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This is a most extraordinary note. The author uses “so to say” (="as it were”) merely to qualify the figure, which a pagan might think extravagant. “This is, as it were, the door of life:” the expression qualifies the rhetoric, not the Scripture, as such. On the contrary, I should adduce this very passage as an instance of our author’s familiarity alike with the spirit and the letter of two most important texts of the Gospel, which he expounds and enforces with an earnest intelligence, and with a spirit truly evangelical. (Covered with garments, note 7, p. 469.) A heathen might have retorted, had he known the Scriptures, by asking about the “white robes” of angels, and the raiment of the risen Redeemer; e.g., Rev. i. 13. “Curious and unlearned questions” concerning these matters have been stirred by a certain class of Christians. (See Stier5046
(The eyes of Jupiter, p. 483.) Arnobius with remorseless vigour smites Jove himself,—the Optimus Maximus of polytheism,—and, as I have said, with the assurance of one who feels that the Church’s triumph over “lords many and gods many” is not far distant. The scholar will recall the language of Terence,5048
“What! he who shakes high heaven with his thunder Act thus, and I, a mannikin, not do the same? Yes, do I, and right merrily, forsooth!” On which the great African Father5049
“Talk they of morals? O Thou bleeding Lamb! The grand morality is love of Thee.” The world may sneer at faith, but only they who believe can love; and who ever loved Christ without copying into his life the Sermon on the Mount, and, in some blest degree, the holy example of his Master? (For those freed from the bondage of the flesh, p. 488 and note 11.) The early Christians prayed for the departed, that they might have their consummation in body and spirit at the last day. Thus, these prayers for the faithful dead supply the strongest argument against the purgatorial system, which supposes the dead in Christ (1) not to be in repose at first, but (2) capable of being delivered out of “purgatory” into heaven, sooner or later, by masses, etc. Thus, their situation in the intermediate state is not that of Scripture (Rev. xiv. 13), nor do they wait for glory, according to Scripture, until that day (2 Tim. iv. 8). Archbishop Usher, therefore, bases a powerful argument against the Romish dogma, on these primitive prayers for the departed. Compare vol. iii. p. 706, and vol. v. p. 222, this series. He divides it into five heads, as follows:5051
“(1) Of the persons for whom, after death, prayers were offered; “(2) Of the primary intention of these prayers; “(3) Of the place and condition of souls departed; “(4) Of the opinion of Aerius, the heretic, touching these prayers; and “(5) Of the profit, to the persons prayed for, of these prayers.” And his conclusion is, after a rich collation of testimonies, that “the commemoration and prayers for the dead used by the ancient Church had not any relation with purgatory, and therefore, whatsoever they were, Popish prayers we are sure they were not.” (The pine…sanctuary of the Great Mother, p. 504.) I recall with interest the pine-cone of Dante’s comparison (Inferno, canto xxxi. 59) as I saw it in the gardens of the Vatican. Valuable notes may be found in Longfellow’s translation, vol. i. p. 328. It is eleven feet high, and once adorned the summit of Hadrian’s mausoleum, so they say; but that was open, and had no apex on which it could be placed. It is made of bronze, and, I think, belonged to the mysteries satirized by our author. It is less pardonable to find the vilest relics of mythology on the very doors of St. Peter’s, where I have seen them with astonishment. They were put there, according to M. Valery,5052
It must be felt that Arnobius here lays himself open to a severe retort. The God of Christians is the author of sacrifice, and accepts the unspeakable sufferings of the innocent Lamb for the sins of the whole world. The answer, indeed, suggests itself, that the sacrifices of the heathen had no apparent relation whatever to faith in this Atoning Lamb; none in the mysterious will of God that this faith should be nurtured before the Advent by an institution in which He had no pleasure, but which was profoundly harmonious with human thought and the self-consciousness of human guilt. Arnobius would have written better had he been a better-instructed Christian. He demolishes pagan rites, but he should have called up the Gentile mind to the truths covered under its corruptions and superstitions. On this subject the reader will do well to consult the work of a modern Arnobius, the eccentric Soame Jenyns, who called out such a controversy in the last century about the truths and errors of his View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion,5053
So long as we know nothing of the origin of evil, we are not competent judges of what is or is not a suitable remedy. Nobody can assure us that the sufferings of one may not be in some way necessary to the good of the many. A tax may thus be laid upon innocence in behalf of the guilty, and a voluntary sacrifice may be accepted from the Innocent (the Holy One) for the payment of the debts of others. In spite of something illogical which seems to cling to this idea, the fact of its universal adoption in all ages among men must be accounted for,—the fact that all nations have always accepted this principle of expiatory sacrifice, innocent men and innocent beasts suffering for the unjust. Never could this principle have been thus universalized by human wisdom, for it seems to contradict reason; nor by human stupidity, for ignorance never could have proposed such a paradox; nor could priestcraft and kingcraft have obtained for it, among divers races and forms of society, with barbarians and philosophers, freemen and slaves, alike, a common acceptance. It must therefore proceed (1) from a natural instinct of humanity, or (2) from a divine revelation: both alike must be recognised as the work of our Creator. Now, Christianity unveils the secret, presenting the Son of God, made man, a voluntary sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. If it be a mystery, still we do not wonder at the idea when we see one man paying the debts of another, and so ransoming the debtor.5056
De Maistre responds as follows: This dogma is universal, and as old as creation; viz., the reversibility of the sufferings of innocence for the benefit of the guilty. As to the fall of man, “earth felt the wound;”5058
In a word, then, Arnobius should have said this, as the Church was always saying it in the perpetual commemoration of Calvary, in her Holy Eucharist, and in her annual Paschal celebration. It was all summed up by the prophet a thousand years before “the Lamb of God” was slain. By the prophet, the Lamb Himself expounds it all:5061
“Sacrifice and meat-offering Thou wouldest not, but mine ears hast Thou opened: burnt-offerings and sacrifice for sin hast Thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, that I should fulfil Thy will, O my God. I am content to do it; yea, Thy law is within my heart.” The expiatory sacrifice, the voluntary Victim, the profound design of God the Father, are all here. But the infinite value of the sacrifice was unfolded when the Son of man was identified by the poor Gentile centurion: “Truly this was the Son of God.”
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