 
 together—Might we not have expected it ? 
 
 SM Vil. ati DIVINE ORGANISM: Mj ihi-9t isin 2! = 
 
 Parallel and Parable—Science and Faith—Evolu- 
 tion produced to infinity—-The plan—-The unique 
 Motherhood—tThe test of value—The only salvation 
 —The single cell versus the organism—Metaphor and 
 Reality again—The uniting substance—The whole 
 sacramental system—What the Early Church used 
 to say—The resulting visible unity—The Infallible 
 Voice. 
 
 Ah ECR AW RAW) 2508 Bok RRR a AL MOU tLe ts Taio ke ein rates 
 
 The measure of reality is Faith—-Is the bond of 
 union continuous ?—Faith has its confirmations— 
 All salvation inluded in the Incarnational scheme— 
 The Communion of Saints—The foolishness of the 
 taunt of magic. 
 
 XIX. THE TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY - 
 Early days—Modern methods—A certain lack of 
 
 appreciation—As a help to ooo ars historic 
 instance. 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIX. 
 DR. MIVART’S ARTICLES. 
 
 XX. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM - - - - - 
 The two Worlds, a parallel—The idea of Force— 
 Natural forces reducible to Light—Supernatural 
 
 Light is Grace—Sacramental Grace. 
 
 XXI. ECOLOGY OF SACRAMENTS AND _ SACRA- 
 
 MENTALS~ - 
 
 The analogy of blood—The special position of 
 Extreme Unction—The end of our conflict—Securing 
 our perseverance—Harmonies and extensions— 
 Every Sacrament has its sacramentals. 
 
 XXII. THE SACRAMENTS OF PURIFICATION - - 
 The Sacramental analogy restated—Confession— 
 Confession in practice—Continuity of purification— 
 Accessory sacramentals — Indulgences — Extreme 
 Unction. 
 
 XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 89 
 
 104 
 
 109 
 
 128 
 
 133 
 
 139 
 
xvi 
 
 XXITI. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE SACRAMENTS OF GROWTH. - - 
 
 Holy Orders—The Church’s Maternity—The 
 development of Holy Orders—The cognate sacra- 
 mentals—Matrimony—St. Paul’s teaching—Graphi- 
 cally illustrated—The consecrated single life—The 
 Marriage of the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 SOME DISCUSSIONS ehh Pe ee eae a 
 
 The minister of Matrimony—Consent with sus- 
 pended effect—Rationale of single blessedness—The 
 principle of pruning—Is there no danger ?>—The final 
 criterion—Criticism from enemies—Criticism from 
 strangers—Criticism from enquirers—Less spiritual ? 
 
 
 
 XXV. THE RETROGRADE MOVEMENT - 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The difficulty of perseverance in Faith—Heresy 
 goes down by the way it came up—An historic 
 bird’s-eye view—Down to the depths. 
 
 THE FOUR MYSTERIES TOGETHER - 
 The unity of the four—The gulf between finite and 
 Infinite—This gulf has been bridged—-Pantheism ?— 
 The demand of Faith—The point of view—The lily 
 and the mud—‘“ And God said, Let there be light.” 
 
 THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS THE 
 PROPHECY-POEM OF THE FOUR MyYS- 
 TERIES - - 
 
 Authorship and interpretation —The prophetic 
 function—Language—Inspiration—The way of poets 
 —Place and time—The transformation—The cen- 
 tral vision—-The symbol—The action—Christian, 
 not Jewish—Incense—Invocation of the Saints— 
 The double action—The parallel—Light and shadow 
 —Good and evil—The victory—The four mysteries 
 —Unity of the poem—An artistic device—Finale. 
 
 156 
 
 167 
 
 172 
 
 180 
 
EXPLANATIONS 
 
 There are some analogies which are so 
 deeply rooted in the nature of things, 
 and therefore in our nature as well, 
 that they are spontaneously used and universally 
 understood. They become springs of thought as well 
 as of poetry. Two of these, perhaps the aptest and the 
 commonest, refer to the downward drift and the upward 
 effort characteristic of all material things. For these 
 the mind calls up pictures of the river flowing steadily 
 down towards the fatal cataract, and of the mountain 
 offering itself to the enthusiastic climber. When, in 
 addition to the latter analogy, or perhaps in expansion 
 of it, we hear that the Kingdom of Heaven is described 
 as a city set on a hill and is called the New Jerusalem 
 because Jerusalem was built on Mount Sion, it will 
 be seen that I had some reason in at first desiring that 
 my title should be ‘‘ On the Heights of Mount Sion.” 
 
 Fundamental 
 Analogies. 
 
 It is not without set purpose that I have 
 
 so early mentioned the two chief charac- 
 
 ’ teristics of the material world. St. Paul 
 I B 
 
 St. Paul’s 
 use of them 
 
2 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 makes both of them prominent in his teaching. ‘‘ The 
 fashicn (schema) of this world passeth away,” or, as 
 we may translate it, considering the position of the 
 verb, ‘‘ Passing away is the distinguishing mark of this 
 material universe ’’ (1 Cor. vii, 31). Still more striking, 
 startling indeed, is his general description (Rom. viii) 
 of the whole sweep of evolution, lifting all creation in 
 a struggle of blind hope towards the revelation and 
 
 the liberty of the sons of God. 
 
 From the beginning let us say it. 
 The central and the last word for us 
 is not spirit, but Incarnation. The 
 destinies of angels and of men and of material things 
 are all bound up together, and it is only human pride 
 that tries to ignore it. To think that in the New 
 Dispensation God’s dealings with us are purely spiritual 
 and therefore matter cannot be a channel of grace, and 
 that our dealings with God are also purely spiritual and 
 therefore worship must proceed without symbolism, 
 both are the effect of pride—the same pride that made 
 some angels fall away in their initial moment of 
 probation. We shall often have to discuss this con- 
 ception in exploring the Mysteries. We shall always 
 find a living clue in the recognition that our faith, our 
 worship, our destiny are not exclusively spiritual, but 
 always—I want the adjective, and must coin it— 
 Incarnational. And by this word I shall always mean 
 the putting of spirit or matter or both combined 
 into a matrix of grace, thereby lifting them to the 
 Divine. 
 
 The Adjective 
 Incarnational. 
 
EXPLANATIONS 3 
 
 Meanwhile the metaphor of my 
 first title should be obvious to 
 all. Whoever has climbed even 
 a small mountain knows the 
 differences between the slopes and the heights. In my 
 previous little book, ‘“‘ Up the Slopes of Mount Sion,” 
 I described the ascent of an inquiring mind, through 
 winding paths, through woods which gave no forward 
 view, over undulations which confused distances and 
 directions, into ravines which might be impracticable, 
 along ridges which might be unscalable. Now the 
 same mind has got to an elevation whence it can see 
 as on a map the direction it ought to have taken from 
 the start, the easier ways which might have avoided 
 dangerous foot-work, the short cuts which would 
 have saved much fatigue. Seeing these things the 
 climber can shout useful directions to those who have 
 not yet emerged from the intricacies of the slopes. 
 His own way is now clear to the top, the air is purer, 
 the noises of the valley have died away, he has lifted 
 his horizon with him and his outlook is enlarged. 
 Thus my original title was justified. 
 
 Why the book was 
 at first named 
 ‘On the Heights.”’ 
 
 But though justified, it was not 
 therefore complete. It did not 
 do all that a title should do. 
 A reader not only asks “‘ How did you come to write 
 the book?’ but ‘‘ What is the book going to be 
 about ?’’ And therefore 1 already had a sub-title, 
 which is now the only one, namely, ‘The Four 
 Mysteries of the Faith.” I proceed to explain it. 
 
 Why the change 
 of Title ? 
 
4 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 First of all, by saying ‘‘ The 
 Faith ”’ I define my audience. 
 I am speaking to my own 
 people. There is an assumption in the article the which 
 would be bad manners if I were talking to Protestants 
 or Agnostics. I do not now address myself to them, 
 because if I did I should need a preliminary discussion. 
 I should have to bring up a whole array of consider- 
 ations from Scripture or from the primal consciousness 
 and conscience of human nature to prove that I am 
 entitled to stand upon the platform from which I wish 
 to begin. Other writers have done this far better than 
 I could hope to do, and I leave it to them. 
 
 The Book is 
 Addressed to Catholics. 
 
 Taking this work as done, then, 
 I turn to my fellow-Catholics 
 with a study in analysis of the 
 faith we have in common, I have 
 of course neither the power nor the desire to prevent 
 other friends from reading what I say. And it may 
 well be that some such friends may find in the analysis 
 something which shall urge them to reconsider their 
 own position. They may learn that the Catholic 
 Faith is more organically complete, or more deeply 
 rooted, or endowed with more delicate beauty, than 
 they have hitherto thought. This must not lead them 
 to fancy that my book was intended as a controversial 
 attack. Had that been so, my method must have been 
 radically different. My attitude is positive, not nega- 
 tive ; and it is controversial only in the sense that in 
 this mixed world you cannot say ‘‘ Yes’”’ to some 
 people without saying ‘‘No”’ to others. What I have 
 
 But other Readers 
 are not beyond 
 its scope. 
 
EXPLANATIONS 5 
 
 to say I address directly to Catholics, and to make this 
 quite clear I speak confidently of ‘“‘ The Faith.” 
 
 This makes it easier for me to 
 define what I mean by Mystery— 
 a word which requires careful 
 definition because of the variety of meanings it has 
 accumulated in the course of its development. Some- 
 times it means merely something secret. ‘‘ Why all 
 this mystery ?”’ we say in impatience when we feel 
 that some announcement is being held back from us. 
 This sense becomes more important when the secret 
 is a ritual or religious one, as in the Eleusinian 
 “mysteries ’’ of old Paganism. Now a secret may be 
 an essential one, hidden not by anybody’s will but 
 by the nature of things; not because people will not 
 let us see, but because even if we see we cannot under- 
 stand. Both meanings, for instance, are combined in 
 a message written in a cypher of which we have not 
 the key: it is a mystery to us both because it is a 
 secret kept from us and because we cannot understand. 
 If anybody gives us the key, the secret is told and the 
 mystery is revealed. In this second sense, if we push 
 the meaning of the word “ understand,”’ life is pervaded 
 with mystery. There is simply nothing, within us or 
 without, which we fully comprehend : we move about 
 in worlds not realized and find unutterable depths 
 even in a “‘ flower from the crannied wall.” 
 
 Two Meanings 
 of ‘‘ Mystery ’’ 
 
 Both these meanings of mystery— 
 the secret and the unintelligible— 
 have hada development in Christian history. Our early 
 
 Both used by us, 
 
6 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 worship had to be secret for many reasons, chiefly 
 of course that the Eucharist might be kept from 
 profanation: hence the Eucharist came to be called 
 the Christian mystery, or secret. It was an easy train 
 of thought that caused the Greek word mysterion 
 and the Latin word sacramentum to be in some ways 
 synonymous, and a good deal of honest indignation 
 has been wasted over our English embalming of this 
 phrase in our translation of Eph. v, 33, where marriage 
 is said to be “‘a great sacrament,” or mystery. 
 
 Like many other terms of deep 
 import in the Christian language— 
 like the word “ grace,” for example, 
 or “glory,” or “peace,” or ‘merit ’’—‘ mystery ”’ 
 has, in the New Testament, one predominant fullness 
 of meaning, which is always intended in cases of 
 doctrinal emphasis, though sometimes in casual 
 statements or under special conditions it may convey 
 a subordinate or partial or analogous significance. 
 The full meaning, that which is intended throughout 
 this book, connotes two things: (1) a truth beyond 
 our ken; (2) the necessary fact of revelation. It may 
 be defined as “‘a divinely revealed truth which we 
 could not have apprehended without this revelation, 
 and which we cannot comprehend even now that it 
 is revealed.”’ 
 
 The definition 
 intended here. 
 
 And in this definition—let us be quite 
 clear—the word ‘‘ comprehend ”’ is used 
 in its ordinary sense. We may fairly say that we 
 comprehend or understand the formation of rocks, 
 
 A proviso. 
 
EXPLANATIONS 7 
 
 the laws of organic life, the character of human beings. 
 In other words, Nature is within our ken. When a 
 man says woman is a mystery to him, he only means 
 that he lacks knowledge he might very well have to 
 explain her. At least we would say Huxley understood 
 the laws of biology, Leonardo da Vinci understood 
 Art, Shakespeare understood human character. If 
 then in the middle of my book somebody were to say 
 to me, “ Yes, but after all, everything is a mystery,” 
 I should reply, ‘‘Quite true, but why change the subject 
 so abruptly ?”’ He and I should be using the same 
 word, but should be talking of quite different things. 
 Let no one, then, interrupt my reasoning with the 
 sentimentalism of ‘‘the crannied wall.” 
 
II 
 NUMBERING THE MYSTERIES 
 
 It will be readily understood that 
 a great complex mystery may be 
 made up of many parts, each of which may be a 
 mystery within the terms of the definition. Thus we 
 speak of the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, every one 
 of which is an integral part of the Mystery of the 
 Incarnation. Our forefathers extended this meaning, 
 quite validly as we shall see, in their Mystery Plays, 
 which included not only the whole range of Scripture 
 story, but lives of the Saints as well. In this sense, 
 the number of mysteries is indefinitely great. 
 
 Partial Meanings. 
 
 Sometimes one hears, especially from 
 those of the last generation, of ‘‘the 
 five principal mysteries.’’ This however 
 is not valid: it proceeds partly from a mistake in 
 grammar, and partly from not adverting to the 
 meaning of ‘“‘mystery.’”’ The error is based on an 
 answer in a catechism once used in Ireland: ‘“‘ The 
 principal mysteries are the Unity and Trinity of God, 
 and the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ.” Here, grammar shows that the catechism 
 
 An apparent 
 exception. 
 
NUMBERING THE MYSTERIES 9 
 
 is enumerating two, the Trinity and the Incarnation, 
 both of them slightly expanded. To count them as 
 five implies that the Unity of the Godhead is a Mystery. 
 But it is not. Not only can it be apprehended, but it 
 was by the Greeks actually apprehended, without 
 revelation. It is an essential and natural truth. The 
 Mystery is that which says that this Unity is also a 
 Trinity. 
 
 This enumeration in the catechism as 
 two, is of course correct. The Church 
 is often satisfied with explicitly naming only two. 
 When we bless ourselves with the sign of the cross 
 and the words, “‘ In the name of the Father and of the 
 Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen,”’ we are in epitome 
 confessing the whole of our religion in the two mysteries 
 of the Trinity and the Incarnation. We do the same 
 in the Athanasian Creed, in the Te Deum, in the Gloria, 
 etc. And a still further compression is the utterance 
 of a single word with knowledge and devotion, at the 
 hour of death, the name of Jesus. 
 
 Compressions. 
 
 For purposes of instruction it some- 
 times becomes necessary to give a 
 more explicit treatment. Scheeben, in his treatise on 
 the Mysteries of Christendom—a treatise in which 
 intellectual light and spiritual warmth are intensely 
 and happily combined—gives us the following 
 division : 
 1. The Blessed Trinity. 
 2. The Creation of Mankind in Grace. 
 3. Sin. 
 4. The Incarnation. 
 
 Amplifications. 
 
1o THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 5. The Eucharist. 
 
 6. The Church and her Sacraments. 
 7. Justification. 
 8. Glorification. 
 g. Predestination. 
 
 In this division, convenience for exposition is frankly 
 followed in preference to logical dependence. The 
 2nd positively and the 3rd negatively presuppose the 
 4th. The 7th, 8th and goth are a portion of the 6th. 
 Even the 5th comes under the head of the Sacraments 
 in the 6th, but must stand out by itself on account 
 of the infinite dignity conferred on it by the Real 
 Presence. Thus it may be said that Scheeben’s scheme 
 is one of Four Mysteries (1, Trinity; 2, Incarnation; 
 3, Eucharist ; 4, Mystical Body), some of which are 
 expanded into sub-divisions. 
 
 As it is my desire to be more concise 
 (Scheeben’s book is of nearly 700 pages 
 large octavo), I shall treat of the same 
 Four Mysteries, without however adopting his order. 
 The reason of there being four is easily perceived. 
 The Trinity essentially stands alone. The Incarnation 
 is revealed to us as threefold. Considered in regard 
 to the separate human life of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 it is emphatically the Mystery of the Incarnation ; 
 when it is extended throughout humanity, it becomes 
 the Mystery of the Mystical Body, or of the Bride of 
 Christ, or of the Kingdom of Heaven; when it is 
 extended through time and space, it becomes the 
 Mystery of the Eucharist, of the Perpetual Sacrifice, 
 of the Sacramental Presence. 
 
 The order 
 chosen here. 
 
NUMBERING THE MYSTERIES II 
 
 And this is the order the Church 
 herself adopts in the Apostles’ Creed: 
 (x) the Trinity, with (2) the Incar- 
 nation imbedded in it; (3) the Catholic Church ; and 
 (4) the Communion of Saints. Historically these Four 
 Mysteries have been equal and parallel sources of life 
 and energy in Christendom, and all other Christian 
 doctrines and practices are integrally and essentially 
 involved in them. 
 
 It is the 
 Church’s order. 
 
 How these Mysteries were revealed, 
 how and why they have ever here or 
 there been lost, what their relations 
 are to one another, and what our attitude should be 
 towards them all—such are going to be our themes 
 throughout the book. 
 
 Subject of 
 Book stated. 
 
Til 
 HOW MYSTERIES CAN BE REVEALED 
 
 It is obvious that if a truth be alto- 
 gether beyond our ken, there is no 
 direct way of stating it to our intelli- 
 gence. If you tell a small boy that “‘a parabola may 
 be regarded as an ellipse whose centre has been pro- 
 jected to infinity,” you will probably only hurt his 
 feelings. But when the intelligence is more fully 
 developed, there is nothing so beyond its ken as to 
 make revelation quite impossible. Even the small boy 
 could, by diagrams, be made to see something in your 
 cryptic proposition. Take the case of a man born 
 blind: you would find it difficult to explain colour 
 to him, but something you could do, by analogy, by 
 simile, by metaphor, by parallels with the other senses, 
 so as quite to surprise a stranger by his range of useful 
 knowledge in matters of pure sight. Since we have no 
 direct vision of things divine, revelation must be to 
 us of an indirect character: it must come to us by 
 analogy, by simile, by type, by parable, by something 
 or other which shall translate the truth into terms 
 within our capacity. 
 
 The necessity 
 of metaphor. 
 
 12 
 
HOW MYSTERIES CAN BE REVEALED 13 
 
 Sceptics have tried to make us 
 uncomfortable about this. They 
 say, “If I talk to you about a tree, you can see it 
 and feel it: it is real. But if you talk to me about 
 Three Persons in One God, I do not understand what 
 God is, what Person is: the statement is not real. 
 And what is the use of an unreal revelation?’ But 
 our friend the sceptic has forgotten a very important 
 fact. We have no direct knowledge of what the tree 
 is, either. When I say I see the tree, it only means that 
 certain phenomena press themselves on me, owing to 
 a number of vibrations that have tickled my retina 
 in a special way. All these interior experiences tell 
 me of something outside. In the case in question I call 
 that something a tree, but what it really is I do not 
 know. The knowledge we thus get of the natural world 
 is quite consistent enough for practical purposes, but 
 without diving into philosophy the ordinary man 
 would say it is entirely symbolic. Learned men in 
 their studies have worked themselves into all kinds 
 of tangles over this non-reality, or ideality, or pheno- 
 menality, of the universe. Such speculations are an 
 interesting and harmless pursuit, so long as men do not 
 paralyse their own energies by over-introspection and 
 put themselves out of use in a world of action. 
 
 An objection met. 
 
 We are therefore in possession of 
 two worlds of knowledge, one of 
 Nature, the other of Grace. Both 
 are thoroughly practical up to all the limits of our 
 needs, Both are inexhaustibly varied within and 
 beyond our range. Both together provide us with all 
 
 Comparison of 
 our two Worlds. 
 
14 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 we want for our perfectibility in time and eternity. 
 Both are symbolic when regarded from without : 
 both prove entirely real when we rightly trust ourselves 
 to them in experience. In both we are occasionally 
 deceived by illusion or mirage; but both are self- 
 corrective by common sense. It would be beyond 
 all things foolish to refuse to trust our senses because 
 of the puzzles of psychology : it is equally foolish to 
 allow ourselves to be inhibited from spiritual activity 
 by reason of the riddles of scepticism. We are by 
 destiny creatures of action: our activity lies among 
 realities : realities are conveyed to our minds mostly 
 by symbols. It is therefore our duty to study these 
 symbols carefully ; but it would lead to sheer inanity 
 to try to reject symbolism altogether. 
 
IV 
 HOW TO BEGIN 
 
 When we want to read the meaning 
 of the universe, it makes a great 
 difference where we begin. If (as the Experiential 
 School does) we start with mere sense-knowledge 
 of phenomena or symbols, and proceed upon a line of 
 materialistic reasoning which makes it @ Priori im- 
 possible ever to get beyond the phenomena, we shall 
 be like a squirrel in his revolving cage: mentally we 
 may be intensely active but we shall never really get 
 more forward. We shall not only cease to believe in 
 God, but shall be debarred from consistently believing 
 even in our own existence. We must become totally 
 sceptical or even dogmatically agnostic. And this is 
 the very worst form of @ priori dogmatism in the whole 
 history of philosophy. No, it is not the symbols that 
 give meaning to the realities, it is realities that give 
 meaning to the symbols. We must therefore begin 
 with realities. 
 
 Our starting point. 
 
 T5 
 
16 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Of course nobody starts with a clean 
 slate. All must think for themselves 
 up to the limit of their capacity, 
 but it is only the fool who will not utilize the wisdom 
 with which he has the chance of starting. Such 
 wisdom tells us that there are four grades of reality : 
 (r) the essential and only independent Being, whom 
 we adore as God; (2) spiritual creatures, angels and 
 souls of men, dependent but permanent and immortal ; 
 (3) material things, which are not of themselves 
 permanent and are constantly passing away; and 
 (4) such things as dreams and fancies, which have a 
 real existence in our own minds but no objective 
 reality. 
 
 The Four kinds 
 of Reality. 
 
 The first reality I know, and the 
 only one I know directly, is my 
 own spiritual self, an intellectual being, and it is utterly 
 impossible for me to explain myself as a bundle of 
 casually connected phenomena that have happened 
 to shuffle themselves into consciousness ; still less as 
 a pencil of physical forces centred on a mathematical 
 point. Hume tried this acrobatic feat of mentality, 
 but had to admit that he never had any success in it 
 outside his lone study. When little Alice on the other 
 side of the Looking-Glass was told by Tweedledee 
 that she was only part of the Red King’s dream, her 
 indignant repudiation was not only sweetly human but 
 altogether rational. There may be difficulties about my 
 mind having been inactive in babyhood, or even now 
 in sleep ; but no theory can in my normal life supplant 
 the immediate consciousness of my own existence as 
 an intellectual reality. 
 
 My own soul first. 
 
HOW TO BEGIN 17 
 
 Th Simultaneously with this fundamen- 
 en the sae : 
 External World. tal truth, it is borne in on me that 
 there are millions of other beings 
 like myself, and that I am not the centre of the 
 universe. The reality of the material world I know 
 from my own body, which (whatever it may be) is by 
 direct intuition known to be real: and the reality of 
 other men I know because they manifest themselves in 
 the same way that I do. 
 
 The next intellectual step, universally 
 and irresistibly taken by mankind, is 
 that behind these realities so directly symbolized to us 
 there is a Reality which accounts for them all. This 
 Reality we call God. The idea of God has been very 
 varied, but it has been universal: and it is always 
 highest where the intelligence has been most highly 
 developed. The Greeks and Romans, with many other 
 cultivated pagans, more or less identified Him with 
 the cosmos, the world as a whole, but (and this but 
 is a very important exception) with the idea of Destiny 
 superadded. Buddha identified Him with a self- 
 subsistent Moral Law. The Egyptians saw Him 
 symbolized in the Sun, the source of all our energy. 
 Plato saw Him as Absolute Beauty; Aristotle, as 
 Absolute Existence. But one way or another the idea 
 is universal : there are no Atheists, only a few who call 
 themselves so. Even Agnostics see Him through 
 the haze of awe in which they contemplate the 
 Unknowable. 
 
 Then God. 
 
18 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 If now amid the maze of mortality, 
 we can find the Centre which 
 shall turn chaos into design, and 
 if further the Great Reality of the Beyond, from which 
 we came and to which we return, has made any direct 
 communication with us, then we have an explanation 
 of our destiny sufficient for plain folk, and the path of 
 action lies open before us. About the Centre there is no 
 difficulty. The Man Christ Jesus, who under Pontius 
 Pilate was lifted up on the Cross, has drawn all things 
 unto Himself. Whether we are for Him or against Him, 
 it is a plain historic fact that the destinies of all mankind 
 converge upon Him. The world sometimes, here or 
 there, tries to ignore Him: it cannot. Beyond all 
 cavil, He is the Centre. 
 
 Christ the Centre 
 of the Universe. 
 
 Theestoce Now this Centre claims to have come 
 Pega pe Ea pe from God, to be the Son of God. He 
 
 ‘ identified Himself with the Godhead 
 and received the worship of those who adored Him as 
 God. To prove to us that He really came to us from 
 the Beyond, He brought Himself back after we had 
 dismissed Him thither through the gates of death. 
 Therefore from Him, and from no one else, we take 
 the Mysteries of the Beyond. 
 
 The Realityiof These things were not done in a 
 estore: corner. They occurred in the full 
 
 light of history: and the mention 
 of Pontius Pilate in the Creed is the expression of our 
 confidence in this fact. We are not following tales or 
 legends. People tell us there have been other Incarn- 
 
HOW TO BEGIN 19 
 
 ations, other claims of Virgin Birth. True: but these 
 were only legends or myths, invented by revering love 
 long after the heroes had passed away, and they only 
 serve to show how wistfully humanity was looking 
 for Truth in the right direction. The story of Christ 
 was not only first told, with historic self-restraint, by 
 eye-witnesses ; it was also continued in the world, 
 as we shall see, by a deathless Personality. 
 
 The historic nature of the life of Christ 
 is of course the stronghold which His 
 enemies most persistently attack. They 
 strain every nerve to bring the Gospels late into the 
 second or third century. And when men are very 
 learned and very ingenious, they can get up a case for 
 anything they want to prove. When, in addition, 
 they talk vaguely about ‘‘higher criticism ’’ and 
 ‘advanced thought,” they show how they understand 
 the art of ensnaring fools. The real truth is, that these 
 men start out with an @ priori dogma. They assume 
 that anything miraculous, if not a lie, is a myth, 
 and that no myth is contemporaneous with the event. 
 As soon as people take up an attitude of @ priori 
 dogmatism, they may be disregarded as disputants. 
 We may put these higher critics, mostly German, 
 along with the ingenious sceptics, mostly British, who 
 want to make us doubt our own existence. 
 
 The futility 
 of objections. 
 
 With very broad light and shade, 
 then, we have sketched out the line 
 of thought which justifies us in 
 receiving Mystery from Jesus Christ. Coming as the 
 
 Subject of the 
 book restated. 
 
20 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 culmination of a revealing process of secular duration, — 
 He throws light, not only forward to the end, but 
 backward on the whole past, and gives the precision 
 of faith to those Scriptures which previously had evoked 
 only the vague longings of hope. Interpreting the 
 Old Testament by the New—which is not “‘ higher” — 
 but “‘ the highest ’’ criticism—we are enabled to make — 
 generic statements about God’s dealings with man; ~ 
 and as a result we can see a law applicable to all the © 
 Mysteries, showing how the mind of man was gradually — 
 led from Symbol to Reality, from Metaphor to Mystery. — 
 In several separate chapters we shall study this process — 
 for each of the Four Mysteries. And then from the 
 height of this Pentecostal tableland we shall be able — 
 to see in the history of the world the devious downward — 
 paths by which the mind of man has often gone back ~ 
 from Mystery to Metaphor, and from Metaphor to ~ 
 Nothingness. 
 
V 
 FROM METAPHOR TO MYSTERY 
 
 Anyone who has exercised the mother’s 
 privilege of lifting a baby soul to the 
 thought of God will know what a complex 
 process of symbol and simile is necessary to dispel 
 the mists of baby materialism. ‘‘ Isn’t God afraid of 
 the wolves?’ was one of my little friends’ objection 
 to the doctrine of Omnipresence. There was also a 
 little boy, whose father I know, who had lost a baby 
 brother named Malcolm, and had been told that “‘ God 
 was taking care of Malcolm,” and he knew that taking 
 care of baby meant that under no circumstances must 
 you let the baby drop. Some time afterwards, on hear- 
 ing that God had made the stars and that they did not 
 fall because He held them up, the child began to sob 
 bitterly ; and his reason was, “If God has to hold 
 all those things up, He will let Malcolm drop.” Yet 
 somehow, by figures, by stories, by gestures, by the 
 sense of reverence, by the use of prayer, the little mind 
 rises to such conceptions of the Infinite as are within 
 its grasp. The natural, and therefore the divinely 
 appointed, way is (in addition to the mother’s poetry 
 2I 
 
 The Way of 
 the Child. 
 
22 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 of tropes and analogies) that the child idealizes and 
 projects on to a sufficiently infinite plane the excel- 
 lences that he knows and loves—learning the four 
 essential Divine attributes from his parents, the Power 
 and Justice of God from his father, and the Wisdom 
 and Mercy of God from his mother. Some people indeed 
 who fail of due training, and whose souls are ‘‘ immersed 
 in matter,’’ remain materialistic all their lives. But 
 in proportion as, after the Old Testament temple- 
 worship of childhood, we come to worship God in spirit 
 and in truth, our thoughts of Him we worship become 
 themselves more and more spiritual and true. The 
 normal way for a child, then, is to proceed through a 
 multiplicity of figures to the Great Reality. 
 
 What is true for the individual child 
 has been true also for the race. No 
 genuine student of history can have 
 failed to observe how many generations have often 
 been required for the incubation of a great idea, and 
 how ineffective a truth can be when announced before 
 its due season. This is especially the case with the 
 idea of God. Even in the inspired record, the expression 
 of this idea seems to pass through an apparent stage 
 of polytheism and through many ‘“‘ economic ”’ phases 
 of anthropomorphic imagery. Adam is said to have 
 thought he could hide from God: Jonah thought he 
 could run away from Him. For many centuries any 
 form of image-worship served to seduce the Israelites 
 from the spiritual adoration of the One True God. 
 Prophet after prophet came to lift the notion higher 
 and higher, until in the days of the Maccabees the 
 
 The Way of 
 the Race. 
 
FROM METAPHOR TO MYSTERY 23 
 people could suffer and fight and die for a purely 
 spiritual faith. 
 
 Consider the one point, the supreme 
 ae Pees: knowledge, of the Fatherhood of 
 
 i God. It is expressly mentioned only 
 about ten times in the Old Testament. Sonship is 
 more often mentioned, and the two words being 
 correlative ought to convey the same idea: but 
 the point of view is different. Psalm 1xxxviii, 
 a Messianic psalm, gives it as a distant vision of 
 prophecy: ‘‘He shall cry out to me, Thou art 
 my Father.” Isaias touches it once: “Thou, O Lord, 
 art our Father, our Redeemer.’’ Jeremias, three 
 times : ‘‘ Therefore call to me: Thou art my Father ” ; 
 and again: ‘‘For I am a Father to Israel.” Malachi, 
 the last of the prophets, reasons on it: “If I be a 
 Father, where is my honour? ’”’ and “ Have we not 
 all one Father? Hath not one God created us?”’ 
 The book of Wisdom says once: ‘‘ Thy providence, 
 O Father.” And Ecclesiasticus has the prayer: “ O 
 Lord, Father, and God of my life,’ and adds the 
 remarkable prophetic expression, “ I called upon the 
 Lord, the Father of my Lord.” 
 
 Revealed by Not until this phase, not until His 
 fl Son children had learnt to call Him Father, 
 
 ; did He, from whom all Paternity on 
 earth or in Heaven is named, send His only-begotten 
 Son to reveal to humanity the true meaning of the 
 mystery of Fatherhood. The word Father, so scantily 
 used in the generations gone by, was always on the 
 
24 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 lips of Our Lord. His first recorded utterance was 
 ‘Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s 
 business ? ’”’ His last word on this side of the grave 
 was, “‘ Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” 
 
 How do we know that this was anything 
 more than a beautiful metaphor? Well, 
 how do we ever know when the line is passed between 
 Symbol and Reality ? Look at little children at play ; 
 everything is done in dramatic figure, and the blood- 
 curdling shrieks which the little lungs can emit when 
 the players are being scalped by Red Indians or eaten 
 up by lions, would be incredible if they were not a 
 daily occurrence. The mother sits by and listens to it 
 all without a tremor. Suddenly there is another 
 shriek and the mother flings aside her work and rushes 
 anxiously to the rescue. This time something real 
 has happened, and the mother knew it by the quality 
 of the shriek. A stranger would not know it at once, 
 but even he would soon perceive it by the repetition, 
 by the intensity, by the variety of the inarticulate 
 appeal for help. This, it might be said, is only children’s 
 play: true, but in spiritual matters we are all only 
 chidren of a larger growth. 
 
 Take a case of adults. One ship is passing another 
 with no means of verbal communication. On one of 
 them the sailors are seen to be gesticulating; at 
 first this demonstration is taken in fun and a gay reply 
 is made; but the gestures are more frequently and 
 more intensely repeated; they are varied; they 
 become impassioned and importunate. When in new 
 response a boat is lowered, the gestures show satis- 
 
 Tests. 
 
FROM METAPHOR TO MYSTERY 25 
 
 faction and gratitude; everybody then knows that 
 there was real need for help. 
 
 When therefore symbolical language is 
 used, we recognize the transition from 
 sign to reality, from metaphor to mystery, by the 
 frequency, the variety, the insistence, the convergence 
 and the emphasis of the symbols used, and by the 
 character of the person who uses them. 
 
 For example: Why has not the washing of the feet 
 been taken as a Sacrament by the Church ? Because 
 it was not promised beforehand ; it was not foretold ; 
 minds were not previously prepared for it ; it was not 
 insisted upon beyond the once. It was therefore 
 understood to be a parable,* accessory, but not 
 essential, to a greater Symbol which had been foretold 
 and promised and insisted upon, and was thus known 
 to be a Mystery or a Sacrament. We shall see as we 
 go on how our Lord used precisely the same method 
 for each of the Four Mysteries, and that He did not 
 use it for anything else. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 * The Church in Milan during the fourth century used the cere- 
 mony of washing the feet, and St. Ambrose (or one writing in his 
 name) claimed for it a kind of sacramental effect, but (strangely 
 enough) as an accessory of Baptism, not of the Eucharist. Perhaps, 
 if I may venture a suggestion, our Lord used it as a link-parable 
 between the two Mysteries. The use which the Universal Church 
 now makes of it is for a dramatic representation of the Passion, 
 and it seems to be for the benefit of the washer rather than of the 
 washed. 
 
VI 
 WHY SYMBOLS RATHER THAN SPEECH ? 
 
 The examples I have been 
 giving have dealt with signs 
 to the exclusion of speech. 
 But in the case of the Christ- 
 ian Mysteries it is asked, why not direct speech ? 
 Many answers spring up spontaneously. Vocal words 
 are only one form of communicative signs, and often 
 are not the most effective of these. Again, a revelation 
 which is handed down in the very extensive set of 
 writings called The Bible, and in vast libraries expound- 
 ing every point of it, can hardly be said to be speechless. 
 But people narrow the objection down to the question, 
 Why could not our Lord at once in clear unmistakable 
 language define the doctrines He meant to teach ? 
 Again the answers are manifold, but a quite sufficient 
 one lies in the nature of the minds that have to receive 
 the revelation. Would anybody, for example, ever 
 give detailed instructions on marriage to a kinder- 
 garten class? And the proportion of mankind which 
 is in spiritual babyhood is nothing short of marvellous. 
 Surely the Creator wishing to make a revelation to an 
 26 
 
 Developing Revelation 
 Appropriate to 
 developing People. 
 
WHY SYMBOLS RATHER THAN SPEECH? 27 
 
 evolutionary race would do so in an evolutionary 
 manner. 
 
 The average human mind requires 
 considerable preparation for the 
 reception of any deep truth. A few 
 pages back I gave an example of such a truth uttered 
 to a mind unprepared. I imagined somebody saying 
 to a small boy, ‘‘ A parabola may be regarded as an 
 ellipse whose centre has been projected to infinity.” 
 The statement would be wholly ineffective; clear 
 as the words are, the little mind is not prepared for 
 them. But, send the boy to school, teach him geometry 
 by measurement and by figure, there will come a time 
 when he knows something about the parabola and the 
 ellipse, and then your statement will reveal to him 
 that two things which he had thought to be entirely 
 different can be brought under a single law. Your 
 statement now is illuminating and fruitful. It throws 
 light backward on the whole of his mathematical 
 progress and for the future gives him a new principle 
 whereby even more complex curves can be classed 
 into families. 
 
 Cultivation of 
 the Mental Soil. 
 
 If intellectual truths require intel- 
 lectual preparation, far more do 
 divine truths require divine 
 preparation. What effect would the enunciation of 
 the doctrine of the Trinity have on the unprepared 
 mind? None whatever. Immanuel Kant, probably 
 the foremost mind in extra-Catholic philosophy, asked 
 what it mattered to him whether there were three 
 persons in the Godhead, or twenty. That is all the 
 
 Even Philosophers 
 need preparation. 
 
a8 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 most fruitful doctrine in the world did for him, in 
 spite of all his philosophy: what did it matter to 
 him? The seed of the Word has to be sown in pre- 
 pared soil, and the true husbandman pays even more 
 attention to the soil than to the seed. Tom Paine 
 once said, ‘“‘ If God had meant to give us a revelation, 
 He would have written it on the face of the sun”’ 
 —a foolish remark for a supposed leader of thought. 
 In what language would He write it ? and who would 
 interpret it ? and how many of us would be ready to 
 receive it ? and if it had been done, Tom Paine himself 
 would be the very first to call it a curious freak of 
 nature. The true revelation of God has been written, 
 in human and divine characters far more visible to 
 us than the sun in the sky, with the further advantage 
 that the message not only delivers itself, but also 
 interprets itself, and adapts itself to every capacity. 
 God has done more than the sceptic challenged him 
 to do. 
 
 I sometimes wonder, in this connec- 
 tion, whether in our catechetical 
 instruction of children we do not now 
 and then transgress this principle by laying before 
 them truths expressed with a theological accuracy 
 and completeness too advanced for their powers of 
 perception. They will never, of course, join in Kant’s 
 irreverence with a ‘‘ What does it matter to me? ”’ 
 But they will get into the way of having important 
 truths lying inoperative in their minds. Such truths 
 are like guests that come before their host is ready 
 and thus miss something of their welcome. When the 
 seed of the Word lies too long on the wayside, it is 
 
 A point for us 
 to consider. 
 
WHY SYMBOLS RATHER THAN SPEECH? 29 
 
 apt to become sterile even if the fowls of the air do 
 not gather it up. Often such children seem to miss 
 the delicious sense of newness which developing truth 
 brings to ripening minds: they have “heard it all 
 before.” This is perhaps why “ born Catholics " are 
 often amused at the enthusiasm of converts, whereas 
 perhaps they ought to be ashamed of their own laxity 
 of apprehension—for each of the Four Mysteries (and 
 the converts have just discovered one, if not two) 
 might well be a perennial source of enthusiasm. At 
 any rate, every good teacher will throw more zeal into 
 communicating the living flesh and blood of doctrine 
 _ to his pupils than into anatomizing its theological 
 skeleton: or, to change the metaphor but not the 
 mystery, he will break the bread of life to them lest 
 their little souls should find the crust too hard. This 
 by the way ; but it has its bearing on the main issue. 
 
 A further answer, equally sufficient, 
 depends on another principle. We 
 have noted that our recognition of 
 the Revealer ? ae 
 the character of a communication 
 depends partly on the utterance and partly on the 
 personality of the speaker. When, therefore, Christ 
 came into the world to give us a revelation whose 
 primary essence is humility, can we imagine Him 
 giving it in a form whose primary object should seem 
 to be to glorify Himself? Nothing is more beautiful 
 than the way in which He always hides Himself, 
 trusting to our love to find Him. He allowed the light 
 of God to shine through Him, leaving it to His Heavenly 
 Father and to the interior working of the Holy Spirit 
 
 Must we not 
 consider 
 
30 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 to cause that dawn in the mind of His disciples which 
 broke forth in the confession, ‘‘ Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the Living God.’”’ He appeals more to our 
 heart and understanding when He calls Himself the 
 Son of Man, than if He were to say: ‘“‘ Behold Me; 
 I am God incarnate.”’ 
 
VII 
 SPIRIT AND MATTER 
 
 Before studying the Great Mysteries 
 one by one, it is a very important 
 preliminary to consider the relation 
 between spiritual and material things. As a question 
 of doctrine, the Catholic view of this relation is 
 distinguished from that of all other forms of religion : 
 as an explanation of the universe, it is distinguished 
 from all other forms of philosophy. It is hardly too 
 much to say that most of the objections against 
 Catholic forms of worship proceed from a misunder- 
 standing or deliberate rejection of the Christian 
 teaching about the material world and its relation 
 to the spiritual. 
 
 A preliminary 
 enquiry. 
 
 Indeed, we have to be on our 
 guard against a very curious 
 tendency to treat the word “ spiritual’ as conveying 
 a less real meaning, something metaphorical, something 
 that can be put aside in favour of the “literal.” 
 In Holy Scripture, the word “ spiritual” never means 
 that : it always implies a reality higher than that of 
 
 31 
 
 Grades of Reality. 
 
32 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 the material world. Therefore once more we set before 
 our mind the four grades of reality: 
 
 1. The Essential. 
 2. The Spiritual. 
 3. The Material. 
 4. The Subjective. 
 
 Looking at this Jacob’s Ladder of existences, we 
 see at once the reason for that ubiquitous downward 
 drift and upward striving mentioned in a previous 
 chapter, and we then learn the enormous difference 
 the Incarnation has made to the universe. The Infinite 
 and Essential Reality remains of course without change 
 or shadow of alteration. The other three are always 
 going up or down. The spiritual has yearnings towards 
 the Divine, but when entangled with matter shares in 
 its incessant falling away. The material, as we have 
 learned from St. Paul, is always passing away and yet 
 blindly groans and travails towards the higher hope. 
 The subjective, i.e., our feelings, fancies, dreams, 
 thoughts and intentions, are nothing in themselves, 
 nor do they become “things” until they have 
 expressed themselves in some external form. Their 
 upward striving results, for example, in works of art, 
 and the artist then calls the process creation, because 
 he has given to airy nothing a local habitation and 
 a name. 
 
 Now the Incarnation means that God 
 has entered His own creation, not from 
 above, but from below, annihilating 
 Himself (Lat. semetipsum exinanivit; Gr. ekenose), 
 and from below upholding all things by the Word of 
 
 Meaning of 
 Incarnation. 
 
SPIRIT AND MATTER 33 
 
 His Power, embracing and lifting them all with Himself 
 into the Divine Nature, that God may be all in all. 
 Just as Lucifer, flaming with pride, hurled himself 
 from above into the lower creation, trying to drag it 
 all with him to perdition ; so Jesus Christ, veiled with 
 humility, rises from below, touching and transforming 
 all things as He rises, sacrificing Himself to lift all 
 creation to the glory of God. ‘I, if I be lifted up, 
 will draw all things unto myself,” and “‘ Behold, I 
 make all things new.’’ Lucifer is the leader of all 
 downward drift: Jesus Christ is the Prince of the 
 upward striving. 
 
 The way in which the Incarnate Word 
 makes all things new, is by raising each 
 of the three created realities to a higher 
 gerade, literally realizing their ideals. The spiritual 1s 
 elevated to the Divine (the power to become the sons 
 of God, and partakers of the Divine Nature). The 
 material is raised to the spiritual, the body after the 
 resurrection becoming a “spiritual body,’ and the 
 ‘new heavens and new earth” being proportioned 
 thereto. And the desires, thoughts, intentions of our 
 otherwise empty subjective life take upon themselves 
 an eternal permanence of reality in Him from whose 
 grace they proceed and towards whom they are 
 directed. The difference between a merely human 
 life and an Incarnational one is infinitely great. 
 
 Effect of 
 Incarnation. 
 
 Reverting to our first chapter 
 again, we saw that Nature is full 
 of suggestive analogies, which are more than amere 
 
 A Great Analogy. 
 
34 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 metaphors because of the intimate brotherhood that 
 unites all creation—a brotherhood so nobly chanted 
 by the Hebrew poets, so affectionately consecrated 
 by our liturgical blessings of palms or candles, so 
 poetically acknowledged by Saints like Francis of 
 Assisi. I do not know any place in the world where 
 this great analogy is more majestically portrayed 
 than in our own Victoria Falls. 
 
 Well towards the middle of the Falls 
 there is an island-rock easy of access. 
 If you stand at the eastern end of 
 this, facing the chasm, the sensation is appalling. 
 You see nothing in front of you but an unfathomed 
 abyss, beyond which all is veiled in an impenetrable 
 cloud. On both sides of you everything seems to be 
 plunging into chaos. The very rock on which you 
 stand seems to be about to join the rush. To me the 
 feeling there is not endurable for more than a few 
 seconds at a time. 
 
 When, however, you stand at the western point of 
 the rock, you seem to be in a boat pushing its way 
 against an almost irresistible torrent. The shores of 
 the Zambesi are too far away to interfere with this 
 illusion of upward movement. You are victorious 
 over incalculable forces. Safe on the island itself are 
 many forms of life, and at your feet, in the very swirl 
 of the cataract, curious forms of flowering plants, 
 moss-like in appearance, have driven root-like processes 
 into the living rock: and, as I found afterwards, 
 entwined with this network, seemingly in life-partner- 
 ship, is a tiny thread-like water-weed, which apart 
 
 Description of 
 the Parable. 
 
SPIRIT AND MATTER 25 
 
 from this protection could not stand the rush of water 
 for a moment. More wonderful still, under the shelter 
 of this double network, there swarm countless little 
 specks of the most helpless thing on earth, the tiny 
 masses of mere protoplasm which we call Amoebes. 
 Over all this you see, walking warily, the bigher life 
 of a lovely white crab, who is far more afraid of the 
 abyss than of you, and as long as he is beyond your 
 reach nothing you can do will frighten him into an 
 impulsive movement. The Rock in the midst of the 
 Chaos is the one shelter of all forms of life, from the 
 lowest to the highest. 
 
 ' Then when afterwards you go to the Rain Forest 
 in front of the Falls, if you are fortunate, you see the 
 Rainbow of Hope spanning the Rock of Safety. 
 A marvellous parable ! 
 
VIII 
 THE MEANING OF THE PARABLE 
 
 The Parable of the Victoria Falls seems to me to 
 contain four great meanings, not unconnected with 
 each other: (rz) the Stream of Creation; (2) the 
 Stream of Time; (3) the Stream of Humanity ; 
 (4) The Stream of Thought. 
 
 First let us throw ourselves back to 
 the time when the flood was full, and 
 the Rock was not yet visible. “In 
 the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” 
 This we have always understood, as in the Creeds, to 
 mean that God by His mere word formed material 
 and spiritual substances, things visible and invisible, 
 separately but simultaneously. To the spiritual or 
 intellectual beings, the Angels, created in grace, it 
 was at once revealed that their destinies were involved 
 with the chaotic mass below. In God’s own way, 
 and in their own way, it was manifested to these 
 Angelic beings, as their probation, that the Divine 
 was going to smite Itself into that gross and despicable 
 36 
 
 The Stream 
 of Creation. 
 
THE MEANING OF THE PARABLE 37 
 
 matter, to all appearance rushing irresistibly down to 
 the abyss of nothingness, and that under some such 
 corporal form, utterly inferior, He was to be by them 
 recognized and adored. The faithful Angels believed 
 and obeyed, and entered into the Beatific Vision. 
 But Lucifer and his satellites would not humble their 
 lofty powers and said ‘‘ Non serviam ”__T wil] not 
 enslave myself to Chaos—and immediately found 
 themselves hurled into the very slavery they were 
 refusing. To their horror and consternation they were 
 flung, tormented with matter, into the bottomless 
 abyss, the place prepared for the devil and his angels. 
 How can mere material things affect spiritual sub- 
 stances? ask the incredulous. What is the use of 
 asking, how can it be, when God says itis? It isan 
 essential part of the Mystery of Sin. For a while 
 Lucifer gained what he sought and has been allowed 
 to become the Prince of this world. The spirits of 
 light and the spirits of darkness watched the chaotic 
 flood, and gradually, as the Spirit brooded over the 
 waters, there came order, and then the marvellous 
 hierarchy of life, until Man was created in grace. Then 
 the Angels of light saw the possibility and promise of 
 what they had believed, and the Angels of darkness 
 began to see to what depths of folly and misery they 
 had doomed themselves. At length the Rock of the 
 Incarnation’ raised itself above the flood. Angels 
 and Men gathered around it and were formed into the 
 Mystical Body of Christ, and all the rest was plunged 
 into the abyss. 
 
38 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 The story of the Universe shows that 
 there is only one thing that has had 
 permanence. First by promise and 
 prophecy, and last by actual fact, the Incarnation has 
 shown itself to be the immovable Centre, while all else 
 has passed away. Empires have gone, institutions 
 have gone, dynasties have gone, conquerors have 
 gone, and the one thing that remains is the House 
 that was builded upon a Rock. As Aubrey de Vere 
 says in his stately hymn: 
 
 The Stream 
 of Time. 
 
 Empires rise and sink like billows, 
 Vanish, and are seen no more ; 
 Glorious as the star of morning 
 
 She o’erlooks the wild uproar. 
 
 We see the process going on all around us. Ominous 
 clouds seem to threaten a storm that may sweep away 
 the whole of our boasted civilization. Should that 
 come to pass, there is one thing only that can survive, 
 and that is the Rock against which the gates of hell 
 shall never prevail. 
 
 The countless myriads of human 
 beings of all time pass before our 
 eyes like the appalling processions 
 that Dante saw in the Inferno. In the midst of them 
 stands the Rock of Calvary, the only permanence. 
 There is no other Name given under heaven whereby 
 men can be saved. To all appearance the vast majority, 
 carelessly, unbelievingly, rebelliously, throng the broad 
 
 The Stream 
 of Humanity. 
 
THE MEANING OF THE PARABLE = 39 
 
 road that leads to death. What secret ways those 
 outstretched arms upon the Cross find to snatch 
 individual souls from the gulf, we do not know. What 
 we do know for ourselves is that, aS we are whirled 
 along, unless we cling to the foot of that Cross, we 
 shall ourselves go down into the abyss. 
 
 The § The Kingdom of Heaven has glorified 
 e Stream 
 of Thought. or subdued all Angels. It has over- 
 shadowed all human story. It has its 
 erip from without on every human individual. It is 
 also within us. Even those who have Grace enthroned 
 in their hearts know what a rush of activity sweeps 
 through their minds in all their waking and some of 
 their sleeping hours, and what a large proportion of 
 it goes down uselessly into the gulf of oblivion. No 
 one could or would tell all the absurdities, the follies 
 of vanity, the ebullitions of pride, the murmurings and 
 envies, the little storms of the affections and passions, 
 the sensual desires, the teasing doubts, the day- 
 dreams, the castles in the air, the imaginary quarrels 
 ending in crushing repartees, the inflated imaginings, 
 of even a single day. All this subjective life is wasted 
 unless it fixes itself upon the Rock of the Word Incar- 
 nate. Apart from this, even philosophy, art and science 
 are an empty dream. Hence the Church of God, always 
 carrying her theories into the fullest logical practice, 
 equals the Contemplative with the Active. In the 
 Word Incarnate thoughts become deeds. Hermits 
 are as useful as Preachers: a Carmelite Nun is as prac- 
 tical as a sister of Charity. The whole course of medi- 
 tative prayer throughout the world is the subjective 
 
40 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 life of the Bride of Christ, and in Him her Thought 
 no less than her Action is lifted to a plane of Divine 
 Reality. 
 
IX 
 THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD 
 
 The concept of the whole state 
 of Creation as a conflict between 
 supernatural Good and preternatural Evil on the field 
 of the merely natural is quite simple, and is of great 
 practical importance to us, because Man is a microcosm 
 (or epitome of the Universe), and the whole conflict 
 is repeated in each individual according to his measure. 
 
 Good versus Evil. 
 
 Theologians sometimes discuss 
 the question whether there would 
 have been an Incarnation if 
 humanity had not sinned. Such discussion may afford 
 a useful mode of analysing root principles, but in 
 practice it does not lead us anywhere. We might as 
 well debate whether, if Angels had not sinned, Man 
 would have been created. It is futile for creatures to 
 try to place themselves at the point of view of the 
 Creator. There is no time for God. Even when we 
 speak of the fove-knowledge of God, we are liable to 
 err unless we remember that the prefix fore has refer- 
 
 4I 
 
 Insoluble Problems 
 put aside. 
 
42 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 ence only to ourselves. God’s Complete Knowledge 
 is communicated to us in proportion to our powers of 
 reception, that is to say, in terms of space and time, 
 of logical inference in thought and of succession in 
 fact. In Him there is no variation. The colours of the 
 spectrum are still true light, though they are only the 
 result of breaking up the completeness of the ray. 
 We are on safe ground as long as we stick to facts, 
 revealed or experienced. For the same reason we may 
 put aside all speculations about the possibilities of 
 other worlds than ours, other conceivable schemes of 
 Redemption, other Incarnations. This earth of ours 
 may be the one lost sheep which the Good Shepherd 
 has come to rescue, leaving flocks that need no redemp- 
 tion; or there may be no other flocks. Our own 
 experience of free will is that wherever it is given 
 there is the possibility and partial actuality of rebel- 
 lion. Our wisdom is to make the most of what has been 
 revealed to us here and now. 
 
 Let us set before our eyes what 
 we know from revelation. (1) There 
 can, of course, be no direct 
 contest between God and creatures. A duel between 
 a microbe and an Archangel would be too feeble an 
 analogy to describe it. The whole fight therefore 
 is between Sin and Grace. Grace is a communication, 
 necessarily finite on our side, of the Divine Nature to 
 Angels or Men. (2) There is a law which in its appli- 
 cation to ourselves we call the Transfer of Grace. 
 “My word shall not return to Me void, but shall 
 accomplish that whereto it was sent.” ‘See that no 
 
 The Principles of 
 the Conflict. 
 
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD 43 
 
 man take thy crown.” The Redeemer took for Himself, 
 among His many crowns, the one that was thrown 
 away by Adam; and the lost crown of Eve was 
 regained by Mary. The whole Mystical Body of Christ 
 receives the crowns rejected by Lucifer and his fol- 
 lowers. (3) The Creator respects the free will of His 
 creatures. They are never compelled. What they 
 gain for God, is laid up for them in eternal security : 
 what they gain, even against Him, is never taken away 
 by violence, but only by the operations of Grace. 
 What they lose can be regained only by the processes 
 of Grace. (4) The laws of the conflict are a finite 
 expression of the Will of God, and are never broken. 
 God cannot contradict Himself. Even when we speak 
 of miracle we merely mean that a higher law of Grace 
 has, consistently with itself, overruled a lower law of 
 Nature. 
 
 : These things premised, we see 
 Peo guacce rst. further het ne dominating 
 Centre of Creation is the Incarnate Word. His victory 
 culminated in the Sacrifice of the Cross, and from that 
 victory has proceeded all redeeming Grace. From it 
 (foreseen, as we say) flowed all the graces sent to bring 
 sinners to repentance from the moment of the Fall, 
 and ever after all the Grace and Glory bestowed upon 
 the Bride of Christ in all her members. 
 
 It was not as God, but as the 
 Son of Man, that He came to 
 fight this fight and win this 
 victory. And He calls His adversary the Prince of 
 
 The Redeemer Fights 
 and Conquers as Man. 
 
44 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 this world. Why? Because in the first campaign that 
 adversary had won a temporary victory. In our 
 Lord’s own words, ‘‘ When a strong man armed keepeth 
 his court, those things are in peace which he possesseth : 
 but if a stronger than he come upon him and over- 
 come him, he will take away the armour wherein he 
 trusted, and will distribute his spoils.”’ This is a vivid 
 description both of the victory of Satan over Adam 
 and of the victory which Jesus Christ won over Satan. 
 Adam was created in Grace, and was therefore made 
 Lord of this visible world. Satan came against him 
 and overcame him, stripped him of the armour of 
 Grace wherein he trusted, and thenceforward claimed 
 to distribute the spoils of his forfeited dominion. 
 Therefore our Lord calls him Prince of this world. 
 The fight is still going on, for Satan, though defeated, 
 is still wrangling for what he calls his own. No violence 
 is done to him, but his spoils are continuously being 
 taken from him by the processes of Grace, thing after 
 thing, body after body, soul after soul. His kingdom 
 is being gradually by Grace divided against itself and 
 therefore shall not stand. 
 
 There is a Divine chivalry on the 
 side of God’s Champion. He never 
 abuses His enemy. He calls him Lucifer, and admits 
 his claims of possession. The Son of Man would not 
 express the Wrath of God. With perfect calm He 
 endured all that the Powers of Evil could do to Him, 
 so overruling all things that they could do nothing 
 but work out their own damnation. This is power- 
 fully expressed in Christian Art. The Griffin, being 
 
 Divine Chivalry. 
 
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD 45 
 
 a union of the eagle and the lion, the king of birds 
 and the king of beasts, typical of Heaven and Earth, 
 symbolizes the Incarnation, while the Dragon is 
 the universal emblem of Evil. Lombard Architecture, 
 as is explained in Ruskin’s subtle analysis, shows the 
 Griffin crouching in an attitude of repose, grasping 
 in its talons a dragon so firmly that it can only turn 
 and bite its own wing. From the first page of Genesis 
 to the last page of the Apocalypse, the Dragon or 
 Serpent of Evil has always been killing itself by its 
 own, poison. 
 
 The whole Gospel story illus- 
 trates these principles. 
 Whether it be sin, or actual obsession, or diseases 
 thought to be obsession, or simple cases of known 
 disease, our Lord “‘ casts out the devil.”” Out of Mary 
 of Magdala He “cast out seven devils,’’ and cast 
 them out so completely that she stands in Grace by 
 the side of the Immaculate. In cases of actual obsession, 
 the demons grovelled before Him, but He refused their 
 testimony and drove them out. In one case they asked 
 permission to enter a herd of swine. He scornfully 
 gave them leave. Swine, being forbidden as food, 
 were of no use to the people of God. He was not going 
 to contend with demons over swine. He let them do 
 what they would with their own. Their motive of 
 course was to bring Him into disfavour, and they 
 temporarily succeeded, for the people came and, to 
 their own immense loss, besought Him to depart from 
 their coasts. It was nothing to Him—He was going 
 to let them do to Him much worse things than that. 
 
 Christ and the Demons. 
 
46 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 There were epileptic cases, attributed to obsession. 
 What mattered the popular mistake to Him? He 
 overcame in them the power of Satan. There was the 
 poor woman crippled with rheumatism: He cured 
 her as one ‘‘ whom Satan hath bound these eighteen 
 years.” 
 
 As the result of his victory in Eden, 
 Satan gained a hold on the souls of 
 men, on the bodies of men, and over 
 the visible creation. They were not corrupted in their 
 nature, unless they themselves participated in his sin : 
 but the mere fact that they were his unfitted them 
 for use in the Kingdom of Heaven. The taint extended, 
 and still extends, to all earthly things that have not 
 been captured for the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore 
 our Lord blessed, not only the Bread and Wine for 
 the Eucharist, but all food which he either gave or 
 received. Therefore, following in His footsteps, the 
 Catholic Church blesses, and bids us bless, all the food 
 we receive, all the things we use—our farms and 
 houses, our beasts of burden, our carriages, railways, 
 aeroplanes, everything. She is distributing the spoils. 
 She forms objects for sacred use—vestments, scapulars, 
 medals, pictures—and gives them a double blessing, 
 negatively to remove the taint, positively to turn 
 them into channels of Grace. She even blesses the 
 whole countryside by shrines, crosses, statues. In a 
 word, she is doing what she can to make the whole 
 world Incarnational. 
 
 The taint of 
 Satan’s Kingdom. 
 
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD 47 
 
 If anybody thinks I am 
 overstating in saying that 
 everything on earth is tainted until it is blessed, let 
 him read the form for blessing holy water. Both the 
 salt and the water are first exorcised and then com- 
 mingled and given Incarnational power and put at the 
 disposal of the faithful as a weapon against the Powers 
 of Evil. Those Catholics who neglect these externalities, 
 or even think the Church “ old-fashioned ’’ in the use 
 of them, lose a great deal of Grace and display very 
 imperfect knowledge of the principles of their Faith. 
 Sometimes they are ashamed of these practices because 
 outsiders ridicule them as superstition. What does it 
 matter what noise they make down in the Valley of 
 the Shadow of Death? What our Lord approved is 
 . for ever worthy of approval and practice. And for 
 His Bride, she retains perennial youth and never do 
 her ways become old-fashioned. 
 
 The Church’s Blessings. 
 
X 
 THE TAINT ON HUMANITY 
 
 We have seen, then, that Satan’s 
 victory over Humanity gave 
 him as his spoils the Princedom of this world, and a 
 hold over the soul and the body of man. It did not 
 give him the power to degrade the nature of things. 
 He could not force actual corruption on the soul of 
 man. That would be a victory over God. His victory 
 was only over Adam. Nevertheless there is a taint 
 in his very touch. In the last chapter we saw how this 
 taint is removed from things we need. As a mother 
 tells her children they must not receive sweets from a 
 stranger, not because there is anything wrong with the 
 sweets, but because of possible danger in the giver, 
 so our Heavenly Father bids us take nothing but what 
 comes to us from the Incarnate Word. Every child of 
 Grace has the power by blessing to adapt the things 
 he needs to the service of the Incarnation. He just 
 signs the cross upon them, the symbol of Christ’s 
 victory, and says, ‘‘ The Lord hath need of them,” 
 and thus transforms material objects into channels 
 of Grace. 
 
 The taint on Matter. 
 
 48 
 
THE TAINT ON HUMANITY 49 
 
 The taint on Humanity goes deeper. 
 Souls which were intended to enter upon 
 existence endowed with supernatural dignity, and 
 bodies which were intended to be lifted up to a plane 
 of spirituality so as to be in complete harmony with 
 their souls, undoubtedly incur great loss if debarred 
 from these privileges. They lose nothing of their 
 nature, but because they are born into the kingdom of 
 this world and under the dominion of its Prince, they 
 suffer disgrace and taint. This taint is called Original 
 Sin. It does not become actual sin.unless and until 
 the soul deliberately adheres to the rebellion into the 
 midst of which it has been born. 
 
 Original Sin. 
 
 The work of Redemption begins with 
 the translation of a human personality 
 from the kingdom of darkness to the 
 Kingdom of Light. The laws of this process are very 
 clearly made known to us. They are different for the 
 soul and for the body. The soul, being simple in 
 substance, can be, and is, redeemed in a flash. If at 
 death it is in the state of grace, its redemption is 
 complete. It may have to wait awhile in the Porch of 
 the Temple to be purified of external stains, but it 
 will lose nothing there of its supernatural life, nor can 
 it add anything thereto: its redemption is complete. 
 
 Redemption of 
 the Soul. 
 
 It is otherwise with the body. Being 
 complex, all its processes are gradual. 
 As St. Paul says, we are still waiting 
 for the redemption of the body. Its invariable doom for 
 Original Sin is a permanent possibility of an Ie 
 
 Redemption of 
 the Body. 
 
50 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 temptation during life, and a passage through death 
 and corruption as the only way of entering into the 
 Glory of God. Even St. John the Baptist, who was 
 consecrated before birth, and of whom our Lord said 
 glorious words granted to no other man, had to undergo 
 this doom and is still awaiting the fullness of his 
 bodily redemption. God never breaks His own laws. 
 
 From this law we see clearly how 
 essential to the Plan of Redemption 
 were the original privileges con- 
 ferred on the Mother of the Redeemer. If Mary had 
 no higher grace than St. John the Baptist, her body 
 would have to pass through the common doom, 
 and her Child would have had to take flesh from a 
 flesh unregenerated. The only way to guard the 
 Redeemer against the slur of such an unworthy origin, 
 was for Him to grant His Mother the supreme redemp- 
 tion, that would not delete but forestall in her the 
 taint of sin. The foreseen victory of the Cross gave 
 to the second Eve the same original grace that had 
 been the privilege of the first. Mary became the 
 Hortus inclusus where the Prince of this world had 
 no claims, and into this Paradise the second Adam 
 entered to renew with entire independence the fight 
 of Humanity against the Adversary. 
 
 The Immaculate 
 Conception. 
 
 There are reasons for thinking that 
 this Garden enclosed was jealously 
 protected against even the knowledge 
 of the Evil One. The intellect of angels is not infinite, 
 and the fact seems to be revealed to us that Satan 
 
 The Secret of 
 the King. 
 
THE TAINT ON HUMANITY 51 
 
 was uncertain. His temptations begin with “‘ Jf thou 
 be the Son of God.” We can easily imagine that a 
 spiritual cordon surrounded the life of the Mother 
 for the sake of the Son. Some of the Fathers give as 
 one reason of her marriage to St. Joseph that the 
 secret of the Virginal Birth might remain unknown 
 to the demons. This Angelic guard around the Maiden 
 would of course lead the Adversary to suspect: but 
 he was not allowed to know. The Redeemer meant to 
 fight him on the plane of Humanity. 
 
 These considerations perhaps throw 
 some light on the belief in Mary’s 
 Assumption. It is quite universal in the Church of 
 God, and the faithful often wonder why the doctrine 
 has not been defined. The only question about it is 
 whether it is an accessory fact after the full Revelation, 
 or whether it was contained essentially in that Revel- 
 ation as the stamens are contained in a flower-bud. 
 Personally I cherish the hope that the Church will 
 some day say, perhaps even before the Vatican Council 
 closes, that in accordance with this law of bodily 
 redemption the end of Mary’s earthly life is as much 
 a part of the Divine Plan of Redemption as the 
 beginning. Without the Assumption, Christ’s victory 
 for His Church on earth is nowhere yet complete. 
 And, moreover, without the Assumption the original 
 sanctity of Mary’s body would miss its connatural 
 complement. 
 
 The Assumption. 
 
52 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 If this were a treatise of moral as well 
 as intellectual theory, one might deduce 
 from this law of bodily redemption the whole doctrine 
 of the value of sacrifice, of mortification (which really 
 is only the obverse of the medal of vivification), and of 
 all that asceticism to which Christendom has devoted 
 so many volumes. It would show how in all saintly 
 lives, whether in social sweetness like that of our Lord 
 or in stern asceticism like that of St. John the Baptist, 
 Wisdom is justified of her children. But we must pass 
 on to the Mysteries, 
 
 Asceticism. 
 
XI 
 
 THE FIRST MYSTERY—THE BLESSED 
 TRINITY 
 
 Method My purpose is not to prove the Mystery, 
 
 ‘ but to show the mode of its revelation. 
 In the case of each Mystery there is a long series of 
 hints, shadows, suggestive expressions, types, figures, 
 symbols and startling ideas, which prepare the mind 
 for something that it could not otherwise have expected. 
 
 _ | The Second and New Creation is 
 
 Some plurality in 
 hide Godhead represented to us as the result of 
 * a Divine Council in which God the 
 Father sends His Son to rebuild the structure which 
 Adam had ruined, and sends His Spirit to animate the 
 work. The story of the First Creation is quite parallel. 
 God creates us by His Word, and His Spirit moves upon 
 the face of the waters. ‘‘ And God said, Let us make 
 man in our image.”’ Critics of course say that the first 
 chapter of Genesis is a survival of the polytheistic 
 times before Abraham. That is not the point. Itis 
 not a question of whether God uses pre-existing material, 
 
 53 
 
54 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 but what use He makes of that material. Wetakeallour 
 teaching from our Lord Jesus Christ, and He vouched 
 for every jot and tittle of the Law. The point is that 
 God chose a certain people to be the repository of His 
 Oracles, that His Providence so arranged that their 
 very life and history and all their literature should be 
 prophetic of the coming Redemption, and that this 
 people, passionately monotheistic, placed in the very 
 forefront of their message an account of Creation which 
 implies some sort of plurality in the Godhead. 
 
 To keep alive the hope of the coming 
 Redeemer, God “appeared” from 
 time to time in the Old Dispensation 
 under various symbols,—the human form, the burning 
 bush, the gentle voice, etc. Granted, however, that 
 these symbols may have been, as St. Paul seems to say, 
 “by the hands of Angels,” nevertheless the revelation 
 was direct. And in the inspired account we see a 
 distinction made between the One who sends and the 
 One who is sent: and the One who is sent demands 
 and receives Divine homage. In such cases the word 
 “ Angel ’’ sometimes seems to mean more than a created 
 spirit. Indeed, the prophesied Messias is actually 
 called “‘ The Angel of the Great Council ”’ in the LXX 
 version of Isaias: and in Malachi He is “ the Angel of 
 the Covenant.” In the immensely important forward 
 move establishing the Covenant with Abraham, the 
 Lord appeared to him and said, ‘‘ lam Almighty God.” 
 In continuation of this revelation, the appearance was 
 under the suggestive symbol of ‘‘ three men,’’ who 
 nevertheless speak as one, namely, “the Lord.” 
 
 Divine 
 Manifestations. 
 
FIRST MYSTERY—BLESSED TRINITY 55 
 
 Again, the effect of all these Theophanies, or Divine 
 appearances, is evidently to imply some kind of 
 plurality in the One Godhead, and the number sug- 
 gested is Three. 
 
 The Evangelist-Prophet, Isaias, 
 was vouchsafed a symbolical view 
 of the worship in Heaven, and he 
 heard the Angels chanting their threefold adoration, 
 Holy, Holy, Holy. Suggestive as this is by itself, its 
 significance is enhanced by the repetition of it in the 
 Vision of St. John, where the Trisagion is sung before 
 the Threefold Presence on the Throne of Light. Add 
 to this the perpetual echo of it on earth in the Christian 
 Liturgies. 
 
 Sanctus, Sanctus, 
 Sanctus. 
 
 Hebraism ? Critics say it is a mere Hebraism. We 
 
 may dispute their adjective. The Heb- 
 rew Race was chosen to be (if I may use the term) a 
 composite prophet, in its covenant, in its life and 
 history, in its whole literature, in its worship ; is it 
 surprising, then, if its linguistic idioms sometimes 
 contain meanings beyond themselves? There are 
 many instances in the New Testament where what 
 seemed to be ‘‘ merely Hebraic ”’ parallels are seen to 
 be in reality distinct and fruitful pairs. Take the 
 highest of them. When Mary sang, “My soul doth 
 magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God 
 my Saviour,” she was uttering a ‘" mere Hebraism ”’ ; 
 but on her lips, with the new Mystery within her, that 
 song reveals unfathomable depths to those whose 
 delight it is to scrutinize the Mysteries. 
 
56 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 The Word and en a casual reading of the Old 
 te Spink: estament reveals a triplicity running 
 
 throughout,—the Lord, the Word of 
 the Lord and the Spirit of the Lord. Hebraism, the 
 critics say again. Of course: but is it not strange 
 that all these Hebraisms point the same way? The 
 whole of Christianity is a Divine Hebraism. When 
 long afterwards St. John pointed the meaning by his 
 doctrine of the Word (Logos), critics say he borrowed 
 it from Philo, the philosopher who tried to Platonize 
 Judaism. But where did Philo get it? He found it 
 flaming throughout Holy Writ. And was St. John, the 
 great Poet-Mystic and Apostle, less sensitive to Divine 
 meanings? As likely as not, St. John never heard of 
 Philo. But even Philo is useful as showing how a 
 highly intellectual and enthusiastic Jew caught a 
 glimmering of a plurality in the Godhead from the 
 prophecies. 
 
 Striking I add some sentences which are, to say 
 
 the least, startling in a monotheistic 
 revelation. Psalm 2: “The Lord and 
 his Christ (Anointed)’’: to the latter is promised 
 universal dominion, and to Him it is said, ‘‘ Thou art 
 my Son.’ Psalm 32: ‘‘ By the Word of the Lord the 
 heavens were established, and all the power of them by 
 the Spirit of his mouth.” Psalm 44: “ Thy throne, 
 O God, is for ever and ever... . Therefore God, thy God, 
 hath anointed thee.”’ Psalm 103: ‘‘ Thou shalt send 
 forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created.” Psalm 
 10g (the text to which our Lord Himself appealed) : 
 “The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at my right hand.” 
 
 Expressions, 
 
FIRST MYSTERY—BLESSED TRINITY 57 
 
 The Book of Wisdom, the fore-runner of the whole 
 doctrine of the Logos, says in chapter g: ‘“‘ And who 
 shall know thy thought except thou give Wisdom and 
 send thy Holy Spirit from above”: it had already 
 described the ‘‘ Wisdom that sitteth by thy throne.” 
 To give one more out of many, the noble prayer of the 
 son of Sirach in Ecclesiasticus (Chapter 51) says: “I 
 will give glory to thee, O Lord, O King; and I will 
 praise thee, O God my Saviour. . . .I called upon 
 the Lord, the Father of my Lord.” 
 
 aerate Serahols If, as we have seen in the case 
 Heeded ? of Philo, these symbolic fore- 
 
 shadowings appealed intellectually 
 to thinkers, it might be expected that far closer 
 approximations would be made by the more spiritual 
 stars that gathered round the Dawn. Thus the Angel 
 Gabriel, revealing to Mary the immediate flowering of 
 the Mystery of the Incarnation, presupposed in her a 
 knowledge of the Trinity : “‘The Lord is with thee: 
 . . . The Holy Ghost shall overshadow thee .. . and 
 therefore the Holy One that is born of thee shall be 
 called the Son of God.”” Thus again when our Lord 
 was baptized (an event described by all four Evange- 
 lists), St. John the Baptist knew at once what was 
 meant by the Lamb of God before him, the voice of 
 the Father, and the Dove of the Holy Spirit. Finally 
 St. John the Evangelist, whose knowledge both of the 
 Baptist and of the Blessed Virgin was deeply intimate, 
 renewed in his great Apocalypse all the symbols of the 
 Old Testament along with all the Realities of the New, 
 showing that in a worship which must necessarily be 
 
58 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 symbolical, there is no use in its being symbolical 
 unless it is also real. 
 
 When our Lord came, in His own 
 gracious way, He showed the 
 Truth by facts, before He put it 
 into words. He first revealed the Father, and made it 
 evident to His disciples that from the Creation to the 
 Incarnation was the Dispensation of the Father: that 
 His own life on earth was the Dispensation of the Son : 
 that the future was to be the Dispensation of the Holy 
 Ghost : that He was one with the Father: that He 
 Himself was God: that the Holy Spirit is God: and 
 that Godis One. Then He sent His disciples to baptize 
 the world with the completed formula, ‘‘ In the Name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” 
 With that formula, the Supreme Truth, we renew, as 
 it were, our baptism every time we bless ourselves. 
 
 The Definite 
 Announcement. 
 
XII 
 
 THE SECOND MYSTERY,—THE 
 INCARNATION 
 
 Immediately after the Fall of Man, the 
 conflict between Grace and Sin was 
 continued on a new basis. On God’s 
 principle, ‘‘ My word shall not return to me void but 
 shall accomplish that whereto it was sent,’’ the super- 
 natural headship of Adam and the supernatural 
 Motherhood of Eve were re-established in a higher form. 
 The temporary victory of Satan extended only over the 
 things of this world: the things of Grace were not 
 among his spoils. Therefore the new Hope was at once 
 revealed, both to Humanity and to the Enemy, in the 
 picture of the Woman and her Child, and the Serpent. 
 In this appeal to the imagination of men we see the 
 first symbol of the Redemption which was then not 
 only promised but actually begun. The victorious 
 Sacrifice was already being offered up by “‘ the Lamb 
 slain from the beginning of the world.’ So vividly 
 did this picture speak to the all-embracing mind of St. 
 John, that he places it again in his final Visions of the 
 
 59 
 
 The Primeval 
 Promise. 
 
60 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Apocalypse,—the Woman clothed with the sun, her 
 Child, and the Serpent. It was in a certain manner, 
 as we shall see hereafter, the same Woman, the same 
 Child, and the same Enemy. The Mystery of the 
 Woman is that of universal motherhood, and we shall 
 consider it in the next chapter. It is the Mystery of 
 the Child that fills our minds now. This was the first 
 promise of the Messiah (the Anointed), the Prophet, 
 Priest and King who was coming as Son of Man to 
 redeem and restore, not by the compulsive power of 
 Omnipotence, but by the persuasive processes of Grace. 
 
 When mankind, unfaithful to the 
 Covenant of Hope, fell away almost 
 universally, there came the Flood in which only Noe 
 and his family were saved. With them the Covenant 
 was renewed, and as a sort of sign manual the rainbow 
 was chosen to be a symbolic promise of its perpetuity. 
 After a while, Abraham was chosen as the instrument 
 of a new development of the idea. It was carried on 
 through Isaac, the child of promise, the child also of the 
 Vicarious sacrifice. Esau rejected it, bartering it for 
 a mess of pottage, and in God’s mysterious way it was 
 transferred to Jacob, who gave his symbolic name 
 Israel to the chosen race. He passed it on to Judah. 
 With every transference fresh light is thrown on the 
 doctrine of the Hope. 
 
 The Patriarchs. 
 
 Moses is reckoned in some way as the 
 greatest of the Prophets, because he 
 not only typified the Redeemer, leading 
 
 Moses and 
 the Prophets. 
 
SECOND MYSTERY—THE INCARNATION 61 
 
 the chosen people from the land of bondage through the 
 miraculously prophetic wilderness to the Promised 
 Land, but also was the Law-giver arranging the life and 
 worship of Israel “‘ according to the pattern shown him 
 in the Mount.” Other Prophets spoke in words ; 
 Moses spoke in symbols,—the Paschal Lamb, the holy 
 of holies, the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, 
 the emblem of the brazen serpent. 
 
 In the Promised Land, the Covenant was renewed 
 with David, whose poetic genius was consecrated to the 
 expression of the devotion of God’s people for all time. 
 To him was vouchsafed a vision of the suffering Re- 
 deemer, which is absolutely startling in its realism, 
 It is found in that Psalm beginning with the words, 
 ‘“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? ” 
 These words were uttered by our Lord upon the Cross 
 in the most unfathomable depth of His Passion, thus, 
 even in that agony still our Teacher, claiming the literal 
 fulfilment of that marvellous prophecy. Long after 
 David, Prophet after Prophet, from Isaias to Malachi 
 and beyond, contributed each his share to the great 
 Messianic Ideal, until at last the Reality came. 
 
 If I were arguing with an opponent, 
 I should have to cite passage after 
 passage with all sorts of answers to 
 objections. I am here taking, with those who believe, 
 a bird’s-eye view of the dawning process. There have 
 been many books written on this significance of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures. In English, Father Maas, S.]J., 
 has given us two solid volumes which may be consulted 
 by those who want the details (Christ in Type and Pro- 
 
 The Character 
 of the Ideal. 
 
62 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 bhecy). Suffice it here and now to say, putting all the 
 pictorial touches together, that the Messias, the very 
 time of whose coming was not obscurely defined, was 
 to be born of a Virgin, at Bethlehem, that His name was 
 to be Jesus or Saviour, that he was to have a fore- 
 runner, that He was to be Teacher and Master, and was 
 to teach in parables, and to work miracles. He was to 
 establish a new and everlasting Covenant. He was to 
 bring the Reign of Peace, and yet to be a Warrior and 
 Conqueror. His life was to be one of humiliation, 
 poverty and obscurity: yet He was to be Prince, Lord 
 and eternal King. He was to bea legislator, abrogating 
 the Mosaic Law and bringing the whole Gentile world 
 to His sway. His Passion is described in amazing 
 detail betrayed, taken and bound, deserted by 
 disciples, silent before the judge, insulted and struck, 
 crucified, mocked on the Cross, dying the death of a 
 malefactor, His side pierced with a lance, His very 
 garments gambled for. And yet, as we have already 
 seen, words are used of Him and names given to Him 
 which cannot without blasphemy be given to any 
 creature. The difficulty was, and the essence of the 
 Mystery lay in this, that all these things had to be true 
 together. The Jews selected from God’s Word those 
 things which they preferred to believe (the very 
 definition of heresy), and looked for one who should 
 establish a kingdom on earth for them, although it was 
 clearly foretold that His Victory, and therefore His 
 Peace, was to be for Heaven, not primarily for earth, 
 and was to be universal and not merely for the standard- 
 bearers. The result was that they fell away from the 
 Mystery, and have now fallen away even from the 
 
SECOND MYSTERY—THE INCARNATION 63 
 
 symbols. They have lost their sacrificial worship, and 
 have given up their Messianic Hope. 
 
 The Infinite alone can reconcile para- 
 doxes. Eventhe mathematical infinite 
 is fertile in statements which to all appearances are 
 impossibly true together. Any true view of the real 
 Infinite is to us necessarily paradoxical. Our logic 
 cannot measure the Godhead. So when Christ came, 
 He reconciled all things in Himself. He fulfilled, and 
 transcended, all the prophecies. In that wonderful 
 conversation on the way to Emaus, the talk which of 
 all others, we could wish to have more fully recorded, 
 He said, ‘‘ O foolish, and in your hearts slow to believe 
 all that the prophets have spoken!” It must be 
 remembered that His Mystery is twofold,—true God 
 and true Man. He did not wish so to reveal His God- 
 head as to make them disbelieve in His Humanity. 
 His humility laid stress on His being the Son of Man. 
 Yet He told the truth to those who had the right to 
 know. ‘‘ He thought it no robbery to be equal with 
 God,” but He did say that He and His Father were one, 
 that He would send the Holy Spirit from the Father, 
 that ‘“‘the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost ” 
 was the right way of naming the Godhead. He received 
 and allowed Divine homage, and demanded from all 
 men that total service of faith, hope and charity which 
 God alone has the right to demand. Even with all 
 His humble self-repression, it is significant that the 
 first heresies denied, not His Divinity but the reality of 
 His Manhood. Nothing can more clearly show that 
 our Lord’s way of teaching was the best way,— 
 
 The Reality. 
 
64 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 namely, to prepare the mind by type and symbol, and 
 then to give a firm hold on both sides of a Mystery 
 before putting it into finite words. 
 
XIII 
 THE THIRD MYSTERY,—THE CHURCH 
 
 This Mystery is, of all the four, the most 
 varied in form, and, according to the point 
 of view chosen, may be called the Mystery 
 of the Kingdom, or of Grace, or of Divine Sonship, or 
 of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or of the Mystical 
 Body, or of the Bride of Christ. It is the victory of 
 Grace over Sin looked at from the standpoint of uni- 
 versal Humanity. So essential is its relation to the 
 Mystery of the Incarnation that from the beginning 
 the two are always revealed together. 
 
 Variety of 
 Aspect. 
 
 Since the Word Incarnate came as 
 Conqueror, Priest and King, and that 
 not as God but as the Son of Man, it 
 follows that through all the ages He must have an Army 
 to fight under His banner, a People to be sanctified, a 
 Kingdom over which to reign. If now we are united 
 to Him only by moral and spiritual ties, if His sacrifice 
 has redeemed us from without, if as a separate indi- 
 65 F 
 
 Mystery or 
 Metaphor P 
 
66 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 vidual He has by His Divine help enabled us to be 
 obedient and devoted and loyal merely as separate 
 individuals ourselves, if He has bound His disciples 
 together merely externally as this world binds its 
 inhabitants into empires and religions, this would 
 indeed be an infinite mercy, but it would not be a 
 mystery. Wecan understand kingdoms and races and 
 modes of belief, and even when these are personified 
 we find the metaphor quite intelligible. If that were 
 all, since we can make metaphors for ourselves, we 
 might arrange ourselves in different groups and call 
 ourselves Churches. And that of course is what is 
 done by those who have denied the Mystery. But if 
 the process of union is supernatural; if the Word 
 {ncarnate has created a Divine Organism, of which we 
 are integral molecules or cells, an Organism whose laws 
 and powers are beyond our comprehension; if an 
 identity has been established between Him and His 
 followers which is as far beyond our imitation as it is 
 beyond our understanding, then we are face to face 
 with Mystery : we must take the shoes from off our 
 feet, for we are standing on holy ground. We must 
 not touch the Ark with unconsecrated hand. But, as 
 we have seen, we gather from the mode of revelation, 
 from its prophetic whispers, from its frequent repetition, 
 from its urgency and impressiveness, from its variety 
 of type and symbol, from its enthusiasm and glory, 
 from its daring paradox and superhuman claims, and 
 eventually from the very words of God made man and 
 His inspired disciples, that we are in a realm of Mystery 
 where human power and thought sink into insignifi- 
 cance. Indeed, it is hard to think that Almighty God 
 
THIRD MYSTERY—THE CHURCH 67 
 
 would enter His own creation as a creature and then 
 confine all mystery to Himself. Surely He came to 
 lift our nothingness to Reality and not merely to teach 
 us a superior kind of Poetry. 
 
 The Protevangelion (the first Gospel) 
 of Genesis reveals the universal War 
 and Victory as between the Woman 
 and her Seed on one side and the Serpent on the other. 
 Who is this Woman? After the fullness of the Incar- 
 national and Pentecostal revelation, St. John in his 
 apocalyptic vision gives us the same picture,—the 
 Woman clothed with the sun and crowned with twelve 
 stars with her Son on the one side, and the Dragon on 
 the other. Who again is the Woman? In the latter 
 case, the Church of God and her multitudinous off- 
 spring ; in the former case an individual woman, Mary, 
 and her individual Son, the Redeemer. And yet 
 between the two cases there is this connexion, that one 
 group (Apocalypse) is an extension of the other (Gene- 
 sis). And thus the two are but one. If anybody says 
 he cannot see how one individual woman can have any 
 sort of identity with a woman of such universality as 
 the Church, then let him wonder too how the one 
 individual Christ can have developed into a mystic 
 Christ made up of the Redeemer and the redeemed. 
 Every child of the Catholic Church who says his 
 rosary knows and feels that the triumph of Mary in the 
 last two mysteries is the same thing as the triumph of 
 the whole heavenly Jerusalem on earth. Did ever 
 any single person think or speak of Arianism or Don- 
 atism or Lutheranism or Calvinism or Anglicanism or 
 
 The Woman 
 and Her Seed. 
 
68 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Wesleyanism or any other man-made Schism as his 
 Mother ? 
 
 The children of the Patriarchs, to 
 whom the new Covenant was given 
 and confirmed, were not only the 
 bearers of the Hope of the Redeemer, but were them- 
 selves the type of His Kingdom. The whole of their 
 history, as St. Paul said, “‘ happened to them in figure 
 and was written down for our instruction.” Their 
 miraculous Baptism in the Red Sea, their manna in the 
 wilderness, their pillar of cloud and of fire, their whole 
 liturgy of worship formed after the pattern shown on 
 the mount, was one long picture painted by Divine 
 Providence of the Messianic kingdom to come. 
 
 The Chosen 
 People. 
 
 THespropiete! As time went on, the idea of the 
 
 Kingdom became clearer and clearer 
 along with the idea of the Messias. It was to be 
 spiritual, it was to be visible, it was to be universal, 
 it was to be eternal, it was to be Divine. There is a 
 parallelism between what is said of the Redeemer in 
 the Old Testament and what is said of His Kingdom, 
 that puts both into the same region of the Divine. If 
 this were a book of controversy, I could cite hundreds 
 of corroborative passages: I am only indicating the 
 line of thought to those who know their Scripture. 
 
 The Gospel, * When Our Lord came, there were two 
 
 "predominant ideas in His teaching, 
 ‘““My Father” and “‘ the Kingdom of Heaven.”’ The 
 latter was the subject of most of His parables and 
 
THIRD MYSTERY—THE CHURCH 69 
 
 metaphors,—it was the True Vine, the City set on a 
 hill, the light on the candlestick, the leaven to influence 
 the world, it was a voice to be obeyed, it was a temple, 
 and it was ‘‘ within you.” It was as if one seeing a 
 great Reality should try to describe it for those who 
 cannot see, and should use unlimited variety of simile ; 
 the important thing would be that all these meta- 
 phorical descriptions should be true together, and that 
 none should be pushed beyond the meaning of the 
 revealer. A ‘‘ Branch theory ” might suit the parable 
 of the Vine, but it would not suit the figure of the 
 Mystical Body. St. Paul’s ‘‘ branch theory ” was that 
 if a twig had been cut off it was to be regrafted on to 
 the original stock. The Reality which our Lord was 
 describing was still, as a visible supernatural phen- 
 omenon, in the future. He was still prophesying and 
 promising. As St. Augustine put it, the Apostles saw 
 the Mystery of the Incarnation and believed in the 
 Mystery of the Church which they could not yet see: 
 we see the Mystery of the Church and from her learn to 
 believe in the Mystery of the Incarnation which we 
 have not seen. 
 
 Yet, if they had but known it, the 
 fullness had already been sent from 
 Heaven. The Angel Gabriel, in 
 announcing the Divine Motherhood, not only revealed, 
 as we have seen, the Mystery of the Trinity, but also 
 promised the eternal Kingdom of David; and when 
 Mary said: “Be it done unto me according to thy 
 word,” the Incarnate Word immediately began His 
 life on earth, and simultaneously created the Third 
 
 Mary and the 
 Third Mystery. 
 
70 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Mystery in its fullest representative with the potency 
 of universal Motherhood. For a while the Fourth 
 Mystery was also adumbrated in that mystical union 
 whereby the sum total of all Revelation is imparted in 
 all its perfection to every child of God. Holy Com- 
 munion is a Divine echo of Motherhood. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE THIRD MYSTERY AS DIVINE 
 SONSHIP 
 
 Ro thechbod. We have already considered the evolu- 
 
 tion of the idea of Divine Fatherhood 
 as a basis of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity ; but 
 our Lord in His revelation of it laid even more stress 
 on our sonship than on His own, Sometimes He links 
 the two together, ‘‘ My Father and your Father,” as 
 if they were distinguishable yet identical in the same 
 Mystery. For Mystery it is, not Metaphor, as is shown 
 again by the age-long steady addition of converging 
 thought and symbol, until at last the clear enunciation 
 shapes the idea and places it above all reasonable 
 misconception. 
 
 Aevhothi’ Metaphor That in a sense God is Father of 
 
 all His intelligent creatures 1s a 
 per eh e eS y. quite natural truth. Within that 
 sense all angels good or bad, all men good or bad, are 
 equally included, and this sense is by no means neglected 
 in the Gospel teaching. Our Father sending His 
 
 71i 
 
92, THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 blessings on the unjust as well as the just is shown to 
 us as a model for our own actian. But this is only a 
 natural starting-point for a supernatural transforma- 
 tion. It is, and always remains, a sonship that unites 
 us all: but there is also a sonship that divides. There 
 is a ‘‘ partaking of the Divine Nature,” a “ begetting 
 in the Word of truth,” “‘ that we should be called and 
 should be sons of God,”’ ‘‘ for whosoever are led by the 
 Spirit of God they are the sons of God.”’ The phrases 
 just quoted show how St. Peter, St. James, St. John 
 and St. Paul are unanimous in emphasizing the mystery. 
 It was also adumbrated by the Prophets. One says, 
 “In the place where it shall be said to them: You 
 are not my people; it shall be said to them: Ye are 
 the sons of the living God.”’ 
 
 At the beginning of his Gospel 
 St. John seems determined to 
 speak so clearly as to prevent any 
 metaphorical interpretation. People might say that, 
 when God calls us His sons, the filiation of nature is of 
 course out of the question ; but we have legal ways of 
 creating sonship by adoption, and St. Paul actually 
 uses this metaphor. Moreover in common parlance 
 we use the word “‘son’”’ for citizenship or discipleship 
 or other social ties. These metaphors St. John rejects 
 as a full explanation, and he words the sentence with 
 care and completeness. The notion, frequently im- 
 plied, that St. Paul and St. John were emotional and 
 exuberant writers, is very wide of the mark. No other 
 men have ever charged their human speech with so 
 much reality. In this case, see how St. John ticks off 
 
 The Fullest 
 Assertion of it. 
 
THIRD MYSTERY AS DIVINE SONSHIP 73 
 
 the metaphors one by one that he may emphasize the 
 real truth. ‘‘He came unto his own and his own 
 received him not: but as many as received him, he 
 gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them 
 that believe in his name, who are born (1) not of blood, 
 (2) nor of the will of the flesh, (3) nor of the will of man, 
 but (4) of God.” 
 
 To be born of or into an Incar- 
 national organism necessarily con- 
 notes an Incarnational process, nor 
 need we be surprised that for this process God has 
 chosen Water. In the world’s story, water has always 
 been the beginning of life. Therefore the Mystery of 
 Baptism is an essential part of the Mystery of Divine 
 Sonship. Once more, that it is a mystery and not a 
 mere symbolic ceremony, is borne in upon us by the 
 cloud of types and prophecies leading up to the un- 
 mistakable announcement in its due season. In the 
 beginning the Spirit moved upon the face of the Waters. 
 In the time of Noe, the Ark saved humanity in the 
 Waters that covered the earth. The Israelites were 
 “baptized ”’ in the Waters of the Red Sea. There was 
 the Water struck from the Rock in the wilderness. 
 There were ‘‘ the purifications of the Jews,’’ whose 
 purport was so far understood that, when the Baptist 
 came, they challenged his right to baptize, as if the 
 process had a sacred and inviolable meaning. There 
 was also the very significant episode of Naaman the 
 leper being cleansed in the waters of the Jordan,— 
 with its comment for modern shrinking from the 
 humiliation and simplicity of God’s chosen mode: 
 
 The Mode of 
 the New Birth. 
 
74 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 “Tf the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, 
 surely thou shouldst have done it : how much rather 
 what he now hath said to thee, Wash and thou shalt be 
 clean.”” The Jordan was superior to Abana and 
 Pharphar only in its mystic significance as the stream 
 in which Baptism itself was to be consecrated. 
 
 The supernatural character of 
 Baptism is shown by the im- 
 mense importance attributed to 
 it in the forefront of St. John’s Gospel. The Baptism 
 of John was not a symbol chosen by himself: it was 
 specially revealed to him, and was asserted by him as 
 the link between the Old Testament shadows and the 
 New Testament reality. ‘‘ And I knew him not ; but 
 he who sent me to baptize with water, said to me: He 
 upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and 
 remaining upon him, he it is that baptizeth with the 
 Holy Ghost.’”’ And when there was a dispute between 
 the Pharisees and his disciples as to the relation 
 between his baptism and the purifications of the Old 
 Law, and they told him that Christ was now baptizing, 
 John replied, “‘He that hath the bride is the bride- 
 groom ; but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth 
 and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy, because of the 
 bridegroom’s voice : this my joy therefore is fulfilled.” 
 In the 3rd chapter of St. John, however, we have the 
 mystery announced with clear-cut precision. Nico- 
 demus came to our Lord by night, and to him as a 
 master in Israel the revelation was made,—prefaced, 
 as our Lord’s manner was, with His chosen assevera- 
 tion. ‘‘ Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be 
 
 The Magna Charta 
 of Baptism. 
 
THIRD MYSTERY AS DIVINE SONSHIP 75 
 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” By 
 expressing the crudest interpretation, Nicodemus tried 
 to get the metaphor (as he thought it) explained. And 
 if it had been only a metaphor, it would have been 
 explained. That too was our Lord’s way, and indeed 
 the way of every good teacher. But the only answer 
 was, ‘“‘ Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be 
 born again of Water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot 
 enter into the kingdom of God.” 
 
 No wonder that from the beginning 
 the Church of God revered the mystery 
 of Baptism and saw in it her own 
 source of life. ‘‘He saved us by the laver of re- 
 generation and renovation of the Holy Ghost ” (Titus 
 iii.) ‘‘ Christ also loved the Church, and delivered 
 himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing 
 it by the laver of water in the word of life.”” Therefore 
 the newly baptized were called illuminatt, i.e. endowed 
 with the light of faith, with probably an allusion to the 
 initiation which opened for them the door to the 
 Mystery of the Eucharist. In Hebrews vi. there is a 
 graphic sketch of the outer and inner life of the Chris- 
 tian: ‘‘Those who were once illuminated (Baptism), 
 have tasted also the heavenly gift (Communion), and 
 were made partakers of the Holy Ghost (Confirmation), 
 have moreover tasted the good word of God and the 
 powers of the world to come.” The Liturgy, in its 
 blessing of the Font at Easter and Pentecost, with its 
 beautiful prayers for the neophytes, carries the teaching 
 through the centuries. St. Ambrose, with all the 
 Fathers, puts the mystery very high when (in De 
 
 The Teaching 
 Perpetuated. 
 
76 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Mystertis) he says, “If therefore the Holy Spirit 
 overshadowing the Virgin wrought the beginning of 
 the Incarnation, it is certainly not to be doubted that 
 overshadowing the font and those who are baptized 
 He works for them the reality of the new birth.” 
 
XV 
 
 THE THIRD MYSTERY AS THE MYSTICAL 
 BODY 
 
 Things beyond our experience can be 
 explained to us only by analogies. 
 Such analogies cannot be validly or 
 usefully given except by those who know both the thing 
 to be revealed and the thing used in order to reveal it. 
 Until we have experience of our own, we may be 
 guided by an analogy, but we cannot extend the 
 analogy, nor can we invent a new one, nor above all 
 can we argue from mere analogy. You may try to 
 explain colour to a blind man who has never been able 
 to see it; you may tell him that to sight the colour red 
 is what shrillness or loudness is in sound. But the 
 blind man will not be able to say how far the likeness 
 holds, nor will he be able to say how the other colours 
 can be symbolized. So with Mysteries. If a mystery 
 were purely spiritual and an angel were to come and 
 tell us about it, we could only vaguely discern his 
 meaning from his words. But if he gave us different 
 
 77 
 
 Analogy 
 and Mystery. 
 
78 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 analogies, and if he compared them with one another, 
 and if he argued from his analogies to our ideas, we 
 should learn a great deal more. Even then our 
 apprehension would be small. 
 
 But the Mysteries which Christ 
 brought into the world are not 
 purely spiritual: they are Incar- 
 national. They have a visible as well as a Divine side. 
 And the visible in this case is more than an analogy : 
 it is an image. There is thus a much wider range of 
 apprehension opentous. First ofall, we take analogies 
 only from those who know the Divine side,—that is, 
 Christ Himself and those whom He inspires. Then 
 we put together all the analogies, and carefully refrain 
 from interpreting one of them so as to clash with 
 another. If these analogies are repeated with more 
 and more emphasis, if the mode of their utterance 
 becomes more and more sublime, our thought of the 
 Mystery rises higher and higher. We are led like 
 Dante through all the stages of mortal being until we 
 stand at the summit of creation face to face with 
 Infinitude. Thus the Kingdom of God is revealed to 
 us as a visible Empire,—which we more or less under- 
 stand. Anything further told to us can take nothing 
 away from the fact that it is a visible Empire. It is 
 then added that this Kingdom is within us. We 
 therefore know that it transcends all earthly Empires. 
 We do not take our choice between the two statements : 
 they are true ¢ogether. Further, we learn that this 
 Kingdom is a Life, into which we are to be super- 
 naturally (Incarnationally) born, in which we are to be 
 
 The Process 
 of Revelation. 
 
THIRD MYSTERY AS THE MYSTICAL BODY 79 
 
 Incarnationally nourished, by which we are to be 
 transformed into heights utterly beyond our ken. 
 Still it is the same Kingdom. Yet again, we are told 
 that it is an Organism. It is a Vine, of which we are 
 all branches, useless when separated from it unless we 
 be re-grafted into it. It isa Temple, “ not made with 
 hands,” a living Temple, ‘“‘ built upon the foundation 
 of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
 being the chief corner stone, in which all the building, 
 being framed together, groweth up into a holy temple 
 in the Lord, in whom you also are built together into 
 an habitation of God in the Spirit.”” This was not 
 enough. Beyond mere organic life, beyond all living 
 forms of art, itis a Body, human and divine, with all its 
 multiplicity of members under one Head, Christ Jesus, 
 _ and with one Heart animated by the Holy Spirit. It 
 is even, here on earth, considered as a Human-Divine 
 Personality, the Bride of Christ and the universal 
 Mother. All these “ analogies’ are crowded upon us 
 in endless profusion in Holy Scripture, and are an- 
 nounced to us in words of such boundless enthusiasm 
 and such sublime exaltation, that we must be blind 
 and deaf to the spiritual world if we do not recog- 
 nise that we are in the presence of Infinitude on 
 earth. 
 
 Of the three aspects, (1) Kingdom, 
 St. John 
 eed eSk Pal: (2) Life, (3) Organism, we have seen 
 that the first was the favourite topic 
 of conversation with our Lord, and the forty days 
 after the Resurrection were spent in final instructions 
 about it. The second aspect was more beautifully and 
 
80 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 more profoundly taught by St. John than by anybody 
 else, as we saw in the last chapter. The third aspect, 
 the Mystical Body, was revealed to St. Paul with 
 special intensity and became by far the chief point in 
 his teaching. 
 
 He called it the mystery of the Gospel, 
 or sometimes my mystery. He settled 
 all his controversies by it. He based 
 all his moral teaching upon it. This 
 was to him the length and breadth and height and 
 depth of all Christian teaching. ‘‘ As in one body we 
 have many members, but all the members have not the 
 same office ; so we being many are one body in Christ, 
 and every one members of one another ’’ (Rom. xii.). 
 “For as the body is one, and hath many members, 
 and all the members of the body, whereas they are 
 many, yet are one body; so also is Christ’’ (1 Cor. xii.). 
 In fact he sometimes uses the name “ Christ ”’ for the © 
 whole Mystical Body, as in this last quotation. I 
 believe that when he wishes to confine our thoughts 
 to our Lord’s individuality, he names Him Jesus; 
 when he says “‘ Christ,” he universalizes Him. For 
 example, ‘‘ I fill up in my body those things which are 
 wanting in the sufferings of Christ.’’ 
 
 Summary of 
 St. Paul’s 
 Teaching. 
 
 It is in the Epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians that he lifts the Mystery to 
 its greatest height. I cannot be- 
 lieve that this Epistle is a ‘‘circular’’ one. There is 
 an intensity about it corresponding to his personal 
 relations with that Church, and if it were an encyclical, 
 
 Especially in 
 the ‘‘ Ephesians.”’ 
 
THIRD MYSTERY AS THE MYSTICAL BODY 81 
 
 why should he give a sort of parallel summary of it 
 to the Colossians? Even in the other Epistles he 
 summed the doctrine up in the phrase “ In Christ.” 
 It was not a sentimental expression, not a pious 
 platitude, indeed not in any way a metaphor : it was, 
 and is, a marvellous Reality. To this day, if we mean 
 what we say, we are affirming the Mystery every time 
 we say ‘“‘ Yours faithfully in Christ.” In the Ephesians 
 he harps on this idea to such an extent (14 times in the 
 first chapter alone) that if it were only a metaphor it 
 would be offensive sentimentality ; but since it is a 
 Divine Reality, it becomes a Litany of appropriate 
 praise. And this was because it was the way in which 
 the Christian Idea was first revealed to him: “ Saul, 
 Saul, why persecutest thou Me? ”’ 
 
 The laws of this Organism or Body, and 
 the visible results of these laws, will have 
 to be considered later on. Now we are only thinking 
 of the mode of revelation. We may sum it up by 
 saying that, whatever reasons people have for believing 
 the two Mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation 
 from Holy Scripture, they have ten times those reasons 
 for believing that the one Vine, Temple, Kingdom, 
 Body, Spouse of Christ is not a variegated bit of poetry, 
 but one single Divine Mystery. 
 
 Inference. 
 
 St. Paul even combines the Third 
 
 and Fourth Mysteries together in 
 
 analmoststartlingmanner. ‘The 
 
 bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the 
 G 
 
 A Link with the 
 Fourth Mystery. 
 
82 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one 
 bread, one body, for all of us partake of the one bread.”’ 
 No one could have written that sentence who was not 
 a believer in both the Mysteries as Divine. 
 
XVI 
 THE FOURTH MYSTERY—THE EUCHARIST 
 
 In the great panorama of revelation, 
 every detail of which was symbolic and 
 prophetic, one more fundamental Mystery 
 and only one, was foreshadowed. At the beginning, 
 as we have seen, the story of Eden told of the Trinity, 
 the Redemption through the Son of the Woman, and the 
 victorious Kingdom. There was also the Tree of Life. 
 This doubtless stood for the Tree of the Cross,—ui qu 
 in ligno vincebat in ligno quoque vinceretur, that he who 
 had overcome by the tree of death might himself be 
 overcome by the tree of life. But what of the fruit 
 of it? Adam was turned out of Paradise “‘lest he 
 should take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live 
 for ever’’: and Angels stood on guard with a flaming 
 sword turning every way to keep the way of the tree 
 of life. For those therefore who should thereafter 
 by the Redemption recover their right to Paradise 
 there was to be a food of immortality. What 
 was it ? 
 
 The Tree 
 of Life. 
 
 83 
 
84 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 : At the next great stage, when Abraham 
 SAE te was ape to Hen the torch of 
 revelation to posterity, there met him one day “ Mel- 
 chisedech, king of Salem, bringing forth bread and 
 wine, for he was the priest of the most high God.” 
 Some people try to minimize the significance of this 
 incident by putting and instead of for. But why try to 
 minimize what Holy Scripture strains every nerve to 
 magnify ? Abraham went out of his way to pay 
 tithes, and to get a blessing from this unique fore- 
 runner of the Messias,—the one man who was allowed 
 to receive the threefold anointing of Prophet, Priest 
 and King. David, in that psalm which Our Lord 
 ' Himself claimed as Messianic, pointed to the mystery 
 by saying, ‘‘ Thou art a priest for ever according to the 
 order of Melchisedech.”’ St. Paul in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews comments fully on every phrase in the 
 story of Genesis except one, and then says he has many 
 more things to say but the mystery is too deep for 
 treatment then. What was the one thing which he 
 had omitted, and which contained this depth of 
 mystery ? Nothing else than the sacrifice of bread 
 and wine. 
 
 When the Israelites left the land 
 of bondage, in that journey 
 which St. Paul tells us was 
 prophetic in allits details, they began with the Banquet- 
 Sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb, of which the blood on 
 their doorposts saved them from the Angel of Death, 
 and the partaking of which was their viaticum. The 
 whole meaning of this shone through the word of the 
 
 The Journey to the 
 Promised Land. 
 
FOURTH MYSTERY—THE EUCHARIST 85 
 
 Forerunner when he pointed to the Messias as the 
 Lamb of God. 
 
 After the Baptism in the Red Sea, they were fed 
 with Manna, that miraculous food from Heaven whose 
 meaning our Lord Himself emphasized when He 
 promised the Eucharist at Capharnaum. 
 
 Besides this spiritual food, they had also the spiritual 
 drink, as St. Paul says, “‘ from the Rock that followed 
 them ; and the Rock was Christ.”’ 
 
 When the tabernacle was constructed ‘‘ according to 
 the pattern seen in the mount,” besides the altars for 
 the sacrifices of blood and for incense, there was a table 
 for the loaves of proposition (shew-bread). 
 
 From the time when the tabernacle was first set up, 
 a cloud covered the sanctuary ‘‘and the glory of the Lord 
 filled it,’’—a visible Presence that guided them through 
 the wilderness to the Promised Land. 
 
 In Psalm 22 the Prophet-King, singing the 
 mercies of God, says “‘ Thou hast prepared 
 a table before me against them that afflict me ; Thou 
 hast anointed my head with oil, and my chalice which 
 inebriateth me, how goodly is it !”’ 
 
 David. 
 
 When in despair Elias fled into the wilder- 
 ness, an Angel brought him bread and water, 
 and ‘‘ he arose and ate and drank, and walked in the 
 strength of that food forty days and forty nights, 
 unto the mount of God.” 
 
 Elias. 
 
 This, the last of the Old Testament pro- 
 
 Malachi. phets, is one of the most Messianic, In- 
 
86 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 cidentally he tells us that the shew-bread was looked 
 upon as a sacrifice. He says to the priests, “‘ You offer 
 up polluted bread upon my altar, and you say : Where- 
 in have we polluted thee? In that you say: The 
 table of the Lord is contemptible.’”” He continues, 
 ‘‘From the rising of the sun even to the going down, 
 my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every 
 place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name 
 a clean oblation: for my name is great among the 
 Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. And you have 
 profaned it in that you say: The table of the Lord is 
 defiled.” Some people think that in this passage 
 Malachi was speaking of his own day and with large 
 broad-mindedness was exalting the actual Pagan 
 worship over that of Israel. If he had meant that, he 
 would not be speaking the truth, for he would be 
 praising idolatrous forms of worship and not (as he 
 might well do) approving of the virtues of individuals. 
 It may be noted that the world-wide and perpetual 
 sacrifice of which he prophesies is the bloodless sacrifice 
 of bread ; for he contrasts table with table and “ pol- 
 luted bread ”’ with the “‘ clean oblation.”’ 
 
 That the Blessed Eucharist is a Divine 
 Mystery and not a Metaphor is shown 
 by every mention of it in Gospels or 
 Epistles. The solemnity with which our Lord an- 
 nounced it in the 6th chapter of St. John, after preparing 
 the way for the announcement by the two miracles 
 of the feeding of the five thousand and the walking on 
 the water,—the intensity of His desire to eat this 
 pasch with His disciples,—the way in which He 
 
 The New 
 Testament. 
 
FOURTH MYSTERY—THE EUCHARIST 87 
 
 provided for the preparation of it,—the words of 
 institution,—the effect of the ‘‘ breaking of bread” at 
 Emaus,—the grave warning of St. Paul about “not 
 discerning the Body of the Lord,” all this, and a great 
 deal more, explain why in Christendom the Mystery 
 was never doubted for a thousand years. The Docetae 
 were a sect that denied the reality of the Incarnation : 
 if a metaphorical explanation of the Eucharist had been 
 even thought possible, it would have suited them 
 exactly : instead of that, they showed the universality 
 of Christian belief by stopping away from the Eucharist 
 as claiming to be the Real Presence. 
 
 As we have seen before, St. 
 Paul carries us one step further 
 in Cor. x,-16,7 17 2 tithe 
 chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the 
 communion of the blood of Christ ? And the bread 
 which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of 
 the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, one 
 body, for we all partake of the one bread.’’ Here we 
 have the three Incarnation Mysteries combined,—the 
 Real Presence of Christ being the uniting link of all 
 His members. Hence St. Thomas Aquinas, in one of 
 his illuminating side-remarks, tells us that the res 
 sacramenti, the reality and the full fruit of the Eucha- 
 rist, is the mystical body of Christ. 
 
 Third and Fourth 
 Mysteries together. 
 
 All God’s Mysteries are so far 
 beyond our ken that we cannot 
 know them without revelation ; 
 but once they are revealed, they are so in harmony with 
 
 Might we not have 
 expected it ? 
 
88 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH © 
 
 Nature as well as Grace that we almost feel as if we 
 ought to have guessed them. We cannot argue from 
 ourselves to God and thence claim to prove the Trinity ; 
 but once the Trinity is revealed, we understand the 
 reason of our threefold nature and learn to try to 
 perfect His image within ourselves. So now that we 
 know the truth of the perpetual Sacramental Presence, 
 we see that we might almost have divined it. For the 
 great contest between Grace and Sin is waged on earth 
 and not in heaven, and it is always Incarnational, not 
 merely spiritual. We see therefore why our great 
 Captain is not content to watch the campaign from afar, 
 helping by spiritual influences alone, He remains in 
 our midst and gathers us around His tabernacles that 
 we may find in Him that Incarnational help, in body 
 and soul together, without which we could never 
 persevere unto victory. 
 
XVII 
 THE DIVINE ORGANISM 
 
 As we saw at the beginning, the whole 
 downward trend of the material universe 
 towards corruption and chaos is a parallel 
 and a parable of the course of evil, involving all in- 
 tellectual beings, angels or men, who identify them- 
 selves with it, inits terrible tragedy ; while the upward 
 striving towards all the forms of life, the struggle 
 towards “‘ the liberty of the sons of God,” is a parallel 
 and a parable of the Incarnation or the Kingdom of 
 God. It is not a question of some optional form of 
 religion which we choose for ourselves or adapt to our 
 own notions: it is the whole scheme of Creation from 
 end to end. 
 
 Parallel 
 and Parable. 
 
 Every advance in Science, especially 
 Biology, throws light on the external 
 form (the “ words,” so to speak) of this 
 symbolic and prophetic parable. That, to me, is the 
 fascination of Science. Every forward movement of 
 plant or animal life seems to me to be a drawing nearer 
 of the footsteps of the Incarnation. One Sunday 
 
 89 
 
 Science and 
 Faith. 
 
90 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 afternoon I was out with a small party of botanists, 
 and one of them said to me, ‘‘ You know, Iam surprised 
 at you a clergyman botanizing on Sunday.” I replied, 
 el oT , 1f Botany were not a sacred subject to me, 
 I would not touch it on other days either.’’ He said 
 nothing, but I could see he was thinking deeply in his 
 silence. 
 
 
 
 Since the whole purpose of this 
 Creation is to evolve by super- 
 natural means the Mystical Body 
 of the Redeemer, a Divine Organism, it is quite in God’s 
 way of teaching that His natural organisms should 
 foreshadow His Plan. Now every complex living 
 organism consists of countless single cells, united 
 through their individual walls by minute threads of the 
 common “ protoplasm ”’ or life-substance, each having 
 a partly independent life of its own, but each finding 
 its full significance only in its contribution to the life 
 of the whole. The higher the organism, the more 
 complex the protoplasm and the more varied the 
 individualities of the cells. In every case, throughout 
 the plant and animal worlds, the organism begins with 
 a single cell, usually a combination of two original cells 
 which unite the nuclei of their protoplasm and thus 
 start the story afresh. Every cell after that is added 
 by division, each division carrying with it part of the 
 original cell and remaining united withit. That is the 
 plan of the whole system of visible organisms. 
 
 Evolution Produced 
 to Infinity. 
 
 The first sketch, we may call it, of the 
 
 The Plan. ; ; ; 
 supernatural organism lay in the union 
 
THE DIVINE ORGANISM gi 
 
 of Adam and Eve (“ they two shall become one flesh ’’) ; 
 but that basis failed. Therefore God, whose word 
 never returns to Him void and whose reconstructions 
 are always on a higher plane, lifted the relation of 
 Husband and Wife into the spiritual sphere, and chose 
 for the new visible beginning the relation of Mother 
 and Child, the Child by a deep mystery coming first. 
 The Mother was absorbed into the Child, and from 
 Him, through her, every individual human cell in the 
 organism derives its supernatural life without losing 
 its own natural existence. 
 
 The Unique The analogy of the Highest Organism 
 ee ae with all the lower ones, which seem to 
 
 point a prophetic finger towards it, 
 will become more evident if we say that the Old Test- 
 ament was the Preparation of the Womb, Mary was the 
 Mother-cell, the Incarnation was the Conception, the 
 sacrificial Life and Death was the Gestation, and 
 Pentecost was the Birth, of the Visible Church. Of 
 course, broadly speaking, the Feclesta Det began with 
 the announced Plan of Redemption and was nourished 
 by the Blood of the Lamb slain from the beginning of 
 the world. Buta clear mental line exists between the 
 Church of Promise and Hope and the Church of Fulfil- 
 ment and Faith. There was a sense in which, according 
 to our Lord’s own words, even John the Baptist was 
 not “in the Kingdom of Heaven.” And indeed 
 ordinary converts, even if they belonged to the Church 
 of the Old Law, had to pass through a process in order 
 to belong to the New. In this sense it is quite an 
 intelligible statement that the Visible Kingdom (or, 
 
92 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 shortly, the Church) was made up of those who by 
 explicit faith and acceptance were united to the 
 actually existing Redeemer, in contradistinction to the 
 assemblage of those who by implicit faith were united 
 in hope to the Redeemer to come. 
 
 In this sense the beginning of the actual visible 
 Church on earth was in Mary ; and it is this beginning 
 that gives Mary her unique position, and this position 
 accounts for all her prerogatives and glories. When the 
 Word of God was incarnate within her, and before the 
 Mystery was known to others, she was (in the sense 
 explained above) the only member and therefore the 
 whole visible Church of God on earth. Therefore she 
 had all its qualities. Therefore it was imperatively 
 necessary that she should be without spot or stain. 
 She was herself the Immaculate Conception of the 
 Mystical Body : therefore it was only befitting that she 
 herself should have been immaculately conceived. An 
 Angel might point to her and say ‘‘ There goes the 
 Church of God,” and, but for the Immaculate Con- 
 ception, Satan might sneeringly retort, “‘ That Church 
 of yours was once in my possession.”’ Perhaps this is 
 why, in her apparition at Lourdes, when little Ber- 
 nadette asked her name, she replied, ‘I am the 
 Immaculate Conception.” 
 
 It is this consideration that gives the 
 true value of life. Our own human 
 individuality is so obvious to our natural 
 experience, and the infinitely higher Divine life, to 
 which it is our one end to minister, is so much a matter 
 
 The Test 
 of Value. 
 
THE DIVINE ORGANISM 93 
 
 of faith, not of sight, that we are for ever being tempted 
 to magnify the former and forget the latter. Hence 
 all the doubts, the murmurs, the talk of personal 
 liberty, the assertions of self, the rebellions, the schisms 
 and the heresies, which have made the world such a 
 difficult and dangerous place for us. But “ this is the 
 victory that overcometh the world, our faith.” 
 
 It will now be understood what is meant 
 
 Aig by the saying handed down through all 
 ; the centuries, ‘‘ Nulla salus extra Eccle- 
 siam,’’ ‘‘no salvation outside of the Church.” It is 
 
 exactly the same as the words of St. Peter, ‘‘ There is 
 no other name given under heaven whereby we can be 
 saved.”’ If the Body is as it were in one personality 
 with the Head, to be apart from the Body is to be apart 
 from the Head. How it comes about that many who 
 at first sight seem to be completely cut off can never- 
 theless on further consideration be shown to have the 
 possibility of real union, will be better treated later on. 
 Meanwhile, I do not think we can accept the formula, 
 well-meant and kindly, but hardly theological, “‘ of the 
 soul, but not of the body of the Church.” Body and 
 soul cannot be thus separated ina true organism. The 
 Church being an Incarnational Organism, has all its 
 relations Incarnational,—that is to say, however 
 spiritual and Divine these relations may be, they also 
 and always have a visible side. If anybody is saved, 
 it can only be by belonging both body and soul to the 
 One Visible Kingdom. 
 
94 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 The contrast between the life of any 
 individual cell and that of the whole 
 organism is naturally most pro- 
 nounced where the organism is 
 highest, that is to say, when the individual cell is a 
 human person and when the universal life is Divine. 
 But it can be shown quite effectively on the lower 
 grades. There are cells in both plants and animals 
 which can even separate themselves from the parent 
 organism and carry the whole of their evolutionary 
 history to another organism and thus form a fresh life. 
 These cells bear with them the natural mysteries of 
 heredity,—mysteries which are not only not nearing 
 solution, but which grow deeper and wider with every 
 accession of knowledge. Much might be said of these, as 
 St. Paul wrote of Melchisedech ; but a more manage- 
 able analogy is found in the corpuscles of the blood. 
 If we prick a finger and spread a drop of living blood 
 ona slide and put it under a microscope, with the tem- 
 perature at 98 degrees preserved, we see amid the serum 
 a large number of red corpuscles and an occasional white 
 one. The white ones look like tiny amoebas, and seem 
 to be just unclothed bits of protoplasm. Watching them, 
 we see that these amoeboids go on showing life, moving 
 to and fro as if they had a will of their own. If now 
 we could conceive these corpuscles as being endowed 
 with intelligence and speech, one of them might vaunt- 
 ingly exclaim through the microscope, ‘“‘ You see, I 
 have a life of my own: I have gained by leaving you : 
 I am not hustled so much, and in this haven of peace 
 I can work out my own destiny.”” Whereupon, as if 
 arguing with a microbe, we might reply, ‘“‘ You little 
 
 The Single Cell 
 versus the 
 Organism. 
 
THE DIVINE ORGANISM 95 
 
 fool, you are only carrying for a few minutes the life I 
 gave you: your whole value was in your share of me: 
 as long as I keep up the temperature, you can argue 
 with me, but you have no destiny now to work out.’’ 
 The temperature then goes down and our poor amoeboid 
 corpuscle shrinks into death. The comparison may 
 not be very flattering to our pride, but we need to be 
 very important persons indeed in the Church of God 
 to be anything more than white corpuscles inits blood. 
 Lamennais and Lacordaire were young friends together, 
 and of the two the former was perhaps the greater 
 genius ; but Lamennais asserted his separate independ- 
 ence and his influence is now dead and almost for- 
 gotten: Lacordaire submitted his powers to the 
 universal life, and his influence lives on. 
 
 If a thing is a real organism, all its 
 parts are united by what may be 
 called the continuous connective 
 life-substance. If this bond be severed, the part cut 
 off may persist, but only as a new organism. Such 
 organisms may gather together in groups and have a 
 sort of common life and action, as for example nations 
 or societies among men, swarms of bees or packs of 
 wolves among animals. It is only by analogy that the 
 predicates of organic life and unity can be given to 
 such associations : we sometimes even personify them, 
 and a great many fallacies arise in social questions 
 from pushing such analogies too far. Religion forms 
 an obvious basis for such metaphorical unions. Budd- 
 hism, Mahometanism, Judaism strongly claim such 
 quasi-organic unity ; but they never dream (except in 
 
 Metaphor and 
 Reality again. 
 
96 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 some distant Nirvana) of a real organism in which their 
 own individuality is of value only in so far as it is 
 absorbed into the common life. There are forms of 
 Christianity of which the same must be said : indeed, 
 with some of them it is their distinctive doctrine to 
 deny any form of individual subordination to a com- 
 munal entity. This, in truth, is the root distinction 
 between the Protestant and the Catholic view of life. 
 The Protestant, proudly asserting his independence, 
 takes all the varied and emphatic assertion in Scripture 
 of the unity of the Church,—the Vine, the Body, the 
 Bride, the Living Temple,—to refer to a purely spiritual 
 ideal, vaguely influencing life on earth, but realised 
 only in a higher sphere now and in heaven hereafter. 
 Catholics believe that the Bible means just what it 
 says, and think that in this too, or in this especially, 
 the Will of our Father is done on earth as it is in heaven. 
 
 But then the Catholic must show what 
 is the visible bond of union, what is 
 the connective life-substance, what is 
 the Divine power and influence which takes the 
 individual man and transforms him into itself in such 
 a way that the mere human life is naught and the 
 Organic life allin all. We Catholics have no doubt or 
 vagueness about it. It has been already seen that our 
 greatest theologian, speaking of the Eucharist, throws 
 off as a root-principle which he supposes everybody 
 to know, that the res sacrament: (the full fruit of this 
 sacrament) is the Mystical Body of Christ. It is not 
 we that make the Body: it is His own self really 
 abiding with us under visible forms that takes us and 
 
 The Uniting 
 Substance. 
 
THE DIVINE ORGANISM 97 
 
 transforms us and unites us and adapts us to His 
 purposes, so that mortifying our members which are 
 on, earth we become blood of His blood and flesh of His 
 flesh, our conversation is with Christ in heavenly 
 places and we become partakers of the Divine Nature. 
 And in very truth, if two people are receiving Com- 
 munion side by side, or for that matter a thousand 
 miles apart, who shall say that there is no visible link 
 between them? The link is not physical. Both the 
 link and the Organism are Incarnational, and are 
 therefore both spiritual and material, and far more real 
 than anything merely physical can be. And this 
 uniting link extends throughout all earthly time and 
 space, and at least potentially includes.all humanity. 
 
 We go further. We see some 
 of the visible side of the Mystery, 
 but by no means all. It has 
 already been pointed out that much of the common 
 destiny of spirit and matter is beyond our ken. We 
 cannot in the least understand how material things can 
 form part of the essential punishment of the fallen 
 angels. Equally mysterious to us is the material or 
 Incarnational link which makes the angels of Heaven 
 common members with ourselves of the Body of Christ. 
 But we know it is so. It is therefore only to be 
 expected that we shall not be able to explain fully the 
 transforming and uniting power of the whole sacra- 
 mental system of which the Blessed Eucharist is the 
 crown, 
 
 The Whole 
 Sacramental System. 
 
98 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 When one considers the teaching 
 given to the newly baptized by the 
 great Bishops of the early Church, 
 a teaching crystallized in the litur- 
 gical forms of Baptism and sacramental blessings, one 
 wonders whether we are not somewhat over-apt to 
 “modernize ’’ our conceptions. Although the Fathers 
 knew well that there was no substantial change except 
 in the Eucharist, yet they used language about the 
 Divine Power smiting itself into the water or the oil for 
 Baptism or Confirmation which we seem to be afraid 
 to use now. After the invocation it is no longer mere 
 water or mere oil, they say. About Communion, St. 
 Ambrose (if the discourse is his) uses one of those 
 obiter dicta which show more than any elaborate 
 argument how deeply the Mystery point of view 
 dominated their thoughts. ‘‘ In this sacrament there 
 is Christ, because it is the Body of Christ : therefore 
 it is not bodily food but spiritual . . . for the body of 
 God is a spiritual body,” alluding to the words of St. 
 Paul that after the resurrection the body becomes a 
 corpus spiritale. Evidently for St. Ambrose the word 
 spiritual did not imply anything of unreality or of the 
 metaphorical: rather for him it meant ultra-reality. 
 So St. Cyril of Jerusalem, with regard to the anointing 
 at Baptism, claims an Incarnational reality and there- 
 fore a mysterious unifying power, when he teaches his 
 neophytes as follows : ‘‘ See that you do not look upon 
 this as a bare and common anointing. For as the 
 bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy 
 Spirit is not ordinary bread but the Body of Christ ; 
 so also this holy anointing is after the invocation no 
 
 What the Early 
 Church used 
 to say. 
 
THE DIVINE ORGANISM 99 
 
 longer a bare or (as one may say) ordinary anointing, 
 but the gift-treasury of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, 
 the presence of His Divinity, producing true reality. 
 And this is meant by placing the oil on your forehead 
 and other parts of your body. For while the body is 
 visibly anointed with material oil, the soul is sanctified 
 by the holy and vivifying Spirit.” While the work 
 of the Head of the Church is done by Himself as 
 Incarnate (chiefly in the Eucharist), the work of the 
 Holy Spirit, who acts as the Soul of the Church but is 
 not Himself Incarnate, is nevertheless done by Him 
 in Incarnational ways, Himself appearing under forms 
 of dove or tongues of fire, as if He were yearning to 
 become flesh that we who are flesh may become 
 spiritual. 
 
 If the modes whereby the Organism 
 is compacted into unity, though 
 abundantly revealed to our faith, 
 are somewhat veiled in mystery to our knowledge, 
 there are no such reservations in the facts and results 
 of that unity. The consequences of it are written 
 broadcast over the story of the world. This Organism 
 has in the highest degree all the unities of all the 
 organisms below. The True Vine will have, and 
 visibly has, all the growth of the physical vine, and its 
 development is always true to type and always sure 
 ofitself. The Living Temple, ‘‘ built upon the founda- 
 tion of the apostles, and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself 
 being the chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building, 
 being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple 
 in the Lord : in whom you also are built together into 
 
 The Resulting 
 Visible Unity. 
 
100 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 an habitation of God in the Spirit,” stands supreme 
 over human history as the Cathedral of Durham 
 dominates its hill, or that of Ely the country of the fens, 
 or that of Lincoln the town that nestles around it. 
 To all the world is visible that Mystical Body which 
 ‘“ being compacted and fitly joined together by what 
 every joint supplieth, according to the operation in 
 the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, 
 unto the edifying of itself in charity.” The Bride of 
 Christ, with her Divine Head and her Divine Soul, 
 makes herself felt to all her members as the Universal 
 Mother, ever young, ever fruitful, ever more and more 
 beautiful as our love and enthusiasm go out towards 
 her. As the Kingdom of God, she has visibly all the 
 unity of government, of purpose, of discipline. Hers 
 is a Mind which reads all the problems of the universe, 
 a Memory which bridges over all the centuries, a Voice 
 which with no uncertain sound fearlessly utters all she 
 knows, an Instinct which emboldens her teachers to 
 claim that the sensus communis fidelium is a sure 
 principle of theological science, an Authority which 
 justifies her in saying to every generation, ‘“‘ It hath 
 seemed good to me and to the Holy Ghost,’”’ a Taste 
 which compels an outsider like Matthew Arnold to call 
 her “‘ the Master Artist of all the ages,’’ and a Person- 
 ality which makes all heresies uneasy in her presence 
 and all her own children enthusiastically confident of 
 her immortality here and her complete victory here- 
 after. Beyond all question, God Almighty has 
 in His Divine Church justified our faith, fulfilled our 
 hope and satisfied our love even here upon earth. 
 “Nothing is wanting to you in any grace whil 
 
THE DIVINE ORGANISM IOI 
 
 you wait for the manifestation of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ.”’ 
 
 The science of Nature and the science 
 of Grace have much in common as to 
 method, but there is a vital distinction 
 between them. They both have to deal with errors, 
 possibilities, probabilities, ascertained facts, hypoth- 
 eses, theories and laws. With both of them ascertained 
 facts and demonstrated laws are fixed points: all the 
 rest is speculation. So far from hampering freedom 
 in this speculation, every certified fact and every 
 established law opens widely on to new lines of thought. 
 To deny a fact or to go counter to a fixed law is error ; 
 and error is bondage, not freedom. The difference 
 between the sciences lies in the way in which facts and 
 laws are determined. Physical science is concerned 
 with things within our ken, and the only “ authority ” 
 recognised is competence in direct observation or 
 consensus among skilled judges ; and even these may 
 be boldly questioned. The science of Grace, however, 
 deals with matters beyond our ken, or mysteries, 
 which cannot be discovered by us, but are given in 
 Divine Revelation. The things so revealed constitute 
 for us the ascertained facts and irrefragable laws of our 
 science. And again, so far from limiting our freedom 
 of thought, they open wide to us ever enlarging views 
 of human life and of the course of the universe. Every 
 speculation which directly or in the long run con- 
 tradicts a fact or law of Revelation is thereby recognised 
 as an error, and we are glad to be rid of it, and are the 
 more free to speculate in other directions. Obviously, 
 
 The Infallible 
 Voice, 
 
1o2 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 since only the finite side of things is within our com- 
 petence, we require guidance from the side of the 
 Infinite. Otherwise the Revelation would be frus- 
 trated. Nor would written documents suffice, though 
 of course their importance is immense. It would still 
 be a question what they mean, and they cannot react 
 to our speculations. Books, said Socrates, can’t 
 teach, because books can’t answer questions. We 
 discussed at the beginning where we get our Mysteries 
 from, i.e., from the Word Incarnate. But since this 
 Word has produced itself into a perpetual Divine 
 Personality, identified with Himself and animated by 
 His Spirit, it is obvious that we possess an ever-present 
 regulating and controlling Organ of Revelation. 
 Instead of checking our liberty, this Authority im- 
 ‘ mensely increases it by warning us off the bondage of 
 error. How then do we recognise the Voice of this 
 Authority ? By the simple process of finding out 
 whether it is the whole Personality speaking,—for 
 example, when we have a unanimous consent of the 
 Fathers, or of theologians, or a universal belief among 
 the faithful in matters of Grace. Again, a General 
 Council of the Church evidently speaks for the whole 
 Body. That at the beginning each of the twelve 
 Apostles was entitled to this completely representative 
 voice, follows from their universal mission. Each of 
 them was infallible. There is one other person who 
 has this representative capacity, and that is the Bishop 
 of Rome, who carries through the centuries the succes- 
 sion of St. Peter, who of all the Twelve was chosen to 
 be the Centre of Unity. The mere fact that we are 
 bound to be one with him in Faith assures us that God 
 
THE DIVINE ORGANISM 103 
 
 would not allow his teaching to fail in the Faith, or we 
 might all be led into error. This is the meaning of 
 Papal Infallibility, which has often been so much 
 misunderstood. It simply means that one who is 
 endowed with the privilege and the duty of speaking 
 on behalf of the whole Church will necessarily have 
 either the positive grace or the negative restraint to 
 make his representative utterances worthy of his office. 
 The giving of a Revelation which imposed the obligation 
 of universal obedience implied that it should be safe- 
 guarded to the uttermost for all time. 
 
XVIII 
 ADDENDA 
 
 Perhaps a few words should be 
 added to preclude misunderstand- 
 ing. This is the more needful 
 because on the Catholic side there have been some 
 ill-advised attempts to express the effects of Holy 
 Communion in physical terms. It will therefore not 
 be amiss to remind ourselves once more of the three 
 kinds of reality: (1) Sense realities, (2) Incarnational 
 realities, and (3) the Divine Reality. The first are 
 merely transient. The second are eternal and on a 
 higher plane, and therefore their reality is far more 
 intense. They are a kind of bridge, a Jacob’s ladder, 
 between the first and third. In them, the visible or 
 physical forms are only a stepping stone for faith. 
 St. Thomas has expressed this relation in the great 
 hymn Adovo Te, where Theology and Poetry move 
 like sisters hand in hand. 
 
 The Measure of 
 Reality is Faith. 
 
 Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, 
 Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. 
 
 One Protestant controversialist thought he had his 
 104 
 
ADDENDA 105 
 
 enemy on the hip when he said ‘‘ St. Thomas failed to 
 observe that if three of the senses are deceived, so also 
 might the fourth.” This sapient critic was apparently 
 under the impression that auditu solo is in the dative 
 case. The whole verse, which expresses exactly what 
 we want now, may be thus rendered :— 
 
 No sense can reach this truth in depths of love enshrined : 
 Hearing alone brings faith that vivifies the mind.* 
 Whate’er the Son of God hath said, by faith I hold : 
 
 No word can bar the truth the Word of Truth hath told. 
 
 Is the Bond of Now it might be urged that, if 
 Ta aaa the analogy of natural organisms 
 
 is to hold good, the connecting 
 action of the life-substance should be continuous, 
 whereas Holy Communion is only an occasional act, 
 and indeed Baptism is only a single act. To this it 
 may be replied that in such matters we judge not by 
 what we see, but by what is revealed. Our Divine 
 Lord implies some kind of continuity of union, not only 
 for the soul but also for the body, when He says that 
 the resurrection is the fruit of the communion. And 
 the Fathers of the Church, as Franzelin says, ‘‘ speak 
 of a true conjoining and as it were of a special affinity 
 of Christ with us by means of the intimate uniting of 
 His body with our bodies, and this is by them con- 
 sidered not only for the time of His actual substantial 
 presence within us under the sacramental forms, but 
 also as a certain permanent effect in our bodies, so 
 that we become sharers in His body and blood (con- 
 
 * “ Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” 
 
106 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 corporet et consanguinet).”’ The beginning of the nexus 
 is visible to us: the continuation of it rises up into 
 faith, and the higher we go the more real it is. 
 
 But this higher reality is not alto- 
 gether out of visible reach. It 
 flashes back from time to time, as 
 if to confirm any weakness there may be in our faith. 
 Not only have there been among the Saints miraculous 
 manifestations linking bodily purity directly with Holy 
 Communion, but even on lower levels the Church’s 
 age-long and world-wide experience points the same 
 way. Mainly through the Sacrament of Penance she 
 has learned to pool her moral experience, and she 
 declares that, besides the preparation for the resurrec- 
 tion which our Lord promised, Holy Communion 
 produces (in those who do not impede its action) the 
 direct bodily result of cooling the passions and dimin- 
 ishing interior temptation. Could it be otherwise ? 
 Virtus de tllo exibat. There was, and is, salvation in 
 touching even the hem of His garment. He could have 
 sanctified John the Baptist from afar off, but He chose 
 to do so by direct presence and by the sacramental 
 effect of His Mother’s voice. No one can measure the 
 invisible transforming and uniting power of the whole 
 sacramental network which reaches far beyond the 
 actual limits of visible Baptism and visible Communion. 
 And this is enough to assure us of that permanence 
 and continuity which all lower organisms symbolize. 
 
 Faith has its 
 Confirmations. 
 
ADDENDA 107 
 
 It is this principle that en- 
 ables us in our thoughts to 
 soften the apparent harshness 
 of the doctrine, ‘‘ No salvation 
 outside of the Church.” Even into the heathen world 
 the possibility extends of the baptism of desire, at 
 least as far as the possibility of divine faith. And 
 among Christians separated from us, valid baptism is 
 very general. Most of the children therefore are 
 (though they do not know it and their parents will not 
 admit it) Catholics ; for there is only one Baptism and 
 only one Church. And Catholics they remain until 
 they sinfully cut themselves off from the Faith. They 
 may thus, and many do, remain organically connected 
 with the Visible Church though neither they nor those 
 around them recognise the union. 
 
 All Salvation 
 included in the 
 Incarnational Scheme. 
 
 We see now why the Apostles’ 
 Creed puts together ‘‘ The Catholic 
 Church, the Communion of Saints.” 
 Just as in the 6th chapter of St. John, our Lord gathers 
 the whole economy of Grace around its central and 
 supreme act, the partaking of His Flesh and Blood ; 
 so in the Creed the word Communion expresses the 
 whole life of the Church with an emphasizing allusion 
 to the sacramental source of it all. We see too why 
 Communion under either kind is sufficient to secure 
 to us the full effect of the Sacramental Presence. In 
 the West, the laity now, indeed all who are not actually 
 offering up the Sacrifice, are satisfied with their com- 
 munion under the appearance of bread : in early days, 
 when babies were given the three Sacraments of Life 
 
 The Communion 
 of Saints. 
 
108 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 together, a drop from the chalice sufficed. And surely 
 there is at least a symbolic reference to Communion in 
 the words, ‘‘ We knew Him in the breaking of bread.” 
 
 The whole doctrine of the Incar- 
 national effect of sacraments and 
 sacramentals has often been made a 
 subject of mockery. Our opponents 
 talk sneeringly of magic, and the very word hocuspocus 
 is a corruption of the words of consecration. We need 
 not be surprised. ‘“‘ Wonder not if the world hate 
 you.” Christ Himself was hated by Pharisees, mocked 
 by Herod and condemned by Pilate, and in His Mystical 
 Body He has been facing Pharisees, Herods and Pilates 
 ever since. Magic! Why, the whole course of magic, 
 whether false or real, whether human or diabolical, is 
 merely a clumsy parody which falls infinitely below the 
 marvels that pervade the life of the Divine Organism. 
 God has revealed that it is His will to teach humility 
 by using the feeble things of this world to work high 
 spiritual results. It is the pride of creatures to refuse 
 to recognise that Will. 
 
 The Foolishness 
 of the Taunt 
 of ‘‘ Magic.’’ 
 
XIX 
 THE TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 
 
 The Early Church had a great advant- 
 age in teaching the Faith from the 
 fact that crowds of adults annually became cate- 
 chumens, who were treated not individually, but as a 
 body, undergoing common instruction, being excluded 
 from the solemn part of the Mass along with the 
 public penitents, receiving baptism all together at 
 Easter (or Pentecost), wearing their white robes for 
 the week until with their first Communion they entered 
 into the full visible life of the Mystical Body. Easter 
 week was (as we still see by traces in the Liturgy) the 
 Octave of the Mysteries. The Bishop’s course of 
 sermons for that week was called De Mystertis. The 
 Trinity and the Incarnation were taken for granted, 
 and the topics always were Baptism and Confirmation 
 (which were often administered together) as the birth 
 into the Life of Christ, and the Eucharist as the very 
 Life itself. According to St. Augustine’s already 
 quoted remark, in our Lord’s days His disciples saw 
 the Head and believed in the Body ; we now see the 
 109 
 
 Early Days. 
 
110 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Body and learn to believe in the Head. The yearly 
 addition of the white-robed neophytes, with all the 
 solemnity of the ceremonies of the new birth, impressed 
 the imagination strongly and greatly assisted the 
 preaching and the knowledge of the Faith. 
 
 We lose something of this vividness now 
 because baptism is generally given in- 
 dividually to infants, and even adult 
 converts are received privately. Easter to us now is 
 the Feast of Christ’s Resurrection, and the growth of 
 the Body preparing for the final Resurrection is perhaps 
 not sufficiently emphasized. We no longer have the 
 Octave of Mysteries. And yet it is precisely the Third 
 Mystery which is most denied. It has always been the 
 way with the Church to assert with most solemnity, 
 by ritual as well as by argument and by preaching, 
 that Truth which her enemies put in the forefront of 
 the battle. The denial of the Eucharist Mystery in 
 the Middle Ages gave us the Feast of Corpus Christi 
 and the new universal rite of Benediction. I wonder 
 whether it would not be a high and holy thing to have 
 a Feast of the Corpus Mysticum. In November we 
 celebrate the Church in Heaven on the first day, and 
 the Church of Purgatory on the second. The Church 
 on earth is equally Divine. I could wish that the 
 grand procession of Mysteries that fill half the year,— 
 the Birth of Jesus, His Passion, His Resurrection and 
 Ascension, the Coming of the Holy Ghost, the Revela- 
 tion of the Trinity, Corpus Christi, the manifestation 
 of the Sacred Heart,—that this glorious series might 
 have one more to point to the meaning of it all, and 
 
 Modern 
 Methods. 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 111 
 
 that when the octave of the Sacred Heart is over we 
 might have from Sunday to Sunday a time of celebra- 
 tion of the graces and glories of the Church of God, 
 expressly under the name of Corpus Mysticum. 
 
 : My experience seems to indicate 
 peta Gaeiecc that the Mystery is often not 
 apprehended as it should be. 
 When I first spoke of writing on the Four Mysteries, I 
 was asked by many good Catholics (who of course 
 believe all the four implicitly), ‘‘ What is your fourth ? ” 
 They would not have asked that of St. Paul who called 
 this the Mystery, nor of St. Augustine, Doctor of Grace, 
 whose voluminous works are full of it. If it were more 
 prominently expounded, it would immensely help the 
 understanding and solution of difficulties now buried 
 in theological discussions, and of practical matters of 
 discipline of daily occurrence. The doctrine of the 
 Atonement, for instance, becomes perfectly simple. 
 Christ in His Mystical Body, as St. Athanasius once 
 said, “took upon Himself the common Person of 
 Humanity.”’ If He averted the wrath of God from us 
 by merely substituting Himself for us, there would be 
 indeed infinite mercy, but where would be the justice ? 
 But if Iam a member of His, then I suffer with him 
 and He with me, His life is my life, His merits my 
 merits, His thoughts my thoughts, and the Father 
 pardons me and sanctifies me and glorifies me because 
 by infinite mercy I have in His Son satisfied His equally 
 infinite Justice. All this, of course, secundum men- 
 suram donatioms Christi, according to the measure of 
 the giving of Christ. 
 
 of Appreciation. 
 
112 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Again, if the Mystery were more 
 explicitly held, there would be less 
 trouble about the ever recurring pro- 
 blem of marriage. In the light of this Mystery, 
 marriage is far more a question for the whole Body of 
 Christ than for the two individuals who are intending 
 it. They make their own arrangements, and when 
 authorities step in with prohibitions or conditions, they 
 ask with affected honest indignation, ‘‘ As long as I 
 myself remain a good Catholic, why should the Church 
 interfere with my private concerns?”’ The thought- 
 less young people, through want of appreciation of this 
 Mystery, fail to see that it is not the Bride of Christ 
 interfering with their life, it is they who (unless they 
 marry “‘in the Lord ’’) are interfering with hers, which 
 is an infinitely more important matter. Or a young 
 man, with the cocksureness of youth, determines that 
 a certain branch of a Secret Society is a harmless or 
 even beneficent thing. When the Church, with her 
 world-wide and age-long experience over and above her 
 
 Divine instincts, tells him that Secret Societies are 
 - incompatible with and even hostile to her own exist- 
 ence, that they are virtually an antagonistic religion 
 and that they are establishing an exclusive bond of 
 brotherhood inconsistent with the universal brother- 
 hood of Christ, he rises in rebellion, and finds at length 
 after sad experience that he has bartered his spiritual 
 inheritance for a mess of pottage. 
 
 As a Help to 
 Discipline. 
 
 I feel drawn to adduce a notable case 
 in which (as it seems to me) this 
 Mystery was very unfortunately 
 
 An Historic 
 Instance. 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 113 
 
 ignored. It is with great reluctance that I refer to the 
 episode of the late Dr. Mivart’s clash with the Church’s 
 authority. I have so great an intellectual debt of 
 gratitude to him that I shall treat the case with all 
 sympathy, and no one shall think any worse of Dr. 
 Mivart for anything I say. Dr. Mivart, not professing 
 to be a theologian, unfortunately stepped into the 
 theological arena under the guidance of a priest of 
 modernistic tendencies. He wrote some articles specu- 
 lating on how far a man may be a modernist in his 
 attitude towards the Incarnation. He did not put 
 forward these views as his own, but as possibilities for 
 others. Nevertheless, he shocked the instincts of the 
 faithful. His Bishop demanded that he should sign 
 a list of very explicit statements regarding the Incarna- 
 tion. Dr. Mivart was old and ill, and was deeply hurt, 
 and we know the result. He was punished more for 
 the errors of others than for his own. But there was 
 one point on which his own faith was uninformed. 
 I do not say that he consciously denied : he simply was 
 not aware. He was a convert, and had never been 
 fully instructed on the Third Mystery. That was his 
 own mistake, and it seems to me that discipline should 
 have been exerted in that direction. But it was not. 
 As far as I know, not a word was said about it. Atthe 
 time, I studied the matter carefully and published an 
 article on it, which I sent to Dr. Mivart himself. If it 
 reached him, it was on his deathbed. It seems to me 
 so important that in an appendix to this chapter I shall 
 insert that article as it was written. I insert it as a 
 whole because it also contains what I hope is a useful 
 summary of the Church’s attitude towards paca 
 
114 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Science. It still seems to me a strange thing that a 
 point of faith should have been openly contradicted 
 without any comment following. Dr. Mivart’s son 
 has recently given an interesting account of his father’s 
 conversion, and this quite confirms my surmise,—he 
 was received into the Church without the Mystery of 
 the Divine Organism having been even stated to him. 
 And it is a Mystery which all his scientific knowledge 
 would have enabled him to see with a peculiar sense 
 of its beauty and to expound with a great deal of force. 
 The pity of it ! 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 (From the South African Catholic Magazine, 
 February, 1900) 
 
 DR. MIVART’S ARTICLES 
 
 Throughout the English-speaking world there has 
 been a heartfelt sigh over the present entanglement 
 of Dr. Mivart’s lifelong work. It is as if a portion of 
 our army, after a long endurance of the hottest fire in 
 the fore-front, should by over-impetuous disobedience 
 to orders find itself not only cut off from the main body, 
 but also in such a position as to be firing by mistake 
 on its own comrades. We do not mean to minimize, 
 nor do we care to dwell upon, the moral errors which 
 must be accountable for such animpasse. Leaving such 
 blame without blaming it ourselves, to those who 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 115 
 
 naturally feel more for the many whom Dr. Mivart’s 
 defection may injure, we would still write as those 
 who hope that the terrible error in the campaign 
 may yet be retrieved, and who are persuaded that 
 to this end sympathy is more powerful than denuncia- 
 tion. 
 
 Certain it is that the chief intellectual struggle 
 against the world now-a-days is on the side of the 
 encroachments of Science. To make an effective reply 
 to the attacks from this direction, it is necessary to 
 have men who are competent in Science as well as 
 Faith. I do not mean that it is necessary to know as 
 much science as Helmholtz in order to detect the 
 philosophical errors of Helmholtz. But in order to 
 secure a hearing among outsiders we must have men 
 who, altogether apart from their faith, are admitted 
 as compeers in knowledge with the Huxleys and the 
 Spencers of the day. Such aman has Dr. Mivart been. 
 And to this extent he has been universally acknow- 
 ledged as an effective Catholic champion. To this 
 extent, the anti-faith part of the scientific world will 
 rejoice over his having come into collision with the 
 authorities of the Church ; and to this extent, besides 
 our anxiety for the dominion of grace in every individual 
 soul, we are anxious to see the discord resolved into 
 harmony. 
 
 This double issue compels a double analysis. Face 
 to face with our opponents, we are bound to analyse 
 the significance and import of Dr. Mivart’s difference 
 with the Church’s teaching authority. Face to face 
 with Dr. Mivart himself, we feel impelled with all 
 sympathy to trace the causes of the divergence, and 
 
116 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 incidentally (with a view to those who are likely to be 
 attracted into his orbit) to mark the very spot where he 
 began to veer off from the line of faith. 
 
 First of all we must make it clear that the present 
 difficulty is not one of Science. Dr. Mivart’s work in 
 both Science and Philosophy still stands, and we are 
 not going to unsay our gratitude. It is only since he 
 began to teach us Theology, without first learning it 
 himself, that the trouble has arisen. Physical Science 
 can teach us nothing about the Scheme of Redemption, 
 the gravity of sin, the nature of hell, and so forth : and 
 it is these topics that are now in question. 
 
 It is the more important to emphasize this, because 
 there is a widely felt impression that the Catholic 
 Church somehow does not get on with Physical Science. 
 From the days of Roger Bacon until now, they say, 
 she is always trying to suppress her men of science. 
 And even now Dr. Mivart would seem to desire to place 
 his own difficulty on that footing. But it is not fair 
 to say so. Albertus Magnus was as ardent a scientist 
 as his contemporary Roger Bacon; if the latter was 
 silenced, why not the former? Galileo taught what 
 Copernicus taught : if Galileo was condemned, why was 
 Copernicus honoured ? In each case the reason of the 
 difference will be found, not in the science, but in the 
 character and the temper of the men and their attitude 
 towards Faith. 
 
 Is there then nothing in the impression? Yes: 
 there is this much. Physical Science devotes itself 
 entirely to the phenomena of the visible world ; it is 
 intensely fascinating and tends to become absorbing ; 
 it cultivates one side of the intelligence at the expense 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 117 
 
 of the rest ; it almost compulsively leads to the fancy 
 that the phenomena it studies, so regular, so inter- 
 dependent, so unifiable, are in very truth the ultimate 
 realities. It creates an unwillingness in the mind to 
 see beyond the veil: it feels as if it could do without 
 God, it finds the soul superfluous and free-will an 
 intolerable exception ; it declares miracles unthinkable. 
 All this is a necessary effect of listening too exclusively 
 to the voice of Mother Earth. 
 
 “ Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; 
 Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 
 And even with something of a mother’s mind, 
 And no unworthy aim, 
 The homely nurse doth all she can 
 To make her foster-child, her inmate man, 
 Forget the glories he hath known, 
 And that imperial palace whence he came.” 
 
 Every priest who has to give much time to physical 
 science knows what pains he has to take lest such 
 studies should have a “‘ drying ”’ effect on his devotion, 
 and therefore on his theology. To the fulldevelopment 
 of the soul, excessive concentration on any one line of 
 study is as detrimental as disproportionate muscular 
 exercise is to the development of the body ; and in the 
 present splendidly progressive stage of physical science, 
 the pursuit of it tends almost irresistibly to become 
 excessive. Faith and the World are opposed if they 
 are separately regarded, although the world was created 
 to be a stepping-stone to faith: it is not therefore 
 surprising that, under similar conditions, the science 
 of the faith and the science of the world should exert 
 conflicting attractions. Thus there is some truth in 
 
118 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 saying that the Catholic Church looks upon Physical 
 Science as a danger. 
 
 But dangers are meant to be overcome, and to be 
 overcome they must be entered into. Catholic 
 scientists, then, knowing themselves to be in a position 
 of special intellectual danger, are bound to take those 
 precautions of grace which are necessary and sufficient 
 for their safety, and it is not surprising if often they are 
 wounded and even fall. Such danger is not peculiar 
 to science : it is inherent in every form of worldliness. 
 The pursuit of wealth is much more dangerous. But 
 we notice the dangers of science more on account of its 
 intellectual dignity. 
 
 Summing up, therefore, we would say that the 
 import of Dr. Mivart’s difference (temporary, we hope) 
 with the Church’s authorities amounts to this,—that 
 his devotion to science has very highly developed one 
 side of his mind ; that by means of this high develop- 
 ment he has done, and may yet do, immense service 
 to the Church ; that, however, such development has 
 naturally been at the expense of his theological powers ; 
 that, being probably unconscious of this, he has taken 
 up theological questions as if his mental strength were 
 proportionate throughout ; hence, that he has naturally 
 fallen into theological error. 
 
 To make good this statement, we must show pre- 
 cisely where this theological weakness reveals itself, 
 and how, if he had used towards himself the same sort 
 of reasoning he so effectively employed against Huxley, 
 there would have been no need for variance at all. 
 This leads us to our second analysis. 
 
 What was it that Dr. Mivart set out to prove? He 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 119 
 
 had already been arguing against the claimed con- 
 tinuity of the Anglican Church, and brought forward 
 as his proof a change of mental and moral attitude in 
 the 16th century, far too structural and too sudden 
 to be explained by any theory of organic development. 
 He was met by the retort, ‘‘ But the Roman Catholic 
 Church has changed also.”’ This retort may be faced 
 in various ways. There is the dogmatic man who will 
 say off-hand and with precision, ‘‘ There has been no 
 real change at all: our doctrines, once delivered, are 
 delivered for good and all: and the whole question is 
 one of doctrine.” The man is right in his own way, of 
 course: but there is the misfortune that he will be 
 listened to by none but the extremists on his own side. 
 Then there comes the moderate man, who will admit 
 changes even wide and in appearance deep, but will 
 plead that on examination they will not be found to 
 be essential, and that they are only the natural change 
 of any organism in correspondence with its environ- 
 ment. In urging his case, he is perhaps tempted to 
 minimize the extent of the changes, knowing that any 
 admission he makes will be microscopically enlarged, 
 while his positive argument will be treated with the 
 other end of the telescope. This, with due resistance 
 of the temptation, we believe to be the proper line to 
 follow. A manof Dr. Mivart’s trend of mind, however, 
 will be impatient of anything that looks like minimizing, 
 andhewilltakeupathirdcourse. Notonly willhegrant 
 the variations put forward by our opponents, he will 
 even tell them of others regardless whether their extent 
 will be magnified or not ; he will put all these variations 
 in their strongest light, and arrange them inductively 
 
120 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 so as to be focused into a formidable whole ; and will 
 then say, ‘‘ See how much we can afford to grant you, 
 confident that even such changes as these, gradually 
 produced as they have been by process of evolution, 
 do not amount to solution of continuity.” 
 
 Such an attitude has an air of chivalry about it, 
 much like John Ridd’s action in his final conflict with 
 Carver Doone,—though his rib was broken, he allowed 
 Carver the first grip on his hand that he might fight his 
 enemy at a disadvantage and still kill him. Now such 
 chivalry is all very well, but you must have John 
 Ridd’s strength to be able to afford it,—and even John 
 Ridd would have failed if he had allowed Carver to 
 grip his broken rib instead of his hand. In this case, 
 to measure the precise amount of concession we may 
 make to our opponents requires an exceedingly delicate 
 theological judgment, the poco 1% and the poco meno 
 sometimes making the whole difference between life 
 and death. And if other motives mingle with our 
 chivalry, the matter becomes more complicated still. 
 Here, for example, with the desire to forgo all ad- 
 vantage as against Anglicans, Dr. Mivart has combined 
 a tentative experiment upon the limits of Catholic 
 liberty of speculation. Besides giving his opponent 
 every advantage he can think of, he has elected to 
 fight him on the thinnest and most slippery ice he can 
 find. 
 
 Let us look at Dr. Mivart’s array of concessions. 
 There has been change, he says, of more or less inten- 
 sity, sometimes amounting to a doctrinal volte face, and 
 of greater or less extent, sometimes embracing the 
 whole Church, upon the following 18 points :— 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY rar 
 
 1) The astronomical constitution of the universe. 
 
 2) “‘ No salvation outside the Church.” 
 
 ) The prohibition of usury. 
 
 ) Intolerance of false teaching. 
 
 ) The attitude towards gambling. 
 
 ) The sense of responsibility in confining our 
 assertions within the limits of evidence. 
 
 ) Inspiration of Scripture. 
 
 ) Authoritative interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 ) “Morbid notions about sin,” and hell. 
 
 ) The story of original sin. 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 ( 
 ( 
 (3 
 (4 
 {5 
 6 
 
 The plan of the Atonement. 
 
 forms unfamiliar to Christendom. 
 (15) The Resurrection of our Lord. 
 (16) The miraculous Birth of our Lord. 
 (17) 
 (18) 
 
 1H 
 
 The expectation of the end of the world. 
 18) Witchcraft and diabolical possession. 
 
 It is not our intention to criticize this list fully, for 
 we are not concerned directly with Anglicans. We 
 will but say that the list would be exceedingly formid- 
 able if all the items on it were, with more or less 
 importance, of the same theological grade. Dr. Mivart, 
 it is true, disclaims the theologian’s attitude ; he is only 
 testifying to common beliefs, he says. But the sensus 
 communis fidelium is a locus theologicus, and requires 
 as delicate handling as any other of the loci. The 
 value of the writings of many of the Fathers consists 
 mainly in the fact that they are competent witnesses 
 
122 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 of the faith of the people in their part of the world. 
 Had they been liable to mix up scientific opinion and 
 the spirit of the age and individual eccentricities in 
 one jumble with divine faith, they would not have been 
 competent. The fact that Dr. Mivart had no mis- 
 givings about his own competence in the matter has a 
 real bearing upon the unfortunate central mistake 
 which has caused the whole trouble. 
 
 Of his 18 variations, the first is purely scientific, and 
 if that is to be admitted the list might be indefinitely 
 extended. The whole Christian community for ex- 
 ample, has changed its belief about the constitution 
 of the air: it used to be an element, now it is not even 
 a single substance. But what do these things matter ? 
 If I choose to become a crank and advocate the theory 
 that the earth is flat and immovable, it will not make 
 one jot of difference to my faith. 
 
 So again the questions of usury and gambling are 
 minor points of moral theology,—of the second order 
 of infinitesimals in our summation. The questions of 
 tolerance of heresy or paganism imply judgment of 
 individuals, not matters of principle——they would 
 belong to the third order of infinitesimals.* 
 
 On the other hand, the questions of the Birth and 
 the Resurrection of our Lord are not infinitesimals at 
 all. But the whole Catholic public has been staggered 
 at the assertion that even in one individual there is 
 variation on them. Either there is a terrible mistake 
 
 * This paragraph was loosely written, and referred rather to the 
 mathematical analogy of a summation of series than to theological 
 measurement. It is not for a moment supposed that any part of 
 the faith can be infinitesimal, 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 123 
 
 on Dr. Mivart’s side, or there is doubt of sanity on the 
 other. It seems to me that Dr. Mivart put this 
 extremest of all cases from a desire to give scientific 
 completeness to his induction,—on the maxim that 
 principles are best tested in abnormal instances. But 
 the experiment has been unfortunate. It caused, for 
 example, a friend of mine, an Agnostic and a man 
 of considerable scientific attainment, to say to me, 
 “ That article of Dr. Mivart’s seems to me an unfair 
 one, written from inside your Church.” 
 
 Thus sifting the list, without completely exhibiting 
 our process, we may reduce our points of consideration 
 to six, as being the only truly theological points on 
 which discussion is material to the issue. These points 
 are Salvation outside the Church, Scripture, its Inter- 
 pretation, Sin and its punishments, Original sin, and 
 the Atonement. 
 
 It is in handling these points that Dr. Mivart has 
 especially shown his lack of theological science. There 
 is one central truth, implicitly felt by every Catholic 
 (Dr. Mivart included), and explicitly held by every 
 theologian, which so completely dominates these six 
 points that the whole discussion would have been 
 superfluous, if it had been borne in mind. Yet, in 
 words, Dr. Mivart I will not say denies it, but is naively 
 unconscious of its very existence. He states the 
 contradictory of it with a calm assumption that every- 
 body is agreeing with him. This is what he says in 
 the Forinighily Review :— 
 
 “But what ts the Church ? In truth, no such thing 
 really has, or can have, any separate existence, All 
 
124 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 that exists is a number of men and women who 
 possess certain attributes and stand in various real 
 relations to their environment.”’ 
 
 And again in the Nineteenth Century :— 
 
 “As we pointed out in our former article, ‘ the 
 Church,’ gua church, is an ideal abstraction. What 
 an utter nonentity then must be ‘the soul’ of this 
 abstraction ! ”’ 
 
 These are in truth statements that would have delighted 
 Huxley. It is as if, supposing the various organs of 
 our body to be endowed with separate intelligence, 
 one white corpuscle of the blood were to say to another 
 in protoplasmic vibrations, ‘‘ What after all zs this 
 Man? In truth, no such being really exists otherwise 
 than as an aggregate of us. And if he is an ideal 
 abstraction, what an utter nonentity must be ‘the 
 soul’ of this abstraction ! ” 
 
 Let me put epigrammatically the truth that Dr. 
 Mivart has missed. The saying that the Church is the 
 Body of Christ is not a Metaphor but a Mystery. This 
 will be found to lie at the root of the whole difference 
 between Protestantism and Catholicism. And yet 
 Dr. Mivart gives it away to our opponents as a trivial 
 concession, 
 
 Not consciously, of course. It is quite possible for 
 a non-theologian to get along without an explicit 
 enunciation of this truth. For myself, I remember 
 it came to me as a living reality in the middle of my 
 theological course, when I had been studying De 
 Incarnatione for several months It came to me from 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 125 
 
 St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, which may almost 
 be called the hymn of this mystery, with its continually 
 recurring pbrase “In Christ,’’ ‘‘ In Him,’’—no fewer 
 than fifteen times in the first chapter. This was the 
 essential mystery of that ‘‘ wisdom” or philosophy 
 which St. Paul claims for the Christian Church,—‘‘ We 
 speak the wisdom of God in a mystery ”’ (1 Cor. ii. 7). 
 He calls it elsewhere “‘ the mystery of my gospel.” 
 St. John calls it ‘the mystery of God” (Apoc. x. 7). 
 ‘Indeed it almost seems as if this is what our Lord 
 meant by the words, ‘“‘ To you it is given to know the 
 Mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven: to the rest in 
 parables.”’ That is, you know it as a Mystery, other 
 people would call it a Metaphor. 
 
 Let me illustrate. Huxley speaks somewhere of the 
 swirl of Niagara forming a permanent hillock of water ; 
 it looks always the same, but we know it consists only 
 of ever moving particles of water obeying a certain 
 law: the particles come and go, the form remains : 
 but the form is nothing in itself, and to call it a hillock 
 is merely a metaphor, the only reality being the separate 
 particles. Inman, he would say, the same thing holds, 
 only in a much more complicated fashion: there is a 
 continuous flow of particles of carbon and oxygen and 
 hydrogen and nitrogen and so forth, under elaborate 
 laws, forming an apparently permanent aggregate, 
 which we find it convenient to call a man, just as we 
 called the other thing a hillock ; but there is nothing 
 real, he would say, except the particles and their 
 relations : and what we call the soul is only a metaphor. 
 This is where we join issue, and none could answer 
 better than Dr. Mivart himself. And the summary 
 
126 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 of his answer would be a clear-drawn distinction 
 between a Metaphor and a Spiritual Reality. Now 
 when a Spiritual Reality is above human compre- 
 hension we call it a Mystery. 
 
 This Mystery then, or transcendent spiritual reality, 
 signifies that all who are redeemed are co-ordinated 
 “by the power that worketh within us ”’ into a Divine 
 Organism. They do not lose their individual life, any 
 more than the white corpuscle sacrifices its own 
 protoplasmic movements, but they become part of a 
 wider and higher life,—‘‘ being made partakers of the 
 Divine Nature.’”” The soul of this Organism is by no 
 means an ideal abstraction. It lives and acts and 
 develops ; it assimilates and rejects; it speaks and 
 commands ; it teaches and condemns; above all it 
 loves, and saves. When Dr. Mivart discussed the 
 development of this Organism, he was implicitly confess- 
 ing the truth of this Mystery. When he called it an 
 abstraction, he was unconsciously walking in an 
 obscurity induced by disproportionate trust in physical 
 science. 
 
 Of course, by making this slip in public, he has made 
 it harder to recover his balance. It is a Mystery that 
 is better seen by loving devotion than by wounded 
 feelings. But it is always so: whenever we get into a 
 false position, even by accident, we have to make 
 heroic efforts to regain our level. But if Dr. Mivart 
 would only put himself at the point of view of this 
 Mystery, he would see how inadequate are his state- 
 ments (for example) of the Catholic doctrine of the 
 Atonement. He would know that Sin should be 
 measured, not from the point of view of a white 
 
TEACHING OF THE THIRD MYSTERY 127 
 
 corpuscle, but from that of the whole organism : and 
 if he remembered that, he would not call the healthy 
 old Catholic view ‘‘ morbid.” 
 
 We have not space to fill out the details, but we have 
 kept our promise to point out precisely how and where 
 the error has arisen. We do hope that somehow in his 
 devotions Dr. Mivart will get a clearer view of this 
 Mystery, and co-ordinate his individual views with the 
 wider sweep of its laws, supplementing his philosophy 
 with truths which Physical Science can neither give 
 nor take away. 
 
XX 
 THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 
 
 There is a duality that runs 
 through all our life and through 
 the whole scheme of the universe. 
 It is expressed in various ways,—the First Creation 
 and the New Creation,—the Natural and the Super- 
 natural,—the World of Sight and the World of Faith,— 
 the Old Man (Adam and all we inherit from him) and 
 the New Man (Christ and all we inherit in Him). As 
 the Visible is a parable of the Invisible, there are 
 necessarily many analogies between them. Since we 
 live in both the worlds, these analogies are full of 
 interest and of instruction to us. As the two worlds 
 often mingle most intimately just where they are most 
 closely parallel, they sometimes become to us almost 
 indistinguishable. Who can clearly separate, in him- 
 self or in others, Nature and Grace ? 
 
 The Two Worlds— 
 A Parallel. 
 
 All who have studied Physical Science 
 and Psychology know that the visible 
 universe can be (theoretically at least) 
 expressed in terms of vibrations. Vibrations are 
 128 
 
 The Idea 
 of Force. 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 129 
 
 rhythmic or periodic movements of particles or masses, 
 and are the result of (or, as we say, are caused by) 
 “forces.’’ What is behind the appearances, what 
 movement and force really are, are questions for 
 Philosophy. The scientist is concerned only with 
 “phenomena.” From his point of view, every 
 “ thing ’’ reveals itself as an aggregate of forces. From 
 the same point of view, man finds himself a centre of a 
 current of force. Force is conveyed to him by nature 
 (light, air, food, &c.), and he gives it out again to 
 nature, producing mighty works which change the 
 face of the globe. But whether to take it in, or to 
 give it out, man always has need of something which 
 shall be instrumental, something which shall be a 
 channel of the force. To give another illuminating 
 touch to the parable or analogy, we may add that these 
 instruments or channels are often out of all proportion 
 to the forces they convey. A dreadnought may be 
 launched by pressing a button. 
 
 Now it is a remarkable thing—or 
 perhaps it was to be expected— 
 that all natural forces can be trans- 
 formed into one another. There is 
 a mechanical equivalent of heat. Mechanical friction 
 can produce electricity. Electricity and magnetism 
 interchange. Any of them can produce light. Theo- 
 retically, therefore, the phenomena of the universe 
 could be expressed in terms of one force, and our natural 
 choice would probably be Light. There is depth in 
 the thought that God began creation by saying, ‘‘ Let 
 there be light,” 
 
 All Natural 
 Forces Reducible 
 to Light. 
 
 K 
 
130 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 We can now point out the parallel. 
 The whole supernatural world is 
 revealed to us as a set of multiform 
 spiritual forces : these forces can be unified : we give 
 them the name of Grace. Grace comes to us incar- 
 nationally : that is to say, God has chosen to convey 
 this infinite force to mankind in material channels, 
 beginning with the Human Body of the Word Incar- 
 nate. Itisno matter of surprise that these instruments 
 of Grace bear no proportion to the Grace they convey. 
 If in the natural order a crystal can cause death, there 
 is no reason why in the supernatural order some simple 
 thing like water or oil should not bring life, if God so 
 chooses. He is the Author of both. I bring this 
 forward, not as an argument, but asananalogy. But, 
 as we have seen before, such analogies may do more 
 than indicate a vague resemblance. There is some- 
 thing fundamental in their community of authorship ; 
 and though we may not be able to prove anything by 
 them to outsiders, they may in ourselves start trains 
 of thought full of illuminative power. Michael Angelo 
 once made a snow man: he also wrought the “‘ Moses ”’ 
 in marble. We could gain much instruction in Art 
 if we were able to compare his snow with his marble, 
 the transient with the everlasting. 
 
 When Grace is conveyed to us through 
 any visible channel, we say generally 
 that the effect is sacramental. Thus 
 we say, informally, that Mary’s voice of salutation 
 had the sacramental effect of sanctifying John the 
 Baptist in his mother’s womb. We may also say that 
 the whole Church of God is a vast Sacrament for all 
 
 Supernatural 
 Light is Grace. 
 
 Sacramental 
 Grace. 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 131 
 
 humanity. The word “sacrament ’’ however has been 
 limited in the development of the Christian language. 
 Let me take an example to show the use of the word. 
 If in eating ordinary bread, I think of the Bread of 
 Life, and bless it and partake of it in the sense of that 
 sacred memory, I make that bread to myself a channel 
 of Grace. The effect is sacramental, though it is not 
 usually called so. If in France (why is that beautiful 
 custom confined to France ?) I take the pain bénit at 
 the Offertory, this is again a channel of Grace, and this 
 time it 7s called a sacramental, because of its resem- 
 blance to a sacrament. The first might be called a 
 private sacramental, and the second a Church sacra- 
 mental. When I receive the Bread over which the 
 words of consecration have been spoken, Bread which 
 Divine Power has itself blessed and changed, I then 
 receive what is emphatically called a Sacrament. 
 These are the three grades,—a self-sacramental, a 
 Church-sacramental, and a Sacrament. In the first, 
 the effect is proportioned to my devotion: in the 
 second, I call in my Mother Church to help my weak- 
 ness : in the third the effect goes beyond all that man 
 or Church can do: I merely try to remove all obstacles 
 and to increase my capacity of receptiveness, and 
 having so prepared I stand by and adore the work of 
 God within me. Self-sacramentals are as abundant as 
 I choose to make them, Church-sacramentals are so 
 numerous (holy water, medals, scapulars, etc.) that it 
 looks as if Holy Mother Church is trying to make the 
 whole world Incarnational. But God-sacramentals, 
 or Sacraments, are so solemn and so efficacious, that 
 they are limited to the most essential needs of the 
 
132 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Mystical Body of Christ. In what I am going to say, 
 I shall relegate self-sacramentals to private devotion. 
 For the other two I shall follow the usual language : 
 God-sacramentals shall be called Sacraments, and 
 Church-sacramentals simply sacramentals. In order, 
 however, that these two nouns may have distinctive 
 adjectives, I think it will be clearer to say that the 
 effects of the former are sacramental, and those of the 
 latter subsacramental. Thus, Grace received through 
 the water of Baptism is received sacramentally, and 
 Grace received through blessing oneself with holy water 
 is received subsacramentally. 
 
 The rationale of Sacraments and sacramentals is 
 one of the most interesting chapters in the whole range 
 of Theology, and is of the greatest practical importance. 
 It deserves a chapter to itself. 
 
XXI 
 
 ECOLOGY OF SACRAMENTS AND 
 
 SACRAMENTALS 
 If the Sacraments are beautiful con- 
 The Analogy . We ee s 
 of Blood, sidered each singly, far more are they 
 
 beautiful when taken all together 
 along with all the visible means of Grace that branch 
 out from them. There is a purposiveness and an 
 effectiveness in the whole system which reveal a Divine 
 plan. A while ago I called the system a network: 
 the analogy is not living enough. Rather it is like the 
 scheme of vessels in the body conveying the red blood 
 from the heart to the digestive canal, thence dis- 
 tributing food to every cell, until returning to the heart 
 the dark blood is sent to the lungs to be purified. The 
 main vessels are like the Sacraments: the capillaries 
 are like the Sacramentals. Baptism, Confirmation and 
 Communion bear the Precious Blood with its nourish- 
 ment throughout the Body; Penance and Extreme 
 Unction carry the Redeeming Blood with its burden 
 of our sins to be purified in the fresh air of Heaven. 
 Matrimony and Holy Orders are the reproductive 
 
 133 
 
134 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 system whereby, while individuals are sanctified, the 
 whole Body advances towards the fullness ofitsstature. 
 
 One sometimes detects a feeling, 
 especially among converts, as if 
 the Last Anointing were not 
 quite on a level of inevitability with the other six 
 Sacraments,—as if it were a kind of after-thought. 
 It seems well therefore to provide a buttress, not 
 indeed to the doctrine, but for a better understanding 
 of the doctrine. The universal instinct of the faithful 
 (one of the surest tests in the Church of God) is one of 
 keen anxiety to have the words “‘ Fortified by the 
 rites of the Church ” on a death notice. The funda- 
 mental doctrine concerned is read partly inthe character 
 of our life-long conflict with evil, partly in the revealed 
 teaching about Grace. 
 
 The Special Position 
 of Extreme Unction. 
 
 Our Adversary looks upon bodily 
 Biter ae death as the effect of his victory over 
 Adam, and when it takes place he 
 claims the “spoils.” Whatever be the meaning of 
 the revelation, we are told he strove with St. Michael 
 over even the body of Moses. For that reason he 
 thought to gain a victory over God’s Champion, by 
 inflicting death on Him. But he was deceived, because 
 Christ’s was a willing death : Satan did not, and could 
 not, take that life away. Leviathan, as the Fathers 
 say, was caught “ by a hook”: what he saw was a 
 vulnerable Humanity ; what he did not see was the 
 hidden Divinity which made him captive at the very 
 moment of his fancied victory. Therefore, that we 
 
 our Conflict. 
 
ECOLOGY OF SACRAMENTS 138 
 
 may understand and may be on our guard at our own 
 compulsory death, our Lord said, “I have power to 
 lay down My life and power to take it up again: no 
 one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” 
 And again: “The Prince of this world cometh, and 
 in me he hath not anything.” ‘‘ Thus (says St. Augus- 
 tine) by the death of (Christ’s) body, the devil lost man 
 whom he had seduced by free consent and therefore 
 possessed as it were by an indefeasible right.’* Our 
 own death, therefore, is Satan’s last chance with us, 
 and he fights desperately for his chance. In Baptism 
 he loses his first chance ; in Extreme Unction he loses 
 his last. 
 
 The Anointing is equally seen to be 
 necessary from the doctrine of Per- 
 severance. However holy our life 
 may have been, we may not presume on the end. We 
 cannot merit the first grace ; nor can we merit the last. 
 The beginning and the end both belong to God alone. 
 The links of the chain of Grace cohere, but God must 
 be holding the first and the last of them. And where 
 God lays hold, there is a Sacrament. ‘‘ Wisdom 
 reacheth from end to end mightily, and orders all 
 things sweetly.” We see therefore that the Last 
 Anointing is parallel to Baptism. 
 
 Securing Our 
 Perseverance. 
 
 Sacraments mean the establishment 
 and perfecting of the life of Grace 
 in our souls. That life means the 
 
 Harmonies 
 and Extensions. 
 
 * ‘Tta diabolus hominem, quem per consensum seductum 
 tanquam jure integro possidebat . . . In ipsa morte carnis amisit.”’ 
 
136 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 indwelling of the Blessed Trinity. That indwelling 
 means the development of the image of God within us. 
 By Baptism we become sons of the Father ; by Com- 
 munion we are incorporated into God the Son; by 
 Confirmation we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 
 Thus the three Sacraments of Life are the great fruits 
 of that Redemption which restored to us our original 
 inheritance, perfect likeness to our Triune Creator. 
 And what we gain sacramentally we are continually 
 renewing subsacramentally when we bless ourselves 
 with the sign of the Cross ‘‘ in the name of the Father 
 and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”’ 
 
 The Grace we receive in Baptism 
 is by us perpetually being re- 
 newed, in that subsacramental 
 manner, by the effect of Holy Water. This is the 
 Church’s favourite external mode of hallowing and 
 purifying, and it is her way of visibly laying hands on 
 those material things which the powers of evil claim 
 as their own. Prayer, as the utterance of the Holy 
 Spirit within us, is naturally affiliated to Confirmation ; 
 and in addition to our private devotion, which becomes 
 more and more abundant in a sacramental atmosphere, 
 the Church puts her own blessing on the Our Father, 
 and the Divine Office, and the Rosary, and chosen 
 prayers for Indulgences, and by that blessing makes 
 them subsacramental in effect. That is to say, we get 
 the full value of our own private devotion, but add 
 immensely to that value by bringing in the devotion 
 of the Bride of Christ. The Eucharist, the hidden 
 Mystery of the Incarnation, is naturally surrounded by 
 
 Every Sacrament 
 has its Sacramentals. 
 
ECOLOGY OF SACRAMENTS 137 
 
 all sorts of subsacramental worship,—the devotion of 
 the Sacred Heart, the ceremonies of Holy Mass, the 
 figures of the Crucified, statues and pictures and medals 
 and emblems of the Head and of the Members of the 
 Mystical Body, all of them conveying under visible 
 forms more spiritual Life than we could find for our- 
 selves. Here also we place the surpassingly beautiful 
 cult of the Ideal of Womanhood, Maidenhood, Mother- 
 nood, in her whom it is our delight to hail as Queen of 
 Heaven and of Earth. Catholic Art rejoices in 
 expressing and beautifying this subsacramental symbo- 
 lism. The Cathedral, whose one purpose is to enshrine 
 the Sacred Presence, speaks of it from altar, walls, 
 windows, floor, ceiling and roof, within and without. 
 The whole west front with its sculptured portals, its 
 niches of Saints, its rose-window, is not indeed directly 
 subsacramental except in so far as it is a portion of a 
 visible presentment of the Heavenly Jerusalem, but 
 it loudly proclaims the Mysteries,—‘‘ I am the Door,” 
 “Tin you and you in me,” “I am the Light of the 
 World,” ‘‘ the Rose of Sharon.” The Church’s music 
 too would easily become subsacramental to us, provided 
 we do not follow the foolish notions of “‘ independent 
 evolution”’ and ‘art for art’s sake”’: for the 1st 
 mode in Plain Chant is that of the Blessed Virgin, the 
 3rd of the Holy Name, the 7th of Heaven, the 8th of 
 the Holy Ghost. The very decorations of the altar 
 are meant to be subsacramental and not a mere display 
 of prettiness. Raphael’s highest inspiration tells us 
 the meaning of the candles and flowers in his picture of 
 Theology (the Disputa). The centre of the picture is 
 an altar, quite unadorned, with the Blessed Sacrament 
 
138 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 exposed in a monstrance. Four great lines converge 
 upon this centre : (1) the line of Grace from the symbols 
 of the Blessed Trinity ; (2) the line of celestial worship 
 in the rows of Angels ; (3) the line of Revelation in the 
 Apostles and Evangelists ; and (4) the earthly line of 
 Fathers, Doctors, Prelates, Martyrs and Virgins. But 
 where are the lights and the flowers? Nowhere else 
 than in the human illumination and efflorescence of 
 the Church’s sanctity. And that is what the altar- 
 decorations should always be made to mean. 
 
 The sacramentals nestling round the other four 
 Sacraments will be treated in the next two chapters. 
 
XXII 
 THE SACRAMENTS OF PURIFICATION 
 
 In the ascending scale of organ- 
 isms which are a natural prophecy 
 of the Divine Organism, for the 
 growth of which this poor dunghill of a world was 
 created, every higher form embodies in itself the 
 contrivances of the lower ones, adding fresh ones of its 
 own. The step from sense to intellect made no differ- 
 ence to this law ; nor does the step from the natural 
 to the supernatural. The Incarnation draws all things 
 to itself. It was to be expected therefore that since all 
 organisms make special adaptations for (1) germina- 
 tion, (2) resistance against environment, (3) nourish- 
 ment, (4) purification by excretion, (5) protection 
 against threatened death, (6) growth, and (7) re- 
 production, all these adaptations would be found 
 visible and supernatural, in the great Incarnational 
 Organism as well. These seven processes are the 
 vehicles of life—vegetative life to the plant, sentient 
 life to the animal, intellectual life to man, Grace to the 
 Incarnation in all its members. Now the visible 
 
 139 
 
 The Sacramental 
 Analogy Restated. 
 
140 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 vehicles of Grace are Sacraments with their cognate 
 sacramentals,—this time including self-sacramentals, 
 i.e. all those visible efforts which through Grace the 
 earth-bound soul makes to rise above earth, such as 
 prayer, acts of virtue, etc. We have already seen that 
 Baptism corresponds to germination, Confirmation to 
 resistance, Holy Communion to nourishment. So too 
 the Sacrament of Penance corresponds to the process 
 of purification, Extreme Unction to protection against 
 death, Matrimony to growth, Holy Orders to re- 
 production. The analogy is complete. 
 
 Protestants have retained the other five 
 Sacraments in some sort of sacramental 
 form, but Penance and the Last Anointing they reject, 
 the former because they refuse the discipline of the 
 Third Mystery (most of all, Confession), and the latter 
 because they ignore the doctrine of final perseverance ,— 
 thinking that one who has eternal life now necessarily 
 has it eternally. This last doctrine, however, is made 
 so superabundantly clear in Holy Writ, that all we can 
 do is to advise our separated brethren to read their 
 Bible again. But the matter of Confession needs a 
 little common-sense talk. It is not an additional 
 burden imposed by ecclesiastical authority. It is not 
 a humiliating observance commanded by God in 
 righteous punishment of sin. It is an act imposed by 
 the sinner on himself as one of the essential conse- 
 quences of his own sin. There is an elementary law 
 of justice which demands that amends shall be made 
 where injury has been done. By every sin a man 
 injures Almighty God, and the act of contrition becomes 
 
 Confession. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF PURIFICATION rar 
 
 necessary. He injures his own self, and self-humiliation 
 becomes essential to his moral recovery. But far 
 beyond any injury he does to himself is the injury done 
 to the Body of Christ of which he isa member. To the 
 Body of Christ therefore it is an ultimate law of justice 
 that he should make amends. And it is not enough 
 that amends should be offered ; they must be accept- 
 able and accepted. Seeing that he has not ‘“ where- 
 withal to pay ”’ the only chance he has is open acknow- 
 ledgment and appeal for mercy. Now it is quite 
 conceivable that this necessary humiliation (which is 
 still obligatory on Protestants as well as Catholics) 
 might not have been made part of the Sacrament of 
 Penance. We might have been commanded to fulfil 
 that duty first, without therefrom receiving the 
 sacramental Grace, and this fulfilment might have been 
 made merely a preliminary to some other form. It is 
 the loving-kindness of God that has made the mortifica- 
 tion of justice also the vivification of mercy. To 
 Catholics, the Sacrament of Penance (which includes 
 Confession) is not a burden, but a_highly-valued 
 privilege. It is like a naughty child, at last laying 
 aside his obstinacy and silly pride, returning to his 
 true self and seeking the sweetest of all reconciliations 
 by sobbing out his sorrow in his Mother’s arms. We 
 are all children still. 
 
 In the earliest days, the necessary 
 apology to the Church was openly made 
 in the congregation which the penitent 
 attended, and after due penance, consisting usually of 
 temporary exclusion from the Mysteries, the recon- 
 
 Confession 
 in Practice. 
 
142 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 ciliation was equally public. There must even then 
 have been exceptions. For example, priests were not 
 allowed the privilege of public confession and absolu- 
 tion,—not because their fall was lightly considered, 
 but because of the shock to the reverence of the people. 
 Similarly, I hardly suppose (though I do not know if 
 such cases are recorded) that a man, still less a woman, 
 would be expected publicly to confess facts which 
 might break up the home. In such cases probably 
 there was private specific confession, and the authorities 
 being satisfied might decide what it would be enough 
 to say inthe church. But for many centuries now the 
 Church has appointed single priests to be, in normal 
 cases, her plenipotentiary representatives to receive 
 the necessary confession, at the same time enduing 
 them with her power of sacramental forgiveness. This 
 is what is meant by a priest ‘‘ having faculties.” 
 
 The instincts of the faithful, to whom 
 the material discipline of the Church 
 is not a burden but a privilege, lead 
 them to have recourse to this Sacrament far more 
 often than might be considered necessary to raise 
 them from the death of the soul. In fact, the more 
 innocent they are, the more they come to be purified. 
 In their minds Confession and Communion are closely 
 linked together. The instinct is right, because the 
 Sacrament of Penance with all its accompanying 
 sacramentals corresponds to the whole process of 
 purification in the Organism, and that has to be as 
 continuous as nutrition. For our life we take in air 
 and food, and these are corrupted by ministering to 
 
 Continuity of 
 Purification. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF PURIFICATION 143 
 
 our body. This corruption has to be got rid of as fast 
 as it is produced, or the body would be poisoned. Our 
 Lord Himself uses this analogy in very plain words. 
 By the lungs, the skin, the liver, the kidneys and the 
 alimentary canal we are perpetually purifying ourselves, 
 and if the action of any of these is impeded, the health 
 of the body suffers. The parallel is easily followed out. 
 Prayer, mortification, the flame of Divine charity, and 
 especially the Sacrament of Penance do this work for 
 our souls. 
 
 The process of purgation is specially 
 emphasized in the time of Lent. The 
 ashes on Ash Wednesday and the 
 palms on Palm Sunday are sacramentals to help our 
 devotion ; and in order to link the two together, like 
 brackets inclosing the whole of Lent, the ashes of each 
 year are made by burning the palms of the last. The 
 Church on earth makes a kind of corporate Confession 
 in Lent in order that with pure white robes she may 
 make her corporate Communion at Easter. 
 
 Accessory 
 ' Sacramentals. 
 
 I cannot understand the storm that 
 has been raised about Indulgences. 
 If, as is most clearly stated in Scripture, our Blessed 
 Lord handed over to His disciples the same kingdom 
 as He had received from His Father, as well as the 
 power to forgive or retain sins, it is evident that He 
 has made His Bride our Queen and Mother, to exercise 
 over us all the sway of government and discipline and 
 all the prerogatives of mercy. Her punishments— 
 and even God’s punishments are entrusted to her care 
 
 Indulgences. 
 
144 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 —are gratefully received by her willing penitents, and 
 she manages these punishments in her own way 
 according to times and circumstances. Why therefore 
 there should be any demur to her remitting such 
 punishments for valid reasons, it is hard to see. Such 
 remittings are called Indulgences. Now Indulgences, 
 not being a conferring of Grace but only a lessening of 
 temporal punishment, are not directly sacramentals ; 
 but indirectly they come to have a great subsacra- 
 mental effect because of the Church’s valid reasons. 
 She chooses works of prayer, alms or penance, and 
 attaches indulgences to them; when we try to gain 
 these indulgences, the works we do are the Church’s 
 as well as our own, and therefore they have a sub- 
 sacramental effect. 
 
 This is not a controversial book, so I need not go 
 out of my way to answer the attacks made either on 
 Penance or on Indulgences. They are mostly mis- 
 representations, or sometimes merely misunderstand- 
 ings, and with the right doctrine, Catholics know what 
 to do with them. 
 
 We have already seen that the Last 
 Anointing may in a sense be called the 
 Sacrament of Final Perseverance,—the 
 Omega of which Baptismisthe Alpha. Inthe Homeric 
 battles, the keenest fighting was over the bodies of 
 fallen heroes, lest the enemy should capture the body 
 and the spoils. So, in Extreme Unction with its whole 
 array of prayers and blessings and subsacramental 
 rites, Holy Mother Church fights over death-beds for 
 the full possession of her children in both soul and body. 
 
 Extreme 
 Unction. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF PURIFICATION 145 
 
 And in so fighting she not only rescues the dying, but 
 comforts and instructs the living. The whole scene 
 is beautifully paraphrased in Newman’s Dream of 
 Gerontius. The lighting of the blessed candle, the 
 traditional prayers for the dying, the crucifix, the 
 indulgenced ejaculations, the specially privileged bless- 
 ings, and after death the consecration of the coffin and 
 of the grave, all make us feel as well as know that she 
 has the right to cry, ‘‘ O Death, where is thy victory ? ”’ 
 Knowing the importance of the end as of the beginning, 
 she uses all the powers she has, powers divine, powers 
 spiritual and powers incarnational ; she relaxes for the 
 hour of death all her rules of discipline and extends 
 faculties to all who have once received the priestly 
 power. As at Baptism she said, ‘‘ Go forth, foul spirit, 
 from this child, and give place to the Holy Ghost, the 
 Paraclete,” so in the Last Anointing she says to the 
 dying, ‘‘ In the name of the Father and of the Son and 
 of the Holy Ghost, may all the power of Satan be 
 nullified in thee, through the laying on of our hands, 
 and through the invocation of all holy Angels, Arch- 
 angels, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Con- 
 fessors, Virgins and all the Saints together.” At last, 
 when the fight is over, and the Requiem is reached, 
 she signalizes her victory by praying ‘‘ that the standard- 
 bearer St. Michael may marshal them into Eternal 
 Light.” 
 
XXITI 
 THE SACRAMENTS OF GROWTH 
 
 The Divine Organism grows spiritually by the 
 Sacrament of Holy Orders, and bodily by the Sacra- 
 ment of Matrimony. 
 
 The threefold anointing of Christ as 
 Prophet, Priest and King is of course 
 communicated in due measure to all His members. 
 The whole Body is prophetical, sacerdotal and royal. 
 To bless, to consecrate, to rule, to judge, to teach are 
 priestly powers; but every man can exercise them 
 towards himself ; he needs no new sacrament for them ; 
 they flow from his Baptism. That is to say, besides 
 his natural power and duty of self-rule, self-judgment 
 and prayer, he can as a member of Christ bless himself, 
 judge himself, consecrate himself with the Church’s 
 authority as well as his own. A father of a family 
 can and should bless and rule his children (shame on 
 many who will not use this privilege), not merely with 
 the right that every pagan has, but with the power 
 that devolves upon him as a member of the Mystical 
 146 
 
 Holy Orders. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF GROWTH 147 
 
 Body. Againhe needs no special sacrament for this : it 
 flows from the Sacrament of Matrimony. But as soon 
 as these functions have to be exercised for the whole 
 Church of God, the principle applies that universal 
 life requires universal sacramentals, and in the Incarna- 
 tion universal sacramentals have been established as 
 Sacraments. 
 
 There is no sex in the thought of the 
 Divine. The Motherhood of God is 
 as fruitful an analogy as the Father- 
 hood. Our Lord Himself indicated this when He said, 
 looking at His disciples, ‘‘ These are my mother and my 
 brethren.”’ From the spiritual side of us, the genera- 
 tion of new members of the Body of Christ is both 
 fatherhood and motherhood. The Church is a Virgin- 
 Mother, as Mary is. The womb of the Mystical Body 
 is that portion of it which is differentiated for the 
 purposes of spiritual birth or regeneration. The whole 
 Body, in the supernatural as in the natural, aids in 
 this function, but the function being universal has to be 
 specialized. This is what the sacerdotal function 
 means. The womb therefore of the Body of Christ is 
 its Hierarchy. St. Paul (by mystery, not by metaphor) 
 calls it fatherhood : Our Lord, by saying to St. Peter 
 “Feed my lambs,” calls it motherhood. Christ not 
 only instituted the Sacrament of Holy Orders but 
 Himself ordained His Apostles, conferring on them the 
 Kingdom given to Him by the Father, the Prophetic 
 Office in the command “ Go and teach all nations,” the 
 Priesthood in the power to bless and consecrate, and 
 the Judgment in the words, ‘‘ Whose sins you forgive, 
 
 The Church’s 
 Maternity 
 
148 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 they are forgiven: whose sins you retain, they are 
 retained.” 
 
 The Dexelonmnent By creating the Apostles “* dis- 
 
 pensers of the mysteries” (and 
 of Holy Orders. f 
 
 mysteries and sacraments are the 
 same word), our Lord gave to His Church the power 
 to specialize its members for this function according to 
 the needs of its life. The highly complex Hierarchy 
 of to-day, from the Pope to the newest tonsured cleric, 
 is the result of the normal growth of the Third Mystery. 
 The distinction between Bishop and Priest often seems 
 vague at the beginning : the creation of Deacons is on 
 record: the gift of Minor Orders followed in due 
 course. The Bride of Christ regulated her own life 
 as the demands of her environment needed. One 
 would not expect diocesan Bishops before there were 
 dioceses. In an organism, differentiation of tissue 
 proceeds along the lines of the development of life. 
 Let me give a scientific analogy. If we take a very 
 young seedling, treat it chemically so as to make it 
 transparent and put it under the microscope, we see 
 that very near the root-tip the cells seem at first sight 
 all alike, very thin-walled and able to send on sap as 
 freely as a wood-vessel. But a few millimetres above 
 the tip we see the main vessels already formed, con- 
 tinuing from there to the very end of the first leaves. 
 Bringing the eye down again, we see that the vessels 
 do not stop where we first descried them, but are more 
 and more delicately discernible right down to the 
 root-tip. In the New Testament the Church of God, 
 the Vine, was a seedling. Tracing our Hierarchy back, 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF GROWTH 149 
 
 we see that all the essentials of it were there from the 
 day of Pentecost, but the needs of growth have through 
 the centuries indefinitely ramified the vessels and 
 hardened their walls. The growth has been so gradual, 
 so visible, and so consistent, that no breach of con- 
 tinuity can be discovered, and to say that the Papacy, 
 the Episcopate and the Priesthood, such as we see 
 them at work to-day, are not the living prolongation 
 of the day of Pentecost, is to say that the True Vine 
 died in the first century and a weed has taken its 
 place. 
 
 Besides being habitually the dispenser 
 of Baptism, Penance, Eucharist and 
 Anointing, the priest is a continuous 
 fountain of sacramentals. A good priest will turn 
 almost anything into subsacramental effect for himself 
 and for others. The very sight of him, to his own 
 humility and joy, calls up the faith and reverence of 
 his flock, especially of the little children. He bears 
 about with him the aroma of all the Sacraments like 
 a personal aura. It may be said I am sketching the 
 ideal. No, by the grace of God I am describing the 
 reality. His exercise of the divine powers of blessing 
 and consecrating, administering and sacrificing, are a 
 perpetual humiliation and sanctification to himself and 
 a dispensing of the Mysteries to the faithful. I speak 
 of the ordinary good priest and pastor. If ever he is 
 unfaithful, he does commensurate harm: but over 
 such lapses the sancta plebs Dei reverently and sorrow- 
 fully draws a veil. And that veil l also draw. There 
 is no power or privilege ever conferred on men which 
 
 The Cognate 
 Sacramentals. 
 
150 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 our poor humanity has not sometimes abused. Among 
 the Apostles there was an Iscariot. But on the whole, 
 the Church on earth recognises in its priesthood the 
 Motherhood and Fatherhood divine: souls are re- 
 generated and rejuvenated, the lambs of the flock are 
 fed, and “‘ the manifold wisdom of God is made known 
 to the principalities and powers in heavenly places 
 through the Church, according to the eternal purpose 
 which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord ... from 
 whom the whole body, being compactly and fitly 
 joined together, by what every joint supplieth, accord- 
 ing to the operation in the measure of every part, 
 maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying (or 
 building-up) of itself in charity.” 
 
 Granted the Second and Third Mysteries, 
 the Sacrament of Marriage follows almost 
 asalogicalcorollary. The Divine Plan of Regeneration 
 necessarily absorbs, elevates and consecrates the also 
 Divine Plan of Generation. Evenin the natural order, 
 such reverence as humanity possesses has always gone 
 to the mystery of heredity. ‘‘ There is a kind of awe 
 about motherhood,’’ says Sophocles. But when it was 
 revealed that the union of man with woman and its 
 consequent fruitfulness are but a visible sign, a pro- 
 phetic symbol, an effective subdivision, of the higher 
 Union of the Divine Bridegroom with His Divine Bride, 
 the sacramentality became obvious. Marriage was 
 already a sacramental in the Old Law: in the New, 
 shadow passed into reality, and the sacramental 
 became a Sacrament. As circumcision passed into 
 Baptism, as the holocausts passed into the Cross, as the 
 
 Matrimony. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF GROWTH I5I 
 
 Paschal Banquet passed into Holy Communion, as the 
 shew-bread passed into the Real Presence, as the 
 lustrations of water and of blood passed into the 
 Sacraments of Purification, as the priesthood of 
 Melchisedech and of Aaron passed into Holy Orders, 
 so the already sacred conjugal tie passed into the 
 Incarnational Marriage and became something Divine. 
 Instead therefore of disbelievers calling upon us to 
 produce texts proving the institution of this Sacra- 
 ment, we should rather challenge them to produce 
 texts showing that Christ said it was mot a Sacrament. 
 Had He said so, we should have been bewildered, and 
 should be sorrowfully asking, ‘‘ Are there then limits 
 to the Love of the Bridegroom for His Bride ? ” 
 
 It was on this ground that St. Paul 
 based his beautiful doctrine,—not lower- 
 ing the status of woman, but lifting it 
 to the plane where service is perfect freedom. Catholic 
 womanhood has never uttered any complaint against 
 St. Paul. The whole passage (Eph. v.) should be read 
 in its entirety, and it will be seen that the sacrament- 
 ality of Marriage is not so much proclaimed as pre- 
 supposed, and that the Mystery is even more exacting 
 on the man than on the woman. “ Be ye filled with 
 the Holy Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and 
 hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making 
 melody in your hearts to the Lord ; giving thanks 
 always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, to God and the Father ; being subject one to 
 another in the fear of Christ. Let women be subject 
 to their husbands, as to the Lord : because the husband 
 
 St. Paul’s 
 Teaching. 
 
152 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the 
 Church. He is the saviour of his body. Therefore 
 as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives 
 be to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love 
 your wives (love imposes more obligations than 
 obedience does), as Christ also loved the Church, and 
 delivered Himself up for it: that He might sanctify it, 
 cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: 
 that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, 
 not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing ; but that 
 it should be holy and without blemish. So also ought 
 men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that 
 loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hated 
 his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also 
 Christ doth the Church : because we are members of 
 His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. ‘‘For this 
 cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall 
 cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. 
 This is a great sacrament (or mystery) ; but I speak 
 in Christ and in the Church.” 
 
 Elsewhere St. Paul applies both to 
 marriage and to adultery the acid test, 
 “for you are not your own.” In other 
 words, in the Divine Organism there are no isolated 
 individuals. That has to be remembered even in the 
 natural order. One of Shakespeare’s most striking 
 tragedies is that of Coriolanus, who acted “‘ as if a man 
 were author of himself and knew no other kin.” The 
 only really isolated individuals are those who have 
 made the supreme tragedy and are now in hell, where 
 all ties are corrupted. ‘‘ It is of the essence of charity,”’ 
 
 Graphically 
 Illustrated. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF GROWTH 153 
 
 says St. Augustine, “that a man be bound by many 
 ties.” Let us help our thought by a scientific analogy, 
 remembering that God’s natural word is always a 
 symbol and a prophecy of His revelation. In chem- 
 istry, they tell us, atoms normally never stand alone, 
 but combine to form molecules: and a substance is 
 determined by its molecules, not by its atoms. Two 
 substances might have exactly the same number and 
 kind of atoms and yet be entirely different : but two 
 substances that have the same number and kind of 
 molecules must be the same. In the Church of God 
 the substantiating molecule is not the individual, but 
 the family. Let us illustrate graphically. If A 
 represent the Divine Bridegroom, and B the Divine 
 Bride, and a@ b individual human units (a for men, 
 b for women), then each Christian is not a or b simply, 
 but (A a B) or (A 6 B). Noman ought to dare to 
 approach a woman except in the memory that he 
 represents the Bridegroom, and she the Bride. Thus 
 a Christian marriage is not simply (a b), but [A (a 0) B). 
 If any man says that this graph makes him feel small, 
 it will do him good and nourish his humility, but he 
 may be assured that in the graph his importance is 
 enormously exaggerated. Every Christian, then, is 
 part of the Incarnational Marriage, and cannot enter 
 into a human marriage without that also becoming 
 Incarnational, i.e. sacramental. This enables us to 
 understand the overwhelming importance of this 7th 
 Sacrament, and why the Church will not under any 
 circumstances allow it to be dissoluble in this world 
 or in any way to pass out of her control. It is a 
 matter of life and death for the Organism. 
 
154 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 The same train of thought shows 
 (r) why the Church puts the virginal 
 life above the humanly married, and 
 at the same time (2) why the religious life is not an 
 8th Sacrament. The life of a Christian child is neces- 
 sarily one of sexual purity, of unquestioning obedience 
 and of entire detachment from the world. It is a 
 sweet picture in human colours and proportions of the 
 angelic life. When an adult man or woman chooses to 
 prolong spiritual childhood (‘‘ Unless you become as 
 little children, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, ”’), and prefers during this earthly sojourn to 
 anticipate the angelic life of eternity, he or she is 
 obviously trying to do a higher thing than human 
 marriage. Yet the Church has never considered it a 
 Sacrament, because it institutes no new grade of being. 
 It simply emphasizes the marriage tie that has existed 
 from Baptism. The graph of the virginal life is 
 [A (aB)] or [(Ab) B]. Solemn religious profession, 
 therefore, though no Sacrament, is a true marriage 
 and the highest of all sacramentals. Theologians 
 teach that it has the same perfect effect as Baptism. 
 The Church never thinks of her monks and nuns as 
 bachelors and spinsters. Every nun as a rule wears 
 a wedding ring. In Ireland she used to be called Mrs., 
 and in France always Madame. 
 
 The Consecrated 
 Single Life. 
 
 The highest marriage that has 
 ever been celebrated unites the 
 Sacrament with the sacramental, 
 the wedded status with angelic detachment, all the 
 human in it being absorbed into the Divine. And it 
 
 The Marriage of the 
 Blessed Virgin. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS OF GROWTH 155 
 
 was by far the most fruitful marriage the world has 
 ever seen, for from it proceeded, by a way purely 
 Divine, the Redeemer of mankind and the regeneration 
 of all humanity. Its graph would be [{A (b}{a) B}}. 
 It will be noticed that in this one case the woman 
 takes the higher place. Nevertheless Mary was 
 obedient to Joseph. 
 
XXIV 
 SOME DISCUSSIONS 
 
 I do not know if it is essential to a 
 Sacrament that it should have an 
 appointed minister. St. Thomas does 
 not seem to have discussed the question with regard to 
 Matrimony, and it is not characteristic of him to leave 
 out essentials. Baptism, we know, may in an emer- 
 gency be administered by anybody. The other five, 
 not only normally but necessarily, are in the hands of 
 the ‘‘ dispensers of the mysteries.’”’ But who ad- 
 ministers Matrimony ? It is certainly not the priest, 
 who is no more than the official witness of the Church, 
 authorized by her to give her subsacramental blessing. 
 Some people are surprised, or even mildly shocked, 
 when they hear for the first time the commonly given 
 answer that the bride and bridegroom are themselves 
 the ministers. This answer is to be taken in the sense 
 that by their united action the contracting parties 
 bind themselves to each other, thus establishing a bond 
 or union to which the Lord has attached the power to 
 symbolize and represent the eternal marriage of the 
 156 
 
 The Minister 
 of Matrimony. 
 
SOME DISCUSSIONS 157 
 
 Divine Bridegroom with His Bride. This symbolic 
 force of the bond entails sacramental grace, which is — 
 conveyed, as in all sacraments, through the channel 
 of the symbol itself, while it necessarily flows from 
 Him who is the principal Bridegroom, hallowing and 
 sanctioning in the Church each individual wedding. 
 The Church in harmony with Him adds her sub- 
 sacramental blessing. 
 
 Marriage being a contract as well 
 as a sacrament, points of Canon 
 Law are involved which sometimes 
 make difficult reading for later times. It is not the 
 purpose of this book to enter into such questions ; but 
 one of them contains an illuminating principle. It is 
 an example of how the Church gains victories for 
 liberty without resorting to revolutionary measures. 
 The Law of the Roman Empire subjected a girl to the 
 power of her father until she passed into the power of 
 her husband. This meant that a woman had no 
 effective say in her own destiny. The Church secured 
 that liberty for woman by the very simple device of 
 ‘suspended consent.’ After the marriage ceremony, 
 when the father’s power ceased, the bride was granted 
 a month of reflection, if she so desired, before the 
 husband’s power began. If during that interval she 
 refused consummation of the marriage and decided for 
 the virginal life, the nuptial ceremony was considered 
 not to have received ratification, and neither father nor 
 would-be husband had the right to object. This 
 explains a good deal in medieval history. It tells, for 
 example, how St. Ethelreda could be Queen of North- 
 
 Consent with 
 ‘Suspended Effect. 
 
158 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 umbria by marriage and yet upheld by ecclesiastical 
 authority in running away from her ‘“‘ husband ” and 
 founding a religious community. 
 
 From the very beginning the 
 Church’s preference for the 
 virginal life has been unmistak- 
 able. Mary herself was for refusing the Divine 
 Motherhood on any other terms. But the Prince of 
 this World has strong objections to it, and his allies 
 wage ceaseless war against it. As long as this war 
 takes the form of abuse, it is not for our dignity here 
 and now to take note of it. Dogs will bark down in 
 the valley. But sometimes it takes the form of gentle 
 remonstrance clad in the sheepskin of sympathy. The 
 life, they hint, is an unnatural one, dangerously so. 
 Convents at best must be homes of refuge for blighted 
 hearts. No good can come from thwarting essential 
 instincts. Considering how many among themselves 
 are driven to the single life by social conditions, and 
 how many others choose it for intellectual or phil- 
 anthropic reasons, they should reflect that they are 
 using very carelessly a two-edged razor blade. Those 
 who talk of “ blighted hearts ’’ are people who have 
 never seen a noviciate. But all of them miss the great 
 truth that in every organism energies inhibited in one 
 direction may be utilised in another. 
 
 Rationale of 
 Single Blessedness. 
 
 If a plant is hindered in excessive 
 formation of wood or leaves, it expresses 
 itself in more flower and fruit. The 
 analogy is used by our Lord: “‘ Every branch in\Me 
 
 The Principle 
 of Pruning. 
 
SOME DISCUSSIONS 159 
 
 that beareth fruit, My Father will purge it that it may 
 bring forth more fruit.” The whole complexus of 
 human, activities which in the widest sense go to make 
 up the home, may be diverted. These energies may 
 be directed to lower ends, and then they brutalize a 
 man, or they may be lifted to higher purposes, and then 
 they spiritualize a man. Even in the natural order 
 there is a partial inverse proportion between intellectual 
 pursuits and progenitive power which ought to serve 
 as a hint towards the exclusive demands which the 
 supernatural life was to make. With a little know- 
 ledge of the life of the plant, the analogy may be more 
 clearly read in the culture of the Vine, our Lord’s 
 chosen type. All the sap ascends through the wood 
 vessels ; it is elaborated by the leaves, and then sent 
 down for the good of the whole plant by tiny tubes just 
 under the bark. Vine-dressers have an instrument 
 something like scissors which can just crush the green 
 bark and the tubes under it without injuring the wood. 
 They call this process ring-barking. Here and there 
 they see a very promising bunch of young grapes: 
 shortly below this bunch they ring-bark the shoot. 
 The result is that the sap comes up freely; the leaves 
 elaborate it, but the elaborated sap cannot be distributed 
 over the plant and is compelled to put all its work into 
 the growing bunch of fruit. Inthe True Vine, a relig- 
 ious community is a twig ring-barked for the produc- 
 tion of more fruit. 
 
 Still filled with that superfluous and 
 quite unwanted sympathy, our critics 
 ask if there is not danger in thwarting 
 
 Is there 
 no Danger ? 
 
160 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 natural instincts. Is there no danger! What a 
 question to ask in the thick of the fight between Grace 
 and Sin! Ofcourse there is danger. There is danger 
 in every kind of work man undertakes, and if a man 
 will not work there is the danger of diseases incident 
 to sloth. There is always, for example, danger in a 
 dam. If a river overflows its banks without control, 
 it only makes swamps and stagnant pools : but if it is 
 dammed higher up, it usefully irrigates the whole 
 country. Dams may leak, and sometimes burst. 
 Nevertheless, men go on building dams. Every priest 
 and religious is a little dam, and a Religious Order is a 
 big one. The Church knows the risks and takes them. 
 Let our super-sympathetic critic go amongst the 
 ordinary laity, whose sons and daughters are in 
 question, and ask them if they want married priests 
 and married teachers. This is one of the cases where 
 the sensus communis fidelium is a supreme test. 
 
 As in so many other cases, when a 
 mystery has to be told and a demand 
 has to be made on our faith, our Blessed 
 Lord takes the onus on Himself and speaks it out 
 boldly in its extremest form. It is then that He says 
 those uncomfortable things which Protestants wish He 
 hadn’t said. It is only Catholics who follow Him 
 whithersoever He goeth. What does He say on this 
 point ? “All men take not this word, but they to 
 whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who were 
 born so from their mother’s womb; and there are 
 eunuchs who were made so by men; and there are 
 eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the 
 
 The Final 
 Criterion. 
 
SOME DISCUSSIONS 161 
 
 kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take 
 it.”’ The Catholic Church has taken it. 
 
 Nothing in this world escapes criti- 
 cism. There is of course much that 
 deserves it, but nothing is so perfect 
 as to escape it. Indeed, in a world which is so widely 
 in subjection to its Prince the Adversary, it may 
 almost be said that criticism increases in proportion 
 to perfection. If God sent an Archangel to rule any 
 country in Europe to-day, he would be the most 
 unpopular king in the world. God did send His Son 
 to rule His people Israel, and He was criticised more 
 than any other man has been. Some criticism is the 
 involuntary tribute of Evil to Good. The world 
 remains pretty much the same sort of thing through 
 the ages, and if the Church of God is (as we have seen) 
 the extension of the Incarnation through time and 
 space, it is a consolation to her that she has just the 
 same sort of criticism as her Head,—all the Pharisees 
 and Puritans, all the Modernists and Sadducees, all 
 the politicians and Herodians, all the demons and the 
 sons of Belial: their unanimity is remarkable, and 
 there is nothing else than the Catholic Church against 
 which they combine. Such opposition to truth is to 
 be expected in this world, and there is no use in arguing 
 with it. As Hobbes of Malmesbury said, if ever it 
 should be to the interest of any powerful body of men 
 that the three angles of a plane rectilineal triangle 
 should not be equal to two right angles, there would 
 
 at once arise a philosophical school which should deny 
 M 
 
 Criticism 
 from Enemies. 
 
162 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 that famous theorem. Criticism that springs from 
 animosity is not amenable to argument. 
 
 A great proportion of the objections 
 levelled against the Church’s ways 
 arise merely from unfamiliarity. 
 Obviously the Church must have some ways, and these 
 ways must be more or less strange to outsiders. There 
 are English ‘and American travellers who find fault 
 with almost everything the French people do. I once 
 knew an Englishman in Rome who was constantly 
 saying, ‘‘ Well, I must say they ave a rum people.” 
 Such persons would object to the table manners of 
 our Blessed Lord because they were Oriental. Such 
 critics have not yet got beyond the social and in- 
 tellectual level of the man pilloried in Punch, who 
 said, “‘ I say, Bill, here’s a stranger: let’s ’eave ‘alfa 
 brick at him.” If we want peace, we merely dodge 
 the half-bricks and get out of range as speedily as 
 possible. I do not deny that sometimes, in defence 
 of the Church, I have countered half-bricks with 
 chunks of granite; but just now I am in a peaceful 
 mood. We will waste no time over that lot. 
 
 Criticism 
 from Strangers. 
 
 Sometimes good folk who have 
 formed their notion of God’s 
 Church from what they fancy to 
 be the true interpretation of the New Testament, are 
 puzzled at new manifestations which they find in 
 history or in contemporary life. They see nothing in 
 the Bible like St. Simeon Stylites or St. Benedict Labre. 
 A man who knows the oak only as a sapling might 
 
 Criticism 
 from Enquirers. 
 
SOME DISCUSSIONS 163 
 
 thus object to the full-grown tree. ‘‘ The oak I know, ” 
 he might say, ‘‘ has delicate green bark, not this mass 
 of rugged boles.’’ To this the only reply is that the 
 true test of an oak is the production of acorns. If 
 the acorn gives us a sapling again whenever you want 
 one, it is the right tree. If a man is a true enquirer, 
 that is the point to which he will address himself. 
 
 But, such a man might say, does 
 not this use of externals, the whole 
 ‘round of sacramentals, make the Christian life less 
 spiritual ? I reply, does the eating of a mutton chop 
 make you less intellectual? I know there is nothing 
 intellectual in a chop; but unless I eat it, or its 
 equivalent, my lofty intellectual life cannot get on. 
 Not even our most subtle thoughts are without their 
 physiological concomitants. N thil est in tntellectu 
 quod non prius fuerit in sensu. The principle of 
 association and suggestion avails throughout the 
 intellectual life. As Kant said (in an unusual burst of 
 poetry), the dove cleaving the air and feeling the 
 resistance might imagine its progress would be more 
 unimpeded ina vacuum ; but if you put itina vacuum, 
 it simply falls to the ground. The Church frankly 
 acknowledges the influence of the body on the soul 
 as well as of the soul on the body. Put yourself ina 
 bodily attitude of reverence, and it is easier to pray. 
 Put something before the eye, and its corresponding 
 thought arises in the mind. It cannot be too often 
 repeated that man’s highest life is not merely spiritual, 
 but Incarnational. 
 
 Less Spiritual ? 
 
164 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Such puzzled people often murmur 
 something about superstition. Let us 
 face this bogey or ghost guite frankly, and lay it at 
 once. If a poor woman, hoping to be cured, kisses 
 with worship a mere material thing, like the hem of 
 Christ’s garment, is that superstition? No, we 
 indignantly deny ; it is a high act of faith. Ifa silly 
 girl picks up a horse-shoe and flings it over her shoulder 
 for luck, is that superstition ? We should reply, it is 
 probably a harmless joke ; but if she really thinks that 
 that bit of rusty iron can by its own inherent power 
 supply for Divine Providence, then of course it is a 
 degraded superstition. But I doubt if there is really 
 a girl so silly in the world. Take the human case of a 
 lover who treasures a kid glove: suppose a scientist 
 were to prove to him that a dead, tanned, manufactured 
 bit of goat’s skin was not an object worthy of such high 
 idealism, the lover would reply, ‘‘ You dunderheaded 
 idiot, do you suppose it is for the sake of the leather 
 that I cherish it?’”’ Superstition in religion means 
 attributing to material objects an inherent power of 
 conferring spiritual grace. But any material thing 
 may by association (like the hem of a garment), or by 
 divine institution (like the water of baptism), or by 
 suggestion (like a medal or picture), have conferred 
 upon it a spiritual significance infinitely above itself. 
 The whole visible universe is but the hem of the 
 garment of the Divine Bride as she goes forth to meet 
 her Bridegroom. Nor do you ever find a Catholic 
 man, woman or child who falls below this idealism. 
 I have had a good deal to do with children, and with 
 the simplest and most untrained minds in God’s 
 
 Superstition P 
 
SOME DISCUSSIONS 165 
 
 Church, and have never yet come across that particular 
 form of idiocy which attributes the grace of God to the 
 material things which subserve the uses of devotion. 
 
 The crude accusation of image-worship 
 is, I believe, no longer in vogue ; though 
 sometimes it is hinted that, while educated Catholics 
 know better, the peasantry are unable to distinguish 
 between the representation and the reality. As a 
 matter of fact, the peasantry often know their religion 
 better than many educated folk. Nobody now, even 
 in the natural order, attributes the electric force to 
 the wire or the switch. People who utter these 
 stupidities against us are themselves guilty of contra- 
 dicting the Word of God. One of theclearest prophecies 
 was ‘‘ The idols he shall utterly abolish.”” Wherever 
 Christianity comes, image-worship disappears, for the 
 simple reason that idols are at once by their worshippers 
 explained away into symbols. The author of the Book 
 of Job felt the temptation to worship the moon: it 
 is a phase that has passed out of existence. Even 
 when the Israelites were tempted to join the idolatry 
 of their neighbours they were never in danger of 
 worshipping their own Seraphim on the Mercy-seat : 
 they were prevented by the reality of the Shechinah 
 or Divine manifestation. We now have the true 
 Shechinah all over the world, and that has fulfilled 
 the prophecy. The ultra-Protestants, however, attri- 
 bute idolatry to the very Shechinah or Eucharist itself. 
 That is because they deny God’s Mystery. Even if 
 they were right, it would not be idolatry. When 
 people outside the Church worship what they take to 
 
 Idolatry ? 
 
166 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 be the Eucharist, though the consecration may not 
 have been valid, we do not accuse them of idolatry. 
 If during our Lord’s life on earth a man who knew 
 Him to be God thought he heard His voice in the dark 
 and knelt to adore, though it turned out to be some- 
 body else, there would be no idolatry : the adoration 
 would go to Him for whom it was intended, the mistake 
 would rest with the individual. But there is no 
 mistake about the Real Presence in the Church of God. 
 The idols He has utterly abolished. 
 
XXV 
 THE RETROGRADE MOVEMENT 
 
 The Diffi We have studied the elaborate 
 e Difficulty of , 
 Rae entia “in process by which for thousands of 
 Faith. years the mind of man _ was 
 brought to a state of preparedness 
 for the reception of Divine Mystery. The great 
 triumph of Grace and Truth culminated on the Day of 
 Pentecost. From that day the task of the Church of 
 God has been to draw all nations and individuals up 
 to that level and to keep them there. For the mind 
 of man is never stationary : as soon as it ceases from 
 the Upward Striving, it begins to join the Downward 
 Drift. This is as true intellectually as morally. 
 Humanity is restive under the touch of the Infinite. 
 The causes which make it hard for a man to receive 
 the Word of God are still operating to make it hard 
 for him to retain it. The man who said “I was not 
 disobedient to the Heavenly Vision’’ put the seal on 
 his work when towards the end he said, ‘‘ I have kept 
 the Faith,” and he continually mortified himself “ lest 
 after having preached to others I myself should be a 
 167 
 
168 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 castaway.” Both receiving and retaining depend on 
 faithfulness to the interior grace given by God. Of 
 those who did not receive, our Lord said, ‘‘ Therefore 
 you hear them not because you are not of God” ; and 
 of those who failed to retain, St. John said, ‘‘ They went 
 out from us because they were not of us.”’ 
 
 We need not enquire further into 
 the initial refusal to believe, but 
 history gives us a very interesting 
 general rule for the intellectual 
 process whereby faith is wholly or partiallylost. I say 
 “ intellectual,’’ because there are always moral causes 
 which are sometimes obvious, but more often secret, 
 which we have to leave to the great Judge. One 
 truth, however, is attested by universal experience,— 
 no one ever gave up any portion of the Catholic Faith 
 in order to reach a higher moral level. Intellectually, 
 then, humanity has this at least to say for itself. 
 Those who have once heard and held the Word of God, 
 do not depart from it by way of direct contradiction. 
 When the Good Shepherd has led His flock to the 
 Pentecostal heights, those who do go astray go gradu- 
 ally. Some few may fling themselves over the cliffs, 
 but most of them depart by the way they came up. 
 The upward path is that which rises from the shadows 
 of Metaphor to the realities of Mystery : the downward 
 path is that which returns through the shadows to 
 nothingness. Is is the characteristic of heresy that 
 it turns Mystery to Metaphor. 
 
 Heresy goes down 
 by the way it 
 came up. 
 
THE RETROGRADE MOVEMENT 169 
 
 An Histori In the first century, Cerinthus 
 n Historic Ge Te he. 
 Bird’s-Eye View. distinguished between Jesus and 
 Christ (the Anointed). The hu- 
 man Jesus became the Divine Christ, he taught, when 
 the Dove descended upon Him in Baptism. The 
 Mystery of the Incarnation was divided and partly 
 brought within the scope of human reason. The 
 Humanity was acknowledged as real: the Divinity 
 was relegated to the external and phenomenal. In St. 
 John’s forceful phrase, they dissolved Jesus. 
 
 In the second century, it was the Human Life that 
 began to fade away into mirage. The Docetae said 
 the Divinity was real, but the Humanity was only 
 phenomenal. Thus they said our Lord’s whole life 
 and death was a prolonged Theophany, or divine 
 appearance. That is why they abstained from the 
 Eucharist, because in the mind of the faithful the 
 Eucharist was the highest reality. 
 
 In the third century, the difficulty shifted from the 
 Incarnation to the Trinity. When a Mystery is far 
 enough removed, its pressure is not so keenly felt. 
 Noétus held that the Word and the Spirit are only 
 phases of the Divine, or external modes of apprehending 
 the One Divine Person. Phases and metaphor come 
 to much the same thing. 
 
 In the fourth century, we have the subtle Greek 
 intellect trying to bring the simple but superhuman 
 doctrine of the Trinity under the intricate but finite 
 laws of logic. Arianism introduced the famous iota 
 into the word homo-ousios (of the same substance) and 
 made it homoi-ousios (of similar substance). The very 
 word shows that a Mystery has been reduced to a 
 
170 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Metaphor. That iota made the whole difference 
 between naught and infinity. But it must be re- 
 membered that the Body of the Word Incarnate was 
 once, physically speaking, a single microscopic cell. 
 That single cell outweighed the whole universe. We 
 do not value supernatural values by physical sizes. 
 I do not know anything that stamps the stigma of 
 stupidity more firmly upon Rationalism and Prot- 
 estantism than this constantly repeated sneer of 
 ‘Christendom fighting for an iota.”’ 
 
 In the fifth century, difficulties began to be Roman 
 rather than Greek. Philosophy for the Greeks : social 
 problems for the Romans. Pelagius turned to the 
 concrete expression of the personality in the will, 
 instead of the abstract essence of the hypostasis. The 
 brooding mystery of grace over all our actions he 
 reduced to a mere externality. For him, grace made 
 no veal difference. 
 
 I need not go on in detail. The process shifted 
 from mystery to mystery, as from century to century. 
 In the ninth, the Eucharist was for the first time 
 explained away into a mere memorial rite. A little 
 later on, we have the Mystical Body explained away 
 into an invisible Church. And from that time on, 
 sects multiplied until their name was Legion. 
 
 In our own times, such Sacraments as 
 have been verbally retained are reduced 
 to mere figurative rites. The Trinity 
 and the Incarnation are nominally held by Protestants 
 because they can be conveniently kept at arm’s length, 
 but the true Mystery spirit has been abandoned. 
 
 Down to 
 the Depths. 
 
THE RETROGRADE MOVEMENT iy BY 
 
 Finally, we have Modernism, which puts religious 
 Truth in a different category from logical Truth, and 
 professes to be able to assent to all the Four Mysteries 
 without asserting the reality of any of them. When 
 they reach that stage, they are no longer on the mount : 
 they have gone down to the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death. They wanted a Shadow: they have gct it. 
 
XXVI 
 THE FOUR MYSTERIES TOGETHER 
 
 In treating of the Four Mysteries one 
 by one, we found it difficult to keep 
 them separate. And indeed they are 
 inseparable. They are the One Thought of God which 
 explains the whole of Creation with all its relations to 
 the Creator. They are the Christian Idea, which is 
 the single subject portrayed for the intellect by all 
 Catholic Theology and Philosophy, for the imagination 
 by all Catholic Art, for the will by all the Church’s 
 ascetical experience, for the heart by the mystical 
 teaching of all her Saints. These things are almost 
 peculiar to her because she alone has the One Idea. 
 Heresies and schisms live (in so far as they live at all) 
 on what they have partially retained, or remembered, 
 or imitated from her: they have originated nothing : 
 they have only tried to break up the Idea. 
 
 The Unity of 
 the Four. 
 
 At first sight, it might be thought 
 
 that the revelation of the Trinity 
 
 of Persons in the One Godhead 
 
 is something entirely apart: that 
 172 
 
 The Gulf between 
 Finite and 
 Infinity. 
 
THE FOUR MYSTERIES TOGETHER 173 
 
 all the action of God on Creation is ad extra, and the 
 internal relations of the Divine Personalities seem to 
 be utterly beyond the range of the finite. So at least 
 it seemed to Kant, the greatest of all Protestant 
 thinkers, when he said, ‘‘ What does it matter to me 
 whether there are three Persons in the Godhead or 
 twenty?” It is true that even a philosopher might 
 have reflected on some forth-shadowing of a Triune 
 God in the Goodness, Truth and Beauty of the material 
 universe. It is true that he might have gone further 
 and agreed with Catholic philosophers in seeing an 
 image of the Trinity in the memory, the understanding 
 and the will of humanity. But these, after all, are 
 only shadows and images. We can recognise them 
 only after the Trinity has been revealed. We cannot 
 argue from human nature to the Inner Being of the 
 Godhead. 
 
 But what if God has drawn part of 
 the Creation into Himself? And 
 what if we are the part of Creation 
 so drawn? Is His action upon us then merely ad 
 extra? Already we appropriate Providence to the 
 Father, and the breathing of life to the Holy Ghost, 
 though both are the work of the Trinity as one: but 
 we do more than appropriate Redemption to God the 
 Son. We attribute it to Him, and cannot say that 
 either the Father or the Holy Ghost is our Redeemer 
 This is because Redemption is a Human-Divine work, 
 and God the Sonalone became Man. Now Redemption 
 means that we are incorporated into the Word Incar- 
 nate, and therefore into special real relations with the 
 
 This Gulf has 
 been Bridged. 
 
174 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Father on one side and with the Holy Ghost on the 
 other. The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, therefore, 
 is not a far-away glimpse of the glory of God revealed, 
 notionally only, to our faith. It enters into our super- 
 natural experience. It is for us, not merely theoretic- 
 ally, but practically and really, the basis of our whole 
 economy of Grace. As Scheeben says, ‘‘ There is 
 nevertheless a Divine activity ad extra, by which the 
 Trinity of Persons is to us of real and substantial 
 significance, when, that is, the Divine Persons, through 
 the medium of their common action, extend and 
 continue, or imitate and reproduce ad extra their own 
 exterior correlations, and thereby originate an order 
 of things (the New Creation) which becomes known to 
 us as a real manifestation of the inner Heart of that 
 Mystery, and which only in and through that Mystery 
 can be by us radically and thoroughly grasped and 
 understood.’ By being identified with the Incarnate 
 Word (the Second Mystery) especially in the Sacrament 
 of His Love (the Fourth Mystery), we receive a real 
 and not merely metaphorical Sonship (the Third 
 Mystery), and thus by God’s own ineffable secret we 
 enter into the recesses of that Life wherein the Spirit 
 proceeds from the Father and the Son (the First 
 Mystery). We do not receive only the graces of the 
 Spirit : we receive the Spirit Himself. Thus we learn 
 to dare to say with St. Peter that we are partakers 
 of the Divine Nature. 
 
 Here we may be accused of a sort of 
 
 P 
 res subtle Pantheism. If so, the Apostles 
 
THE FOUR MYSTERIES TOGETHER 175 
 
 are in the dock along with us, and we are not afraid. 
 Pantheism is the pride of the creature making more 
 than the most of itself and claiming consubstantiality 
 with God byitsown nature. Inthe Christian Mystery, 
 the creature reduces itself to nothing, empties itself of 
 all fancied reality, and allows the superabundant 
 Reality of the Infinite to pour itself into the abyss 
 which Humility has thus formed. ‘ No longer I, but 
 Christ that liveth in me.’”’ And, as usual, the boldest 
 statement of the Mystery comes from the lips of our 
 Lord Himself, almost taking away our breath by the 
 ultimate significance of His words: ‘If he called 
 them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and 
 scripture cannot be broken; do you say of him whom 
 the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, 
 Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of 
 God ?”’ 
 
 Now this complete Thought of God, 
 this organically unified Christian Idea, 
 is the sum total of the Revelation 
 given for the saving of the world. Nothing will be 
 added to its Pentecostal perfection : it is the Eternal 
 Testament. It is this that Christ sent His Apostles 
 to teach all nations. Therefore the Justice as well as 
 the Mercy of God entitles us to say with confidence 
 that it has been made sufficiently credible to all nations 
 and to allindividuals. Wherever God’s word is spoken, 
 it always carries with it an aura of Grace appealing to 
 the hearts of the hearers. Those who are of God will 
 hear the words of God. There are indeed always cases 
 
 The Demand 
 of Faith. 
 
176 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 where the revelation has not penetrated, where eyes 
 have been blinded by prejudice, where souls have lost 
 their way in the mists of this world. Here it is not 
 for us to judge. There is the Covenant, sufficiently 
 visible, and partial or apparent exceptions must be 
 left to what are rightly called the uncovenanted mercies 
 of God. It has always been God’s way. In the Old 
 Testament, the dispensation of Hope, it was expected 
 of the chosen people that they should believe in the 
 Theocracy. There was much apparently against it. 
 In spite of appearances, in spite of the weaknesses of 
 men like Heli or the wickedness of his sons, in spite of 
 apostasy which seemed to Elias to be universal, God 
 demanded that they should be faithful to the Hope 
 of Israel. When the Messias came, fulfilling all the 
 prophecies, it was demanded of them that they should 
 receive Him. Though the Pharisees accused Him of 
 breaking the law, though they criticized Him for not 
 living the ascetic life of John the Baptist, though He 
 seemed to prefer the company of publicans and sinners 
 to that of the unco’ guid, it was their duty to find in 
 Him the words of eternal Truth. Faith has always 
 had its trials. The new Theocracy of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven had to be recognised in spite of humiliations 
 and persecutions, in spite of scandals, in spite of 
 unfaithful ministers and dispensers of the Mysteries. 
 Faith always means Upward Striving. It is to those 
 who overcome that the crown is given. The Mystery 
 of the Eucharist has its obscurities ; and sometimes its 
 apparent irresponsiveness clogs our efforts. But the 
 truth is always there, and there is always the oppor- 
 tunity and the necessity of opening our eyes and seeing 
 
THE FOUR MYSTERIES TOGETHER 177 
 
 the armies and the chariots of God on the surrounding 
 hills. 
 
 A teeming source of error is the 
 failure to distinguish between the 
 Divine Church and the human society which it is trying 
 to raise to the ideal,—between the Kingdom of God 
 and the Kingdoms of this world. Even in the most 
 Catholic times and places the Church has always been 
 more or less at strife with the World and with human 
 authorities. At the present time there are no Catholic 
 nations ; all that can be said is that in some nations 
 the Church is more acknowledged as a spiritual guide 
 than, in others. Even when there was close alliance, 
 a sort of marriage, between Church and State, it would 
 be utterly misleading to judge the Church by the State. 
 It would be like judging a pure and saintly wife by the 
 sins of a wicked husband. We do not measure the 
 Mission of Jesus Christ by the proceedings of Judas 
 Iscariot. 
 
 The Point of View. 
 
 Let me take an analogy from one of 
 Albrecht Diirer’s pictures. In the 
 Adoration of the Magi, in the left 
 corner of the painting there is a pure white lily growing 
 from the ruins of earth: at the foot of the lily there is 
 a beetle of the kind that cannot fly, ignoring the lily 
 and turning its back upon the Mystery : but on the lily 
 there has alighted a butterfly, a creature of light and 
 air, turned towards the Virgin and Child. So the 
 Church of God is like a lily growing on a dung-heap. 
 Some of its lower leaves, lying on the rubbish below, 
 are soiled with the filth around. Crawling ants and 
 N 
 
 The Lily and 
 the Mud. 
 
178 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 beetles can hardly distinguish them from the dirt on 
 which they rest. But the real lily is seen from its 
 flower and fruit, and creatures that fly easily distinguish 
 the life and beauty from the ordure out of which it has 
 sprung. Souls that rise find God’s Ideal very visible ; 
 souls that crawl get their eyes blinded and their feet 
 clogged. 
 
 aku’ God’ said: Shakespeare has a pretty con- 
 it there Beriaene ceit about the fairies. He makes 
 
 them dwell in the twilight 
 fringes of the garments of Night, and as the shadow 
 passes round the earth the fairies pursue, ‘ following 
 darkness like a dream.’’ The spiritual reality gives 
 us a far lovelier conception. As the earth spins round 
 to meet the light, the lux matutina so beloved of 
 ecclesiastical poetry, emblem of our Eternal Day, the 
 sun sings her his morning serenade (or aubade), ‘‘ With 
 everything that pretty bin, my Lady sweet, arise.” 
 And the Bride of Christ in her millions of members 
 (the Third Mystery) puts on her garments of Grace, 
 and, by the hands of her own High Priest and Bride- 
 groom (the Second Mystery), she offers up the pure 
 universal and perpetual Sacrifice (the Fourth Mystery), 
 to the glory and adoration of the Triune Infinitude 
 (the First Mystery). And so day by day as the years 
 roll on, the ceaseless procession of the Four Mysteries 
 sweeps visibly round the globe, gathering in the first 
 fruits for God, leaving the poor blundering world 
 gaping and stumbling behind. There is nothing else 
 like it on earth. The light shineth in the darkness, 
 even 1f the darkness comprehend it not. This is the 
 
THE FOUR MYSTERIES TOGETHER 179 
 
 light that enlighteneth every man coming into this 
 world. It is the visible and audible Word of God, 
 fourfold, harmonious and undivided. He that hath 
 ears to hear, let him hear. 
 
XXVIT 
 
 THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. J@HN AS TRE 
 PROPHECY-POEM OF THE FOUR MYSTERIES 
 
 All that has hitherto been said of 
 the Four Mysteries from the theo- 
 logical and practical point of view 
 is given to us again in Prophecy and Poetry by St. 
 John. Ido not stop to discuss questions of authorship. 
 The dreary inanities of ‘“‘ Higher Criticism ’’ are to my 
 mind sufficiently answered even from literary scientific 
 considerations. Over and above that, the ‘‘ memory ” 
 of the Bride of Christ, on so vital a point, could hardly 
 be at fault. But there is a third consideration which 
 seems to me quite conclusive. That is the artistic. 
 There has never lived any other man than St. John 
 who could have written the Apocalypse. That being 
 my three-fold firm conviction, I see no need to cum- 
 ber my pages with futile discussions. As for the 
 meaning of the book, I am content with the Church’s 
 use of it as the type and form of worship on earth as 
 in heaven. Many, it seems to me, have missed the 
 meaning through not understanding that it is a Poem 
 180 
 
 Authorship and 
 Interpretation. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 181 
 
 as well as a Prophecy, and that therefore it is subject 
 to the laws of Poetry as well as those of Prophecy.* 
 
 With regard to the contents of the 
 Apocalypse, there have, of course, 
 always been prolonged discussions on 
 Antichrist, on the Millennium, on the number of the 
 Beast, questions of quite minor importance compared 
 to the great purpose of the book. What were the 
 forecasts of the prophets of old with reference to Egypt 
 or Assyria, compared with the great picture of the 
 Messianic Hope which they handed down enriched 
 with their own visions from generation to generation ? 
 That, after all, is the chief function of a prophet, not 
 merely to encourage men by foretelling the fulfilment 
 of their hope, but to lift their minds to see and feel 
 the value of that hope, lest perchance they sell their 
 inheritance for a mess of pottage. St. John does for 
 the Dispensation of Faith what David and Isaias had 
 done for the Dispensation of Hope: he puts into our 
 hands a golden rod to measure the values of our Creed. 
 Life can never seem trivial to one who reads the 
 Apocalypse, for in it is revealed the intensity of the 
 spiritual forces at play just beneath the surface. It 
 is as if an electrician made a short circuit to show us 
 the danger of a live wire. 
 
 The Prophetic 
 Function. 
 
 * What follows is substantially taken from an article of mine in 
 the Dublin Review, and is published here by permission. If the 
 detailed argument in this chapter somewhat outweighs the closer 
 style in the rest of the book, my excuse may perhaps be allowed to 
 be that the treatment is somewhat unusual and requires expansion 
 to justify itself. 
 
182 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Scholars have, perhaps, been deterred 
 from recognising the artistic skill of 
 the work by the fact that St. John’s Greek was not of 
 the best. It is true; he was almost as disdainful of 
 grammar as Shakespeare was. But while he was 
 writing in Greek, he was thinking in his mother-tongue. 
 His form is not Classic but Oriental: he depends on 
 parallelism, not on metre; on profusion, not on pro- 
 portion ; and the strength of his poem lies in the 
 vividness of his conceptions, not in the delicacy of his 
 language. Dante surpasses him in the latter, but not 
 in the former. Yet even in his language there some- 
 times flashes forth a phrase which leaves Dante halting 
 far behind. 
 
 Language. 
 
 In speaking of genius, imagination and 
 art, I must not be understood to be 
 minimizing inspiration. The John of Patmos was a 
 very different being from the John of Galilee, but it is 
 not possible to distinguish the elements in his full 
 development. Hewas naturally tender-hearted, ideal- 
 istic, and energetically stern. His instinctive refine- 
 ment led him to acquaintance with the high priest, a 
 strange thing for the fisherman of the north. He early 
 betook himself to St. John the Baptist, and then 
 followed the first gleam of “‘ Behold the Lamb of God.” 
 Like St. Paul he was faithful to his first revelation. 
 The man who heard the voice from heaven say, ‘‘ Saul, 
 Saul, why persecutest thou Me,” became thence- 
 forward the servant of the doctrine of the Mystical 
 Body, and it is the dominant theme in all his Epistles. 
 St. John heard the words of the Baptist, and sealed 
 
 Inspiration. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 183 
 
 all his teaching with the Poem of the Lamb of God. 
 But there was also rougher fibre in him, and in his 
 union of tenderness with sternness he reminds us once 
 more of Dante. He was the beloved disciple who 
 rested his head on the Heart of Jesus, but our Lord 
 also called him a “‘ son of thunder,” and it was he who 
 wanted to call down fire on the enemies of Christ. 
 When we come to the finished product of the work of 
 grace on this natural character, there is no need to 
 distinguish between the human and the divine. As 
 with the prophecies of David and Isaias, we can revere 
 the inspiration while we freely discuss the art. 
 
 It is a characteristic of poets that they 
 take something common or familiar and 
 make it new or even sublime to us by 
 universalizing or glorifying it. Tennyson loses a friend 
 and in the In Memoriam he concentrates the whole 
 world’s sense of bereavement. Francis Thompson 
 meets little Daisy on the Sussex Downs and parts with 
 her after a five minutes’ friendship ; and this leads him 
 to feel 
 
 The Way 
 of Poets. 
 
 The pang of all the partings gone, 
 And partings yet to be; 
 
 and he suddenly universalizes the trivial experience 
 into the world-wide reflection : 
 Nothing begins, and nothing ends, 
 That is not paid with moan ; 
 
 For we are born in others’ pain 
 And perish in our own. 
 
 Dante visits Rome for the Jubilee of 1300, goes on 
 
184 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 what we should now call a ten days’ retreat, entering 
 on Good Friday, passing through the Purgative, Active 
 and Unitive ways, makes his communion on Low 
 Sunday, and the experience is sublimed into the 
 Inferno, the Purgatorio and the Paradiso. So St. John 
 takes something very familiar and commonplace, and 
 it becomes the spring-board for his great leap into 
 Infinity. Exaggeration, it may be said. But a 
 picture cannot be projected on to the plane of universal 
 humanity, or on to the firmament, without enlarge- 
 ment, and enlargement is not necessarily exaggeration, 
 not unless it includes distortion. And if the subject 
 contains elements of infinite worth, the utmost power 
 of human enlargement cannot even approximate to 
 the real truth. 
 
 In his loneliness on the island of 
 Patmos, St. John was once “in 
 the Spirit on the Lord’s Day”: possibly not an 
 ordinary Sunday, but the Lord’s Day from which all 
 other Sundays are called, the Paschal Sunday. Looking 
 across the little strip of sea that separated him from 
 Ephesus, he, like his Master, longed to keep the Pasch 
 with his disciples. He was consoled by the vision that 
 came, while all the time his memory clung to the 
 familiar celebration where he had so often presided. 
 
 Place and Time. 
 
 The “‘scene,”’ then, of the Apocalypse 
 was the place where a small Christian 
 congregation was gathered together for worship. It 
 was in the house of a well-to-do convert built according 
 to the normal plan of Roman mansions. The 
 
 The Scene. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 185 
 
 “ basilica,’’ with its semi-circular apse, was always 
 the most dignified place in the house and was often 
 richly paved with polished marble. An altar with its 
 four-pillared canopy and curtains—probably movable 
 in case of domiciliary visits from the police—was, in 
 Christian houses which lent themselves as churches, 
 placed between the Basilica and the Peristylium. The 
 bishop sat in the centre of the apse and other ministers 
 were on either side of the altar, and the bulk of the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hesbpetaseenuacas | 
 SBaeaecesseeecanaces La” | 
 
 
 
 
 
 gncczasassseresn of 
 TrETITiICti tiie | 
 
 congregation stood in the Peristylium. This arrange- 
 ment was the germ of the Christian Basilica as we see 
 it now; and St. Paul’s, outside the walls of Rome, 
 with its forest of gleaming granite pillars, its marble- 
 decorated walls, its crystalline floors, especially in the 
 apse where every stone in the pavement is precious, 
 its grand old mosaics, the alabaster columns of the 
 altar-canopy, is but an attempt of the sister art of 
 Architecture to say to the eye what the imagery of the 
 Apocalypse says to the ear. This is only one of the 
 
186 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 influences exerted by this Prophecy-Poem on the art 
 of all subsequent generations. Artists seem in this 
 case to have been keener in comprehension than 
 theologians. 
 
 In this familiar setting, where 
 the earthly worship of the 
 Paschal Sacrifice and Banquet is presented, St. John 
 looks into the spiritual realities and makes them 
 glorify their surroundings. Earth becomes Heaven. 
 The simple chair of the bishop is transformed into a 
 throne, and upon the throne sat the One whom the 
 bishop represents. ‘‘ And he that sat upon the throne 
 was to the sight like the jasper and the sardine stone, 
 and there was a rainbow round about the throne in 
 sight like unto an emerald.” It was the symbol of 
 the Triune God. 
 
 The Transformation. 
 
 A happy accident enabled the present 
 writer to visualize this symbol and 
 appreciate its beauty. He had to 
 undergo an operation for cataract, the preliminary to 
 which was the slitting of the iris to facilitate the removal 
 of the lens. When the bandages were taken off, a 
 strange effect ensued. A strong light shining through 
 the slit in the iris and the exposed edge of the lens was 
 marvellously refracted. The mantle of the light 
 looked like a shadowy throne, and the light itself was 
 divided into a brilliant rose-pink above and flashing 
 blue below, sending blue rays downwards—a trans- 
 lucent ruby and sapphire—and around both was a 
 rainbow predominantly green. I never knew till then, 
 
 The Central 
 Vision. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 187 
 
 though I had often wondered, how St. John could say 
 that a rainbow looked like an emerald. It was abun- 
 dantly worth while to have suffered the pain of the 
 operation to be blessed with such a light-experience. 
 I had seen the symbol which St. John’s imagination 
 had created. 
 
 Accessory to the throne, seven lamps 
 represented the sevenfold effluence of 
 - the Spirit of God, and four living creatures, the fourfold 
 revelation of the Word. Suddenly, in the midst of the 
 throne, as if by right, stood the Lamb as it were slain, 
 with seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God. 
 Again the sevenfold effluence. It is a marvellous 
 artistic symbol of the doctrine of the Trinity—the 
 Father, and the Word Incarnate, and the Spirit 
 proceeding from both the Father and the Son. 
 
 The Symbol. 
 
 To go on with the scene, the clergy 
 around the bishop become the twenty- 
 four ancients clothed in white, with crowns of gold. 
 The marble pavement becomes a sea of glass like to 
 crystal. The singers and side-ministers become the 
 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel (Christian 
 Levites being chosen without restriction) ; they sing 
 the new song which no one else can sing, and in the 
 evolutions of the ceremonial follow the Lamb whither- 
 soever he goeth ; and the unseen congregation beyond 
 the altar becomes the great multitude which no man 
 can number of all nations of the world, whose voice 
 was as the sound of many waters. 
 
 The Action. 
 
188 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Here I am stopped by controversialists. 
 I do not know why I should stop, I am 
 not writing controversy. I am trying 
 to set down what I see St. John is saying. But they 
 persist that I am going to make capital out of my 
 explanations. Well, let us hear them. They say 
 St. John was in an Old Testament mood: he was re- 
 echoing Isaias and Ezechiel and Daniel: indeed, he 
 brings in the Temple and the Ark of the Covenant. 
 But the Old Testament mood was gone for ever. The 
 Christians of Asia Minor, for whom St. John was 
 primarily writing, knew nothing of the old Liturgy ; 
 and if they had known, they would have been be- 
 wildered by what he wrote. For he wrote of the 
 Paschal Sacrifice and Feast : and that, with the Jews, 
 was a household, not a temple worship. There was no 
 apse in the Temple, no ‘sea of glass’”’; and the 
 sanctuary and the altar were quite differently placed. 
 And if he mentions the Temple and the Ark of the 
 Covenant, they were on a different plane from the 
 “scene’”’ of the poem. They were looked at from 
 below, and are spoken of as quite extraneous to the 
 ‘““scene.”’ They were both represented together as 
 emblems lifted up into Heaven to be there transformed 
 into that which they had typified. The Temple 
 becomes the New Jerusalem coming down as the Bride 
 of the Lamb: the Ark is seen above transformed into 
 the Woman crowned with twelve stars. Before our 
 eyes they become the Church-Bride and the Church- 
 Mother, and with the twenty-four elders below we 
 rejoice in the transformation. They are in no way 
 part of the “‘ scene.” 
 
 Christian, 
 not Jewish. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 189 
 
 But the incense ? Here a Catholic author- 
 ity joins in to help to stop me. It says, 
 “There is no evidence for the use of incense in the 
 first century.”’ For me, the word of an Apostle is 
 evidence enough. It is, by way of side-support for 
 my argument, also only from the Apocalypse that we 
 know of Alleluia being part of Christian worship from 
 the beginning. But, more directly, there is this 
 consideration. At first, the Christian Church, anxious 
 _to show her continuity, retained that portion of the 
 old worship which was not sacrifice or sacrament. 
 These two things were kept only in their Christian 
 fulfilment. But the Amen, the Hosanna, the Alleluia, 
 the recitation of the Psalms, were gladly retained. 
 After a while, however, the Jewish body and the 
 Christian Church were sharply divided. The Judaizing 
 controversy made it necessary to emphasize the 
 division. After that the Church not only did not go 
 back to anything Judaean, but took pains to do things 
 differently on purpose. Therefore, if once the use of 
 incense had been given up, it could never be brought 
 back again. It was a natural symbol, universal in 
 the East and adopted even by pagans in the West. It 
 signified both honour and the aspiration and sweetness 
 of prayer. There was no reason against it. As soon 
 as records are available, we find Christians using it 
 everywhere ; and if it had been a subsequent re- 
 introduction, there would certainly have been some 
 discussion about it. So St. John was only recording 
 a use which had never been interrupted. Besides, the 
 Apocalyptic incense has quite a different ritual from 
 the Mosaic. In the old temple, there had been an 
 
 Incense. 
 
190 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 altar of incense inside the sanctuary, and it had nothing 
 to do with the altar of sacrifice. With St. John, the 
 angel (i.e. the deacon) stands before the altar of sacrifice 
 and incense is given to him and it is lit with fire from 
 that altar. The twenty-four elders also have vessels 
 of incense, and in both cases a new and Christian 
 meaning is given to the rite. Formerly it was priestly 
 prayer for the people: now it is the intercessory 
 offering of the prayer of the people. The objections 
 have only confirmed our conclusions. The paschal 
 Alleluia and the perpetual incense date from the 
 beginning. 
 
 Incidentally we may remark that the 
 meaning which St. John gives to the 
 use of incense fully justifies that union 
 of prayer between Heaven and Earth which the 
 Catholic Church shows in her devotion to the Saints 
 and Angels. The spirit of this devotion breathes 
 throughout the Apocalypse. And indeed it is quite 
 an essential part of the life of the Mystical Body. 
 Prayer is the expression of Charity and Grace, to 
 which death presents no barrier. And if the Angel 
 deprecates the homage of the Apostle, it is only because 
 Heaven also has its humility, and because the Church 
 above reverences the Church below. The doctrine 
 is clear that the prayers of the holy ones on earth are 
 offered up by the holy ones in Heaven. When people 
 refuse to call upon the Saints in glory, or to pray for 
 the Souls departed, they give the clearest proof that 
 they have denied the Third Mystery. 
 
 Invocation 
 of the Saints. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 191 
 
 Having now constituted thescene, we may 
 pass on to the action. And here we 
 must make a distinction, which, indeed, we 
 havealready made. Thereistheactionin the sceneitself, 
 and there are the visions of which the persons of the 
 scene are, along with the Seer, only spectators. We 
 will take the former first. As a prelude, however, I 
 have a few critical remarks to make which will prevent 
 my having to interrupt myself by discussions. (t) 
 The custom of veiling the altar by curtains between 
 the pillars of the canopy is found in all the early 
 liturgies, and must therefore be primitive. In the 
 West it is now represented only by the veil over the 
 tabernacle. This accounts for the voices heard from 
 the altar in the Apocalypse when the speaker is not 
 seen.* (2) The Gloria in excelsis seems to come from 
 the first century, and certainly represents that Acclama- 
 tion which St. John calls the Adoration of the Lamb. 
 Gloria... Domine Deus, Pater omnipotens ... Domine 
 Fili... Agnus Dei... Quontam tu solus sanctus... 
 Jesu Christe cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria Dea Paints. 
 I am aware that its introduction into the Mass is 
 comparatively recent in the West, but this use was 
 earlier in the East, and anyhow it was always in the 
 Divine Office as ‘‘the greater Doxology”’ and the 
 connection of the Office with the Mass was closer at 
 the beginning than it is now. The Gloria may have 
 been derived from the Apocalypse ; but if so, then 
 from the earliest times the Church attributed to the 
 
 The Double 
 Action. 
 
 * This point I owe to the admirable article by the Rev. Herbert 
 Lucas, S.J., in The Catholic Encyclopedia, on Christian Architecture. 
 I had reached all my other conclusions before seeing his article, 
 
192 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 Apocalypse the meaning I am claiming for it now. 
 (3) The Eastern rites are more dramatic than ours in 
 the cries of the deacon to the people and their response ; 
 as, for instance, where in one case after the consecration 
 the deacon says, “‘ Bow your heads to Jesus,” and the 
 congregation replies, ‘‘ We bow them to Thee, O Lord.” 
 In the Apocalypse these exhortations are transformed 
 into the cries of the angels from the altar. (4) In 
 every rite, and, indeed, it seems essentially necessary, 
 the priest prepares for his function by self-humiliation 
 and confession of sin. In the Apocalypse the priest is 
 the Lamb Himself, for whom, of course, confession is 
 needless. The necessary sorrow is supplied partly by 
 the Seer himself, who wept because no one was found 
 worthy to open the book, but principally by the 
 Judgment of the Son of Man on the Seven Churches. 
 It is this consideration which makes the Sevenfold 
 Message an integral portion of the book. It is the 
 Bridegroom preparing the Bride for the great marriage 
 that is tofollow. (5) A Protestant friend of mine, with 
 whom I was discussing these things, urged that St. 
 John does not even mention the Blessed Eucharist. 
 I said I thought the whole poem was on the Paschal 
 Feast, and what else is the Eucharist ? Only symbolic- 
 ally, he replied. Then, I said, see what happened 
 when the seventh seal was opened. ‘‘ There was silence 
 in heaven for the space of half an hour.’’ Have we 
 had that silence before? Read in St. John’s Gospel : 
 ‘“‘ Jesus, having loved his own who were in the world, 
 loved them to the end. (Silence.) And when supper 
 was done...’ What supper? The one mentioned 
 in the silence. It was the same writer, and the same 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 193 
 
 mystery, and his reasons were the same. How Dante 
 must have loved that silence! He made it the climax 
 of his own Vision, when he stood at the summit of 
 creation face to face with the Apocalyptic threefold 
 rainbow view of the One that sat upon the throne. 
 Part of St. John’s reason was that the Diusciplina 
 arcani was already inforce. This, indeed, we see even 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a book to which St. John 
 several times alludes as if he loved it. But that rule 
 or discipline, namely, the injunction not to mention 
 openly so tangible a mystery lest it be profaned by 
 the pagans, applied more strongly than ever to the 
 Apocalypse, which was being written where at any 
 moment it might fall into the hands of the persecutors. 
 Therefore the initiates, who were always keenly on the 
 watch for allusions to the mystery they loved, would 
 know at once what that silence meant. My friend was 
 still unconvinced. Then, I said, what do you make of 
 the two Angel Reapers? Just where the communion 
 was to take place, they were told to thrust in their 
 sickles. And what was their harvest? Corn and 
 Wine. Here the initiates would exult. What else 
 could it mean? If there were any further doubt, what 
 became of that Wine? The wine-press was trodden 
 and forth there came Blood, in such abundance that 
 it flooded the land and rose to the bridles of the horses. 
 Of what other Wine on earth could that be said? 
 What other Blood was ever shed in such profusion ? 
 Even our own unregenerate Marlowe wrote : 
 
 See where Christ’s Blood streams o’er the firmament. 
 
 O 
 
194 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 My friend began to see that there was something in 
 what I said. 
 
 The Parallel These things being premised, let me 
 put in parallel columns, not neces- 
 sarily in the usual order for the second column, the 
 actions of the “‘scene’”’ and the actions of the Mass. 
 Skilled liturgists may tell me that some of the latter 
 are borrowed from the former. That only means, as 
 I said before, that the early Church thought about the 
 Apocalypse what I am trying to vindicate for it. By 
 way of compensation, the skilled liturgist will probably 
 find many more coincidences, especially from Eastern 
 rites, than I have been able to notice. Those I give 
 are quite convincing tome. Iam quite aware that the 
 modern ceremonies of the Mass are the result of a long 
 development. Ihave no intention of asserting that St. 
 John foresaw the full process of this development. 
 What I mean is that, in the main, all the early Liturgies 
 (the Roman included) have a generic resemblance, and 
 that this generic resemblance is remarkably like the 
 Apocalypse scene. To what extent St. John’s Vision 
 was a picture of the development up to his time, and 
 to what extent the subsequent development has been 
 influenced by his Vision, I do not presume to say. 
 
 The Apocalypse. The Mass. 
 The Son of Man judges, Judicame .. . Confiteor 
 warns, forgives. . . Indulgentiam. 
 
 The Lamb takes the Book. Introibo ad altare Dei. 
 The 24 elders offer up the Kyrieeleison : with incense. 
 incense-prayer. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 195 
 
 Adoration of the Lamb. 
 The first four seals. 
 
 Fifth seal: souls of martyrs 
 under the altar. 
 
 Sixth seal: Wait “till we 
 sign the servants of God 
 in their foreheads.” 
 
 Seventh seal: “ the mystery 
 is finished.”’ 
 
 Silence in heaven. 
 
 Angel with incense. 
 
 The Kingdom: the Temple 
 and the Woman. 
 
 The War with the Dragon. 
 The Lamb upon Mount Sion. 
 Blessed are the dead. 
 
 The Reapers with their har- 
 vest of Corn and Wine. 
 
 Alleluia to the Lamb. 
 
 The Marriage with the Bride. 
 
 Gloria . . . Agnus Dei 
 . tusolus sanctus. 
 
 The instruction, or reading 
 of the Word. 
 
 (Oramus . . . per merita 
 sanctorum quorum reli- 
 quiz hic sunt). 
 
 The incensing of the minis- 
 ters of the altar (also 
 the Pax). 
 
 Consecration. 
 
 Silent adoration. 
 
 Incense at Elevation. 
 
 The prayer of the Kingdom : 
 Pater noster . . . ad- 
 veniat Regnum tuum. 
 
 Sed libera nos a malo. 
 
 Agnus Det. 
 
 (Commemoration of the de- 
 parted). 
 
 Preparation for Communion. 
 
 Ecce Agnus Dei. 
 Communion. 
 
 It has now been shown that the “scene’’ which 
 runs through the whole Apocalypse is an idealized 
 picture of the Paschal Sacrifice and Banquet. From 
 the point of view of Grace, it is a picture of lovely 
 light. But in a world like this, no picture can consist 
 of light alone ; and the intenser the light, the more 
 gloomy the shadows. Hence the terrible visions of 
 
 the Prophet. 
 
196 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 taeheeard Every new revelation of God brings bliss 
 Perea to those who believe, but terror to those 
 
 : who refuse. It is a pitiful thing that 
 even over the Baby Jesus the word of truth should 
 have to say, ‘‘ This child is set for the fall and for the 
 resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which 
 shall be contradicted.’”’ In this concrete life, good 
 and evil seem hopelessly tangled together, and our 
 temptation is to minimize the difference between them : 
 but when the two-edged sword of revelation is brought, 
 it cuts the Gordian knot. St. John seems to 
 bear in mind that text in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 “The word of God is living and effectual, and more 
 piercing than any two-edged sword ; and reaching unto 
 the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also 
 and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts 
 and intents of the heart.’’ This is what is meant by 
 the two-edged sword of the Lamb, and perhaps the 
 most awful phrase in the book is ‘‘ the wrath of the 
 Lamb.”’ Therefore, just as throughout the book the 
 Church’s worship is sublimed into Heaven, so the 
 world’s profanity is precipitated into Hell. And Hell 
 is not a place of elegance and loveliness. The opening 
 of every seal brings more woe upon unbelief, and when 
 the seventh seal is opened and the fullness of the 
 identity of the Paschal altar and the Cross of Calvary 
 is revealed, the Prophet sees again what he himself 
 saw as he stood at the foot of that Cross. All the 
 powers of evil are always banded together against the 
 Word of God. Then it was the diabolical envy and 
 malice of the Pharisees, the worldliness of Pilate and 
 the fleshliness of Herod, and the very earth shook and 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 197 
 
 thundered and was darkened. Now it was Satan, 
 “the spiritual wickedness in high places,” the per- 
 secuting power of the Roman Empire, and the moral 
 corruption of the time. It is always the same war— 
 the Dragon, the Beast and the Harlot, 
 
 Pad and Evil Side by side, therefore, with the 
 * Beauty of Holiness the Seer shows 
 us the Ugliness of Sin. All the evil that has ever 
 befallen the earth, or shall befall it, is but a just retribu- 
 tion for all the pains it has inflicted on the Lamb slain 
 from the beginning of the world—the Red Horse of 
 War, the Black Horse of Famine, the Pale Horse of 
 Death, catastrophe and terror, destruction and woe, 
 all mingled with the smoke of the bottomless pit, 
 whence issue the fearsome locusts who gnaw the souls 
 of men with fruitless remorse: and with it all, the 
 hideous presence, along with his satellites, of the 
 Dragon Prince of this world, who is already judged. 
 
 Amid these visions of terror St. John 
 sees the consolation of successive 
 victories of Grace. Once it was Tyre, and Tyre was 
 destroyed : then it was Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is 
 destroyed : now it is Babylon, and Babylon shall be 
 destroyed. Looking into the future, he sees the 
 Church victorious over the blood-stained Empire and 
 enthroned for a thousand years above its ruins. And 
 indeed (with the exception of the Mohammedan 
 irruption) for about a thousand years the Church was 
 supreme wherever Rome had been supreme, and she 
 had no enemies except those of her own household. 
 
 The Victory. 
 
198 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 The exception is, of course, an important one, and 
 seems to show that nothing on earth can attain to ideal 
 perfection. St. John’s purpose, I take it, was to show 
 the Christian world that in the Eucharistic Sacrifice 
 it had a promise of speedy relief on earth and ever- 
 lasting triumph in Heaven. Beyond that it seems 
 waste of time to peer into this symbolic poem for more 
 definite interpretations of fact. The Prophet would 
 have every generation know that the war is perpetual, 
 and that we are in the thick of it. We bear either 
 the mark of the Lamb or the mark of the Beast. This 
 war gathers with utmost intensity around the Paschal 
 Sacrifice and Banquet. Those who partake with 
 faith and love are glorified ; but unless a man eats of 
 that Flesh and drinks of that Blood, he shall not see 
 life for ever, and he that partakes unworthily eats and 
 drinks damnation to himself. 
 
 To sum up. The Apocalypse may be 
 regarded first as a prophecy-poem on 
 the Paschal Sacrifice and Banquet, the 
 Eucharistic Mystery which unites Heaven and Earth. 
 Or, secondly, it may be regarded as the Drama of the 
 Marriage of the Earthly Bride with her Heavenly 
 Bridegroom, of her Unity and her Glory, the Mystery 
 of the Universal Body of Christ. Or, thirdly, as the 
 Revelation of the Incarnate Word, One with the 
 Father, the Alpha and Omega, the beloved Redeemer, 
 the awe-inspiring Judge, the Jesus who lived in our 
 midst, to whom the Spirit and the Bride say Come, and 
 to whom His world-weary disciple pathetically says, 
 “Amen: come, Lord Jesus!’ Or, fourthly, as the 
 
 The Four 
 Mysteries. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY 199 
 
 symbolic seal of the doctrine of the Triune God, the 
 Father and the Word occupying the same throne and 
 receiving the same adoration, and the Holy Spirit 
 proceeding from both. This fourfold unity binds the 
 whole poem more closely together than either the 
 vision of Dante or the tragedy of Macbeth is bound. 
 And the Apocalypse unity is moreover irradiated with 
 all the fiery tongues of Pentecost. 
 
 Still more, there are artistic devices 
 which, instinctively or by deliberate 
 craft, all great workers in Poetry, Music, 
 or Architecture throw prominently forward to enhance 
 the sense of the unity that is essentially there. There 
 are recurring phrases throughout the Apocalypse 
 which serve as leit-motifs. These mostly occur at the 
 beginning and the end of the messages to the Seven © 
 Churches—just the portion which some critics find to 
 be organically disconnected with the Divine Drama 
 And above all, the very beginning (i, 4-6) is a synopsis 
 of the work, the statement of the theme that is going 
 to be developed, repeated, transformed and re-stated 
 over and over again, like the rhythmic waves of a great 
 musical symphony, or the alternating forms of a great 
 cathedral : 
 
 “Grace be unto you and peace from Him that is, 
 and that was and that is to come, and from the seven 
 spirits which are before His throne, and from Jesus 
 Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first begotten 
 of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, 
 who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in 
 His own blood, and hath made us a kingdom and 
 
 Unity of 
 the Poem. 
 
200 THE FOUR MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH 
 
 priests to God and His Father, to Him be glory and 
 empire for ever and ever. Amen.”’ 
 
 In the case of St. John this may be merely instinctive, 
 but the more I study art the more sceptical I become 
 of the “ native wood-notes wild’’ theory. If a man 
 is naturally poetical, I cannot imagine anything more 
 likely to turn him into a finished and conscious artist 
 than the training and experience which developed the 
 fisherman of Galilee into the Seer of Patmos. 
 
 Such another device is the constant 
 recurrence of the number seven. On the 
 side of Grace, the seven churches, stars 
 and candlesticks, the seven spirits before the throne, 
 the seven lamps, the seven eyes of the Lamb, the 
 seven seals, the seven angels with trumpets, the seven 
 angels with vials of plagues. On the side of Evil, like 
 a horrible parody, the Dragon with seven heads and 
 diadems, the Beast with seven heads, the Scarlet 
 Woman with seven heads, the seven hills and the seven 
 kings. It has the unifying effect of the fivefold rhythm 
 that runs through the slow movement of Beethoven’s 
 Seventh Symphony. It is Revelation beautified by 
 Art. | 
 
 This, then, is the import of the Apocalypse. 
 And surely we are entitled to fling all doubt, 
 controversy and criticism behind our backs, and hail 
 it as the crowning glory of the New Testament. It is 
 the fullest manifestation of all the Four Mysteries 
 which make up the Temple of God, not only in their 
 separate glories but in their inter-relation and due 
 
 An Artistic 
 Device. 
 
 Finale. 
 
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN AS PROPHECY zor 
 
 proportion. It is the measurement of the City of God 
 ‘‘ which lieth in a foursquare, and the length and the 
 breadth and the height thereof are equal.’’ More than 
 any other revelation it makes us ‘‘ able to comprehend, 
 with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, 
 and height, and depth.” It fulfils the function of the 
 Prophet in the New Law, namely, to teach humanity 
 to see the things of faith as God sees them. With the 
 eyes of our soul thus purged, we realise that it is not 
 the extravagance of rhapsody, but plain literal truth, 
 when just before the supreme moment of the Mass we 
 lift ourselves to Heaven and say: “‘Et ideo cum 
 Angelis et Archangelis, cum Thronis et Dominationibus, 
 cumque omni militia coelestis exercitus, hymnum 
 glorie tuz canimus sine fine dicentes, Sanctus, sanctus, 
 sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth: pleni sunt coeli ef 
 terra gloria tua : Hosanna in excelsis.” 
 
 In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus. 
 
INDEX 
 
 (The main line of the thought in this book is sufficiently indicated 
 
 in the list of contents. 
 
 This index merely points out short incidental 
 
 veasonings or considerations which are not expressly included there.) 
 
 Analogies, who can make them ? 
 77, 79: 
 Annunciation a full revelation. 
 
 57, 69. 
 Architectural origin of church 
 form. 185. 
 Art. 137, 177, 185. 
 Assumption, argument for. 51. 
 Atonement, 66, III. 
 
 Baptism. 73, 74- 
 Blessing of material things. 46,47 
 Branch theory, St. Paul’s. 69. 
 
 ‘Christ ’’ sometimes used for 
 whole Mystical Body. 80. 
 
 Communion under one kind. 107. 
 
 Confession, reason for need of. 
 140. 
 
 Direct contact the law of 
 Christ’s working. 106. 
 
 Disciplina arcani. 193. 
 
 Gloria in excelsis. 191. 
 Grades of reality. 16, 31, 104. 
 Griffin and Dragon. 45. 
 
 Heresies. 168. 
 Holy water. 47. 
 
 Immaculate Conception, argu- 
 ments for. 56, 92. 
 
 Incarnation hidden from Satan. 
 50. 
 
 Incense, use of. 189. 
 
 Invocation of the Saints. 190. 
 
 Jesus Christ and His adversary. 
 33, 43- 
 
 Kant on the Trinity. 27. 
 
 Magnificat. 55. 
 
 Marriage regulations. 112, 150. 
 
 Materialistic philosophy. 15. 
 
 Metaphor and mystery, differ- 
 ence. 21 sqq. 78 sqq. 
 
 Modernism, 113, 171. 
 
 Mysteries, why four ? Io. 
 
 Nulla salus extra Ecclesiam. 93, 
 107. 
 
 Papal Infallibility. ror. 
 
 Parallel between Apocalypse 
 and Mass. 194, 195. 
 
 Paradox incident to infinity. 63. 
 
 Parents reveal God to their 
 children. 21, 22. 
 
 Paschal Lamb. 84, 195 etc. 
 
 Perseverance. 135, 144. 
 
 Probation of the Angels. 36. 
 
 Problems of the ‘‘ might-have- 
 been.” 41. 
 
 Prophetic function, the. 181. 
 
 203 
 
204 
 
 Protestant and Catholic, ulti- 
 mate distinction. 96, 124. 
 
 Redemption partially imme- 
 diate, partially gradual. 49. 
 Resurrection, the basic fact. 18. 
 
 Satan’s partial victory. 44, 46, 
 48, 134. 
 
 Science and Faith. 89, 117. 
 
 Science and the Church. 116. 
 
 Secret societies. 112. 
 
 Sense- Knowledge, how obtained. 
 13: 
 
 Seven Sacraments, reason for 
 number. 133, 139, 
 
 Shew-bread a sacrifice. 85. 
 
 Soul of the Church. 93, 99, 124, 
 
 sqq. 
 
 Spisit and matter linked together 
 In destiny, 2-371 
 
 Spiritual Knowledge conveyed 
 by symbols. 13. 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ‘Spiritual’? never means 
 ‘‘ metaphorical.” 31, 98. 
 
 Subsacramental. 132. 
 
 Superstition, definition of. 164. 
 
 Teaching catechism. 28. 
 
 Theophanies. 54. 
 
 Tom Paine’s challenge to God. 
 28. 
 
 Transfer of Grace. 42. 
 
 Unity of the Church. 99. 
 Value of the contemplative life. 
 
 39. 
 Veil of the tabernacle. 191. 
 Victoria Falls as a parable. 34, 
 
 $qq- 
 
 Woman crowned with 12 stars. 
 67, 188. 
 
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