An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

IT is the general pretext of heretics that they are but serving and protecting Christianity by their innovations; and it is their charge against what by this time we may surely call the Catholic Church, that her successive definitions of doctrine have but overlaid and obscured it. That is, they assume, what we have no wish to deny, that a true development is that which is conservative of its original, and a corruption is that which tends to its destruction. This has already been set down as a Sixth Test, discriminative of a development from a corruption, and must now be applied to the Catholic doctrines; though this Essay has so far exceeded its proposed limits, that both reader and writer may well be weary, and may content themselves with a brief consideration of the portions of the subject which remain.

It has been observed already that a strict correspondence between the various members of a development, and those of the doctrine from which it is derived, is more than we have any right to expect. The bodily structure of a grown man is not merely that of a magnified boy; he differs from what he was in his make and proportions; still manhood is the perfection of boyhood, adding something of its own, yet keeping what it finds. "Ut nihil novum," says Vincentius, "proferatur in senibus, quod non in pueris jam antea latitaverit." This character of addition,—that is, of a change which is in one sense real and perceptible, yet without loss or reversal of what was before, but, on the contrary, protective and confirmative of it,—in many respects and in a special way belongs to Christianity.

If we take the simplest and most general view of its history, as existing in an individual mind, or in the Church at large, we shall see in it an instance of this peculiarity. It is the birth of something virtually new, because latent in what was before. Thus we know that no temper of mind is acceptable in the Divine Presence without love; it is love which makes Christian fear differ from servile dread, and true faith differ from the faith of devils; yet in the beginning of the religious life, fear is the prominent evangelical grace, and love is but latent in fear, and has in course of time to be developed out of what seems its contradictory. Then, when it is developed, it takes that prominent place which fear held before, yet protecting not superseding it. Love is added, not fear removed, and the mind is but perfected in grace by what seems a revolution. "They that sow in tears, reap in joy;" yet afterwards still they are "sorrowful," though "alway rejoicing."

And so was it with the Church at large. She started with suffering, which turned to victory; but when she was set free from the house of her prison, she did not quit it so much as turn it into a cell. Meekness inherited the earth; strength came forth from weakness; the poor made many rich; yet meekness and poverty remained. The rulers of the world were Monks, when they could not be Martyrs.

2.

Immediately on the overthrow of the heathen power, two movements simultaneously ran through the world from East to West, as quickly as the lightning in the prophecy, a development of worship and of asceticism. Hence, while the world's first reproach in heathen times had been that Christianity was a dark malevolent magic, its second has been that it is a joyous carnal paganism;—according to that saying, "We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." Yet our Lord too was "a man of sorrows" all the while, but softened His austerity by His gracious gentleness.

3.

The like characteristic attends also on the mystery of His Incarnation. He was first God and He became man; but Eutyches and heretics of his school refused to admit that He was man, lest they should deny that He was God. In consequence the Catholic Fathers are frequent and unanimous in their asseverations, that "the Word" had become flesh, not to His loss, but by an addition. Each Nature is distinct, but the created Nature lives in and by the Eternal. "Non amittendo quod erat, sed sumendo quod non erat," is the Church's principle. And hence, though the course of development, as was observed in a former Chapter, has been to bring into prominence the divine aspect of our Lord's mediation, this has been attended by even a more open manifestation of the doctrine of His atoning sufferings. The passion of our Lord is one of the most imperative and engrossing subjects of Catholic teaching. It is the great topic of meditations and prayers; it is brought into continual remembrance by the sign of the Cross; it is preached to the world in the Crucifix; it is variously honoured by the many houses of prayer, and associations of religious men, and pious institutions and undertakings, which in some way or other are placed under the name and the shadow of Jesus, or the Saviour, or the Redeemer, or His Cross, or His Passion, or His sacred Heart.

4.

Here a singular development may be mentioned of the doctrine of the Cross, which some have thought so contrary to its original meaning [Note 1], as to be a manifest corruption; I mean the introduction of the Sign of the meek Jesus into the armies of men, and the use of an emblem of peace as a protection in battle. If light has no communion with darkness, or Christ with Belial, what has He to do with Moloch, who would not call down fire on His enemies, and came not to destroy but to save? Yet this seeming anomaly is but one instance of a great law which is seen in developments generally, that changes which appear at first sight to contradict that out of which they grew, are really its protection or illustration. Our Lord Himself is represented in the Prophets as a combatant inflicting wounds while He received them, as coming from Bozrah with dyed garments, sprinkled and red in His apparel with the blood of His enemies; and, whereas no war is lawful but what is just, it surely beseems that they who are engaged in so dreadful a commission as that of taking away life at the price of their own, should at least have the support of His Presence, and fight under the mystical influence of His Name, who redeemed His elect as a combatant by the Blood of Atonement, with the slaughter of His foes, the sudden overthrow of the Jews, and the slow and awful fall of the Pagan Empire. And if the wars of Christian nations have often been unjust, this is a reason against much more than the use of religious symbols by the parties who engage in them, though the pretence of religion may increase the sin.

5.

The same rule of development has been observed in respect of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. It is the objection of the School of Socinus, that belief in the Trinity is destructive of any true maintenance of the Divine Unity, however strongly the latter may be professed; but Petavius, as we have seen [Note 2], sets it down as one especial recommendation of the Catholic doctrine, that it subserves that original truth which at first sight it does but obscure and compromise.

6.

This representation of the consistency of the Catholic system will be found to be true, even in respect of those peculiarities of it, which have been considered by Protestants most open to the charge of corruption and innovation. It is maintained, for instance, that the veneration paid to Images in the Catholic Church directly contradicts the command of Scripture, and the usage of the primitive ages. As to primitive usage, that part of the subject has been incidentally observed upon already; here I will make one remark on the argument from Scripture.

It may be reasonably questioned, then, whether the Commandment which stands second in the Protestant Decalogue, on which the prohibition of Images is grounded, was intended in its letter for more than temporary observance. So far is certain, that, though none could surpass the later Jews in its literal observance, nevertheless this did not save them from the punishments attached to the violation of it. If this be so, the literal observance is not its true and evangelical import.

7.

1. Supr. p. 173.

2. Supr. p. 174.