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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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validly, and demonstrate all that is demonstrable in the case. In the
first instance, we demonstrate what is really contained in the idea of
necessary being, and bring this idea--under the form of a distinct
conception--face to face with the reflective reason. In the second
instance, we demonstrate the order of the universe, and the
manifestation in it of divine power, wisdom and goodness. We
demonstrate that the theistic conception, or the conception of God
and his attributes, contained in Christian Theology, is that which we
know intuitively in the light of the primitive idea, logically explicated
and represented by analogy in language. What we do not
demonstrate, is the objective reality of the idea; for this is
indemonstrable, as being the first principle of all demonstration. The
idea is intelligible in itself, and illuminates the reason with
intelligence. The office of logic and reasoning is to inspect and
scrutinize the idea, to represent in reflection that which is intelligible.
By this process the idea of necessary being evolves itself,
necessarily, into the complete theistic conception of God, as is
shown most amply in the treatises of theologians and religious
writers. [Footnote 94] We will endeavor to sum up their results in as
brief and universal a synopsis as possible.

[Footnote 94: It will be seen, therefore, that the

arguments a priori and a posteriori demonstrating the
Christian doctrine of God, as stated by the great Catholic
Theologians, have not been impugned, but, on the
contrary, vindicated from the misrepresentation of a more
modern and less profound school of philosophers.]

Beginning at this point, real necessary being is in itself the

intelligible; we lay down first that which is most radical and ultimate
in the conception of the living, personal God and Creator; namely,
absolute, infinite intelligence.

The absolute intelligible being must be absolute intelligent being.

The intelligible is only intelligible to intelligence. What is the idea, or
ideal truth or being, without an intelligent subject? What is infinite
idea, or infinite object of thought, without infinite intelligent subject?
That which is intelligible in itself necessarily, absolutely, and
infinitely, must necessarily be the terminating object of intelligence
equal to itself, that is infinite. This intelligence cannot be created, for
then it would be finite. It must be included in absolute being. {525}
Being includes in itself all that is. It therefore includes intelligence. It
contains in itself all that is necessary to its own perfection. Its
perfection as intelligible requires its perfection as intelligent.
Absolute being is therefore infinitely intelligible and intelligent in its
own nature and idea. It is the intelligible being which is intelligent
being, and only intelligent spirit, which is in its very essence
intelligence, can be necessarily and infinitely intelligible; for only self-
existent infinite spirit has the absolute infinite activity necessary to
irradiate the light of the intelligible. The light of the intelligible
irradiates our created intelligence by an act which constitutes it
rational spirit. This act must be the act of supreme, absolute, infinite
intelligence. Whatever is in the creature, must be infinite in the
creator. The world of finite, intelligent spirits can only proceed from
an infinite, intelligent spirit, as first and eminent cause. The sensible
and physical world also is apprehended by our reason as intelligible,
and is intelligible, only in intelligent cause; which throws open the
vast and magnificent field of demonstration from the order and
harmony of nature. The intelligible in the order of the finite, is a
reflection of the intelligible in the order of the infinite. The intelligible
in the order of the infinite, is the adequate object of infinite
intelligence. The intelligible in se is identical with being in its
plenitude; and being in plenitude is necessarily infinite, intelligent
spirit. [Footnote 95]

[Footnote 95: Because, if we conceive of any essence

that it is not spiritual, we can conceive of one that is
more perfect, namely, that which has these two
attributes; and if we conceive of one that is finite in
intelligence, we can conceive of one that is superior, or
has greater plenitude of being, until we reach the infinite.
The very conception of being in plenitude is being that
 excludes the conception of the possibility of that which is
greater than itself.]

From this point the way is clear and easy to verify all that
theologians teach respecting the essential attributes of God. We
have merely to explicate the idea of intelligent spirit possessing
being in its plenitude. All that has being--that is, every kind of good
and perfection that the mind can apprehend in the divine essence by
means of creatures--must be attributed to God in the absolute and
infinite sense. We cannot grasp plenitude of being fully under one
aspect or form. We are obliged to discriminate and distinguish
qualities or attributes of being in God. But this is not by the way of
addition or composition of these attributes with the idea of the
simple essence of God. It is by the way of identification. Thus, being
is identified with the intelligible and with intelligence. All the
attributes of God are identified with each other and with his being.

This is what is meant by saying that God is most simple being, ens
simplicissimum. The pure and simple idea of being contains in
itself every possible predicate: hence we can predicate nothing of it
that can add to it, or combine with it, to make a composite idea
greater than the idea of being in its simplicity. It comes to the same,
when we say that God is most pure act, actus purissimus, which
merely ascribes to him actual being in eternity to the utmost limit of
possibility, or to the ultimate comprehensibility of the idea of being
by the infinite intelligence of God.

In the first place, then, we demonstrate the unity of God. There can
be but one infinite being. For the intelligible being of God is the
adequate object of his intelligence. Therefore there is no other
infinite, intelligible object of infinite intelligence.

God is absolutely good. For his own being is the adequate object of
his volition, and the definition of good is adequate object of volition,
so that being is identical with good.
God is all-powerful. For there is no intelligible idea of power, which
transcends the knowledge God has of his own being as including the
ability to create.

God is infinitely holy. For the intellect and the will of God terminate
upon the same object, that is, upon his {526} own being, and
consequently agree with each other; and the very notion of the
sanctity of God is the perfect harmony of his intellect and will in
infinite good.

God is immutable. For any change or progression implies a

movement toward the absolute plenitude of being, and is
inconsistent with the necessary and eternal possession of this
plenitude.

God is infinite and eternal; above all categories of limitation,

succession, time or space; for this is only to say that he is most
simple being, and most pure act.

God is absolute truth and beauty, for these are identical with being.

He is infinite love, for he is the infinite object of his own intelligence

comprehended as the term of his own volition.

For the same reason, he is infinite beatitude, since beatitude simply

expresses the repose and complacency of intelligence and will in
their adequate object and is identical with love.

God is an ocean of boundless, unfathomable good and perfection, to

whom everything must be attributed that can increase our mental
conception of his infinite being. We can go on indefinitely, explicating
this conception, and every proposition we can make which contains
the statement of anything positive and intelligible, is self-evident;
requiring no separate proof, but merely verification as truly
identifying something with the idea of being. "We shall say much
and yet shall want words; but the sum of our words is, HE IS ALL."
[Footnote 96] Nevertheless, our reason is not brought face to face
with God by any direct intuition or vision of his intimate, personal
essence. Every word, every conception, every thought expressing
the most complete and vivid act of the reflective consciousness on
the idea of God is derived from the creation, and gives only a
speculative and enigmatical representation of the being of God itself,
as mirrored in the perfections of created, contingent existences.
Though we see all things by its light, the sun itself, the original
source of intelligible light, is not within our rational horizon. The
creation is illuminated by it with the light of intelligibility, and by this
light we become spectators of the creative act of God.

[Footnote 96: Ecclus. xiiii. 99.]

The creative act is not a transient effort of power, but a durable,

continuous, ever-present act, by which God is always creating the
universe. The creation has its being not in itself but in God. All that
we witness therefore and come in contact with, is but the radiation
of light, life, truth, beauty, happiness; physical, mental, and spiritual
existence; from God, the source of being. We see the architecture
which proceeds from his mighty designs; we behold the infinitely
varied and ever shifting pictures and sculptures in which he
embodies his infinite idea of his own beauty. We hear the harmonies
that echo his eternal blessedness; the colossal machinery of worlds
plays regularly and resistlessly by the force which he communicates
around us; his signs, emblems, and hieroglyphics are impressed on
our senses; the perpetual affirmation of his being is always making
itself heard in the depth of our reason. The perpetual influx of
creative force from him is every instant giving life and existence to
our body. We breathe in it, and see by it, and move through its
energy. It is every instant creating our soul. When our soul first
came out of nothing into existence, it was created by a whisper of
the divine word, which simultaneously gave it existence and the
faculty of apprehending that whisper, by which it was made. God
whispered in the soul the affirmation of his own being as the author
of all existence. This whisper is perpetual, like the creative act. It
constitutes our rational life and activity. By its virtue we think and
are conscious. It concurs with every intellectual act. When the soul is
stillest and its contemplation of truth the most profound, then it is
most distinctly heard; but it cannot be drowned by any {527} tumult
or clamor. "In God we live, and move, and have our being." We float
in the divine idea as in an ocean. It meets us everywhere we turn.
We cannot soar above it, dive beneath it, or sail in sight of its coasts.
It is our rational element, in which our rational existence was
created, in which it was made to live, and we recognize it in the
same act in which we recognize our own existence. It is necessary to
the original act of self-consciousness, and enters into the
indestructible essence of the soul, as immortal spirit.

The Creed, therefore, when it proposes its first article to a child who
is capable of a complete rational act, only brings him face to face
with himself, or with the idea of his own reason. It gives him a
distinct image or reflection of that idea, a sign of it, a verbal
expression for it, a formula by which his reflective faculty can work it
out into a distinct conception. As soon as it is fairly apprehended, he
perceives its truth with a rational certitude which reposes in the
intimate depths of his own consciousness. It is true that he cannot
arrange and express his conceptions, or distinctly analyze for himself
the operations of his own mind, in the manner given above. This can
only be done by one who is instructed in theology. But although he
is no theologian or philosopher, he has nevertheless the substance of
philosophy or sapientia, and of theology, in his intellect; deeper,
broader and more sublime than all the measurements and signs of
metaphysicians can express. We have taken the child as creditive
subject in this exposition, in order to exhibit the ultimate rational
basis of faith in its simplest act, and, so to speak, to show its
genesis. But we do not profess to stop with this simple act which
initiates the reason in its childhood into the order of rational
intelligence and faith; rather we take it as only the terminus of
starting in the prosecution of a thorough investigation of the
complete development which the intelligent faith unfolds in the adult
and instructed reason of a Christian fully educated in theological
science. Hence we have given the conception God in its scientific
form, but as the scientific form of that which is certainly and
indubitably apprehended in its essential substance by every mind
capable of making an explicit and complete act of rational faith in
God as the creator of the world. In the language of Wordsworth,
"The child is father of the man." A complete rational act in a child
has in it the germ of all science. He is as certain that two and two
make four, as is the consummate mathematician. A complete act of
faith in a child is as infallible as the faith of a theologian, and has in
it the germ of all theology. He is able to say "Credo in Deum" with a
perfect rational certitude; and this conclusion is the goal toward
which the whole preceding argument has been tending.

But here we are met with a difficulty. The principle of faith cannot
itself fall under the dominion of faith, or be classed with the
credenda, which we believed on the veracity of God. How then can
Credo govern Deum. The necessity for an intelligible basis for faith
has been established, and this basis located in the idea of God
evolved into a conception demonstrable to reason from its own
constitutive principles. It would therefore seem that instead of
saying "I believe in God," we ought to say "I know that God is, and
is the infinite truth in himself, therefore I believe," etc. only on you.

This formula does really express a process of thought contained in

the act of faith, and implied in the signification of Credo. Credo
includes in itself intelligo. Divine faith presupposes, and
incorporates into itself, human intelligence and human faith, on that
side of them which is an inchoate capacity for receiving its divine,
elevating influence. Hence the propriety of using the word Credo,
leaving intelligo understood but not expressed. The symbol of faith
is not intended to express any object of our knowledge, {528}
except as united to the object of faith. For this reason it does not
discriminate in the proposition of the verity of the being of God, that
which is the direct object of intelligence, but presents it under one
term with those propositions concerning God which are only the
indirect object of intelligence through the medium of divine
revelation. When we say Credo in Deum, if we consider in Deum
only that which is demonstrable by reason concerning God, the full
sense of Credo is suspended, until the revelation of the
superintellible [sic] s introduced in the succeeding articles. The term
Deum terminates Credo, only inasmuch as it is qualified by the
succeeding terms; that is, inasmuch as we profess our belief in God
as the revealer of the truths contained in the subsequent articles.

The foregoing statement applies to the use of the word Credo in

relation with Deum in the first article of the Creed, taking Credo in
its strictest and most exclusive sense of belief in revealed truths
which are above the sphere of natural reason. In addition to this, it
can be shown that there is a secondary and subordinate reason on
account of which the mental apprehension of that which is naturally
intelligible in God is included under the term faith, taken in a wider
and more extensive sense.

This intelligible order of truth, or natural theology, was actually

communicated to mankind in the beginning, together with the
primitive revelation. We are, therefore, instructed in it, by the way of
faith. The conception of God, and the words which communicate to
us that conception, and enable us to grasp it, come to us through
tradition, and are received by the mind before its faculties are fully
developed. We believe first, and understand afterward; and the
greater part of men never actually attain to the full understanding of
that which is in itself intelligible, but hold it confusedly, accepting
with implicit trust in authority, many truths which the wise possess
as science. Moreover, the term faith is often used to denote belief in
any reality which lies in an order superior to nature and removed
from the sphere of the sensible, although that reality may be
demonstrable from rational principles. In a certain sense we may say
that this region of truth is a common domain of faith and reason.
But we have now approached that boundary line where the proper
and peculiar empire of faith begins, and like Dante, left by his
human guide on the coasts of the celestial world, we must endeavor
under heavenly protection to ascend to this higher sphere of
thought.
 From Once a Week.

THE KING AND THE BISHOP.

Before Roskilde's sacred fane,

(The first the land has known.)
Attended by his courtier train,
And decked, as on his throne,
In costly raiment, glittering gay
Beneath the noon-day sun;
All fresh and fair, as though the day
Had seen no slaughter done--

{529}

As though the all-beholding eye

Of that Omniscient Deity,
Whom, turning from the downward way
His heathen fathers trod,
He guided by a purer ray,
Hath chosen for his God--
Had seen no darker, dreader sight,
Twixt yester morn and yester night,

Beheld by his approving eye,

Who, now, would draw his altar nigh;
Ay, fresh and fair as to his soul
No taint of blood did cling,
As though in heart and conscience whole,
Stands Swend, the warrior-king.
On his, as on a maiden's cheek,
(Though bearded and a knight,)
The royal hues of Denmark speak [Footnote 97]--
The crimson and the white;
But mark ye how the angry hue
Keeps deepening, as he stands,
And mark ye, too, the courtly crew,
With lifted eyes and hands!

[Footnote 97: The Danish king, Swend, soon after his

entrance into the Christian church, slew some of his
"jaris" without a trial, and, on presenting himself, after
the commission of this crime, at the portal of the newly-
built cathedral of Roskilde, in Zealand, found it barred by
the pastoral staff of the English missionary and bishop
who had converted him. After receiving the rebuke given
in the poem, and forbidding his attendants to molest the
bishop, he returned whence he came, and shortly after,
made his reappearance in the garb of a penitent, when
he was received by the prelate, and, after a certain time
of penance, absolved; after which they became fast
friends.]

Across the portal, low and wide,

A slender bar from side to side.
The bishop's staff is seen;
And holding it, with reverent hands
And head erect, the prelate stands,
A man of stately mien.

"Go back!" he cries, and fronts the king.

Whilst clear and bold his accents ring
Throughout the sacred fane--
And Echo seems their sound to bring
Triumphant back again--
"Go back, nor dare, with impious tread,
 Into the presence pure and dread.
Thy guilty soul to bring,
Impenitent--O thou, who art
A murderer, though a king!"
A murmur, deepening to a roar,
'Mid those who were clust'ring round the door:
A few disjointed but eager words--
A sudden glimmer of naked swords;
And the bishop raised his longing eyes,
In speechless praise, to the distant skies;

{530}

For he thought his labor would soon be o'er.

And his bark at rest, on the peaceful shore;
And he pictured the crown, the martyrs wear,
Floating slowly down, on the voiceless air;
Till he almost fancied he felt its weight
On his brows--as he stood, and blessed his fate.

With a calm, sweet smile on his face, he bowed

His reverend head to the raging crowd--
(Oh! the sight was fair to see!)
And "Strike!" he cried, whilst they held their breath.
To hear his words; "For I fear not death
For him who has died for me!"

King Swend looked up, with an angry glare,

At the dauntless prelate, who braved him there,
Though he deemed his hour near;
And he saw, with one glance of his eagle eye.
That that beaming smile and that bearing high
Were never the mask of fear!

Right against might had won the day;--

And he bade them sheathe their swords; then turned,
 Whilst an angry spot on his cheek still burned,
From the house of God away.

Ere the hour had winged its flight, once more,

Behold! there stood, at the temple door,
A suppliant form, with its head bowed down.
And ashes were there, for the kingly crown;
And the costly robes, which had made erewhile
So gallant a show in the sunbeams' smile.
Had been cast aside, ere its glow was spent,
For the sackcloth worn by the penitent!

The bishop came down the crowded nave;

His smile was bright, though his face was grave,
He paused at the portal, and raised his eyes.
Yet another time to those sapphire skies,
But he thought not now, that the look he cast
To that radiant heaven would be his last;
And he thanked his Master again--but not
For the martyrdom that should bless his lot;
For the close to the day of life, whose sun
Was to set in blood, on his rest was won:
Far other than this was his theme of praise,
As he murmured: "O thou, in thy works and ways
As wonderful now as when Israel went
Through the sea, which is Pharaoh's monument:
Though I pictured death in the flashing steel,
And I looked for the glory it should reveal,
Yet oh! if it be, as it seems to be,
Thy will, that I stay to glorify thee,
To add to thy jewels, one by one;
Then, Father in heaven, that will be done!"

{531}

Then on the monarch's humbled brow

 The kiss of peace he pressed.
And led him, as a brother, now,
A little from the rest--
"Here, as is meet, thy penance do,
And as thy penitence is true,
So God will make it light!
Then mayst thou work with me, that thus
The light that he hath given us
May rise on Denmark's night!"

M. T. F.
 Translated from Le Correspondant

THE YOUTH OF SAINT PAUL.

By L'ABBE LOUIS BAUNARD.

At the time when Jesus Christ came into this world, the Jews were
scattered over the whole surface of the earth. From the narrow
valley in which their religious law had confined them for the designs
of God, these people of little territory had overflowed into all the
provinces of the Roman empire. Captivity had been the beginning of
their dispersion. Numerous Israelitish colonists, who had formerly
settled in the land of their exile, were still existing in Babylon, in
Media, even in Persia; others had pushed their way further on to the
extreme east, even as far as China. Finally, under the reign of
Augustus, they are found everywhere. [Footnote 98]

[Footnote 98: V. Remond "Histoire de la Propagation du

Judaisme," Leipzig, 1789 Grost, "De Migrationibus Hebr.
extra patriam," 1817. Jost, "Histoire des Israélites depuis
les Machabées," etc.]

It was the solemn hour in which, according to the parable of the

gospel, the Father had gone forth to sow the seed. The field, "that is
the world," was filled with it already, and the time was not far
distant when the Lord, "seeing the countries ripe for the harvest,"
would send out his journeymen to reap, and gather the wheat into
his barns.

One of these families "of the dispersion," as they were styled,

inhabited the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Of this once famous city
nothing now remains but a few ruins, and the modern Tarsous falls
vastly short of that high rank which the ancient Tarsus held among
the cities of the East. Even at present, however, it is called the
capital city of Caramania. Situated on a small eminence covered over
with laurels and myrtles, at a distance of about ten miles from the
Mediterranean sea, it is washed by the rapid and cold waters of the
Kara-sou, and its population during winter amounts to more than
thirty thousand souls. In summer it is almost a desert. Chased away
by the burning heats which prevail at this season from the sea-coast,
men, women and children abandon their homes and emigrate to the
surrounding heights, where they fix their camp under lofty cedars,
which afford them shelter, shade, and coolness. [Footnote 99]

[Footnote 99: P. Belon, "Voyages"--cité dans Malte-Brun.]

{532}

It were difficult to draw, from what it is at present, an exact picture

of the ancient Tarsus. Instead of the sad, disconsolate look of a
Turkish city, there was then in it the movement, the ardor, the
splendor of the Greek city, proud of her politeness and her
recollections. According to Strabo, Tarsus was a colony of Argos. As
a proof of the high state of its culture, the Greeks related that the
companions of Triptolemus, perambulating the earth in search of Io,
stopped at that place, charmed by its richness and beauty. Others
traced its origin further back, to the old kings of Assyria. At one of
the gates of Tarsus there had been seen for a long time the tomb of
Sardanapalus with the following inscription under his statue: "I,
Sardanapalus, have built Tarsus in one day. Passenger, eat, drink,
and give thyself a good time; the rest is nothing." [Footnote 100]
History, however, has written there other remembrances. It was not
far from Tarsus that the intrepid Alexander had nearly perished in
the icy waters of the Cydnus. It was there upon the sea, at the
entrance of the river, that the memorable interview and the fatal
alliance of Antony and Cleopatra had just taken place in the midst of
voluptuous feasts. The wise providence that provides reparations for
all our pollutions, had chosen the city of a Sardanapalus and of an
Antony to be the cradle of St. Paul.

[Footnote 100: Strabo, liv, xvi.]

For the rest, Tarsus was a city perfectly well built and of remarkable
beauty. From the fertile hill on which she rested, she could
contemplate the direction toward the north and west of an
undulating line, which traced rather than hid the horizon. This was
the outline of the first ascending grades, of the mountains of Cilicia.
At a short distance from the city the waters of numerous living
springs met together and formed a rapid river, deeply enchased,
which soon reached and refreshed that portion of her which the
historians call the Gymnasium, and we would name the "Quarter of
the schools." Further on there was a harbor of peculiar and distinctly
marked outline. Philostratus has described in a striking and
picturesque manner the different habitudes of the men of traffic and
of the literary class, representing "the former as slaves to avarice,
the latter to voluptuousness. All their talk," says he, "consisted in
reviling, taunting, and railing at each other with sharp-biting words:
whence one might have easily seen that it was only in their dress
they pretended to imitate the Athenians, but not in prudence and
praiseworthy habits. They did nothing else all day but walk up and
down on the banks of the river Cydnus, which runs across this city,
as if they were so many aquatic birds, passing their time in
frolicsome levities, inebriated, so to speak, with the pleasing
delectation of those sweet-flowing waters." [Footnote 101]

[Footnote 101: Philostrate, "De la Vie d'Apollonius

Thyanéan traduction de Blaise de Vigenère," liv. iv. ch. ix.
p. 103,104. Paris, 1611.]

Such, then, was the city in which a vast multitude of young men,
elegant, voluptuous and witty, crowded and pressed each other like
a swarm of bees, for Tarsus was the most brilliant intellectual focus
of that time and country. The following is the description of it, given
by Strabo: "She carries to such a height the culture of arts and
sciences, that she surpasses even Athens and Alexandria. The
difference between Tarsus and these two cities is, that in the former
the learned are almost all indigenous. Few strangers come hither;
and even those who belong to the country do not sojourn here long.
As soon as they have completed the course of their studies in the
liberal arts, they emigrate to some other place, and very few of them
return to Tarsus afterward."

The best masters regarded it as an honor to teach in the schools of

this city of arts. There were in it such grammarians as Artemidorus
and Diodorus; such brilliant poets and professors {533} of eloquence
as Plutiades and Diogenes; such philosophers of the sect of the
stoics as the two Athenodori; of whom the first had been Cato's
friend in life, and his companion in death, and the second had been
the instructor of Augustus, who, in token of gratitude, appointed him
governor of Tarsus. For, it was the fate of this learned city to be
under the administration of men of letters, and of philosophers. She
had been ruled by the poet Boethus, the favorite of Antony. Nestor,
the Platonic philosopher, had also governed her. It is easily seen,
however, that such men are better prepared for speculations in
science, than for the administration of public affairs, so that, in their
hands, Tarsus felt more than once those intestine commotions, of
which cities of schools have never ceased to be the theatre.

It was in this city, and under these circumstances, almost upon the
frontiers of Europe and Asia, in the very heart of a great civilization,
that St. Paul was born, about the twenty-eighth year of Augustus'
reign, two years before the birth of Christ. [Footnote 102] He himself
informs us that he was a Jew of the tribe of Juda, [Footnote 103]
born in the Greek city of Tarsus, and a Roman citizen: so that by
parentage, by education, and by privilege, he belonged to the three
great nations who bore rule over the realm of thought and of action.
The grave historian [Footnote 104] who exhausts the catalogue of
the illustrious men of Tarsus, never suspected what man--very
differently illustrious--had just appeared there, and of what a
revolution he was to become the zealous defender as well as the
martyr.

[Footnote 102: This would be so, if St. Paul lived to the

age of sixty-eight years, as is stated in a Homily of St.
John Chrysostom, vol. vi. of his complete works.]

[Footnote 103: Benjamin. See Rom. xi 1.--Ep. C. W.]

[Footnote 104: Strabo, liv. xiv]

The Jewish origin of the Doctor of Nations was, as is easily

understood, of vast importance for fulfilment of the designs of God.
The religion of Jesus Christ proceeds from Judaism, continues and
perfects it. It was, therefore, well worthy of the wisdom of God that
his apostles should belong to the one as well as to the other
covenant, and that he should thus extend his hand to all ages, as he
was to extend it to all men.

This purity of origin was so considerable a privilege, that it is by it

one may account to one's self for the rage and fury with which the
Ebionite Jews in the first age of our era labored to deprive him of it.
Adhering to the last rubbish of the law of Moses, and, for this
reason, irreconcilable enemies to the great apostle of the Gentiles,
these sectarians maliciously invented the following fable, according
to the relation of St. Epiphanius. [Footnote 105] "They say that he
was a Greek, that his father was a Greek as well as his mother.
Having come to Jerusalem in his youth, he had sojourned there for a
certain time. Having there known the daughter of the high priest, he
had desired to have her for his wife; and to this end he had become
a Jewish proselyte. As he could not, however, obtain the young
maiden even at that price, he had conceived a burning resentment,
and commenced to write against the circumcision, the sabbath, and
the law." It seems to me that St. Epiphanius confers too great an
honor upon this romance, by merely exposing and refuting it.

[Footnote 105: "Adv. Haeret" liv. ii. t. i. p. 140, No. xvi.]

I know on what foundation St. Jerome affirms, on the contrary, that
St. Paul was a Jew not only by descent, but also by the place of his
birth. According to him, St. Paul's parents dwelt in the small town of
Girchala in Juda, when the Roman invasion compelled them to seek
for themselves a home somewhere else. Therefore they took their
son, yet an infant, with them, and fled to Tarsus, where they
remained, waiting for better days. [Footnote 106]

[Footnote 106: "De Viris Illustrib. Catalog. Script. Eccles."

t. i. p.849]

The declaration of St. Paul himself, however, allows no doubt to be

{534} entertained as to his origin. Born in Tarsus, he was
circumcised there on the eighth day after his birth, and received the
name of Saul, which he exchanged afterward for that of Paul,
probably at the time when Sergius Paulus had been converted by
him to the Christian faith.

His parents failed not to instruct him in the law; for, how distant
soever from their mother country might have been the place in
which they lived, the Jews did not cease to render to the God of
their fathers worship, more or less pure, but faithful. Like all other
great cities of the Roman empire, Tarsus had her synagogue where
the Law was read, and where the religious interests of the Israelitic
people were discussed. It was there that prayers were solemnly
made with the face turned toward the holy city: for there was no
temple anywhere but in Jerusalem, whither numerous and pious
caravans from all the countries of Asia went every year to celebrate
in Sion the great festivals of the Passover and Pentecost, to pay
there the double devotion, and present their victims. The bond of
union was thus fastened more firmly than ever between the colonies
and the metropolis, in which great things were soon expected to
take place. Jerusalem was not only the country of memorials, but to
Jewish hearts she was also the land of hope, and every eye was
turned toward the mountain whence salvation was to come.
Saul grew up in Tarsus. We must not seek in the youth of Saul for
those signs which reveal in advance a great man. In individuals of
this sort, devoted to the work of God, all greatness is from him, the
instrument disappearing in the hand of the divine artificer. Whatever
illusion iconography may have impressed us with upon the point,
Saul did not carry, either in stature of body or in beauty of features,
the reflection of his great soul, and at first sight the world saw in
him only an insignificant person, as he himself testifies, "aspectus
corporis infirmus," Beside, he was a man of low condition,
exercising a trade, and earning his daily bread by the sweat of his
face. The rabbinical maxims said that, "not to teach one's son to
work, was the same thing as to teach him to steal." Saul was,
therefore, a workman, and everything leads us to believe that he,
who was to carry light to nations, passed, like his master, the whole
of his obscure youth in hard work. He made tents for the military
camps and for travellers. This was an extensive industry in the East;
and a great trade in these textures was carried on in Tarsus with the
caravans starting from the ports of Cilicia and journeying though
Armenia, Persia, the whole of Asia Major, and beyond. [Footnote
107]

[Footnote 107: These conjectures and regard to St. Paul's

birth and parentage are not founded on any solid basis,
but on the contrary appear to be quite improbable. The
author's citation from the Rabbinical maxims overturns
the argument which he derives from the fact that St. Paul
practised a handicraft. All Jews, whatever their birth or
wealth, learned a trade. St. Paul's knowledge of the tent-
maker's trade, therefore, does not prove that he was of
low birth, or belonged to the class of artisans. On the
contrary, his possession of the privileges of Roman
citizenship, which he must have inherited, and which
could only have been conferred on account of some great
service rendered to the state by one of his ancestors,
together with his thorough education, go to show that he
 belonged to one of the most eminent Jewish families of
Tarsus.--Ed. C.W.]

Manual occupation, however, did not absorb the whole time, nor the
whole soul of the young Israelite; since the tradition of the fathers
points to him as frequenting the schools of Tarsus, and joining that
studious swarm of young civilians who crowded there to attend the
lectures delivered by the professors of science and literature.
[Footnote 108] His Epistles retain some traces of these his first
studies. In these he quotes now and then words of the ancient
poets, Menander, Aratus, Epimenides. He expressed himself with
equal facility in the three great languages of the civilized world, the
Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin; and it is manifest that he knew
the secrets of the art of eloquence, for which he {535} retained in
later times only a magnanimous contempt. He was also initiated in
philosophy, under the teachers whom I have named already. Besides
Stoicism, whose patrons and success in Tarsus I have mentioned,
Platonism flourished there under the protection of Nestor, a man of
great distinction, who had been the preceptor of that illustrious
youth Marullus, who was sung by Virgil, and bewailed by Augustus.
Is it not, at this period, that a young man of Tyana, himself destined
to acquire a strange celebrity, came to Tarsus in his fourteenth year,
and passionately embraced there the precepts of Pythagorean
doctrine? The uncertainties of the history, which was written by
Philostratus afterward, do not permit us to say anything definite
upon this point; but one cannot help thinking that it is from the
same place, and at the same time, that those two extremes of the
power of good and of the power of evil have set out--Apollonius of
Tyana, and Saint Paul.

[Footnote 108: Sancte Hieronymi, t. vi. 322.--"Comm.

Epist. ad Galat."]

Finally, not far from there the oriental doctrines drove to their
several beliefs respectively the multitudes of Asia, and invaded also
the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the Islands. Thus Parsism on the
one hand, and Hellenism on the other, met in Tarsus with Judaism.
By its position, as well as by its commerce, the birthplace of St. Paul
was the point of confluence of the two currents of ideas, which
shared the world between themselves. From this centre the future
apostle was able to embrace in one view all those different sorts of
minds which he was to embrace in his zeal afterwards.

Such were his beginnings. In them Saul plays an insignificant part;

but God a great one; God does not act openly as yet; he prepares.
But what preparation! What a concurrence of circumstances
manifestly providential! What greatness even in this obscurity! The
seal of predestination is visibly impressed upon that soul appointed
to regenerate the world by the faith. The place, the time, the means,
everything seems disposed, consecrated in advance, as it were, for a
great scene. God incarnate was to fill it, but he had chosen Saul of
Tarsus to be in it the actor most worthy of him.

II.

The second education of Saul took place in Jerusalem. He was yet

young when his parents, yielding to that instinct which recalled the
Jews to their native country, sent him, or, perhaps, went and took
him with themselves, to the holy city, in order to fix their residence
there.

There occur in history some solemn epochs; but that in which Saul
arrived at Jerusalem possesses a consecration which cannot belong
to any but to itself alone: it was what St. Paul called, afterward, "the
fulness of the times." The seventy weeks determined by Daniel,
entered then into the last phasis of their accomplishment. The
sceptre had been taken away from Judah, and, at a few steps from
the temple, a centurion, with the vine-stock in his hand, quietly
walked around the residence of a Roman proconsul. People were
waiting to see from what point the star of Jacob was to appear. It
had risen already, and the young workman of Tarsus, while going to
Jerusalem, might have met on his way with a workman like himself,
who, sitting at the foot of some unknown hill, preached in parables
to the people of his own country and of his condition. This was in
fact taking place under the second Herod. Saul was then twenty-nine
years old, and the Word made flesh dwelt among us full of grace
and truth.

Did Saul have the happiness to see his divine Master during his
mortal life? Grave historians formally affirm it, [Footnote 109] and
some passages in the Epistles allow us to believe it. Others think
{536} that what they refer to is only the vision on the road to
Damascus.

[Footnote 109: Alzog, "Histoire Universelle de l'Eglise," t.

i. p. 157.]

But, whatever may be the difference of opinions upon this point, it

appears impossible that the fame of Jesus' teaching and miracles did
not reach the ears of Saul, while living in Judea: it is even probable
that Saul might have endeavored to see him. "We have known the
Christ according to the flesh," he himself wrote to the Corinthians.
[Footnote 110] This last testimony leaves yet some doubt as to the
interpretation; but, when one reflects on the repeated utterance of
these expressions, as well as upon the coincidence of dates and
names, one cannot help starting at the thought, that on some
unknown hour the God and the apostle must have met, and that
Jesus, piercing into the future, bestowed on the youth that deep and
tender look which he gave the young man spoken of in the Gospel;
and that the Pharisee, who was to become a vessel of election, then
condemned himself to the regret of having that day neglected and
mistaken the blessed God, of whom he was afterward to say in that
language invented by love, "Mihi vivere Christus est," "For me to
live, is Christ."

[Footnote 110: 1 Cor. ix. 1 and 2 Cor. v. 16]

When Saul entered Jerusalem for the first time, the pious Israelite
must doubtless have been astonished and saddened at the same
time. Herod the Ascalonite had rendered her, according to Pliny's
testimony, the most magnificent city of the East; but by the profane
character of her embellishments, she had lost much of her holy
originality. The prince courtier had erected near by a circus and a
theatre, where festivals in honor of Augustus were celebrated every
fifth year. He had repaired and transformed the temple, but also
profaned it; and over the principal gate of the holy place one saw
the glitter of the golden eagle of Rome and of Jupiter, a double insult
to religion and liberty. Jerusalem was likely to become a Roman city;
her part was on the point of being played out; her priesthood was
expiring, she began to cast off its insignia, and one saw the line
gradually disappear which separated her from the cities of paganism.

Beside, Saul found her torn in pieces by religious sects which had in
these latter times fastened to the body of Judaism, as parasitical
plants stick to the trunk of an old tree. Religious opinion was divided
between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I speak not of the
Herodians, for in the order of ideas flatteries are not taken into
account, for this reason--because to flatter is not to dogmatize.
Sadduceeism, a sort of Jewish Protestantism, rejected all tradition;
would admit of nothing but the text of the Pentateuch; denied an
after-life because it was not found formally enough inculcated by
Moses, and consequently endeavored to make this present one as
comfortable as possible. It was Epicureanism under the mask of
religion. Pharisaism, on the contrary, was the double reaction both in
religion and nationality. In order to enhance the law, it multiplied
practices and rites; in order to save the dogma, it burdened it with
an oral tradition, to serve as a commentary, an interpreter, and a
supplement to the law. Under the name of Mishna, this tradition
proceeded, according to her account, from secret instructions of
Moses himself, and composed a kind of sacred science, of which the
doctors only possessed the key.
The sect of the Pharisees was, on the other hand, the great political
as well as doctrinal power of the nation. The people venerated them,
the inces [sic] treated them with regard, and Josephus informs us
that Alexander Jannacus, being at the point of death, spoke of them
to his wife in the following manner: "Allow the Pharisees a greater
liberty than usual; for they," he told her, "would, for the favor
conferred on them, reconcile the nation to her interest; that they
had a powerful influence over the Jews, and were in {537} a
capacity to prejudice those they hated and serve those they loved."
[Footnote 111]

[Footnote 111: "Antiq.," liv. xili. eh, xv. p. 565.]

The Young Saul enrolled himself with the Pharisees: among them,
however, he chose his school. Being sensible of the fact that foreign
ideas were insinuating themselves into the bosom of Judaism, some
choice minds were at this epoch in search of I know not what
compromise between Moses's doctrine and philosophy, in which
compromise the two elements might be fused together, and thus
form a religion at the same time rational and mystic. This fusion is
one of the signs by which this period is distinguished. Uneasy and
attentive, every mind was laboring under the want of a universality
and unity of belief, whose painful child-birth, twenty times
miscarried, was yet submitted to without relaxation. One hundred
and fifty years before the epoch we are now in, Aristobulus had
attempted this eclecticism, and Philo was soon after to reduce it to
system in Alexandria and give it a widely spread popularity in Egypt.
Another man, however, took upon himself the business of planting it
in the very heart of Palestine.

This man was the famous rabbi Gamaliel, the beloved teacher of
Saint Paul. It must be admitted that no man could be better qualified
to render it acceptable than he was, on account of his position and
character. He was the grandson of Doctor Hillel, whose science as
well as his consideration and holiness he had inherited. He was the
oracle of his time, and "on his death," the Talmud says, "the light of
the law was extinguished in Israel." The Talmudists add that he had
been vested with the title of Nasi, or chief of the council, and the
Gospel agrees with the Jewish authors, recognizing in him a just
man, wise, moderate, impartial, an enemy to violence, and ruling the
different parties by a moral greatness, which secured to him the
confidence of all and the unanimity of their regards. He was the first
who caused the text of the Bible to be read in Greek at Jerusalem.
This innovation was of itself an immense progress, as it removed
that barrier which Pharisaism had raised between the Hellenist and
the Judaizing Jews. He dreamed not, however, of transforming
Moses into a Socrates. He gave up nothing of pure Judaism. But,
having a thorough knowledge of the Greek, Oriental and Egyptian
philosophies, he held them all in check; he took out of each of them
what could be reconciled with the law of God, enriched with it the
inheritance of tradition, and boldly applying to ideas that generous
and accommodating toleration which he made use of in social life,
he allowed them entrance into the Synagogue. [Footnote 112]

[Footnote 112: Niemeyer, "Characteristik der Bibel," p.

638.]

Gamaliel, it seems, kept in Jerusalem what certain authors call an

academy. It was frequented, for men of such a character possess a
great power of attraction. Young Israelites brought to his feet, and
placed at his disposal, for the service of his and their ideas, the
intemperate zeal and warm convictions of their age--Christian
tradition acquaints us with the names of some of them; among
others, of Stephen and Barnabas, whom we shall soon see disciples
of a greater master. [Footnote 113] But the most ardent of them all
was, without contradiction, the young Saul of Tarsus. Proud, fiery,
enthusiastic, he seems to have been passionately fond of the
Pharisaism of Gamaliel, but mixing with the zeal a violent asperity
which, certainly, he had not from his master. No man could be more
attached, than he was, to the ancient traditions; it is himself who
says so, adding that his proficiency in the interpretation of the law
placed him at the head of the men of his time. [Footnote 114]
 [Footnote 113: Cornel. a Lapide, in Act. v. 34.]

[Footnote 140: See Epist. to the Galatians, i. 14.]

These Jewish as well as these Greek studies were not lost time in
the education of the apostle. They {538} made Saul sensible of the
pressing need of a revealer which the world was then laboring
under; and they caused those groanings to reach his ears from all
parts, which he himself called the groaning of creation in childbed of
her redeemer. They did also reveal to him, seeing the inability of
sects for it, that redemption could not be the work of man, and they
left in his mind that haughty contempt of human wisdom, which
would be despair, if God had not come to reveal a better one
possessing the promises both of this world and of the next.

Now, whilst young Saul and the Jewish rabbins were agitating these
questions in the dust of schools and synagogue, our Lord Jesus
Christ was giving the solution of them in his own life and by his
death. His death was even more fruitful than his life, and when the
Pharisees believed they had put an end to his doctrine, as they had
to his life, it was a great surprise to them to see twelve fishermen,
wholly unknown the day before, suddenly appear, preaching that the
Son of God had risen from the dead, that they had seen him
gloriously ascending into heaven, and that, in order to give
testimony of it to the world, they were ready and would be happy to
die. Their miracles, their doctrine, the conversions which they
wrought by multitudes, their baptism conferred on thousands of
disciples, the enthusiasm of some, the perplexity of others, the
hatred of many, stirred up the politicians and the magistrates. The
great council met under these circumstances. It seems that there
was held in it a decisive deliberation, in which the destinies of
Christianity were solemnly discussed. The question was to know,
whether the new religion should be drowned in blood, or whether it
should be allowed the liberty and time of dying by a natural death. It
did not occur to any one's thought that it could live; and much less
that it could be true: and it is remarkable that not a word was said
on the doctrinal question, the most important of all! Thus some of
them advised to put those men to death, others feared lest violence
should excite a sedition, and there was division of counsel in the
assembly, when Gamaliel rose up in it. Silence followed, the
Scripture relates, because he was the sage of the nation. He made
no speech. He cited only the names of some seditious men very well
known in the city, the false prophet Theodas, and Judas of Galilee,
who, after a little noise, had left no trace behind them. Hence he
concluded that the new religion would have the same fortune if it
was from man, and that if it was, on the contrary, the work of God,
it would prove invincible against all human efforts. His advice
appeared for a moment to prevail, on account of its wisdom; and the
apostles, confiding in the future, readily accepted the challenge.

God had other designs in regard to his church, and it was not peace
but war that he had come to bring with him. Wisdom had decided;
passion executed. After reciting the advice of Gamaliel, the Scripture
adds that, before being dismissed, the Apostles were scourged, and
that "they went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they
were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus."
The signal had thus been given, and a pure victim was about to
open the era of the martyrs.

We have thus far related only the human history of St. Paul. We now
begin to enter into his supernatural and divine history.

Saul had put himself at the head of those who persecuted the
Christians. Hence it is that the Scripture represents him to us as
laying everything waste, like a rapacious wolf, spreading
consternation amidst the flock. His very name was terror to the
newly born church; above all the others, however, one Christian
roused his jealous rancor.

It was a young man whose name I have already mentioned, and

who is believed to have been of the same {539} country with Saul,
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