The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-10-17
CONVERSATION XIII


class of scholars" said Father john
ito deny the supernatural origin of
Christianity, is a reaction against an
untenable hypothesis, originally started,
l believe, by Philo, the Jew, and re-
vived and generally held by the learned
of the sixteenth and seventeenth CEN
turtles. The medieval scholastics knew
doctrine, faith, theology and philosophy
as we'll as we, if not better; but they
Knew less of history, and therefore
made little account of the condolences
of doctrine and worship in remote Cen
tile nations with Christianity. In the
latter part of the sixteenth and sew
enteenth centuries, after our mission
aries had visited India, China and ia
pan, and explored the regions of the
New World, the subject attracted more
attention and the learned, overlooking
or not duly considering the primitive
revelation made to mankind, and it not
occurring to them that it might, in Il
broken and corrupt form be transmit
ted in the Gentle world through what
ever they found IN the Gentle religion
coincident with Christianity and not
deriva BILE from natural reason, as Dor
rowed from the Jewish scriptures, or
learned from intercourse with the Jew
ish people. The hypothesis was too mar
row to meet the eXigencieS of the case,
and, moreover, was not suStainable by
history. There is scarcely a dogma,
moral pTecept, or a usage common to
the Jews and Christians. or regarded
even as peculiarly Christian, that can
not be found in some form, pure, cor
rupted, mutilated or tTaVeStied, in Gen
tile religions, older than the Hebrew
scriptures, though not older than the
Hebrew traditions. and which were the
religions of nations, who we cannot
reasonably suppose had any inter
course with the Jews-an isolated ag
ricultural and pastoral people. The
learned of the last century and the first
part of the present, seeing this and talk
ing 1t for granted that the heather had
no revelation, or "reminiscences of rev.
elation, asserted a contrary hypothesis,
made Christians the borrowers, and
brought these very condolences to
prove that Christianity is not revealed
religion, but the natural production Of
the human mind"
THE error on both Sides said Die
fenbach, is in assuming that the Gen
tiles had only the simple light of nat
ural reason, and that the Mosaic law
was, what it was not, a revelation OF
dogmatic and moral truth. The dog
matte and moral truth presupposed,
implied or prefigured in the Mosaic law,
was simply the dogmatic and moral
truth held by the patriarchs, and con-
tanned in the revelation made to our
first parents. Even our Lord himself
did not come to reveal new truth, truth
before unrevealed, or to make a new
revelation of dogmatic and moral truth.
He came to fulfill the promises made
to the patriarchs, and to do those
things without which the faith of the
patriarchs would have been vain and
illusory; for their faith pointed for
ward, as ours points back, to the in
carnation of the Word, or second per-
son of the Trinity, to the atonement,
the redemption of the human race,
through the life, passion, death and
resurrection of the Goldman, the Word
made flesh No doubt the faith was
rendered more explicit by the preach
ing of our Lord and his apostles than
it was before. New provisions for the
preservation, administration and appli-
cation of the truth were instituted; but
the matter of faith was not extended,
no really new dogma or new precept
was added. Strike out, as Unitarians
do, the incarnation, and what depends
on it, or grows out of it, and you make
the mission of our Lord at best only
the work of an ordinary reformer, who
labors to recall men to the practice of
truths and virtues, which they have OBJ
scured, neglected or forgotten. His
mission is significant only when re-
gaTded as fulfilling the faith, or doing |
those things which are promised in !
faith
THE Christian revelation, as distin-
guished from the doing of the things !
by the Word, on which the redemption
of the race and the elevation of human
nature to be the nature of God, de-
pend" added Father John, was made
TO our first parents and worship was
instituted for them. on tneir expulsion
from the garden, in accordance with
that revelation and adapted to their
state. This revelation. the father was
commissioned and commanded to teach
his children, and of this worship he
was instituted the priest for his own
family or household. This order, the !
patriarchal order, prevailed with the |
whole human race before the deluge, |
and even after the deluge with the |
faithful patriarehs, till the institution
of the Levitical priesthood. It prevailed |
everywhere till the apostasy of the
Gentiles. After the building of the .
Tower of Babel, the confusion of
tongues and consequent loss of unity i
of speech and unity of communion,
there took place a schism in the human /
race, and the GentileS or schismatics i
then dispersed into separate nations,
as we see PrOtestants formed into sep
arate and often mutually hostile sects
From that time there have been two
lines, the one orthodox, the other hete-
rodox, through which the primitive rev.
elation and worship have been trans |
mitted. Through the orthodox line, the I
faithful patriarchs, the synagogue and
the church, they have been transmit
ted in their unity and simplicity, their
purity and integrity in the heterodox |
line, that of the Gentle priesthoods, |
and the sects, ancient and modern, |
they have been also transmitted but in |
an impure, corrupt, broken, mutilated |
and sometimes in a travestied form.
Nevertheless the heterodOX line has al |
ways transmitted something of the true
religion. There is not a dogma or pre-
cept of the Catholic church, some traces
of which, either as denied or asserted. |
as pure or perverted, cannot be found
in some one or all of the Protestant |
sects. The Gentiles, the Protestants of |
the old world, took their point of de-
parture in the primitive tradition which |
had been transmitted to them through |
father and son from Adam. All their
dogmas. precepts, superstitions. rites,
ceremonies, even those evidently de-
are "reminiscences, corrup-
tons, perversions, limitations, or traves-
ties of the true faith and worship. They |
did not borrow directly from the He
brew scriptures. or from the Hebrew
people, but drew from the same orig |
lnal tradition, corrupted with them by
the loss of unity of speech at Babel.
The ancestors of the ancient Gentiles, |
and the ancestors of the Hebrews, were
orthodox believers and worshippers, as
the ancestors, and not very remote an
cestors, or modern Protestants were
orthodox Catholics and lived and died
IN the communion of the church. Among
the GentileS the prieSt Sl1cpeeded to