The northwestern bulletin-appeal., 1924-11-29

1f we now reread the curse of Noe,
light may go up for us. Noe did
not curse Cham and all CHAINS chill
dren; he cursed Chanaan. Cursed
be Chanaan, a servant of servants
shall he be unto his brethren
blessed be the Lord God of Sem, be
Chanaan his servant may
God enlarge Japheth, and Chanaan
be his servant" Neither is Cham,
the father. cursed nor are his three
first sons, Chus, Mesram and Phuth,
from whom the Africans in general
and the Negroes in particular de-
scend, cursed. We have been taught,
that one Of the reasons for forbidding
Catholics to read Protestant versions
OF Holy Scripture. is that the Catho-
lie Church wishes the faithful to use
version in which difficult passages
are correctly interpretated in the an
notations or foot-notes. The Douay
version of the Holy Bible. the ver-
sion to be used by English-speaking
Catholics. in interpreting the words
Cursed be Chanaan" says: "The
curses as well as the blessings of the
Patriarchs, were prophetical: And
this in particular is here recorded by
Moses for the children of Israel. who
were to possess the land of Chanaan
but why should Chanaan be cursed
for his fathers faults? The Hebrews
answer, that he being then a boy
was the first that saw his grand
fathers nakedness, and told his
father Cham of it; and Joined with
him in laughing at 1t: which drew
upon him, rather than upon the rest
OF the children of Cham, this
prophetical curse"
The Rev. Francis De Hummelauer
81, in his commentary on Genesis,
a work belonging to the erudite
Jesuit "Cursus Sacrae Scripturae." :"
holds, that whilst we may doubt the
above explanation of the Hebrews as
to the reason for the curse on
Chanaan, Cham was punished in this
son alone. The other three with
their children were exempted, and
the exemption he ascribes to "di-
vine mercy" He also declares, that
when 1t is foretold that Chanaan is
to be the servant of his brethren. not
only Sem and Japheth and their chill
dren but also Chanaan's three broth
ers and their children are to be in
cluded under the name brethren. "
According 10 his Interpretation we
have just the opposite to a curse of
servitude upon the Negroes, for we
VIII remember. as is written above.
that the Negroes descended from the
three brothers of Chanaan. The
learned interpreter continues to say.
that we need look for a dire fulfill
ment OF the curse, first because the
context does not demand il. and
secondly because we may well hope
for divine forgiveness to temper this
curse in the same manner as other
curses mentioned in Holy Scripture.
specifically the curse pronounced
against Saul, are sortened down
through the mercy of God. He be
iieves that We find the fulfillment OF
the curse, first in the expulsion OF
Chanaan's progeny from the land
promised to Abraham, and secondly
In the fact that the Phoenicans gave
themselves over entirely to COM
merce. They did not found king
doms, but rather paid tribute to other
Kingdoms for permission to traffic in
the goods carried by them from port
to port; thus they were not rulers.
put servants. And he concludes, that
In vain do we look for the origin of
slavery In the curse of Noe upon
Cham's son, for even those
Chanaanites, who lived in the Holy
Land when the Israelites came into
the Land OF Promise, were not re-
duced to slavery according to the
true meaning of this word.
We ask our readers: Do you not
consider that is quite proper, never
again to speak of a curse upon the