Part 14

"Man, that creature of incredible vanity and innumerable petty egoisms, refuses to consider for very long the melancholy spectacle of a world hastening merely towards its death, and carrying with it his whole store of spiritual experience, of poems and philosophies, theologics and sciences, which his forefathers have created, and his descendants shall renew. Therefore, when I considered the future of religion as an indispensable condition of life, and when I imagined further a kind of alliance between the proletariate and mine own Church, I based my calculations principally upon the feet that the great majority of men do not think; indeed, that they refuse to think.

"Creeds may pass away, but the individuality of man changes, if at all, only by imperceptible degrees. Ages of faith and ages of scepticism recur, and give place to each other, with almost the same regularity as the ebb and flow of a tide. The age of Pericles was sceptical, the age of Cæsar was sceptical, the ages of Leo X. and Louis XV. were sceptical; but from age to age the peasant has sate by the fire after his day's work, dreaming the same dreams, and hearing nothing of the world's doubt. He is much the same kind of pagan as he always was. He has seized upon, in a way we cannot understand, the primitive, elementary conditions, which subsist in all religions. You were right, Monsieur, in tracing religion to him. He is its source. Perhaps he has never accepted Christianity; but Christianity has accepted him. Laborious, innocent, stupid, scarcely more human than the cattle, who are literally his foster-brothers, he looks out upon his little world with patient eyes, wondering; and he brings us the fruits of the earth and the bread of life."

"I have said with Voltaire," murmured Renan, "that if a God did not exist we should have to invent one."

Once again a deep, ironic smile creased about Leo's jaws.

"You were perhaps right, Monsieur," he said; "but we should prefer not to tax your ingenuity. The gods invented by science are always afar off; or they sleep, perchance; or they are concerned with their own affairs; in any case they do not hear us when we call to them. I consider our Church capable of a larger growth if it will only remain silent on the question of dogma, which should be left like seed to grow and quicken in the earth. Time will obtain for any dogma a certain measure of tacit acceptance, because truth to the majority is merely something which has been said over and over again. Besides the psychological basis of my calculations, the fact that the majority do not think, there is the political basis. This has entered into a new phase. In the Middle Ages the Church was allied with the State against the people. Its dogmas were enforced by the secular arm. Innocent III. was a kind of suzerain over the princes of Europe. But even here, already, the Church knew upon occasion to ally herself with the people, and threaten a king through his own subjects, by releasing a nation from its allegiance, and troubling its internal peace by an interdict.

"Since my predecessor, the Church has definitely adopted this policy; but with a more subtile and insinuating method. Infallibility relates not only to matters of dogma, but to matters of State, _quoad mores_ as well as _quoad fidem_. You will remember, Monsieur, that Antonelli addressed a despatch to the Nuncio at Paris, in which he says: 'The Church has never intended, nor now intends, to exercise any direct and absolute power over the political rights of the State. Having received from God the lofty mission of guiding men, whether individually or as congregated in society, to a supernatural end, she has by that very fact the authority and the duty to judge concerning the morality and justice of all acts, internal and external, in relation to their conformity with the natural and divine law. And as no action, whether it be ordained by a supreme power, or be freely elicited by an individual, can be exempt from this character of morality and justice, it so happens that the judgment of the Church, though falling directly on the moral of the acts, indirectly reaches over everything with which that morality is conjoined. But this is not the same thing as to interfere directly in political affairs.' That direct interference we must avoid."

Renan seemed to hesitate before he spoke.

"It may be," he answered, "as you say, that mankind does not progress, but merely revolves. Sometimes I have thought so. But nothing is repeated in precisely the same way. Neither an individual, nor a society, is what it imagines itself to be, in its action upon the world. The Church, as it is considered by its adherents, is something totally different from the Church as it seems to its directors. Every individual, and every age, examines the gospels in a different light and from a different standpoint, just as they examine the movement of the planets, the structure of the earth, the conception of kingship, of the State, even of that most immediate object the body. The life of St Francis seems to spring quite naturally out of the mediæval world, with its crude cosmogony, its notion of the universe as a huge mechanical toy in the hands of God. To such people the story of Joshua commanding the sun was not childish; miracles quite as wonderful were part of their daily lives; and the world for them acted not according to fixed immutable laws, but by the direct interposition of a Providence susceptible to the prayers of man. To us it is different. We cannot imagine a St Francis appearing in the modern world. The Church, Your Holiness, cannot control the new movement, which will either transform or destroy it; but in what will you suffer it to be transformed?

"The evil of infallibility is that it cannot retract, or confess to error. The Pope has been endowed with this fatal gift of infallibility, a personal charisma, and through it he has become an incarnation of the Divine Wisdom, even as the Dalai Lama becomes an incarnation of the Buddha. To the historian, the heretical Pope Honorius, condemned equally by Councils, and by his successors, is sufficient to disprove your claims. But the Church can triumph over facts of history. What it cannot triumph over is the spirit of the age. You have a large body of adherents, who describe themselves as Catholic without knowing what the term implies. You have a smaller, body, whose principal business in life seems to lie in reconciling, by innumerable sophistries and subterfuges, your dogmas with the modern world. The smallest body of all is made up of those of your adherents, who accept you as the sole fount of truth. But in each of these three sections there is not a solitary individual who accepts your teaching without colouring it with his own ideas. Each will explain a dogma from the point of view of his own prejudices, and only accepts it with a kind of mental reservation. Of course it always has been so. Your peril lies in the rapid exchange of ideas which characterises modern life, the ease of communication, and the lack of any effective machinery for preventing their diffusion. The moment any crisis arises you cease to act as a solid body; and the action of your leaders has far less influence upon public opinion than the action of your laity excusing, or justifying, or explaining, the multitudinous diversities which exist among you. If this lay action be not public, it is the more insidious. I have noticed that when any important pronouncement is published from the chair of Peter, your lay apologists make no sign. There is an ominous silence. All are disenchanted. All are suspect. They seem to turn away, silent and troubled, from what they imagined to be the ultimate authority, and seek for their justification at the tribunal of their private conscience."

"Oh!" interrupted Leo brusquely, "I for one do not regret that these gentlemen should be made uncomfortable. A lay theologian has no adequate reason for existing. It is altogether undesirable that laymen, mere amateurs, should concern themselves with these things."

"Eh bien!" said Renan. "It is entirely owing to the laity that a certain type of converts accrues to your ranks. Liberal Catholicism, though you and I know what a vain, chimerical, and ridiculous thing it is, is, as it were, the first step. Take Newman's theory of 'development' as an example. Newman is the prophet dearest to the heart of laymen; because, in a sense, his works are popular. The Anglican may read him as a classic, and, while enchanted with the magic of that exquisite prose, lays himself open to the attacks of a peculiarly subtile and insidious mind. A certain temper is created in him. He becomes receptive of Catholic ideas, and one watches him progressing more or less unconsciously toward Rome, blind to his master's casuistry by reason of the ineffable charm. He is like one implected with a morbid craving for some narcotic drug, gradually increasing the dose as its effect lessens. Liberal Catholics are the lures for such. Your Holiness had good reason for saying that the Church had been founded by successive heresies. The first step to a conversion is always a misunderstanding."

"It is perfectly true," said Leo; "but Liberal Catholicism is finished. Only Newman's hat protects him from censure. The doctrine of development ceased to have any value after the definition of infallibility. It was valuable as leading up to the definition, but afterwards it became an excuse for the introduction of novelties. Its sole value now is as a proselytising medium. But, Monsieur, why do we continue? The Church is dissolving; even Christianity itself seems to be dissolving, to take on a fluid, personal form. That singular body, the Society of Friends, alone seems to be untouched by the solvent of criticism. It has nothing upon which the solvent may act, no dogmas, no sacraments, no depository of tradition, no hierarchical organisation. It recognises only the inward spirit, that informing and subtile essence which alone seems capable of interpreting the righteousness of God, a religion of silence, and of sudden illumination, a religion of patient hope, of resignation, of a tacit understanding."

"Ah," said Renan, smiling, "a religion without forms, without enthusiasms, is scarcely one to satisfy all men. It is fascinating to consider the future of Christianity. After Catholicism no other form will satisfy the Latins, and if criticism destroys Protestantism with its infallible Bible, as it is destroying Catholicism with its infallible Pope, these sophisticated nations will scarcely replace one object of worship by another. You have said that a religion needs an uncritical people, a people who do not think; so for any further development we must turn toward a less complete civilisation, to a virgin soil. Perhaps we find this in Russia. I can imagine that dreamy and unsophisticated people, who have kept unpolluted through the ages the temperament of wonder, reforming and developing the Greek Church. When their Revolution comes, whether it be gradual and humane, or a violent upheaval of disastrous passion, the Church will be metamorphosed; the stock only will remain, and new boughs will be grafted upon it. I can imagine a great growth because the field has lain fallow for so long, and the modern spirit will scarcely touch it, not only because the new Christianity will be more flexible in itself, but also because the people will have inherited our results without having endured our conflicts."

The clouds in front of them suddenly trembled and parted; the figure of a man appeared.

"Mocenni!" exclaimed Leo.

He rose and went toward the newcomer.

"Who is Pope?" he enquired.

And the Cardinal Mocenni answered him in ill-humour.

"Sarto."

For a moment Leo stood, as if doubtful, without speaking.

"Sarto," he said at last incredulously. "Sarto!"

"Well, Monsieur," said Renan, "shall we not continue our discussion on the future of the Church?"

But Leo had taken Mocenni's arm, and the pair walked slowly away.

"Sarto! Sarto!" Renan heard Leo say again, as the clouds gathered about them; and Renan smiled.

"It is clear," he said, "that Sarto is not Leo."

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's Scenes and Portraits, by Frederic Manning