Part 3

Again, Dr. Colenso contends that all who were _gathered unto the door of the tabernacle_ “must have come _within the court_”. “This, indeed”, he says, “was necessary for the purpose for which they were summoned on this occasion, namely, to witness the ceremony of the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priestly office”. Now it is nowhere stated that this was, in point of fact, the purpose for which the people were gathered together. Certainly, if it were _impossible_ they could witness the ceremony, as Dr. Colenso assures us, we are bound to infer that it was _not_ for this purpose they were assembled. Nor is it difficult to find another, and quite a sufficient reason, for gathering the people together on this solemn occasion. It may have been the design of God that, by their _presence_ in and around the court of the tabernacle, they should make a public profession of their faith, and formally acknowledge the priesthood of Aaron. Thus, in the illustration already introduced, it was impossible for 100,000 people to hear O’Connell speak; but their presence was itself a public declaration that they adhered to his principles and accepted him for their leader.

Was it, however, really impossible that those without the court should witness the leading features of the ceremony? Certainly not. We must bear in mind that the court was not enclosed by stone walls, but by hangings of fine linen. Nothing, therefore, could have been more simple than to loop up these curtains to the pillars by which they were supported, and thus to afford a full view of the tabernacle to those who stood without. Dr. Colenso will probably say that in the scripture narrative there is no mention of any such arrangement. Neither, we reply, is it said that those without the court were intended to witness the ceremony. But if we suppose that this was intended, we must also suppose that the means were adopted which would make it _possible_.

There is yet another error of Dr. Colenso which we cannot pass by in silence. It is true, the blunder to which we refer has little to do with his argument. But it has much to do with the question whether he is a competent authority on the sacred text, even when he speaks with special emphasis and with unhesitating confidence. “Supposing that ‘all the congregation’ of adult males ... had hastened to take their stand ... in front, not merely of the _door_, but of the whole _end_ of the tabernacle in which the door was”, etc. It is clear that the writer of this passage was under the impression (which, indeed, he conveys not only by his words, but still more by his italics—for they _are_ his) that _the whole end_ of the tabernacle was wider than the _door_. Now if he had taken the pains to read even an English translation of the sacred book which he so rashly presumed to condemn, he never could have fallen into so great a mistake. He would have seen that the _whole eastern end_ of the tabernacle was left open, and that the open space was covered only by a curtain which extended across from side to side. Consequently, if mention were really made of a door, it must have been this curtain itself that was called by that name.

But if Dr. Colenso had gone a little further, and had consulted any Hebrew lexicon, he would have discovered that the sacred writer does not speak of a _door_, but rather of a _doorway_. The tabernacle had in fact no _door_ properly so called. The word פתח (_pethach_), which is used by the sacred writers when speaking of the tabernacle, signifies, as Gesenius explains it, _an opening_, _an entrance_. It means, therefore, the whole end of the tabernacle, which was left _open_ to the court when the curtain was drawn. In Hebrew the idea of _a door_ is expressed by דלת (_deleth_). When treating of this word, Gesenius, having first explained its meaning, pointedly remarks: “It differs from פתח, which denotes the doorway which the door closes”. It is quite certain, therefore, that the _door_ and the _whole end of the tabernacle_, which Dr. Colenso so emphatically contrasts, were in reality one and the same thing.

It is time, however, that we pass to another of Dr. Colenso’s arguments:—

“ ‘_And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung, even the whole bullock, shall he (the Priest) carry forth without the camp, unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire. Where the ashes are poured out there shall he be burned_’—(_Lev._, iv. 11, 12).

“We have seen that the whole population of Israel at the exodus may be reckoned at two millions. Now we cannot well allow for a _living_ man, with room for his cooking, sleeping, and other necessaries and conveniences of life, less than three times the space required for a _dead_ one in his grave.... Let us allow, however, for each person on the average three times 6 feet by 2 feet, the size of a coffin for a full-grown man,—that is, let us allow for each person 36 square feet or 4 square yards. Then it follows that ... the camp must have covered, the people being crowded as thickly as possible, an area of 8,000,000 square yards, or more than 1652 acres of ground.

“Upon this very moderate estimate, then (which in truth is far within the mark), we must imagine a vast encampment of this extent, swarming with people, more than _a mile and a half across_ in each direction, with the tabernacle in the centre.... Thus the refuse of these sacrifices would have had to be carried by the priest himself (Aaron, Eleazar, or Ithamar,—there were no others) a distance of three-quarters of a mile....

“But how huge does this difficulty become, if, instead of taking the excessively cramped area of 1652 acres, less than _three square miles_, for such a camp as this, we take the more reasonable allowance of Scott, who says, ‘this encampment is computed to have formed a moveable city of _twelve miles square_, that is, about the size of London itself,’—as it well might be, considering that the population was as large as that of London, and that in the Hebrew tents there were no first, second, third, and fourth stories, no crowded garrets and underground cellars. In that case the offal of these sacrifices would have had to be carried by Aaron himself, or one of his sons, a distance of six miles.... In fact, we have to imagine the priest having himself to carry, on his back, on foot, from St. Paul’s to the outskirts of the metropolis, the ‘skin, and flesh, and head, and legs, and inwards, and dung, even the whole bullock’.... This supposition involves, of course, an absurdity. But it is our duty to look plain facts in the face”—(Part i. pp. 38-40).

We agree with Dr. Colenso that this is a “huge difficulty”, and that the duties of the priest, as described by him, involve a manifest absurdity. But we contend that the duties of the priest, as described by him, are not to be found in the Pentateuch; that _all the circumstances_ which constitute the difficulty and the absurdity are simply _additions of his own_. This is indeed a serious charge against a writer who represents himself to the public as an earnest and conscientious searcher after truth. But we hope to satisfy our readers that it is a plain and obvious fact; and it is our duty, as Dr. Colenso truly tells us, “to look plain facts in the face”.

It is evident that the whole weight of the objection consists in this: that, according to the sacred narrative, the priest is commanded, first, to carry the bullock _himself_; secondly, to carry it _on his back_; thirdly, in doing so, to _go on foot_. Now there is not the faintest insinuation in any text Dr. Colenso has produced, nor, we may add, in any text the Pentateuch contains, that the priest should _go on foot_, or that he should carry the bullock _on his back_. These two ideas are to be found only in the fanciful and rather irreverent gloss of Dr. Colenso.

Neither is it commanded in the sacred text that the priest should _himself_ carry the bullock out of the camp. Even in the English translation there is nothing to imply that he might not, for this duty, employ the service of his attendant Levites. It is said, indeed, “he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp”. But by the common use of language we may impute to a person, as his own, the act which he does by the agency of another. Thus a minister of state is said to write a letter, when the letter is written at his direction by his secretary. In the Fourth Book of _Kings_ it is recorded of Nabuchodonosor that “_he carried away all Jerusalem_, and all the princes, and all the valiant men of the army, to the number of ten thousand, into captivity:... and the judges of the land he carried into captivity from Jerusalem into Babylon. And all the strong men, seven thousand, and the artificers and the smiths a thousand”, etc.—(IV. _Kings_, xxiv. 14-16). No one dreams of any difficulty in a sentence like this. Yet, if we admit the Colenso system of interpretation, the difficulty is insuperable, because the _meaning of the sentence_ is, that Nabuchodonosor _himself_ carried that immense multitude _on his back_ from Jerusalem to Babylon.

If we now turn to the Hebrew text we shall find that it is still less favourable to Dr. Colenso and his “huge difficulty”. The word והוציא (vehotzi), which is there used, literally means _and he shall cause [it] to go forth_, that is to say, _he shall have it removed_. This will be at once admitted by every biblical scholar, and can be made intelligible without much difficulty to the general reader. In the Hebrew language there are several forms of the same verb, sometimes called conjugations, each of which has a meaning peculiar to itself. The primitive form is _kal_; and the _hiphil_ form “denotes the _causing_ or _permitting_ of the action, signified by the primitive _kal_”.(5) For example: קדש (kadash) in _kal_ signifies _to be holy_; in _hiphil_, _to cause to be holy_, _to sanctify_; נטה (natah) in _kal_ means _to bow_; in _hiphil_, _to cause to bow_, _to bend_. Now, in the passage quoted by Dr. Colenso the word והוציא is the _hiphil_ form of יצא (yatza), _to go forth_; it therefore means literally _to cause to go forth_.(6) We need scarcely remark that the priest would comply with this injunction whether he himself in person removed the bullock, or whether he employed the Levites to do it; whether he carried it on his back, according to the ridiculous paraphrase of Dr. Colenso, or removed it in wagons provided for the purpose.

And now that our paper approaches to a close, it may be asked what is the result of our labours, and what has been gained to the cause of truth by all the minute and tedious details through which we have conducted our readers? It seems to us that we have directly answered two of Dr. Colenso’s arguments, and that we have moreover established indirectly a strong presumption against all the rest. Let us put a case to our readers. A jeweller exhibits for sale a string of pearls. He demands a very high price, but he pledges his word of honour that the pearls are of the rarest quality and of the highest excellence. A casual passer-by is attracted by the glittering gems. He enters the shop; he listens with eager credulity to the earnest protestations of the merchant; but he hesitates when the price is named. At this critical moment a friend arrives, who is happily somewhat versed in jewellery. He selects one or two pearls from the string, and after a brief inspection clearly shows, not merely that the price is far beyond their value, but that they are not pearls at all. What would be thought of the merchant who had offered them for sale? Who would frequent his shop? Who would believe the other pearls to be genuine on the strength of his protestations? It may be indeed that he is not a swindler; but if he is an honest man, he is certainly a very indifferent judge of his business.

Now what this jeweller is in a matter of commerce, such, as it seems to us, has Dr. Colenso been proved to be in a matter of infinitely greater moment. He comes before the world with the prestige of a great name and of a high position. He earnestly announces that he has made a great discovery, and that he is forced by his conscience to speak out his mind. He offers to the public an attractive array of brilliant and plausible arguments; and in return he asks us to surrender the inestimable treasure of Christian faith. At first we are bewildered and perplexed by the novelty and variety of his arguments; but after a little we summon up courage; we select two or three from the number, and these we submit to a minute and careful analysis. We find that they are miserably defective and utterly inconclusive. Facts are misrepresented, the meaning of language is perverted, the principles of sound reasoning are disregarded. May we not then fairly infer that Dr. Colenso’s earnest protestations of sincerity and good intention afford a very insufficient guarantee for the accuracy of his statements and the stability of his arguments? We do not say that he is dishonest; but we do say that he has proved himself a very incompetent authority.

BLESSED THADDEUS M’CARTHY.

[In an article of the _Record_ for April (page 312), we briefly referred to a Bishop of Cloyne and Cork who is venerated as blessed, in Ivrea, a town of Piedmont. In conformity with the few fragments preserved in the archives of Ivrea and elsewhere regarding him, we adopted the opinion that his name, according to modern orthography, should be rendered Thaddeus Maher. Since the publication of the article just mentioned, a paper containing much valuable matter has been communicated to us through the great kindness of the Very Rev. Dr. M’Carthy, the learned Professor of Scripture in Maynooth College, who had prepared it long before the article in the _Record_ was published, and before he could have had any knowledge of our views on this subject. We are anxious to publish every document that we can find on this interesting question, in the hope that by discussing it, light may be thrown on the history of a holy Irish bishop, who is honoured beyond the Alps, but so little known at home, that there is great difficulty in determining his real name. In one of our next numbers we shall return to this subject.]

On June 23rd, 1847, the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, received at Maynooth a letter covering a bill of exchange for £40 (1,000 francs), sent for the relief of the famine-stricken poor of Ireland, by order of the good Bishop of Ivrea. The town of Ivrea (anciently _Eporedia_) is the capital of the Piedmontese province of the same name, which extends from the Po to the Alps. The province contains a population of over one hundred thousand, of whom about eight thousand reside in the town, where is also the bishop’s see.

The letter to Dr. Murray enclosed a separate paper, of which the following is a copy:—

“De Beato Thaddeo Episcopo Hiberniae.

“Anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo secundo, die vigesima quarta Octobris, Eporediae (antiquae urbis Transalpinae in Pedemontio) postremum obiit diem in hospitio peregrinorum sub titulo Sancti Antonii, quidam viator incognitus; atque eodem instante lux mira prope lectum in quo jacebat effulsit, et Episcopo Eporediensi apparuit homo venerandus, Pontificalibus indumentis vestitus. THADDEUM MACHAR Hiberniae Episcopum illum esse innotuit ex chartis quas deferebat, et in Cathedrali ejus corpus solemni pompa depositum est sub altari, et in tumulo Sancti Eusebii Episcopi Eporediensis, atque post paucos dies coepit multa miracula facere.

“Acta et documenta ex quibus ejus patria et character episcopalis tunc innotuerunt, necnon ad patratorum miraculorum seu prodigiorum memoriam exarata, interierunt occasione incendii quo seculo xvii. Archivium Episcopale vastatum est. In quadam charta pergamena caracteribus Gothicis scripta, quae in Archivio Ecclesiae Cathedralis servatur haec leguntur:

“Marmoreis tumulis hoc templo Virginis almae Corpora Sanctorum plura sepulta jacent Martinus hic . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inde Thaddeus adest, quem misit Hibernia praesul Sospite quo venit saepe petita salus, Regia progenies alto de sanguine Machar, Quem nostri in Genua nunc Latiique vocant. Ingemuit moriens, quem Hiberno sidere cretum Non Cariense tenet, non Clovinense solum. Sic visum superis; urbs Eporedia corpus Templo majore marmoreo claudat opus. Hic jacet Eusebii testudinis ipse sacello, Pauperiem Christi divitis inde tulit. Hunc clarum reddunt miracula sancta: beatus Exstat: et in toto dicitur orbe pius. Huc quicunque venis, divum venerare Thaddeum Votaque fac precibus: dicque viator, Ave. Mille quadringentos annos tunc orbis agebat Atque Nonagenos: postmodum junge duos.

“Verbis illis _solum Cariense_ vel _Cloviense_ et _Clovinense_ designari a poeta civitates Hiberniae in quibus Thaddeus aut natus aut Episcopus fuerit, putandum est, forsan Clareh, Carrick.

“Quamobrem exquiritur utrum in Hibernia habeatur notitia hujus Episcopi THADDEI MACHAR—loci ubi natus fuerit,—ejus familiae, quae regia seu princeps supponitur in poesi,—civitatis seu ecclesiae in qua fuerit Episcopus. Desiderantur quoque notitiae si quae reperiri poterunt et documenta quibus illius vita et gesta illustrari possint; insuper utrum labente saeculo xv. aliqua persecutio in Hibernia adversus Episcopos facta sit, quemadmodum argumentari licet ex quibusdam Epistolis Innocentii VIII. circa immunitatem ecclesiasticam”.—(_End of paper_).

As our space precludes a literal translation of this paper, a summary may be acceptable to the reader.

On the 24th of October, 1492, died at Ivrea, in St. Antony’s Hospice for Pilgrims, Blessed Thaddeus, an Irish bishop, whose body was deposited under the high altar of the cathedral, in a shrine over the relics of the holy patron, St. Eusebius. At the time of death a brilliant light was seen round his bed, and at the same moment to the Bishop of Ivrea there appeared a man of venerable mien, clothed in pontifical robes. Several other miracles were also wrought through his intercession. The papers found with him showed he was an Irish bishop, and these, as well as other documents proving his great sanctity, religiously kept in the episcopal archives, were destroyed by fire in the seventeenth century. In an old parchment, written in Gothic letters, still preserved in the archives of the cathedral church, are these lines:

’Neath marble tombs, in this the virgin’s shrine The bones of many a saint in peace recline; Here martyred . . . . . Thaddeus there. From Erin’s shore he came, A bishop, of M’Carthy’s royal name. At whose behest were wondrous cures oft made. Still Latium, Genoa, invoke his aid. Dying, he mourned that not on Irish soil, Where sped his youth, should close his earthly toil: Nor Cloyne, nor Kerry, but Ivrea owns (For God so willed) the saintly bishop’s bones. ’T is meet that they in marble shrine encased Should be within the great cathedral placed. Like Christ, whose tomb was for another made, He in Eusebius’ cenotaph is laid. Soon sacred prodigies his power attest, And all the Earth proclaims him pious, blest. O ye who hither come, our saint assail With prayers and votive gifts; nor, traveller, fail To greet with reverence the holy dead. Since Christ was born a thousand years had fled, Four hundred then and ninety-two beside Had passed away, when St. Thaddeus died.

When Dr. Murray received the Bishop of Ivrea’s letter, he placed it in the hands of the late venerated President of Maynooth College, from whose MSS. it is now copied, together with the very literal translation of the verses made by one of the junior students at the time. Dr. Renehan undertook to collect all the notices of Blessed Thaddeus in our Irish annals, and to give the best answers he could to the bishop’s questions. He even visited Ivrea in the summer of 1850, in the hope of finding traditional records of the life of Blessed Thaddeus, but to no purpose. He found the task more difficult than might be expected. All the knowledge regarding the saint’s family, see, etc., that can be gathered from Irish or British sources is found in these few lines from Ware on the Bishops of Cloyne:

“THADY M’CARTHY (_succ._ 1490).—Upon the resignation of William, Thady M’Carthy, by some called Mechar, succeeded the same year by a provision from Pope Innocent VIII., as may be seen from the _Collectanea_ of Francis Harold”—Ware’s _Bishops_ (Harris), p. 563.

The Blessed Thaddeus’s name is unhonoured then, in his own country; his biography, if ever written, is at least not recorded by the Irish historians. Even the scanty information which the industrious Ware supplies, was gleaned not from our annals, but from Harold’s _Collectanea_, probably notes and extracts taken from documents in the continental libraries. Dr. Renehan had, therefore, little to add on our saint’s life. He was, however, fully satisfied that Blessed Thaddeus of Ivrea was no other than the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne, mentioned by Ware. His arguments may be seen in a rough outline of his answer to the Bishop of Ivrea’s letter, among the O’Renehan MSS. in Maynooth, almost the only authority we had time to consult for this notice. Sometimes the very words of the letter are given in inverted commas:—

I. The Pilgrim of Ivrea was an Irish bishop who died in the year 1492. “The most diligent search through our Irish annals will not discover another bishop to whom even so much of the poet’s description will apply but Thaddeus M’Carthy, Bishop of Cloyne. About that date there were indeed in Ireland five bishops named Thaddeus: 1. Thady, Bishop of Kilmore, since before 1460; but his successor Furseus died in 1464, and Thomas, the third from him, died before 1492. 2. Thady M’Cragh, of Killaloe, succeeded in 1430, full sixty years before our saint’s death at Ivrea. His third successor died in 1460. 3. Thady, Bishop of Down, was consecrated in Rome, 1469, died in 1486, and his successor, R. Wolsey, was named before 1492. 4. Thady of Ross died soon after his appointment in 1488, succeeded by Odo in 1489. 5. Thady of Dromore, appointed only in 1511, and the see was held by George Brown in 1492. The date (1492) is alone enough to prove that B. Thaddeus of Ivrea was not any of the preceding bishops, and there was no other of the name for full sixty years after or before, but the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne, the date of whose death fits exactly all the requirements of the case. Ware quotes from Harold that he was appointed by Innocent VIII. (_sed._ 1484-1492,) that he succeeded W. Roch, resigned 1490, and further, that Gerald, who succeeded, resigned in 1499, after obtaining a pardon from Henry VII. in 1496”—(_Lib. Mun._, i. p. 102)

II. Another line of the old fragment seems to name the see of the B. Thaddeus, whom the poet describes as lamenting his death abroad, far from the “solum Chariense”, or “Clovinense”, which we interpret far “from _Kerry_”, the burial place of his family, and “from _Cloyne_”, his episcopal see. “Cloyne” is variously Latinized, even by Irish writers, “Cloynensis”, “Clonensis”, “Cluanensis”—and often “Clovens” or “Clovinen”, in Rymer’s _Foedera_.(7) What more natural than that a poet would describe the pilgrim as longing to be buried either in his cathedral church of _Cloyne_ or with his fathers in _Kerry_?