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PAUL

SECTION I

Questions Concerning Paul

Was Paul a Roman citizen, as he boasted? If he was a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, Tarsus was not a Roman colony until a hundred years after his death; upon this point all antiquaries are agreed. If he belonged to the little town or village of Gescala, as St. Jerome believed, this town was in Galilee, and certainly the Galileans were not Roman citizens.

Is it true, that St. Paul entered into the rising society of Christians, who at that time were demi-Jews, only because Gamaliel, whose disciple he was, refused him his daughter in marriage? It appears that this accusation is to be found exclusively in the Acts of the Apostles, which are received by the Ebionites, and refuted by the Bishop Epiphanius in his thirtieth chapter.

Is it true, that St. Thecla sought St. Paul in the disguise of a man, and are the acts of St. Thecla admissible? Tertullian, in the thirteenth chapter of his book on "Baptism," maintains that this history was composed by a priest attached to Paul. Jerome and Cyprian, in refuting the story of the lion baptized by St. Thecla, affirm the genuineness of these acts, in which we find that singular portrait of St. Paul, which we have already recorded. "He was fat, short, and broad shouldered; his dark eyebrows united across his aquiline nose; his legs were crooked, his head bald, and he was full of the grace of the Lord." This is pretty nearly his portrait in the "Philopatris" of Lucian, with the exception of "the grace of God," with which Lucian unfortunately had no acquaintance.

Is Paul to be reprehended for his reproof of the Judaizing of St. Peter, who himself Judaized for eight days together in the temple of Jerusalem? When Paul was traduced before the governor of Judæa for having introduced strangers into the temple, was it proper for him to say to the governor, that he was prosecuted on account of his teaching the resurrection of the dead, whilst of the resurrection of the dead nothing was said at all.

Did Paul do right in circumcising his disciple Timothy, after having written to the Galatians, that if they were circumcised Jesus would not profit them? Was it well to write to the Corinthians, chap. ix.: Have we not power to eat and drink at your expense? "Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife?" etc. Was it proper to write in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, that he will pardon none of them, neither those who have sinned nor others? What should we think at present of a man who pretended to live at our expense, himself, and his wife; and to judge and to punish us, confounding the innocent with the guilty? What are we to understand by the ascension of Paul into the third heaven? – what is the third heaven? Which is the most probable – humanly speaking? Did St. Paul become a Christian in consequence of being thrown from a horse by the appearance of a great light at noon day, from which a celestial voice exclaimed: Saul, "Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" or was it in consequence of being irritated against the Pharisees, either by the refusal of Gamaliel to give him his daughter, or by some other cause?

In all other history, the refusal of Gamaliel would appear more probable than the celestial voice; especially if, moreover, we were not obliged to believe in this miracle. I only ask these questions in order to be instructed; and I request all those who are willing to instruct me to speak reasonably.

SECTION II

The Epistles of St. Paul are so sublime, it is often difficult to understand them. Many young bachelors demand the precise signification of the following words: "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head." What does he mean by the words: "I have learned from the Lord, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread?"

How could he learn anything from that Jesus Christ to Whom he had never spoken, and to Whom he had been a most cruel enemy, without ever having seen Him? Was it by inspiration, or by the recital of the apostles? or did he learn it when the celestial light caused him to fall from his horse? He does not inform us on this point.

The following again: "The woman shall be saved in child-bearing." This is certainly to encourage population: it appears not that St. Paul founded convents. He speaks of seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; of those whose consciences are seared up with a red-hot iron, who forbid to marry, and command to abstain from meats. This is very strong. It appears that he abjured monks, nuns, and fast-days. Explain this contradiction; deliver me from this cruel embarrassment.

What is to be said of the passage in which he recommends the bishops to have one wife? – "Unius uxoris virum." This is positive. He permits the bishops to have but one wife, whilst the Jewish pontiffs might have several. He says unequivocally, that the last judgment will happen during his own time, that Jesus will descend from on high, as described by St. Luke, and that St. Paul and the righteous inhabitants of Thessalonica will be caught up to Him in the air, etc.

Has this occurred? or is it an allegory, a figure? Did he actually believe that he should make this journey, or that he had been caught up into the third heaven? Which is the third heaven? How will he ascend into the air? Has he been there? "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom." Is this acknowledging Jesus to be the same God as the Father? He has manifested His power over Jesus "when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand." Does this constitute the divinity of Jesus?

"Thou madest him (Jesus) a little lower than angels; thou crownedst him with glory." If He is inferior to angels – is He God?

"For if by one man's offence death reigneth, much more they who receive of the abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ." Almost man and never God, except in a single passage contested by Erasmus, Grotius, Le Clerc, etc.

"Children of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." Is not this constantly regarding Jesus as one of us, although superior by the grace of God? "To God, alone wise, honor and glory, through Jesus Christ." How are we to understand these passages literally, without fearing to offend Jesus Christ; or, in a more extended sense, without the risk of offending God the Father?

There are many more passages of this kind, which exercise the sagacity of the learned. The commentators differ, and we pretend not to possess any light which can remove the obscurity. We submit with heart and mouth to the decision of the Church. We have also taken some trouble to penetrate into the meaning of the following passages:

"For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keepest the law; but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." "Now we know, that whatever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified; for by the law is the knowledge of sin… Seeing that it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law, through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." "For if Abraham was justified by his works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God."

We fear that even the ingenuous and profound Dom Calmet himself gives us not, upon these somewhat obscure passages, a light which dissipates all our darkness. It is without doubt our own fault that we do not understand the commentators, and are deprived of that complete conception of the text, which is given only to privileged souls. As soon, however, as an explanation shall come from the chair of truth, we shall comprehend the whole perfectly.

SECTION III

Let us add this little supplement to the article "Paul." It is better to edify ourselves with the Epistles of this apostle, than to weaken our piety by calumniating the times and persons for which they were written. The learned search in vain for the year and the day in which St. Paul assisted to stone St. Stephen, and to guard the mantles of his executioners.

They dispute on the year in which he was thrown from his horse by a miraculous light at noonday, and on the epoch of his being borne away into the third heaven. They can agree neither upon the year in which he was conducted to Rome, nor that in which he died. They are unacquainted with the date of any of his letters. St. Jerome, in his commentary on the "Epistle to Philemon" says that Paul might signify the embouchure of a flute.

The letters of St. Paul to Seneca, and from Seneca to St. Paul, were accounted as authentic in the primitive ages of the Church, as all the rest of the Christian writings. St. Jerome asserts their authenticity, and quotes passages from these letters in his catalogue. St. Augustine doubts them not in his 153d letter to Macedonius. We have thirty letters of these two great men, Paul and Seneca, who, it is pretended, were linked together by a strict friendship in the court of Nero. The seventh letter from Paul to Seneca is very curious. He tells him that the Jews and the Christians were often burned as incendiaries at Rome:

"Christiani et Judæi tanquam machinatores incendii supplicio affici solent." It is in fact probable, that the Jews and the Christians, whose mutual enmity was extremely violent, reciprocally accused each other of setting the city on fire; and that the scorn and horror felt towards the Jews, with whom the Christians were usually confounded, rendered them equally the objects of public suspicion and vengeance.

We are obliged to acknowledge, that the epistolary correspondence of Seneca and Paul is in a ridiculous and barbarous Latin; that the subjects of these letters are as inconsistent as the style; and that at present they are regarded as forgeries. But, then, may we venture to contradict the testimony of St. Jerome and St. Augustine? If writings, attested by them, are nothing but vile impostures, how shall we be certain of the authenticity of others more respectable? Such is the important objection of many learned persons. If we are unworthily deceived, say they, in relation to the letters of Paul and Seneca on the Apostolical Institutes, and the Acts of St. Peter, why may we not be equally imposed upon by the Acts of the Apostles? The decision of the Church and faith are unequivocal answers to all these researches of science and suggestions of the understanding.

It is not known upon what foundation Abdias, first bishop of Babylon, says, in his "History of the Apostles," that St. Paul caused St. James the Less to be stoned by the people. Before he was converted, however, he might as readily persecute St. James as St. Stephen. He was certainly very violent, because it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, that he "breathed threatenings and slaughter". Abdias has also taken care to observe, that the mover of the sedition in which St. James was so cruelly treated, was the same Paul whom God had since called to the apostleship.

This book, attributed to Abdias, is not admitted into the canon; but Julius Africanus, who has translated it into Latin, believes it to be authentic. Since, however, the church has not admitted it, we must not admit it. Let us content ourselves with adoring Providence, and wishing that all persecutors were transformed into charitable and compassionate apostles.

PERSECUTION

I will not call Diocletian a persecutor, for he protected the Christians for eighteen years; and if, during his latter days, he did not save them from the resentment of Galerius, he only furnished the example of a prince seduced, like many others, by intrigue and cabal, into a conduct unworthy of his character. I will still less give the name of persecutor to Trajan or Antonius. I should regard myself as uttering blasphemy.

What is a persecutor? He whose wounded pride and fanaticism irritate princes and magistrates into fury against innocent men, whose only crime is that of being of a different opinion. Impudent man! you have worshipped God; you have preached and practised virtue; you have served and assisted man; you have protected the orphan, have succored the poor; you have changed deserts, in which slaves dragged on a miserable existence, into fertile districts peopled with happy families; but I have discovered that you despise me, and have never read my controversial work. I will, therefore, seek the confessor of the prime minister, or the magistrate; I will show them, with outstretched neck and twisted mouth, that you hold an erroneous opinion in relation to the cells in which the Septuagint was studied; that you have even spoken disrespectfully for these ten years past of Tobit's dog, which you assert to have been a spaniel, whilst I maintain that it was a greyhound. I will denounce you as the enemy of God and man! Such is the language of the persecutor; and if these words do not precisely issue from his lips, they are engraven on his heart with the graver of fanaticism steeped in the gall of envy.

It was thus that the Jesuit Letellier dared to persecute Cardinal de Noailles, and that Jurieu persecuted Bayle. When the persecution of the Protestants commenced in France, it was not Francis I., nor Henry II., nor Francis II., who sought out these unfortunate people, who hardened themselves against them with reflective bitterness, and who delivered them to the flames in the spirit of vengeance. Francis I. was too much engaged with the Duchess d'Étampes; Henry II., with his ancient Diana, and Francis II. was too much a child. Who, then, commenced these persecutions? Jealous priests, who enlisted in their service the prejudices of magistrates and the policy of ministers.

If these monarchs had not been deceived, if they had foreseen that these persecutions would produce half a century of civil war, and that the two parts of the nation would mutually exterminate each other, they would have extinguished with their tears the first piles which they allowed to be lighted. Oh, God of mercy! if any man can resemble that malignant being who is described as actually employed in the destruction of Your works, is it not the persecutor?

PETER (SAINT)

Why have the successors of St. Peter possessed so much power in the West and none in the East? This is just the same as to ask why the bishops of Würzburg and Salzburg obtained for themselves regal prerogatives in a period of anarchy, while the Greek bishops always remained subjects. Time, opportunity, the ambition of some, and the weakness of others, have done and will do everything in the world. We always except what relates to religion. To this anarchy, must be added opinion; and opinion is the queen of mankind. Not that, in fact, they have any very clear and definite opinion of their own, but words answer the same end with them.

"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." The zealous partisans of the bishop of Rome contended, about the eleventh century, that whoever gives the greater gives the less; that heaven surrounded the earth; and that, as Peter had the keys of the container, he had also the keys of what was contained. If by heaven we understand all the stars and planets, it is evident, according to Tomasius, that the keys given to Simon Barjonas, surnamed Peter, were a universal passport. If we understand by heaven the clouds, the atmosphere, the ether, and the space in which the planets revolve, no smith in the world, as Meursius observes, could ever make a key for such gates as these. Railleries, however, are not reasons.

Keys in Palestine were wooden latches with strings to them. Jesus says to Barjonas, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." The pope's clergy concluded from these words, that the popes had received authority to bind and unbind the people's oath of fidelity to their kings, and to dispose of kingdoms at their pleasure. This certainly was concluding magnificently. The Commons in the states-general of France, in 1302, say, in their memorial to the king, that "Boniface VIII. was a b – for believing that God bound and imprisoned in heaven what Boniface bound on earth." A famous German Lutheran – the great Melancthon – could not endure the idea of Jesus having said to Simon Barjonas, Cepha or Cephas, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my assembly, my church." He could not conceive that God would use such a play of words, and that the power of the pope could have been established on a pun. Such a doubt, however, can be indulged only by a Protestant.

Peter has been considered as having been bishop of Rome; but it is well known that, in the apostolic age, and long after, there was no particular and appropriate bishopric. The society of Christians did not assume a regular form until about the middle of the second century. It may be true that Peter went to Rome, and even that he was crucified with his head downwards, although that was not the usual mode of crucifixion; but we have no proof whatever of all this. We have a letter under his name, in which he says that he is at Babylon: acute and shrewd canonists have contended that, by Babylon, we ought to understand Rome; and on the same principle, if he had dated at Rome, we might have concluded that the letter had been written at Babylon. Men have long been in the habit of drawing such reasonable and judicious inferences as these; and it is in this manner that the world has been governed.

There was once a clergyman who, after having been made to pay extortionately for a benefice at Rome – an offence known by the name of simony – happened to be asked, some time afterwards, whether he thought Simon Peter had ever been in that city? He replied, "I do not think that Peter was ever there, but I am sure Simon was."

With respect to the personal character and behavior of St. Peter, it must be acknowledged that Paul is not the only one who was scandalized at his conduct. He was often "withstood to the face," as well as his successors. St. Paul vehemently reproached him with eating forbidden meats: that is, pork, blood-pudding, hare, eels, the ixion, and the griffin; Peter vindicated himself by saying that he had seen heaven opened about the sixth hour, and as it were a great sheet descending from the four corners of it, which was filled with creeping things, quadrupeds, and birds, while the voice of an angel called out to him, saying, "Kill and eat." This, says Woolston, seems to have been the same voice which has called out to so many pontiffs since, "Kill everything; eat up the substance of the people." But this reproach is much too strong.

Casaubon cannot by any means bring himself to approve the manner in which St. Peter treated Ananias and Sapphira, his wife. "By what right," says Casaubon, "did a Jew slave of the Romans order or permit that all those who believed in Jesus should sell their inheritance, and lay down the price paid for it at his feet?" If an Anabaptist at London was to order all the money belonging to his brethren to be brought and laid at his feet, would he not be apprehended as a seditious seducer, as a thief who would certainly be hanged at Tyburn? Was it not abominable to kill Ananias, because, after having sold his property and delivered over the bulk of the produce to Peter, he had retained for himself and his wife a few crowns for any case of necessity, without mentioning it? Scarcely, moreover, has Ananias expired, before his wife arrives. Peter, instead of warning her charitably that he had just destroyed her husband by apoplexy for having kept back a few oboli, and cautioning her therefore to look well to herself, leads her as it were intentionally into the snare. He asks her if her husband has given all his money to the saints; the poor woman replies in the affirmative, and dies instantly. This is certainly rather severe.

Corringius asks, why Peter, who thus killed the persons that had given him alms and showed him kindness, did not rather go and destroy all the learned doctors who had brought Jesus Christ to the cross, and who more than once brought a scourging on himself. "Oh, Peter!" says Corringius, "you put to death two Christians who bestowed alms on you, and at the same time suffer those to live who crucified your God!"

In the reigns of Henry IV., and Louis XIII., we had an advocate-general of the parliament of Provence, a man of quality, called d'Oraison de Torame, who, in a book respecting the church militant, dedicated to Henry IV., has appropriated a whole chapter to the sentences pronounced by St. Peter in criminal causes. He says, that the sentence pronounced by Peter on Ananias and Sapphira was executed by God Himself, "in the very terms and forms of spiritual jurisdiction." His whole book is in the same strain; but Corringius, as we perceive, is of a different opinion from that of our sagacious and liberal provincial advocate. It is pretty evident that Corringius was not in the country of the Inquisition when he published his bold remarks.

Erasmus, in relation to St. Peter, remarked a somewhat curious circumstance, which is, that the chief of the Christian religion began his apostleship with denying Jesus Christ, and that the first pontiff of the Jews commenced his ministry by making a golden calf and worshipping it.

However that may be, Peter is described as a poor man instructing the poor. He resembles those founders of orders who lived in indigence, and whose successors have become great lords and even princes.

The pope, the successor of Peter, has sometimes gained and sometimes lost; but there are still about fifty millions of persons in the world submitting in many points to his laws, besides his own immediate subjects.

To obtain a master three or four hundred leagues from home; to suspend your own opinion and wait for what he puts forth as his; not to dare to give a final decision on a cause relating to certain of our fellow-citizens, but through commissioners appointed by this stranger; not to dare to take possession of certain fields and vineyards granted by our own sovereign, without paying a considerable sum to this foreign master; to violate the laws of our country, which prohibit a man's marriage with his niece, and marry her legitimately by giving this foreign master a sum still more considerable than the former one; not to dare to cultivate one's field on the day this stranger is inclined to celebrate the memory of some unknown person whom he has chosen to introduce into heaven by his own sole authority; such are a part only of the conveniences and comforts of admitting the jurisdiction of a pope; such, if we may believe Marsais, are the liberties of the Gallican Church.

There are some other nations that carry their submission further. We have, in our own time, actually known a sovereign request permission of the pope to try in his own courts certain monks accused of parricide, and able neither to obtain this permission nor to venture on such trial without it!

It is well known that, formerly, the power of the popes extended further. They were far above the gods of antiquity; for the latter were merely supposed to dispose of empires, but the popes disposed of them in fact. Sturbinus says, that we may pardon those who entertain doubts of the divinity and infallibility of the pope, when we reflect: that forty schisms have profaned the chair of St. Peter, twenty-seven of which have been marked by blood; that Stephen VII., the son of a priest, disinterred the corpse of Formosus, his predecessor, and had the head of it cut off; that Sergius III., convicted of assassinations, had a son by Marozia, who inherited the popedom; that John X., the paramour of Theodora, was strangled in her bed; that John XI., son of Sergius III., was known only by his gross intemperance; that John XII. was assassinated in the apartments of his mistress; that Benedict IX. both bought and sold the pontificate; that Gregory VII. was the author of five hundred years of civil war, carried on by his successors; that, finally, among so many ambitious, sanguinary, and debauched popes, there was an Alexander VI., whose name is pronounced with the same horror as those of Nero and Caligula.

It is, we are told, a proof of the divinity of their character, that it has subsisted in connection with so many crimes; but according to this, if the caliphs had displayed still more atrocious and abominable conduct, they would have been still more divine. This argument, inferring their divinity from their wickedness, is urged by Dermius. He has been properly answered; but the best reply is to be found in the mitigated authority which the bishops of Rome at present exercise with discretion; in the long possession which the emperors permit them to enjoy, because in fact they are unable to deprive them of it; and in the system of the balance of power, which is watched with jealousy by every court in Europe.

It has been contended, and very lately, that there are only two nations which could invade Italy and crush Rome. These are the Turks and Russians; but they are necessarily enemies; and, besides, I cannot distinctly anticipate misfortunes so distant.

 
Je ne sais point prévoir les malheurs de si loin.
 

– RACINE, Andromache, act. i, scene 2.