Cardinal Newman on the City of the Antichrist

This is the third of four discourse the Cardinal gave on the subject of the Antichrist.  The two previous discourses I have posted can be viewed HERE and HERE.

The Angel thus interprets to St John the vision of the Great Harlot, the enchantress, who seduced the inhabitants of the earth.  He says, “The woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”  The city spoken of in these words is evidently Rome, which was then the seat of empire all over the earth,-which was supreme even in Judea.  We hear of the Romans all through the Gospels and Acts.  Our Savior was born when His mother the Blessed Virgin, and Joseph, were brought up to Bethlehem to be taxed by the Roman governor.  He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.  St Paul was at various times protected by the circumstance of his being a Roman citizen; and on the other hand, when he was seized and imprisoned, it was by the Roman governors, and at last he was sent to Rome itself, to the emperor and eventually martyred there, together with St Peter.  Thus the sovereignty of Rome, at the time when Christ and His Apostles preached and wrote, which is a matter of historical notoriety, is forced on our notice in the New Testament itself.  It is undeniably meant by the Angel when he speaks of ‘the great city which reigneth over the earth.”

The connection of Rome with the reign and exploits of Antichrist, is so often brought before us in the controversies of this day, that it may be well, after what I have already had occasion to say on the subject of the last enemy of the Church, to consider now what Scripture prophecy says concerning Rome; which I shall attempt to do, as before, with the guidance of the early Fathers.

Now let us observe what is said concerning Rome, in the passage which the Angel concludes in the words which I have quoted, and what we may deduce from it.

That great city is described under the image of a woman, cruel, profligate, and impious.  She is described as arrayed in all worldly splendor and costliness, in purple and scarlet, in gold and precious stones, and pearls, as shedding and drinking the blood of the saints, till she was drunken of it.  Moreover she is called by the name of “Babylon the Great,” to signify her power, wealth, profaness, pride, sensuality, and persecuting spirit, after the pattern of that former enemy of the Church.  I need not here relate how all this really answered to the character and history of Rome at the time St John spoke of it.  There never was a more ambitious, haughty, hard-hearted, and worldly people than the Romans; never any, for none else had ever the opportunity, which so persecuted the Church.  Christians suffered ten persecutions at their hands, as they are commonly reckoned, and very horrible ones, extending over two hundred and fifty years.  The day would fail to go through an account of the tortures they suffered from Rome; so that the Apostle’s description was as signally fulfilled afterwards as a prophecy, as it was accurate at the time as an historical notice.

The guilty city, represented by St John as an abandoned woman, is said to be seated on “a scarlet-colored monster, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.”  Here we are sent back by the prophetic description to the seventh chapter of Daniel, in which the four great empires of the world are shadowed out under the figure of four beasts, a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a nameless monster, “diverse” from the rest, “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly;” “and it had ten horns.”  This surely is the very same beast which St John saw: the ten horns mark it.  Now this fourth beast in Daniel’s vision is the Roman Empire; therefore “the beast,” on which the woman sat, is the Roman Empire.  And this agrees very accurately with the actual position of things in history; for Rome, the mistress of the world, might well be said to sit upon, and be carries about triumphantly on that world which she had subdued and tamed, and made her creature.  Further, the prophet Daniel explains the ten horns of the monster to be “ten kings that shall arise” out of this Empire; in which St John agrees, saying, “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.”  Moreover in a former vision Daniel speaks of the Empire as destined to be “divided,” as “partly strong and partly broken.”  Further still, this Empire, the beast of burden of the woman, was at length to rise against her and devour her, as some savage animal might turn upon its keeper; and it was to do this in the time of its divided or multiplied existence.  “The ten horns which thou sawest upon him, these shall hate” her, “and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire.”  Such was to be the end of the great city.  Lastly, three of the kings, perhaps all, are said to be subdued by Antichrist, who is to come up suddenly while they are in power; for such is the course of Daniel’s prophecy: “Another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first,and he shall subdue three kings, and he shall speak great words against the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hands until a time, times, and the dividing of atime.”  This power, who was to rise upon the kings, is the Antichrist; and I would have to observe how Rome and Antichrist stand towards each other in prophecy.  Rome is to fall before Antichrist rises; for the ten kings are to destroy Rome, and Antichrist is then to appear and supersede the ten kings.  As far as we dare judge from the words, this seems clear.  First, St John says, “The ten horns shall hate and devour” the woman; secondly, Daniel says, “I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn,” vuz., Antichrist, “before whom” or by whom “there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots.”

Now then, let us consider how far these prophecies have been fulfilled, and what seems to remain unfulfilled.

In the first place, the Roman Empire did break up, as foretold.  It divided into a number of separate kingdoms, such as our own, in France, and the like; yet it is difficult to number ten accurately and exactly.  Next, though Rome certainly has been desolated in the most fearful and miserable way, yet it has not exactly suffered from ten parts of its former empire, but from barbarians who came down upon it from regions external to it; and, in the third place, it still exists as a city, whereas it was to be “desolated, devoured, and burned with fire.”  Fourthly, there is one point in the description of the ungodly city, which has hardly been fulfilled at all in the case of Rome.  She had “a golden cup in her hand full of abominations,” and made “the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication;” expressions which imply surely some seduction or delusion which she was enabled to practice upon the world, and which, I say, has not been fulfilled in the case of that great imperial city upon seven hills of which St John spake.  Here then are points which require some consideration.

I say the Roman Empire has scarcely yet been divided into ten.  The Prophet Daniel is conspicuous among the inspired writers for the clearness and exactness of his predictions; so much so, that some unbelievers, overcome by the truth of them, could only take refuge in the unworthy, and at the same time, unreasonable and untenable supposition, that they were written after the events which they profess to foretell.  But we have had no such exact fulfillment in history of the ten kings; therefore we must suppose that it is yet to come.  With this accords the ancient notion, that they were to come at the end of the world, and last bur for a short time, Antichrist coming upon them.  There have, indeed, approximations of that number, yet, I conceive, nothing more.  Now observe how the actual state of things corresponds to the prophecy, and to primitive interpretation of it.  It is difficult to say whether the Roman Empire is gone or not; in one sense, it is not, for the date cannot be assigned at which it came to and end, and much might be said in various ways to show that it may be considered still existing, though in a mutilated and decayed state.  But if this be so, and if it is to end in ten vigorous kings, as Daniel says, then it must one day revive.  Now observe, I say, how the prophetic description answers to this account of it.  “The wild Beast,” that is, the Roman Empire, “the Monster that thou sawest was and is not, and shall ascend out of the abyss, and go into perdition.”  Again mention is made of “the Monster that was, and is not, and yet is.”  Again we are expressly told that the ten kings and the Empire shall rise together; the kings appearing at the time of the monster’s resurrection, not during its languid and torpid state.  “The ten kings…have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.”  If, then, the Roman Empire is still prostate, then the ten kings have not come; and if the ten kings have not come, the destined destroyers of the woman, the full judgments upon Rome, have not yet come.

Thus the full measure of judgment has not fallen upon Rome; yet her sufferings, and the sufferings of her Empire, have been very severe.  St Peter seems to predict them, in his First Epistle, as then impending.  He seems to imply that our Lord’s visitation, which was then just occurring, was no local or momentary vengeance upon one people or city, but a solemn and extended judgment of the whole earth, though beginning at Jerusalem.  “The time is come,” he says, “when judgment must begin at the house of God (at the sacred city); “and, if it begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God?  And if the righteous scarcely be saved,”-(i.e., the remnant who should go forth of Zion, according to the prophecy, that chosen seed in the Jewish Church which received Christ when He came, and  the new name of Christians, and shot forth and grew far and wide into a fresh Church, or, in other words, the elect whom the Savior speaks of as being involved in all the troubles and judgments of the devoted people, yet safely carried through); “if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear,”the inhabitants of the world at large.

Here is intimation of the presence of a fearful scourge which was then going over the entire ungodly world, beginning at apostate Jerusalem, and punishing it.  Such was the case: vengeance first fell upon the once holy city, which was destroyed by the Romans: it proceeded next against the executioners themselves.  The Empire was disorganized, and broken to pieces by dissensions and insurrections, by plagues, famines, and earthquakes, while countless host of barbarians attacked it from the north and east, and portioned it out, and burned and pillaged Rome itself.  The judgment, I say, which began at Jerusalem, steadily tracked its way for centuries round and round the world, till at length, with unerring aim, it smote the haughty mistress of the nations herself, the guilty woman seated upon the forth monster which Daniel saw.  I will mention one or two of these fearful inflictions.

Hosts of barbarians came down upon the civilized world, the Roman Empire.  One multitude-though multitude is a feeble word to describe them,-invaded France, which was living in peace and prosperity under the shadow of Rome.  They desolated and burned town and country.  Seventeen provinces were made a desert.  Eight metropolitan cities were set on fire and destroyed.  Multitudes of Christians perished even in the churches.

The fertile coast of Africa was the scene of another of these invasions.  The barbarians gave no quarter to any who opposed them.  They tortured their captives, of whatever age, rank, and sex, to force them to give over their wealth.  They drove away the inhabitants of the cities to the mountains.  They ransacked churches.  They destroyed even the fruit trees, so complete was the desolation.

Of judgments in the course of nature, I will mention three out of a great number.  One, an inundation from the sea in all parts of the Eastern Empire.  The water overflowed the coast for two miles inland, sweeping away houses and inhabitants along the line of some thousand miles.  One great city (Alexandria) lost fifty thousand persons.

The second, a series of earthquakes; some of which were felt all over the empire.  Constantinople was thus shaken above forty days together.  At Antioch 250,000 persons perished in another.

And in the third place a plague, which lasted (languishing and reviving) through the long period of fifty-two years.  In Constantinople, during three months, there died daily 5,000, and at length 10,000 persons.  I give these facts from a modern writer, who is neither favorable to Christianity, nor credulous in matters of historical testimony (Newman is referring to Edward Gibbons).  In some countries the population was wasted away together, and has not recovered to this day.

Such were the scourges by which the fourth monster of Daniel’s vision was brought low, “the Lord God’s sore judgments, the sword, the famine, and the pestilence.”  Such was the process by which “that which withholdeth,” (in St Paul’s language) began to be “taken away;” though not altogether removed even now.

And, while the world itself was thus plagued, not less was the offending city which had ruled it.  Rome was taken and plundered several times.  The inhabitants were murdered, made captives, or obliged to fly all over Italy.  The gold and jewels of the queen of the nations, her precious silk and purple, and her works of art, were carried off or destroyed.

These are great and notable events, and certainly form part of the predicted judgment upon Rome; at the same time they do not adequately fulfill the prophecy, which says expressly, on the one hand, that the ten portions of the Empire itself which had almost been slain, shall rise up against the city, and “make her desolate and burn her with fire,” which they have not yet done; and, on the other hand, that the city shall experience a total destruction, which has not yet befallen her, for she still exists.  St John’s words on the latter point are clear and determinate.  “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen; and is become the habitation of devils, and the hole of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird;” words which would seem to refer us to the curse upon the literal Babylon; and we know how that curse was fulfilled.  The prophet Isaiah  had said, that in Babylon “wild beasts of the desert should lie there, and their houses be full of doleful creatures, and owls should dwell there, and satyrs,” or wild beasts ‘dance there.”  And we know that all this has in fact happened to Babylon; it is a heap of ruins; no man dwells there; may, it is difficult to say even where exactly it was placed, so great is the desolation.  Such a desolation St John seems to predict, concerning the guilty persecuting city we are considering; and in spite of what she had suffered, such a desolation has not come upon her yet.  Again, “she shall be utterly burnt with fire, for strong is the Lord God, who judgeth her.”  Surely this implies utter destruction, annihilation.  Again, “a mighty Angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, ‘thus with violence, shall the great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.”

To these passages I would add this reflection.  Surely Rome is spoken of in Scripture as a more inveterate enemy of God and His saints even than Babylon, as the great pollution and bane of the earth: if then Babylon has been destroyed wholly, much more, according to all reasonable conjecture, will Rome be destroyed one day.

It may be farther observed that holy men in the early Church certainly thought that the barbarian invasions were not all that Rome was to receive in the way of vengeance, but that God would one day destroy it by the fury of the elements.  “Rome,” says Pope Gregory, at a time when a barbarian conqueror had possession of the city, and all things seemed to threaten its destruction, “Rome shall not be destroyed by the nations, but shall consume away internally, worn out by storms of lighting, whirlwinds, and earthquakes.”  In accordance with this is the prophecy of St Malachi of Armagh, a medieval Archbishop (A.D. 1130), which declares, “In the lastt persecution of the Holy Church, Peter of Rome shall be on the throne, who shall feed his flock in many tribulations.  When these are past, the city upon seven hills shall be destroyed, and the awful Judge shall judge the people.”

This is what may be said on the one side, but after all something may be said on the other; not indeed to show that the prophecy is already fully accomplished, for it certainly is not, but to show that, granting this, such accomplishment as has to come has reference, not to Rome, but to some other object or objects of divine vengeance.  I shall explain my meaning under two heads.

First, why has Rome not been destroyed hitherto? how was it that the barbarian left it intact?  Babylon sank under the avenger brought against it-Rome has not: why is thins? for if there has been a something to procrastinate the vengeance due to Rome hitherto, peradventure that obstacle may act again and again, and stay the uplifted hand of divine wrath till the end come.  The cause of this unexpected respite seems to be simply this, that when the barbarians came down, God had a people in that city.  Babylon was a mere prison of the Church; Rome had received her as a guest.  The Church dwelt in Rome, and while her children suffered in the heathen city from the barbarians, so again they were the life and the salt of that city where they suffered.

Christians understood this at the time, and availed themselves of their position.  They remembered Abraham’s intercession for Sodom, and the gracious announcement made him, that, had there been ten righteous men therein, it would have been saved.

When the city was worsted, threatened, and at length overthrown, the Pagans had cried out that Christianity was the cause of this.  They said they had always flourished under their idols, and that these idols or devils (gods as they called them) were displeased with them for the numbers among them who had been converted to the faith of the Gospel, and had in consequence deserted them, given them over to their enemies, and brought vengeance upon them.  On the other hand, they scoffed at the Christians, saying in effect, “Where is now your God?  Why does he not save you? You are not better off than we;” they said, with the impenitent thief, “If thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us;” or with the multitude, “If He be the Son of God, let Him come down from the Cross.”  This was during the time of one of the most celebrated bishops and doctors of the Church, St Augustine, and he replied to their challenge.  He replied to them, and to his brethren also, some of whom were offended and shocked that such calamities should have happened to a city which had become Christian.  He pointed to the cities which had already sinned and been visited, and showed that they had altogether perished, whereas Rome was still preserved.  Here, then, he said, was the very fulfillment of the promise of God, announced to Abraham;-for the sake of the Christians in it, Rome was chastised, not overthrown utterly.

Historical facts support St Augustine’s view of things.  God provided visibly, not only in His secret counsels, that the Church should be the salvation of the city.  The fierce conqueror Alaric, who first came against it, exhorted his troops, “to respect the Churches of the Apostles St Peter and St Paul, as holy and inviolable sanctuaries;” and he gave orders that a quantity of plate, consecrated to St Peter, should be removed into his Church from the place where it had been discovered

Again, fifty years afterwards, when Attila was advancing against the city, the Bishop of Rome of the day, St Leo, formed one of a deputation of three, who went out to meet him, and was successful in arresting his purpose.

A few years afterwards, Genseric, the most savage of the barbarian conquerors, appeared before the defenseless city.  The same fearless Pontiff went out to meet him at the head of the clergy, and though he did not succeed in saving the city from pillage, yet he gained a promise that the unresisting multitude should be spared, the buildings protected from fire, and the captives from torture.

Thus form the Goth, Hun, and Vandal did the Christian Church shield the guilty city in which she dwelt.  What a wonderful rule of God’s providence is herein displayed which occurs daily!-the Church sanctifies, yet suffers with, the world,-sharing its sufferings, yet lightening them.  In the case before us, she has (if we may humbly say it) suspended, to this day, the vengeance destined to fall upon the city which was drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.  That vengeance has never fallen; it is still suspended; nor can reason be given why Rome has not fallen under the rule of God’s general dealings with His rebellious creatures, and suffered (according to the prophecy) the fullness of God’s wrath begun in it, except that a Christian Church is still in that city, sanctifying it, interceding for it, saving it.  We in England consider that the Christian Church there has been in process of  time become infected with the sins of Rome itself, and has learned to be ambitious and cruel after the fashion of those who possessed the place aforetimes.  Yet, if it were what many would make it, if it were as reprobate as heathen Rome itself, what stays the judgment long ago begun? why does not the Avenging Arm, which made its first stroke ages since, deal its second and its third, till the city has fallen? Why is not Rome as Sodom and Gomorrah, if there be no righteous men in it?

This then is the first remark I would make as to that fulfillment of the prophecy which is not yet come; perhaps through divine mercy, it may be procrastinated even to the end, and never fulfilled.  Of this we can know nothing one way or the other.

Secondly, let it be considered, that as Babylon is a type of Rome, and of the world of sin and vanity, so Rome in turn may be a type also, whether of some other city, or of a proud and deceiving world.  The woman is said to be Babylon as well as Rome, and as she is something more than Babylon, namely, Rome, so again she may be something more than Rome, which is yet to come.  Various great cities in Scripture are made, in their ungodliness and ruin, types of the world itself.  Their end is described in figures, which in their fullness apply only to the end of the world; the sun and moon are said to fall, the earth to quake, and the stars to fall from heaven.  The destruction of Jerusalem in our Lord’s prophecy is associated with the end of things.  As then their ruin prefigures a greater and wider judgment, so the chapters, on which I have been dwelling, may have a further accomplishment, not in Rome, but in the world itself, or some other great city to which we cannot at present apply them, or to all the great cities of the world together, and to the spirit that rules in them, their avaricious, luxurious, self-dependent, irreligious spirit.  And in this sense is already fulfilled a portion of the chapter before us, which does not apply to heathen Rome;- I mean the description of the woman as making men drunk with her sorceries and delusions; for such, surely, and nothing else than an intoxication, is that arrogant, ungodly, falsely liberal, and worldly spirit, which great cities make dominant in a country.

To sum up what I have said.  The question asked was, is it not true (as is commonly said and believed among us) that Rome is mentioned in the Apocalypse, as having an especial share in the events which will come at the end of the world by means, or after the time, of Antichrist?  I answer this, that Rome’s judgments have come on her in great measure, when her Empire was taken from her; that her persecutions of the Church have been in great measure avenged, and the Scripture predictions concerning her fulfilled; that whether or not she shall be further judged depends on two circumstances, first, whether “the righteous men” in the city who saved her when her judgment first came, will not, through God’s great mercy, be allowed to save her still; next, whether the prophecy relates in its fullness to Rome or to some other object or objects of which Rome is a type.   And further, I say, that if it is in the divine counsels that Rome should still be judged, this must be before the Antichrist comes, because Antichrist comes upon and destroys the ten kings who are to destroy Rome.  On the other hand, so far would seem to be clear, that the prophecy itself has not been fully accomplished, whatever we decide about Rome’s concern in it.  The Roman Empire has not yet been divided into ten heads, nor has it yet arisen against the woman, whomever she may stand for, nor has the woman yet received her ultimate judgment.

We are warned against sharing in her sins and in her punishment;-against being found, when the end comes, mere children of this world and of its great cities; with tastes, opinions, habits, such as are found in its cities; with a heart dependent on human society, and a reason molded by it;-against finding ourselves at the last day, before our Judge, with all the low feelings, principles, and aims which the world encourages; with our thoughts wandering (if that be possible then), wandering after vanities; with thoughts that rise no higher than the consideration of our own comforts, or our gains; with a haughty contempt for the Church, her ministers, her lowly people; a love of rank and station, and admiration of of the splendor and the fashions of the world, an affection of refinement, a dependence upon our powers of reason, an habitual self-esteem, and an utter ignorance of the number and the heinousness of the sins which lie against us.  If we are found thus, when the end comes, where, when the judgment is over, and the saints have gone up to heaven, and there is silence and darkness where all was so full of life and expectation, where shall we find ourselves then?  And what good could the great Babylon do us then, though it were as immortal aw we are immortal ourselves?

My Notes On The Protocatechesis of St Cyril (Sections 7-8)

Section 7:

The bath of Baptism we may not receive twice or thrice; else, it might be said, “Though I fail once, I shall go right next time;” whereas if thou failest once, there is no setting things right, for there is One Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism (see Eph 4:1-6). None but heretics are re-baptized, since their former baptism was not baptism.

Notes:

This section continues the major theme of this lecture, which as I noted in my notes on section 1 is found in the words of Cyril: “He (God) looks for each man’s honest resolve…Honesty of purpose makes thee called: for though the body be here, yet if the mind be away, it avails nothing.” A man who acts in a good (but not right) conscience and receives baptism in a heretical sect is in a far better position than a man who in evil conscience receives baptism into the true Church. The former is a victim of error, the latter is a perpetrator of sacrilege.

St Cyril appeals to Eph 4:5 in the above quote, but I referenced the broader context. By accepting Baptism, Christians are responding to God’s gracious call to a new life; therefore, their response must be genuine, not feigned. For this reason St Paul begins his moral exhortation in Ephesians 4:1-6:20 with these words: “…live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (RSV). As St Cyril warned in the previous section (#6) “But beware lest with the name of believer thou have the purpose of an unbeliever.”

Section 8:

For God seeks nothing else from us, save a good purpose. Say not, “How are my sins blotted out?” I answer thee, from willing, from believing; what is shorter than this? ut if thy lips declare thy willing, but thy heart is silent, He (God) knows the heart who judgeth thee. Cease then henceforth from every wicked thing: refrain thy tongue from light words, thine eye from sin, thy mind from roving after useless matters.

Notes:

Refrain thy tongue…thine eye…thy mind Concerning sins of the tongue see James 3:1-12; Matt 5:22, 33-37. And consider this exhortation of Origen’s “Let us therefore take away abominations out of the mouth, removing slanders, words vain, idle, and about to bring accusation against us in the Day of Judgment.” -Homily #5 on Jeremiah

Concerning sins of the eye see Matt 5:27-30; 6:22-23. Concerning sins of the mind see Eph 4:17-19; Romans 1:18-23.

Can We Attain Perfect Happiness on Earth?

To see other installments of this work in the order they should be read go HERE and HERE

1. Earthly goods, such as riches, honor, pleasure, cannot by themselves make us happy, for they cannot satisfy our soul, they often only make life better, and invariably forsake us in death.

Earthly goods deceive us; they are like soap-bubbles, which reflect all the colors of the rainbow but are really only drops of water. Earthly joys are like artificial fruit, beautiful to behold, but disappointing to the taste. Earthly pleasures are like water: they do not quench the fire of the passions, but only make it burn more fiercely. Man can no more be happy without God than a fish can live without water. Hence St Augustine says: “Restless is the heart of man, until it rests in God.” No sensible or material goods will nourish or satisfy the soul. Hence our Lord says to the Samaritan woman: “He who drinks of this water will thirst again.” Riches will no more staisfy the soul than salt water will quench thirst, In the days of the early empire of Rome, when riches and sensual pleasures abounded, suicide was most widely prevalent. Earthly possessions are a continual source of anxiety; he who rests in them is tormented by them, like a manwho reposes on thorns. As the fresh waters of the river are changed into the salt waters of the sea, so all earthly pleasures sooner or later turn into bitterness. Forbidden pleasures soon bring misery after them, like the forbidden fruit. Tjhey are like bait that has a hook concealed in it. Earthly goods all forsake us when we die: We brought nothing into this world, and certainly we can take nothing out of it.” When the Pope is crowned a handful of tow is kindled , and when it blazes up the choir sings: “Thus passes the glory of the world.” As a spider spins a web out of its own bowels and in a moment a broom sweeps it away, so amn labors long years to obrain some honor, or possessionj, or office. Some obstacle comes in the way, death or sickness visit him, and all his labor is gone for nothing. As the glow-worm shines in the night, but in the light of day is an ugly insect, so the deilights of earth are brilliant during the night of life on earth, but under the light of the day of judgment will show themselves to be vain and worthless.

Earthly goods are given to us only that through them we may attain eternal happiness.

Every earthly creature is intended as a step to bring us nearer to God. As in the workshop pf the painter, brushes, colors, oils, are all destined to serve to the completion of the picture, so all things in the world are intended to contribute to our eternal happiness in heave, Not to use earthly things for this end is to lose the hope of eternal happiness; but to make them our end and to be dependent upon them no less deprives us of the end for which they were created. Earthly goods are like the surgeons instruments; if the are ill-employed, they kill instead of cure. We must therefore use them only in so far as they help us towards the attainment of our last end. When they hinder us we must cut ourselves free from them. We must not serve them, they must serve us.

2. Only the Gospel of Christ is capable of giving us partial happiness on earth, for he who follows the teaching of Christ is certain to have peace of soul.

This is why Christ sayus to the Samaritan woman: “He that shall drink of the water that I’ll shall give him, shall not thirst forever.” And again: “He that comes to me shall never hunger.” The teaching of Christ can alone satisfy a man. The reason for this is, that earthly sufferings do not render unhappy the man who follows Christ.

3. He who follows Christ will have to endure persecution; but those persecutions can do him no harm.

St Paul tells us that “All who live godly lives in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

The whole life of the Christian is a carrying of the cross and a suffering of persecution. Christ Himself says: “The servant is not above the master.” That is, the servant of Christ has no claim to a better lot than his master Christ. We must expect the men of the world (that is, those who seek happiness in this life) to regard us as erratic people and as fools, to condemn us and to hate us. To be loved and praised by the world is to be the enemy of Christ. The principles of this world are in contradiction to those of Christ, and the world regards as a fool him whom Christ calls blessed.

Yet Christ tells us: “Everyone that hears my words and does them, shall be like a wise man who built his house upon rock.”

He who trusts in God builds on solid ground. The patriarch Joseph derived advantage, not from harm from persecution; the pious David was persecuted, first by Saul, and then by his own son Absalom. From his own experience he was able to say: “Many are the afflictions of the just, but out of them all the Lord will deliver them.” All the saints of Christ have been persecuted, but God has brought to good the evil their enemies thought to do to them. “If God is with us, who can be against us?”

4. Perfect happiness is impossible on earth; for no man can entirely avoid suffering.

The end of the worldly is misery, as we have seen, and the just man is persecuted. No one can escapes sickness, suffering, death. The world is a valley full of tears; it is a big hospital, containing as man sick men as their are human beings. The world is a place of banishment, where we are far from our true country. In the world good and ill succeed one another like sun and storm. Prosperity is the sure forerunner of adversity. In life we are on a sea, now lifted up to heaven, now cast down to hell. Society is always sure to full of all kinds of miseries, whatever efforts may be made to improve the conditions of mankind. Vain indeed are the hopes of the modern school of social democrats who dream of gradually abolishing all evil and misery in the world. (From THE CATECHISM EXPLAINED by Bishop Spirago

How Are We To Attain Eternal Happiness?

Eternal happiness consists in union with God, through the exercise of the intellect contemplating God and the will loving Him. If we wish to attain it, we must begin to draw near to it in this life. We must seek to know and love God. But love of God consists in keeping his commandments (Jn 14:23). From this it follows that:

We shall attain to eternal happiness by the following means:

1. We must strive to know God by means of faith in the truths he has revealed to us.

Our Lord says: “This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou has sent(Jn 17:3). That is to say, the knowledge of God brings man to eternal happiness.

2. We must fulfill the will of God by keeping his commandments.

Our Lord says to the rich young man: If thou will enter into eternal life, keep the commandments.” (Mt 19:17)

By means of our own strength we can neither believe or keep the commandments; for this we need the grace of God.

Even Adam and Eve in a state of innocence needed the help of grace. He who travels to a distant country, besides his own exertions needs money for the journey. The farmer cannot cultivate his land without the aid of sunshine and of rain. Man too, has a special weakness by reason of original sin. this makes grace all the more indispensable. The blind man needs a guide, the sick man food to strengthen him. We are like a man who through weakness has fallen to the ground, and has no power, of himself, to rise. He must look around for someone to come to his aid. So our Lord tells us: “without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). As the sun is necessary to the earth, to enlighten and warm it, so is grace necessary to the soul.

We obtain the grace of God through the means of grace instituted by Jesus Christ.

3. We must therefore avail ourselves of the means of grace; of which the chief are the holy Mass, the sacraments, and prayer.

The means of grace are a channel through which grace is conveyed to our soul. Faith is the road which leads to heaven, the commandments are like sign-posts on the road, the means of grace the money for the journey. “The road that leads to life is narrow and thorny; the road that leads to destruction is broad, and many there are who travel down it” (Mt 7:13).

It is also true that he who desires happiness must have religion.

Religion consists in a knowledge of God and a life corresponding to the will of God. Religion is not a matter of feeling; it is a matter of ones will and actions, and consists in following the principles that God has laid down. Mere knowledge does not constitute religion, else the devil would have religion; the service of God is necessarily included in it. We do not call a man a baseball player or a cricketer because he knows the rules and nature of the game; practice is also required.

It is also true that he who desires to be happy must strive to be like to God.

Man becomes like to God when all his thoughts and actions resemble divine though and action. The commandments of God are like a mirror, in which we recognize whether or not our actions are like or unlike those of God.–Francis Spirago, THE CATECHISM EXPLAINED

Posted by Dim Bulb. Check out my other site: CATHOLIC BOOKWORM

For what purpose were we made?

All text in Italics represent my additions to the following quote.
As the scholar goes to school in order that afterwards he may attain a certain position in life, so man is placed on this earth so that he may attain to the lofty end of eternal happiness. As the servant serves his master and so earns his bread, so man has to serve God, and through his service attain happiness to some extent in this life, and in its fullness after death. (Meditation: Psalm 1) (What the current Catechism has to say about happiness)
We are on this earth in order that we may glorify God, and so win for ourselves eternal happiness.

The glory of God is the end of all creation, All creatures on earth are created for this end, that they may manifest in themselves the divine perfections and God’s dominion over his rational creatures, that is over angels and men, and that he may be loved and praised by them. Even the material world, and creatures not possessed of reason-animals, trees, plants, stones, metals, ect., all praise God after their own fashion: “The Lord has made all things for himself” (Prov 16:4). Man is created for this end, that he should proclaim the majesty of God. He must do so whether he wills it or not. The construction of the body of man, the lofty powers of his soul, the reward of the good, the punishment of the wicked, , all proclaim the majesty of God, his omnipotence, wisdom, goodness, justice, ect. Even the reprobate will have to contribute to the glory of God (Prov 16:4). In the end he will show how great is the justice and holiness of the Lord. Man, from being possessed of reason and free will, is through these able in a special way to give glory to God. This he does when he knows, loves, and honors God. Man is created chiefly for life beyond the grave. In this life he is a stranger, a wanderer, and a pilgrim. “We have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come” (Heb 13:14). Heaven is our true country: here we are in exile. (Read what the current Catechism has to say on the individual believer and the Church as “pilgrim“.)
Hence we are not upon earth only to collect earthly treasures, to attain earthly honors, to eat and to drink, or to enjoy earthly pleasures. (See St Thomas Aquinas’ teaching on this matter)

He who pursues ends like these behaves as foolishly as a servant who, instead of serving his master, devotes himself to some passing amusement. He stands idle in the market-place, instead of working in his master vineyard. He is like a traveler who, attracted by the beauty of the scenery, does not pursue his journey, and so allows the night to overtake him. We are not made for earth; we are made to look upward to heaven. The trees and plants point upwards to heaven, as if to remind us that it is our home. For this reason our Lord says: “One thing is necessary” (Lk 10:42), and again, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all other things shall be added unto you” (Mt 6:33).

Unhappily, to many forget their last end, and fix their hearts on money, influence, honor, ect. They are like kings of that heathen country who, although they reigned but for a year and after that had to go and live on a barren island, spent all their time in luxury and feasting, and did not lay up any provisions for the future on the island to which they were bound. He who does not think on his last end is not a pilgrim, but a tramp, and falls into the hands of the devil as a tramp into the hands of the police. He is like a sailor who knows not where he is sailing, and so makes wreck of his ship. Our Lord compares such men to the servant who sleeps, instead of watching for his master’s coming (Mt 24:42). -The Catechism Explained by Francis Spirago

Posted by Dim Bulb. Check out my other site: Catholic Bookworm

St Thomas’ Compendium of Theology, the Summa for Dummies and Dim Bulbs

Have you ever tried to read or study St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and found yourself bogged down at question 1, article 3? Perhaps, for you, the place to begin would be to read his compendium. What follows is an excerpt from that Compendium dealing with article 1 of the first question of the Summa. I have provided links to the Summa itself in case anyone wants to read through the articles in conjunction with the compendium; this might make going through the Summa a bit easier. I have also provided links to other sources for further ease.

Chapter 1 SACRED DOCTRINE: ITS NATURE AND EXTENT In this chapter the saint deals with the first question of the Summa: “The Nature and Extent of Sacred Doctrine” which is divided into ten articles.

Article 1 of the Summa looks at the question: Whether, besides philosophy, any further doctrine is required?

This is treated in the first paragraph of the Comp:

• It is necessary for the salvation of man that, besides the natural sciences, there should exist some doctrine received by revelation which transcends reason. Moreover, that which is discoverable about God by human reason could be known only by a few, and that after much time, and not without a large admixture of error. It was good, therefore, for man to be taught by means of a doctrine divinely revealed; for salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of the truth.

St Thomas deals with this subject more fully in chapters 2, 3 & 4 of the Summa Contra Gentes. For more, see the full text of THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA article on revelation, especially the first 3 sections on pages 1-3. You can also profitably consult chapter 1 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as chapter 2.

For links to many online books and articles, podcasts and videos of interest to Catholics, please see the pages on my other site.

Return to main site.

The Bible and Catechesis (Week 1: First creation account)

Today I would like to begins a series of posts designed to give a broad outline of Salvation History and Biblical theology. Whenever possible I would like to include both Catechetical and moral teachings as well. I plan on (hopefully) issuing one post per week in order to give the reader sufficient time to read as many of the links I supply as possible. Obviously, some subjects will have more links than others.

Bible Readings:

1. Genesis 1:1-2:4a The 7 days of creation (note: 4a means the first part of verse 4. 4b would mean the second part)
2. Job 38-39 A meditation on God’s wisdom and power in creation, and man’s ignorance concerning this mystery. As Aquinas said in his Commentary on the Book of Job “God certainly does not question to learn, but to convince man of his ignorance.”

Catechesis:

1. The importance of Catechesis on Creation.
2. Creation as a work of the Triune God. (More will be said on Son’s role in creation next week)
3. Reason for creation.
4. The Mystery of Creation
5. Pope John Paul II (God is the Lord of Creation and History)
6. Pope John Paul II (On the importance of creation)
7. Pope John Paul II on the Importance of the Sabbath.
8. St Basil’s Hexaemeron (St Basil’s exegetical Homilies on the creation)
9. Six Days To Create?  (The view of some of the Fathers might surprise you)

Moral demands: (More will be said in week 3 when we look at the second creation account)

1. The Sanctification of the World and the Protection of Creation (Scroll down to article 92)
2. We Must Safeguard the Environment (Read articles 451-487. At the very least, read those under the heading “Biblical aspects.”)
3. God Made Man the Steward of Creation (Pope John Paul II)
   

Prayers:

1. Psalm 148
2. Psalm 104
3. Psalm 19:1-6 (I’ve linked to the RSV here. The NAB would be vss 2-7)
4. Canticle of Daniel 3:52-90 (From the WEB Bible)
5. The Confessions of St Augustine: Books 11, 12, 13
   

Meditations:

1. John Paul II on Psalm 148
2. John Paul II on Psalm 119
3. John Paul II on Canticle of Daniel (Comments on most, but not all of it)

Further Readings;

1. Theology and Sanity (A classic introduction to Catholic theology. The site is a bit difficult to use. Scroll down to the Theology heading and click on “Theology and Sanity.” A menu will appear on the left side of page. Click on “Creatures”, another menu will appear. Click on and read numbers 10 and 11. If you don’t know much about Catholic theology, it’s worth the trouble.)
2. Trinity and God the Creator (Definitely not for the beginner)
3. Pope Benedict XVI (A World Day of Peace message on the task entrusted to Human Beings in light of creation)
4. Covenant Love: An Introduction To The Biblical Worldview (A six part study which gives an excellent introduction to Biblical theology.)

If anyone has any further suggestions on any of the categories please let me know. Also, nest weeks post will be on the second creation account, and the third weeks will be on the Son’s role in creation; any suggestions or links would be appreciated.

Pope John Paul II on the Sabbath

For the Christian, Sunday is above all an Easter celebration, wholly illumined by the glory of the Risen Christ. It is the festival of the “new creation”. Yet, when understood in depth, this aspect is inseparable from what the first pages of Scripture tell us of the plan of God in the creation of the world. It is true that the Word was made flesh in “the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4); but it is also true that, in virtue of the mystery of his identity as the eternal Son of the Father, he is the origin and end of the universe. As John writes in the Prologue of his Gospel: “Through him all things were made, and without him was made nothing that was made” (1:3). Paul too stresses this in writing to the Colossians: “In him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible …. All things were created through him and for him” (1:16). This active presence of the Son in the creative work of God is revealed fully in the Paschal Mystery, in which Christ, rising as “the first fruits of those who had fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20), established the new creation and began the process which he himself will bring to completion when he returns in glory to “deliver the kingdom to God the Father …, so that God may be everything to everyone” (1 Cor 15:24,28). Already at the dawn of creation, therefore, the plan of God implied Christ’s “cosmic mission”. This Christocentric perspective, embracing the whole arc of time, filled God’s well-pleased gaze when, ceasing from all his work, he “blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (Gn 2:3). According to the Priestly writer of the first biblical creation story, then was born the “Sabbath”, so characteristic of the first Covenant, and which in some ways foretells the sacred day of the new and final Covenant. The theme of “God’s rest” (cf. Gn 2:2) and the rest which he offered to the people of the Exodus when they entered the Promised Land (cf. Ex 33:14; Dt 3:20; 12:9; Jos 21:44; Ps 95:11) is re-read in the New Testament in the light of the definitive “Sabbath rest” (Heb 4:9) into which Christ himself has entered by his Resurrection. The People of God are called to enter into this same rest by persevering in Christ’s example of filial obedience (cf. Heb 4:3-16). In order to grasp fully the meaning of Sunday, therefore, we must re-read the great story of creation and deepen our understanding of the theology of the “Sabbath”.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gn 1:1)

9. The poetic style of the Genesis story conveys well the awe which people feel before the immensity of creation and the resulting sense of adoration of the One who brought all things into being from nothing. It is a story of intense religious significance, a hymn to the Creator of the universe, pointing to him as the only Lord in the face of recurring temptations to divinize the world itself. At the same time, it is a hymn to the goodness of creation, all fashioned by the mighty and merciful hand of God.

“God saw that it was good” (Gn 1:10,12, etc.). Punctuating the story as it does, this refrain sheds a positive light upon every element of the universe and reveals the secret for a proper understanding of it and for its eventual regeneration: the world is good insofar as it remains tied to its origin and, after being disfigured by sin, it is again made good when, with the help of grace, it returns to the One who made it. It is clear that this process directly concerns not inanimate objects and animals but human beings, who have been endowed with the incomparable gift and risk of freedom. Immediately after the creation stories, the Bible highlights the dramatic contrast between the grandeur of man, created in the image and likeness of God, and the fall of man, which unleashes on the world the darkness of sin and death (cf. Gn 3).

10. Coming as it does from the hand of God, the cosmos bears the imprint of his goodness. It is a beautiful world, rightly moving us to admiration and delight, but also calling for cultivation and development. At the “completion” of God’s work, the world is ready for human activity. “On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done” (Gn 2:2). With this anthropomorphic image of God’s “work”, the Bible not only gives us a glimpse of the mysterious relationship between the Creator and the created world, but also casts light upon the task of human beings in relation to the cosmos. The “work” of God is in some ways an example for man, called not only to inhabit the cosmos, but also to “build” it and thus become God’s “co-worker”. As I wrote in my Encyclical Laborem Exercens, the first chapters of Genesis constitute in a sense the first “gospel of work”.(10) This is a truth which the Second Vatican Council also stressed: “Created in God’s image, man was commissioned to subdue the earth and all it contains, to rule the world in justice and holiness, and, recognizing God as the creator of all things, to refer himself and the totality of things to God so that with everything subject to God, the divine name would be glorified in all the earth”.(11)

The exhilarating advance of science, technology and culture in their various forms — an ever more rapid and today even overwhelming development — is the historical consequence of the mission by which God entrusts to man and woman the task and responsibility of filling the earth and subduing it by means of their work, in the observance of God’s Law.

“Shabbat”: the Creator’s joyful rest

11. If the first page of the Book of Genesis presents God’s “work” as an example for man, the same is true of God’s “rest”: “On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done” (Gn 2:2). Here too we find an anthropomorphism charged with a wealth of meaning.

It would be banal to interpret God’s “rest” as a kind of divine “inactivity”. By its nature, the creative act which founds the world is unceasing and God is always at work, as Jesus himself declares in speaking of the Sabbath precept: “My Father is working still, and I am working” (Jn 5:17). The divine rest of the seventh day does not allude to an inactive God, but emphasizes the fullness of what has been accomplished. It speaks, as it were, of God’s lingering before the “very good” work (Gn 1:31) which his hand has wrought, in order to cast upon it a gaze full of joyous delight. This is a “contemplative” gaze which does not look to new accomplishments but enjoys the beauty of what has already been achieved. It is a gaze which God casts upon all things, but in a special way upon man, the crown of creation. It is a gaze which already discloses something of the nuptial shape of the relationship which God wants to establish with the creature made in his own image, by calling that creature to enter a pact of love. This is what God will gradually accomplish, in offering salvation to all humanity through the saving covenant made with Israel and fulfilled in Christ. It will be the Word Incarnate, through the eschatological gift of the Holy Spirit and the configuration of the Church as his Body and Bride, who will extend to all humanity the offer of mercy and the call of the Father’s love.

12. In the Creator’s plan, there is both a distinction and a close link between the order of creation and the order of salvation. This is emphasized in the Old Testament, when it links the “shabbat” commandment not only with God’s mysterious “rest” after the days of creation (cf. Ex 20:8-11), but also with the salvation which he offers to Israel in the liberation from the slavery of Egypt (cf. Dt 5:12-15). The God who rests on the seventh day, rejoicing in his creation, is the same God who reveals his glory in liberating his children from Pharaoh’s oppression. Adopting an image dear to the Prophets, one could say that in both cases God reveals himself as the bridegroom before the bride (cf. Hos 2:16-24; Jer 2:2; Is 54:4-8).

As certain elements of the same Jewish tradition suggest,(12) to reach the heart of the “shabbat“, of God’s “rest”, we need to recognize in both the Old and the New Testament the nuptial intensity which marks the relationship between God and his people. Hosea, for instance, puts it thus in this marvellous passage: “I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord” (2:18-20).

“God blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (Gn 2:3)

13. The Sabbath precept, which in the first Covenant prepares for the Sunday of the new and eternal Covenant, is therefore rooted in the depths of God’s plan. This is why, unlike many other precepts, it is set not within the context of strictly cultic stipulations but within the Decalogue, the “ten words” which represent the very pillars of the moral life inscribed on the human heart. In setting this commandment within the context of the basic structure of ethics, Israel and then the Church declare that they consider it not just a matter of community religious discipline but a defining and indelible expression of our relationship with God, announced and expounded by biblical revelation. This is the perspective within which Christians need to rediscover this precept today. Although the precept may merge naturally with the human need for rest, it is faith alone which gives access to its deeper meaning and ensures that it will not become banal and trivialized.

14. In the first place, therefore, Sunday is the day of rest because it is the day “blessed” by God and “made holy” by him, set apart from the other days to be, among all of them, “the Lord’s Day”.

In order to grasp fully what the first of the biblical creation accounts means by keeping the Sabbath “holy”, we need to consider the whole story, which shows clearly how every reality, without exception, must be referred back to God. Time and space belong to him. He is not the God of one day alone, but the God of all the days of humanity.

Therefore, if God “sanctifies” the seventh day with a special blessing and makes it “his day” par excellence, this must be understood within the deep dynamic of the dialogue of the Covenant, indeed the dialogue of “marriage”. This is the dialogue of love which knows no interruption, yet is never monotonous. In fact, it employs the different registers of love, from the ordinary and indirect to those more intense, which the words of Scripture and the witness of so many mystics do not hesitate to describe in imagery drawn from the experience of married love.

15. All human life, and therefore all human time, must become praise of the Creator and thanksgiving to him. But man’s relationship with God also demands times of explicit prayer, in which the relationship becomes an intense dialogue, involving every dimension of the person. “The Lord’s Day” is the day of this relationship par excellence when men and women raise their song to God and become the voice of all creation.

This is precisely why it is also the day of rest. Speaking vividly as it does of “renewal” and “detachment”, the interruption of the often oppressive rhythm of work expresses the dependence of man and the cosmos upon God. Everything belongs to God! The Lord’s Day returns again and again to declare this principle within the weekly reckoning of time. The “Sabbath” has therefore been interpreted evocatively as a determining element in the kind of “sacred architecture” of time which marks biblical revelation.(13) It recalls that the universe and history belong to God; and without a constant awareness of that truth, man cannot serve in the world as co-worker of the Creator.

To “keep holy” by “remembering”

16. The commandment of the Decalogue by which God decrees the Sabbath observance is formulated in the Book of Exodus in a distinctive way: “Remember the Sabbath day in order to keep it holy” (20:8). And the inspired text goes on to give the reason for this, recalling as it does the work of God: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (v. 11). Before decreeing that something be done, the commandment urges that something be remembered. It is a call to awaken remembrance of the grand and fundamental work of God which is creation, a remembrance which must inspire the entire religious life of man and then fill the day on which man is called to rest. Rest therefore acquires a sacred value: the faithful are called to rest not only as God rested, but to rest in the Lord, bringing the entire creation to him, in praise and thanksgiving, intimate as a child and friendly as a spouse.

17. The connection between Sabbath rest and the theme of “remembering” God’s wonders is found also in the Book of Deuteronomy (5:12-15), where the precept is grounded less in the work of creation than in the work of liberation accomplished by God in the Exodus: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with mighty hand and outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day” (Dt 5:15).

This formulation complements the one we have already seen; and taken together, the two reveal the meaning of “the Lord’s Day” within a single theological vision which fuses creation and salvation. Therefore, the main point of the precept is not just any kind of interruption of work, but the celebration of the marvels which God has wrought.

Insofar as this “remembrance” is alive, full of thanksgiving and of the praise of God, human rest on the Lord’s Day takes on its full meaning. It is then that man enters the depths of God’s “rest” and can experience a tremor of the Creator’s joy when, after the creation, he saw that all he had made “was very good” (Gn 1:31).