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 (I
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 MRS. RAYMOND WILDER
 
 PRIESTCRAFT
 
 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 A STUDY IN UNNECESSARY 
 FICTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH E. M. STUTFIELD 
 
 v* 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE ROMAN MISCHIEF-MAKER " 
 
 "Numquid Deus indiget vestro mendacio, ut pro illo 
 loquamini dobs?" (Doth God need your fie, that ye 
 speak deceitfully for Him ?} 
 
 JOB xiii, 7, Vulgate Edition of Sixtus V. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 "THE NATIONAL REVIEW" OFFICE 
 
 43 DUKE STREET, ST. JAMES'S, S.W. i 
 
 1921
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP PAGE 
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 7 
 
 I. THE SALUTARY NATURE OF FALSEHOODS 37 
 
 II. THOU ART PETER 50 
 
 III. THE HISTORICAL FRAUD OF THE PAPACY 60 
 
 IV. C'EST POUR LES FEMMES 72 
 V. "ARE YOU A JESUIT?" 85 
 
 VI. AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 95 
 
 VII. HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 108 
 
 VIII. THE EUCHARIST 125 
 
 IX. THE PHYSICIAN OF SOULS 139 
 
 X. ELARGISSEZ DIEU 149 
 
 XI. A GOSPEL OF GLOOM 164 
 
 XII. THE CLERICAL MIND 174 
 
 XIII. ROMAN CATHOLIC LOGIC 186 
 
 XIV. THE DOGMATIC TEMPER 195 
 XV. TRADITION 205 
 
 XVI. THE SONS OF GOD 217 
 
 XVII. THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 228 
 
 APPENDICES : 
 
 I. THE NE TEMERE DECREE MARRIAGE FORM 247 
 
 II. ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 251 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 265 
 
 INDEX 267
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 
 
 THE main thesis of the author's previous work is 
 sufficiently indicated by its title. Written like the 
 present book from a purely unsectarian standpoint, 
 it describes the Roman Church as a disintegrating 
 force in public and private life, a sower of disunion 
 in the home, the community, and international 
 affairs ; and in the concluding chapters attention 
 was called to the pernicious teaching of the Church's 
 official mouthpieces in the sphere of ethics. Much 
 has happened in the short interval which has elapsed 
 since The Roman Mischief -Maker was published, 
 and the course of events has only served to establish 
 the conclusions at which the writer arrived. The 
 book was naturally subjected to a searching fire of 
 hostile criticism. The writer was freely accused of 
 wholesale inaccuracy, but, with the exception of a 
 bare half-dozen trivial blunders which are all cor- 
 rected in the new edition his statements have been 
 shown to be historically and otherwise verifiable. 
 So far from having anything to retract, he has a good 
 deal to add to what he originally wrote ; indeed, 
 the Latin Church has obligingly supplied corrobora- 
 tion of his leading contention by steadily pursuing 
 her traditional policy of fomenting social and political 
 discord. " A waspish sect," as Father Tyrrell aptly 
 called her, for ever setting humanity by the ears, she is 
 still at work irritating old sores and creating new ones. 
 This country remains, as before, the principal 
 target of ecclesiastical rancour ; and, if Anglophobia 
 is once more abroad in the world, we have clericalism
 
 8 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 largely to thank for it. Our enemies are steadily 
 exacerbating public opinion against us, poisoning 
 the wells of international accord everywhere to our 
 hurt ; and the Roman Church is taking a leading 
 hand in the game. Not only in Ireland, but in 
 America, Australia, and elsewhere Catholic priests 
 and laymen have been busy supporting the Sinn 
 Fein rebellion, freely using their spiritual preroga- 
 tives in order to promote sedition, teaching the 
 schoolchildren to hate us, and otherwise striving to 
 bring England into odium and disrepute. The Roman 
 hierarchy, including the Pope as we learn from 
 Dr. Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne, 1 and others 
 offered their sympathy and help to the mischief- 
 making Anglophobe prelates. " Send me some 
 priests at all costs," Roger Casement telegraphed 
 when preparing his Irish raid, and repeated the 
 request several times. He knew well that they 
 would be his most ardent and effective auxiliaries. 
 The hierarchy of Belgium of all countries in the 
 world also ably seconded the efforts of their Irish 
 brethren to make this country appear hateful in the 
 world's eyes. Christ told us to love our enemies, but 
 His Papist followers to-day tell us that " hatred of 
 the English " is "a holy passion." 
 
 " I should not be at all surprised," said Disraeli 
 in 1873, " if the visor of Home Rule should fall off 
 some day, and you beheld a very different counten- 
 ance." The visor has fallen off, and the countenance 
 it discloses is not good to look upon. Its lineaments 
 are those of the ogre of racial and sectarian hatred, 
 inflamed in considerable measure by priestly malevo- 
 lence claiming immunity for the Church from the 
 processes of law. Once more, in short to borrow 
 Lord Acton's rendering of a classic phrase we espy 
 ' the Fiend skulking behind the Crucifix." 
 
 Two years ago a distinguished Irish Romanist, 
 
 1 See the Daily Telegraph, June 14, 1921.
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 9 
 
 Mr. Shane Leslie, told us that our chief adversaries 
 in the United States, the men most opposed to an 
 Anglo-American entente, " are, firstly, the Irish ; 
 and, secondly, the Catholics " thereby showing that, 
 as I have always contended, the antagonism shown 
 by Roman Catholics to Great Britain is religious as 
 well as political. Mr. Leslie further warned English 
 Roman Catholics that they might "' have the un- 
 happiness of seeing their fellow Catholics in America 
 carrying out a successful and bitter warfare against 
 our country, which generations will not alleviate." 
 Subsequent events have amply proved the accuracy 
 of his forecast. There is now in America a compact 
 body of some 12,000,000 Papists, of whom the large 
 majority have been trying with the priests, as The 
 Times (April I, 1921) informs us, taking an increasing 
 share in the agitation to embroil us with the United 
 States in disputes which might possibly have very 
 serious consequences. Excepting the Irish, they have 
 no cause of quarrel with us, unless it be the religious 
 one. 1 Rome and England have been at odds for 
 centuries ; and the principal battlefield of their 
 age-long feud would now appear to be America, 
 with Ireland as the ostensible ground of quarrel. 
 Colonel Archer Shee is reported to have said that 
 the Church to which he belonged was one of the 
 principal offenders in the raging propaganda going 
 on in the United States against this country. 2 
 
 These views are shared by not a few thoughtful 
 citizens of the United States. To take a single 
 example, Dr. Leighton Parks, an eminent episco- 
 palian of extremely tolerant views (he has even 
 gone so far as to advise members of his Church to 
 leave it and enter the Roman communion, because 
 he thought it suited them better), lately preached a 
 
 1 To be a Roman Catholic is a necessary qualification for admission 
 to the Anglophobe Irish-American societies. 
 
 a See debate in the House of Commons, March 18, 1921.
 
 io PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 series of remarkable sermons in New York. In these 
 sermons, which have been published, he states that 
 the Roman Catholic hierarchy in America, partly on 
 account of an ancient grudge, and partly because 
 England is the great Protestant Power in Europe, 
 desires nothing more than to bring about war between 
 Great Britain and the United States, and he points 
 out very clearly the danger of the situation. He also 
 shows, by quotation from Roman Catholic utterances, 
 that the aim of the hierarchy is to retain, in the 
 Catholic immigrants to America, their language and 
 the racial atmosphere in which they have hitherto 
 lived in other words, to prevent assimilation ; and 
 he foretells the doom of Republican democracy in 
 the United States, if the Church has her way. 1 As I 
 have pointed out elsewhere (The Roman Mischief - 
 Maker, new edition, pp. 62-65), the contention of 
 English Roman Catholics that all these things are 
 nothing more than matters of local politics, and that 
 it is unfair to blame the religion, is wholly untenable. 
 Concerning Ireland, and the state of things which 
 prevails there as I write, it is unnecessary to enlarge 
 upon what is known to everybody. Terrorism, always 
 Rome's favourite weapon, has been employed on a 
 scale which has seldom been paralleled, and appeal was 
 made to all that is worst in human nature. Murder 
 must always be the foulest of crimes, and in Ireland 
 murder is of the most detestable kind. The Sinn 
 Fein Roman Catholics call it war, but Sinn Fein 
 is not a belligerent power ; and, if it were, there is a 
 clear distinction between murder and military opera- 
 tions. Political idealism, even though it be of a 
 loftier and less extravagant type than that professed 
 by Sinn Fein, does not justify the slaughter of 
 inoffensive citizens like Sir Arthur Vicars or Canon 
 Finlay, the brutal " execution " of Mrs. Lindsay, or the 
 dragging of sick persons and cripples from their beds 
 
 1 See the New York Times, March 23, 1921.
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY n 
 
 and shooting them in cold blood by the roadside. 
 Such atrocious crimes are the acts of savages, not 
 of warriors ; and the spirit of hatred which expresses 
 itself in outrage of this kind has been sedulously fanned 
 by ecclesiastics, who erroneously supposed that they 
 were serving the interests of their Church. Ireland 
 has shown herself to be a sink of moral depravity, 
 and must now be added to Rome's long list of ethical 
 failures. 1 Lack of religious instruction cannot be 
 pleaded as an excuse, because very few countries, if 
 any, in the world have so many clerics per head of 
 population as Ireland has : there are eleven times as 
 many priests and prelates as in Belgium, seven times 
 as many as in Germany or Austria. 
 
 The Irish disease is a moral canker, and, as such, 
 is mentally and spiritually degrading. In addition 
 to actual crime the whole island is honeycombed 
 with suspicion, terrorism physical and religious, 
 falsity, superstition, backstairs intrigue, eavesdropping, 
 spying, scheme and counter-scheme everything, in 
 short, that the true Curialist dearly loves and the 
 Roman system teaches and fosters. " Ireland has 
 saved her soul ! ' J exclaims that eminent Catholic 
 divine, Canon W. Barry, D.D. 3 I can only repeat 
 once more that Romanist methods of saving your 
 soul are very odd ones. Irish bishops have created, 
 as Lord Denbigh said, " a sort of false conscience " 
 in the Irish mind ; and his fellow-Catholic peer, Lord 
 Acton, described Ireland as " a country where religion 
 does not work ultimately in favour of morality." 
 Both these observations were anticipated in some 
 measure by the poet Cowper, who tells us in his 
 Expostulation that 
 
 When nations are to perish in their sins, 
 "Els in the Church the leprosy begins. 
 
 ' Where," asked that clerical stalwart, Lord Hugh 
 Cecil, in The Times of February 14, 1921, " is the 
 
 1 See Appendix II. TJie Catholic Times, December 6, 1919.
 
 12 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Christian influence of the Church in Ireland ? *'' No 
 answer comes from the episcopal strategists who 
 disguise politics under the mask of religion, because 
 there is no answer to give. Lord Hugh wonders, too 
 we are all wondering whether the authorities of 
 the Roman Church realize how fearfully such pheno- 
 mena as Irish crime weigh against the reputation 
 of their Church. Roman Catholicism has continually 
 blessed the man who is willing to act as professional 
 murderer on her behalf, and cursed him who is 
 unwilling ; and for a long time neither the Vatican 
 nor the Irish hierarchy gave any effective sign, but 
 bestowed upon these abominable outrages the con- 
 donation of silence, threadbare platitudes, or vague 
 expressions of regret ; while the younger priests 
 deliberately encouraged the criminals. No attempt 
 was made to define the moral limits of " patriotic " 
 murder, arson, and other outrage ; but, when at 
 length the bishops saw that the monster which they 
 had helped to create was likely to devour them, 
 they advised the people to desist from their rebellious 
 activity not because it violated morality or Canon 
 Law, but chiefly " because there is no chance of 
 success ! " Nor, be it observed, has the Church 
 ever made any collective official effort to check 
 crime : such action as was taken proceeded from 
 individual bishops, and then usually in a very half- 
 hearted fashion. 
 
 The usual controversial red-herring is being drawn 
 across the trail of the argument by those Roman 
 Catholic and other critics who seek to confine public 
 attention to the reprisals. They slur over the foul 
 deeds that provoked the retaliatory measures which 
 we all deplore, lay the stress of their invective upon 
 the minor criminals, and ask our sympathy for the 
 poor Sinn Fein lambs harried by ravening Anglo- 
 Saxon wolves. Conversion is the aim of all prac- 
 tising Roman Catholics. Why do they not begin by
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 13 
 
 converting their Irish co-religionists to a sense of 
 sin, and to a recognition of the simple fact that 
 the Sixth Commandment is still in force ? Certain 
 Anglican bishops have also been helping to make the 
 moral confusion worse confounded by indiscreet 
 denunciations of the Government, and a well-known 
 clergyman made a happy comment on their ill-timed 
 interference. Alluding to the day of prayer for 
 Ireland ordained by the Church, he said to his con- 
 gregation, " Yes, pray by all means especially for 
 the bishops." They told us that it is absolutely 
 unlawful to overcome, or attempt to overcome, wrong 
 by further and equally indefensible wrong ; but how 
 often, I would ask, is this principle acted upon during 
 warlike operations ? Wrongful action by the Germans 
 was continually met by us with reprisals in kind. 
 Poison gas is an odious and illegitimate weapon ; 
 yet, when the enemy used it against our men, the 
 " indefensible wrong " ceased to be indefensible, and 
 we were forced to follow suit. Who, except a few 
 fanatics, blames the Allies ? Who would not blame 
 them had they betrayed our long-suffering soldiers 
 by acting otherwise than they did ? 
 
 Nor should Englishmen forget that the Irish 
 hierarchy, in taking sides against the Government, 
 acted in their spiritual and official capacity. Their 
 case is that they were merely pronouncing judgment 
 on an issue of right v. wrong ; and we must remember 
 that in Ireland the people's religion is inextricably 
 intertwined with the national sentiment. Gathered 
 together in Council, acting as a Church, and claiming, 
 therefore, the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the 
 bishops decided, " not as politicians, but as inter- 
 preters of Divine Law," that the people ought to 
 resist British law ; and they invoked the blessing of 
 God, and the intercession of the Madonna, for their 
 holy undertaking. They also (the Holy Ghost pre- 
 sumably again assisting) directed " their clergy to
 
 14 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 announce meetings " for the prosecution of what 
 their British co-religionists, like most other people, 
 regarded as a political campaign. The sanctified 
 politics of these infallible prelates were further rein- 
 forced by the spiritual thunders of the clergy, who 
 told the people that it was their duty to rebel, and 
 that, if any man opposed the " patriotic " view of 
 the national faction-fight, he should be murdered 
 in this world and receive hell-fire in the next. 
 
 I say " infallible prelates " advisedly, because 
 Irish bishops are on occasion, like the Pope, infallible 
 beings. You might never guess it intuitively, but 
 Father Peter Finlay, S.J., their principal spokesman 
 and Erin's ablest theologian, assures us that it is so. 
 When the bishops are gathered together in Council 
 " they teach infallibly " within the province of 
 revealed faith and morals. Moreover, when single 
 bishops " so preach, dispersed, they are infallible as 
 though gathered into Council." J They share in the 
 fullness of Apostolic authority, and " must follow out 
 the moral law to its further consequences " (including, 
 it would appear, incitement to rebellion) " applied 
 to the practical conduct of life, and define its limits." 
 The Quebec episcopate, to take a single example, 
 makes a similar claim to infallibility. 
 
 Later on a strange thing happened, as they say 
 in the story-books. Two English (and presumably 
 infallible) Cardinals had the audacity to impugn 
 the consistency of the Divine mind and guidance, 
 and to grieve their Irish brethren, by taking a view 
 precisely contrary to that of the Dublin hierarchy. 
 Cardinal Bourne ordered to be read in all churches 
 on Sunday, February 13, 1921, a Lental Pastoral by 
 himself, and a letter by his predecessor, Cardinal 
 Manning, expressly condemning that which the Irish 
 
 * See Studies, July 1918. The authority of Father Finlay cannot 
 be disputed, and his works are continually on sale in Westminster 
 Cathedral.
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 15 
 
 bishops declared to be lawful and expedient. Cardinal 
 Manning said that to rise against the Empire of 
 Great Britain "is to resist the ordinance of God " ; 
 that " all conspiracy, whether against the Church or 
 the State severally, is sin " ; and that " apostasy 
 and rebellion are each and severally mortal sin against 
 God " the last being a quotation from a pronounce- 
 ment of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, 
 surely quite as infallible an authority as the Irish 
 episcopate. 
 
 Here we find the Roman Catholic hierarchy 
 divided against itself by a conflict of dogmatic 
 opinion upon a clearly defined and vital moral issue. 
 An authoritative decision by the highest court of 
 ethics known to the Church was surely called for, 
 but the Vatican remained silent. Once more we 
 witnessed how the Roman Church habitually shufHes 
 in her dealings with fundamental moral issues. Her 
 accredited moral theologians palter with the truth, 
 and shuffle in their dicta upon ordinary questions of 
 right and wrong. She shuffled all through the 
 Great War, and abdicated the lofty functions of 
 spiritual leadership which she had assumed ; and she 
 is shuffling now in her attitude towards rebellion 
 and murder in Ireland. Neutrality in the ever- 
 lasting war between good and evil is impossible for 
 a great religious organization, and some day Rome 
 will pay dearly for its attitude of toleration towards 
 the wicked doctrine that dastardly crime is a legiti- 
 mate form of warfare. Never has the farce of Papal 
 pretension been laid so bare, or the credit of the 
 Church sunk so low. We are all aware that secular 
 moral standards are higher nowadays than those of 
 ecclesiastics ; I but the " slump " in Rome's ethical 
 stock is attaining proportions that are positively 
 alarming. 
 
 1 " To-day our best prophets and preachers are laymen " (Out- 
 spoken Essays, by Dean Inge, p. 19).
 
 16 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 " It almost makes me ashamed of the word 
 Catholic," said that fine Englishman and patriot, 
 Lord Denbigh, in his just indignation when the 
 Irish bishops opposed conscription. Surely, in view 
 of all that has happened since, as well as before, 
 those brave words were uttered, the sentiments they 
 convey might well be emphasized, and the word 
 " almost " finally deleted ! Lord Denbigh, at any 
 rate, is under no illusions as to the responsibility of 
 his religion for the betrayal of humanity's cause and 
 its attitude of cynical indifference to rebellion and 
 crime ; and I know of many Roman Catholics who 
 think with him. The world is aware that there is 
 no love lost between the " white," or patriotic British, 
 Catholics and their Irish brethren ; but it is permis- 
 sible to point out to the Whites that their position 
 is a very anomalous one, so long as they remain 
 members and upholders of an organization which is 
 anything but white. The dual allegiance to England 
 and to an Anglophobe clerical corporation places 
 them, to borrow the phrase of an indignant Aus- 
 tralian Catholic, " in somewhat of a cleft stick " ; 
 and we cannot wonder that disgust at their Church's 
 conduct is now being freely expressed by many a 
 wavering disciple of a slowly dying creed. Cardinal 
 Newman told us in his Apologia (p. 47) that he re- 
 nounced his brother because he " caused divisions," 
 and pointed out that in doing so he was only follow- 
 ing St. Paul's instructions. Why do not English 
 Catholics apply this principle now, and renounce a 
 Church which is still the great Divider of men and 
 nations ? They are serving two antagonistic masters, 
 a thing which Christ declares to be impossible. 
 
 It is quite useless to pretend that Roman Catholic 
 hostility to England is merely the expression of a 
 disappointed people's political anger. The Belgian 
 bishops, headed by Cardinal Mercier and they, surely, 
 of all people, have no political quarrel with England
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 17 
 
 have lately taken the opportunity to vent their 
 spleen against us, and to acknowledge the services 
 their country has received at our hands by a strange 
 requital. No wise man expects gratitude in this 
 world, and he thinks himself fortunate if he receives 
 it ; but we hardly looked for this treatment from 
 Cardinal Mercier. His letter intervening on behalf 
 of the Sinn Feiners, coupled with the opening of a 
 subscription for them, elicited warm protests from 
 the Belgian Press, which recognized the indecency 
 of the episcopal attack upon their country's trusted 
 friend and ally. 
 
 Turning to the domestic sphere, the marriage 
 question continues to be a bone of contention between 
 the civil and spiritual powers. In the eyes of extreme 
 Churchmen the religious significance of marriage is 
 the paramount factor, while the vast majority of 
 educated people now regard wedlock as being primarily 
 and fundamentally a matter of civic and social 
 status : hence the perpetual clash of Church and 
 State, and the fight between them for supremacy 
 in the decision of matrimonial questions. In the 
 Province of Quebec the episcopate claims that the 
 Church is above the law. There are dual laws, two 
 standards of law, in Quebec ; and hitherto the foreign 
 laws made in Italy have usually prevailed, at least 
 so far as marriage is concerned. A recent decision, 
 however, of the Privy Council would seem to con- 
 trovert the ecclesiastical principle that Canon Law 
 is socially and civilly supreme. A French-Canadian 
 couple, married in 1904, grew tired of one another 
 and a separation was desired. An obliging priest 
 discovered that the parties were fourth cousins, and 
 that, by thirteenth-century Canon Law, the marriage 
 was therefore invalid. A dispensation could have 
 been obtained for the modest sum of seven dollars, 
 but this formality had been omitted. The bishop of 
 the diocese declared the marriage null and void, and 
 
 2
 
 18 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 two superior courts of Quebec decided that, as the 
 ecclesiastical court has spoken on the religious 
 question, the civil court could only follow suit as to 
 the civil contract. Appeal was made to the Privy 
 Council in 1914; and in 1921 eleven years after the 
 case opened the Court, after long and careful de- 
 liberation, reached the astounding conclusion that 
 British civil law in the twentieth century overrides, 
 in a British Dominion, Italian Canon Law of 1215 ; 
 and the marriage was declared to be " valid and 
 subsisting." * 
 
 Here, at home, the outrageous Ne Temere Decree 
 is still in force, and the Church insists upon the 
 parties to a mixed marriage signing the insolent 
 Marriage Form to which I have on various occasions 
 drawn attention. This remarkable document, as I 
 explain in the Appendix, has no authorization either 
 in the Ne Temere Decree or in the Trent (Tametsi) 
 Decree of 1564, of which the Ne Temere is a modern 
 revival. 2 The Decree impugns the moral basis on 
 which our social system rests, and, taken together 
 with the newly-invented marriage form, is a mediaeval 
 impertinence which should be no longer tolerated. 3 
 Nor is this by any means, as some people think, a 
 mere academic question ; on the contrary, it is an 
 occasion of much trouble, and sometimes of con- 
 siderable suffering. The unfortunate heretic who 
 refuses to embrace the Catholic faith along with the 
 lady of his choice may, if he is a man of courage and 
 
 * See The Times Law Report, February 12, 1921. 
 
 * See The Roman Mischief -Maker, ch. viii. 
 
 3 New Zealand apparently does not think that a foreign Church 
 has a right to describe decent married women as harlots or concubines, 
 and their children as bastards. The Parliament, by a majority of 
 44 to 25, has passed a law to the effect that a fine of 100, or one year's 
 imprisonment, shall be imposed on any person who alleges, or implies, 
 that lawfully married people are not truly and sufficiently married, 
 or that the children are illegitimate. The Catholic Archbishop and 
 bishops say they will " resist and defy such a law, and encourage 
 both priests and people to disobey."
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 19 
 
 probity, find himself in a quandary. I hear many 
 sad stories of engagements broken off, marriages 
 postponed for years, and lives blighted temporarily 
 or permanently, owing to these miserable religious 
 differences. The mixed marriage is a mistake, we 
 are told. Perhaps it is, as things are now ; but 
 this is only because orthodoxy and an autocratic 
 Church have introduced unnecessary complications, 
 accompanied by the levying of a species of blackmail 
 in the shape of " dispensations." I 
 
 As regards the humiliating marriage form, 2 non- 
 Catholics should refuse to sign it against their con- 
 science under any circumstances whatever. In such 
 a matter there should be no compromise. The 
 Protestant man who, disbelieving wholly in the 
 Roman religion, submits to the terms imposed by 
 its priests is guilty of conduct which may fairly be 
 termed despicable. He is paltering with the truth 
 as he sees it, and shirking his responsibilities as 
 husband and father. By signing away, at the orders 
 of an alien priesthood, his right to have a voice in 
 the bringing up of his children, and entrusting their 
 moral and mental tuition to an obscurantist Church, 
 he is proving himself false to the duty he owes to 
 them and to the community that of giving his 
 family the best education possible. There are men 
 all honour to them who have had the manliness 
 to resist the Church's dictation, and refuse to abdicate 
 their functions as head of the household. They 
 recognize, like Lovelace, that even happiness may 
 be bought too dear, when the price paid is the loss 
 of self-respect ; and decline, in the face of all impor- 
 tunities, to sign the form. 
 
 1 In Austria the marriage laws just now are even more mixed 
 than the marriages. The Catholics, headed by a reactionary Cardinal 
 (whose name, by the way, is Piffl), have been inducing the courts to 
 declare null and void marriages contracted under a law which is still 
 in force ! 
 
 1 See Appendix I.
 
 20 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Yet this inconstancy is such 
 As you, too, shall adore ; 
 
 I could not love thee, Dear, so much, 
 Loved I not Honour more. 
 
 But such men, unfortunately, are in a minority : a 
 much larger number are more easy-going, submit, 
 and demean themselves in the way that I have 
 described. 
 
 The mischief wrought by the Roman Church in 
 the family circle was described at greater length in 
 my previous work, and I will not pursue the subject 
 further here. This book has a wider scope, and 
 enters upon a more extensive survey, than its pre- 
 decessor. It is an inquiry into the origin and validity 
 of Roman pretension to authoritative jurisdiction in 
 the religious sphere, and it demonstrates how ex- 
 tremely shaky are the foundations upon which the 
 whole Papal system rests. A plea is further entered 
 for a more liberal outlook upon transcendental 
 matters, and for a less rigid attitude towards religious 
 belief in general. Above all, it is maintained that 
 candour should be preferred to conventional piety, 
 and that the central aim of a genuinely religious man 
 should be the attainment of truth, rather than the 
 promotion of a Church's interests. 
 
 Lord Morley, in his Essay upon Diderot, remarks 
 that the immediate force of speculative literature 
 hangs on practical opportuneness ; and his book 
 depicts a movement in the intellectual world of the 
 eighteenth century somewhat similar to that which 
 confronts us to-day. Sectarian, philosophic and reli- 
 gious disputation then filled the air ; and, as in these 
 times, men were becoming animated by the scientific 
 and social, to the exclusion of the purely religious, 
 idea. Discussion about the truth of Church doctrine 
 turned sharply into political agitation against her mis- 
 deeds and the mischief wrought by her in the social 
 order. Something of the same kind, though happily
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 21 
 
 of a less threatening quality, would appear to be in 
 progress amongst us in England to-day ; and the 
 times would now again seem to be ripe for one of 
 those periodical stock-takings of religious theory 
 and belief which have in the past exerted so profound 
 an influence on the march of human events. People 
 are probably just as religious in the larger sense of 
 the word as they used to be ; indeed, their minds 
 are occupied with the deeper problems of life to an 
 extent which would have seemed impossible a few 
 years ago, but, as happened in the eighteenth century, 
 metaphysical speculation concerning religious ques- 
 tions is now taking a severely practical turn. Theo- 
 logical questions are widely discussed, not merely, as 
 of old, in undertones and from the purely theoretical 
 standpoint, but openly and fearlessly, and with 
 what may be termed utilitarian aims. What used to 
 be an intellectual movement is becoming in large 
 measure a social and political one. Men nowadays y^ 
 require a creed with a pragmatic sanction ; they 
 want to feel sure that it will work, and it can be 
 shown very clearly that some of our most assertive 
 creeds do not work. 
 
 Much of the prevailing indifference to religion, 
 of which we hear so much, is little more than disgust 
 at the perversities and hypocrisies of that purely 
 opportunist clericalism which is miscalled religion. 
 The lack of true spiritual leadership displayed by the 
 Latin Church, in particular, has profoundly impressed 
 the minds of men, and lowered all forms of religion 
 in their estimation. At present they are as sheep 
 without a shepherd ; their souls have no permanent 
 abiding-place. One man finds his spiritual home in 
 Germany ; another discerns it from afar in the New 
 Jerusalem. The old landmarks are obscured, and 
 we are seeking new ones whereby we may find our 
 bearings. Even good Roman Catholics are beginning 
 to adopt an apologetic attitude in regard to their
 
 22 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Church. Their professions of faith are often tem- 
 pered by such qualifying remarks as : " Oh, but I'm 
 very broad, you know " ; " We haven't got to believe 
 all that " ; "I'm afraid I'm not a very good Roman 
 Catholic " ; " There's nothing else to be." They 
 even tell us sometimes that what we say about their 
 Church is quite true, but that they love her all the 
 same. 
 
 I submit that the best remedies for this prevailing 
 mental disquiet are truth and candour. " Let us be 
 honest," said Canon Barnes in his famous Cardiff 
 sermon : "a religion that is not based on truth is 
 vain." It ought not to be necessary for an able 
 English clergyman to give us such advice, or to 
 repeat such a truism ; but, unfortunately, it sometimes 
 is necessary. Let us henceforth face our difficulties 
 boldly, stop beating about the bush in vital matters, 
 use plain intelligible language when dealing with 
 religious questions, avoid subterfuges and what Rome 
 calls " necessary fictions," and the esoteric jargon of 
 the schools. Mendacity for " edifying " purposes is 
 quite superfluous : we need not, as Father Tyrrell 
 said, " soil our souls for the salvation of souls." 
 Belief is good, if our belief is in things that are worth 
 believing ; make-believe never saved any man. Above 
 all, people must be made to feel, what they do not 
 feel now, that they are being dealt with squarely 
 by the ecclesiastics : they want to know the truth, 
 whatever it may be, and to follow wheresoever it 
 may lead them. They are not interested in dia- 
 lectical subtleties which only experts can under- 
 stand, but seek a definite creed with a moral basis 
 and a social sanction, which shall be a guide to life 
 and conduct. The Roman Church offers herself to 
 mankind as such a guide, and speaks with that loud 
 voice of authority which always commands a follow- 
 ing. My object is to show that she is but a blind 
 guide falsely professing an accurate knowledge of
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 23 
 
 the territory we have to explore, and that a guide 
 of this description is worse than no guide at all. 
 
 In the sphere of education, above all, we shall 
 have to recast our ideas and adapt them to the 
 changed conditions of our time, and to the new 
 knowledge which mankind has now acquired. It 
 was Plato's opinion that we should teach our children 
 by means of fables, both true and false, and that we 
 ought to begin with the false. 1 This appears to have 
 been the system adopted hitherto by our School 
 Boards and teachers of religion, and in my opinion 
 it is by no means a good one. Plato also thought 
 that we ought to exercise a supervision over the 
 authors of fables, selecting their good productions 
 and rejecting the bad ; and it is not at all certain 
 that our educational authorities have selected the 
 best fables. He pointed out, moreover, that " a 
 child cannot discriminate between what is allegory 
 and what is not," and that we ought not to tell the 
 children " offensive stories " derogatory to the char- 
 acter of the gods. This is excellent advice, and we 
 shall be wise to follow it, and to abandon the practice 
 of making the children's minds the battleground or 
 the plaything of sects. A reviewer in the Spectator 
 describes the religious teaching given in schools of 
 every grade as " lamentable and scandalous " 
 lamentable, because it brings religion into contempt ; 
 scandalous, because of its effects on those who 
 receive it. The teachers complain bitterly that they 
 are compelled to dole out to the children, as scientific 
 fact and historical truth, what we now know to be 
 folk-lore and primitive legend. As the children 
 grow up, they become indignant when they find 
 out that they have been humbugged and have to 
 unlearn much of what they have been taught ; and 
 the reaction is apt to be great and lasting. There 
 are, we understand from Mr. Augustine Birrell 
 
 1 Republic, II, 377.
 
 24 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 (Obiter Dicta, I, 199), certain sentimental sceptics 
 who " fall to weeping as they remember that they 
 have now no lies to tell their children " ; but it is 
 very doubtful if the children, when they learn to 
 think for themselves, will greatly regret the cause of 
 their parents' tears. 
 
 It is a noteworthy feature of our time that, 
 coexistent with the revival of speculative inquiry, 
 there is a strange and world-wide recrudescence of 
 sectarianism. The old particularisms racial, polit- 
 ical and religious instead of lessening, are deepening 
 in intensity ; the rancour of fanaticism has been 
 added to the quarrels between nations and classes to 
 an extent which could hardly have been anticipated. 
 Recent events in Ireland have dispelled the illusion 
 that the Irish difficulty is not, historically and 
 fundamentally, a religious one. The warfare in the 
 bloodstained streets of Derry and other towns was 
 sectarian warfare : it was " a war of creeds," " a 
 religious civil war with the hate of three hundred 
 years behind it," as Sir Hamar Greenwood and the 
 newspaper correspondents told us. Mr. Devlin said 
 in the House of Commons, quite truly, that it was 
 the religious question which had been for the last 
 thirty years the real obstacle to any settlement of 
 the Irish trouble. Eliminate the religious factor, 
 relieve Ulstermen from the dread of Rome rule and 
 the prospect of having their children educated as 
 Papists by an obscurantist priesthood ; ensure the 
 Catholics of the North against bullying and mal- 
 treatment by Orange bigots, and the political differ- 
 ences might eventually be smoothed over : the main 
 problem, as clear-sighted men see, is a Church pro- 
 blem : what disturbs the Irish clerics is the prospect 
 of Irish social and political life being laicized. 
 
 In the Antipodes the denominational broil, 
 though less disastrous, is hardly less acute than in 
 Ireland. Letters and newspapers received by the
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 25 
 
 writer depict an extraordinary state of things. An 
 Australian lady, returning to her home after a long 
 absence, wrote to a friend of mine that it was like 
 being back in the Middle Ages, owing to the per- 
 petual religious contention. There are patriotic men 
 among the Australian Papists, but the strife between 
 the latter and the Protestants is mainly a struggle 
 between loyalists and disloyalists. In the absence 
 of Dr. Mannix, his mantle fell upon Bishop Phelan 
 and other anti-British clerics, and the Union Jack 
 was publicly insulted in the streets of Melbourne. 
 In a shower of newspaper protests there were many 
 from indignant Romanists. One of these regretfully 
 admitted that " Catholicism in this country is synony- 
 mous with disloyalty to the British Throne and 
 Empire " ; and he added very wisely, ' There is 
 enough mud in the world without clergymen stirring 
 up more." J These men in cassock or cowl who 
 disfigure the gospel of peace by preaching hatred 
 are still, as of old, the worst sedition-mongers and 
 fomenters of strife which our earth holds ; and the 
 leading ecclesiastics in the Commonwealth openly 
 avow their aim of converting Australia to Romanism, 
 and making it " another Ireland." A Victoria cor- 
 respondent also tells me that the Sinn Fein Romanists 
 in Australia hold the Labour Party in a cleft stick. 
 Its organization has been captured by the well- 
 disciplined ranks of Irish Catholics, and in conse- 
 quence it is becoming discredited throughout the 
 Commonwealth as a disloyal party. Meanwhile, the 
 higher Roman authorities, as though of set purpose, 
 keep staffing the country with rabid Anglophobe 
 Irish priests, to the exclusion of English and French 
 ones. 
 
 In New Zealand they are at loggerheads over the 
 scandalous Ne Temere Decree. Here, in England, we 
 discuss calmly in the newspapers the Fall of Man, 
 
 1 Melbourne Argus, March 22, 1921.
 
 26 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 original sin and other interesting topics ; but under- 
 neath the placid surface there is, as J well know, 
 intense religious bitterness. In France the war of 
 cleric and anti-cleric has subsided for the moment, 
 but the most competent observers of the situation 
 anticipate a renewal of priestly claims and cabals, 
 and, as the inevitable result, a revival of anti-clerical 
 agitation. In the United States the numerous sects 
 and creeds are squabbling for all they are worth, 
 and the Romanists (as English Catholics admit) are 
 busy stirring up hatred against England. In Canada 
 the old, and essentially denominational, fight over 
 the schools and language questions proceeds apace, 
 as it still does in Ireland and Australia. In Palestine 
 and other Eastern countries the religious issue is a 
 continual thorn in our side. Even Bolshevism, 
 Professor Bertrand Russell tells us, is an intolerant 
 fighting creed, a religion rather than a polity just 
 as A.E. says that Irish nationalism is now " felt 
 less as a political movement than as a spiritual 
 force " a superstition, one might say, a faith, a 
 sacrament. People long resident in South American 
 countries tell me that dogmatic religion is coming 
 to be regarded as a nuisance : the spiritual tyranny 
 exerted out there by the priests, and their shameless 
 bloodsucking, are causing the laity to rise in revolt 
 against their exactions. Similar conditions are re- 
 ported from many parts of Spain and Mexico. In 
 Eastern Europe the particularist spirit, largely infil- 
 trated as in Ireland with sectarianism, is in the 
 ascendant, and the result has been a sanguinary 
 chaos. The Poles persecute the Jews, Greeks and 
 Protestants ; the Orthodox Roumanians are accused 
 of harrying the Galician Roman Catholics ; and the 
 Bolshevists suppress all creeds, except their own, 
 with an impartial thoroughness. The menace to 
 this country of the " Jewish Peril " is probably 
 exaggerated, but it cannot be denied that the exclu-
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 27 
 
 siveness and caste-spirit, which Judaism shares in 
 common with Romanism, form a distinct bar to 
 national and civic unity. 
 
 Some theologians, as we know, regard this con- 
 dition of perpetual religious embroilment with com- 
 parative equanimity. Dissension and exclusiveness 
 are, in their view, merely signs of healthy vigour in 
 the denominational world, which would pine and 
 wither away if it desisted from squabbling and from 
 its persistent and praiseworthy efforts to " eliminate 
 all rivals." The ordinary layman views the situation 
 with less complacency. Without claiming any special 
 supernatural enlightenment, he does not regard in- 
 tolerance as a necessary development of Synoptic 
 teaching, or as in any way desirable. He takes 
 leave to doubt whether a never-ending cat-and-dog 
 fight, even though inspired by religious fervour, is 
 the ideal, or even the normal, religious human state. 
 Efforts are therefore being made to close the breaches 
 and to heal the feuds between the Churches ; and it 
 is hoped that the gulf which divides the Protestant 
 bodies will not prove to be unbridgeable. The Ortho- 
 dox, or Greek Church, as I understand, does not 
 display an intransigent attitude or reject all efforts 
 at compromise. When, however, Rome is approached 
 on the subject, the peacemakers are met by a very 
 different spirit. Roman Catholicism, they are told, 
 is a dogmatic religion and cannot meet newcomers 
 on terms of spiritual equality. All attempts at a 
 reconciliation are countered by a haughty non pos- 
 sumus. The Vatican wolf will lie down with the 
 Protestant lamb but only on condition that the lamb 
 shall be inside him. 
 
 I think, therefore, there can be little doubt on 
 whose shoulders the main responsibility for the 
 strife should be laid ; but many people fail to dis- 
 criminate between the rival denominations. " A 
 plague on both your houses ! " they impatiently
 
 28 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 exclaim as they see the results of religious fanaticism 
 in Ireland. They regard it as a hideous and wholly 
 unnecessary squabble between rival bigots in a land 
 that above all things needs peace, an unseemly " brawl 
 in the household of death " ; and consider that both 
 parties are equally to blame. But this, I submit, is 
 unjust. The Ulstermen have their failings, like 
 other people ; but, before we judge them harshly or 
 critically, we should try to understand how we 
 should feel if we were in their place. They see the 
 Church in Ireland throwing sops to the Bolshevik 
 Cerberus, and a triangular alliance of rebels, Papists, 
 clerics and murderous anarchists, trying to crush 
 them and to destroy the British connection to which 
 they are so deeply attached. Their bigotry is less 
 the offspring of religion than of a great and not 
 wholly unreasonable fear of Rome just as the 
 persecuting fervour of the Elizabethan Protestants 
 was the result of the terror inspired by the Inquisi- 
 tion, the St. Bartholomew massacre, the butcheries 
 of Alva's soldiery in the Netherlands, and the bigoted 
 fury of Pius V against England. How far the Latin 
 Church is still at heart a persecuting Church is a 
 matter upon which opinions differ. Doctrinally, at 
 any rate, she is as much so as ever. She still claims 
 the right to impose her religious opinions upon recal- 
 citrants by means of the stake, the gibbet and the 
 lash ; and these amiable views have recently been 
 published and commended by a high ecclesiastical 
 authority, in a book which obtained strong Pontifical 
 approbation only a few years ago. 
 
 The sectarian spirit is thus seen to be a con- 
 tinuing world-nuisance and a serious obstacle to good 
 will amongst mankind. The great institutional cor- 
 porations especially the Latin Church, which repre- 
 sents a polity rather than a creed are fighting, not 
 only for their faith, but for place and power and the 
 other appurtenances of temporal dominion. But the
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 29 
 
 lesser combatants in the vast denominational battle- x 
 field what are the grounds of their quarrel ? If 
 only a very large "if," I admit we could get them 
 to see that the strife, in its theological aspect, is 
 largely over words and names rather than things, 
 shadows more than realities, and that matters in- 
 volved in the utmost obscurity are not worth the 
 bitterness and estrangement they cause, peace would 
 be one step nearer. Every day that passes brings 
 into clearer relief how utterly meaningless and unreal 
 are the barriers which religious dogmatism set up 
 between us. 
 
 People are continually warning us against class- 
 consciousness as a disastrous factor of social sever- 
 ance : let us extend the scope of their admonitions, 
 and be on our guard against creed-consciousness.^ 
 Creeds, we learn from the Dean of St. Paul's, are 
 documents which only represent the opinions of a 
 majority at a meeting ; and we ought not to make 
 a " fetish " of them. 1 To some of us this is not 
 altogether news, but it is well to have it confirmed 
 on such high ecclesiastical authority. ' We are 
 weary of debating societies," said Bishop Gore some 
 years ago, but the (Ecumenical Councils of the Roman 
 Church, which frame religious dogma, are simply 
 theological debating societies. After prolonged, and 
 perhaps very heated, discussion sometimes sugges- 
 tive of an Irish night in the House of Commons 
 the bell rings (so to speak) for the House to divide, 
 and the result of the division-list goes forth to the 
 world as the fiat of the Holy Spirit. Religious truth 
 arrived at in this fashion is " simply the opinion 
 that has survived," and it is really quite unnecessary 
 for people to fight and kill one another about it. 
 A little clear and courageous thinking on these and 
 similar matters would do a world of good. 
 
 The two enemies of civilization, Dr. Inge tells 
 
 1 Outspoken Essays, p. 134.
 
 30 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 us, 1 are the Bolshevik and the Ultramontane. These 
 are the wise words of a very able man ; and it is 
 noticeable how the two extremes would seem to be 
 meeting when Lenin, a sort of Communist Pope, gives 
 himself the infallible airs of an earthly divinity, and 
 makes the same mess of things that his brethren 
 in Rome have always made ; and when the Irish 
 hierarchy allies itself with the forces of anarchy and 
 Bolshevism. Bolshevism is in theory the negation 
 of authority, but Romanism in its present form acts 
 as a more subtle corrosive of the authoritarian 
 principle by bringing it into general contempt ; and 
 we must not, in our perhaps rather exaggerated 
 terror of the one, allow ourselves to be beguiled by 
 the other. It is not the slightest use preaching 
 Roman orthodoxy in order that Bolshevism may 
 abate, or that coal-miners may rest content with 
 insufficient wages : the malcontents pay no more 
 heed to authority of this kind than they give to 
 oriental liturgies, mass-chantings, or to the " turnings 
 of the rotatory calabash." We moderate people, no 
 less than the Church, stand for the principle of 
 authority, but the authority we champion is that of 
 the State in State affairs including such things as 
 marriage and education. We hold that education is 
 the business of the community as a whole, not the 
 speciality of any religious organization. We further 
 say that clerical instructors of youth who abuse their 
 privileges by teaching their pupils sedition and 
 expect loyalists to pay for it and all other ecclesi- 
 astics who use their religion to foment social and 
 political unrest, ought not to be allowed an immunity 
 from the processes of law which is denied to the 
 rebellious layman. The world sadly needs discipline 
 just now sane, ordered discipline not that of Popes, 
 Bolshevik or Ultramontane. 
 
 Experience shows that autocracy and dogmatism 
 
 ' Outspoken Essays, p. 31.
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 31 
 
 in religion always mean general discord, and one way 
 of securing the peace we all desire is to cut out the 
 roots of sectarian strife. If in the process we have 
 to deliver hard blows, as well as to receive them, 
 it cannot be helped. The cry of " intolerance," as 
 was only to be expected, has been freely raised by 
 Roman Catholics during the present controversy in 
 order to divert public attention from the main points 
 at issue ; but I must repeat once more that my action 
 in this matter is in no way inspired by denominational 
 motives. I have not the slightest wish (to borrow 
 the words of the Month) to " condemn or penalize 
 any form of religious belief which is compatible with 
 social order," or to interfere with any man's opinions 
 upon transcendental matters as such. What he 
 thinks about the Filioque clause, whether he believes 
 in homoousion or homoiousion, is no more concern of 
 mine than whether he takes tea instead of coffee at 
 breakfast, or prefers jam to marmalade. When, 
 however, he uses his religious opinions to pump up 
 artificially public and private enmities, and to turn 
 human life as the Church often does, domestically, 
 in the family circle, and, politically, in countries like 
 Ireland and Australia into a bear-garden, the matter 
 assumes a different complexion ; and the religious 
 action of Roman Catholics during recent years has 
 not always been compatible with social order. 
 
 " Faith may well be left alone," says the genial 
 author of Obiter Dicta (I, 113) ; and Tennyson bids 
 us not confuse, " by shadowed hint " or otherwise, 
 the life that leads melodious days. So long as the 
 days of faith remain melodious, we shall be delighted 
 to follow this excellent advice ; but, when the melody 
 gives place to a succession of jangling discords that 
 jar upon the nerves, we are compelled to stop our 
 ears and make our feeble protest. As to letting 
 Faith well alone, I must point out that a condition 
 precedent to our doing so is that Faith shall leave
 
 32 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 us alone ; and this is just what she never will do. 
 If Faith attacks or vilifies me and mine, my friends 
 and their belongings, plots against my country, 
 and otherwise behaves as no lady should behave, I 
 cannot reasonably be expected to take it all lying 
 down. When Faith stops bespattering honest 
 women's reputations hurting them in their two 
 tenderest spots, their honour and their offspring- 
 making mischief all round, and generally disturbing 
 public and domestic harmony, it will be time enough 
 to talk about leaving her alone and to refrain from 
 interrupting her Quietistic peace. 
 
 The Month, in the course of a lengthy attack 
 upon the present writer (February, 1920), laments 
 that " the Devil, spurred by his sleepless hate, 
 continues his bitter yet futile war against God in 
 His creatures " ; and Canon William Barry, D.D., 
 tells me that my previous book was " an outrage 
 upon Catholic faith and feeling." If this be so, I 
 can only repeat that I am sorry ; but the fault is 
 not mine, and many of his co-religionists freely admit 
 that we non-Catholics have just cause of complaint 
 against the Church. The quarrel is not of our 
 seeking ; and the counter-attack is generally recog- 
 nized as a natural and legitimate method of defence. 
 I know that Roman Catholics are very sensitive on 
 the subject of their religion, and I have no wish to 
 wound unnecessarily anybody's feelings ; but what 
 Romanists apparently have yet to learn is that other 
 people have feelings besides themselves, and that 
 the mannerless and anti-social conduct of their Church 
 is bitterly resented by those who are subjected to her 
 affronts. They feel that thay have been wounded 
 in the house of one who asserts that she is our friend, 
 but adopts very singular methods of demonstrating 
 her friendship. Not one of my numerous critics has 
 yet found a single word to say either in print, 
 writing, or speech in defence of the notorious Ne
 
 33 
 
 Temere Decree. When I ask them for their views 
 about it they invariably shirk the question. I can 
 only conclude that there is no answer ; that, in their 
 heart of hearts, they know it to be indefensible, an 
 offence against decency and the comities of social 
 and civic intercourse. It is plainly now the province 
 of the layman to give the Church that instruction, 
 in manners no less than in morals, of which she is 
 so sorely in need. 
 
 The notion that a Church has the right to flout 
 the laws, to regulate thought and to direct opinion, 
 in the country where she has taken up her abode, 
 still persists in many quarters ; but it will have to 
 be overcome. Grave problems confront us, and the 
 Papal system is a hindrance rather than a help to 
 their solution. Lord Morley reminds us in his Diderot 
 and the Encyclopedists, and, from a desire to be fair, 
 perhaps rather over-emphasizes the point, that the 
 Latin Church served a great purpose in her time. 
 In her early days she not only offered herself as a 
 guide to human relations, but supplied the world 
 with a theory of life and an intellectual system ; and 
 endeavoured, not wholly without success, to be a 
 mother to mankind. Ideas which to us may appear 
 as mere foolishness and childish, or even grovelling 
 superstition, were often in reality scientific effort in 
 embryo, a first essay in mental development, a 
 groping of the uninformed intellect after truth ; and 
 they are, as such, no less deserving of our respect 
 than the researches of to-day. But the old conditions 
 have now passed, never to return ; and, however much 
 we may sympathize with the dog who cannot recognize 
 that he has had his day, we suggest that the time 
 has now arrived for Roman ecclesiasticism to display 
 a more liberal spirit of accommodation to modern 
 ideas and the new order in the world. 
 
 One last word by way of introduction to my 
 survey of Romanist doctrine and history. Certain 
 
 3
 
 34 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 critical friends, whose opinions I respect, have told 
 me that I take these matters with undue seriousness. 
 " What does it matter ? " they ask, when I complain 
 of priestly insult and mischief-making : the whole 
 thing in their eyes is too foolish to be worth noticing. 
 I do not altogether agree with them, because the 
 power of folly to make trouble in the world is still 
 very great ; but I am quite prepared to admit that 
 Romanism is, in many of its aspects, a sort of opera 
 bouffe religion, with a burlesque hagiology, a dog- 
 matic system that in places savours of comedy, and 
 a moral theology which sometimes borders upon 
 highly improper pantomime. Indeed, I have long 
 suspected certain eminent Catholic divines of intel- 
 lectual clowning. Nor can I disguise from myself 
 the fact that my friends' plea for lighter treatment 
 of the questions at issue is backed by some highly 
 respectable authority. Pascal, an intensely religious 
 man, points out with perfect truth that the counter- 
 feits of Christianity are deserving of contempt and re- 
 pugnance. " Be assured, my Fathers," says he, " that 
 it is a very different thing to jest at religion, and to 
 ridicule those who profane it by their perversions " ; 
 and he quotes sundry learned authors to the same 
 effect. Grave divines and reverend Fathers, as will 
 be shown later on, justify the use of satire in its 
 keenest form as a useful and legitimate corrective of 
 dogmatic error or religious absurdity. 
 
 In our day that ardent Roman Catholic propa- 
 gandist, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, whose orthodoxy is 
 vouched for in a brilliant book of his own writing, is a 
 firm believer in what he terms " a divine frivolity." 
 He declares that " seriousness is irreligious," and 
 " the fashion of all false religions." l Serious methods, 
 we gather from his writings, are for wicked people, 
 and the serious subject is the proper matter for the 
 professional joker to flesh his wit upon. With these 
 
 1 The Uses of Diversity, p. I ; and see Heretics, p. 216.
 
 PROLOGUE AND REPLY 35 
 
 warnings and high examples before me, and for fear 
 lest Mr. Chesterton should charge me with irreligion, 
 I will endeavour in the following pages not to be 
 more serious than circumstances appear to warrant. 
 In conclusion, I desire once more to express my 
 great indebtedness to numerous valued correspon- 
 dents in all parts of the world, who, though complete 
 strangers to me, have of their own accord continued 
 to give me much helpful advice, as well as a mass of 
 interesting information.
 
 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 " Wrap not yourselves round in the associations of years past ; 
 nor determine that to be truth which you wish to be so, nor make 
 an idol of cherished anticipations " (CARDINAL NEWMAN'S Essay on 
 Development, final page). 
 
 " The condition of the creature seems to be untruthfulness " (The 
 Creator and the Creature, by FATHER FABER, second edition, p. 308). 
 
 " Qui cherche la verite trouvera Dieu." 
 
 SOME wise man has said that if he were offered the 
 choice of possessing absolute truth, or the desire of 
 it, he would choose the desire of it. The spirit of 
 truthfulness, even more than truth itself, should 
 be our aim. Both truth and truthfulness, according 
 to Tyrrell, are late social developments ; but many 
 a man has spoken out valiantly on their behalf in 
 ages when their worth was but dimly discerned by 
 the multitude. " Nothing," said Erigena, " is to 
 be desired except the joy that comes from truth ; 
 nothing is to be shunned except its absence " ; 
 but Erigena was not in favour with a Church which 
 has always preached and practised " economy " 
 of the truth. In my previous book I set down 
 in black and white the extraordinary theories on 
 this subject propounded by the Church's accredited 
 masters of ethical doctrine, and the half-hearted 
 efforts of Catholic apologists to explain away this 
 teaching have been a complete failure. 
 
 37
 
 38 PRIESTCRAFJ 
 
 Even in our day there are people outside the 
 Roman communion who appear to favour Catholic 
 ideas and methods ; and the unrestricted pursuit 
 of truth is regarded with marked disfavour by men 
 who can hardly be described as reactionaries. 
 ' Truth-hunting," we gather from the versatile Mr. 
 Augustine Birrell (Obiter Dicta, i) is a reprehensible 
 pastime indulged in by persons who possess weak 
 convictions, paralysed intellects and lax opinions, and 
 who are sadly lacking in humour. Reticence upon, 
 and a wisely tempered indifference to, speculative 
 questions form, Mr. Birrell thinks, a valuable pre- 
 scription to rid the intellect of cloudy vapours : 
 the restless habit of the inquiring mind has a bad 
 effect upon human conduct. Worse still, this habit 
 is, in the eyes of many excellent people (of whom, 
 if I mistake not, Mr. Birrell is one), decidedly " bad 
 form." That I'irreligion est canaille is stated to 
 have been the opinion of no less an authority than 
 Joseph Le Maistre : fine taste and the sense of gen- 
 tility should deter all well-bred persons from " con- 
 troversy," and from prying into recondite matters 
 of belief. 
 
 Carlyle thought that the talent of lying in a way 
 that cannot be laid hold of was " a dreadful trick 
 to learn ! " but his remark about the salutary nature 
 of falsehoods was a sarcasm, not only on the Jesuit 
 Order, but on all the governing classes in his time. 
 In their eyes religion was chiefly serviceable as 
 police-constable, and their successors in our day 
 would appear to take the same view : all that they 
 demand of such hierarchies as those of Ireland and 
 Quebec is that they shall help to keep the people 
 quiet. If Imposture is an aid to the police, by all 
 means let her be enrolled in the force. The states- 
 men agree with the Churches that truth is a dangerous 
 medicine, which should only be administered to the 
 common herd in homoeopathic doses, and by experi-
 
 SALUTARY NATURE OF FALSEHOODS 39 
 
 enced practitioners : like the French cynic, they 
 are of opinion that, if God did not exist, we should 
 have to invent Him. Authority still tries to placate 
 Labour by promising that it will be recompensed 
 hereafter for its sufferings here below ; but Labour 
 says that it prefers to take the cash and let the credit 
 go, and plumps for an uneconomic wage. 
 
 From the days of Plato onwards highly educated 
 people have always considered that unlimited truth 
 is deleterious to the folk whom they describe as the 
 lower orders : 'we must teach the people a fable," 
 as the Greek philosopher said. The Decay of Lying 
 was a grief to the cultured soul of Oscar Wilde, 
 who also affected, along with the aesthetic pose, a 
 more than clerical obscurantism. For these reasons 
 he deprecated the faithful representation of the thing 
 as it is in Nature. He deplored the curious crudities, 
 the monotony, and the absolutely unfinished con- 
 dition of Nature, who had good intentions, of course, 
 but, as Aristotle said, could not carry them out. 
 Nothing was more evident to him than that Nature 
 (like the Roman Church) hates Mind. Thinking, he 
 said (again following the Roman tradition), is the 
 most unhealthy thing in the world ; and our splendid 
 British physique which Mr. Lloyd George, by the 
 way, stoutly denies is entirely due to our national 
 stupidity. What he pleaded for is Lying as a fine 
 art, an art with a technique of its own, its craft- 
 mysteries, and deliberate artistic methods ; and if 
 he had only studied Roman moral theology, he would 
 have found all these things developed to the highest 
 pitch of perfection. The only consolation he ever 
 derived from the story that George Washington 
 never told a lie, was that the whole thing is a myth. 
 The imaginative man, the true liar, with his frank, 
 fearless statements and his superb irresponsibility, 
 has a healthy, natural disdain of proof of any 
 kind : what we should all aim at (what the
 
 40 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 truly orthodox person aims at) is "a cultivated 
 blindness." 
 
 The substance, if not the tone, of these remarks, 
 with their mingled obscurantism and disdain of 
 truth, is curiously reminiscential of official Catholic 
 theology and certain Papal Encyclicals. Pius X 
 and St. Alphonsus Liguori together could hardly 
 have bettered them. Art and dogmatic religion 
 have much in common, and it would almost seem 
 that Wilde had imbibed the teachings of casuistry 
 in the matter of truthfulness, just as the superficial 
 stage-artistry of Rome, added to what a clever 
 person calls its " pseudo-romanticism," undoubtedly 
 appealed to his shallow and rather hard aestheticism. 
 Be that as it may, certain it is that he ended his days 
 a true believer : he died in Paris in November 1900, 
 " fortified by the sacraments of the Catholic 
 Church." ' 
 
 Roman Catholic orthodoxy, like aestheticism, 
 thinks that truth of representation is not always 
 desirable. In the eye of the Curia conviction stands 
 second to obedience, genuine belief to formal assent. 
 Humanity thirsts after illusions ; popular religion 
 craves emotionalism and mystery ; and Rome takes 
 care to cater for these wants in a liberal manner, 
 and without any undue subserviency to scientific 
 or historical fact. The reign of sham throughout 
 the Church may be, to us, a source of regret and a 
 stumbling-block of offence ; but as a Roman prelate, 
 correctly interpreting the mind of his superiors, 
 remarked to one of our countrymen, " You English 
 make too much of truth." 
 
 In Fogazzaro's great novel, The Saint, there is 
 a striking scene between Benedetto, the idealist 
 priest-hero of the story, and the Pope, where the 
 former indulges in some very plain speaking. He 
 tells His Holiness that there are four evil spirits 
 
 * The Times, November 30, 1920.
 
 SALUTARY NATURE OF FALSEHOODS 41 
 
 assailing the life of the Church. First and foremost 
 of these is " the spirit of falsehood. It has assumed 
 the shape of an angel of light, and many shepherds, 
 many teachers in the Church, many pious and vir- 
 tuous ones among the faithful, listen devoutly to 
 the spirit of falsehood, believing they listen to an 
 angel. Christ said, ' I am the truth.' But many 
 in the Church, even good and pious souls, divide the 
 Truth in their hearts, have no reverence for that 
 Truth which they do not call ' religious,' fearing 
 that truth will destroy truth ; they oppose God to 
 God, prefer darkness to light, and thus also do they 
 train men. They call themselves the ' faithful,' and 
 do not understand how weak, how cowardly is their 
 faith, how foreign to them is the spirit of the apostle, 
 which probes all things." 
 
 The aged Pontiff, overborne by the cares of his 
 high office and his impotence to deal with the crying 
 evils that beset the Church, listens awhile in silence 
 and sorrowful acquiescence. Finally, in a few brief 
 and deeply moving words, he sets forth the diffi- 
 culties of his position, implores Benedetto to pray 
 for him, and gives the priest his blessing. The 
 Saint departs, only to fall a victim later on to the 
 obscurantist villainy of the Curia. 
 
 " Thus also do they train men." We need not 
 have recourse to Protestant controversialists for 
 confirmation of this statement : Catholic writers of 
 the highest repute supply it in abundance. " Lying 
 is only a venial sin," says that amiable and most 
 prolific writer, Father Faber, in The Creator and the 
 Creature, p. 307 ; and the exceeding veniality of a 
 venial sin is amply demonstrated by the Father. 
 A little " holy water, other sacramentals, the sign 
 of the Cross," and hey presto ! " the guilt of these 
 sins falls from us like a withered leaf from an 
 autumnal tree." Lord Acton was under no illusions 
 as to the quality of the teaching supplied by his
 
 42 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Church. In a letter to Mr. Gladstone he says that 
 Ultramontanism (which has controlled Roman policy 
 and doctrine for the last seventy years) " not only 
 promotes, it inculcates, distinct mendacity and de- 
 ceitfulness." l Tyrrell explains at length in his 
 Autobiography (ii, 496) and elsewhere, how in the 
 Roman pulpit, confessional, seminaries and other 
 places of education* emphasis is laid on " the venial 
 character of the sin of lying and casuistical minimizing 
 of the duty of veracity." This being so, that Roman 
 Catholic schoolmaster would appear to have been 
 within his rights who refused to punish a boy for 
 falsehood, remarking that the lad was only " acting 
 on the teaching and example he was given." 2 St. 
 Alphonsus Liguori, Rome's accredited moralist and 
 chief exponent of ethical doctrine, says that a man 
 who swears to a thing, but does not mean what he 
 swears, or makes a contract without intending to 
 bind himself, is not bound by the oath or the con- 
 tract ! Other astounding examples of official Roman 
 Catholic teaching on lying and prevarication are 
 given in The Roman Mischief -Maker, chapters xiv, 
 xv, and Appendix. 
 
 Centuries ago Irish sages described their bishops 
 as preaching doctrine more crooked than their 
 croziers ; and in these later days Dr. O'Dwyer, late 
 Bishop of Limerick, told a Royal Commission that 
 the clergy who came out of Maynooth were deficient 
 in " a something which cultivates a right sense of 
 honour and of right judgment with regard to the 
 affairs of life " ; and, as " Pat " remarks in his book, 
 The Sorrows of Ireland, it is no wonder that the 
 national character gets " a little twisted " in conse- 
 quence of the shocking education the people receive. 
 It would be easy to multiply similar examples of 
 
 1 Letters to Mary Gladstone, Iv. 
 
 See The Church Quarterly, vol. xxviii, p. 51, where the author 
 states on the authority of another Romanist, that the veracity of 
 Catholic schoolboys leaves much to be desired.
 
 SALUTARY NATURE OF FALSEHOODS 43 
 
 first-class Catholic opinion on this subject. When 
 shining lights of the Church like Pascal, Lord Acton, 
 Tyrrell, Fogazzaro, and many other men of out- 
 standing intellect and diverse gifts and tempera- 
 ments, all pounce upon shiftiness and mendacity as 
 the crowning vices of Roman Catholicism ; when 
 their judgment is confirmed by that of the world 
 at large, and throughout many centuries, it is idle 
 to ascribe it to Protestant calumny or what the 
 Tablet calls " moribund religious prejudice." Even 
 Newman, before he found salvation in Catholicism, 
 spoke of " the notorious insincerity and frauds of 
 the Church of Rome," its " deceitful deeds and lying 
 wonders," with much more to the same effect. It 
 is true that he subsequently abased himself and made 
 a meal of the words ; but litera scripta manet, the 
 writings remain on record. 
 
 To the direct teaching of deceitfulness, in word 
 and deed, must be added the controversial chicanery, 
 the misquotation of opponents which, in the case of 
 certain authors, has become " a byword " ; the 
 lack of candour and straightforwardness that involves 
 religious disputation in a web of unreality ; and 
 the perversion, in many cases wilful, of historical 
 fact. The Church idealizes the past, but dishonours 
 it by her striking absence of the historical sense. 
 Pious frauds, " necessary fictions " and impostures 
 of various kinds, text-twistings, " canonized " but 
 indefensible interpretations, the habit of making 
 statements on matters of science and history which 
 they know to be untenable " word-jugglings, sup- 
 pressions and amplifications," as Tyrrell says all out 
 of respect for the exigencies of supposed edification, 
 are openly defended and practised by Catholic clerics 
 and laymen. ' You must have a prop of some sort," 
 as a candid friend, who leans on the crutch of 
 Romanism, remarked to me the other day ; but the 
 props of clerical autocracy are usually of a somewhat
 
 44 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 decrepit nature. The Church's boasted "' triumph 
 over history," her undoubted success in imposing 
 manipulated facts upon the faithful, 1 are but a Pyrrhic 
 victory. If a merchant were as unscrupulous in 
 his business transactions as many pious folk are in 
 their dealings with religion, he would be given a 
 very bad time. 
 
 All this breeds that " profound inward scep- 
 ticism," together with the absence of anything that 
 deserves the name of intellectual conviction, which 
 Tyrrell and other observant Catholics have noted 
 and deplored amongst their co-religionists. Roman 
 Catholic critics tell me that the charge of lax teaching 
 in the matter of truth is an old one ; but the question 
 is not whether it is old, but whether it is just. It 
 is indeed many centuries old, but it still persists 
 because it never has been refuted, and never can be. 
 Nor can we wonder that all this scientific tergiversa- 
 tion and pernicious moralizing have, in the common 
 estimation of mankind, reacted most injuriously on 
 the characters of those who receive them. There 
 are, as we all know, thousands of Catholics who are 
 the soul of honour in public and private life ; but 
 the Church's teaching has undoubtedly left its mark 
 pretty deeply upon Romanists in the mass. The 
 deplorable campaign of lying and calumny which 
 they are conducting against England all over the 
 world in America and Australia particularly shows 
 how they have profited by their instructions. 
 
 A very brief reflection on the inherent nature of 
 this teaching will convince us that it could hardly 
 
 1 Newman was consulted in the 'sixties by a friend who wanted 
 to found a Catholic Historical Review. " Nothing would be better," 
 replied the future Cardinal, " than a Historical Review for Catholics 
 but who would bear it ? Unless one doctored all one's facts, one 
 would be thought a bad Catholic." (See the Month, January 1903, 
 and also the Hibbert Journal, January 1921, where Mr. Belloc's 
 latest essay in writing " history " from the Papal standpoint is reviewed. 
 It appears to be that author's view that if an opinion is modern, 
 it is " therefore part of a decline.")
 
 SALUTARY NATURE OF FALSEHOODS 45 
 
 have different results. When religion and reason 
 are partitioned off in separate compartments of the 
 mind, the scepticism of indifference soon follows. 
 Far more deadly than deliberate lying is the spirit 
 of falsity that breeds lies. " Trickery and fraud," 
 said St. Thomas Aquinas, " are equivalent to a lie." 
 In my opinion they are worse : a good downright lie 
 is preferable to a lie that pretends it is not a lie. 
 Truth is not valued by the Church for its own sake, 
 but only when it serves her purposes. We are told 
 that the assertions of ecclesiastical dogma do not 
 constitute a demand for genuine belief, but are simply 
 a matter of ecclesiastical discipline. The principle 
 of orthodoxy laid down by St. Ignatius Loyola is 
 clerically sound : if the Church says that black is 
 white, the good churchman must say so too. ' Why 
 do you not accept what I tell you ? " asks Rome : 
 " no one asks you to believe it." l The non-Catholic 
 naively inquires if such-and-such a doctrine is true. 
 " What an absurd question ! " the good Roman 
 Catholic in effect replies. " Mother Church says we 
 are to believe it, and that ought to satisfy any 
 reasonable being." 
 
 The faith of the Church is an Asian mystery. 
 Her clergy let their vivid imaginations run riot 
 while expounding religious dogma to the faithful ; 
 and many of the latter are probably aware that, as 
 Abbe Houtin caustically observed, we must not expect 
 too much sincerity from Roman Catholic priests. 
 Tyrrell (Medievalism, p. 98) doubts whether half 
 of those within the Church's visible body are true 
 Catholics in conviction and heart : it would seem 
 probable that among educated Romanists the pro- 
 portion is considerably smaller, and not a few of them 
 confess their backslidings in this matter. " Few," 
 say the Italian authors of that stinging protest 
 
 * For instances of this, see Studies in Modernism, by the Rev. 
 Alfred Fawkes, p. 369.
 
 46 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 against Curialism and its methods, Quello que Vog- 
 liamo " Few have remained faithful to religious tradi- 
 tions, and this minority is showing signs of dissolu- 
 tion." Religion, for them, is but " a cold observance 
 of traditional formulas and precepts. The men are 
 reduced to a handful ; the women go on slowly 
 diminishing, and the young are becoming ever more 
 refractory to religious training." 
 
 Such people do lip-service to truth, but what 
 they really believe is always a riddle, and one which 
 they are themselves apparently unable to solve. 
 The unsearchable nature of the clerical mind has 
 often been commented on by clerics, and the mental 
 make-up of the enlightened laity, at least where 
 religion is concerned, is no less inscrutable. I often 
 wonder how many of them believe what they are 
 told they must believe those weird pronounce- 
 ments of pastoral wisdom, the Providentissimus 
 Deus and Pascendi Encyclicals, or those strange 
 " infallible " utterances of the Holy Spirit, the 
 Trent and Vatican Decrees ? Not one Catholic 
 in a hundred, I would freely wager, has ever 
 heard of the Encyclicals in question, much less 
 have they a knowledge of their contents. How 
 many of the Roman ecclesiastics (it is often asked) 
 who took the anti-Modernist oath prescribed by 
 Pius X, did so with a clear conscience ? The religious 
 practice of the laity is often, as Mr. Belloc recently 
 pointed out, a matter of " social routine," although 
 intermixed with a great deal of very real faith. A 
 large number permit themselves to be driven through 
 life in the blinkers of the Church's " miraculous 
 magisterium," which is populously supposed to form 
 an infallible corrective to the wanderings of mind 
 or eyes to left or right. Righteousness, for the good 
 Curialist, consists in implicitly obeying and believing 
 in an external teacher, rather than the promptings 
 of conscience. The hopeless inconsistency of the
 
 SALUTARY NATURE OF FALSEHOODS 47 
 
 teachers does not distress him in the least ; nor will 
 it do so, I suppose, until he begins to think for himself 
 and compare notes about religion with his fellow men. 
 At present he is ready to " mingle with the acquiescent 
 multitude, that will swear to any words, contradict 
 any history, betray any inherited trust, so long as 
 they are covered by the dome of St. Peter's." * 
 ' Every hesitation will yield before this unanswer- 
 able argument : ' God wills and commands it, because 
 the Pope wills and commands it.' ; So wr.ote a 
 clerical admirer in a letter to that estimable Pontiff, 
 Pius X ; and His Holiness expressed his " satis- 
 faction with it as dictated by that spirit of intelligent 
 piety which indicates a true Catholic and an exem- 
 plary priest/' 2 
 
 " Superstition and false miracles are at once 
 preached, assented to, and laughed at " by Roman 
 Catholics in countries where the Roman faith pre- 
 vails ; and Newman (Anglican Difficulties, p. 268) 
 admits this to be a correct statement of the case. 
 Fanaticism and fraud have ever been characteristic 
 of Romanism. In olden times the sincerity of fanati- 
 cism predominated : as this gradually wanes, the 
 spirit of inherent falsity waxes. The facing-both- 
 ways attitude towards medievalism and modern 
 thought is fatal to intellectual candour. Carlyle tells 
 us in his Jesuitism that a man's " religion " con- 
 sists, " not of the many things he is in doubt of and 
 tries to believe, but of the few he is assured of, and 
 has no need of effort for believing. Ask yourselves, 
 what are the eternal covenants which you can believe, 
 and dare not for your life's sake but go and observe ? 
 These are your Bible, your God's word such as it 
 may be : these you will continually struggle to 
 obey." To those of us who hold it a more serious 
 offence to trifle with the truth than to trifle with 
 
 1 The Seat of Authority in Religion, by Dr. James Martineau. 
 1 Medi&valism, fourth impression, by Father Tyrrell, p. 212.
 
 48 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 man-made dogmas or religious observances, or the 
 supposed attributes of a tribal Jehovah, the levity 
 and cynicism displayed by many Catholics towards 
 those transcendental matters which to them are 
 vital is little short of astounding. Truth-worship, 
 or truth-hunting if 3 7 ou prefer the phrase, is a more 
 profitable exercise than a mere sentimental indulgence 
 in religious practices of Pagan origin and more than 
 doubtful efficacy. The truth shall make you free a 
 most disastrous result from the standpoint of the 
 Roman cleric. Truthfulness is the child of freedom : 
 despotism, spiritual despotism above all, is fatal 
 to it. 
 
 Unbelief is preferable to half-belief. Remember 
 that, as Plato said, the lie of the soul is much \vorse 
 than the spoken lie ; a grudging assent to discredited 
 dogmas is itself discreditable. Do not pin your 
 faith to the doctrine that you are serving God by 
 pretending to believe what you know to be untrue : 
 abandon the notion that religious opinions, intrinsic- 
 ally absurd, but erroneously supposed to be politic- 
 ally serviceable, cannot be surrendered without 
 danger ; or that certain classes of humanity require 
 to be instructed in moonshine. No man's conscience 
 really needs the wire-netting of " protective methods " 
 in its pursuit of truth in any shape. 
 
 The fact is that doubt becomes a duty when the 
 material for reasonable certitude is lacking ; the un- 
 certainty of Yes must not be allowed to override the 
 clear probability of No. The worst of all humbugs 
 is the humbug of pretended or nominal religion, 
 and that subordination of veracity to the exigencies 
 of so-called piety which has made shipwreck of the 
 characters of so many otherwise well-meaning men. 
 Theirs is an apostasy from honest opinion : mental 
 fraud and insincerity are apt to become, in such a 
 case, a daily custom, a necessity of existence. 
 " Life," as is admirably said by the Rev. Alfred
 
 SALUTARY NATURE OF FALSEHOODS 49 
 
 Fawkes, who was himself a Roman Catholic for many 
 years, but left the Church when intimate experi- 
 ence brought home to him her true character 
 " Life is lived out in bad faith, because men are too 
 indolent or too self-interested to break away from 
 the bondage of habit and circumstance : a false 
 sentiment of loyalty to the past, and to engagements 
 entered into in ignorance of their real nature, ensures 
 a nominal allegiance to a creed which has ceased to 
 command belief or respect. It is an allegiance as 
 destitute of honour as of reality ; if there is in the 
 world such a thing as atheism, as infidelity, it 
 is here." J 
 
 Remembering these wise words, let us cease to 
 believe in the salutary nature of falsehoods, or in 
 any amalgam of truth and untruth, whereof the 
 false ring betrays the baseness of the metal in its 
 composition, but face fearlessly the problems that 
 confront us. To shirk inconvenient questions is 
 the act of a moral poltroon : nobody can hope to 
 save his soul by fouling it with imposture. Let us 
 have faith only in what is credible and deserving of 
 belief. The sort of faith that is only half-faith and 
 a compromise with conscience, that results in universal 
 strife and bitterness, mutual distrust and suspicion 
 and ill-will such as we are now witnessing in Ireland 
 is a rotten thing. " He who doubts and searches 
 not," says Pascal, " is a grievous wrongdoer." The 
 men who repress truth and stifle conviction from 
 motives of expediency, run imposture as a trade or 
 an instrument of government, are guilty of both 
 moral and intellectual improbity. God does not 
 need our lie, neither does man. 
 
 1 Studies in Modernism, p. 155.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THOU ART PETER 
 
 " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." 
 MATTHEW xvi. 18. 
 
 ON the great Basilica of St. Peter's in Rome, on 
 the cathedral at Westminster, and many other Roman 
 Catholic churches is inscribed the following sentence : 
 
 TU ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRAM ^DIFICABO 
 
 ECCLESIAM MEAM. These fateful words, which have 
 formed the basis of an empire and changed the course 
 of the world's history, are commonly supposed to 
 have been addressed to St. Peter by Christ, in the 
 presence of His disciples, on a notable occasion. 
 People are not told in so many words that Jesus ad- 
 dressed the illiterate and Aramaic-speaking peasants, 
 who formed his usual audience, in the Greek language ; 
 but the impression given to the ordinary reader, 
 and usually entertained by him, is that Christ added 
 the name "Peter" to that of " Simon "Simon 
 was " surnamed Peter," we are told in Mark iii. 16- 
 in order to secure the implications contained in the 
 Greek word ' petra " (a rock). The whole point 
 of the phrase, as was often explained to us at school, 
 lies in the alliterative jeu de mots, or play upon the 
 Greek words " Petrus " and " petra " : Catholic 
 pupils are sometimes told in their schools what a 
 " wonderful " thing it was that Simon was called 
 Peter. In Hebrew, 1 or any other language but 
 
 1 Why no Hebrew Gospel has been preserved still remains a 
 mystery : if such documents ever existed, there may have been 
 reasons for their loss or destruction. 
 
 50
 
 THOU ART PETER 51 
 
 Greek or French, the sentence is wholly lacking in 
 vigour and poignancy. Roman Catholics might learn 
 from their theological books (if they ever read such 
 things) that the Church supposes Christ to have said, 
 " Thou art Kipha (Aramaic for a rock, or stone), 
 and on this Kipha I will build my church," etc. 
 This is pretty much as though a man should say in 
 the English of to-day, " You are Mr. Rock, and on 
 this rock I will build the church I am going to erect " 
 which sounds neither apt nor impressive. Taken 
 out of its Greek setting, the story is the reverse of 
 satisfactory ; : and, from a dispassionate point of 
 view, the incident, taken as a whole, cannot be regarded 
 as historical or even founded on fact. 
 
 In the first place, there is no reason whatever 
 to suppose that Christ ever intended or desired to 
 found what we term a " church." Such an institu- 
 tion, in the opinion of liberal theologians and 
 independent critics, was not in accordance with the 
 spirit of the time : as the Dean of St. Paul's tells us 
 (Outspoken Essays, p. 249), institutional Christianity 
 is something alien to the Gospel itself. The Dean 
 further says, in an article on the divorce question, 
 that "it is by no means certain what Christ really 
 said " ; and that most scholars have now come to 
 the conclusion that certain passages are " spurious." 
 It is hardly necessary to point out that our doubts 
 concerning the authenticity of the records cannot 
 be confined to a few isolated texts ; and we may be 
 pretty certain that Matt. xvi. 16-18 must be 
 
 Compare the version of the incident given in John i. 42, the 
 only other Gospel that records it. Here we are told that Andrew 
 found his brother Simon and introduced him to Jesus (at a date much 
 earlier than that recorded by St. Matthew, and apparently for the 
 first time) " and when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon, 
 the son of Jona : thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpre- 
 tation, a stone." The story thus told is very insipid compared with 
 the crisp and vivid narrative in the First Gospel. Observe, too, that 
 no mention is made of Christ's intention to found a Church upon the 
 newly named apostle.
 
 52 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 included amongst the spurious interpolations. The 
 word " church " only occurs in one other place in 
 the Gospels, Matt, xviii. 17, a passage which may 
 safely be regarded as a late addition " a piece 
 of ancient Christian law put into the mouth of Jesus," 
 as Mr. Montefiore says in his Synoptic Gospels, ii, 
 68 1. Christ certainly did not anticipate a Church 
 lasting 2,000 years, because He warned His hearers 
 to expect the end of the world during their lifetime ; 
 and the early Christians neglected their social duties, 
 and lived in a perpetual scare, owing to their belief 
 in the immediacy of the Kingdom. They acted only 
 for to-day, because they imagined there was going 
 to be no to-morrow. 1 Jesus was a layman-prophet, 
 not a priest : priests, with their formalism, ritual, 
 and other paraphernalia of worship, were intensely 
 repugnant to Him. He fiercely attacked the Jewish 
 hierarchy ; and they, with a sure instinct, marked 
 Him out as a dangerous enemy. Gambetta's on- 
 slaught on clericalism was but a feeble echo of His 
 stern denunciation of ecclesiasticism and its ways ; 
 and the formalism of the Jewish Doctors was sim- 
 plicity itself in comparison with the tawdry display 
 and complex mediaeval apparatus of Roman worship. 
 Had Jesus appeared in Rome during the earlier days 
 of the Papacy, He would certainly have shared the 
 fate of Savonarola. 
 
 Let me cite some representative opinions. M. 
 Alfred Loisy, foremost among living Biblical scholars, 
 is convinced that Matt. xvi. 17-18 is an interpolation. 
 He points out, amongst other things, that the words 
 " my church " are highly suspicious 2 : in the Synoptic 
 Gospels, at any rate, Christ is never represented 
 as speaking of " my " Kingdom. He preached the 
 Kingdom that was to come shortly, and nothing 
 else : there is no evidence or sign of church-building. 
 
 1 i Cor. vii. 29; Rom. xii. n ; i Pet. iv. 7. 
 
 Les vangiles Synoptiques, ii. n.
 
 THOU ART PETER 53 
 
 Mr. C. G. Montefiore, author of The Synoptic Gospels, 
 and a very clear-headed and serenely impartial 
 critic, quotes a number of authorities and agrees 
 with M. Loisy. From verse 17 we gather that Peter 
 had some special inward divine revelation that Jesus 
 was the Son of God ; but we learn from Matt. xiv. 33 
 that the other disciples had already recognized 
 the fact. In verse 19 the powers of binding and 
 loosing are given to Peter, together with the keys 
 of Heaven apparently as a peculiar prerogative ; 
 in xviii. 18 all the apostles are granted these powers. 
 The whole passage seems at variance with Mark ix. 35 
 and x. 44, where the apostles are told that he who 
 wishes to be first among them shall be last. To the 
 unbiassed observer it all seems part of " the editorial 
 process which produced the First Gospel " at the 
 hands of some unknown " churchly disciplinarian." 
 Let me also cite, as an example of intelligent lay 
 opinion, the dictum of that well-known interpreter 
 of aesthetic, and occasionally of religious dogma, 
 Mr. George Moore. Mr. Moore's success as a 
 novelist has obscured, in the eyes of an undiscerning 
 public, his merits as a theologian ; but these are 
 in reality by no means inconsiderable. It seems 
 worth recording that Mr. Moore (Salve, p. 362) 
 roundly proclaims that Matt. xvi. 18 is a " fake, 
 reeking-of-Bishop " ; and he is convinced that 
 the policeman round the corner would not fail to 
 recognize the deception which has been practised 
 upon him. 
 
 That Jesus ever contemplated such an institution 
 as the modern Papacy, with its elaborate externalism 
 and stage-machinery a vast temporal power resting 
 on bayonets (foreign or otherwise) is, to put it mildly, 
 highly improbable, and certain of His alleged 
 successors would hardly have been to His taste. 
 He would presumably have favoured the Grand 
 Lama of Tibet as His Vicar, rather than the Borgia-
 
 54 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 monster, Alexander VI. As the Rev. Alfred Fawkes 
 says (Studies in Modernism, p. 317) : " Given the cir- 
 cumstances of speaker and period, such an institution 
 (as the Papacy) is unthinkable. . . . Matt. xvi. 18 
 presents us with the reflection of a later generation 
 on Christ's teaching rather than with His own words." 
 Remember, also, that Jesus never dreamed that His 
 teachings would be adopted by the world at large, 
 still less that they would ever sway the destinies 
 of vast empires. Dr. Gore, late Bishop of Oxford, 
 remarks in his work, Roman Catholic Claims, that 
 this is " one of those passages which want interpret- 
 ing " (the italics are his). I submit that the simplest 
 and most probable explanation of the matter is that 
 the two verses are an interpolation or invention by 
 some later bishop, probably of the second century, 
 who was engaged in founding a church and adapted 
 his narrative to the exigencies of propagandism. 
 Lord Acton says (North British Review, October 1869) 
 that all the Church Fathers, eighteen in number, 
 " explain the prayer of Christ for Peter, without 
 reference to the Pope. Not one of them belie'ves 
 that the Papacy is the rock on which He built His 
 Church " ; and every Roman Catholic priest is 
 bound by oath to follow the Fathers. 
 
 In view of these and other kindred facts, theologians 
 now argue that the word " ecclesia " should be rendered 
 " congregation " ; it meant, they say, the " little 
 flock " or community of Christian disciples and 
 converts. But this, to borrow a phrase of Dr. 
 Jowett's, " will never, never do." You can build 
 a church upon a rock : men do not speak of " build- 
 ing " a little flock or community least of all upon 
 such an arid foundation as a rock, where the little 
 flock would certainly starve. All these forced 
 interpretations are simply the expedients of theologians 
 in distress : the man who wrote the passage in 
 question whoever he was wrote it with a distinct
 
 THOU ART PETER 55 
 
 purpose in his mind. It is stated that he proba- 
 bly knew Hebrew ; but he wrote in Greek and 
 said " ecclesia," and he meant " church " (Spanish 
 " iglesia," French " eglise ") as we understand the 
 word that is to say, either a place of worship, or 
 an organized society built up into a corporate whole, 1 
 a divine house or temple constructed with co-ordinate 
 parts and by divine aid, such as the Papacy pro- 
 fesses to be ; and the Roman ecclesiastics have 
 freely used the word in this sense, and with all 
 its advantageous implications, for over eighteen 
 hundred years. 
 
 Nor is the notion that Simon was called Peter, 
 in order to secure the implications contained in 
 the word " petra," * by any means the only belief 
 in connection with the apostle that will have to be 
 abandoned. Apart from the question whether 
 Matt. xvi. 18 is genuine or not, Catholics have 
 to prove their oft-repeated assertion that Peter 
 was invested with a general primacy over the other 
 apostles. Their whole case rests upon this assump- 
 tion. The primacy they have to establish is not 
 that of a mere primus inter pares, a spokesman 
 or personal leader among equals, but a primacy 
 of authority. They must show that the leadership 
 bestowed upon him was the leadership of a regularly 
 constituted ecclesiastical corporation, a primacy 
 which, to quote a Catholic writer, is " the generally 
 accepted basis of Papal authority inherent in the 
 See of Peter." The bulk of the evidence is all against 
 this contention. At the Council of Jerusalem 
 James got up, after Peter had spoken, and gave 
 his " sentence." ' I decide " (ego krino), he said, 
 
 1 Liddell and Scott show that the word was then used in this 
 sense. ErcXjjai'o, says the Lexicon, signifies in N.T. and Ecclesiastical 
 Greek, " the Church, either the body or the place." 
 
 According to St. Paul (i Cor. x. 4) the original spiritual petra, 
 or Rock, was Christ : the Petrine Rock was probably a strategical 
 or political invention of a considerably later date.
 
 56 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 on what is to be done ; and the course of action 
 upon which he " decided " was carried into effect 
 (Acts xv., and see Roman Catholic Claims, by 
 Bishop Gore, p. 79). We learn, too, from Acts viii. 14 
 that Peter was " sent " by the twelve into Samaria, 
 was censured for his conduct there, and defended 
 himself deferentially, but successfully (Acts xi. 2-18). 
 There was evidently much dissension among the 
 disciples as to who should be greatest. To take 
 one example, we find from Matt. xx. 21 that Zebedee's 
 wife, anxious, like so many modern ladies, about 
 the social status of her family, sought preferment 
 for her two sons, James and John. Backed by 
 them (Mark x. 37), she asks, to the great disgust 
 of the other ten, that they shall sit on either side of 
 Christ in His Kingdom, and is rebuked by Jesus. 
 This is a delightfully human touch, showing, first, 
 that human nature is pretty much the same in all 
 ages ; and, secondly, that Peter's primacy was 
 not recognized generally at any rate, not by one 
 important laywoman. That St. Paul had not the 
 slightest idea of subjecting himself to Peter's over- 
 lordship is very clear from the bitter tone of his 
 Epistle to the Galatians, and by other passages in 
 the New Testament. 1 Peter claimed (Acts xv. 7) 
 that God had appointed him to be apostle to the 
 Gentiles, but Paul (Gal. ii.) withstood him to 
 the face, and said that he (Paul) occupied that 
 position. In the words of St. Jerome (quoted 
 in The Primacy of Peter, by Francis King) he 
 appears to have " impertinently censured the Prince 
 of the Apostles," yet the alleged Primate never 
 drew sword in his own defence, but remained 
 silent. 
 
 1 Among the numerous passages showing Paul's attitude of inde- 
 pendent authority I may draw attention to the following : Rom. xv. 
 15-20; i Cor. iii. 5 ; iv. 14-21; vii. 17; xi. 1-2; xvi. 1-4; 2 Cor. 
 xi. 28; xiii. i, 2, 3, 10 ; Gal. i. i; ii. 7, 11-14; 2 Tim. ii. 1-2; 
 Titus i. 5.
 
 THOU ART PETER 57 
 
 Peter had no distinctive qualities of leadership : 
 indeed, Catholics say that he was chosen as leader 
 for that very reason ! The extremely humble tone 
 of his own epistles (see i Pet. v. i) is certainly 
 not that of a budding Pontiff ; and no mention is 
 made of his successors, probably for the simple 
 reason that the end of all things was believed to 
 be at hand. Lastly, we read in Rev. xxi. 14 
 that the wall of the heavenly city had twelve founda- 
 tions, not one only, and each foundation was marked 
 by the name of an apostle an indication that 
 all the twelve had co-ordinate powers. 
 
 Much of the Petrine tradition is now admitted, 
 even by orthodox critics, to be of late and Pagan 
 origin. The Encyclopedia Biblica, edited, and 
 largely written, by Anglican clergymen, pronounces 
 the story (found only in Matt. xiv. 28-31) of Peter 
 walking on the water and being rescued by Jesus, 
 to be unhistorical and not founded on fact ; and 
 the article " Simon Peter " says that " there are 
 other narratives also which require no detailed 
 proof of their unhistorical character.' 1 For instance, 
 the statements in Luke xxiv. 12, that Peter visited 
 the tomb of Jesus and found it empty ; the stories 
 of the withered fig-tree ; the Transfiguration ; the 
 coin in the fish's mouth, and other narratives in 
 which Peter figures, are dealt with in the most 
 unceremonious fashion by the writers of the article. 
 
 Other learned authors and scholars go much 
 further. Mr. J. M. Robertson (Christianity and 
 Mythology, pp. 378-384) points out the suspicious re- 
 semblance between certain Petrine legends and those 
 of an earlier antiquity. The doctrine of the divine 
 rock is found in Mithraism, and Mithra in his monu- 
 ments bears two keys. Janus, in the Roman myth, 
 bears the keys and the rod : he is ccelestis janitor 
 aulce, the key-bearing god and gatekeeper of the 
 heavenly palace, with power to bind or loose.
 
 58 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Janus, like Peter, has the symbol of a barque on 
 certain coins. Mr. Robertson also traces a connec- 
 tion between the epithet " bifrons," the two-faced 
 image of Janus Mithra was two-sexed and the 
 story of Peter's treachery and double-dealing I ; but 
 this must be regarded at present as merely a more 
 or less probable conjecture. 
 
 The whole story of Peter, his doings, his sayings, 
 his life, and his death, are involved in the utmost 
 obscurity. He appears to have been unlike the 
 priests of the Church whereof he was the corner-stone 
 a married man, and his wife went with him on his 
 travels, as we learn from I Cor. ix. 5, where St. 
 Paul also claims the right to be accompanied by 
 a lady. He is said to have been crucified upside 
 down ; and one learned divine sees in this a proof of 
 Papal infallibility. The Papacy, as we gather from 
 Tyrrell's Medievalism (p. 90), is an inverted pyra- 
 mid in the eyes of certain ecclesiastics : it is a topsy- 
 turvy erection which stands on its head, so to speak ; 
 and " the Pope, as the head, now bears the whole 
 Church," and is therefore infallible. That very 
 learned man, Marsilius of Padua, greatly annoyed 
 Clement VI by arguing, in his Defensor Pads, that 
 Peter had no pre-eminence over the other apostles, 
 that it is doubtful if he was ever Bishop of Rome, 
 or even came to Rome at all ; and we know very 
 little more about the matter than Marsilius knew. 
 Catholic tradition states that Peter was Bishop of 
 Rome from A.D. 43 until he was executed in A.D. 68 
 or, as some say, a few years later ; but there is not 
 a word in the New Testament to confirm this 
 statement. Such evidence as can be collected from 
 the Acts and the Epistles goes to show that he was 
 
 Mr. Chesterton, an ardent Roman Catholic, rather oddly describes 
 St. Peter as " a shuffler, a snob, a coward " ; and says that this was 
 the reason why Christ selected him, a weak man, as the corner-stone 
 of His indestructible Church (Heretics, p. 67).
 
 THOU ART PETER 59 
 
 not in Rome during the period mentioned. Peter 
 himself says nothing about Rome or his bishopric ; 
 and St. Paul, writing to the Romans (about A.D. 58) 
 sends greetings to twenty-seven persons in the town 
 by name, but does not mention Peter. Acts xii. 
 shows that Peter was in Jerusalem at the time ; 
 and twelve years later Paul states that Peter was at 
 the Jerusalem Council (see also 2 Tim. iv. u). 
 The story of Peter's Roman bishopric did not start 
 until many years later, when the leading ecclesiastics 
 were busy creating their Papal Church. 
 
 Theologians and scholars are at hopeless variance 
 over the whole question : the critics are still busy 
 over their researches, and each new day that dawns 
 only serves to increase the fog in which the whole 
 matter is enveloped. Tradition, on which the Church 
 mainly relies, is, as I shall show presently, nothing 
 more than a collection of ancient rumours or, as 
 we should say, gossip ; an appeal to the unverified 
 sayings of unknown people with more than doubtful 
 qualifications for instructing the world on such 
 vital subjects. Nay more, many of these stories 
 have the freshness of youth upon their faces, and 
 were plainly manufactured to serve the ends of 
 the ecclesiastics. Taking the Petrine tradition as 
 a whole, it would seem that the Church has chosen 
 a rather flimsy foundation upon which to rear her 
 vast superstructure of spiritual and temporal abso- 
 lutism. 
 
 M. C. BAMJEE 
 
 ' M . r. [HARV'DJ 
 
 CITY HEALTH DtPT. 
 LOS AHCH.ES. CAL
 
 " O ye men of little faith, of low minds, of miserable hearts, have 
 not your cunning devices become the scandal of souls ? " (PibRE 
 GRATRY) . 
 
 " Ecclesiastical historians are ingenious and unscrupulous " (Oul- 
 spoken Essays, by DEAN INGE, p. 200). 
 
 THE modern Papacy is represented by the Church 
 as having sprung from the brain of Christ not 
 exactly as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jove, 
 ready armed and equipped for the fray but as the 
 nucleus of an organization that was divinely destined 
 to dominate the world, not merely spiritually, but 
 with bayonets and material means. The Pascendi 
 Encyclical of Pius X, in 1907, makes the astonishing 
 claim that the Roman Church, with the Papacy, its 
 sacraments, institutions and dogmas, was, in its 
 entirety, the immediate creation of Christ when on 
 earth. The Church, in the words of Tyrrell, asserts 
 that she was " created instantaneously as an absolute 
 monarchy, with its Pope, bishops, priests, deacons, 
 dogmas, sacraments, institutions, by the Fiat of the 
 historical Christ. Like the Adam of Genesis, it sprang 
 from the dust full-formed and mature in mind and 
 body." She " must be accepted by her members 
 in the shape in which she has been organized by her 
 Divine Founder." All her present doctrines were 
 there from the first. Nay more, it would appear 
 that the wise men of ancient Palestine were con- 
 versant with them centuries before Christ was born. 
 ' The Hebrew patriarchs," said that modern prophet
 
 HISTORICAL FRAUD OF THE PAPACY 61 
 
 of mediaevalism, Pius X, " were familiar with the 
 doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and found 
 consolation in the thought of Mary in the solemn 
 moments of their life." * 
 
 ' The Church," said a mediaeval chronicler, " is 
 dearer to God than Heaven is." It may truly be 
 said that she bulks much more largely in the eyes 
 of many good Roman Catholics to-day than God 
 Himself. Yet the Papacy, as we shall see, employed 
 for the alleged divine purpose, not only the most 
 brutal force, but also the grossest fraud weapons 
 which a God-appointed and God-directed institution 
 could hardly be expected to use. The inherent right 
 of the Church to employ force in imposing her 
 authority on recalcitrants was asserted in the most 
 unqualified terms by a long succession of Pontiffs 
 and other ecclesiastical dignitaries down to the days 
 of Pius IX ; and imposture proved a hardly less 
 effective instrument for the attainment of her ends. 
 Lord Acton states roundly that " the passage 
 from the Catholicism of the Fathers to that of the 
 modern Popes was accomplished by wilful falsehood ; 
 and the whole structure of traditions, laws, and 
 doctrines that support the theory of infallibility, 
 and the practical despotism of the Popes, stands on 
 a basis of fraud." 2 The sting of these words lies 
 in their absolute truth : and the accomplishments, 
 no less than the creed, of their distinguished author 
 add to them a peculiar force and piquancy. Had 
 Lord Acton been an ordinary priest or layman of 
 the Latin Church, he would certainly have been 
 deprived of the sacraments and excommunicated ; 
 
 1 Quoted by Dean Inge in Outspoken Essays, p. 143. 
 
 * The North British Review, October 1869, p. 130. For other 
 authorities see Gibbon's Decline and Fall ; Bryce's Holy Roman 
 Empire ; Gore's Roman Catholic Claims ; Tyrrell's Medievalism ; 
 Acton's works ; McCabe's Crises in the History of the Papacy, and 
 The Popes and their Church the latter an admirable sketch of the 
 Papacy and its methods.
 
 62 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 but the Church, who, despite her professions to the 
 contrary, is always a great respecter of persons, 
 thought it was wiser not to try conclusions with a 
 British lord and eminent man of letters. He expected 
 excommunication every day as the natural result 
 of his acidulated criticism, but it never came. Why 
 he remained a member of an ecclesiastical corpora- 
 tion on which he lavished his unrivalled powers of 
 vituperation must always remain a mystery. A 
 connoisseur in priestcraft, with a keen appreciation 
 of the Curia and its unpleasant ways, he combined 
 with profound scholarship a fervid detestation of 
 Roman clericalism which would have done credit to 
 any Protestant hot-gospeller. In one respect Lord 
 Acton showed himself a good Roman Catholic : he 
 was a great hater. 
 
 The actual Roman Church, as we now know it, 
 a great ecclesiastical society with formal doctrines, 
 ritual, institutions and discipline, did not begin until 
 about A.D. 200 ; and, whatever ecclesiastical his- 
 torians, with their suspicious materials and highly 
 unscrupulous use of them, may say, the transition 
 from primitive Christianity to a Caesarian episcopate 
 resting on material force was effected as Lord Acton 
 and many other chroniclers have indicated. There 
 was no supreme Pontiff, or any general desire for one, 
 in the ardent band of disciples who formed the 
 sprouting religious organization. In the early days 
 every great bishop called himself " Pope," or " Papa/' 
 in token of his paternal care for his flock. But the 
 natural, and very human, desire to " boss " was not 
 long in manifesting itself. About A.D. 190 the 
 Roman Bishop Victor commanded the churches of 
 Asia Minor to celebrate Easter on the same day as 
 the Romans did ; but he was severely snubbed and 
 requested not to interfere. 1 An eminent Catholic 
 
 1 Eusebius, v, 34, quoted in The Popes and their Church, by Joseph 
 McCabe, p. 7.
 
 63 
 
 controversialist, quoted by Mr. McCabe, tells us all 
 about the command, but of course says nothing 
 about the snub. Thirty years later we find Ter- 
 tullian sneering at the bishop who called himself 
 " supreme Pontiff " and " Bishop of Bishops." In 
 A.D. 252 there started a notable conflict between 
 the African Church and Rome. Pope Cornelius of 
 Rome tried to interfere in African affairs ; but St. 
 Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, sternly rebuked him, 
 and emphatically asserted the independent authority 
 of each bishop in his own diocese. In his admired 
 treatise, De Unitate Ecclesia, he affirmed the unity 
 and power of the Church as represented in the episcopal 
 office, of which every bishop enjoyed an equal and 
 undivided portion. The Roman Church, in short, 
 had assumed the form of a coalition, a great federa- 
 tive republic. 1 Later on the quarrel was renewed 
 between the Africans, St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian, 
 and the Roman Pope Stephen, who threatened the 
 Carthaginian prelates with excommunication. Their 
 reply to these " tyrannical threats " was couched in 
 the most defiant and contemptuous terms. Firmilian 
 boldly told the Pope that he was the " true schis- 
 matic," and the Roman Bishop's claim to juris- 
 diction in Africa was flatly repudiated. Afterwards 
 during the fifth century the independent attitude of 
 Bishop Cyprian earned the commendation of the 
 great St. Augustine himself. In A.D. 416 Innocent I 
 excommunicated Pelagius as a heretic ; but his 
 successor, Pope Zosimus, attempted to reverse the 
 decision, thereby showing how two infallible Pontiffs 
 can give two absolutely contradictory verdicts upon 
 a question of doctrine in the short space of two years. 
 By way of justifying his interference Zosimus quoted 
 as Canons of the Nicaean Council two Canons of the 
 much less authoritative Western Council of Sardica, 
 hoping that the African Bishops would not discover 
 
 1 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, xv, 194.
 
 64 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 the fraud. They were too clever for him, however, 
 and told him to mind his own business : he was 
 forced to recant, and the bishops said they trusted 
 they would hear " no more of his pompousness." 
 He still persisted, but was met with further out- 
 spoken repudiation of his right to meddle. 1 
 
 The year A.D. 313 was the date of that great 
 turning-point in history, the Charter of Liberty for 
 Christians, followed by the conversion of the Emperor 
 Const antine. From now onwards it was compara- 
 tively plain sailing for the nascent Church. Chris- 
 tianity, no longer, as in former days, the creed of a 
 despised and insignificant sect, became the established 
 religion of the Empire, the road to royal favour, 
 the path to promotion, and the hall-mark of respecta- 
 bility. The oppressed devotees emerged from their 
 catacombs and other hiding-places ; the Pope had a 
 palace, his bishops shared in the general amelioration 
 of the Christian lot ; and the persecuted gradually 
 became the persecutors. The royal residence was 
 removed from Rome to Byzantium, and in A.D. 381 the 
 Greek Bishops held a grand Council at Constantinople, 
 and laid it down authoritatively that their Bishop 
 was equal in rank to the Bishop of old Rome. When 
 the Roman Pope tried to interfere in Eastern affairs 
 he only got snubbed for his pains. In the fourth 
 century Canon VI of the great Council of Nicaea 
 lays it down that the Bishop of Rome had merely 
 the same authority in his own region as had the 
 Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch in their regions. 3 
 In the succeeding century Leo the Great tried to 
 impose his authority on the Greeks (using, like 
 Zosimus, falsified Canons for the purpose) and met 
 the same fate as his predecessor : the Eastern Bishops 
 
 1 Gore's Roman Catholic Claims, p. no; McCabe's The Popes and 
 their Church, p. 22 ; The Seat of Authority, by Dr. James Martineau, 
 
 P- 143- 
 
 The Popes and their Church, and Crises in the History of the Papacy, 
 by J. McCabe.
 
 HISTORICAL FRAUD OF THE PAPACY 65 
 
 sharply reiterated their assertions of complete equality 
 and independence. Late in life, after he had quitted 
 Rome in disgust (as so many good Roman Catholics 
 have done since), St. Jerome said that the authority 
 of Rome was but the authority of a single bishop. 
 In the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great was 
 profuse in his denunciations of the idea that any 
 bishop had any right to assume " the blasphemous 
 title " of " (Ecumenical Bishop." It was a sign of 
 " the coming of anti-Christ," he protested ; and he 
 stigmatized as pregnant with Satanic arrogance the 
 claim to be regarded as " universal Bishop." As to 
 Papal infallibility, Pope Honorius I was denounced 
 in a General Council as a teacher of shockingly 
 heretical doctrine ; and for many centuries each 
 Pope on his succession solemnly condemned among 
 formal heretics one of his infallible predecessors ! 
 So recently as in the nineteenth century the authori- 
 tative Controversial Catechism of Keenan declared 
 the doctrine of infallibility to be "a Protestant 
 invention," and said that it was no article of the 
 Catholic faith. 1 It will be seen, therefore, that 
 when Pius IX, in the face of Dollinger, Newman 
 and the best Catholic opinion of the day, stated 
 that his declaration, in 1870, to the effect that Papal 
 infallibility was a " dogma divinely revealed," and 
 that he was " faithfully adhering to the tradition 
 received from the first beginnings of the Christian 
 faith," he stated what was only the opinion of a 
 faction, not a dogma. In plain words, he stated 
 what was utterly and palpably false. 2 There is 
 no quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus here 
 no notion of a Roman Catholic belief held always, 
 everywhere, and by everybody 3 because probably 
 the large majority of the Church were opposed to 
 the new doctrine. 
 
 1 Roman Catholic Claims, p. 116. Ibid., p. 117. 
 
 3 The famous Catholic test of orthodoxy in religious doctrine. 
 
 5
 
 66 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 After the fifth and sixth centuries the claim of 
 Roman hegemony grew steadily, if intermittently, 
 until the Papal authority finally became established 
 on a firm basis. The Vandal invasions, beginning 
 in the fifth century, had shattered the African 
 Churches ; and Eastern Christendom, in the fourth 
 century, had been " torn into shreds, and spattered 
 with blood, by the fierce struggle of Arians and 
 Trinitarians." Geographically, and to some extent 
 historical!} 7 , Rome held a favourable position for 
 advancing its assertion of paramountcy. It boasted 
 traditions to which the other Churches could make 
 no claim, and, although lacking in the learning of 
 the rival Churches, the Roman See had, on the w r hole, 
 preserved a stricter orthodoxy than its competitors. 
 No pains were spared in the task of cementing the 
 foundations of the rising ecclesiastical edifice. Force 
 and diplomacy, fraud and forgery, fabrication of 
 documents, and every other available weapon were 
 pressed into the service of the Church. Ingenious 
 theories, with no real historical basis, plausible 
 doctrines resting on no truth, falsified quotations, 
 were used with telling effect ; and appeals were 
 continually made to documents which the Popes 
 and other ecclesiastics well knew to be forgeries. 
 Religious knowledge, says Lord Acton (Lectures on 
 Modern History, p. 78), suffered from " an excess of 
 fiction and falsification. . . . Whenever a school 
 was lacking in proofs for its opinions it straightway 
 forged them." At every point the student of tradi- 
 tion " was confronted by imaginary canons and 
 constitutions of the Apostles," Acts, Decretals, etc., 
 " all of them composed for the purpose of deceiving." 
 The whole system of fraud, forgery, fabrication and 
 interpolation is ruthlessly exposed by the great 
 Roman Catholic historian ; yet men of education and 
 probity still remain, or profess to remain, unmoved in 
 their convictions by the tainted record of their Church.
 
 HISTORICAL FRAUD OF THE PAPACY 67 
 
 These records are to be found in the works of 
 historians whose credit is unassailable, and whose 
 assertions have never been disproved. The famous 
 Acts of St. Sylvester and a Constitution of St. 
 Sylvester, both notorious and extravagant forgeries, 
 appeared in a more finished form as that wonderful 
 " Donation of Constantine," a deed of gift fabricated 
 in the Papal Chancellory during the reign of Pope 
 Hadrian I. Lord Bryce, most careful and dispas- 
 sionate of historians, describes l the Donation as an 
 " extraordinary forgery," a " portentous fabrication," 
 "most stupendous of all the mediaeval forgeries"; 
 but for seven centuries it commanded the almost 
 unquestioning belief of mankind. It tells how Con- 
 stantine the Great, cured of his leprosy by St. 
 Sylvester's prayers, " bestowed on the Pope and his 
 successors the sovereignty over Italy and the countries 
 of the West," with a series of Imperial dignities for 
 the Roman Pontiff and his clergy. Nor did it forget 
 to provide for the pomp and pageantry which the 
 Papacy so dearly loves. The Pope was to wear the 
 diadem, the collar, the purple cloak, to carry the sceptre, 
 and to be attended by a body of chamberlains ; and 
 the clergy were to ride on white horses and receive the 
 honours and immunities of the Senate and patricians. 
 
 The fraud was discovered in 1439 by Laurentius 
 Valla, an audacious official in the Pope's household, 
 who risked his life in the pursuit of truth. He also 
 exposed a number of other forgeries embedded in the 
 Canon Law, that " inexhaustible armoury of the 
 Churchman." ^Eneas Silvius, afterwards Pius II 
 that Papal wag who thought that chastity was only 
 meant for exceptional men (of whom he did not 
 pretend to be one) and wrote of his amours in the 
 vein of a Parisian comic journalist regarded the 
 Donation affair, demonstrating the Church's impos- 
 ture, as an excellent joke. 
 
 1 The Holy Roman Empire, pp. 43, 99, etc.
 
 68 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 There was also a curious " Donation " of the 
 Prankish monarch, Pippin the Short, which was 
 accompanied by all sorts of obscure hanky-panky : 
 the trickery practised upon recalcitrant bishops by 
 Pope Zosimus and Leo the Great has already been 
 described. In the ninth century was perpetrated 
 another " gross forgery " (as Lord Bryce terms it), 
 hardly less celebrated than the Donation, known as 
 the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. These consisted of 
 an immense body of forged and garbled documents, 
 supposed to be the work of early Popes, some of them 
 shamelessly ante-dated, but ultimately considered to 
 be valid because they had passed into authorized 
 collections. They converted a claim, or pretension, 
 to vast temporal power into a principle falsely stated 
 to have been accepted in early times, thus giving 
 " the growing claims of the Papacy an altogether fal- 
 lacious appearance of antiquity." Some few Roman 
 Catholic writers still have the audacity to maintain 
 their genuineness, but the large majority have now 
 abandoned the pretence, " with the result that the 
 fabric of Papal authority has been almost totally 
 deprived of its historical and literary basis in the 
 early centuries." J 
 
 An alleged Decree of Pope Benedict VIII (1018), 
 forbidding the German Prince to style himself 
 Emperor, without the Pontiff's permission, is de- 
 scribed by Lord Bryce (Holy Roman Empire, p. 193) 
 as "an impudent forgery " ; but Hadrian IV did not 
 scruple to use it with telling effect, and it passed 
 into an unquestioned belief. There was another 
 patent falsification of historical fact in the thirteenth 
 century, when Innocent III declared that the Apos- 
 tolic See had taken the Empire away from the 
 Greeks and given it to the Prankish monarch 
 Charlemagne, thus establishing Papal supremacy over 
 the Imperial Crown (Holy Roman Empire, p. 215). 
 
 1 Roman Catholic Claims, p. xvi.
 
 HISTORICAL FRAUD OF THE PAPACY 69 
 
 Fraud was piled on fraud, forgery on forgery. 
 Martyrs, saints, relics, miracles, shrines, legends 
 and canons were manufactured by the dozen. There 
 was a regular factory of imposture carried on by 
 eminent bishops who were close friends and assistants 
 of Popes. Prominent among these episcopal forgers, 
 cited by Mr. McCabe, are the names of bishops 
 Bishop Bonito, Bishop Anselm, and Cardinal Deus- 
 dedit. I could fill volumes with a recitation of 
 these " pious " frauds, but my readers would weary 
 of the sickening tale. Yet good Churchmen state, 
 and apparently believe, that all these impostures 
 affect not the vessel and the treasure of the Catholic 
 Faith. In spite of it all the Church remains " the 
 treasure-house of all the truth and grace which is the 
 legacy of Jesus Christ to His redeemed ! " Let him 
 believe it who can. If the Church can lie and deceive 
 like this in mundane affairs, and in scientific and 
 historical matters, how can we be sure that she is 
 not deceiving us about religion ? 
 
 By these and similar means the Pontifical power 
 grew and prospered. Able Popes, like Gregory 
 the Great and Hildebrand, laid deep and broad the 
 foundations of ecclesiastical absolutism, until in the 
 thirteenth century the Imperial power could not 
 even maintain itself on an equal footing with the 
 Papacy. Popes and emperors were continually at 
 loggerheads, now one side, now the other obtaining 
 the mastery. There was a cross-current of anta- 
 gonistic claims ; kings claimed to be Popes, Popes 
 claimed to be kings ; but ecclesiasticism came out 
 on top. 
 
 The high-water mark of Papal pretension was 
 reached at the jubilee of A.D. 1300, when that 
 unmitigated scoundrel and libertine, Boniface VIII, 
 seated on the throne of Constantine, arrayed with the 
 sword and crown and sceptre, shouted aloud to the 
 assembled pilgrims, " I am Caesar I am Emperor ! "
 
 70 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 By his Bull Unam Sanctam he claimed absolute 
 power over all secular sovereigns in every matter : 
 a terrestrial divinity, he imposed his will on all and 
 sundry. Indeed, the spiritual power of the Papacy 
 was itself, as Lord Bryce shows, the offspring of 
 Rome's temporal dominion. The Papacy " evoked 
 the phantom of her parent, used it, obeyed it, rebelled 
 and overthrew it, in its old age once more drew it 
 to her bosom, till in its downfall she heard the knell 
 of the old order and saw the end of her temporal 
 power approaching." l 
 
 That blessed word " Development " covers, as 
 we shall see later on, many strange transformations 
 which the Latin Church underwent in her long 
 history ; but to some people a man like Boniface VIII 
 seems a strange Vicar of the pomp-detesting anti- 
 cleric, the prophet-layman, Christ. We wonder, too, 
 whether the gentle Jesus was the guiding spirit of 
 the Church when she set up the Spanish Inquisition 
 and kindled its " blazing pyres." Did the Holy 
 Ghost, who is said to guide the Cardinals in their 
 selection, really choose Alexander VI, commonly 
 reputed to be about the biggest blackguard the 
 world has ever known or those admitted scamps, 
 the boy-Pope Benedict IX and John XII as His 
 mouthpieces on earth for the messages He delivered 
 to mankind concerning moral issues ? Bishop Gore 
 tells us in his Roman Catholic Claims that St Peter 
 Damian (author, by the way, of The Book of Gomorrah, 
 which gives, as its title indicates, an appalling picture 
 of clerical and monastic vice, and was cordially 
 approved by Pope Leo IX) called the great Hildebrand 
 his " Sanctus Satanas " ; and the expression, as the 
 Bishop aptly observes, in whatever sense originally 
 used, has a very striking application to the Papacy 
 as a whole. 
 
 It is a long step, as M. Loisy observes in L'Evangile 
 
 * Holy Roman Empire, p. 416.
 
 HISTORICAL FRAUD OF THE PAPACY 71 
 
 et l'glise> from Leo XIII to Trajan, from bishops 
 to proconsuls, from monks to legionaries, from Jesuits 
 to the Praetorian Guard ; but the intervening events 
 and developments form a continuous chain. Whether 
 we attribute the process to supernatural guidance or 
 to political instinct, the fact remains that a marvel- 
 lous transformation was effected, and the ancient 
 Roman parentage of the Church's later constitution 
 became increasingly apparent. The memories and 
 traditions of the Roman Empire, in the words of 
 M. Loisy, " conditioned, so to speak, the action of 
 the Church." Her power insensibly declined, but her 
 pretensions have never abated : the same old spirit 
 reigns in the Curia and its henchmen. John XXII 
 had the same ideas as Boniface VIII. He was bound 
 by no law except the Divine. He stood " higher 
 than the angels, and might receive the same sort of 
 adoration as is rendered to the Blessed Virgin and the 
 Saints." x Leo XIII, 600 years later, was an excep- 
 tionally enlightened Pope ; but the teaching of his 
 Inscrutabile and Immortale Dei Encyclicals was 
 similar to that of the Unam Sanctam Bull 2 : the 
 Papacy had not abated one jot of the old claim to 
 civil sovereignty as a necessity of spiritual hegemony. 
 The evolution of theocracy is a logical development : 
 the tyrant's plea, necessity, governs every trans- 
 formation. The Papal hierarchy is inheritor, not 
 merely (as it claims) from Christ and Peter, but from 
 the Roman Caesars ; and the Irish bishops of to-day, 
 flaunting their pretensions in the face of lay govern- 
 ment, are but faithfully pursuing the traditional 
 policy of their Church. 
 
 1 Holy Roman Empire, p. 222. 
 
 2 Studies in Modernism, by the Rev. Alfred Fawkes, p. 92.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 C'EST POUR LES FEMMES 
 
 " Swarming legions of lies . . . all-permeating mendacity. . ; . 
 The worst of a Catholic Church is, that everything in it is a lie " 
 (FATHER GEORGE TYRRELL). 
 
 " Quid Romae faciam ? Mentiri nescio." 
 
 SOME years ago a friend of the writer's formed one 
 of a party which was being conducted round a 
 foreign church and the adjoining buildings by a 
 French priest. In the course of their tour they 
 were shown several ecclesiastical relics of the usual 
 type, and one of the visitors commented upon the 
 very large number of pieces of the true cross, and 
 similar " genuine " mementoes which he had wit- 
 nessed elsewhere in the course of his travels. The 
 priest merely smiled benignly and ejaculated : 
 " Parfaitement, Monsieur ! " At the close of the 
 inspection the visitor repeated his observation with 
 greater emphasis, and the priest replied, with the 
 same bland smile ; " Parfaitement, Monsieur ; c'est 
 pour les femmes ! " 
 
 The priest's remark with its cool effrontery and 
 its underlying cynicism has a twofold significance. 
 It illustrates, first, the traditional attitude of Rome 
 to woman, whom it regards as the weaker and 
 inferior vessel, but, at the same time, as a distinctly 
 dangerous creature in various ways. The Church, 
 following the example of numerous savage races, 
 has always considered woman to be spiritually 
 infectious, and thoroughly insanitary both from a 
 moral and hygienic standpoint. The " churching " 
 
 73
 
 CEST POUR LES FEMMES 73 
 
 of women, the orders for their " purification " after 
 childbirth, are a modern remnant of those primitive 
 notions of taboo, described by Sir J. G. Frazer and 
 others, which represent a dangerous supernatural 
 influence as attaching to the normal functions of 
 motherhood. The Roman Catholic matron who has 
 just done her duty to the State by adding to its 
 population is, as Mr. McCabe points out, " tainted " : 
 she must stand where penitents once stood, and 
 must not mingle with respectable folk. Not until 
 the peril of spiritual contamination has been 
 removed by purificatory rites is she free to resume 
 her place in decent society. At the Council of 
 Auxerre, in 578, the bishops forbade women, on 
 account of their " impurity," to take the sacrament 
 in their hands as men did. 1 This curious attitude 
 of mediaeval ecclesiasticism towards the gentler sex 
 is very far from being extinct in these times. 
 Michelet tells us in his Priests, Women, and Families, 
 how the preachers of his day represented woman 
 as either saint or harlot : the intermediate states 
 of wifehood and motherhood were habitually over- 
 looked. We all know that of late years a certain 
 number of Catholic suffragist societies have been 
 founded, and that the modern ideas which are 
 slowly penetrating the tissues of the Romanist body 
 include certain feminist theories ; but the official 
 mind of the Church remains substantially that of 
 her earlier pundits. St. Jerome, who mixed freely 
 with the ladies, and therefore ought to know, thought 
 that woman was the janua diaboli and the root of 
 all evil. St. Augustine, a very gay spark in his 
 youth, wondered in later life why she was created 
 at all. St. Chrysostom and other holy men describe 
 her as " a malicious evil beast," " a viper clothed 
 with a shining skin," " a laboratory of devils," and 
 the road that leads to sin. That marriage was at 
 
 1 The Churches and Modern Thought, by P. Vivian, p. 284.
 
 74 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 best not far removed from fornication was Ter- 
 tullian's view, and virginity in both sexes was 
 regarded by ecclesiastics in theory (but by no means 
 always in practice) as the ideal state and the road 
 to salvation. Nor are these notions by any means 
 extinct among the modern priesthood, as women 
 in Roman Catholic countries have good reason to 
 know. The theologians have fixed the number of 
 Deadly Sins as seven ; but "Irish priests in prac- 
 tice," says the Catholic Mr. Ryan, 1 have " made 
 courtship an eighth," and the statement is confirmed 
 by many Irish women of the humbler classes. 
 
 In the second place, the priest's observation 
 affords us yet another illustration of the Church's 
 contempt for truth and truthfulness, and the rather 
 unscrupulous levity with which many educated 
 Catholics regard the vast mass of fraud and imposture 
 to which the Church lends her great authority. 
 When Tyrrell remarked that " the worst of a Catholic 
 Church is that everything in it is a lie," he may have 
 been indulging in humorous exaggeration ; but the 
 exaggeration undoubtedly contains a large core of 
 truth. The history of the Church, her hagiology, 
 her lists of martyrs and relics and miracles, form a 
 record of mingled imposture and credulity to which 
 it would be difficult to find a parallel in the world's 
 literature. The plea of the educated Catholic, that 
 " we are not obliged to believe all that," is not a 
 valid one in the mouth of an honest and genuine 
 Churchman, because the Church to which he pins his 
 faith has always lived and traded upon the super- 
 miraculous. Without the help of the unseen and 
 the marvellous faith is impossible to most religious 
 people : take them away, and infidelity ensues. 
 Signs and wonders are the mainstay of Romanism ; 
 its attractiveness, in the words of Dr. Inge, depends 
 " almost wholly on its frank admission of the 
 
 1 The Pope's Green Island, p. 79.
 
 CEST POUR LES FEMMES 75 
 
 miraculous as a matter of daily occurrence." Above 
 all, the sage advice of the French priest must be fol- 
 lowed, and the tastes of the ladies consulted. Pious 
 souls require a number of adventitious aids to devo- 
 tion ; and woman that is to say, woman as official 
 Rome has always regarded her must be provided 
 with a liberal diet of them, or she will not believe. 
 Hence the reckless manufacture of miracles, relics, 
 shrines, charms, mascots, and all the other parapher- 
 nalia of superstition which brings so much grist to the 
 clerical mill. The priests, and a good many people 
 who are neither priests nor Roman Catholics, but 
 thorough-going sceptics, think that it is wise to 
 encourage absurd religious belief in their womenfolk, 
 and to let them pass it on to their children. Good 
 form and law and order demand this bowing down 
 in the house of Rimmon. Hence the enormous 
 preponderance of women in church congregations ; 
 and the Roman ecclesiastics spare no pains in their 
 congenial task of making as smooth as possible 
 the " feminine sheep walk " to the Papacy. How 
 far the brainy, self-reliant woman of to-day will 
 relish this estimate of her intelligence and capacity 
 remains to be seen. 
 
 Let me cite a few of the " necessary fictions " 
 served up to those indefatigable seekers after signs 
 whose waning faith in an ageing creed might languish 
 if it were not supplied with appropriate nutriment. 
 That wonderful saint, pietist, and moral theologian, 
 St. Alphonsus Liguori, as might be expected, is well 
 to the fore amongst the ecclesiastical caterers to 
 credulity. In his well-known and widely read work, 
 The Glories of Mary, he tells some very remarkable 
 stories, of which the following is a fair sample. A 
 certain religious author, bearing the suggestive name 
 of Bernardine de Busto (or de Bustis, as Newman 
 calls him), relates that a bird was taught by its 
 devout owner to say, " Hail Mary." An irreligious
 
 ;6 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 hawk one day had the temerity to attack this pious 
 and talented fowl, and was on the point of seizing 
 it. " Hail Mary," ejaculated the bird ; and the 
 hawk instantly fell dead. " God intended to show 
 thereby, that if even an irrational creature was 
 preserved by calling on Mary, how much more would 
 those who are prompt in calling on her when assaulted 
 by devils be delivered from them." In the comic 
 hagiology of the Roman Church St. Christina Mira- 
 bilis of Liege occupies a prominent place. She was 
 a member of that early ecclesiastical Air Force, 
 whose " stunts " or " levitations " (as the Month 
 prefers to call them) have lately been dilated upon 
 in the Roman Catholic Press. She got her " wings " 
 at an early age, and was always using them : ' the 
 difficulty was to keep her on the ground. She was 
 continually flying up to the tops of lonely towers 
 and trees, there to enjoy a rapture with the angels, 
 and to roost with the birds." When her relatives 
 wished to take and secure her, they had to employ 
 a man to hunt her like a bird. After a long run 
 he eventually brought her down, "in a very 
 unsportsmanlike manner, by a stroke with his blud- 
 geon, which broke her shin." I On terra firma 
 Christina was subject to ecstasies, during which 
 her limbs lost their rigidity, and she was contracted 
 into spherical form, and " rolled up like a hedgehog." 
 ' The miraculous element in Christianity," says 
 Dr. Inge in his Outspoken Essays, " seems to float 
 between earth and heaven, no longer essentially 
 connected with either " ; and he explains that 
 " when the heavy-headed dogmatist requires a cate- 
 gorical assent to the literal truth of the miraculous," 
 a tension between faith and reason cannot be avoided. 
 To avoid this tension the Church is now less exacting 
 in her claims upon the believer's assent. The dead 
 hand of dogmatic authority, heavy enough when 
 
 ' Hours with the Mystics, by R. A. Vaughan, ii, 221.
 
 77 
 
 occasion demands, can be lifted whenever it suits 
 Rome's purpose ; but we cannot forget that for 
 many centuries the heavy-handed dogmatist enforced 
 under the direst penalties and his successors would 
 do the same now, if they dared belief in the most 
 extraordinary propositions. It must also be remem- 
 bered that the periods when these beliefs obtained 
 the fullest acceptance were, and are still, regarded 
 by the Church as the periods of fullest enlighten- 
 ment ; and, further, that it is a fundamental 
 principle of Romanism that faith in the supernatural 
 must be " cultivated to its utmost limits." 
 
 Newman freely admitted (Essays on Miracles, 
 p. 239) that the ecclesiastical miracles are false in the 
 mass, and also that all miracle stories are " preju- 
 diced " by this knowledge ; yet he tells us with 
 charming candour (Apology, p. 299) that facts of 
 this description that is to say, miracles " are the 
 kind of facts proper to ecclesiastical history," and 
 he elsewhere reminds us that Roman Catholics only 
 like their history when it is doctored to suit their 
 taste. " Matter is susceptible of grace," says the 
 Cardinal, and we gather from him that it is in the 
 power of grace to petrify an unlawfully dressed 
 fowl, or exorcise a demoniac camel, 1 even though 
 these specific performances may not actually have 
 taken place. 
 
 Of other miracles and wonder-working relics 
 which the priests have concocted pour les femmes, 
 I can only briefly speak. A notable relic, and one 
 extremely popular with the faithful, is the Holy 
 Coat alleged to have been worn by Christ during 
 His ministry upon earth. I understand that there 
 are no less than twenty-one of these coats now 
 being exhibited to Papists as the coat worn by the 
 Saviour Himself. One of the most celebrated is 
 at Treves, and Newman (Apology, p. 353) says that 
 
 ' See Philomythus, by Dr. E. A. Abbott, pp. 7, 132.
 
 7-8 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 " we Catholics pay religious honour to relics, if so 
 be, on the probability " ; and he asks, with an 
 injured air, why the country people should not 
 " come up in joyous companies, singing and piping, 
 to see the Holy Coat at Treves ? ' The " prob- 
 ability " in this particular case appears to be that 
 Christ who (Luke ix. 3) told His disciples not to 
 have two coats apiece Himself had a wardrobe 
 of at least twenty-one coats, 1 and that all these 
 garments are still in existence for the piping and 
 singing peasants of our time to come and inspect 
 with the veneration they doubtless merit. 
 
 Even when the spuriousness of a relic is fully 
 demonstrated the miracles connected with it are 
 still recounted. There was a remarkable saint near 
 Naples, whose bones effected many marvellous 
 cures. On inspection by an osteologist the bones 
 proved to be those of an elderly he-goat ; but I 
 believe the legend of the miracles still persists. It 
 is on imposture of this sort apocryphal Holy Coats, 
 bones of sanctified he-goats, and the like that 
 the power of the Roman Catholic priesthood is 
 very largely based. 2 Nor must we forget that 
 miracles, relics, apparitions, and the like, form the 
 stock-in-trade of the Church, just as much as curios 
 form the stock-in-trade of the curio-dealer. The 
 
 1 Dr. Abbott, a very learned and distinguished Anglican divine, 
 suggests (Philomythus, p. 236) that we should begin our " devotion " 
 (the word is Newman's) to the Holy Coat as follows : " O Holy 
 Coat, if thou art a Holy Coat for the Dictionary of Christian Anti- 
 quities says there are twenty-one Holy Coats," etc. 
 
 * The following are specimens of " genuine " Roman Catholic 
 relics : genuine tail of Balaam's ass ; pats of butter and a small 
 cheese made of the Virgin's milk (in a Viennese inventory, for the 
 use of pilgrims to Rome see Shall We Join the Church of Rome ? 
 by a Disillusioned Convert, formerly editor of the R.C. Universe) ; 
 phials of the Virgin's milk (displayed in the recently burned cathedral 
 of Santiago, in Spain, and elsewhere) ; the navel-cord of her Son ; 
 manna rained from heaven ; blossoms from Aaron's rod ; genuine 
 tail of the ass ridden by Christ into Jerusalem ; some of the actual 
 fat dropped by St. Lawrence, while he was being roasted on the grid- 
 iron ; hair of the Virgin ; blood, bones, beard, teeth of the Apostles, 
 etc.,' etc.
 
 79 
 
 Church is run " like a shop," as a Catholic bishop 
 complained Tyrrell says the same thing in other 
 words and draws much profit out of popular ignor- 
 ance. Obscurantism thus becomes a species of fiscal 
 policy, a method of levying taxation which has 
 been adopted by the priesthoods of all ages with 
 unvarying success. Freaks of Nature, and other 
 phenomena susceptible of easy explanation, are 
 pressed into the Church's service, and are represented 
 by the clerics as being due to supernatural inter- 
 ference with the ordinary course of physical processes. 
 Chalybeate springs are said to be red with the blood 
 of saints and martyrs, and a rich harvest of gain 
 is reaped from them, and other natural curiosities. 
 The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury, a species of thorn 
 which blossoms twice at Christmas, and which, as 
 the guide-book informs us, is supplied by nursery- 
 men of the town at small cost, was a highly profitable 
 miracle in its day. Thousands of pilgrims flocked 
 to see it, and one day, when the blossoms were late 
 in appearing, the people refused to go to church. 
 Among the many charming legends which cluster 
 round the " island-valley of Avilion," on which 
 Glastonbury stands, is one that tells how 
 
 Arimathaean Joseph, the good Saint, journeying brought 
 To Glastonbury 
 
 the Chalice of the Last Supper, which he buried, 
 and from the spot there issues a spring of water 
 impregnated with iron which effected many wonderful 
 cures. In the ground hard by he planted his staff, 
 which forthwith sprouted and blossomed, and grew 
 into the Holy Thorn. 
 
 Oscar Wilde, in the course of his efforts to 
 counteract our " monstrous worship of facts," has 
 some pertinent remarks upon the " morbid and 
 unhealthy faculty of truth-telling." " There is," he 
 says, " such a thing as robbing a story of its reality
 
 8o PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 by trying to make it too true." That is just what 
 Rome is always doing with its picturesque legends 
 and fascinating, but quite unnecessary, fictions. 
 Nothing, for example, could be more charming and 
 poetical than the story of St. Joseph of Arimathsea. 
 But Rome at once proceeds to mar this delightful 
 legend, to rob it of its essential beauty and attrac- 
 tiveness, first, by pretending that it actually happened, 
 and, secondly, by using it as a means of " bleeding " 
 the faithful. The Church, by her deliberate efforts 
 to edify by means of falsification, becomes at times 
 more deplorably dull and tedious than the most 
 persistent truth-hunter could possibly be. She 
 creates a sort of realism of the non-existent which 
 is wholly inferior to the matter-of-fact realism of 
 our modern writers. No tamer or more insipid 
 reading exists than the descriptions given by the 
 later Roman Catholic saints of their erotic ecstasies 
 and mystical " experiences." The experiences are 
 all of the same kind ; the language is trite and 
 commonplace, the ideas and images coarse and mate- 
 rial : in a word, the whole thing is not merely cheap, 
 but intensely vulgar. Beside such noble works as 
 the Imitatio Christi, the Confessions of St. Augustine, 
 or Pascal's Pensees, they cut a very poor figure 
 indeed. The lowest depths are reached by the 
 pattern saint of the Jesuits, Alphonsus Liguori. 
 
 Striking examples of this intellectual banalitd 
 are to be found by the dozen in the literature of 
 Mariolatry. Mary-worship was unknown to primi- 
 tive tradition, but now the Virgin occupies the central 
 and most commanding position in Rome's canonical 
 Olympus. There are a dozen churches dedicated 
 to Mary for every one that is dedicated to any 
 member of the Trinity. The cult of Mary was 
 introduced in later days as a popular devotion for 
 " ignorant people " four les femmes, in short. She 
 is easier of approach and more placable than the
 
 C'EST POUR LES FEMMES 81 
 
 Trinity. Her intercession is more readily obtained ; 
 and Liguori represents Christ as saying to her : 
 " Oh, Mother, I never denied thee anything ; he (a 
 youth who had renounced his God) is forgiven, 
 since thou askest it." Mary, in short, is made so 
 much of, both in heaven and on earth, that we may 
 readily forgive her any trifling exhibitions of that 
 : ' pride and self-assertion " with which, I regret to 
 say, St. Chrysostom charges her. She is always 
 represented, in modern times at any rate, as being 
 on terms of easy familiarity with her adorers. The 
 excellent Father Faber, for instance, spoke of her 
 as " Dearest Mamma," and the puerilities of Liguori's 
 work, The Glories of Mary, baffle description. The 
 moral character of her votaries appears to have a 
 comparatively negligible influence in obtaining her 
 mediatory favours. The most hardened offender 
 may hope to achieve absolution for his worst sins 
 by a pretty speech to Mary, for she is described as 
 liking " pretty speeches and little coaxing ways." 
 Also, as we are assured by Liguori, " at the command 
 of Mary all obey, even God." Accordingly we find 
 the Catholic atmosphere redolent with graceful little 
 tendernesses and the commonplace gallantries of 
 the drawing-room. The celestial powers are wooed 
 with the ordinary endearments of mundane court- 
 ship ; and the mythical Queen of Heaven is addressed 
 by the faithful with "wheedling prayers," and 
 described by the Church as " ever- virgin," when, 
 as Dean Inge reminds us, the Gospels state that 
 she had a large family of four sons and more than 
 one daughter. 1 
 
 Nor must it be supposed that the compliments 
 are on all one side. St. Teresa, although a great 
 
 1 Outspoken Essays, p. 122 ; and see also Matt. i. 25. It should 
 be observed that Christ's attitude towards His Mother was not of 
 the sentimental kind adopted by Roman Catholics. He addressed 
 her somewhat sternly on more than one occasion, and said, " Touch 
 Me not," and " Woman, what have I to do with thee ? " 
 
 6
 
 82 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 favourite of heaven, passed through many inward 
 vicissitudes, and had occasion sometimes to complain 
 of the celestial Bridegroom's alternate tendernesses 
 and desertions. One day, however, during one of 
 His frequent visits to her, He made her a charming 
 little speech. " If I had not created heaven," He 
 said, " I would create it for your sake alone." x 
 Other saintly ladies appear to have found the 
 attentions of the divine Lover a trifle overpowering 
 at times. The Venerable Anna Maria Taigi, who 
 was also the recipient of many favours at His hands, 
 expostulated with a freedom which is quite unusual 
 in such cases. " Her ecstasies were so frequent that 
 she had to complain thus lovingly to her Divine 
 Spouse. ' Leave me alone/ she said, with sublime 
 and holy freedom. ' Go away, dear Lord, and leave 
 me to my work ; I am the mother of a family. Do 
 go away.' But all in vain . . . she had to yield 
 herself a fettered captive to the resistless charms of 
 divine love." 2 There are also saints who describe 
 (pour les femmes, of course) a good deal of kissing 
 in the course of these transcendental flirtations ; but 
 on such a delicate subject prudence bids me forbear. 
 This sort of thing, we are told, is for the benefit, 
 not only of the ladies, but also of those weak and 
 credulous persons who are ever the objects of the 
 Church's special solicitude. The vice of Romanism 
 is that it lays man in the dust, and keeps him there. 
 Everything that is weak or contemptible in human 
 nature is systematically fostered and exploited by 
 the Church for profit to herself. For that reason 
 she always displays a great tenderness for the 
 " rotter," which is admirable enough in its way ; 
 but its main defect is that it is essentially the reverse 
 
 1 Coelurn nisi credssem, ob te solam crearem. See Hours with the 
 Mystics, by R. A. Vaughan, pp. u, 162. 
 
 1 Life of the Venerable Anna Maria Taigi, translated from the 
 French by A. V. Smith Sligo, and published by Messrs. Washbourue 
 of Paternoster Row, pp. 88-89.
 
 C'EST POUR LES FEMMES 83 
 
 of curative in method or intention. Instead of 
 bracing its victims up and striving to make men of 
 them, Rome fogs their wits and further benumbs 
 their attenuated faculties. They are taught that 
 their spiritual safety lies in making themselves the 
 puppets of the ghostly counsellor who " winds them 
 up " at his own sweet will, and generally does his 
 best to render them automata. The saintly figure 
 that fills so many Roman Catholic niches and image- 
 shops is usually indeterminate in quality, half idol 
 and half doll. The Roman " director," the confessor 
 who is also spiritual guide and general instructor, was 
 in former days, at any rate, bidden to pay particular 
 attention to valetudinarian devotees of feeble health 
 and character (Director valde attendat ad personas 
 languidce valetudinis, Hours with the Mystics, ii, 153). 
 The modern spirit has, of course, greatly modified 
 these tendencies, but they are still constantly at 
 work, and with results that are sometimes disastrous. 
 The following is a quite recent and highly 
 illustrative specimen of the Church's attempt to 
 import the miraculous or supernatural element into 
 events or phenomena which admit of easy explanation 
 by natural causes. In July 1918 the Allied armies 
 commanded by Marshal Foch found themselves in a 
 position to retrieve the disaster of the previous 
 March, when our troops, heavily outnumbered by 
 the Germans, had to make a calamitous retreat. 
 Foch, now possessing a superiority of some 250,000 
 bayonets * and an enormous preponderance of guns 
 and other material, attacked the enemy ; and from 
 that day forward victory was always on the side of 
 the Allies. Providence once more showed itself on 
 the side of the big battalions 2 ; but the priests 
 
 1 See General Pershing's Report, quoted in the Daily Mail of 
 February 6, 1919, where it is stated that the Allied strength " made 
 a crushing Allied victory cert in." 
 
 a This philosophy appears to bs embodied in the Book of Judges, 
 i. 19. ' And the Lord was with Judah ; and he drave out the
 
 84 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 told the faithful, and many good Romanists still 
 believe, that there was a special divine intervention 
 on behalf of the Entente, because its troops were 
 commanded by a pious votary of the true faith. The 
 victory, in other words, was not due to the number 
 of men and cannon which the victors had assembled, 
 but to the fact that a general who went to Kirk had 
 been replaced by one who went to Mass. Nor is 
 any explanation given of the fact that the much 
 greater " miracle of the Marne " was performed by 
 generals who were not specially orthodox. 
 
 Such are the " necessary fictions " by which 
 valetudinarian piety is braced up, and enfeebled 
 faith restored. A public avid of the marvellous 
 must have its appetite continually satisfied with a 
 plentiful supply of manufactured wonders. The 
 Church, as we are often told, " adapts the Gospel " 
 to the needs of the people she addresses, of whom 
 the large majority are apparently assumed by her 
 to be gulls. Strong meat is for strong men : the 
 childish mind must be nourished on intellectual pap. 
 " Reserve " and " economy " of the truth must be 
 exercised by her in dispensing it to the uninstructed 
 multitude. She remains unshaken and unshakeable 
 in her conviction that Catholic faith is a weakling 
 who requires very careful nursing, and that menda- 
 cious buffoonery is an indispensable prop of ecclesias- 
 tical authority and prestige. C'est pour les femmes. 
 And we must also bear in mind that, along with 
 the gulling of others, there goes hand in hand the 
 delusion of self. Manning's prayer to God for 
 guidance, " lest I go down to the pit deceiving 
 myself," might be repeated with advantage by many 
 a fervent Romanist of to-day. 
 
 inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants 
 of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " ARE YOU A JESUIT ? " 
 
 That which is crooked cannot be made straight. ECCLESI- 
 ASTES i. 15. 
 
 THE Jesuits are fond of representing themselves as a 
 very ill-used people, cruelly slandered by a censorious 
 world ; and it is a true saying that the Society lives 
 and thrives to a great extent on the easily refuted 
 accusations of indiscreet enemies. Correspondents 
 are continually sending me " Jesuit Oaths," " Monita 
 Secreta," and other apocryphal literature vilifying 
 the Order and charging it with all manner of 
 fantastic iniquity, some of which cannot legitimately 
 be laid to its account. Of late years the Jesuits, 
 especially in England, have been getting increasingly 
 jealous of their reputations. Pascal's immortal 
 Letters are denounced as wicked and baseless libels ; 
 and the man who asperses the Society in speech or in 
 print, even though his strictures be perfectly justified, 
 is apt nowadays to be called severely to account. 
 
 In January 1920 the following colloquy took 
 place in a court of law between Mr. Justice Darling 
 and a witness who was said to have played an 
 unworthy trick. His Lordship : " Are you a 
 Jesuit ? ' The witness : " No, my Lord." His 
 Lordship : " You surprise me." The Order at 
 once rose on its hind legs. The Secretary of the 
 Catholic Union of Great Britain sent to the Judge 
 a warm letter of protest, which was backed up by 
 articles and correspondence in the Romanist Press. 
 The Judge replied, and in a second letter the 
 
 85
 
 86 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Secretary referred to the " baseless calumnies " of 
 Pascal and others against the Society, and asserted 
 that they had been refuted times without number ; 
 but he did not inform us when, where, or by whom 
 these refutations have been made. Pascal, like 
 other writers, made one or two mistakes of which 
 his adversaries have made full use, but his main 
 charges have been endorsed by sundry Pontiffs, 
 many eminent Roman Catholics, and finally by 
 the civilized world at large. 
 
 Another statement made by the Secretary 
 raises a historical point of considerable interest. 
 He says that Clement XIV, when he suppressed 
 the Order in 1773, did so " reluctantly, yielding 
 to the political passions of the times." Now, there 
 is no conclusive evidence to show that the Pope 
 acted with reluctance when he acceded to the very 
 reasonable request of the Roman Catholic Bourbon 
 princes. Clement was a man of high character 
 and intelligence, and he knew perfectly well that 
 the moral doctrines of the Jesuits were detestable, 
 that they were political stormy petrels who caused, 
 as he expressed it, " dangerous seditions, tumults, 
 discords, scandals " in the Church as well as in 
 the State, and that these dissensions " stirred up 
 the faithful to every rage of faction, hatreds and 
 enmities." His predecessor, Julius II, had an 
 equally bad opinion of them, and Innocent X un- 
 hesitatingly condemned many of their doctrines. 
 Catholics maintain that Clement XIV was cowed 
 by the Powers, and that he sought peace at any 
 price, including that of his own conscience ; but 
 the stern and decisive measures which he adopted, 
 and the vigorous language of his Brief, Dominus 
 Ac Redemptor, form in themselves a sufficient refuta- 
 tion of this contention. The Pope by his Brief 
 extinguished and abolished for ever the Society, 
 its houses and colleges and schools ; and the General
 
 "ARE YOU A JESUIT P" 87 
 
 of the Society was thrown into prison, where he 
 died. Nor does the language used by the Pope 
 show any sign of hesitation or reluctance. He 
 pointed out that the practices and precepts of the 
 Order were freely stigmatized as not only inimical to 
 public order and tranquillity, but also as scandalous 
 and repugnant to good morals (scandalosas , optimceque 
 morum discipline manifeste noxias see Bullarium 
 Romanum, vol. iv, p. 613) and to the orthodox 
 Catholic Faith. For these and other pressing reasons 
 he felt constrained to take very severe measures. 1 
 He used many other strong expressions, and stated 
 roundly that he was persuaded of the necessity of 
 suppressing the Order because there " remained 
 no other remedy to so great evils." 
 
 The line of argument adopted by the Tablet 
 (February 21, 1920) in defence of the Jesuits is 
 that their moral doctrine cannot be bad in the eyes 
 of the Church, because she has consistently given 
 it her approval. This is precisely the point which 
 I have long been maintaining in the face of much 
 strenuous assertion to the contrary. The Tablet 
 points out, with perfect truth, how widely Jesuit 
 textbooks of moral theology have been adopted in 
 seminaries and other centres of Catholic learning. 
 ' There is probably," the journal states, " no pro- 
 fessor of this subject throughout the Catholic world 
 who would not speak with respect of " Father Gury 
 and other Jesuit authorities. The Church, con- 
 tinues the Tablet, holds Pascal's indictment to be 
 " in substance not-proven, for she has, both directly 
 and indirectly, sanctioned anew the Constitutions 
 of the Society of Jesus, and she has, through innumer- 
 able imprimaturs, approved again and again, and 
 
 1 I possess a Papal medal struck in commemoration of the 
 great event. It bears the effigy of Clement XIV, and on the 
 obverse are the words, Salus generis humani. Jesuitarum Societ. deleta, 
 MDCCLXXIII. This hardly indicates regret or reluctance on the 
 Pope's part.
 
 88 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 in the most formal terms, those same manuals of 
 moral teaching which are the avowed object of 
 hostile attack." 
 
 Exactly. This, as I say, has been my con- 
 tention throughout. Yet many of my opponents, 
 unable to controvert what I have said as to the 
 highly undesirable character of Papal moral theology, 
 have taken refuge in a somewhat specious plea. 
 Catholics, aided by certain Anglicans, say that in 
 quoting from Liguori and Gury I am raking up 
 what they contemptuously style "old stuff" that 
 is to say, the out-of-date doctrines of ancient or 
 discredited authors. I have shown in my former 
 book (chapter xv) that the lucubrations of St. 
 Alphonsus Liguori, so far from being out of date, 
 are still the authorized and acknowledged teachings 
 of the Roman Church ; and the above citations 
 from the Tablet would seem to make further com- 
 ment on this matter superfluous. 
 
 With regard to Liguori, who is admitted to 
 be the " Prince of moral theologians " and the 
 Church's approved prophet in the moral sphere, I 
 may mention that he was not actually a member 
 of the Jesuit Order. He is, however, correctly 
 described as the Geisteserbe, and also (as the witty 
 author of Scintilla Juris x may be interested to 
 learn) as the " darling of the Jesuits." He codified 
 the teaching of the casuists, which has been adopted 
 by the Jesuits in bulk ; and they were also largely 
 instrumental in obtaining his canonization. More- 
 over, they induced Pius IX to make him one of the 
 nineteen great Doctors of the Church, and heaped 
 on his head every possible honour. His works 
 are the literary embodiment of the Order's ideas 
 and principles, and he may therefore fairly be 
 deemed the representative exponent of Jesuit moral 
 
 1 Scintilla Juris and Meditations in the Tea-room, by Sir Charles 
 J. Darling.
 
 "ARE YOU A JESUIT P" 89 
 
 doctrine. What that doctrine is I have set forth 
 in my previous volume, with special reference to 
 equivocation and other methods of perverting the 
 truth. The Jesuits, like other priests, claim the right 
 to bind and to loose, but they practically abdicated 
 the former right while freely exercising the latter ; 
 and, in their dread of what they call " rigorism," 
 they have beyond all question encouraged the most 
 pernicious laxity. 1 
 
 Even though the truth-hunter be the undesir- 
 able person that Mr. Birrell appears to think he is, 
 we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that 
 the habit of unveracity is dogged by a twofold 
 Nemesis. Nobody believes the man who is addicted 
 to it, and he gradually loses the power of believing 
 anybody else : it has been well said that this last 
 is the true punishment of the liar. When a com- 
 munity (such as Rome, to take one conspicuous 
 
 1 I append a few doctrinal gems from the divines upon whose 
 treatises Liguori's monumental Theologia Moralis is based. Escobar, 
 one of the greatest Jesuits, was great on the veniality of " short sins." 
 He saw no particular harm, for instance, in a priest's laying aside 
 his clerical vestments to visit a house of ill-fame, but says that he 
 must not stay longer than one hour ! If he exceeds that time, he sins 
 mortally ! The same moralist thinks that a priest, found guilty of 
 unnameable offences, ought if contrite, to be allowed to retain his 
 benefices and dignities. 
 
 Persons addicted to strong language will be interested to learn 
 that the great Diana, Examiner of Bishops to three successive Popes, 
 says that a man may blaspheme freely, and without grievous offence, 
 before five people : if there are six, or more, listeners he will be guilty 
 of mortal sin. Both Diana and Escobar thought it hard lines that 
 a priest should be excommunicated merely because he laid aside his 
 habit ut furetur occulte (in order to pilfer secretly), ut eat incognitus 
 ad lupanar, vel fornicetur. Numerous other examples are to be found 
 in Pascal's Letters, and see Archdeacon Sinclair's Charges, p. 420. 
 
 Strange morals, perhaps, for men who claimed semi-divine attri- 
 butes ; but I must add that this is " old stuff " in the sense that 
 it has not, like Liguori's doctrine, received the Church's official endorse- 
 ment in these days. By the way, I quoted in my former book Liguori's 
 statement that it is not a grievous offence for a son to steal a moderate 
 amount from a rich parent (see Theologia Moralis, iii. 543). I now 
 learn that the amount that may be so stolen varies with the rate of 
 exchange : that is to say, if it was excusable for the son before the 
 war to steal ^5 from his father, he might now presumably help himself 
 to a larger number of " Bradburys."
 
 90 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 example) is wrapped in a general atmosphere of sus- 
 picion and distrust, we may be quite sure that the 
 individual members of that community have given 
 some cause for it. In Jesuit institutions, as we 
 know from the works of many credible authors, 
 there exists a regularized system of spying, informing, 
 eavesdropping, censoring correspondence (in and out) 
 and other inquisitorial tactics in the interests of 
 government. We read in Tyrrell's autobiography 
 of dormitories patrolled by slippered clerics, and 
 similar unpleasant methods. Tale-telling is obligatory 
 on schoolboys. The " vigilance methods " enforced 
 by the Pascendi Encyclical (of Jesuit origin), whereby 
 unfortunate priests and bishops, suspected of Modernist 
 tendencies, are habitually watched by secret spies 
 and informed against, have often been described. 
 
 Such a system can hardly fail to leave its traces 
 upon the characters of those who are subjected to 
 it. The secret informer who reports to the Rector 
 on the sayings and doings of the laity, the Rector 
 who reports to the Provincial, etc., create, as Tyrrell 
 says, a profound mutual mistrust and a feeling of 
 insecurity and isolation. The Jesuits, in consequence, 
 are themselves rendered untrustworthy, and, as that 
 sanest and most " truth-hunting " of critics, Sainte- 
 Beuve, remarks, ' par habitude, par education et 
 discipline sont essentiellement sujets a manquer 
 de bonne foi et de droiture." They are essentially 
 " politicians," with a keen eye to their interests in 
 this world no less than the world to come. Sainte- 
 Beuve gives us a picture of the fashionable Jesuit 
 " director " in his apostrophe to Rapin : ' Vous 
 etes trop mondain, trop repandu ; vous dinez trop 
 souvent en ville, mon R6verend Pre." l It would 
 not be difficult to find, in England and other countries, 
 parallels to the type here described. 
 
 1 Port Royal, i, 484, quoted in Studies in Modernism, by the Rv. 
 A. Fawkes, p. 400.
 
 'ARE YOU A JESUIT?" 91 
 
 Tyrrell tells us in eloquent words (Autobiography, 
 ii, 488) how he looked back with terror to " the black 
 wood " of Jesuitism, " in which for so many years 
 I was lost, and from which God in His mercy has 
 brought me forth to the light of liberty." * In the 
 outer world he found, as so many others are finding 
 now, that the air is freer and purer no longer, as 
 before, " laden with sin and the suspicion of sin." 
 
 Another matter over which Protestant writers 
 are continually finding themselves at loggerheads 
 with Catholics is the oft-quoted maxim of the Order, 
 ' The end justifies the means." The Jesuits say that 
 they have no such maxim, and the points in the 
 controversy are briefly as follows. It is not denied 
 that Jesuit authors of the highest repute have used 
 words which in themselves seem to justify the 
 Protestant contention, but Roman Catholics argue 
 that the context in some cases shows that the means 
 which are declared lawful are only means which 
 in themselves are good or " indifferent," that is 
 to say, neither good nor bad. Busenbaum, one of 
 Liguori's chief mentors, a divine whose works were 
 said, in 1845, to have already gone through over 
 two hundred editions, says that " Cum finis est licitus, 
 etiam media sunt licita " (when the end is lawful, 
 the means are also lawful) a rather meaningless 
 platitude if the means are harmless. A modern 
 writer says, by way of analogy, that if it is lawful 
 to go on a railway journey, it is also lawful to take 
 a ticket for the purpose. People do not need to be 
 told this, and we must credit Busenbaum and his 
 brother-theologians with some more serious meaning 
 than is contained in this rather fatuous truism. 
 Busenbaum does not say that all means are lawful ; 
 
 1 To show the Order's iron regimentation, we are told that by 
 a Rule of the Society Jesuit lay-brothers " are not to learn to read 
 or write, nor shall anyone teach them " ; although, as Tyrrell says 
 (Autobiography, ii, 495), numbers of them put the priests to shame 
 in many ways.
 
 92 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 a prisoner, for instance, must not kill his gaoler in 
 order to effect his escape. Laymann, another high 
 authority, follows Busenbaum. Wagemann, a 
 learned Professor of Morals, goes considerably 
 further. He says plainly in his index, " Finis deter - 
 minat probitatem actus " (the end determines the 
 rectitude of an action), which implies that the law- 
 fulness of a means is derived, not merely from its 
 intrinsic quality, but also in some measure from 
 the fact that it is a means to a lawful end ; but 
 in the body of his work he reduces this rather startling 
 proposition to more modest proportions. Fathers 
 Voit, Liberatore, Gury and others use language 
 and give illustrations which seem to support the 
 Protestant case : Liberatore, for example, says that 
 " from the obligation to attain an end arises the 
 right to procure the means needful and useful for 
 obtaining the same." Lastly, the great Liguori 
 himself says that certain actions (of a highly dubious 
 character, by the way) are in themselves lawful, 
 " because when the end is permissible the means 
 are also permissible." l We may surely infer from 
 this that the good end confers some sort of sancti- 
 fication on the means, apart from the inherent 
 nature of the latter ; otherwise the maxim is a 
 sheer superfluity. Good or indifferent means, such 
 as taking a railway ticket, need no justification : 
 they justify themselves. On the whole, however, 
 the authorities I have cited hardly seem to justify 
 the contention that the Society holds, as a re- 
 cognized or official maxim, that a man may use 
 evil means to accomplish a good end ; but, however 
 much the Jesuits may repudiate the principle, they 
 
 1 Tales actus per se Us licent, quia cui liciius est finis, etiam licent 
 media. This passage, embedded in the mire of Liguori 's horrible 
 treatise De Usu Matrimonii, has never, to the best of my belief, been 
 quoted in this controversy before. Liguori also holds that a "just 
 cause " (the good of the Church is such a cause) forms a sufficient 
 justification for various reprehensible actions.
 
 "ARE YOU A JESUIT?" 93 
 
 have consistently acted upon it in practice when- 
 ever chance or intrigue has afforded them the oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 A noteworthy feature in the history of the 
 Society is the fact that, apart from the dominant 
 position which it has secured for itself in the Church, 
 it has never achieved any permanent success. Gold- 
 win Smith remarks that " the Jesuit, bearing with 
 him the Encyclical and the Syllabus, his own work," 
 is always a hopeless failure ; but his futile efforts 
 have cost the world very dear. Such Jesuits as 
 I have known do not appear to be the Machiavellian 
 geniuses of Protestant imagination, but pleasant- 
 spoken, zealous, fairly hardworking men who are 
 trying to do good in the world according to their 
 rather peculiar lights. They can be heroes, too, as 
 we know ; but their heroism like that of the Jesuit, 
 Father W. Doyle, 1 who died the other day, and who 
 tried to carve the name of Jesus on his breast with a 
 penknife, stood up to his neck in a pond through 
 a cold winter's night, flogged himself mercilessly 
 with a discipline of safety-razor blades is often 
 sadly misdirected. If they suffer at times from unjust 
 accusations they have their Order and its principles 
 largely to thank. Jesuitism is described in the 
 dictionary as " the arts, principles, and practices 
 of the Jesuits ; cunning ; deceit ; prevarication." 
 Now, this definition cannot be dismissed contemptu- 
 ously as a mere expression of Protestant spite and 
 bigotry, because the worst enemies of the Order 
 have always been those of its own household : the 
 nastiest things said about the Society are said by 
 Roman Catholics. The word " Jesuitism " denotes 
 a psychological fact, a confirmed trait or idiosyncrasy, 
 a habit of mind, a principle of life and conduct 
 just as " Puritanism " represents these things 
 
 1 His biography has just been published by Messrs. Longmans. 
 See The Literary Guide, July 1920.
 
 94 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 along different lines. Both words are now firmly 
 rooted in the English language, and for good reason : 
 they express the mature and permanent judgment 
 of the world at large. The judgment, moreover, 
 is a perfectly sound and correct one ; and nobody 
 need be afraid of giving expression to it. 
 
 As to the future of the Order it would be unwise 
 to speculate. Until it mends its mischief-making 
 ways it will always have enemies, but the principal 
 danger that threatens its existence is still, as in 
 former days, internal rather than external. " Within 
 the Church itself there is a strong and growing feeling 
 that the interests of Catholicism may necessitate 
 a second and final suppression of the Societ}^. 
 Cardinal Manning was wont to say, ' The work of 
 1773 was the work of God ; and there is another 
 1773 coming.' " * Manning was by no means an 
 infallible seer ; but the wrath of outraged society, 
 kindled by the continued turbulence of a Jesuit- 
 controlled clerical organization, may some day bring 
 about the fulfilment of the prophecy. This brief 
 sketch of the Order and its principles is necessarily 
 an imperfect one the reader who desires to obtain 
 a comprehensive understanding of the subject should 
 consult the monumental work of Dollinger and 
 Reusch ; but the foregoing notes, taken in con- 
 junction with what I have written elsewhere, may 
 possibly prove useful to distinguished persons, and 
 others, who find themselves at issue with the Society 
 of Jesus. 
 
 1 See Encyclopedia Britannica, art, ' The Jesuits."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 
 
 " The question of origins is vital to Catholicism " (Studies in 
 Modernism, p. 75). 
 
 LESLIE STEPHEN, summarizing Newman's argument 
 in the Essay on Development and other works, de- 
 scribes how the Cardinal satirized Protestantism as 
 " an arbitrary patchwork " clumsily stitched together 
 out of alien and discrete materials. I need hardly 
 point out that the taunt levelled by Newman at 
 his old associates in the Anglican Church is a two- 
 edged weapon. The argument conveyed therein may, 
 or may not, be a good one against the faith he had 
 forsaken ; it is certainly a much better one against 
 the creed of his adoption. He scoffs at the Protes- 
 tant religion as eclectic and original : I propose in 
 this and the following chapters to show that Roman- 
 ism is at least equally eclectic, and at the same time 
 highly unoriginal ; that Roman Catholic theology 
 and Papal institutionalism, so far from being the 
 outcome of a special revelation to a favoured few 
 at a certain date, and the " exclusive possession " 
 (as Romanists say) of the Church, are simply mani- 
 festations of the ordinary laws of mental and 
 political growth on utilitarian lines. 
 
 Mr. Fawkes' remark, quoted above, as to the 
 importance of examining the sources of a religion 
 and testing its claims to originality, will strike some 
 people as being almost a truism. Many ecclesiastics, 
 on the other hand, say that the origins are of little 
 
 95
 
 g6 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 consequence : they profess themselves wholly un- 
 perturbed by the discovery that much of what was 
 supposed to be new, and different from any former 
 religious product, is simply old doctrine revived and 
 refurbished to suit the occasion. It may undoubtedly 
 be true that, as Newman says, the history of a 
 dogma does not necessarily furnish its refutation ; 
 but if the doctrine alleged to be " unique and un- 
 precedented " proves to be older than its alleged 
 authors, and derived from alien and earlier sources, 
 we shall have to examine its credentials with greater 
 care. If a system of ecclesiastical institutions, said 
 to have been divinely ordained at a fixed and ascer- 
 tainable period, turns out to be a gradual compilation 
 of pre-existing Pagan material ; if, also, certain 
 dogmas and records, which we supposed to have 
 then been dictated by Heaven, can be shown to 
 have been introduced or invented by ecclesiastics 
 at a later date, and for the purpose of gaining 
 adherents to their Church we must reconsider our 
 position in the light of our new knowledge. An 
 inquiry into the origins of a religion is like an 
 examination of a house with a view to ascertain 
 whether its foundations are sound or unsound, and 
 the relation of these foundations to the edifice reared 
 upon them can never be otherwise than vital to 
 the safety of the structure. Early Christian writers, 
 such as Maternus Firmicus, Justin Martyr, and 
 Tertullian, were under no illusions concerning these 
 Pagan parallels to Romish beliefs and practices : 
 they did not, like our modern theologians, consider 
 that they were matters of no consequence. On the 
 contrary, they said that devils had invented certain 
 myths in order to rob Christian doctrines of their 
 hold upon men's minds, and to deter the Pagans 
 from embracing Christianity. In like manner Sir 
 J. G. Frazer, in his Preface to The Golden Bough, 
 regrets the sad consequences of his researches in
 
 AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 97 
 
 Comparative Mythology, but recognizes that there 
 is no escape from them. He laments his melancholy 
 and thankless task of striking at the ancient founda- 
 tions of certain religious beliefs, but tells us that 
 sooner or later it was inevitable that " the battery 
 of the comparative method should breach these 
 venerable walls." He also warns us that the 
 battering process is only just commencing. 
 
 The intelligent student, who approaches the subject 
 with an impartial mind, will probably agree with 
 Maternus Firmicus and Sir J. G. Frazer that these 
 things do matter a great deal. If the knowledge, 
 or part of it, which the Roman Church has com- 
 municated to the world as one single, complete, 
 and all-sufficing revelation, was possessed by Plato, 1 
 Aristotle, and other Pagan sages, her revelation 
 would seem to be largely superfluous : it may be 
 " perfected Platonism," as certain learned ancients 
 regarded it, but it can hardly be described as 
 " unique " or " exclusive." How can she retain that 
 high tone of authority which appertains to the 
 preacher of a new religion, when it is clearly proved 
 that her doctrine, so far from being novel when 
 she first expounded it, was already ancient ? 
 
 The orthodox Roman Catholic view is that the 
 doctrines and essential institutions of the Church 
 have been always and identically the same. " The 
 whole dogmatic, sacramental and hierarchic system," 
 they contend, "as it now stands, was delivered in 
 detail by Christ to His Apostles and by them to 
 their successors. He proclaimed, not the very words, 
 but the very substance in all detail of the doctrines 
 of Trent and the Vatican. He instituted the Papacy, 
 the episcopate, the seven sacraments." 2 It may 
 
 * Plato was supposed by the early Christians to have borrowed 
 his Christ-like doctrines from Moses 1 (See Christian Mysticism, by 
 Dean Inge, p. 77-78.) 
 
 See Christianity at the Cross-Roads, by Father G. Tyrrell, p. 30. 
 
 7
 
 98 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 possibly appear somewhat of an overstatement to 
 say, as Tyrrell does in his Medievalism, that the 
 Church represents herself as having been created 
 instantaneously as an absolute monarchy, with all 
 her present sacraments and institutions, by Christ's 
 decree ; but it is, at any rate, an approximately 
 accurate description of the Roman position. 
 
 After this alleged instantaneous and all-sufficing 
 revelation, novelty became, in the eyes of the Church, 
 the very definition of heresy ; and she has always 
 professed that she could never be guilty of such an 
 atrocity. The authors of the celebrated Pascendi 
 Encyclical positively shuddered at the bare notion 
 of their being attracted by innovations. Nearly 
 every non-Catholic, however, and a growing number 
 of Roman Catholics, are well aware that a large 
 mass of novelties has been introduced into Church 
 doctrine and observance ; so Newman tried to 
 justify them as being, not a corruption, but a legiti- 
 mate and purely " natural " development, under 
 supernatural guidance, of the primitive faith. He 
 has the hardihood and the Church to this extent 
 agrees with him to assert that Rome's glaring 
 departures from Scripture teaching are a mere ex- 
 pansion of Christ's instructions, an organic process 
 which was a true development, and not a mere 
 " incrustation " : he even asserts that " the Christian 
 [by which he means, of course, the Roman Catholic] 
 dogmas were in the Church from the time of the 
 Apostles ; they were ever in their substance what 
 they are now." He amplified and illustrated his 
 Development theory with his customary ingenuity ; 
 but the clever, and highly specious, attempt to 
 " hide the rent in the old garment by way of a 
 new patch " found little favour in Rome, and the 
 " new patch " has since been torn to shreds by 
 many able writers. 
 
 Following Newman came M. Loisy, who, writing
 
 AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 99 
 
 in 1902 as a champion of the Church's doctrine, 
 and perhaps her ablest apologist, published his 
 L'Evangile et l'glise, which is described as the 
 most important defence of Catholicism since New- 
 man's essay. Personally, I regard it as far excelling 
 that greatly overrated work, if not in eloquence or 
 ingenuity, at any rate in sound scholarship, critical 
 and political insight, and, above all, in the judicial 
 spirit a spirit, let me add, that was far from being 
 acceptable to the Curia : his " laic tone " shocked 
 and disgusted the professional clerics. M. Loisy 
 makes out the best case possible for Rome ; but his 
 attempt to justify the present-day Papacy resolves 
 itself, like Newman's, into a mere explanation of 
 how it came about. It also demonstrates (what 
 most of us already knew) that Catholicism is essen- 
 tially a syncretic religion that is to say, a blending 
 of different, and in many respects antagonistic, 
 speculative systems into one. The material for the 
 patchwork was gathered from a heterogeneous mass 
 of pre-existing beliefs in Egypt, India, Chaldea, 
 Persia, and elsewhere. " The living movement," says 
 Dean Inge (Outspoken Essays, p. 219), " was towards 
 a syncretism of religious ideas and practices, all of 
 which came from the Eastern provinces and beyond 
 them " : the Church absorbed the living syncretistic 
 beliefs, but at the cost of becoming herself a syn- 
 cretic * religion. 
 
 An eminent critic has said that the ancient world, 
 in building up the Catholic Church on the foundation 
 of the Gospel, built itself bankrupt ; and some such 
 idea must have been present to the minds who 
 reared the existing ecclesiastical structure on new 
 and different foundations. I propose to show in 
 some detail how the transformation to the Romanism 
 
 1 My dictionary informs me that " syncretism " is'derived from 
 two Greekfwords syn (together) and kretizo, ". to lie" and deceive 
 like a Cretan " !
 
 ioo PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 of these times was effected, and the entirely new 
 ecclesiasticism established. 
 
 Every good Catholic, as we have seen, regards 
 Romanism as a supernatural growth predetermined 
 by the divine mind and effected during the Christian 
 era under celestial guidance ; but Newman every 
 now and then lets the cat out of the bag by admitting 
 that it was a " natural " growth, a thing, that is 
 to say, due to the workings of ordinary human 
 instincts and tendencies. M. Loisy, with (as might 
 be expected) greater frankness and candour than 
 Newman, also allows us to see that the growth of 
 the Church was an " organic " process, in the sense 
 that it was a political development. They both 
 demonstrate the utility, or " necessity," of a highly 
 organized religious society, but, as Leslie Stephen 
 remarks, " every proof of its utility is an explanation 
 of its origin," and affords a strong presumption 
 that the Church is a temple built by human hands, 
 an edifice reared, not according to the designs of a 
 special superintending Providence, but in the interests 
 of a ruling clerical caste and on the same lines as 
 those upon which other empires have been con- 
 structed. We ask the Roman Catholic for proof 
 that his Church is a divinely ordered institution : 
 he replies by demonstrating, with admirable cogency, 
 how it grew out of the exigencies of pure policy. 
 He gives us a philosophy of his religion : he does 
 not prove to us that the religion is true. The Church 
 became what it had to become in order not to decline 
 and perish, says M. Loisy (The Gospel and the Church, 
 p. 150). In other words, it was not supernatural 
 inspiration, but a very sound instinct of government 
 on human lines which guided the statesmen-theo- 
 logians who were the architects of the rising temple, 
 with all its appanages of pomp and power. 
 
 And what a vivid contrast there is between the 
 old order and the new, between the little missionary
 
 AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 101 
 
 band breaking their bread together at the common 
 meal in token of brotherhood, with simple prayers 
 and exhortations and unobtrusive good works, and 
 the flamboyant pageantry and ostentation of the 
 modern Papacy ! Those humble men were very 
 unlike the gaudily clad, and sometimes rather arro- 
 gant, ecclesiastics, flaunting their gorgeous symbols 
 and theatrical vestments amid a corresponding mise- 
 en-sc&ne : we hardly recognize the unassuming Peter, 
 who practised humility as well as preached it, in 
 a superbly caparisoned Pontiff, housed in a com- 
 fortable palace of vast proportions, who enjoys being 
 addressed by his admirers as " A second God upon 
 earth," or as " The Sacrament of Jesus," an " Elect 
 Victim ex-officio nailed to the Cross." l 
 
 The effort to make the present-day Papacy fit 
 in with the ideas of Christ, to reconcile primitive 
 with later theology, was a desperate undertaking ; 
 and it has failed, as it was bound to fail. How far 
 the boasted " immobility " of dogma, institutions, 
 and traditions have been maintained, we have al- 
 ready seen. What we have to remember is that 
 primitive Christianity could only establish itself by 
 accommodating its beliefs and institutions to those 
 of the peoples it was seeking to convert. The Greek 
 spirit could only be conciliated by an intellectual 
 system in accordance with its own ; the Roman's 
 genius for law and organization had to be adopted 
 and copied ; the Oriental tendency to mysticism was 
 generously supplied. Hellenic philosophy was there- 
 fore introduced at a very early stage. The Latin 
 World-State reappeared in the Caesarian episcopate 
 of Rome ; and the sacraments, ritual, liturgies, etc., 
 of various Pagan nations were imported wholesale 
 to serve the purposes of the fast-growing ecclesias- 
 tical power. The precise date at which the main 
 importation of Hellenic ideas and religious theory 
 
 1 Medievalism, by G. Tyrrell, 4th impression, p. 212.
 
 102 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 took place is still a matter of controversy. In the 
 earliest days of the Christian community the dis- 
 ciples were occupied in making preparations for 
 the Kingdom which did not come, as they expected 
 it would, in a few years' time ; and we may well 
 believe that their minds were not intent on the 
 building of a Church which should endure in per- 
 petuity. There is a considerable gap, extending 
 over several years, in the literature of the Church 
 after the Apostolic age, and the meagre literature of 
 the period leaves us ignorant how the earlier transi- 
 tions, from the " little flock " that gathered round 
 Christ to a rigid and sacrosanct clerical organization, 
 were effected. In the early days, when the Church 
 was regarded as a mere stop-gap till the Kingdom 
 came, Apostolic authority sufficed, but official 
 authority and that of tradition were gradually super- 
 added. Before the close of the third century we 
 find " Churchianity," as opposed to Christianity in 
 full swing ; and a faith that was akin to a fetish 
 was gradually imposed by the clergy on flocks who 
 were well disposed to receive it. Christianity as 
 instituted by Christ underwent a complete trans- 
 figuration ; the priest became a magician, and magic 
 and mystery ousted the more spiritual conceptions of 
 religion. 
 
 M. Loisy, 1 now no longer a churchman (he was 
 excommunicated twelve years ago), thinks that the 
 transformation was effected by St. Paul, who di- 
 vorced Christianity from Judaism and saved the 
 new religion from inevitable collapse by turning it 
 into a mystery religion. We may endorse the state- 
 ment that it was as a mystery religion, largely 
 borrowed from the Greeks, that Christianity con- 
 quered the world ; but it is improbable that the 
 process of Hellenization and Paganization was so 
 
 1 Les Mysteres Paiens et le Mysttre Chriiien ; and see The Times 
 Literary Supplement, December 25, 1919.
 
 AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 103 
 
 swift and sudden as M. Loisy would seem to suggest. 
 We have, as I have said, little historical information 
 concerning the Church for many years after Paul's 
 death, but we do know that Hellenism, largely 
 infiltrated with Oriental and Egyptian mysticism, 
 deeply tinged Church doctrine : the Church in the 
 second century used the language and had already 
 imbibed the spirit, as well as the ideas, of the Greeks. 
 The metaphysics of Platonism were introduced to 
 attract the intellectuals, fresh labels being usually 
 attached to the new ideas in order to hide their alien 
 origin. The Alexandrian Jew, Philo, attempted to 
 reconcile Hebrew religion and Greek philosophy, and 
 many of his ideas were incorporated by the Church. 
 The Platonic and Heraclitean theory of the Logos, 
 the Word or Supreme Reason, is made familiar to 
 us in the Fourth Gospel, which was not written 
 as is commonly supposed, and as is sometimes taught 
 by people who believe the contrary by the Apostle 
 John, but by some unknown writer, or writers, 
 probably about A.D. 200. God, according to this 
 Gospel, is not merely Creator and Providence (as 
 in the Christian sense), but cosmic principle and 
 Pure Being in the metaphysical sense of Greek 
 philosophy ; Christ, as the " corporeal appearance 
 of the Logos," the Word made flesh, replaced the 
 Judaic conception of the Messiah. But this obviously 
 is not the teaching of Jesus : He was no meta- 
 physician, and the doctrine must be regarded as 
 being of later origin. Such ideas are, in fact, little 
 more than meaningless, except in connection with 
 Platonic or neo-Platonic philosophy. 
 
 These theories, though admirably suited for the 
 cultured few, were obviously unsuitable for the 
 masses. To please them recourse had to be made 
 to the East, and the Oriental religions, with their 
 quaint myths and rituals, soon became extremely 
 popular with the ignorant laity. " As the East
 
 104 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 tires of its superstitions it passes them on to silly 
 Europeans," a writer in the Saturday Review caustic- 
 ally observed the other day ; and something of the 
 kind happened from time to time in the framing 
 of the Church's creed. A clerical satrapy, essen- 
 tially Oriental in character, needs Oriental forms and 
 ideas for its maintenance ; and what Dr. Inge (Chris- 
 tian Mysticism, p. 15) calls " a leaven of Asiatic 
 thought passing through Alexandrian mysticism " 
 permeated the orthodox doctrine. The scraps and 
 tatters of Mithraism were stitched on to the Church's 
 patchwork mantle, and now form a considerable por- 
 tion of the entire garment. " Preservative " accre- 
 tions of every variety, and taken from any quarter 
 so long as they served the ecclesiastic's turn, found 
 their way into the established creed : the laity 
 were fed upon a variety of curious foreign myths 
 and fables, and worshipped before all sorts of odd 
 shrines. 
 
 The age-long contest between priest and prophet 
 appears to have commenced in very early Post- 
 Apostolic days, and, as usual, the prophet got the 
 worst of it. Prophetic ministry deteriorated as time 
 went on, and sacerdotalism began to raise its head. 
 The principle of episcopal authority was asserted 
 to be necessary in order to combat the numerous 
 heresies, Gnostic and otherwise, which at times 
 threatened the Church's very existence. Officialism 
 waxed as the prophetic gift waned : a graded system 
 of ecclesiastics, with extensive powers that were 
 ever growing, came gradually into existence. A 
 halt was called to innovations ; dogma was es- 
 tablished and ecclesiastical control enforced upon 
 individual thought in spiritual matters. Definitely 
 Papal notions appear in the writings of St. Ignatius, 
 who was eaten by lions in the Roman amphitheatre 
 about A.D. no. He was " possessed of a passion to 
 leave behind him an authoritatively organized
 
 AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 105 
 
 Church." ' He tells his flock that their " bishop 
 presides in the place of God," and that he is to be 
 reverenced as Jesus Christ. Above all, Ignatius 
 perceived the magician's wand of authority that 
 could be waved through the agency of the Eucharist, 
 the eating of a supper which imparts spiritual life 
 to those who receive it at the hands of a divinely 
 ordained priest acting as Christ's representative. 
 
 The requisite hierarchy was not long in making 
 its appearance, and it soon " displayed the requisite 
 vigour and adaptiveness. It soon had sacred books 
 of its own which it appended to the older Scriptures. 
 The generalized ideas of official Judaism, the Messianic 
 hope, Hellenistic myth and ritual, ethical and meta- 
 physical ideas that had passed into currency, and 
 in particular the idea of personal salvation in a 
 future life, were all in due proportion assimilated. 
 A new religion had appeared which at length suc- 
 ceeded in imposing itself on the Roman Empire." 2 
 
 The old theocratic dreams of Judaism revived on 
 a wider basis and with more far-reaching ambition. 
 To buttress these new powers and the extravagant 
 claims of the priesthood various means were adopted ; 
 and the most ingenious arguments are invented to 
 justify them and to show that they are all part of 
 the original revelation delivered by Christ to the 
 Church. The Church, says M. Loisy (writing in 
 defence of the Papacy), " needed the preservative 
 element of all society authority." We must not 
 reproach her with developing along the lines dictated 
 by " the necessity of fact accompanied by logical 
 necessity " : she had to live, it is contended which 
 was the plea advanced by the beggar when he stole 
 the rich man's watch. The anti-cleric may retort, 
 with the Austrian cynic, that he does not see the 
 necessity. The exigencies of spiritual despotism as 
 
 1 Studies in Mysticism, by the Rev. R. Jones, p. 32. 
 * The Origins of Christianity, by T. Whittaker, p. 19.
 
 106 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 conceived by the more relentless Apocalyptists, the 
 obligation of killing and persecuting heretics, were 
 urged at a very early stage as arguments for the 
 employment of force. Nor did the Church frame 
 her dogma and institutions for the purpose of self- 
 preservation only ; she framed them for conquest. 
 Ecclesiastical polity may have its earlier origins in 
 " a healthy desire to survive " (to use the phrase 
 of the Russians when they refused to fight any 
 longer for the Entente), but it soon developed a passion 
 for Weltmacht as fervid as that of any Prussian. 
 
 The transformation of Christianity from a purely 
 Jewish religion to a religion acceptable to the 
 Grseco-Roman world and to humanity was effected, 
 as M. Loisy shows, with marvellous rapidity 
 and thoroughness, and this in the face of much 
 conservative resistance. Each step of the doctrine 
 was achieved by some sort of accommodation 
 with those that preceded it. For instance, the 
 Pauline theory of salvation was " indispensable 
 in its time," or Christianity would have remained 
 a Jewish sect without a future. The loans 
 from Hellenic and Oriental wisdom grew larger 
 and larger ; and many new theories " entered into 
 the tradition of the teaching Church under condition 
 of adaptation to primitive Christianity." Large por- 
 tions of Origen's innovating theology were assimi- 
 lated by her, because they would " make Christianity 
 acceptable to the most cultivated minds " ; but she 
 condemned certain of his philosophic hypotheses 
 not because they were untrue, but because they 
 " were not to her liking " (The Gospel and the Church, 
 p. 192). So, progressively, Greek interpretation of 
 Christian dogma " came into being through the 
 spontaneous effort of the faith to define itself, through 
 the natural exigencies of propagandism " ; and each 
 step of dogma marked " the introduction of Greek 
 philosophy into Christianity, and a compromise be-
 
 AN ARBITRARY PATCHWORK 107 
 
 tween this philosophy and Christian tradition." A 
 captious critic might be tempted to inquire how 
 far the exigencies of propagandism can guarantee 
 the truth of the doctrine propagated, and whether 
 truth, transcendental truth in particular, admits of 
 any compromise but then, we " English make too 
 much of truth." The Pagan nations took religion 
 " as a spiritual medicine " ; each new set of believers 
 was treated with prescriptions suited to their mental 
 constitutions, and " acceptable " to their personal 
 predilections. 
 
 The doctrine of Grace, M. Loisy informs us, like 
 the Christ ological dogma, " is an interpretation of the 
 salvation of the Messiah and of the theology of 
 the heavenly kingdom, and this interpretation was 
 made necessary by the circumstances in which the 
 gospel was perpetuated, and by the problems presented 
 by the conversion of Pagans " (p. 208). It is consoling 
 to learn (p. 210) that " the definitions of the Vatican are 
 to some extent sprung from reality," though probably 
 " theological reflection has not yet spoken its final 
 word on the subject." " Orthodoxy," in short, 
 " seems to follow a kind of politic line " (p. 196) ; and 
 it would also appear, if the statements of theologians 
 are correct, that Heaven accommodates itself in 
 the most obliging manner to the compromises with 
 truth effected by the Curia.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 
 
 " The creed of the Church, steering between extremes and uniting 
 opposites, was a timid artificial creation, a work of diplomacy " 
 (MOZLEY'S Theory of Development). 
 
 " Temples, incense, lamps and candles, votive offerings, holy 
 water, asylums, holy days and seasons, processions, blessings on the 
 fields, vestments, tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, 
 images, and the Kyrie eleison, are all of Pagan origin, and sanctified 
 by their adoption into the Church " {NEWMAN'S Essay on Develop- 
 ment, viii, 373). 
 
 " The history of religions is generally a history of decline. . . . 
 Christianity, which began as a republication of the purest prophetic 
 teaching, has suffered the same fate " (Outspoken Essays, by DEAN 
 INGE, p. 248). 
 
 THE ecclesiastical statesmen who built up the Catholic 
 Church were not slow to perceive that it was not 
 enough to satisfy the intellectual needs of the cul- 
 tured Pagan world by the introduction of Hellenic 
 philosophy into the new religion ; a popular and 
 " pathetic " form of religious practice, as well as 
 theory, was also required to attract the populace 
 and fit in with the prepossessions of the crowd. 
 In this way the religious mythology, dear to the 
 hearts of the " heathen " peasantry, was presented 
 under new labels and slightly altered dress. The 
 incorporations of alien material were not extensive 
 in the early days of the Church, being resisted by the 
 Fathers, but in the third and the fourth centuries 
 there were wholesale infusions of heathen feasts and 
 customs, resulting in rapid, but often temporary 
 conversions. The doctrine of the Trinity, prominent 
 in Oriental faiths, was deduced from scattered texts 
 
 108
 
 iog 
 
 (not always genuine : i John v. 7 is a glaring 
 example) of the Gospels and the Epistles. The 
 spirit of practical accommodation, of deference to 
 the exigencies of propagandism, was everywhere 
 apparent. The Pagans were sceptics, but the people 
 wanted the definiteness of superstition incorporated 
 in, and expressed as, dogma ; and the Church pro- 
 vided them with it. Mariolatry, with its strong 
 emotional appeal, was introduced by degrees in 
 later centuries, and proved instantaneously popular 
 as an adjunct to the adoration of the crucified Jesus, 
 which gradually ousted that of Tammuz, Attys, 
 Adonis, and other favourite divinities of the Pagans. 
 The worship of saints and martyrs, and other sub- 
 ordinate intercessors with the Deity, the cult of 
 shrines and relics, followed in due course ; and a 
 pantheon somewhat like that of the old polythe- 
 istic mythologies was created. The 25th of De- 
 cember was fixed as the date of Christ's birth to 
 conciliate the Oriental mystics and believers in the 
 ancient religions. There is nothing whatever in 
 Scripture to show that Jesus was born on that 
 particular day, though tradition was always at 
 hand to supply, whenever required, any deficiency 
 of that kind. The winter solstice marked, for the 
 ancient Pagans, the sun's birthday, the time when 
 he began his annual journey round the heavens ; 
 the 25th of December was annually celebrated as 
 the great festival of Sol Invictus in southern Italy ; 
 and similar festivals took place in China, India, 
 Persia, and many other countries. 1 
 
 Even the liturgical and other vestments of the 
 clergy and hierarchy were mainly borrowed from 
 the Pagans. The alb, like its name, is derived from 
 the tunica alba, the white tunic of ancient Rome's 
 citizens. The chasuble was originally a cloak worn 
 by the old Grseco-Roman world. The amice and 
 
 * See The Churches and Modern Thought, by P. Vivian, p. 390.
 
 no PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 pallium, and perhaps the stole, were also of heathen 
 origin. 1 The mitre, or mitra, was the head-dress 
 of an Oriental, probably a Persian, impropriety. 2 
 Incense was freely used by the ancient Persians, 
 Chaldseans, etc. Maimonides states that the Jews 
 employed it to counteract the stench of the 
 slaughtered beasts burning on the sacrificial altars. 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that the Roman Church 
 was, like Saint Paul, " debtor both to the Greeks 
 and to the barbarians." The principal creditor, 
 especially in the realm of myth and magic, would 
 appear to have been Mithraism, the ancient religion 
 of the Persians. According to Mithraic theology, 
 God, with a view to establish a direct connection 
 with mankind, manifested Himself in a second per- 
 sonality, Mithra, who (like the Egyptian Ra) was 
 a sun-god. He was also a cosmic principle, the 
 Divine Word or Reason, the Mediator between God 
 and men, and the ally of Ormuzd in his conflict with 
 Ahriman, the Persian Satan. The day consecrated 
 to Mithra was Sunday : the date of his nativity was 
 December 25th, and his principal festivals were 
 Christmas and Easter. His religion, rites, and 
 mysteries were very similar to those of the Church. 
 He was born in a cave (Justin Martyr and Origen 
 say that Christ was born in a cave), and his first 
 worshippers were shepherds : he was buried in a 
 rock- tomb and rose from the dead. His sacraments 
 were those of the Roman Church, and the foreheads 
 of his initiates were marked with a mystic mark. 3 
 
 The Roman Catholic argument is, of course, that 
 Mithraism borrowed its religion from the Church ; 
 but the Persian faith was centuries older than Christi- 
 anity, and, as I have already pointed out, early 
 
 1 Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
 PictA lupa barbara miird (the foreign harlot with her painted 
 head-dress : Juvenal, Satires, iii, 66). 
 
 J Pagan Christ s, by J. M. Robertson, p. 333.
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD in 
 
 Christian writers said that evil spirits had invented 
 these tales in order to rob the Christian story of 
 its essential importance. Maternus Firmicus says 
 that the devil resorted beforehand to deceptive imi- 
 tations ; Justin Martyr argues that the demons 
 anticipated the Christian mysteries, and the same 
 argument has been used by many recent writers. 
 Zoroastrianism, an Anglican clergyman admits, was 
 an " anticipation " of Church doctrine ; and we must 
 therefore, he says, presume it to have been God- 
 implanted, a proof of the human longing for a personal 
 God capable of direct communication with man. 
 
 ' To term these beliefs as exclusively Christian is 
 no longer possible." J The Church, in short, played 
 
 ' the sedulous ape " in her copious borrowings from 
 Mithraism and other popular creeds, but added and 
 altered wherever policy seemed to dictate such 
 alteration. She materialized whatever was too mys- 
 tical or obscure for popular apprehension, replaced 
 allegory with literal interpretations, and substituted 
 the concrete for the abstract. " A Mithraist," says 
 Mr. Robertson, " could turn to the Christian worship 
 and find his main rites unimpaired, lightened only 
 of the burden of initiative austerities, stripped of 
 the old obscure mysticism, and with all things turned 
 to the literal and the concrete, in sympathy with the 
 waning of knowledge and philosophy throughout 
 the world." 
 
 The first six centuries of the Christian era was a 
 period " of insistent fermentation and of rapid and 
 continuous change " ; and the formation of new 
 doctrines and rites, and the further adulteration of 
 the Gospel proceeded apace as the years passed. 
 The Virgin Birth theory was copied from the Egyptian 
 story of Isis and Horus, Chinese beliefs dating from 
 3500 B.C., from Zoroastrianism, Grecian and Roman 
 mythologies, and other religions too numerous to 
 
 1 The Churches and Modern Thought, p. 119.
 
 ri2 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 mention. Various additions were made in the suc- 
 ceeding centuries, and as occasion required, to the 
 doctrines concerning Mary, culminating finally in 
 1854 with the infallible assertion by Pius IX of her 
 Immaculate Conception a dogma which St. Augus- 
 tine, St. Bernard, and St. Thomas Aquinas had 
 denied, although, as we know from Pius X, the 
 Hebrew patriarchs were familiar with it, and found 
 consolation in considering it during the solemn 
 moments of their lives. Again, St. Paul advised 
 priests and bishops to marry one wife, but the Church 
 enforced celibacv with the disastrous results that 
 
 ri 
 
 have been witnessed for centuries past. Monasticism, 
 a thing wholly alien to the spirit of Christ, was purely 
 Pagan in origin. Its chief representatives in early 
 Christian days were the Neo-Pythagoreans : India 
 and Egypt were the cradles of the system long before 
 the birth of Christianity ; but it was left to the 
 Roman Church to develop those repulsive features 
 which made it a destroyer of civic life and domestic 
 virtues, and a hindrance to human development by 
 withdrawing large masses of able-bodied men and 
 women from social life. 
 
 In this manner the fashioning of a new-fangled 
 religion, or what Catholics call the adaptation of 
 the Gospel to the changing conditions of humanity, 
 went merrily on under the pretence of continued 
 supernatural guidance and inspiration. Speculation 
 as to the meaning of Christ's words, four or five 
 centuries after they were uttered, is represented 
 to us as what He actually said : and, when Scripture 
 failed, tradition was manufactured. Fresh sops were 
 continually thrown to the heathen Cerberus. The 
 customs and superstitions of primitive civilization, 
 the puerilities of Pagan devotion, were reproduced 
 by the Church in an aggravated form. "It is im- 
 possible," Pope Gregory the Great said in a letter 
 to English missionaries, " to expect savage minds
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 113 
 
 to give up all their customs at once " : and the 
 " savages " showed their appreciation of the in- 
 dulgence by joining the Church in large numbers. 
 Their " natural religion " was, in fact, and as Newman 
 correctly appreciated, the root and foundation of 
 Christianity or what Romanists call Christianity 
 at any rate in its later guises. The Church sanctified 
 ferocity, and Christianized savage superstition ; and 
 recent events seem to show that we are all more 
 or less savages even at the present day. " It would 
 have been an absolute impossibility to gain prose- 
 lytes," as M. Loisy remarks, if the Church had 
 acted otherwise than she did : she " had to find 
 (my italics) a ritual, or cease to exist." Most 
 Catholics, on the other hand, tell us with the utmost 
 confidence that the Church's rites, mysteries, doc- 
 trines, worship, etc., were all instituted by Christ. 
 ' The Church never developes into a doctrine of 
 faith anything that was not part of Christ's revela- 
 tion," says Father E. R. Hull, S.J. ; and Tyrrell 
 corroborates in his Medicevalism, pp. 115, 137. 
 
 The supposed necessities of the budding Church 
 dominated the entire situation. The Jewish religion 
 had stood on the defensive, but Roman Catholicism 
 was out to conquer the world. Doctrines suitable 
 to the needs of the new converts were provided, 
 and the people were told that these things were 
 of celestial origin and expressly " organized " by 
 Christ as the Divine Founder of the Church. A 
 highly artificial aestheticism expressed itself in a 
 gorgeous and elaborate ritual. A vast accumulation 
 of religious invention by interested human beings, 
 accompanied by innovations and deviations of all 
 sorts, talismanic rites and incantations, ousted the 
 primitive simplicity of the Christian faith, and was 
 presented to the world as part of the original revela- 
 tion. The work of Christ, as Vaughan points out 
 in his Hours with the Mystics, p. 114, is thrown into 
 
 8
 
 ii4 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 the background to make room for the Church. The 
 Son of God, as revealed in Scripture, is replaced by 
 a metaphysical Logos which certainly never entered 
 into the head of Christ : the Church is the great 
 Mystagogue and indispensable apportioner of salva- 
 tion ; and the priest, in the exercise of his mediatorial 
 functions, becomes the real Redeemer from sin and 
 its consequences. 1 The old religion practically dis- 
 appeared, and a new one, which we may call Roman 
 Catholic Christianity, reigned in its stead. " Christ- 
 ianity ceased to be what it was, and became what 
 it was not," says the Rev. Alfred Fawkes. 2 Primitive 
 Christianity " did perish " (my italics), he continues, 
 utterly and beyond recognition ; and, let me add, 
 it was ecclesiasticism that killed it. 
 
 The matrimonial alliance between Greek philo- 
 sophy and Revelation, the Hellenization of Christian 
 dogma and practice, which began about A.D. 130, 
 was renewed with vigour during the third decade 
 of the following century. Strange and hybrid varia- 
 tions of the primitive creed appeared. Theological 
 dogma started on its wild career of imitative in- 
 genuity : sacraments, absolution, penance, obligatory 
 confession, celibacy, transubstantiation, the theory 
 of a consubstantial Trinity, a Eucharistic theory 
 borrowed from a hundred Pagan sources, were intro- 
 duced at various dates. " Greek mysteries and Greek 
 civilization, in all the fullness of their development, 
 acted upon the Church, but not Greek mythology 
 nor Polytheism. In the century following, pure 
 Hellenism, with all its creations and acquisitions, is 
 established in the Catholic Church. Here also there 
 were reservations, but they often consisted only in 
 a change of label, the thing being taken just as it 
 
 * A witty Jesuit of the seventeenth century described himself, 
 quite correctly, as Pater qui tollit peccata mundi, the Father who 
 taketh away the sins of the world by the simple expedient of saying 
 that they are not sins ! 
 
 Studies in Modernism, p. 290.
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 115 
 
 was, and in the worship of the Saints a Christianity 
 of a lower order was born." The Greek Church 
 (and, in matters of ritual, the Roman Church) 
 collected " the impressions, superstitions, knowledge, 
 and practices of unknown ages ; with its solemn 
 rites, its relics, its images, its priests, its monks, 
 and its mysteries, it is connected with the Hellenic 
 worship of the Neo-Platonist epoch, and not with 
 the Church of the first centuries. It appears, not as 
 a Christian creation with a Greek thread, but as a 
 Greek creation with a Christian thread. The Christ- 
 ians of the first century would have fought it as 
 they fought the worship of the Magna Mater or of 
 Zeus Soter. . . . The worship in spirit and in truth 
 is become a worship of signs, formulas, and idols. 
 Jesus Christ gave Himself to be crucified in order 
 to destroy religion of this kind." I 
 
 The doctrines of Plotinus and other Neo-Platonists, 
 mingled with Gnostic ideas, were freely made use 
 of, and the Neo-Platonic philosophy was " trans- 
 lated into Christian terms, and was made into the 
 spiritual bee-bread on which many generations fed." 3 
 The Church, that is to say, conquered Paganism, 
 but only by absorbing it. 
 
 In the fifth century there appeared the celebrated 
 forgeries known as the writings of the Pseudo- 
 Dionysius, the Areopagite. They profess to be the 
 work of Dionysius, a convert of St. Paul in the 
 Areopagus, and the first Bishop of Athens ; but 
 they were really composed towards the close of 
 the fifth century by an anonymous mystery-man 
 probably a Syrian monk. It is an odd jumble of 
 Brahminical Pantheism, Jewish and semi-Christian 
 allegory, and other mystical religious philosophy. 
 The book, though evidently the work of an able 
 
 The Gospel and the Church, p. 228, summarizing Harnack's Das 
 Wesen des Christentums. 
 
 * Studies in Mysticism, by the Rev. R. Jones, p. 79.
 
 n6 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 man, was a patent fraud ; but that, of course, did 
 not prevent the Church from making ample use of 
 it. It contains a theory of celestial and earthly 
 hierarchies rigorously graded, and with carefully 
 defined privileges and authority, which the Roman 
 ecclesiastics found exceedingly serviceable as a bul- 
 wark of priestcraft. The author effects an ingenious 
 correspondence between the orders of Angelic natures 
 in Heaven and the priestly orders on earth ; and 
 their functions are made to fit in to a nicety. This 
 theory exactly suited the clerics in their efforts 
 to extend their power, and the work of the " Areo- 
 pagite " became extremely popular. The Popes and 
 bishops were delighted to learn that their hierarchy 
 was a direct continuation of the heavenly hierarchy 
 by means of a " progression " through the ninefold 
 ranks of the Angelic Beings, 1 and they duly honoured 
 the man who delivered this useful information. 
 Whether the author was a conscious impostor, or 
 not, may possibly be, as Mr. Jones suggests, a subject 
 for argument : what is certain is that his work is 
 not what it purports to be ; but it admirably served 
 its purpose in impressing the credulous mob and 
 mystifying the bourgeois. 
 
 The writings of the Areopagite please learned 
 persons no less than the crowd ; and the theology 
 of St. Thomas Aquinas is said to be largely based 
 upon them. There is also an engaging warmth 
 about them ; they provide us with a sensuous thrill, 
 an emotional intoxication, such as the true Romanist 
 dearly loves. He furnished the later mystics with 
 ideas, and poets like Tennyson and Spenser with 
 tropes and images, down to the present day. We 
 have in his writings, as Mr. Rufus Jones says, the 
 Christianity of the cloister : we find in them, not 
 the primitive simplicity of apostolic Christianity, but 
 " Neo-Platonic philosophy slightly sprinkled with 
 
 1 Studies in Mysticism, p. 105.
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 117 
 
 baptismal water from a Christian font." l No longer 
 Christ, but Plato Plotinized, was now the prophet ; 
 and doctrine of this kind formed the basis of mystical 
 teachings for many centuries to come. 
 
 In the course of time it was found that still 
 further innovations, adaptations, and " develop- 
 ments " were required. The sort of philosophy that 
 was provided by the impostor " Dionysius " and the 
 more extravagant mystics was not sufficient for the 
 Church's need. A formal philosophic system was 
 needed to combine with primitive superstition and 
 mythology, and Greece was again called upon to 
 supply it. Philosophy of some sort, as we know, 
 has always been the Church's ancilla fidei ; and the 
 handmaid's services were continually requisitioned by 
 the ecclesiastics. Mr. Leslie Stephen (An Agnostic's 
 Apology, p. 328) defines a vigorous religion as "a 
 superstition which has enslaved a philosophy," and 
 Romanism has enslaved many philosophies besides 
 incorporating the details of many savage cults. 
 When the Catholic doctrinaire finds that his mysti- 
 cism, metaphysics, and mythology are landing him 
 in a confusion of Pantheism and other heresies, 
 he calls in some formal system of more rigid intellect- 
 ualism to clear up the mess ; and the Fathers were not 
 slow to perceive that a definitive system of religious 
 theory must be introduced from outside, if their 
 Church was to survive. Her pundits made various 
 efforts, notably in the thirteenth century, to " philoso- 
 phize superstition " and to forge thereout a weapon of 
 temporal domination. The attempts have never been 
 successful, and never can be. The philosophy wears 
 thin and loses its sanction and vitality in the process, 
 but the superstition endures : the results are seen in 
 the ignorance, tyranny and stagnation of Catholic 
 communities, and also in the perpetual brawling from 
 which so many countries are now suffering. 
 
 1 Studies in Mysticism, p. no.
 
 n8 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Towards the middle of the thirteenth century the 
 Church rediscovered Aristotle, whose works had 
 been officially banned by Pope Gregory IX and other 
 ecclesiastics, a few decades previously, as the most 
 dangerous foe of mediaeval faith. The Church's 
 former ancilla, " the old loving nurse of the Church," 
 Platonic philosophy, was dismissed, and the deductive 
 philosopher was raised to the proud position of 
 maid-servant to the Papacy. Theology now be- 
 came an intellectual religion instead of shadowy 
 mysticism : Aristotelian metaphysics strained through 
 a monkish sieve, and science filtrated through Arabian 
 and Jewish sources, issued in scholasticism under 
 the able leadership of St. Thomas Aquinas. Reason, 
 added to revelation, was the pillar of his system ; 
 but the reason he employed was " not individual 
 reason, but the fountain of natural truth whose 
 chief channels are the various systems of heathen 
 philosophies," that of Aristotle in particular. 1 He 
 blended science and religion, and (like Sir Oliver 
 Lodge and others in our day) maintained that the 
 two are not incompatible. His method and system 
 may be roughly defined as Aristotle impregnated 
 with Christianity. 
 
 Let us return for a while to earlier days, and 
 trace briefly the origins of the temporal power. 
 In the latter half of the third century the ecclesiastical 
 ship found itself in rough water. A wave of heretical 
 theory and speculation, mainly Gnostic, threatened 
 to engulf her, and the clerical statesmen of the day 
 found it necessary to stop Hellenizing for a while, 
 and to adopt Roman notions of discipline and 
 authority. The grip of the episcopate on the laity 
 was tightened, and a system of hierarchical absolutism 
 gradually founded. What we now term clericalism 
 expressed itself in a dream of world-dominion and 
 an ambition of succeeding to the theocratic powers 
 
 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, art. " Aquinas."
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 119 
 
 wielded by the Hebrew hierarchy. The ideal of 
 this new theocracy was authoritative dogma supreme 
 in every sphere of life, and it inherited to the full 
 the Jewish ideas of exclusiveness and intolerance. 
 The doctrine of passive obedience to the episcopal 
 will asserted itself in the fourth century, and, as 
 Hobbes suggested, the real sin against the Holy 
 Ghost became, in the Church's eyes, resistance to 
 her pretensions. Philosophy came into disfavour, 
 as being antagonistic to the claims of the now fast- 
 growing hierocracy. A temporary anti-Hellenist re- 
 action set in J ; the schools of philosophy were 
 closed, their endowments confiscated, and the Hellen- 
 izers proscribed. Private views on religious questions 
 were dubbed " heresy " and " treason against God," 
 and severely persecuted. 2 The temporal power came 
 to be regarded as an indispensable adjunct to priestly 
 authority. Kingly and episcopal dignities supple- 
 mented one another in the eyes of both lay and 
 clerical rulers. Popes aspired to become deified 
 emperors, and the emperors strove to invest them- 
 selves with the magical properties of the Church. 
 Julius Caesar, wisest of statesmen, saw clearly enough 
 the terrific powers latent in popular superstition ; 
 he staked his whole future on being made Pontifex 
 Maximus,3 because he recognized that priestly sanc- 
 tion is the sure cement of autocracy. Exactly the 
 same thing happened in ancient Egypt thousands 
 of years before, and in many other countries ; super- 
 stition is pretty much the same in all places and at 
 all times. 
 
 The Church, as we have shown, having embarked 
 on her empire-building enterprise, followed closely 
 the policy and traditions of the dead Roman Empire : 
 the Caesarian ideal united with the theocratic. A 
 
 1 The Origins of Christianity, p. 33. 
 Ibid., p. 49. 
 Mommsen's History of Rome, iv, 186.
 
 120 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 progressive centralization, and the " substitution of a 
 graduated hierarchy for popular government, came 
 about as inevitably in the Catholic Church as in 
 the Mediterranean Empire of the Caesars." l The 
 pre-eminence of the bishop in the church and in 
 the community, and the sovereignty of the Pope 
 over the bishops, were denned and established in 
 the course of time and as circumstances required. 
 The task of the Fathers, some of whom were philoso- 
 phers, others pre-eminently statesmen, was the build- 
 ing up of authority through the agency of permanent 
 and universal dogma ; and the influence of the 
 statesmen predominated over that of the philoso- 
 phers. The Church, as M. Loisy says, " became 
 what it had to become, in order not to decline and 
 perish, dragging the gospel down with it " ; and, 
 on the other hand, we may well agree with his state- 
 ment that the Apostles " little thought that they 
 were bequeathing a master to Caesar, or even that 
 they had given a supreme Chief to the Church." 
 The idea of the modern Papacy was not present to 
 their minds any more than it was to Christ's. We 
 must regard Rome's imperial airs as simply " the 
 result of a general tendency " ; and this tendency 
 is purely political in character. 
 
 Meanwhile philosophy, so far from being killed 
 by the interdicts of Roman obscurantists, fortified 
 her position and bided her time ; and it was not 
 long before the clerics found that her assistance 
 was essential, if the new faith was not to sink to 
 the level of a purely barbarian superstition. The 
 struggle broke out anew between the intellectuals 
 and the dogmatists, as to whether philosophy should 
 be above popular religion, or vice versa. The philo- 
 sophic ancilla, like the modern parlourmaid, said 
 that she was quite as good as her mistress, and 
 perhaps better ; but the Church maintained her 
 
 ' Outspoken Essays, p. 138.
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 121 
 
 supremacy, and for many centuries divine philosophy 
 had to be content with her humble status of maid- 
 of-all-work to dogmatic speculation. The reins of 
 authority were tightened, and reason was put in 
 its place a pretty low one by a Church which 
 still tells us that intellect is "at the utmost but 
 tolerated " by her. 1 Anticipating Tennyson, the 
 ecclesiastics said that philosophy might be followed 
 to a certain extent, but not beyond the limits pre- 
 scribed by Rome, or disaster would inevitably follow. 
 
 Hold them the good ; define it well. 
 For fear divine Philosophy 
 Should push beyond her mark, and be 
 
 Procuress to the Lords of Hell. 
 
 So this Protean institution of the Papacy, this 
 " new " cult made up of old shreds and patches 2 
 with its stupendous claims, and semper eadcm for 
 its motto grew and prospered. The " little flock," 
 expecting the speedy advent of the Kingdom, and 
 trembling at the doom of extinction which they 
 fancied awaited them a few years hence, expanded 
 into an episcopal monarchy dominating the world and 
 giving itself autocratic airs in the face of earthly 
 potentates. Peter, with his doubtful primacy and 
 timid leadership, " developes " (under divine guidance, 
 of course) into a Pope who is " our God " and " the 
 living Christ " ; or a domineering Pius V slaying 
 heretics right and left, or a Boniface VIII who tells 
 us that he is " set above kings and princes by divine 
 pre-eminence of power," and that " we dispose of 
 them as we think fit." The Church, posing as the 
 organ of the Holy Spirit, permanently and con- 
 
 1 Parochial and Plain Sermons, by J. H. Newman, v, 112. 
 
 Mr. Max Beerbohm recently exhibited a cartoon depicting Mr. 
 Bernard Shaw trying to sell a suit of his old clothes. The buyer 
 objects that the coat is Schopenhauer's, the waistcoat Ibsen's, and 
 the trousers Nietzsche's. " Ah," says Mr. Shaw, " but look at the 
 patches." He does not, so far as I know, represent his wares as 
 " unique and unprecedented," or as his " exclusive possession."
 
 122 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 tinuously animated and inspired by divine illumina- 
 tion, carries out her purely political schemes and 
 proclaims her contradictory affirmations under the 
 pretence that they are the working out of the heavenly 
 design as announced by Christ to mankind from the 
 first. Her history is, for good Roman Catholics, 
 simply the record of God's never-ceasing inter- 
 vention in her behalf. When we inquire what 
 trace or vestige of celestial character there is visible 
 in her purely opportunist developments, we are 
 told that they were essential to her aggrandizement, 
 and forced upon her in her necessary and very 
 human struggle for existence. If ever there was an 
 article of purely mortal manufacture, it is the Roman 
 Church and her creed. " Platonic ideas, Oriental 
 emanations, and Hellenic legend," as Vaughan says, 
 blended in an erudite feebleness with Roman state- 
 craft ; and there finally emerged the Papacy, which, 
 whatever it may be, certainly is not Christianity. 1 
 A " transformation was effected," as M. Loisy (in 
 his orthodox days) admitted ; and we eventually 
 arrive, by a process of logical growth, at a priestly 
 bureaucracy armed with secular powers, and using 
 them like any ordinary despot. Yet the bureaucrats, 
 we are given to understand, felt themselves to be 
 " in the same relations with Jesus as the disciples 
 were," and the ministry of the bishops is " not of 
 the political order " as the Irish bishops also assured 
 us the other day, when they opposed conscription. 
 " Even the Jesuits, founded to defend the Roman 
 Church against Protestant and anti-Papal reform, 
 are not political agents, but preachers of religion and 
 religious educators, whatever may be thought of 
 their methods and their special tendencies " a ; in 
 fact, the political side of Romanism " is wholly 
 
 ' " There never was but one Christian and He was a Jew," says 
 the hero of Mr. Thurston's play, The Wandering Jew. 
 The Gospel and the Church, p. 173.
 
 HOW THE PATCHWORK SPREAD 123 
 
 external, even accessory/' and ecclesiastical authority 
 abstains from repressing the personal activity of 
 conscience. 
 
 Such was the view taken by an exceptionally 
 able and learned Roman Catholic : the independent 
 inquirer will form his own opinion as to its correctness. 
 Personally, I think Dr. Inge gets a good deal nearer 
 to the truth in the following pregnant passage. 
 ' What the Latin Church preserved/' says the Dean, 
 " was not the religion of Christ, which lived on by 
 its inherent indestructibility, but parts of the Aristo- 
 telian and Platonic philosophies, distorted and petrified 
 by scholasticism, a vast quantity of purely Pagan 
 superstitions, and the arcana imperil of Roman 
 Caesarism. The normal end of scholasticism is a 
 mummified philosophy of authority, in which there 
 are no problems to solve, but a great many dead 
 pundits to consult." x 
 
 Meanwhile the Church persists in her assertion 
 that this extraordinary hotch-potch of syncretistic 
 amalgamations is the authentic Gospel which Christ 
 delivered to the world, but no ingenious theories of 
 a " natural development " under a superintending 
 Providence can disguise the fact that a new religion 
 was erected by clerical diplomacy upon the ruins 
 of the old one. Not even " in embryonic form," as 
 the Modernists say, can we find Christ's teaching in 
 the portentous edifice of dogma created by the 
 theologians in the interests of government. Newman, 
 like other contraversialists of his type, used his argu- 
 ment just as far as it suited him, but no further : 
 " development " served his particular purpose for the 
 time, and that was enough. Jowett thought that 
 Newman had the most artificial mind of his genera- 
 tion, and the man who has the patience to wade 
 through the pages of his wearisome Essay will probably 
 deem the judgment a just one. If the Cardinal 
 
 1 Outspoken Essays, p. 237.
 
 124 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 had known German or had married some people 
 think that things might have been different. As it 
 was, the Development theory turned out to be a 
 weapon capable of seriously damaging the people 
 who used it. The eye of the Church, who claims 
 to be the infallible guardian of a nominally fixed 
 and constant doctrine, is concentrated on the past, 
 as the period of fullest enlightenment ; but the 
 appeal of Newman's method is to the future. Rome 
 was far from being taken in by his rhetoric and 
 special pleading : the ecclesiastics perceived clearly 
 enough the inevitable consequences of a theory which 
 was obviously susceptible of indefinite extension, and 
 the dangers which lay in its implications. It was 
 recognized that such reasonings, pressed to their 
 logical conclusion, would lead mankind into very 
 undesirable regions. The Cardinal, in short, had 
 conducted his Church on to a slippery slope, and at 
 the foot of the slope lay the abyss of Rationalism. 
 
 V. D. (Harv'd) 
 
 CITY HEALTH DEFT. 
 
 LOS AHQLS, CAUF,
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE EUCHARIST 
 
 " These different conceptions of the office of the (Pagan) Mysteries 
 cannot be separated historically. They all reappear in the history 
 of the Christian Sacraments " (Christian Mysticism, by DEAN INGE, 
 P- 354)- 
 
 IN the Roman doctrine of the Eucharist we have 
 an illustration of the crude supernaturalism and 
 debased mysticism which, expressing themselves in 
 grossly material and carnal shapes, still disfigure 
 Catholicism. Prominent among the horribilia seer eta, 
 which form so repulsive a feature of primitive Pagan 
 superstition, was the slaying, and the sacramental 
 eating, of the god or the deified victim who was 
 chosen for the honour of immolation. In these 
 orgies of blood and mystical religion we observe 
 that strange combination of piety and ferocity which 
 has continually disgraced the Roman Church. " Les 
 the"ologiens sont feroces," as a Catholic prelate justly 
 observed : they always have been ferocious, and, 
 for all I know to the contrary, ferocious they will 
 remain to the end. The Pagan ideas of sacrifice 
 fitted in with the mental prepossessions of the men 
 who created the Papacy, and, as we have shown, 
 they saw that the adaptation of archaic cults was 
 essential to the new religion, if it was to survive and 
 conquer. For this purpose they made their sacra- 
 ments an almost exact copy of the Pagan mystery- 
 systems and communions, brought old mythology 
 and religious conceptions within the forms of logic, 
 
 and so, out of heathen material, created a dogma and 
 
 125
 
 i 2 6 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 hierarchy which should subjugate the world. We 
 certainly cannot endorse M. Loisy's assertion (The 
 Gospel and the Church, p. 237) that the Church " has 
 proscribed all the bloody and magical rites of ancient 
 religions." 
 
 As Dean Inge says in his Christian Mysticism 
 (p. 355), " the idea of mystical union by means of a 
 common meal was familiar to the Greeks." It was 
 also familiar to many other nations long before the 
 Greeks. The earliest sacraments known to history 
 were those celebrated by the ancient Egyptians 
 thousands of years before Christ. Food was offered 
 to the spirit of the dead king, who was also to be 
 King in the Other World ; and the priest " uttered 
 a formula that was believed to convert the material 
 food into a substance possessing a spiritual character 
 and fit to form the food of the ka, or * double/ or 
 ' vital power,' of the dead king." * At the funeral 
 ceremonies flesh from a slaughtered animal was 
 presented to the mummy's mouth, together with 
 wine or beer, " and the words which the priest pro- 
 nounced as he presented each were supposed to 
 transform it into the hidden and secret body of 
 Osiris, on which the gods and the spirits and souls 
 of the righteous lived." When this was done the 
 family and kinsmen themselves ate the transformed 
 food, which became to them a means of communion 
 with their ancestors and certain divine beings ; and, 
 for a season at least, it made them " divine " also. 1 
 
 I cannot enumerate here the multitudinous savage 
 tribes and primitive people whom we read of as 
 eating the flesh of an animal or man in the belief 
 that it is divine, and with the expectation of sharing 
 thereby in the god's attributes and powers. " When 
 the god is a corn-god, the corn is his proper body ; 
 
 The Littrature of the Egyptians, by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, p. n. 
 A History of the Egyptian People, by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, 
 p. 238.
 
 THE EUCHARIST 127 
 
 when he is a vine-god, the juice of the grape is his 
 blood ; and so, by eating the bread and drinking the 
 wine, the worshipper partakes of the real body and 
 blood of the god." I The corn and wine were the 
 transmuted elements of the vegetation-god's body. 
 Herbert Spencer also tells us how certain savages 
 eat the flesh of their slain enemies, or even that of 
 a dead relation " roasted or boiled, according as 
 he was thin or fat " in the hope of acquiring his 
 strength and courage, or other serviceable qualities. 2 
 Perhaps the most remarkable parallel to the 
 existing Roman rites is to be found in those of 
 Mithraism, a very much older religion than Chris- 
 tianity. Justin Martyr, after describing the institution 
 of the Lord's Supper, tells us that in the mysteries 
 of Mithra " bread and a cup of water are placed 
 with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one 
 who is being initiated " 3 ; and Tertullian also draws 
 attention to the resemblances in the rites of the two 
 religions. A recently discovered bas-relief, repre- 
 senting a Mithraic communion, is photographed in a 
 book entitled Les Mysteres de Mithra. On a small 
 tripod is the bread, in the form of wafers, each 
 marked with a cross. The Early Fathers, as I have 
 already indicated, said that the devils, for the 
 destruction of souls, had resorted beforehand to de- 
 ceptive imitations of Christian rites and emblems. 
 An article in the Nineteenth Century for September 
 1905, said that the Mithraists had " seven sacraments, 
 of which the most important were baptism, confirma- 
 tion, and a Eucharistic supper, at which the com- 
 municants partook of the divine nature of Mithra 
 under the species of bread and wine." 4 There were 
 in antiquity, as Porphyry informs us, " several 
 
 1 The Golden Bough, by Sir J. G. Frazer, ii, 366 quoted in The 
 Churches and Modern Thought. 
 
 * See The Churches and Modern Thought, by P. Vivian, p. 153. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 392. 
 Ibid., p. 168.
 
 128 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 elaborate treatises setting forth the religion of Mithra ; 
 and every one of these has been destroyed by the 
 care of the Church." * 
 
 The Eucharistic idea was no less familiar to the 
 ancient Greeks and their neighbours. Bread and 
 wine, the products of the corn-goddess (Demeter) 
 and the wine-god (Bacchus, who also changed water 
 into wine), were sacramentally consumed by their 
 worshippers under the idea that they were partaking 
 of the real body and blood of the god. They and 
 other peoples began by devouring the flesh of an 
 animal with the idea that they would gain the qualities 
 it possessed. By swallowing a mole's heart (as 
 recommended by Porphyry) you were enabled to 
 - burrow into dark mysteries ; a bit of raw bull made 
 you beefy and strong, and a slice or two of tiger, 
 no doubt, induced a state of ferocity which even a 
 Roman inquisitor might envy. Later on, by a 
 species of higher sacramentalism, they imagined 
 that by " partaking of an animal who was a divine 
 vehicle you could enter spiritually into the divine 
 life that had physically entered you, and so be made 
 one with the god." 2 Like his modern imitators, the 
 primitive communicant consumed the flesh in the 
 hope of ridding himself of evil and impurity, and 
 also of absorbing into himself part of the victim's 
 life, and so renewing thejdivine life within him. 
 By abstinence and the sacramental feast of raw flesh 
 the Cretan initiates, or mystics, were cleansed and 
 consecrated, and were made one with the god. 
 The notion of cleansing and sanctification by expiatory 
 offering was common to the Church and the heathens, 
 and other resemblances are too numerous to mention. 
 The Orphic mystic who was free and holy (oWofe) 
 " marked his divinity by a dreary formalism " 
 
 1 Pagan Christs, by J. M. Robertson, Part III. 
 > Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, by Miss Jane Harrison, 
 pp. 487, 494, 500.
 
 THE EUCHARIST 129 
 
 pretty much as the Roman priest does ; and he 
 fasted after, as well as before, the Divine Sacrament. 1 
 
 The Roman Church is saturated with the notions 
 of vicarious retribution and satisfaction ; and the 
 Mass, as we are often told, is a propitiatory sacrifice. 
 It is termed by the Church " the unbloody sacrifice 
 of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ " ; but it is 
 offered up by a sacrificing priest, and, as the Rev. 
 Alfred Fawkes well says, " an element of the shambles 
 is inseparable from sacrificial worship." It is blood, 
 blood, blood everywhere and always sanguinary 
 ideas,, symbols and visions, gory emblems and rites : 
 atonement, sanctification, purification, redemption 
 and remission of sins all must be by blood. When 
 things are going awry, somebody or something has 
 got to be killed before they can be set right. The 
 Greeks, delayed at Aulis by contrary winds, sought 
 counsel of their country's gods, and the chaplains 
 of the fleet decided that poor Iphigenia must have 
 her throat cut in order to appease Heaven. Her 
 unhappy father, Agamemnon, was powerless to avert 
 the catastrophe the temporal power had to bow 
 the knee to the spiritual even in those days but 
 he" relieved his feelings with some strong language 
 about " the whole priestly spawn " ; and his brother, 
 Menelaus, carried his anti-clericalism so far as to 
 say that the only good prophet was a dead prophet. 2 
 Perhaps when humanity grows more humane, and 
 gets tired of killing, the gods will also lose their 
 taste for blood. 
 
 At present, however, as St. Paul (or some other 
 writer) says in Hebrews ix. 22, " Almost all things 
 are by the law purged with blood ; and without 
 shedding of blood is no remission." The Jewish 
 High Priest entered " into the holy place every year 
 with blood of others." So it was among the sur- 
 
 1 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 507. 
 1 Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, 501-521; 
 
 9
 
 130 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 rounding nations. One gory Mediterranean rite, the 
 Greek taurobolium, or sacrifice of a bull in honour of 
 Cybele, was " a baptism of blood, supposed to secure 
 eternal happiness, at any rate if the death occurred 
 within twenty years of the ceremony J " ; and the 
 mystic devotee of Zagreus (Dionysus in mystery form) 
 
 Fulfilled his red and bleeding feasts a 
 
 while worshipping the Bull-god, Dionysus, in the 
 groves and temples of ancient Greece. The main 
 feature of this ritual, as Miss Harrison points out 
 (p. 481), was the " red and bleeding feast " ; and 
 " it was turned, qua ritual, into a high sacrament 
 of spiritual purification." 
 
 The Cretan mystics also had the rite of the feast 
 of raw flesh, where the slain beast was torn asunder 
 and devoured raw, 3 in honour of the god and with 
 sacramental significance ; and it is worth noting that 
 the Pagans brought a charge of cannibalism (d^aWwy 
 aapK&v popa.} against the early Christians, which 
 Justin Martyr and others indignantly repudiated. 4 
 Behind all these rites, as Miss Harrison observes, 
 is always the dreadful suspicion of human sacrifice. 
 The Arabs near Mount Sinai sacrificed beautiful 
 boys, and slew them at dawn on a rude heap of 
 stones : when the supply of boys was lacking they 
 killed a faultless white camel, and ate bits of its 
 flesh and entrails with the idea that they " absorbed 
 into themselves part of the victim's life." s 
 
 The Mexicans, whose religion has many striking 
 parallels with Christianity, killed thousands of human 
 victims in honour of their deities annually, and with 
 
 1 Christian Mysticism, by Dean Inge, p. 353. 
 * Euripides, fragment, p. 475, translated by Sir G. Murray. See 
 Miss Harrison's Prolegomena, p. 478. 
 s Prolegomena, p. 482. 
 
 4 Not Scripture, but Tradition, by Bishop P. N. Shuttleworth, 
 p. 147. 
 
 5 Prolegomena, p. 486.
 
 THE EUCHARIST 131 
 
 accompaniments of horror which I will not transcribe. 
 At the yearly festival of Tezcatlipoca, god of justice 
 and retribution, " there was selected for immolation 
 a young male captive of especial beauty, who was 
 treated with great reverence for a whole year before 
 being sacrificed/' When the horrible ceremony was 
 accomplished, the priests piously improved the occa- 
 sion with sermons tending to show that all this was 
 typical of human destiny, while the aristocracy (a 
 curious instance of the caste-instinct in religion) 
 " sacramentally ate the victim's roasted limbs." x 
 The Mexicans, by the way, were not cannibals, except 
 when they ate the sacrificially slain captive, or 
 theanthropic victim. 
 
 Romanism has always been, in like manner, a 
 slaughter-house. Its hecatombs of human victims 
 in the past with torture superadded, by direction 
 of that theology which is admitted to be the Church's 
 " common teaching " to this day were not sacrifices 
 in the ordinary sense, but they were regarded by 
 the ecclesiastics as acceptable to the Deity. The 
 spirit of the shambles still hangs round the religion : 
 it still claims the right to kill, flog, and burn heretics, 
 and some of its theologians admit that they would 
 like to do so now, if they could. 2 
 
 The Peruvians practised a more civilized sacrament 
 than that of the Mexicans. They " had the insti- 
 tution of a Holy Communion, in which they ate of 
 a sacred bread, sancu, sprinkled with the blood of 
 a sacrificed sheep, the priest pronouncing this 
 formula : ' Take heed how ye eat this sancu ; for 
 he who eats it in sin and with a double will and 
 heart is seen by our Father, the Sun, who will punish 
 
 1 Pagan Christs, by J. M. Robertson, Part IV. 
 
 See, for example, Institutiones Juris Ecclesiastici Publici (1901), 
 by Father De Luca, i, 142-150, 258 sq., 270, etc. This book secured 
 a long and ardent approbation from Leo XIII, which is printed in pro- 
 minent type at the end of each volume. Copies may be seen in the 
 London Library.
 
 132 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 him with grievous troubles V J The Spanish priests 
 explained the resemblance to the Roman rite by 
 saying that St. Bartholomew had established it. 
 
 The Roman Church tells us that the Mass is an 
 " unbloody " sacrifice, whereby sins and even great 
 crimes are remitted ; but, as St. Paul says that 
 there is no remission of sins without the shedding 
 of blood, it is difficult to see how this " propitiatory," 
 but unbloody, sacrifice can be efficacious. St. Paul 
 also says that Christ " needeth not daily, as those High 
 Priests, to offer up sacrifice ; for this He did once, when 
 He offered up Himself" (Heb. vii. 27). But Rome 
 knows better than St. Paul, and says that the sacrifice 
 must be renewed daily until the end of the world. 
 
 The early history of what is popularly supposed 
 to be an exclusively Christian, a " unique and un- 
 precedented " rite, has been sketched above ; and 
 we have seen that what Miss Harrison calls " the 
 mummery and hocus-pocus " 2 of the Mysteries forms 
 the foundation of the similar, and in some respects 
 identical, ritual of the Church in our day. St. 
 Ignatius laid in the second century the foundation 
 of a belief that spiritual life was imparted by a 
 clerical thaumaturgist through the agency of a 
 magical rite ; but the modern doctrine of Tran- 
 substantiation was a plant of slow growth, and its 
 opponents were for more than a thousand years 
 numerous and powerful. Among them was St. 
 Augustine, the greatest of Roman Catholics, and a 
 much better and wiser man than his successors of 
 to-day. He said that certain disciples received the 
 doctrine foolishly ; they thought of it carnally, 
 and imagined that " the Lord would cut off bits of 
 His body, and give it them to eat." 3 But the great 
 
 1 The Churches and Modern Thought, p. 147. 
 
 " Hocus-pocus " is a Protestant parody of Hoc est corpus. 
 
 3 Enarrationes in Psalmos, Commentary on the 98th Psalm. 
 " Acceperunt illud stulte, et putaverunt, quod prajcisurus esset Dominus 
 particulas quasdam de corpore suo."
 
 THE EUCHARIST 133 
 
 African told his hearers that Christ meant them to 
 " understand spiritually " what He had spoken. 
 ' Ye are not about to eat this body which you see, 1 
 and to drink that blood which they shall shed who 
 shall crucify Me ; I have recommended to you a 
 certain sacrament, which, if spiritually understood, 
 shall quicken you." Christ appears, says St. Augus- 
 tine, " to enjoin wickedness or a crime," but what 
 He says " is a figure " : we do not eat Christ with 
 our teeth, as another great mystic, John the Scot, 
 aptly observed. But the Church, after considering 
 the matter for eleven centuries, and clearly recognizing 
 in Transubstantiation a tremendous lever of clerical 
 power, eventually decided against her greatest saint 
 and divine. The Pagans ate their gods, and desired 
 a rite which, like their own, brought them into 
 physical union and contact with the divinity : the 
 ancient religions of blood had their sacrifices ; so 
 Rome determined to follow their example and to 
 establish spiritual cannibalism through the Sacrifice 
 of the Mass. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, 
 after approving the killing and burning of heretics, 
 and a few minor matters of that description, explicitly 
 approved and defined the doctrine of Transubstantia- 
 tion ; and the 8th Canon of the Council of Trent, 
 in the sixteenth century, declared that if anyone 
 shall say that Christ " is only spiritually eaten, and 
 not also sacramentally and really, let him be ac- 
 cursed." J Poor St. Augustine, who plumped for 
 the figurative interpretation, is thus in effect posthu- 
 mously cursed by Holy Mother Church, just as 
 Pope Honorius I was anathematized as a heretic 
 by three (Ecumenical Councils. 
 
 The prestige and importance of the officials who 
 administered the Church's indispensable rites and 
 the augmentation of tfris prestige, which was the 
 
 1 "Non hoc corpus quod videtis, manducaturi estis." 
 1 See Shall We Join the Church of Rome ? p. 26.
 
 134 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 main object of their institution steadily increased 
 through the operation of the doctrine. St. Ignatius 
 gave the first place to the sacramental supper, and 
 the authority of the cleric who administers the rite 
 has now reached fabulous proportions. Christ, we 
 learn, is "in the power " of the officiating priest, 
 who does what he likes with Him during the function, 
 and orders Him about like a lackey : he is enabled 
 to " command his Sovereign Lord, and make Him 
 descend from Heaven," as the great Jesuit Bourdaloue 
 assured his auditors. That mighty theologian, St. 
 Alphonsus Liguori, whose word is the Church's 
 law, states in his Dignity and Duties of the Priest 
 (1888 edition), "that it is of faith that when they 
 (the priests) pronounce the words of consecration, the 
 Incarnate Word has obliged Himself to obey and 
 come into their hands under the sacramental species. 
 After having come He remains entirely at their 
 disposal ; they move Him as they please, from 
 one place to another ; they may, if they wish, shut 
 Him up in the tabernacle, or expose Him on the 
 altar, or carry Him outside the Church ; they may, 
 if they choose, eat His flesh, and give Him for the 
 food of others. . . . God Himself is obliged to 
 abide by the judgment of His priests, and either 
 not to pardon or to pardon, according as they refuse 
 or give absolution." 
 
 Such are the views held, or assumed to be held, 
 by persons of good average intelligence in the ordinary 
 affairs of life. St. Teresa, for example, a practical 
 and energetic woman, boasted after swallowing the 
 consecrated wafer that she had God a prisoner (" Ver 
 d Dios mi prisionero ") inside her. We must also 
 remember that according to Catholic doctrine the 
 wafer, and every crumb of the wafer, contains a 
 whole Christ, " flesh, blood, bones and nerves " 
 " whole and indivisible," " entire " are some of the 
 phrases employed to impress this on the people.
 
 THE EUCHARIST 135 
 
 The Catechism of the Council of Trent, recommended 
 by Cardinal Mercier as the Church's " best catechism," 
 enjoins on pastors the duty of explaining to the 
 faithful that the wafer, or each broken fragment, 
 contains, " not only whatever belongs to a true 
 body, such as bones and nerves, but also a whole 
 Christ." l The sensuous crudity of the old totemistic 
 sacraments, in which the heathen devotee supposed 
 that he was re-charging himself with the life of his 
 god by eating raw flesh, is faithfully preserved and 
 reproduced : indeed, the Church in some measure 
 enhances the crudity by insisting on certain physical 
 details" the entire body," " blood," " bones and 
 nerves " and the rest of it. Taking the weight 
 of the human body at ten stone, it would appear 
 that a Roman Catholic priest, who performs the 
 rite every morning of his clerical career, will, by 
 the time he reaches seventy, have consumed more 
 than one thousand tons of this alleged divine flesh. 
 How many billion tons of it have been consumed 
 in the world during the last eighteen centuries I 
 must leave my readers to figure out for them- 
 selves. Let us briefly describe this extraordinary rite 
 as it exists amongst us in this twentieth century. 
 The priest say, some Irish peasant youth fresh 
 from the unintellectual atmosphere of Maynooth 
 takes some wafers made out of flour and sweet wine, 
 and proceeds to make God out of them. Having 
 thus " created his Creator," as Pope Urban II put 
 it, he orders Him about in a most unceremonious 
 manner, and finally himself swallows Him whole. 
 He then distributes the newly-made Deity to his 
 congregation, under the assurance that they will 
 receive magical benefits by following his example. 
 If the communicant is a woman, various other 
 attractions are sometimes held out to her in language 
 which is supposed to be mystical, but which I will 
 
 1 See Shall We Join the Church of Rome ? p. 25.
 
 136 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 not characterize here. Suffice it to say that it 
 frequently recalls the " sacramental love-feasts of 
 the heathen mysteries/' and occasionally descends 
 to pure unadulterated erotism. 
 
 It ought, however, to be explained that the 
 marvellous transformation which is supposed to be 
 taking place during the process depends upon certain 
 homely factors which must not be left out of account. 
 The wine must have an ecclesiastical guarantee that 
 it is pure and of the prescribed vintage, and the 
 flour must be of the proper material, or there will 
 be no transubstantiation. If the flour be oaten 
 instead of wheaten, or the wine be gooseberry instead 
 of grape, we have it on the authority of the Roman 
 Missal that the miracle will not come off. 
 
 To show how completely the Roman magicians 
 are at the mercy of earthly and material conditions, 
 I may mention that the Roman Catholic Archbishop 
 of Queensland the other day issued a Pastoral against 
 Prohibition, because it aimed directly, or indirectly, 
 against the Sacrifice of the Mass. Similar com- 
 plaints have been made in America ; and it would 
 thus appear that reform, whether good or bad, has 
 got to depend on the exigencies of miracle-mongering 
 " religion." So deplorable are the consequences of 
 materializing the transcendental ! It would be sad, 
 indeed, if the creation of Deity by the priests were 
 interrupted by mundane agencies, and Heaven found 
 itself placed at the mercy of Mr. Pussyfoot Johnson ! 
 Small wonder that Rome is an ally of the liquor 
 traffic. The priest, Catholics say, " may find himself 
 any day tied up with red tape and unable to say 
 Mass " ; and in America, we learn from that excellent 
 Catholic weekly, the Universe, they are " antici- 
 pating a regime of bonded Masses at bonded altars, 
 by bonded priests, using bonded wine in bonded 
 chalices." Small wonder, too, that English Roman 
 Catholics like Messrs. Chesterton and Belloc, who
 
 THE EUCHARIST 137 
 
 chant in stentorian tones, and with almost equal 
 fervour, the praises of alcohol along with those of 
 Romanism, wax indignant ! It is also noteworthy 
 that the wine, even after it has been transformed 
 into the blood of Christ, may prove as a matter 
 of fact, sometimes has proved dangerous to life 
 and health. Priests, as Catholics admit, have died 
 after drinking the contents of a chalice which had 
 previously been maliciously poisoned. 
 
 It does not enhance our respect for the Deity 
 to be told that He is manufactured out of paste 
 every morning by thousands of ignorant priests all 
 over the world ; and that the success of the manu- 
 facture depends, not merely upon supernatural aid, 
 but on the good faith of the wine-merchant and 
 the baker's man. As to what exactly happens when 
 the miracle has come off, the rite been successfully 
 performed and the wafer swallowed, there exists, 
 as Mr. McCabe tells us, considerable difference of 
 opinion amongst theologians. Their theories, how- 
 ever, are obviously nothing more than later, and 
 in some cases contradictory, efforts of ingenious 
 divines to escape the unpleasant implications con- 
 tained in the doctrine a subject which one would 
 prefer not to dwell upon. I forbear, also, from going 
 into certain unsavoury details, such as may be 
 found in other books and pamphlets ; but a moment's 
 reflection will show the unspeakable degradation to 
 which this alleged flesh of Christ is subjected, both 
 before and after it is consumed. 
 
 If it be objected that I am profanely deriding 
 divine mysteries instituted by Christ, I can only 
 reply that I am doing nothing of the sort. There 
 is nothing whatever that is divine about the Roman 
 theory of transubstantiation, and it was not in- 
 stituted by Christ. It is not, as we are told, a 
 " unique and unprecedented " rite, but a compara- 
 tively modern reproduction of old and barbarous
 
 138 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 superstitions, essentially human in origin, coarsely 
 material and repellent in feature, and in nowise 
 deserving of our respect. The Eucharist was origin- 
 ally an agape, or love-feast in its pure form, a common 
 meal where the little Christian band broke their 
 bread together in memory of their dead Lord and 
 Founder a very beautiful and touching ceremony. 
 The Roman Church has taken this charming rite 
 and has degraded it in the way that I have described, 
 and as she has degraded so many other things. To 
 the ordinary mind it would appear almost impossible 
 that so vulgar and nauseating a belief as that of 
 transubstantiation, suggestive of some Central African 
 totem or fetish worship, should commend itself to 
 the minds of cultured men and women in these 
 times ; but Roman Catholicism is a paradox, and, 
 in its case, the incredible is continually proving to 
 be true. 1 The Church has staked her existence on 
 " a low and perverted mysticism of the second order," 
 a debased theory of transubstantiation, and a priest- 
 hood invested with magical powers wholly inde- 
 pendent of personal holiness and purity ; and the 
 prospect of an ascent to a higher and more ethical 
 type of religion appears as yet to be exceedingly 
 remote. 
 
 1 A peculiarly morbid form of the cult of expiation by blood exists 
 in Ireland, and has been a factor in the Sinn Fein rebellion. Certain 
 Roman Catholic extremists held, and acted upon, the view that Ireland's 
 redemption and liberation from the Anglo-Saxon yoke could only be 
 effected by the shedding of blood including their own.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PHYSICIAN OF SOULS 
 
 " To the confessor pertain the offices of judge and physician' 
 (Theologia Moialis, by ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, vi, 653). 
 
 IN the National Review for August 1920 there 
 appeared a vigorous onslaught on my former book, 
 The Roman Mischief-Maker. The author was the 
 late Father R. P. Garrold, S.J., and in the course 
 of his article he takes grave exception to certain 
 observations which I made upon the Roman Catholic 
 confessional, and the admittedly grave abuses which 
 attend its practice. He defends the abominable 
 instruction in so-called moral theology, given to 
 the priests in the seminaries, by repeating the vener- 
 able dictum that the priest is a " physician of souls " ; 
 and, as such, it would appear, must be primed with 
 the lore of pointless indecency in order to cure the 
 spiritual ailments of his penitents. The analogy 
 between the bodily and the ghostly physician is 
 a grey-whiskered veteran which has seen much 
 service in its time, and it is still freely employed 
 by Roman Catholic and Ritualist confessors in 
 these days ; but I need hardly say that it is entirely 
 fallacious. The bodily physician, who is also a 
 competent practitioner, acts upon laboriously accu- 
 mulated scientific fact, theory, observation, and 
 experience. The Roman physician of souls is occu- 
 pied with unverified opinions concerning transcen- 
 dental matters about which no two people agree : 
 he is a wizard or mystery-man, and, from the strictly 
 
 139
 
 140 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 medical point of view, an unqualified amateur pre- 
 tending to a knowledge which he does not possess. 
 And knowledge is the one thing needful in a phy- 
 sician, either of souls or bodies : an ignorant man 
 " cannot mend a corrupt heart as a surgeon mends 
 a broken leg " ; nor does he make himself a psychic 
 specialist by reading formless, unsystematized cata- 
 logues of unnameable obscenities. 
 
 By way of justifying the confessional Father 
 Garrold compares its methods with those of psycho- 
 analysis, which has lately become a fashionable 
 craze in this country, and which is not unnaturally 
 hailed by Rome and Anglo-Catholicism as a kindred 
 spirit and possible ally. The comparison is an 
 exceedingly apt one, but it injures, instead of helping, 
 his case ; and I am exceedingly obliged to him for 
 providing me with so admirable an illustration of 
 the evils that follow prying by insufficiently trained 
 persons into obscure problems that should be reserved 
 for experts who combine thorough knowledge with 
 discretion. And nowhere is this discretion more 
 necessary than in that field of mental therapeutics 
 where quacks, amateur and quasi-scientific, lay and 
 clerical, now roam with a freedom which may some 
 day have to be curtailed. " What is deepest in our 
 nature," says Father Tyrrell, 1 " is last to be un- 
 earthed. Psychology and metaphysics are the most 
 backward of sciences ; man has ever been curious 
 about them, but his curiosity has been futile." 
 These words were primarily addressed to clerics, 
 but there are medical and other scientific men who 
 might also study them with advantage. ' The arro- 
 gance of doctors and teachers," Tyrrell further 
 observes, " has been one of the greatest obstacles 
 to human progress ; few men can withstand the 
 corrupting influence of unlimited trust." Infallible, 
 or quasi-infallible, popes are to be found outside 
 
 1 Christianity at the Cross-Roads, p. 246.
 
 THE PHYSICIAN OF SOULS 141 
 
 the walls of the Vatican : personal authority is apt 
 to claim an exaggerated influence in other systems 
 than that of the Church. The medical expert, like 
 the Roman priest, claims to speak with authority, 
 and his qualifications as a curative agent, or pro- 
 fessional treater of neuropaths, are usually far 
 superior to those of the ordinary confessor ; but 
 the wise man will put the claim, in either case, to 
 the test of common sense and such knowledge as 
 he possesses. Every man is a judge of the laws of 
 health his own health, in particular up to a point ; 
 and it is a mistake to take everything on trust, or 
 to lean implicitly on the crutch of authority in the 
 simpler and more fundamental matters of human 
 existence. We should learn to think for ourselves 
 and to verif}^, as far as we can, the statements of 
 experts which contradict our own ideas and experi- 
 ence. Let us remember that even theologians some- 
 times disagree, and that specialists of all kinds are 
 in the habit of contradicting one another flatly. 
 Papal pretensions to infallibility, or quasi-infallibility, 
 are out of place in these days, whether they emanate 
 from the Vatican or Harley Street. Yet religion 
 and medicine are both continually trying to impose 
 upon us with their prestige. They ask us to accept 
 on their personal authority, and as proved, diagnoses 
 and dogmas and prescriptions whose validity are 
 still unproved and, in the light of our present know- 
 ledge, unproveable. 
 
 Psycho-analysis (which is, I understand, only 
 a branch of the larger science of psycho-therapy) is 
 the study of the mind through the phenomena of 
 subconsciousness. It seeks to discover the funda- 
 mental causes and motives which are at work in 
 various mental and nervous disorders, and its method 
 is to probe suppressed instincts, cerebral processes, 
 and primitive passions latent in our nature, which 
 make their appearance during periods of abnormal
 
 142 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 stress and strain or functional derangement. In 
 particular, it makes use of the patient's dreams as 
 a clue to the secrets of his subconscious mind ; and 
 it largely specializes in sex. It is said to have been 
 highly successful in the treatment of shell-shock, loss 
 of memory, and other functional disorders of a 
 neurotic kind ; but such a system is obviously 
 highly speculative, and, both in theory and practice, 
 it is as yet still in its infancy. At present it is a 
 standing temptation to so-called experts, with a 
 taste for experimenting, or else preoccupied with 
 sex and the abnormal, to dogmatize unduly, and in 
 a somewhat dangerous fashion, in a field of medical 
 research which is at present mainly unexplored. 
 Further, it affords a splendid opportunity for char- 
 latans of various kinds to prey, with harmful results, 
 upon popular credulity. 
 
 The analogy drawn by Father Garrold between 
 the confessor and the psycho-analyst is, as I have 
 said, a perfectly correct one ; and nowhere is this 
 made more plain than in their dealings with the 
 important question of sex. There are people, both 
 male and female, lay and cleric, who, when once 
 they get their noses into matters relating to sex, 
 can with difficulty be persuaded to take them out 
 again. The horrible and fatuous disquisitions of 
 Roman Catholic theologians on sexuality in its 
 lower and more repulsive aspects, the idiotic conun- 
 drums they propound and discuss at length on all 
 sorts of unpleasant matters, and for the benefit of 
 young students in the seminaries, show how strong 
 is the hold these prepossessions have upon certain 
 natures. The confessor, as St. Alphonsus Liguori 
 tells us, 1 " stirs up the filthy mire for the purpose 
 of curing the disease " ; but, as we all know, he 
 often does far more harm than good in the process. 
 St. Ignatius Loyola also had healing exercises for 
 
 1 Moral Theology, vi, 900.
 
 THE PHYSICIAN OF SOULS 143 
 
 the human soul, which are said to have resembled 
 those of modern mental therapeutics ; x but much 
 depends both in medicine and religion upon the 
 methods employed, and more still, perhaps, on the 
 people who employ them. With all deference to 
 Father Garrold, who stoutly defends the confes- 
 sional-system and those who practise it, I still main- 
 tain that the ordinary Roman Catholic priest has 
 neither the brains, training, nor personal experience 
 fitting him to act as psycho-analyst in the sexual 
 emotions of young women ; and we strongly object 
 to half-baked, possibly immoral, young bachelors 
 being empowered and on occasion compelled to 
 ply our wives and daughters with repulsive inter- 
 rogatories in the confessional. Even more, perhaps, 
 do we object to women being forced to submit to 
 the process through the spiritual terrorism exercised 
 by the Church. 
 
 Magical religion professes to cure the neurotic 
 patient by magic ; medical practitioners of a certain 
 kind are apt to take unjustifiable hazards by acting 
 prematurely on vague and unproved theories. The 
 psychic Paracelsus, or exorcist of mental demons, 
 poaching on the preserves of sorcery, and (like all 
 mystery-men) preferring remote improbable explana- 
 tions of remarkable phenomena to simple and prob- 
 able ones, promises a physical cure by occult means 
 of a vaguely medical nature. Like the clerical ferret 
 who follows the instructions given him by his Church's 
 accredited theologians, he pursues his unsavoury 
 researches into the patient's subliminal self. He is 
 perpetually searching for latent evil, and risks 
 creating it by the search. Dreamland is the happy 
 hunting-ground of the sciolist, medical or sacerdotal ; 
 
 1 He anticipated the psycho-analysts in his endeavours to induce 
 the penitent to " act exactly as though he were a corpse " (perinde 
 ac si cadaver) or a walking-stick, and so to become wholly amenable 
 to the confessor's will.
 
 144 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 and the psycho-analyst, acting on his theories of 
 subconscious cerebral processes, and the rest of it, 
 elicits by searching cross-examination the betrayal 
 of long past (but usually non-existent) iniquities 
 through the medium of traitor dreams. 1 Some of 
 his patients are really ill ; others are idle or hys- 
 terical persons in search of a new sensation, like 
 those feminine frequenters of the confessional-box 
 whom Liguori calls ' bizochas " fussy, gossipy, 
 religious women who take up the confessor's time, 
 to the exclusion of sensible people who are seeking 
 to be relieved of the burden of their sins. As a 
 candid Italian priest, Father Frassinetti, says, these 
 women " are generally ninnies, and the more fre- 
 quently they confess, the more silly do they become." 
 Mr. McCabe tells us how the youthful confessor, 
 when first entering upon his duties, regards each 
 man or woman who comes into the box as "a 
 thrilling compendium of criminal possibilities " ; but 
 he usually finds that their offences are of a very mild 
 order. 
 
 Meanwhile a considerable section of the public, 
 including a number of professional men and what 
 are commonly known as Society ladies, has taken 
 the professor of psycho-therapeutics to its bosom. 
 The newspapers assure us and there seems no 
 reason to doubt the statement that the votaries 
 of the new craze are now very numerous, and in- 
 clude " schoolmasters, clergymen, and young women 
 of social eminence." These persons, we regret to 
 hear, have developed " a hectic manner of thinking " 
 upon matters which they had much better leave 
 
 1 Mr. Punch expounds the theory in some happy lines : 
 
 I dreamed of blue-spotted ham, 
 
 And, although I'm as mild as a lamb, 
 
 These tarnishes mean 
 
 I must really have been 
 A bit of a dog in my pram.
 
 THE PHYSICIAN OF SOULS 145 
 
 alone ; and other highly undesirable manifestations 
 of popular depravity are recorded in the Press. 
 Books dealing with the subject, which an eminent 
 surgeon describes as absolutely valueless from the 
 scientific standpoint and " only fit to be read by 
 dirty-minded boys," sell like hot cakes ; and " an 
 outbreak of sexual dementia," in which " coloured 
 and other foreign sailors " appear to have taken 
 part, is reported to have occurred at certain ports 
 on our British coasts. 
 
 In all this there is an undoubted note of exag- 
 geration, and I do not suppose that coloured or other 
 foreign sailors spend any large portion of their super- 
 fluous leisure in studying psycho-analysis. Neverthe- 
 less, the matter is really a serious one, and demands 
 the attention of serious people especially parents. 
 Psycho-analysis, either of the confessorial or quasi- 
 medical variety, is especially noxious in the school 
 or the nursery ; and, in the case of certain disciples 
 of Freud, psycho-analysis has now become almost 
 purely psycho-sexual analysis. We may take it on 
 trust that Freud's theories are partially sound and 
 have proved useful in experienced hands, but the 
 normal consciousness revolts at the uses to which 
 they may be, and have been, put by well-meaning 
 but fussy zealots or sex-maniacal investigators. Sex 
 forms an important part of life, but it is far from 
 being the whole of it in spite of certain medical 
 and theological treatises, and lay novels and plays. 
 There are hundreds of things which we do and say 
 and think every day of our lives which are in no 
 way referable to the sex-impulse ; but the faddists 
 of the new cult have no hesitation in ascribing them 
 to the influence of the all-devouring libido. What 
 Mr. McCabe aptly calls the " consecrated prurience " 
 of the confessional becomes the unconsecrated, but 
 no less pernicious, prurience of the heretical dabbler 
 in matters concerning which he (or she) is in many 
 
 10
 
 146 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 cases a mere smatterer. The psycho-analysts are 
 concerned with other folk's mental obsessions : some 
 of them had better look after their own. Let science 
 pursue her way and continue her investigations 
 unchecked ; but the fake-expositions and experi- 
 ments of sex-problem monomaniacs only serve to 
 darken counsel and impede the progress of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Some people hold that amateur hypnotizing, and 
 other forms of experiment in the field of mental 
 therapeutics by unqualified persons, should be made 
 a penal offence. The question then arises, who is 
 a qualified practitioner in that mysterious region, 
 the terra incognita of the human soul ? Are the 
 qualifications of the general practitioner the family 
 doctor, let us say, of average capacity in a remote 
 country district sufficient for the purpose ? He is, 
 as we know, often compelled to act as though he 
 were an animated compendium of medical and 
 surgical science in all their branches. He may have 
 to treat one set of patients for obscure diseases 
 which would baffle the wisest specialist ; he cuts 
 off limbs, excises tonsils, appendices, adenoids and 
 other unpleasant growths with marvellous readiness 
 and facility ; but when, out of his limited stock of 
 knowledge, he starts hypnotizing, psycho-analysing, 
 or conducting other hasty experiments in the danger- 
 ous territory of the human brain and consciousness, 
 and trusts to luck for the result, he may easily become 
 a nuisance and a danger to the community. 
 
 One of the perils attending treatment of the 
 kind we are discussing lies in the attitude of the 
 mental therapeutist, be he priest or doctor, towards 
 the patient or penitent. The price of knowledge, 
 and of a highly problematical cure, which the psycho- 
 analyst and the clerical " director " demand is the 
 complete surrender of self into the hands of another 
 human being. " You have not yet given me your
 
 THE PHYSICIAN OF SOULS 147 
 
 mind," a psycho-analyst said the other day to a 
 patient. And again, at a later interview, ' You 
 have not surrendered your will to mine." A Roman 
 Catholic " director," addressing a valetudinarian 
 devotee, could hardly ask for more. The patient, 
 in this particular case, not unnaturally got fright- 
 ened, and sought advice in other quarters. The 
 mischief which may be wrought by such a system 
 is incalculable. The " director " of former days 
 sought to make of his penitent a paralytic or auto- 
 maton, and we do not want to see his efforts 
 imitated and improved upon by lay practitioners 
 claiming science, instead of supernatural grace, as 
 their authority. The searching cross-examination of 
 patients concerning sexual privacies is a thing that 
 requires, especially in the case of young people, 
 very careful handling. It is best sometimes to let 
 sleeping dogs lie, and the constant obtrusion of sex 
 upon nervous people's minds, coupled with the 
 unearthing of skeletons which had better be left 
 buried, is .not desirable. No less does the surrender 
 of mind and will to another person weaken char- 
 acter, destroy self-control and the sense of personal 
 responsibility : and there are many other dangers 
 involved therein which a little consideration will 
 bring home even to the most careless. Free play 
 should be given to medical research and practice 
 in this broad and vastly important field, but the 
 practitioner's experiments on the human organism 
 should not be allowed to outstrip his knowledge. 
 
 Above all, anything in the nature of compulsion 
 should be avoided. Psycho-analysis, with its Rosi- 
 crucian atmosphere and methods which sometimes bear 
 a suspicious resemblance to demonology, is attended 
 with many dangers ; but nobody need submit him- 
 self to its operations unless he likes. The chief ob- 
 jection to the Roman confessional is that the Church 
 makes it obligatory, and that the most difficult and
 
 148 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 delicate duties are entrusted by her to men wholly 
 unfitted to perform them. My Jesuit assailant 
 argues that the objections which I have urged against 
 confession as practised in the Roman Church apply 
 with equal force to the practice of medicine : he 
 says that '" psycho-analysis, hypnotism, and medi- 
 cine " may lead, no less than the confessional, to 
 the making of " improper suggestions to the peni- 
 tent." But the two cases are not on all fours. In 
 the first place, the qualifications of the medical man 
 as a mind-healer are vastly superior to those of the 
 ordinary Catholic priest ; also, he is not a com- 
 pulsory celibate, and experience shows that the 
 trust reposed in him is very rarely abused. Secondly 
 and this is the important point there is no 
 ' penitent " in his case, nor is any coercion applied. 
 The grown-up Protestant can decide for himself 
 whether he will seek the ministrations of a pro- 
 fessional healer, or not : the non-Catholic woman 
 is under no obligation whatever to unburden her 
 soul to an " eugenist," or psycho-analyst, concern- 
 ing the intimacies of married life. But the Roman 
 Catholic woman is sometimes compelled so to un- 
 burden hers to an ill-instructed priest ; and the 
 man does not exist who is fitted to exercise the 
 awful powers with which Rome invests its ecclesias- 
 tics. The psychic charlatan of every variety, cleric 
 or pseudo-medical be his professional habitat the 
 confessional-box or the consulting-room requires 
 to be watched, and his operations should, whenever 
 necessary, be regulated by law. Quackery can never 
 be otherwise than objectionable : quackery with 
 compulsion at its back is atrocious.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 
 
 " Detruisez ces enceintes qui retrecissent vos idees ! Elargissez 
 Dieu ! " (Diderot and the Encyclopedists, by LORD MORLEY, p. 131). 
 
 IT was no Roman prelate who, as Lord Morley says, 
 burst the bonds of a paralysing dogma with this 
 " magnificent cry " : it was the freethinker, Diderot, 
 one of those lay teachers who are now admitted by 
 ecclesiastics to be the best prophets we have ; I and 
 he was, of course, attacked by the Church. He was 
 accused of impiety and hostility to morals and 
 religion, and the Encyclopaedia was suppressed. On 
 one occasion his house was raided, his papers seized, 
 and their author imprisoned for an essay he had 
 written, because his persecutors failed to see that 
 it was they, not the critics and satirists of their 
 theological absurdities, who were the real blas- 
 phemers and debasers of religion. The Church, 
 though she knew it not, profited largely by the new 
 light and the nobler ideas with which he and his 
 coadjutors illuminated her darkness. It was Vol- 
 taire, Diderot, Rousseau, says Lord Morley, who 
 were the true reformers of the Roman creed. The 
 " leavening elements " contributed by a foreign and 
 hostile doctrine transformed Romanism by partially 
 freeing it from grovelling superstition, and " supplied 
 it with ideas which saved it from becoming finally 
 
 Outspoken Essays, by Dean Inge, p. 19. The Dean says that 
 amongst us, as at Athens in Aristophanes 's day, " the young learn 
 from the schoolmaster, the mature from the poet." 
 
 MO
 
 150 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 a curse to civilization." I ought perhaps to add 
 that, in my opinion, the salvation was only partial. 
 We see, therefore, that the cynic and the sceptic 
 have their uses in the world, and that even Holy 
 Mother Church ought to be grateful to them. The 
 satirist is the natural corrector of error, and, if he 
 is accused of profanity, he must point out to his 
 critics that the profanity is not his, but that of the 
 people who bring sacred things into contempt. The 
 men who really show lack of reverence in dealing 
 with divine mysteries are those who treat them as 
 children treat Chinese puzzles, and, failing to recog- 
 nize the limits of our knowledge, mock us with 
 infantile answers to insoluble enigmas. Pascal, in 
 his Tenth Provincial Letter, shows that banter is 
 sometimes necessary to awaken men to a sense of 
 their extravagances an antidote to those burlesque 
 parodies of transcendental conceptions which fanati- 
 cism offers us in the name of religion. " Nothing," 
 said Tertullian, " is more appropriate to folly than 
 raillery " ; and he reminds us how God Himself 
 " pierced Adam with sharp and cutting irony " 
 (Genesis iii.). The unfortunate Job was also assailed 
 by the Deity with what Mr. Chesterton describes as 
 a torrent of terrible levities ; and the provoca- 
 tion he afforded would appear from the Scriptural 
 narrative to have been comparatively slight. Some 
 of our religious conceptions, on the other hand such 
 as predestination, grace, and eternal damnation 
 are revolting to the ethical conscience of our day ; 
 they savour of diabolical, rather than divine, origin, 
 and as such merit the lash of the satirist. The Roman 
 Church's God is, in reality, herself : the God of 
 Catholic imagination, who consigns unbaptized 
 infants to undeserved torture, could never if such 
 a Being really existed win or deserve our respect. 
 We are not glorifying God by representing Him as 
 a domineering tyrant, a potter unreasonably angry
 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 151 
 
 with the pots of His own creation, and breaking 
 them for insufficient reasons a barbarous potentate 
 of more than questionable character, and associated 
 with a morality lower than our own. If Mr. 
 Chesterton is right, the " divine frivolity " which 
 he practises so admirably is just what is needed in 
 dealing with so very serious a matter. 
 
 Socrates, as reported by Plato, warned men not 
 to be guilty of the impropriety of telling people, 
 children in particular, objectionable " yarns " that 
 are libels on the gods ; and the Encyclopaedists 
 merely followed in the track of the Hellenic sages. 
 Simplicius, a neo-Platonic philosopher, reproaches 
 the early Christians with being cloven by schisms 
 innumerable about the mode of degrading the Deity 
 
 ("rrepl rfjv KaOdipemv rfjs Betas VTrepoxrjS SC6 The Origins 
 
 of Christianity, by T. Whittaker, p. 57), and it can 
 hardly be denied that their combined efforts in this 
 direction, added to those of their successors, have 
 been eminently successful. Dr. Jowett, in these later 
 times, is reported to have advised Mrs. Asquith to 
 continue her belief in God, in spite of all that the 
 clergy told her. It was perhaps fortunate for the 
 Doctor that he did not live in France a hundred 
 years earlier, or he might have suffered the fate of 
 Diderot and the other lay prophets of his time. 
 
 " A new prophet has appeared in Kordofan : 
 the police are after him." This laconic message, in 
 an evening newspaper some years ago, summarizes 
 the mind of the ecclesiastical and governing classes 
 towards the man who preaches a new order or a new 
 belief. In the East, when the police are not after 
 him, the people are apt to stone him : it is only 
 false prophets who, in Christ's opinion, obtain the 
 ear of the majority. In the more tolerant West 
 the seer now has an easier time with the authorities, 
 and finds an audience which, at the worst, sub- 
 stitutes satirical criticism for brickbats. Even in
 
 152 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 remoter ages the iconoclast managed now and then 
 to hold his own, especially when he happened him- 
 self to be a member of the governing classes, and 
 could therefore indulge his propensity for innovating 
 doctrine without let or hindrance. Such a man was 
 Amen-hetep IV, an Egyptian king who reigned, I 
 believe, about 1500 B.C. 1 In addition to a taste 
 for Futurist or Post-Impressionist art, he had a 
 passion for theology in the strict sense of the word 
 the science which deals with God, His nature and 
 attributes and he devoted to questions of religion 
 much of the time which ought to have been spent 
 in the service of the State. When, however, he 
 found that the " greedy priesthood " of the god 
 Amen-Ra were absorbing the greater part of the 
 revenues of the country (thus anticipating the action 
 of priests in Ireland and other countries during 
 later periods) his speculative methods took, like 
 those of the French philosophers in the eighteenth 
 century, a severely practical turn. He promptly 
 determined to depose Amen-Ra and to set up a new 
 monotheistic divinity of his own fashioning. He 
 called this new god " Aten," and erected sanctuaries 
 and shrines to him in various places for the use of 
 himself and his ladies. The monarch also " occupied 
 himself in playing the priest," regularized the form 
 of worship, " composed one or two hymns which 
 were sung in his temple," and otherwise comported 
 himself in the orthodox episcopal manner. 
 
 A fight, of course, ensued, which was not unlike 
 the battle between Popes and emperors in mediaeval 
 times, over the revenues derived from the sanctu- 
 aries and other customary emoluments of clericalism ; 
 and, as usual, the secular arm was defeated. The 
 priests ceased to pay tribute, collected their forces, 
 and secured the aid of " foreign bayonets " in 
 
 | See the History of the Egyptian People, by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, 
 P- 94- 
 
 '
 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 153 
 
 support of sacerdotalism. The result was that the 
 unfortunate theological Pharaoh lost the Asiatic 
 possessions which it had taken his predecessors two 
 hundred years to acquire, and the perils of theo- 
 logical speculation received one of their earliest 
 exemplifications . 
 
 The example set by the Egyptian monarch has 
 been followed by a considerable number of people 
 in diverse climes and at various dates. Quite recently 
 in this country Mr. H. G. Wells, a modern Amen- 
 hetep IV, has been devoting to theology a portion 
 of the time previously monopolized by secular affairs, 
 and, having donned the prophetic mantle, appears 
 as a new Mohammed or Daniel come to judgment 
 on an erring and unbelieving world. He, too, like 
 the Egyptian king, is dissatisfied with the reigning 
 Deity, and has decided that He must be deposed 
 and replaced by one of his own creation. I say " of 
 his own creation " advisedly, because, whoever may 
 have created Mr. Wells, it is quite certain that he 
 alone is the creator of his Invisible King ; and, 
 having made him, he follows the usual practice and 
 falls down and worships the attenuated offspring 
 of his own anthropomorphist imagination. For, dis- 
 regarding Diderot's advice to " enlarge God," our 
 latest prophet has seriously contracted his divinity. 
 He has stripped him, in most unknightly fashion, 
 of infinity, omniscience, omnipotence, eternal exist- 
 ence in the past as well as the present, and other 
 attributes usually assigned by theology to the Creator. 
 
 Mr. Wells would also appear to have that " easy 
 familiarity with God " which is stated by a recent 
 clerical writer to be a characteristic of childhood. 
 He has, we gather, " experienced " his Invisible 
 King ; but his experiences seem in no way different 
 from those of old-time mystics or Modernist clergy- 
 men. There is nothing new about any of them 
 indeed, it seems to me that, on the whole, the 

 
 154 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 orthodox people do this sort of thing much better than 
 their up-to-date imitator. The world has witnessed 
 nothing stranger of recent years than the spectacle 
 of that modern of moderns, Mr. Wells, adopting, as 
 Mr. William Archer says, 1 " episcopal patter " and 
 talking the language of revivalism, and using with 
 unpardonable freedom the repute of the old firm to 
 bolster up the shaky credit of the new. Similar 
 human modifications of the celestial hierarchy may 
 be expected as the years roll on. In the Soviets of 
 to-morrow it seems not unlikely that the Deity will 
 be represented as a sort of finite President of the 
 universe elected by the suffrages of the intellectuals, 
 with some future Mr. H. G. Wells as chairman of 
 the caucus. 
 
 " O my Advanced-Liberal friend, this new second 
 process, of proceeding ' to invent God/ is a very 
 strange one." Carlyle's apostrophe (Past and Present, 
 p. 195) was addressed to the people who preached 
 religion so that the constable might continue pos- 
 sible; and he thought that the process of thus 
 inventing God might draw tears from a Stoic. A 
 terrible air of unreality hangs about most dogmatic 
 speculations on the nature and functions of Deity : 
 they make us feel that, in their hands at any rate, 
 " la question de Dieu manque d'actualite" " as I 
 believe a Parisian editor wrote to an unsuccessful 
 contributor who had sent him an essay on the sub- 
 ject. Roman Catholicism, for instance, stands or 
 falls by transcendentalism ; yet, as a writer in the 
 Saturday Review lately pointed out, the Catholic 
 God is not really a transcendental Being. He is, at 
 best, a Divinity determined by human thought 
 expressing itself in dogmatic religion, which, being 
 the outcome of the finite human intellect, can only 
 reveal relative or provisional truth. That is the 
 weak point of dogma. It pretends to a finality 
 
 ' God and Mr. Wells, p. 81.
 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 155 
 
 which it does not possess ; it requires to be con- 
 tinually re-stated and furbished up anew, and in 
 its periodical reconstructions it is always angling 
 for the popular vote. The result has naturally been 
 a continual lowering of the divine standard ; and 
 the palm must, I think, be awarded to Roman 
 Catholic theologians in the age-long rivalry of sec- 
 tarians over " the best mode of degrading the 
 divinity." In Dr. Inge's words a thorough re- 
 construction is demanded, and has been for some 
 time in progress. " A number of unworthy beliefs 
 about God are being tacitly dropped, and they are 
 so treated because they are unworthy of Him." I 
 The early ecclesiastics, never particular as to the 
 character of the auxiliaries they employed against 
 their enemies, were wont to seek in popular poly- 
 theism an ally against philosophy and science ; and 
 the unnatural union of orthodoxy and mythology 
 has produced some rather monstrous hybrids. 
 
 "The Church," says Benedetto in The Saint (p. 231), 
 " tolerates thousands of stupid, ascetic books which 
 unworthily diminish the idea of God in the human 
 mind ; let us not condemn those which magnify 
 it I ' I claim the right, along with Fogazzaro and 
 Pascal and others, to condemn the stupid teaching 
 and to add my plea for its abolition : the profanity, 
 if there be profanity, is not ours, but that of the 
 Church. On the other hand, it is sufficiently clear 
 that clericalism of the Roman Catholic sort could 
 not exist without an anthropomorphic God, and its 
 conceptions of the Deity are therefore slow to abandon 
 their primitive crudeness. God, " a Brocken-phantom 
 of self, projected on the mists of the non-ego," is 
 made to reflect the qualities, attributes, and im- 
 pulses of His adorers ; and His actions are the image 
 of our human actions. In enlightened Protestant 
 circles these things are gradually dying out, but in 
 
 i Outspoken Essays, p. 135.
 
 
 156 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Catholic countries they remain in the ascendant. 
 The Eternal Father (as Dean Alford noted) is pic- 
 tured as a rather unprepossessing old man : the 
 only really attractive member of the Divine Family 
 is always the Virgin Mary, on whom the affections 
 of devout Romanists are mainly centred. In the 
 popular apprehension the Deity, a sort of Olympian 
 Kaiser or barbaric potentate with an insatiable 
 appetite for flattery and finer} 7 , sits throned in an 
 Asian palace or what Father Tyrrell calls a " bric- 
 a-brac rococo Heaven " surrounded by charming 
 cherubim with " scented locks " and iridescent wings, 
 while a crowd of obsequious retainers hymn inces- 
 santly in speech and song, with instrumental 
 accompaniment, His beauty and magnificence, His 
 meritorious conduct and characteristics, and the 
 terrors of His irresistible power. 1 
 
 ' This great God exists only to contemplate and 
 love Himself," we learn from The Reign of Jestts 2 
 (1912 edition, p. 201), by the Venerable Jean F. 
 Eudes, a Catholic writer of very high repute, whose 
 manuals of devotion are in constant use nowadays. 
 The Deity, that is to say, is represented as being, like 
 Prince Irax, thoroughly " content de lui-meme." Not 
 
 * To show the imbecility, and, one might add, the impiety, of it 
 all, let me quote a human analogy culled from a review of a French 
 book in the Saturday Review for September 18, 1921. Irax, Prince 
 of Media, once had a chorus of twelve singers and twenty-four violins, 
 who executed a cantata in his praise for two hours each morning. 
 In this cantata there occurred, every three minutes, a refrain which, 
 rendered in French, is as follows : 
 
 Que son merite est extreme ! 
 
 Que de graces ! que de grandeur ! 
 Ah ! que Monseigneur 
 
 Doit etre content de lui-meme ! 
 
 After patiently enduring this infliction for five days, Irax got 
 so bored that he insisted upon the musicians being sent away. 
 
 This book, a pitiful exhibition of maudlin religious amorosity, 
 and a not unfair example of Roman Catholic manuals of devotion, 
 bears the imprimatur of the Westminster Vicar-General, December 6, 
 1911, and is still a favourite with Romanist devotees.
 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 157 
 
 a very ennobling presentation, it would appear, of a 
 Divine Father who is said to have a special solicitude 
 for His earthly children ; and we must enrol the idea 
 among those clerical perversions of religion which 
 theologians declare to be the fitting subjects for 
 irony. Even more degrading and repulsive are those 
 amorous conceptions of the Second Person of the 
 Trinity, which are a standing disgrace to the litera- 
 ture of Roman Catholicism. Again, the Jesuit God, 
 as described by a member of the Order, is a sort of 
 glorified Jesuit, a grotesque Almighty " quite Per- 
 sonal and very singular" 1 altogether a decidedly 
 human character, and not of the best human type. 
 It would be easy to multiply instances of these 
 profane travesties of Omnipotence, culled from the 
 writings of later Catholic divines. Much nobler and 
 grander conceptions of God and His attributes are 
 to be found in the old Egyptian hymns (written 
 thousands of years before Christ) which are quoted 
 by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge and other authorities. 
 Nor did the Early Fathers fail to discern in the 
 wonders and glories of Nature a revelation of the 
 Divine. ' The wider our contemplation of creation," 
 they said, " the grander will be our conception of 
 God." 2 It is only debased Roman Catholic mysticism 
 of the more modern type that sees in the Deity an 
 anthropomorphic Being who revels in adulation, 
 and exists only to contemplate and love Himself. 
 We are not enlarging God by merely making of 
 Him a Greater Man. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the Church's theologians 
 used to describe the denizens of Heaven, including 
 its principal occupant, with the detail and accuracy 
 with which a scientist would describe his geological 
 specimens. They knew, as by revelation, the precise 
 size, shape, and measurements of every compart- 
 
 1 Francois Ftnelon, by Viscount St. Cyres, p. 257. 
 Christian Mysticism, by Dr. Inge, p. 301.
 
 158 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 ment in Hell ; the number of angels that could 
 stand on a needle's point, as well as the exact social 
 grades, organization, and relations of the celestial 
 hierarchy. The angels, as we know, have an elaborate 
 system of social status. The " best people " among 
 them are, like their human congeners, exceedingly 
 haughty and exclusive, and dwell rigorously apart 
 from their fellows. 
 
 In the eighteenth century Swedenborg displayed 
 (like Mr. Bernard Shaw in our day) a no less intimate 
 acquaintance with the domestic economy of Heaven. 
 He had what we call " inside information " con- 
 cerning all that goes on there. We learn, for example, 
 from his Heaven and Hell that we shall have ser- 
 mons and theological discussions in Heaven J ; but, 
 since Newman declares that intellect, as exercised 
 in the world, is " not found in paradise or heaven, 
 more than in little children," 2 the homilies will 
 presumably strike us as being (like some earthly 
 sermons) of doubtful quality. 
 
 If God has made man in His image, it is no less 
 certain that man has fashioned Heaven and those 
 who dwell there on a strictly human pattern ; and 
 the paraphernalia of earthly worship, its pageantry 
 and tawdry scenic display, are largely shaped by 
 the popular notion of what is due to any person of 
 exalted rank. He must be invested with regal pomp 
 and all the insignia of opulence and power, and a 
 large number of gaudily clad servitors must be in 
 constant attendance upon him. Without these 
 costly and impressive splendours he would fail to 
 secure the respect which folk of lower degree owe 
 to him as of right. In that quaint but highly illumi- 
 nating book, The Theory of a Leisure Class, by 
 Professor T. Veblen, the author draws an instructive 
 parallel between the priestly office and the office of 
 
 1 See Hours with the Mystics, ii, 328-330. 
 and Plain Sermons, v, 112.
 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 159 
 
 the footman. Catholic priest and secular lackey alike 
 wear a gaudy, archaic, and expensive livery, designed 
 expressly to enhance the majesty and importance 
 of the exalted being they respectively serve ; and 
 both exhibit a leisurely aloofness in their bearing. 
 The footman stands erect and passively resplendent 
 in crimson plush, powder, silk stockings, and gold 
 lace. The Catholic priest adopts a humbler demean- 
 our ; there is about him an indefinable air of pathetic 
 obsequiousness, but his accoutrements are still more 
 imposing. They are feminine in character, equally 
 archaic and inconvenient, and, if possible, even more 
 grotesque than those of the footman. Loving hands 
 have laboured assiduously at the adorning of his 
 vesture : the congregation is only allowed a glimpse 
 of his stockings, but his back, " brave with the 
 needlework of noodledom," is a visible embodiment 
 of that stimulant to aesthetic emotion which Mr. 
 Clive Bell calls " significant form." Livery and 
 vestments alike are, in Professor Veblen's opinion, 
 evidence of a servile status and a vicarious life ; 
 and both classes of servitor have a similar function, 
 which is of little economic value. 
 
 All this pageantry has a common origin in the 
 desire to augment in popular estimation the credit 
 of the chieftain or divinity on whom the function- 
 aries are in attendance. In barbaric cults, and 
 among peoples of primitive character, the divinity 
 is regarded as a species of aristocrat" a gentle- 
 man," as we should say nowadays in other words, 
 a person surrounded by all the evidences and appur- 
 tenances of position and authority, and possessing 
 ample means to obtain them. Under these circum- 
 stances he is naturally conceived to be very punc- 
 tilious, having a strong sense of personal dignity, 
 and extremely touchy about questions of prece- 
 dence : being undisputed master, he demands un- 
 grudging subservience on the part of his retainers.
 
 160 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 As a gentleman he naturally belongs, not only to 
 the governing, but to the predatory classes. He is 
 a warlike being, subject to vengeful emotions and 
 prone to take ferocious action on what we should 
 consider to be wholly inadequate grounds. We are 
 now speaking of uncivilized religions, but much of 
 what has been said applies with almost equal force 
 to that type of Christianity represented by the 
 Roman Church, which, as we have seen, is largely 
 made up of Pagan elements. Christian worshippers 
 are fond of applying warlike figures of speech and 
 barbarian epithets to the Deity, and Catholics repre- 
 sent Him as a sanguinary Being delighting in the 
 slaughter and maiming of people who hold unortho- 
 dox views about religion a confirmed militarist, 
 and a staunch believer in frightfulness. The Lord 
 is still regarded as a Man of War not in the naval, 
 but in a strictly military sense ; and even in these 
 later days the type of hymn which describes the 
 coming of the Lord and the execution He wrought 
 with " His terrible sharp sword," is sung with special 
 gusto and an obvious sense of personal gratification. 
 Other anthropomorphic conceptions of Omnipo- 
 tence are still predominant in the Latin Church ; 
 and one of the most objectionable features in clerical- 
 ism is its persistency in representing the Deity as 
 a Being who can be bribed like any corrupt human 
 judge. The priest, however, is careful to explain to 
 the people, and has hitherto been remarkably success- 
 ful in convincing them, that the bribe, in order to 
 be efficacious, must first pass through his hands. 
 In olden times man tried to induce the divinity to 
 fall in with his wishes by means of what he regarded 
 as acceptable presents in kind, though his notions 
 of what was pleasing to the divine mind were some- 
 what crude. The offering usually consisted of a 
 goat or sheep or some other animal, the savour of 
 whose burning entrails in the nostrils of the divinity;
 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 161 
 
 was supposed to have a special propitiatory influence. 
 In civilized lands the present usually takes a pecu- 
 niary form, which is more acceptable to our modern 
 hierophants than the burning of a goat ; but the 
 priest, with his usual cleverness, manages to inter- 
 cept the cash before it reaches its proper destination. 
 He tells the sinner that, in return for a sum down, 
 he will give him what is aptly termed an " indul- 
 gence." As the newly appointed delegate of Heaven, 
 the Roman Catholic priest is invested with plenary 
 powers. He not only creates his Maker every morn- 
 ing, but offers Him up as a sacrifice and, as we have 
 shown, treats Him in a very cavalier manner. It is 
 useless for the layman to seek God's pardon for his 
 sins : that is the affair of the clerical mediator 
 " / absolve thee " is the prescribed formula. If a 
 sin has been committed, or a rule of the Church has 
 been broken, the anger of Heaven may be averted 
 for a cash consideration which though it is received, 
 not by God, but by the ecclesiastics will enable 
 you to sin conscientiously and without fear of retri- 
 butory justice. I know at this moment of a Roman 
 Catholic young lady who wants to commit the crime 
 of marrying a Protestant, but her priest points out 
 to her that it would be a heinous sin if she did so 
 without a Papal dispensation. This he offers to 
 procure for her on payment of a pretty large sum, 
 which she cannot afford. As she justly observed, if 
 it is a mortal sin for her to marry a heretic, it is 
 difficult to see how the sin can be wiped out by a 
 mere money payment. When the lady dies the 
 priest will doubtless be willing to use certain effi- 
 cacious charms and incantations for the good of 
 her soul ; but the Deity, through the medium of 
 His Church, must first be placated in the usual way. 
 It betrays a curiously unethical conception of 
 the Deity to suppose that He can be suborned, and 
 His wrath appeased by such means as those adopted 
 
 ii
 
 162 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 by venal priests ; but sacerdotalism in nearly all 
 religions throughout the ages has represented salva- 
 tion as being obtainable by barter. The pockets 
 of the priests and the Church's treasury are filled 
 thereby ; but morality suffers when absolution, grace, 
 and other spiritual favours are placed on a tariff, 
 like whisky or tobacco. ' Whom," cried St. Bernard 
 in sadness, " can you show me among the prelates 
 who does not seek rather to empty the pockets of 
 his flock than to subdue their vices ? " I Others 
 describe how the bishops entered the Church not 
 by election, but by the use of money and the favour 
 of princes ; " not to feed, but to be fed ; not to 
 sow, but to reap ; not to guard the sheep from 
 the wolves, but, fiercer than wolves, to tear the 
 sheep." 
 
 Nor, at any time, have the priests shown them- 
 selves at all particular as to the character of the 
 people to whom they sell their supernatural favours. 
 Philo says, " It often happens that good men are 
 not initiated, but that robbers, and murderers, and 
 lewd women are, if they pay money to the initiators 
 and hierophants." 2 The same complacency was 
 displayed by the Roman hierarchy and clergy ; and 
 some rather grave, but wholly unforeseen, develop- 
 ments were the result of a too easy morality and 
 the representation of God as a corrupt ruler of man- 
 kind. It was found that, when men were enabled 
 to sin with a clear conscience, the number of sinners 
 began to decrease at an alarming rate ; and, as sin 
 is the bank whence the Church draws her capital, 
 it would never do if the bank should fail through 
 depletion of its resources by the ever-sinking price 
 of an indulgence. Moreover, a vision was granted to 
 one of the faithful in which it was revealed that, 
 in consequence of this indulgence, the Devil was 
 
 * Studies in Mysticism, by the Rev. R. Jones, p. 132. 
 1 Christian Mysticism, by Dr. Inge, p. 354.
 
 ELARGISSEZ DIEU 163 
 
 not being given his due, and Hell was getting 
 seriously depopulated ! T 
 
 So in ancient Greece, as we learn from Plato 
 (Republic, ii, 364-5), quacks and soothsayers flocked 
 to the rich man's door, and offered to sell him in- 
 dulgences for crimes committed either by himself 
 or his ancestors. They said just like the Roman 
 priests and quoted certain authors in support of 
 their assertions, that they had a power of influencing 
 the gods by means of sacrifices and incantations 
 and performances that might please a child, and 
 things they called " rites " ; and that, for a cash 
 consideration, offenders might procure purification 
 from sin in this world and release from awful tor- 
 ments in the next, etc., etc. Frauds of this kind 
 are perpetrated in all ages and climes by men who 
 claim supernatural powers and knowledge which 
 they do not possess, and who, to further their own 
 ends, libel Heaven as a receiver of hush-money. 
 The condemnation passed by Socrates on such 
 " offensive stories " was in no whit too severe. 
 
 1 Studies in Mysticism, p. 132.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A GOSPEL OF GLOOM 
 
 " O miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body 
 of this death ? " 
 
 " The proper study of a wise man is not how to die, but how to 
 live " (LECKY) . 
 
 THE optimism of modern Christianity, according to 
 Father Tyrrell J and other thoughtful Roman Catho- 
 lics, is begotten of faith in this world ; its Kingdom 
 of God consists of moral and social development ; 
 its firm hope is that the ills from which mankind 
 suffers will eventually be healed, or at least materi- 
 ally alleviated, by an inherent vis medicatrix Naturce, 
 and by that faith in humanity and its capacity for 
 improvement which can remove mountains. Experi- 
 ence and reflection, say the Romanists, confirm 
 the verdict which the deeper spiritual intuition passes 
 on life, and this is always pessimistic. Man, left to 
 himself, is bound to find, not only failure, but an 
 iron law of inevitable failure, thwarting his efforts 
 to rise in the scale of creation ; and his only hope 
 for the future is in " an abiding City that hath foun- 
 dations whose builder and maker is God." Diderot 
 thought that human nature was fundamentally good 
 and capable of improvement, but that human nature, 
 starved and mutilated in self-effacement, will never 
 accomplish anything great. Newman, on the other 
 hand, was of the orthodox Catholic opinion that 
 the " great truth " is the corruption of man. He 
 was a keen satirist, and it was a true remark of 
 
 * Christianity at the Cross-Roads, p. 118. 
 164
 
 A GOSPEL OF GLOOM 165 
 
 Leslie Stephen's that his sharpest taunts were aimed 
 at the superficial optimism of the disciples of pro- 
 gress. He much preferred superstition to our so- 
 called illumination. The world, he said, when trying 
 to turn to its Maker, " has ever professed a gloomy 
 religion in spite of itself." To be gloomy, to see 
 ourselves with horror, " to wake naked and shivering 
 among the trees of the garden " ..." in a word, 
 to be superstitious, is Nature's best offering, her 
 most acceptable service, her most mature and en- 
 larged wisdom, in presence of a holy and offended 
 God." l Quite rightly he points out that there can 
 be no common ground between the Christianity of 
 Rome and the religion of progress : the progress of 
 the race, he was convinced, " is a dream, because 
 revelation " and, if he were still alive, he might 
 add, the Dean of St. Paul's explicitly contradict it. 
 
 Tyrrell' s confident statement that this gospel of 
 gloom was the religion preached by Christ, and that 
 His revelation of the coming Kingdom was only a 
 Gospel or Good News for those who despaired of 
 this world is open to question ; but it is unques- 
 tionably the gospel of the Catholic Church and its 
 most eminent divines. Romanism has ever been 
 a horribly pessimistic creed as regards earthly things, 
 a creed of menace that would make cowards of us 
 all, rather than of hope. It has, or professes, to have, 
 a profound contempt for this world, its inhabitants, 
 its joys and material advantages. Poverty is, for 
 the Church, a purposeful creation or design of the 
 Almighty : a community without a submerged tenth 
 is unthinkable, a negation of Providence. Man 
 despite the fact that Roman Catholic theology makes 
 him the final cause of the universe and the special 
 object of God's solicitude is at best but a miser- 
 able worm, a depraved being " ruined, lost, 
 possessed of nothing of his own that ministers to 
 
 ' Theory of Religious Belief-
 
 166 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 his salvation " : and detachment from the world is 
 his best hope of reaching the New Jerusalem. To 
 believe that man is naturally good is, in the eyes 
 of many Anglicans as well as Roman Catholics, 
 " a pernicious heresy." Brief life is here his portion, 
 until he goes down into the pit ; and his spiritual 
 exigencies are all in all. The optimism of the Apoca- 
 lypse, as Tyrrell says, was only an optimism of the 
 next world : Christ expected the End within a 
 generation, and therefore had no faith in progress 
 or evolution. The dreadful theories of St. Augustine 
 and St. Thomas Aquinas, reproduced later in Jansen- 
 ism and Calvinism, represent human nature as hope- 
 lessly corrupt owing to the Fall; such virtue as it 
 originally possessed was utterly lost, and the dam- 
 nation that surely awaits it is only divine justice 
 working out its inexorable decrees. St. Bernard, as 
 we are told, beheld in a vision 80,000 unfortunate 
 creatures consigned to Hell by the " mercy seat " 
 at the Judgment Day, except five wretches who 
 were sent to Purgatory ; and in the last century 
 Newman anticipated Spurgeon with his gruesome 
 sermons on the judgment that is to come, with its 
 eternal hell-fire and brimstone. 
 
 The horrible doctrine of Predestination, whereby 
 millions of souls are condemned to everlasting torture 
 by an antecedent divine decree, and through no 
 fault of their own, was supplemented by that of 
 Grace ; and the theology of the Church is infected 
 by both at the present day. By Grace alone can 
 we be saved, and it is accorded without regard to 
 the merits of the recipient, who is a puling infant 
 at the time. If the infant dies in the " feeble and 
 frightful condition " of unbaptized persons, as des- 
 cribed by Newman, it has to go to the lower regions, 
 though a merciful Creator may possibly accord it the 
 questionable privilege of " the easiest room in Hell." J 
 
 1 Studies in Modernism, p. 398.
 
 A GOSPEL OF GLOOM 167 
 
 Grace, it would appear, is a respecter of persons, 
 if not of personal worth : in fact, much Roman 
 Catholic theology represents the Divinity as a shock- 
 ing nepotist. There is "no salvation outside the 
 Church," said St. Augustine ; and only the elect 
 or, as we should say in these days, the elite are 
 saved by Grace. Virtue in their case must be its 
 own reward, because merit is not a factor where 
 salvation by grace is concerned : what theologians 
 call " imputed merit " means nothing more than 
 the absence of all that we mean by merit. More- 
 over, a restriction must be imposed on the size of 
 the heavenly, as of the earthly, aristocracy ; it is 
 essential that the elect should not be too numerous, 
 or Heaven would be uncomfortably crowded, and 
 the Mystical Temple grow too large as Malebranche 
 sagely observes. 1 It may seem strange, but it is 
 true, that many of the Church's finest minds have 
 consistently upheld this curious theory of celestial 
 favouritism ; her ministers have always been willing 
 to dispense pardons and supernatural supplies of 
 Grace for major or minor considerations. Her bishops, 
 too, as Wyclif said, babble and " chatter of grace, 
 as though it were something to be bought and sold 
 like an ox or an ass." 2 
 
 Rome's morbid gospel of terror is universally 
 demoralizing ; but perhaps the most disastrous results 
 which flow therefrom occur in the case of boys and 
 girls and young children. I myself know, for example, 
 two women who were thoroughly upset, and ren- 
 dered temporarily morbid in their early girlhood, by 
 the terrifying religious instruction given to them in 
 a convent school. Some of the manuals written for 
 the teaching of dogma to children are positively 
 barbarous in their crude and brutal realism. " Little 
 child," says a work called The Light of Hell, written 
 
 1 See Francois de Finelon, by Lord St. Cyres, p. 261. 
 See Studies in Mysticism, by the Rev. R. Jones, p. 352.
 
 168 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 by a Redemptorist priest for " Children and Young 
 Persons " " little child, if you go to Hell there will 
 be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on 
 striking you every minute for ever and ever, with- 
 out ever stopping." In another paragraph there is 
 a graphic account of the devils looking at the naughty 
 child in Hell and saying, " The child is burning." 
 They go back and look again and again, and for 
 ever and ever, and the answer is always the same, 
 " It is burning in the fire." There are other passages 
 just as bad, one of which describes the blood boiling 
 in the scalded veins of a boy. ' The brain boiling 
 and bubbling in his head, the marrow boiling in 
 his bones." l 
 
 Such teaching positively reeks of the barbarous 
 and dreary Middle Age. And we poor people of 
 to-day, are we in any better case than the contem- 
 poraries of the Fathers ? Apparently not. The 
 mystical Modernist, the scientific mystic, and other 
 eminent persons assure us that our fate here is still 
 an exceedingly dreary one, and that to be wise 
 means also to be miserable. It is no use for the 
 good Christian to try and be happy, because a cheer- 
 ful belief in the world is discordant with the gospel 
 of Christ. " A provisional pessimism is the founda- 
 tion of the Christian type of religious character. It 
 is the soil in which the seed of the Gospel takes root 
 and flourishes. Despair of this life is the counterfoil 
 of our hope in another." Every moral effort on the 
 human plane has a certainty of eventual failure : 
 our noblest energies are doomed to utter sterility 
 for remoter epochs. Man's schemes are fruitless, his 
 ideals barren, even if they were attainable ; and 
 despondency is the fruitful soil in which religion 
 expands. The Churches may " chatter progress " as 
 Tyrrell says they are busy chattering it now. Rome 
 
 1 See Shall We Join the Church of Rome ? by a Disillusioned Con- 
 vert, p. 35.
 
 A GOSPEL OF GLOOM 169 
 
 in particular, imitated by certain Anglicans, is dis- 
 playing her faded charms to the lusty young giant, 
 Democracy, ogling and wooing him with a tender- 
 ness which the coy youth knows perfectly well to 
 be counterfeit. The Church is now promising him 
 a good time here below ; but he knows that, in any 
 case, she is not the proper purveyor of those earthly 
 instalments, which certain clerics are dangling before 
 his eyes, of the celestial millennium. Meanwhile, it 
 seems patent to the faithful Romanist that the 
 rationalists' struggles for improvement are but " the 
 struggles of a drowning crew trying to keep afloat 
 as long as possible, before yielding themselves to 
 the deep of oblivion." Earthly life " bids fair to 
 exhaust man's nervous capacity and hasten his 
 extinction " ; and so the world goes tottering to its 
 ruin, drowned in sorrow, whelmed in an ocean of 
 injustice. We may hold and cherish our foolish 
 heritage of hope, but the fallacy of progress will 
 surely be brought home to us ; human life is "an 
 incurable tragedy," and the best it can do is to defer 
 the inevitable day of defeat. 
 
 Spiritualism, we are told and not without reason 
 can afford us no proof of spiritual immortality. 
 It can but show us, at the utmost, a prolongation 
 of our earthly life in an environment which makes 
 it useless and meaningless. The futile sprites who 
 visit their relations on earth and talk to them 
 in exceedingly bad grammar about the inferior 
 quality of the whiskies-and-sodas, and the cabbage- 
 like perfume of the cigars, on the other side of the 
 grave, are, if genuine, but wraiths of the body : 
 they can form no permanent consolation for the 
 bereaved soul. 
 
 Fenelon said that Nature and humanity are 
 but playthings of the Deity, both alike under a 
 divine curse ; and his doctrine of spiritual passivity 
 was little more than a gospel of nervous despondency
 
 170 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 seeking the quietude of inanition. Virtue and manli- 
 ness, according to the Quietists, could never save 
 us, and earthly joys are but Dead Sea apples plucked 
 by wretched humanity on its road to ruin. Mere piety 
 " coloured by character " is of no spiritual value ; 
 and one of the functions of grace is to act as 
 an extinguisher on every spark of natural life. 
 Personality is a sin : the Self, with its ideals 
 of racial and personal improvement the fount of 
 spiritual pride must be immolated on the altar 
 of religious passivity, and courage excommunicated 
 as a remnant of the natural man. The Quietist 
 theory is "a form of Stoicism run mad, of 
 moral suicide," says Lord St. Cyres l ; and it 
 exhibits in an aggravated form that fatal sub- 
 ordination of ethics to so-called " religion," which, 
 as I have shown elsewhere, is the chief bane of 
 Romanism. 
 
 It need hardly be said that these strange theories 
 are far from being the official creed of the Church 
 to-day ; but the Quietist doctrine of lulling the 
 soul and will to sleep still infects the religion as 
 a whole. The weakling is still encouraged by certain 
 teachers to remain a weakling : the last thing he 
 ought to do is to bestir himself, to strengthen his 
 own character or act like a man by defending him- 
 self against insult or wrongdoing. We used to be 
 told that Heaven helps those that help themselves, 
 but Newman (in the words of the old hymn) bids 
 us " lay our deadly doing down." " Do nothing," 
 he says, " and you have done everything." ' The 
 less you do, the more God will do for you." 2 This 
 pitiful incitement to inaction and excessive weak- 
 ness, in a sermon full of similar sentiments in favour 
 of moral and physical passivity, recalls the sayings 
 of the earlier Pietists" to act is the deed of a 
 
 1 Franfois de Fdnelon, p. 106. 
 
 * Sermons on Subjects of the Day, p. 301.
 
 A GOSPEL OF GLOOM 171 
 
 novice/' "to die is perfection "and many other 
 similar maxims and admonitions. 
 
 And now Science, allying itself for the nonce with 
 theology, gets an occasional fit of the blues and 
 delights in showing us a mad and monstrous world, 
 no less meaningless than it is purposeless. It would 
 seem to be taking a leaf from the book of that un- 
 lettered philosopher who asked, " What's the good 
 of anything ? ' It depicts Nature, omnipotent but 
 blind, inflicting on us a senseless tyranny ; the uni- 
 verse as a blind alley leading to destruction, and the 
 energies of its inhabitants as but " the trouble of 
 ants in the gleam of a million suns." We are but 
 tiny insects impotently crawling on a petty planet 
 that is rushing madly through the ether to inevit- 
 able dissolution ; and our " uneasy consciousness, 
 which in this obscure corner has for a brief space 
 broken the contented silence of the universe," will 
 soon be at rest. Professor Bertrand Russell, mystic 
 and logician, mathematician and idealist, feels keenly 
 the oppression of man's impotence before the powers 
 of Nature, and asks how, in such an alien and in- 
 human world as ours, so powerless a creature as 
 Man can preserve his aspirations untarnished ? In 
 some very beautiful, though saddening, passages he 
 paints a picture of our helplessness and misery such 
 as would have rejoiced the heart of St. Augustine. 
 " Brief and powerless," he says, " is Man's life ; on 
 him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless 
 and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruc- 
 tion, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way ; 
 for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, 
 to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of 
 darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the 
 blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little 
 day." Earthly existence, for him, is but " a long 
 march through the night, surrounded by invisible 
 foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a
 
 172 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 goal that few can hope to reach, and where none 
 may tarry long." x 
 
 Now, all this is very sad and, no doubt, at least 
 partially true. We ought by rights, if only we were 
 as logical as Roman Catholics say they are, to be 
 tearing our hair and rending our garments and 
 putting ashes on our heads. Optimism, under cir- 
 cumstances like these, is a patent absurdity ; man 
 should rather curse the day that he was born. Yet 
 such is our incredible stupidity that we obstinately 
 refuse to see in existence nothing but an instrument 
 of torture, or to abuse our parents for bringing us 
 into the world. To the great question " Is life a 
 boon ? ' the vast bulk of humanity replies with a 
 tacit, but unhesitating " Yes." It actually goes to 
 the unreasonable length of occasionally enjoying 
 itself. Even the Church's practice, in this as in most 
 other things, is not in strict accordance with her 
 principles ; and the faithful manage to preserve 
 a fairly cheerful demeanour, and keep up a stout 
 heart, in spite of their depressing religion. I have 
 seen many good Catholics making positively merry, 
 just as if no St. Augustine had pointed out to them 
 their present misery and corruption, and the ever- 
 lasting doom that hangs suspended over their heads. 
 
 The Roman Catholic has faith in God : let him 
 also acquire faith in man. He is acquiring it by 
 degrees, despite the mystical dervishes of his creed 
 who would depress poor humanity in the mire, and 
 keep it there" a set of selfish beings," as Thackeray 
 said, " crawling about, and avoiding one another, 
 and howling a perpetual Miserere." Let the Church 
 cease to be always clamouring for special super- 
 natural interventions on humanity's behalf, and 
 leave it free to work out its own redemption. Let 
 us, on our side, have faith and religion ; but let us 
 first find out what we mean by the words. Even 
 
 1 Mysticism and Logic, pp. 48, 56.
 
 A GOSPEL OF GLOOM 173 
 
 though we refuse assent to the proposition that 
 pretended belief in fable is a necessary condition to 
 salvation, we shall still have within us plenty of 
 the faith whereby a man may live. Man will gradu- 
 ally cease to seek redemption in abstract nouns 
 and metaphysical cobwebs, but rather in work for 
 his own and his neighbour's betterment. His designs 
 for the present do not outspan this little world, but 
 the needs of its denizens will afford ample scope 
 for his energies. His status in the cosmic order is 
 not a lofty one ; yet, though he be but a dweller 
 for a brief space in a puny satellite of a third-rate 
 sun, his soul will not find its habitation in a temple 
 of despondency. The giant Despair may straddle, 
 like Apollyon, across his path ; but he will sweep 
 him aside and, still cherishing his heritage of hope, 
 fashion his own ideals as best he may. The Vision 
 Splendid of a renovated world, and a new reign of 
 justice on earth, may be only a dream, but it is a 
 dream worth striving to realize. Amid all the woes 
 that beset us, we may proudly defy the seeming 
 tyranny of outward circumstance ; and, like W. E. 
 Henley, indulge occasionally in the harmless luxury 
 of shaking our fist at the thunder, and opposing our 
 " unconquerable soul " to the slings and arrows of 
 outrageous fortune.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CLERICAL MIND 
 
 " The clerical mind is an unsearchable thing " (DR. CREIGHTON, 
 late Bishop of London). 
 
 "II ne faut jamais exiger des pretres la sincerity ; quand elle 
 est dans leur temperament, ils rompent tdt ou tard avec 1'Eglise " 
 (ABB HOUTIN, quoted by the REV. ALFRED FAWKES, Studies in 
 Modernism, p. 13). 
 
 " WHAT beats me," says Father Tyrrell in one of 
 his letters, " is the psychology of clericalism " ; 
 the mentality of certain exalted officials at the Vati- 
 can during the pontificate of Pius X was as strange 
 to him as that of a Fiji islander. Yet the clerical 
 mind is by no means a monopoly of ecclesiastics. 
 There are thousands of clergymen who may be said 
 to be free from it, while large numbers of laymen 
 and women are more intolerant, more clerically 
 minded, than the average cleric they are clergy, in 
 fact, without the cassock. Theirs is a mentality 
 which, in the field of transcendental doctrine, gets 
 a curious twist or kink ; the ethical and dogmatic 
 confusion, the moral disease sprung from the Jesuit 
 bacillus, appears to have infected its system and 
 impulses, so that it moves in tortuous fashion along 
 devious paths. Its obliquity, as Gladstone said of 
 Newman, is as a rule merely intellectual obliquity, 
 although in the case of the Roman ecclesiastics the 
 crookedness extends, as we all know, to political 
 and other practical affairs of life. 
 
 The clerical talent for obscuring main issues, 
 and skilfully diverting the mind of the student to 
 
 174
 
 THE CLERICAL MIND 175 
 
 minor ones, nowhere finds ampler scope for its exer- 
 cise than in the sphere of religious apologetic. The 
 marvellous adroitness with which a theologian will 
 sometimes turn the flank of an enemy's argument, 
 or defend an impossible position, extract unexpected 
 meanings out of difficult or inconvenient texts, and 
 darken counsel with an impossible symbolism, fre- 
 quently compels our admiration. The subtlety of 
 dialecticians especially runs riot in the broad field 
 of Biblical exegesis, and their vivid imaginations 
 sometimes produce results which, to the prosaic 
 lay mind, are startling in the extreme. Certain 
 orthodox Frenchmen, for example, have lately dis- 
 covered evidence in the Bible that the introduction 
 of railways was foreseen by the inspired authors ; 
 one says that the life of Columbus and the destiny 
 of the North American Indians are indicated in 
 Isaiah xi. and Ix. ; another discerned in the frog 
 embedded in early rock strata a parallel to Jonah's 
 experience inside the whale's belly. 1 Newman gave 
 his heated fancy full play in the description of the 
 Israelitish warriors slaughtering the poor Canaanites 
 because their ancestors had misbehaved themselves. 
 " Doubtless," he said, " as they slew those who 
 suffered for the sins of their fathers, their thoughts 
 turned, first to the Fall of Adam, next to that unseen 
 state where all inequalities are righted, and they 
 surrendered themselves as instruments unto the 
 Lord, of mysteriously working out good through 
 evil." The Hebrew patriarchs, as we learn from 
 Pius X, knew all about the doctrine of the Virgin 
 Mary's Immaculate Conception, and derived much 
 comfort from considering it in the solemn moments 
 of their life. 
 
 Examples of this sort of thing could be multiplied 
 by the dozen, and imaginative theories of the most 
 
 1 See Studies in Modernism, p. 52 ; and Modernism, by the Rev. 
 A. L. Lilley, p. 51.
 
 176 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 extravagant kind abounded in the controversies 
 between orthodoxy and rationalism which enlivened 
 the magazines during the 'eighties. Huxley described 
 the allegorical method as " that universal solvent 
 of absurdities," but the champions of orthodoxy 
 still continue to use it, and with ever increasing 
 freedom. The science of hermeneutics is capable of 
 such infinitely varied application that its value as 
 a defence against infidelity can hardly be over-esti- 
 mated : an ingenious interpreter can make any 
 passage in Scripture mean pretty well anything he 
 pleases. That enlightened theologian, the Rev. 
 Alfred Fawkes, assures us (Studies in Modernism, 
 p. 261) that " the allegorizing stage is common to 
 mythologies in their decadence " ; and that, when 
 it has set in, there is but a step between them and 
 death. Nevertheless, however deadly its effects may 
 be, the fascinations of indiscriminate allegorizing 
 are too great to be resisted even by the modern 
 theologian. Symbolism is undoubtedly useful as a 
 means of illustration : it may serve as a frame or 
 setting to deeper truth ; but great truths should be 
 stated as plainly as possible, and the allegorical 
 method, often a mere make-shift of theologians in 
 distress a sort of S.O.S. dispatched by sinking 
 dogmatism lends itself only too readily to intellec- 
 tual insincerity. " Why," asks Tyrrell with his 
 customary directness, " express symbolically what 
 can be said plainly ? ' The reason is surely clear 
 enough : it creates a fog which enables the combatant 
 who is getting the worst of it to make his escape. 
 Mistiness, we have been told, is also the highest 
 wisdom, in that it leads to high ecclesiastical prefer- 
 ment, and the profoundest obscurity is the mystic's 
 highest glory : he " culminates in darkness," the 
 darkness of the intense inane. 1 The Roman Church, 
 the great Mystagogue of our day, is for ever extending 
 
 1 Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, i, 13.
 
 THE CLERICAL MIND 177 
 
 the elaborate system of symbolic ritual and doctrine 
 built up in bygone days ; but Catholic allegory 
 makes the mistake of clothing itself in the robe of 
 dogmatism, and lays down the law which is 
 absurd, as we used to say in the days when Euclid 
 was the educational fashion. Symbolism is the 
 vehicle of poetic thought, not of religious authori- 
 tarianism ; yet Romanist piety, which ought to 
 content itself with such plain statements as the 
 populace can understand, still revels in enigma 
 and the extended use of inferior symbols. ' The 
 countless books," says Dr. Inge, " written to elaborate 
 the principles of allegorism contain a mass of futility 
 such as it would be difficult to match in any other 
 class of literature " : and the nineteenth-century 
 divine who analysed the 153 fish caught in the Sea 
 of Galilee into the square of the twelve Apostles, 
 plus the square of the three Persons in the Trinity, 1 
 gives us an excellent illustration of one phase of 
 clerical mentality. Even in these matter-of-fact days 
 the passion for misty (and sometimes extremely 
 mixed) metaphor is apt to be a sad trial to a con- 
 gregation which yearns for lucidity in religious 
 exposition. 
 
 The Devil, we are told, can quote Scripture for 
 his own purposes ; and, with the increasing pressure 
 of modern science and education, we may expect 
 the Romanist hierophant to employ his subtle mind 
 in inventing new and ever more ingenious interpre- 
 tations. He will drop into symbolism, whenever 
 symbolism suits his purpose, as easily as Mr. Silas 
 Wegg dropped into poetry, and the religious proba- 
 tioner will find his task grow daily more arduous. 
 Suppose, for example, that some future Pius X 
 should issue another Pascendi Encyclical commanding 
 the faithful, under pain of eternal damnation, to 
 believe that the moon is made of green cheese, it 
 
 1 Christian Mysticism, by Dean Inge, p. 272. 
 12
 
 178 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 may be necessary for the laity to inquire whether 
 the Sovereign Pontiff means ordinary grocer's green 
 cheese, or merely green cheese of the allegorical and 
 metaphysical variety. 
 
 i Also among the Protestant denominations the 
 science of interpretation is reaching a pitch of 
 excellence only inferior to that of Rome. The Book 
 of Genesis is now the symbolist's favourite field for 
 exercising his peculiar talent ; and the recent 
 discussion in the newspapers on the Fall of Man 
 involved us in a dialectical web of unreality which 
 my poor brain is quite incapable of unravelling. 
 I gather from the disquisitions of learned divines 
 that it is generally agreed that a fall of some sort 
 took place in Paradise, but that man nevertheless 
 rose higher in the scale of creation : he " struggled 
 upwards," as Canon Barnes says, and some rash 
 people go so far as to say that there was no fall, 
 but an actual advance. The most probable solution 
 of the mystery appears to be the compromise 
 suggested by an American divine, who said that 
 man " fell upwards." Another curious example how 
 the laws of spiritual gravitation may be reversed 
 appears to be afforded by the history of infidelity 
 and other sin. Theology, as I understand, teaches 
 that the anthropoid apes or other aboriginal inhabi- 
 tants of our globe did not possess original sin, but 
 lived in a beautiful state of " innocent simplicity " 
 (not " perfection," as one learned divine erroneously 
 stated). Sin was reserved for man in his higher 
 and more developed state ; he did not fall until 
 he knew the difference between right and wrong, 
 and became aware of the conflict between freedom 
 and conscience ; and, unfortunately, he keeps falling 
 still. There was original sin, in other words, but 
 no aboriginal sin ; and I trust I am not misinterpret- 
 ing the Latin Church when I say that, in her view, 
 an infidel but progressive world is now engaged in
 
 THE CLERICAL MIND 179 
 
 raising itself downwards : her complaint against 
 modern civilization has always been that it progresses 
 forwards, instead of backwards. It is all very 
 puzzling, and I must leave it to the theologians to 
 find a way out of the labyrinth. 
 
 The ingenious blends of darkness and light, the 
 desperate shifts to which orthodoxy in a quandary 
 will resort, sometimes pass comprehension ; but 
 one would think that some day there must be an 
 end to this sort of thing. The acrobatic straddle 
 between irreconcilable theories is too exhausting to 
 be maintained in perpetuity. The efforts made by 
 professors of dogmatic religion to maintain a dignified 
 equilibrium in impossible intellectual positions some- 
 times recall to my mind the amusing performances 
 of certain contortionists in our places of entertain- 
 ment ; and religious apologetic the word " apolo- 
 getic " always appears to me to be significant 
 will have to adopt a different tone. 1 In the sphere 
 of Biblical criticism it is grievous to read earnest 
 Catholics like Miss Petre, Baron von Hiigel, and 
 Father Tyrrell condemning the obscurantist tactics 
 of their Church, her evasions of Scripture problems, 
 and the use of " protective methods " in the pursuit 
 of religious truth ; or that enlightened Anglican 
 and very careful writer, the Rev. A. L. Lilley, speaking 
 in his Modernism (p. 50) of the " fatuous persist- 
 ency " of Anglicans in their attempts to reconcile 
 the old dogma with the modern knowledge, and 
 describing our English apologetics of the mid- 
 nineteenth century as "a nightmare of pointless 
 theology and impossible science." The old supersti- 
 
 1 It would appear from proceedings at the recent Catholic con- 
 ference at Cambridge that Romanist professors are not now to be 
 excommunicated if they reject the celebrated text known as the 
 Comma Joanneum (i John v. 7) which, in the almost unanimous view 
 of impartial scholars, is spurious. In 1897 Leo XIII and the Holy 
 Office affirmed its authenticity, though the Pope is said to have bitterly 
 repented his decision. We are evidently getting on.
 
 i8o PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 tion was dangerous to life and limb, but it was usually 
 sincere. Can we always say the same of our modern 
 controversial makeshifts ? Superstition is a genuine 
 belief in shams : counterfeit superstition is but the 
 sham of a sham. 
 
 The ancient Roman augurs are said to have 
 winked at each other as they passed in the street, 
 but we may be quite sure that they looked preter- 
 naturally solemn as they inspected the entrails 
 and decided whether the omens were favourable or 
 the reverse. Their successors in Rome to-day pre- 
 serve a no less imposing air of gravity over their 
 occult mysteries and astonishing interpretations, but 
 I cannot help now and then suspecting them of 
 pulling our legs. On the other hand, I must compli- 
 ment them sincerely upon the humour they display 
 in some of their dogmatic and ethical speculations, 
 as well as in those absurd and often malodorous 
 conundrums which are their special delight. 
 
 Nor is the position of liberal theology by any 
 means an easy one. We have already seen how the 
 exigencies of propagandism determined the action 
 of the men who built up the Church in early days, 
 and how Pagan ritual and doctrine were introduced 
 into the Church for the avowed purpose of making 
 converts. Since then Biblical criticism has made 
 an important step forward. We are now told by 
 a number of our most eminent theologians and 
 many enlightened divines in England, France, Italy, 
 and America agree that the Synoptic Gospels " are 
 not historical works any more than the Fourth ; 
 they were not written with the simple object of 
 giving the facts as they were ; they were books 
 composed for the work of evangelization." The 
 writers selected their incidents with a view to " the 
 peculiar needs " of particular groups of converts. 
 The Gospels were not exactly " partisan pamphlets," 
 but they were constructed on opportunist principles,
 
 THE CLERICAL MIND 181 
 
 and additions were made from time to time as occasion 
 required. M. Loisy, for example, tells us that 
 St. Mark's Gospel " is not a book of simple growth 
 and homogeneous editing." When compiling his 
 description (Mark xiv. 23-5) of the Last Supper, the 
 author " did not wish to upset the arrangement of 
 the early narrative," and so accommodated his 
 account of what Christ said on that occasion to the 
 account given by St. Paul in I Cor. xi. 25. More- 
 over, says M. Loisy, the special tradition of the 
 Fourth Gospel gradually disappears, as the sense of 
 this mysterious book is better comprehended. 1 
 
 It is quite evident that we can no longer entertain, 
 as of yore, that the Scriptures were dictated by God, 
 or descended ready-made from Heaven, in their 
 present form ; but when we are told that the 
 Evangelists did not always conform to the facts, 
 but compiled their narratives " throughout in a 
 dogmatic interest," and adapted them, as they thought 
 fit, to the requirements of the hour and the exigencies 
 of " edification," it gives us furiously to think. They 
 are said to have written their Gospels under celestial 
 inspiration and dictation ; and, if this be true, the 
 assertion now made that they compiled them for the 
 purpose of obtaining certain temporal advantages, and 
 to serve the ends of a ruling caste, sounds very like 
 an imputation of political opportunism in quarters 
 where we have not hitherto been accustomed to 
 look for it. The theory must be classed among 
 those which theologians label as " dangerous " ; 
 and we cannot be surprised if dogmatic religion 
 finds itself still in deep waters concerning the whole 
 matter. Even in the august precincts of the Curia 
 doubt prevails as to whether the Pentateuch is 
 Mosaic, " or only a mosaic " ; whether Moses really 
 wrote the account in Deuteronomy of his own 
 funeral, and assured us that no subsequent prophet 
 
 1 The Gospel and the Church, pp. 25, 26, 130.
 
 182 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 in Israel was his equal. In 1902 a Biblical Com- 
 mission, which was expected to supersede the Holy 
 Inquisition in the field of Scriptural exegesis, was 
 appointed to examine these matters in detail ; but 
 the work was entrusted to the Jesuits, and when 
 some exceptionally honest and intelligent members 
 of the body showed a too inquiring spirit, they were 
 of course promptly suppressed. 
 
 Liberal thought in Protestant circles has appa- 
 rently abandoned for good what has rightly been 
 termed the barren fixity of ecclesiastical dogma l ; 
 it will have none of the subtle methods employed 
 by Roman divines in order to evade the destructive 
 conclusions arrived at by the new criticism, or of 
 their efforts to make the field of revelation a neutral 
 territory. On the other hand, the new conditions 
 of chaotic fluidity, though an improvement on the 
 old fixity, can hardly be described as satisfactory. 
 The present position of both Catholic and Protestant 
 Modernists, as I understand it, is briefly as follows. 
 There can be no finality in dogma, or the expression 
 of dogma. Definitions and conclusions, as Tyrrell 
 puts it, are ever in the making, and never made : 
 they are subject to continual restatement and 
 readjustment. The Church's dogmas are " vehicles 
 of the truth," but, as we do not yet know what 
 the truth is, the vehicles will have to be overhauled 
 from time to time and remodelled to suit their new 
 occupants. To vary the metaphor, there will have 
 to be periodical spring-cleanings and refurbishings of 
 the ecclesiastical mansion, and the exceeding plasticity 
 of the material out of which dogma is fashioned will 
 be exemplified by fresh readjustments every decade. 
 Relativity is the order of the day : the absolute 
 
 1 " No dogma, no Dean," said a High Church dignitary to the 
 rather " broad " Dean Stanley ; but the present Dean of St. Paul's 
 would seem to be a living proof that this principle no longer holds 
 good in the Church.
 
 THE CLERICAL MIND 183 
 
 values of which we are all in search are now varying 
 values, and must be symbolized by changing symbols : 
 theological terms have no fixed connotations. In 
 Tyrrell's words, the Catholic Christian Idea must 
 " revise its categories " and " shape its embodiment 
 to its growth " in the same way, I suppose, that 
 a tailor shapes a waistcoat to the growth of his 
 customer's embodiment. Tyrrell also tells us that 
 " our beliefs are reversible " ; and the tailor says the 
 same of our coats when they begin to show signs 
 of wear. If a doctrine, which was believed for 
 eighteen centuries to be of celestial inspiration, is 
 proving a stumbling-block to the younger generation 
 of the twentieth century, clear it out of the way as 
 a useless encumbrance, or alter it beyond recognition. 
 Dogmas and definitions having only a provisional 
 and relative value, the old formulae will be reset at 
 intervals in nice new terms adapted to the modern 
 mind. What was true for yesterday is fiction for 
 to-day, so theology will trim its sails to the shifting 
 breezes of a truth which is ever in the making. The 
 layman will gradually replace the cleric as preacher, 
 the poet will be our new prophet. Orthodoxy will 
 shake hands with infidelity, the ecclesiastical lion 
 lie down with the Agnostic lamb ; and the little 
 children of the new art and the new poetry, whose 
 intuitions of spiritual realities are finer and deeper 
 than those of any theologian, shall lead them to a 
 nobler truth than any materialist knows. Science, 
 illumined and " protected " (as Cardinal Mercier 
 told us) by Pascendi Encyclicals and the like, will 
 have, like Voltaire, at least a bowing acquaintance 
 with the Infinite. 1 Humanity at large will be content 
 
 1 Voltaire and a friend were walking along the street one day, 
 when a religious procession passed. The philosopher stopped, and 
 raised his hat in token of respect. "Comment! M. de Voltaire," 
 said the astonished friend, " est-ce que vous 6tes recondite avec 
 Dieu ? " " Mais oui," the great man replied with a shrug; -' nous 
 nous saluons, mais nous ne parlons pas."
 
 184 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 to attach itself provisionally to an interim creed, 
 and then wait in patience for fresh developments 
 in the field of scientific and Biblical research. 
 
 It is not easy to see how dogma can be permanently 
 maintained upon such lines as these. The modern 
 theologians are mixing up ideals with dogma ; but 
 ideals change with circumstances, which a dogma 
 has no right to do. A dogma is not a varying propo- 
 sition or reversible belief : it is a settled opinion 
 positively expressed, " a doctrine settled and promul- 
 gated by authority and to be received as such." 
 Roman Catholic dogma, in particular, is " the accu- 
 rate authoritative expression of fact " ; and the 
 Latin Church, at any rate, still claims the right to 
 flog and murder us if we do not accept her dogmas 
 as correct statements of fact. The Gospels, more- 
 over, have hitherto been presented to us as records, 
 not merely of spiritual truths, but of historical 
 events, and we cannot treat the latter in the hap- 
 hazard fashion with which it is now proposed to 
 treat theological opinions. You can rearrange belief 
 as often as you like, but history kicks at the process 
 being applied to her : only a historical answer can 
 be given to a historical difficulty. So far as I can 
 see, there is only one alternative left to the dogmatist. 
 He must continue in the old course, as pursued for 
 centuries by Romanists, preach doctrines which 
 most people now believe to be untrue, and teach the 
 people a fable. And, strange as it may seem, this 
 line of action still commends itself to quite a large 
 number of people who do not belong to the Roman 
 communion. In the course of a recent newspaper 
 correspondence a bold churchman declared that 
 the only way to deal with ancient teachings which 
 are an insult to our intelligence is to scrap them ; 
 but a clergyman openly defended the old obscurantist 
 position, saying that churchmen do not want to 
 disturb the placid faith of their aged parishioners :
 
 THE CLERICAL MIND 185 
 
 in their view '" true wisdom and tenderness lie in 
 a wise silence." Other people maintain, on the 
 contrary, that if the placid faith of the aged parish- 
 ioners is an erroneous one, it is a kindness as well 
 as a duty to set them right ; and we also have to 
 think about the young souls committed to the 
 clergyman's care. They and their teachers are now 
 growing restive : they insist upon having the truth 
 told to them ; and it is obvious that we cannot 
 have the aged parishioners being taught one kind 
 of truth, and their grandchildren another. 
 
 Carlyle's opinion of the clerical mind is expressed 
 in several characteristically vigorous passages. He 
 was no believer in the doctrinal entanglements and 
 platitudes of nineteenth-century divines, Roman 
 Catholic or Protestant. He admired the Bishop of 
 his diocese for his many excellent qualities, but did 
 not read his Charges because he much preferred 
 speech which is articulate. " Not a credible man," 
 said Chelsea's sage " perhaps not quite a safe man 
 to be concerned with ? ' To Carlyle the only 
 religion worth anything is the religion which a man 
 himself feels is true, not what another man tells 
 him he ought to believe or pretend to believe a 
 religion that is a discerned fact for him, with covenants 
 which he dare not for his life's sake but go and 
 observe. So it should be with us now, in these 
 strenuous times, which in some respects are not 
 unlike those when the Latter Day Pamphlets were 
 written. Labor are est or are : the true worship is 
 work, and to be weak in word or deed is the real 
 misery and irreligion.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC LOGIC 
 
 " Non in dialectic^, salvum fecit Deus populum suum " (Not by 
 logic hath it pleased God to save His people. ST. AMBROSE). 
 
 " Formal logic is rather a negative and a verifying than a positive 
 and discovering process, and represents only a very small part of 
 the actual operation by which we are guided, and necessarily guided, 
 in all practical judgments " (An Agnostic's Apology, p. 210). 
 
 ROMAN Catholics are great on what they call their 
 " logic," and not a few people give it as their reason 
 for joining the Latin Church, that her position is a 
 more rational one than that of Protestants. They 
 consider themselves unequalled judges of sound 
 arguments, 1 and exult in the beautiful symmetry 
 of their dogmas as compared with the distressing 
 inconsequence, the makeshift patchwork character, 
 which are the blemish of other creeds. Those poor 
 Protestants are very good fellows in their way, 
 but they are so hopelessly illogical : the man in 
 search of really puissant reasoners must have recourse 
 to the theologians of the Roman Church. 
 
 " The world is governed by logic," says Mr. 
 Augustine Birrell in the laudatory essay upon his 
 favourite hero, Cardinal Newman, entitled ' The 
 Via Media." * When Mr. Birrell says " the world " 
 he probably means that part of the world outside 
 the British Empire, because the average Briton has 
 
 1 The Month (December 1919) declares that " we Catholics are 
 unequalled judges of the soundness of arguments, and are not at all 
 the sort of people who are able to content ourselves with such as are 
 not really sound." 
 
 a Obiter Dicta, First Series.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC LOGIC 187 
 
 always refused to submit to logic's sway. John 
 Bull, " the cloudy-browed, thick-soled, opaque 
 Practicality, with no logic utterance," as Carlyle 
 calls him, somehow manages to blunder into wisdom, 
 because he has in him " what transcends all logic- 
 utterance : a Congruity with the Unuttered. The 
 Speakable, which lies atop, as a superficial film, or 
 outer skin, is his or is not his : but the Doable, 
 which reaches down to the world's centre, you find 
 him here ! " J Even if it be true that the via media 
 is a blind alley leading nowhere, he will still follow 
 it, believing that the middle road is still the safest, 
 and that it is better to land nowhere than to land 
 in a bog you cannot get out of. 
 
 Whether " the sulky, almost stupid, Man of 
 Practice, or the light adroit Man of Theory all 
 equipped with clear logic," the versatile Mr. Augustus 
 Birrell, or the opaque and cloudy-browed John 
 Bull, be right in this matter of the value of logic 
 whether the stupidity of the one be not often 
 wiser than the wisdom of the other I must leave 
 to people better qualified than myself to judge. 
 The point to which I would draw attention is that 
 the most wonderful logicians in the world, if we are 
 to take them at their own valuation, are to be found 
 among the theologians of the Roman Church. 
 
 The most purely logical people that we know of 
 would appear to be savages, but this does not prove 
 that they are the wisest. The workings of primitive 
 intelligence usually proceed on grounds which, accord- 
 ing to the principles of formal logic, are strictly 
 correct. For instance, the rustic who argued that, 
 because one dose of the doctor's medicine made 
 him feel better, a larger dose would make him better 
 still, may have reasoned logically ; but, when he 
 proceeded to put his logic into practice, and swallowed 
 the whole bottleful of pills, the results were disastrous. 
 
 1 Past and Present, p. 137.
 
 i88 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Of all fallacies the fallacy of bad logic is the 
 most fatally misleading, and that wise divine, St. 
 Ambrose, showed great perspicuity in deprecating 
 specious reasoning, such as that wherewith the 
 Roman casuists and schoolmen impose upon the 
 faithful. Such reasoning is vitiated at its source. 
 Formal logic is always, at best, a faulty method of 
 arriving at the truth. Error creeps so easily into 
 the most cunning syllogism : if the premises are 
 unsound, the conclusion cannot be justified. We 
 all used to think, for example, that Euclid was a 
 magnificent logician, but we are now assured that 
 not a few of his axioms and postulates are wrong, 
 and that he has therefore been leading us all astray. 
 The first thing in correct reasoning is to look after 
 your postulates : if these are false, your deductions 
 will be falser still ; and, the more rigidly you reason 
 from your unsound premises, the deeper you will 
 flounder in the intellectual bog. Starting with the 
 supposition that the moon is made of green cheese 
 I could arrive at all sorts of interesting conclusions, 
 but it is doubtful whether they would be of any 
 value. A false theory may possibly be consistent, 
 but sensible people do not care a brass button about 
 its logical coherence if it proves to be constructed 
 out of moonshine. To argue effectively with a 
 Roman Catholic you must stop him at the first step, 
 and bid him verify his premises. When you show 
 him that the ground on which he is standing is 
 very shaky, he will probably adopt Newman's posi- 
 tion and say that we need not " vex ourselves to 
 find out whether our own deductions are philo- 
 sophical or no, provided they are religious," * and that 
 savage superstition is anyhow better than modern 
 illumination ; but you must explain to him that 
 reasoning of this kind does not satisfy the seeker 
 
 1 Theory of Religious Belief, 1843, p. 351 ; quoted in An Agnostic's 
 Apology, p. 170.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC LOGIC 189 
 
 after truth in these days. It certainly does not 
 justify the Catholics' contention that he is a 
 supremely logical person, and the best judge in the 
 world of sound arguments. When we ask him for 
 some common measure of truth, he shows us the 
 curious processes by which he reaches his opinion, 
 and expects us to be satisfied with what is merely 
 a demonstration of the assumptions upon which his 
 convictions rest. 
 
 Michelet, with his customary acuteness and 
 eloquence, gives an excellent picture of the methods 
 employed by Roman Catholic preachers. They 
 make the same parade of intellectualism, but, 
 judging from the quality of their sermons, they do 
 not rate very highly the intelligence of their auditors. 
 " A decent, proper, blunt-looking man ascends the 
 pulpit : he will not affect them ; he confines himself 
 to proofs. He makes a grand display of reasonings, 
 with high logical pretensions and much solemnity 
 in his premises. Then come sudden, sharp conclu- 
 sions ; but for middle term there is none : ' These 
 things require no proof ! ' Why, then, miserable 
 reasoner, did you make so much noise about your 
 proofs ? " ' 
 
 Rome should take warning from the sad fate of 
 
 poor Eve, who, if we may believe Cardinal Newman, 
 
 owed her temptation and fall to the fact that she 
 
 followed passion and reason 2 : presumably she failed 
 
 ! to verify her premises, and so reasoned incorrectly. 
 
 i The punishment, however, would appear to have 
 
 ! been rather a severe one for so very common an 
 
 offence, not only amongst ladies, but amongst men. 
 
 I For example, St. Thomas Aquinas and his disciples 
 
 ;have piled up a mountainous structure of highly 
 
 questionable syllogisms, but we may well doubt 
 
 whether the world is any better or wiser for the 
 
 1 Priests, Women and Families, p. xix. 
 Parochial and Plain Sermons, v, 112.
 
 igo PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 magnificent dialectical tangle which scholasticism 
 has created. The Roman Church suffers from that 
 worst form of bad logic, the logic of a false position. 
 She may be said to have two legs, the logical leg 
 and the leg of commonplace sentiment and unreason. 
 Sometimes she elects to use the one leg, sometimes 
 the other ; but the pair never seem to work properly 
 together. At various periods in her history she has 
 been compelled to call a halt to the rationalizing 
 tendencies of her more intellectual votaries, and, 
 by steering a middle course, to invoke the aid of 
 compromise and common sense in order to avoid 
 irretrievable disaster. " Be logical," the early 
 heretics and sectarians cried, as they appealed to 
 the logical irresistibleness of their favourite notions, 
 and sought to press them to conclusions which would 
 have spelled ruin for the growing religion. " Be 
 logical," said every sect and school ; " you admit 
 our premises ; you do not admit our conclusions." 
 But the more practical ecclesiastics saw very clearly 
 that the attempt to attain union by merely logical 
 means would only result in hopeless disunion, and 
 that, however much men may seek God by means 
 of syllogisms, they will never find Him thereby. 
 They therefore preferred a complex and " diplo- 
 matic " creed which combined opposites, studied 
 policy, and balanced one tendency against another. 1 
 The greater part of Roman dialectic is in reality 
 nothing more than rhetoric dressed up as logic : 
 the rhetoric is always much better than the logic, 
 and the resultant dogma bears clear marks of its 
 origin. The average Catholic reader of Newman's 
 works, for instance, thinks he is being guided by the 
 clear light of reason, whereas in reality he is only 
 being blinded by the eloquence of a rhetorician. 
 Newman claims to have a logical mind, and tells us 
 
 1 The Theory of Development, by Canon J. B. Mozley, pp. 41-43. 
 See also Gore's Roman Catholic Claims, p. 2.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC LOGIC 191 
 
 that it was " a concatenation of argument " that 
 led him to the Roman fold (Apology, p. 322). He 
 uses reason up to a point, but coolly throws it over 
 when it has ceased to serve his purpose, because, 
 as he says, it is no ultimate test of truth. When it 
 has become apparent that logic will only defeat 
 the ends he has in view, he sails off with the airy 
 assertion that it doesn't matter if his deductions 
 are unjustified, so long as they are religious. In 
 other words, he has the will-to-believe, but his 
 beliefs preceded his speculations. He suggests to us 
 the means whereby we may arrive at belief, but 
 gives us no guidance towards achieving correct 
 belief ; he shows how men become convinced, but 
 not how the correctness of doctrine is proved. At 
 one time he disparages intellect, but then proceeds 
 to use it freely as an implement wherewith to make 
 suitable garments for his preconceived opinions, 
 and as a serviceable weapon in his polemics with 
 unbelievers. A past master in dialectical fence, a 
 debater and controversialist by nature, his plausi- 
 bility, and the deplorable casuistry with which he 
 backed his theories, illustrated the desperate shifts 
 to which the apologetics of orthodoxy are some- 
 times reduced. " The more," he says, " you set 
 yourself to argue and prove, in order to discover 
 truth, the less likely you are to reason correctly." 
 Having delivered himself of this admirable dictum, 
 he set to work to argue and prove his case with a 
 wealth of subtle special pleading that has never 
 [been surpassed, and established in the result, and 
 beyond all doubt, the correctness of his earlier 
 conclusions. He may have been the " splendid 
 Sophist " that Lord Acton said he was, but his 
 sophistry was often very much the reverse of splendid. 
 He was believed to have an answer for every diffi- 
 culty, as Mr. Fawkes says, and the belief was not 
 vholly unjustifiable. His verbal ingenuity rarely
 
 192 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 failed him ; but he mixed up * and confounded fact 
 with theory, evidence with mental or temperamental 
 prepossession, and showed with marvellous clearness 
 the intellectual labyrinth in which Romanist dialectic 
 lands those who trust it as a guide. 
 
 The real fact of the matter is that transcenden- 
 talism, especially such transcendentalism as that of 
 the Latin Church, is not a fit subject for logic. 
 ' What," asks St. Thomas a Kempis, " have we to 
 do with genus and species, the dry notions of 
 logicians ? " " Christ's Church," said one of Fe"nelon's 
 opponents, " is not a school of metaphysics " ; and 
 it was the error of the old scholastic philosophers 
 to suppose that, in order to be on the track of truth, 
 you must follow the road of axioms and syllogisms, 
 definitions and highly uncertain propositions. If the 
 facts did not fit in with the abstract conceptions 
 which formed their postulates, the disputable con- 
 ceptions which are in opposition to our concrete 
 knowledge and experience, so much the worse for 
 the facts. Formal logic, we are told by that high 
 authority, Professor Bertrand Russell, is the same 
 thing as mathematics (Mysticism and Logic, p. 74) ; 
 and you cannot, otherwise than in hypothetical 
 form, deal mathematically with metaphysical terms 
 or notions. But if the axioms and postulates of 
 your syllogisms are purely hypothetical (like those 
 of the Roman theologians), your conclusions are 
 obviously disputable, and you have not the smallest 
 right to burn or persecute a man because he refuses 
 to accept them. Aristotle, to my humble way of 
 thinking, probably had the greatest brain of any 
 man that ever lived ; but, as Professor Russell 
 says, Aristotle never got beyond the syllogism, 
 which is a very small part of formal logic, and the 
 schoolmen never got beyond Aristotle. 2 They and 
 
 " Newman miscet et confundit omnia," as the Roman eccle- 
 siastics said. l Mysticism and Logic, p. 76.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC LOGIC 193 
 
 their successors have set before us a fine dish of 
 problems garnished with an appetizing sauce of 
 formal reasonings ; but they always take care to 
 cook the answer first. 
 
 The so-called logic of Roman Catholic theology, 
 with its tedious word-spinning and jugglery with 
 phrases, only serves to fog men's brains and to 
 confuse moral and philosophical issues. It is partial 
 and one-sided, and shuts its eyes to vital facts. 
 If a man would reason correctly, he must be able to 
 apprehend the full scope and bearing of his hypotheses, 
 and this is impossible when you are dealing with 
 supernatural matters ; it is useless trying to con- 
 struct syllogisms out of Hegelian metaphysics or 
 vague affirmations concerning the Absolute. No 
 less in the affairs of the workaday world does logic 
 continually land us in dilemmas from which there is 
 no escape. No sane person, as I think Burke said, 
 rules himself or his life by universal principles. If 
 he did, he might find himself locked up as insane ; 
 he certainly would not make his career a success. 
 
 Mr. Birrell, who thinks that logic is the prime 
 necessity of the hour, tells us that " some opinions, 
 bold and erect as they stand, are in reality but empty 
 shells. One shove will be fatal." Quite so : and 
 the first to tumble from their perch, when the fatal 
 shove is given, will be the top-heavy, syllogistically- 
 cemented, structure of Roman Catholic dialectic. 1 
 Whatever Cardinal Newman and Mr. Birrell may 
 say, the path of human life is one long via media, 
 an eternal compromise in the realm of opinion as 
 well as of action. We cannot all have our own way, 
 or follow out our ideas to what people call their 
 
 1 On the other hand, the Month (December 1919), with its eye 
 on the past as the true fount of wisdom, opines that " the progress 
 of human thought has suffered a grievous check by the breach with 
 the Scholastic tradition " ; and that " even our wisest scientific men 
 would do well to consult " the Catholic Church on these high matters. 
 Professors Einstein and Eddington, and other wise men, please note ! 
 
 13
 
 194 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 logical conclusions. The Romanist may rend or 
 fancy he is rending Protestant theology in pieces, 
 and triumphantly hold the tattered fragments up 
 to the world's derision ; but the victory is a barren 
 one that in no way strengthens his own position. 
 Moreover, there are nowadays a growing number of 
 genuinely religious people who are not committed 
 to any set form of doctrinal belief, and the logic 
 which is based upon persistency in clinging to proved 
 nonsense does not commend itself to their under- 
 standing. They think it is better, on the whole, 
 to be half right than wholly wrong.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DOGMATIC TEMPER 
 
 " In divine matters there is great wisdom in confessing our ignor 
 ance " (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). 
 
 " Affect not to be over- wise. . . . Why wilt thou prefer thyself 
 before others, sith there be many more learned ? " (Sx. THOMAS A 
 KEMPIS). 
 
 " Barren are the schools ; barren are all forms ; barren worse 
 than barren, these exclusive creeds, this deadly polemic letter " 
 (Sixteenth-century mystics : see VAUGHAN'S Hours with the Mystics 
 ii, 90). 
 
 CHRIST thanked His Father because He had hid 
 certain things from the wise and prudent, and had 
 revealed them unto babes ; but the theologians of 
 Rome reserve the doctrines of the Church for their 
 " wise and prudent " selves, and keep it safely 
 guarded under clerical lock and key. They have con- 
 structed an occult mystery of dogma unintelligible 
 except to minds versed in the subtleties of Aristo- 
 telian metaphysics, and an esoteric system of ethics 
 which (as a Catholic controversialist admitted the 
 other day) requires trained experts for its interpre- 
 tation. " We," say the Curia and the hierarchy, 
 " are able (through divine illumination) to proclaim 
 with unhesitating certainty doctrinal truths unknown 
 to the foolish and ignorant. It is their duty to 
 keep quiet, and listen to us." I, for example, am 
 advised by my Catholic counsellors to receive in- 
 struction from Roman pundits in moral theology 
 before I presume to talk about it : I have spent 
 some years studying these questions, but am still 
 (as the Month pointedly reminds me) an " ignoramus " 
 
 195
 
 196 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 uninspired by the Curial fount of wisdom. The 
 voice of the Church is the voice of God, and let no 
 dog bark when the oracle opens its mouth. 
 
 One of the most prolonged struggles, and perhaps 
 the severest, in history has been the struggle of the 
 earnest inquirer to establish his moral right to 
 continue his investigations without let or hindrance 
 from clerical and political obstructionists. The 
 battle still continues, with the Roman Church, as 
 usual, posing as protagonist of the reactionary 
 army, who would limit the range of free speculation. 
 Those who oppose intellectual liberty, and freedom 
 for critical research, justify their action by claiming 
 to have a certitude (which we do not possess) based 
 on the infallible magisterium, or teaching authority, 
 of the Roman See. That magisterium, however, is 
 a variable quantity which adapts itself to the 
 changing circumstances of the age. At one time it 
 would seem to be trimming its sails to the freshen- 
 ing breezes of rationalism ; at another it boldly 
 faces the storm, adopts a resolute air, and, as in 
 the case of the Pascendi Encyclical, declares its 
 views and intentions with a primitive distinctness 
 that makes the sceptic chuckle and the sensible 
 Romanist gnash his teeth in despair. The Church 
 has always sought short cuts to knowledge ; she 
 has looked to the Holy Ghost for scientific and 
 other enlightenment, rather than to the researches 
 of the laboratory or the patient toil of scholarship. 
 The results have often been startling ; and we are 
 only moderately surprised to learn, on the high 
 authority of Baron von Hiigel, that the Congregation 
 of the Index waited until 1835 before it withdrew 
 heliocentric books from its list ! l Pope Sixtus V 
 issued to the world in 1590 a " genuine " edition of 
 the Bible, from which a quotation appears on my 
 frontispiece ; and he ordered it "to be received 
 
 1 Quoted in Outspoken Essays, p. 235.
 
 THE DOGMATIC TEMPER 197 
 
 and held as true, lawful, authentic, and unques- 
 tioned, in all public and private discussion, preaching 
 and explanation." l A few years later it was found 
 to be full of errors about three thousand, I believe 
 and was withdrawn from circulation. Other 
 humours of official science and philosophy, as 
 expounded by scholastic profundity, whose one aim 
 is the maintenance of its own authority, are too 
 numerous to be recorded here. But we are entitled to 
 ask why, if these supernaturally illuminated persons 
 have for fifteen centuries been teaching us bad 
 science, false history, and all sorts of other things 
 which are untrue, we should pay them the deference 
 they still claim as the chosen instructors of mankind ? 
 Their incapacity to detect falsehood, no less than 
 their skill in disseminating it, have been proved up 
 to the hilt times without number. They tried to 
 bully that fine Biblical scholar and humorist, Abbe 
 Houtin ; but he defied their attacks on intellectual 
 liberty, and, holding with Pascal that satire is a 
 legitimate weapon against obstructive piety of this 
 kind, treated with contemptuous indifference the 
 " stale criticism and vapid denunciations " in which 
 they indulged. * Needless to say that he and his 
 works have both fallen under the ecclesiastical ban. 
 The dogmatic temper that expresses itself in 
 these and a thousand other curious ways is based, 
 as we have seen, upon " certitude " ; but the 
 methods by which this assurance is reached are not 
 always such as would commend themselves to 
 reasonable people. Newman tells us 3 that he did 
 not join the Roman Church until he had obtained 
 certitude concerning the matters in dispute, and he 
 says that certitude "is to know that one knows " 
 
 1 See Shall We Join the Church of Rome ? p. 53. 
 * Modernism, by the Rev. A. L. Lilley, p. 46. 
 3 Apologia, p. 344. In another passage he speaks of " absolute 
 certitude."
 
 198 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 surely a rather arrogant assumption, and one that 
 shows that there were two sides to the Cardinal's 
 character. 1 He applauds servility of mind and 
 conduct in terms that should satisfy the most 
 sycophantic adherent of the Papacy, but he advo- 
 cated religious persecution of the most extreme 
 kind ; and the persecutor is an overbearing person 
 who is possessed of an exaggerated confidence in 
 his own rectitude and his powers of apprehending 
 eternal truth. 
 
 Roman Catholics appear to forget that a false 
 or erroneous statement is not converted into a true 
 one by labelling it " dogma," and asserting it 
 fiercely : it grieves them to the heart when the 
 heretic refuses to be convinced or intimidated. 
 Newman gives expression to this grief when he com- 
 plains in the Apologia that it is " not at all easy to 
 wind up an Englishman to a dogmatic level." I 
 can only utter a pious hope that the difficulty will 
 continue and increase as time goes on, and that 
 our countrymen will always refuse to accept mere 
 possibility or probability as certainty. The Cardinal, 
 on the other hand, while assuring us that he had 
 obtained certitude of his beliefs before adopting 
 them, confesses that he was satisfied with something 
 very much less. He held, with Butler, that prob- 
 ability is the guide of life, and we learn that it was 
 this which eventually led him to the logical cogency 
 of Faith. There was a strong vein of scepticism in 
 his nature, and somebody (Lord Acton, I think, or 
 was it Huxley ?) with perfect propriety described 
 his works as "a primer of infidelity." But the 
 dogmatic temper that " impetuous temper " to 
 which he confessed, and which so greatly shocked 
 his dear brother English Cardinal was the mastering 
 
 1 Mr. McCabe quotes the Catholic Bishop Paterson (who knew 
 Newman well) as saying, " Newman was an angel by grace and a 
 tiger by nature."
 
 THE DOGMATIC TEMPER 199 
 
 element within him, and triumphed over all obstacles. 
 He was not content to make probability the ground 
 of faith, or to address his prayers to a Deity who 
 was only probably there ; so he based his belief 
 in God on affectionate desire. Nevertheless, we find 
 in his Tract 85 the following startling assertion. 
 We cannot, he says, be Christians (and therefore, 
 presumably, must be damned) if we will not believe 
 in Christ's revelation, when there are 3 chances 
 in favour of it, and only 2 against. 1 Republishing 
 the tract some years later, after his conversion to 
 Romanism, he altered the odds necessary for a 
 reasonable belief in revelation to 12 to 2 ; but 
 this does not seriously affect the argument. I 
 am not a betting man myself, and we are not here 
 dealing with " horse-dealers," 3 or a horse-race, so 
 I refrain from speculating how far the odds selected 
 by the Cardinal may be considered justifiable under 
 the circumstances ; but I do protest when dogmatic- 
 ally minded old gentlemen consign people to perdition, 
 or to Purgatory, because they will not accept a 
 3 to 2, or even a 6 to i, probability as equivalent to 
 what I believe racing men term " a moral cert." 
 Of a truth, these modern Habakkuks, whom Dr. 
 Inge describes as " heavy-handed dogmatists," are 
 capables de tout. 
 
 This mechanical calculation of odds for and against 
 salvation, the rather mercenary profit-and-loss view 
 of faith and conduct, is characteristic of Romanism 
 no less than of its opposite, Low Protestantism. 
 Newman, like many other intensely pious persons, 
 was largely influenced in his religious views by 
 purely utilitarian, or, perhaps I should say, prudential 
 motives. He could menace his hearers with hell-fire, 
 
 1 See Cardinal Newman, by R. H. Hutton, p. 57. 
 
 z In Philomythus, p. 114, Dr. Abbott quotes a strange passage 
 from Newman, where he classifies Roman Catholics with (among 
 others) picture-dealers and horse-dealers ; and gives instances of the 
 Cardinal's futile, and in some cases hardly creditable, reasoning.
 
 200 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 and breathe forth brimstone and sulphur, like any 
 revivalist preacher. " Fear," he once said, " was 
 what Cambridge wanted " ; and he frequently besought 
 his hearers to condition their life in this world by 
 an estimate of its probable effects upon their skin 
 in the next. !t If," he said, " there is only a fair 
 chance " (odds of 3 to 2, let us say) " that the Bible 
 is true, that Heaven is the reward of obedience, 
 and Hell of wilful sin, it is worth while, it is safe, 
 to sacrifice this world to the next." l I remember 
 discussing with a Roman Catholic, some years ago, 
 the ethics of capital punishment, and my opponent's 
 argument against it amounted to nothing more 
 than the expression of a fear that God might possibly 
 punish us for taking the life of a fellow human 
 being : the purely ethical view of the matter was 
 omitted altogether. 
 
 To believe that the human brain can achieve 
 absolute certainty concerning anything is utterly vain. 
 Such certainty as we fancy ourselves to possess 
 which suffices for the practical purposes of everyday 
 life is based on observation and experience ; but 
 both are fallible guides. Still less can we be certain 
 about the events of remote antiquity and the happen- 
 ings of the future, or trust the infallibility of other 
 men's intellectual speculations. Nor is personal 
 emotion, or religious " experience," a trustworthy 
 guide to universal truth, because the results and 
 conclusions arrived at vary with individuals. Their 
 certainty is but relative to them. Socrates thought 
 that he was the wisest of men because he knew 
 that he knew nothing, and Newton said much the 
 same thing. We must not doubt God ; we should 
 distrust those who dogmatize about God. A still 
 higher authority than Socrates, Christ, said : If 
 ye were blind, ye should have no sin : but now ye 
 say, We see ; therefore your sin remaineth." 2 In 
 
 1 Parochial and Plain Sermons, vi, 259. 2 John ix. 41.
 
 THE DOGMATIC TEMPER 201 
 
 other words, He condemned the Pharisees for pre- 
 tending to have certainty, where no certainty existed. 
 ' Teach thy tongue to say, ' I do not know/ " says 
 an old Hebrew Rabbi, quoted by Mr. Fawkes ; and 
 I believe his advice to be entirely sound. There is 
 no sort of use in attempting verbally to determine 
 enigmas or to define the unknowable. So many 
 definitions of the Latin Church are incapable of 
 verification ; and the trouble with her is that she 
 not only claims to know, but to be the only person 
 who does know, and that she further asserts her 
 right to bully us into assent. In the face of this 
 domineering attitude scepticism is not merely a 
 duty, but a necessity. I am well aware that the 
 agnostic or sceptic is generally unpopular, and some- 1 
 times perhaps deservedly so. I hold, with St. 
 Clement of Alexandria (who thought that faith was 
 only " suitable for people in a hurry " *), that " know- 
 ledge is more than faith " ; but I agree no less with 
 Lord Morley when he reminds us that incredulity 
 is sometimes the vice of a fool. Nevertheless, when 
 this is said, I offer the honest opinion that superstition 
 and credulity must be reckoned among the gravest 
 ills with which the world is afflicted, and that a 
 certain " capacity for disbelief " should form a part 
 of every man's mental equipment. There are thou- 
 sands of human beings even in our day who would 
 do well to cultivate, to a moderate extent, that 
 " reasonable incredulousness " (aufowv dm<m'a) which 
 Euripides recommended 2 as a most serviceable 
 quality for mortal men. Credulity is of many kinds, 
 and the credulity that finds its expression in effete 
 superstition is perhaps the most maleficent and the 
 hardest to kill. It was superstition of the crudest 
 and most debased kind that was mainly instrumental 
 in destroying the great Russian Empire, with 
 Rasputin and the Czarina acting as the evil geniuses 
 
 1 Studies in Mysticism, p. 86. Helena, 1618.
 
 202 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 of the unhappy Czar as he drew his country to the 
 pit of national perdition. It was superstition that 
 clouded Newman's fine intellect, and made him stoop 
 a grief to his most fervent admirers to the 
 banalities of a rather despicable casuistry. " Oh, 
 Spirit of Truth," cries Mr. Augustine Birrell, " where 
 wert thou, when the remorseless deep of superstition 
 closed over the head of John Henry Newman, who 
 surely deserved to be thy best-loved son ? " x 
 
 How far, if at all, the spread of education will 
 contract that large and varied world where imposture 
 earns a living wage from unsuspecting innocence, 
 remains to be seen. At present credulity, among 
 many other functions, serves to fill the purses of 
 knaves and to empty the pockets of fools, impover- 
 ishing and corrupting society in the process. The 
 faculty of weighing arguments and sifting evidence, 
 of discriminating between mere belief and right 
 belief, requires to be strengthened. We can but 
 trust that time and common sense will gradually 
 affect a change in this direction. Even in Ireland it 
 may be hoped that the day will come when the 
 thaumaturgic antics of the sacerdotal sorcerer will 
 yield before the more potent magic of enlightened 
 minds and liberated wills ; and that pious folk will 
 learn that the preaching of hatred, the suppression 
 of mental development and the systematic promotion 
 of disunion, are no part of the Christian gospel. 
 But that day is not yet. It is still the aim of religious 
 dogmatism to make theology the touchstone of 
 truth, the " protector " of science, and the uniting 
 bond of all the sciences. Knowledge, and the 
 acquisition of knowledge, must be subordinated to 
 the needs of religion. The Church continues to deal 
 her blows, one after another rather wild ones, as 
 a rule at all learning which interferes with her 
 prerogatives. In 1870 the Vatican Council acted as 
 
 ' Obiter'Dicta, I, 121.
 
 THE DOGMATIC TEMPER 203 
 
 though humanity were a pack of small schoolboys 
 under the Curia's charge. Dogmatism attacked 
 modern thought, and we witnessed, as Mr. R. H. 
 Hutton said, the melancholy spectacle of " Blind 
 Authority beating with his staff the child that might 
 have led him." Thirty-seven years later Pius X, 
 acting as the tool of Ultramontanism, made a still 
 stranger assault on mental liberty. ' The Pope 
 condemns because he does not understand," said 
 the Italian priests who were among the victims of 
 the reactionary crowd ; and sensible Catholics beheld 
 with grief and amazement these strange pranks of 
 jealous Authority in a panic. " It is stupidity alone," 
 says Carlyle, " that kills religion." l "He that has a 
 soul unasphyxied will never want a religion ; he that 
 has a soul asphyxied will never find any religion, 
 though you rose from the dead to teach him one." 
 
 Yet the dogmatic quack-doctor still persists in 
 offering us his " Morrison's-Pill " in the form of 
 stale and outworn shibboleths which, as it would 
 appear, only require our acquiescence, not our genuine 
 belief ; and he tells us that, if only we will swallow 
 it whole, all will be well. But woe betide us if we 
 reject the preferred dose, and follow the light of 
 reason and conscience. The malice of clericalism 
 will fall upon us, and Heaven which is said to 
 register with becoming subserviency the decrees of 
 its earthly Vice-gerent will cheerfully acquiesce in 
 lour undoing. Let the great mediaeval savant, Roger 
 i Bacon, bear witness. He passed a long life in 
 ! scientific research, and expended every penny of 
 | his moderate fortune of 2,000 in buying books, 
 | instruments and other indispensable aids to experi- 
 ment only to find himself at the end without the 
 imeans of prosecuting his researches, or even of 
 .subsistence. 2 Ruined and baffled in his hopes, in 
 
 1 Past and Present, p. 195. 
 
 * Green's History of England, p. 139.
 
 204 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 an evil day he took the advice of Bishop Grosseteste 
 (one of the really great ecclesiastics whom Rome has 
 produced) and became a Franciscan friar. His 
 spiritual superiors forbade him to publish anything ; 
 but Pope Clement IV, who had heard of his fame, 
 invited him to write. He was absolutely without 
 means, but his friends pawned their goods to provide 
 him with the necessary money. In the face of 
 enormous difficulties he finished the Greater Work, 
 which has since been acclaimed by posterity, and 
 forwarded it to the Pope. No word of acknowledg- 
 ment or recognition appears to have ever reached 
 him it is said that his Order rewarded his labours 
 with imprisonment ; and he finally died as he had 
 lived, " unheard, forgotten, buried." 
 
 We may search the pages of history in vain to 
 find a more pathetic tale : but the hard measure 
 dealt out to poor Roger Bacon by clerical tyranny 
 and obscurantism was the common lot of the early 
 scientific pioneer. " Such," as Blanco White is 
 reported to have said (Apologia, p. 119) in pained 
 allusion to the deplorable bigotry displayed by his 
 friend, Cardinal Newman " Such is the venomous 
 character of orthodoxy. What mischief must it 
 create in a bad heart and narrow mind, when it can 
 work so effectually for evil ... in the amiable, 
 the intellectual, the refined John Henry Newman."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 TRADITION 
 
 " Whence is that pretended Tradition ? " (Si. CYPRIAN, Bishop 
 of Carthage). 
 
 " Respecting the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not even 
 a tittle ought to be delivered without the authority of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures " (ST. CYRIL, Bishop of Jerusalem). 
 
 " Take away, therefore, all those things which are derived from 
 any other source than the canonical books of Holy Scripture. But 
 perhaps some will ask, ' Why take away such authorities ? ' Because 
 I would have the Holy Church proved, not by human documents, 
 but by the word of God " (ST. AUGUSTINE, De Unitate Ecclesice, iv, 
 625).' 
 
 " The appeal to tradition is, in the main, an appeal to ignorance " 
 (Studies in Modernism, p. 317). 
 
 IT has been shown that one of the chief privileges 
 claimed by " the sons of God " (as Roman Catholics 
 i regard themselves) is the exclusive possession of 
 special information concerning divine matters ; and 
 the bulk of this information is conveyed to them by 
 jthat unwritten tradition which is the principal 
 'bulwark of their faith. Science may rage against 
 (scholastic theology ; critico-historical exegesis of Bible 
 (texts may undermine the rock on which St. Peter's 
 Church is built ; but tradition, formless in structure 
 and uncertain in origin, is regarded as unassailable : 
 t, at any rate, is saved by its nebulous character 
 rom the " grievous wolves " of the Higher Criti- 
 :ism. Tradition is the oral instruction or " oral 
 evelation," said to have been handed down by 
 d to the Church from the earliest times. It is 
 Described as the " unwritten word of God " ; yet 
 
 1 See Rome's Theory of Tradition, by C. H. Collette, p. 54. 
 
 203
 
 206 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Monsignor Benson, in his Infallibility and Tradition, 
 says that no tradition exists which is not written 
 down : he omits, however, to tell us when, where, 
 or by whom the writing was done. The word 
 " tradition " may signify either of two things, the 
 process of transmitting the oral instruction, or the 
 instruction that is transmitted the handing down 
 of alleged truths and facts, or the truths and the 
 facts themselves which are handed down ; but 
 Cardinal Mercier said that " the organ of transmission 
 is Tradition," and was justly charged by Tyrrell 
 with displaying a sad confusion of thought, which 
 is by no means uncommon amongst Catholic 
 theologians. 
 
 Roman Catholics account for the genesis and 
 authority of tradition in the following way. The 
 Scriptures, they say, are incomplete, and require to 
 be supplemented by other forms of revelation. The 
 evangelists and some of the apostles committed their 
 revelations to writing, but it now appears that they 
 omitted a great deal that is necessary to our salvation. 
 Indeed, as Cardinal Manning declares, the Scriptures 
 have to be interpreted by tradition, which, in its 
 turn, has to be interpreted by the ecclesiastics ; 
 and Manning's predecessor, Cardinal Wiseman, told 
 us that tradition is proved on the authority of Scrip- 
 ture : each, that is to say, contributes to the other's 
 support an admirable arrangement. The Scriptures, 
 Catholics assert, are themselves only a part of tradi- 
 tion, which must on no account be regarded as an 
 appendix to Scripture. " Scripture is but a collection 
 of inspired books," or, as Tyrrell boldly phrases 
 it, 1 "a few dhance leaves torn from the book of 
 tradition." Monsignor Benson says that tradition 
 is "a fixed body of truth scattered through the 
 works of the Fathers and the publications of Councils 
 
 1 Medievalism ; and see, also, Infallibility and Tradition, and the 
 Catholic Encyclopaedia, art. " Tradition."
 
 TRADITION 207 
 
 dealing with definite doctrines and statements, and 
 these are as continuous and unchanging " as Scrip- 
 tural doctrines, but, like them, subject to a continuous 
 development. To what extent Roman Catholic tradi- 
 tion is fixed, continuous, or unchangeable we shall 
 see presently ; but most people will be ready to 
 accept the Monsignor's statement that the only 
 guarantee of Scripture, ultimately, is tradition. 
 
 In view of the immense mass of floating opinion 
 and vague rumour attached to the early history of 
 Christianity a competent (that is to say, divinely 
 appointed) teaching authority to decide disputed 
 questions is a necessity in the eyes of all practising 
 Roman Catholics. Such an authority, they tell us, 
 exists in the Church, which has " a living magiste- 
 rium," or supernaturally instituted prerogative of 
 indicating, amongst other things, what traditions are 
 to be believed, and what are not. The teaching 
 prerogatives of the Roman Church, we are further 
 assured, are implied to a certain extent in her very 
 institution : the organ of transmitting tradition must 
 be an official organ, a magisterium (teaching authority) 
 such as the Church. A further question now arises : 
 what exactly is this " Church " which is said to be 
 the depository of faith and the organ for trans- 
 mitting tradition to the faithful ? Is it the Pope 
 ilone, as Pius IX asserted ; the episcopate in union 
 vvith the Pope, as others maintain ; or, as the 
 Modernists insist, the entire body of believers apart 
 |rom " a mere handful of officials " ? Non-Catholics 
 jvould be glad to have an answer to these important 
 ind much-debated questions. Moreover, when they 
 Ire told that ' Tradition was entrusted by the 
 loly Ghost to the Church," they ask what proof 
 here is of this assertion, or of the stupendous claims 
 o exclusive enlightenment based upon it, and 
 referred by the Papacy ; but so far they have 
 gked in vain.
 
 208 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 The Church, Roman Catholics argue, has exactly 
 the same powers of sifting tradition, of selecting 
 the true and rejecting the bad, that she has of 
 selecting canonical Scriptures. She claims to have 
 infallible tests whereby to distinguish between what 
 is divinely instituted and what consists of mere 
 human additions and corruptions, and she professes 
 to follow rigorously the rule of immobility in tradition 
 laid down in many authoritative announcements. 
 Of these the most important is that of St. Vincent 
 of Lerins, whose famous Canon declares that those 
 traditions only are genuine which have been received 
 by the Church in all ages, by all of the faithful, and 
 in all places (quod semper, quod ubique, quod ad 
 omnibus). It seems hardly necessary to point out 
 that this profession is, as regards the great mass 
 of the Church's later traditional doctrine, entirely 
 opposed to the facts. Tradition, like other rules of 
 faith, says Father Tyrrell (Medievalism, p. 96), is 
 selected by Catholics through " an act of personal 
 independent judgment (aided, no doubt, by grace) " 
 a rather large assumption. The Romanist, in 
 most questions of religious belief, puts his brains out 
 of commission and entrusts them to the priest's 
 keeping, but in the matter of tradition the devotee 
 who is also a rational inquirer has to use a great 
 deal of private, or subjective, judgment. He must 
 apply to it personal interpretation, just as a Protes- 
 tant applies personal interpretation to the Scriptures ; 
 but, as the Apostolical Traditions, those derived from 
 the teaching and actions of the apostles, are nowhere 
 collected or codified in such a way that the inquirer 
 can see them and judge for himself, he pursues his 
 investigations under considerable difficulty. The 
 Church keeps under lock and key such meagre 
 information as exists upon the subject, and the 
 inquirer must be content with taking the priest's 
 word for it all.
 
 TRADITION 209 
 
 When we agree to accept certain gentlemen in 
 Rome as our infallible guides in religious matters 
 we do so by an act of private judgment : we are 
 making a choice by the light of our reason. In 
 like manner, when we say that such-and-such a 
 book or doctrine is inspired we are not only expressing 
 a personal opinion on its inspiration, but we are also 
 saying that the men who guaranteed its inspiration 
 were themselves inspired. When we assent to certain 
 doctrines or facts stated in certain writings we are 
 really assenting, not to their credibility, but to the 
 authority of the " imponents," that is to say, the 
 people who laid down the doctrine and ordered us 
 to believe it. But what earthly proof is there that 
 these people were inspired men, or even good judges 
 of historic evidence ? What possible guarantee, 
 beyond the Church's bare assertion, have we that 
 the " revelations given to holy souls " (to quote 
 Newman's words) are genuine revelations, or that 
 they were ever given at all ? How does the alleged 
 " consent of the whole Catholic world " (which in 
 the case of most traditions is wholly non-existent) 
 justify us, as R. H. Hutton says, 1 " in accepting as 
 historic fact that of which there is absolutely not 
 a morsel of historic evidence ? Does the consent 
 of the heroic age of Greece guarantee the historic 
 truth of the labours of Hercules ? or the consent of 
 the whole mediaeval age of Europe prove the historic 
 truth of the existence of fairies ? ' 
 
 The real fact is that most of these traditions 
 represent, or are at least highly coloured by, the 
 human tastes and prepossessions of a much later 
 period ; and to assume that the oral instruction has 
 been transmitted correctly, and in anything like 
 purity, through centuries of darkness and ignorance, 
 is to make a very large assumption indeed. Religious 
 knowledge in early days suffered, not only from 
 
 Cardinal Newman, p. 204. 
 14
 
 210 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 ignorance and lack of evidence, but from a super- 
 abundance of fiction and falsification. Literary 
 forgery was rampant ; and the student of tradition, 
 with the imperfect means at his disposal, was unable 
 to unravel the mass of fraud. " It became apparent," 
 says Lord Acton in his Lectures on Modern History, 
 p. 78, '" that the divines of many ages had been 
 remarkable for their incapacity to find out falsehood, 
 and for their dexterity in propagating it." Now I 
 must point out that considerable numbers of the 
 divines who were incapable of finding out falsehood 
 were Popes and other eminent ecclesiastics who 
 claimed to be inspired by the Holy Ghost. How, 
 then, can they possibly be sure that the other 
 writings of the Fathers in which tradition is en- 
 shrined are genuine ? No doubt the critical faculties 
 of later experts were sharpened by use ; but super- 
 natural inspiration, on which Roman Catholics rely 
 for these matters, is the same for all ages indeed, 
 it is said to have been much more common in primi- 
 tive times than it is now. External evidence of 
 the authenticity of these traditions is wholly lacking : 
 the beliefs based upon them are merely pious 
 opinions, bearing, in many cases, the conspicuous 
 marks of popular myths, and resting on the wish-to- 
 believe ; and the men who try to impose them 
 forcibly upon the world are assuming a very grave 
 responsibility. They present us with a chain of 
 what, temporarily and for politeness' sake, we will 
 call evidence ; but, unfortunately, the chain is 
 weakest just where strength is most needed, namely, 
 in the links that are furthest off and nearest to the 
 original sources of information. In fact, it may be 
 said that these links are in most cases altogether 
 lacking, and in their absence it is no use strengthen- 
 ing the chain at the other end. Roman Catholics 
 have got to prove that their doctrines, apart from 
 those contained in Scripture, were taught by
 
 TRADITION 211 
 
 divinely inspired persons in the early ages of the 
 Church : they must give us evidence from the 
 primitive eras of Christianity, and they have none 
 to offer. No amount of controversial writing in 
 later days, asserting the authority of primitive 
 tradition, can give us a test or means of distinguishing 
 what is human from what is divine in the alleged 
 traditional revelation. According to Irenseus, a very 
 early Christian writer, and other great men, there 
 is no valid tradition outside that which was written 
 down in their day : the belief in articles of faith 
 resting on oral instruction alone was regarded as 
 a heretical belief, and it may safely be said that the 
 vast mass of existing Roman tradition was written 
 i down long after the days of Irenaeus. 
 
 Many of these objections can be urged, no doubt, 
 against the authenticity of the New Testament 
 narratives, which are based upon oral instruction. 
 But the Gospel histories can at least give a better 
 account of themselves and their origins than the 
 : Church can give of her traditions. The Synoptic 
 evangelists and the apostles wrote their impressions 
 down within a reasonable period after the events 
 recorded had taken place : we have something more 
 to go upon than the unverified assertions of unidenti- 
 fied persons at unascertainable dates and places. 
 
 Meanwhile the " supplementary revelations " of 
 the Church by a series of alleged supernatural inter- 
 ventions proceed apace. Tradition is piled on 
 tradition, an inverted pyramid on a very slender 
 basis, a mountainous structure of dogma, an institu- 
 tionalism resting on a foundation of highly disputable 
 rumour. The idea of an " unchanged and unchange- 
 able nucleus of sacred tradition " was a fiction 
 iinvented by the Church in later times. If sceptical 
 people suggest that she makes a good many of her 
 traditions up as she goes along, and creates 
 necessary fictions " in order to extend her authority,
 
 212 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 she has only herself to thank. Tradition " was made 
 as well as grew." It can be manufactured has 
 been, and is, manufactured in the same way that 
 imaginary canons, " Donations," and other apocryphal 
 documents were turned out by the dozen in the 
 Papal forgery department. 1 There is no assurance 
 of any kind that some of the traditions now stated 
 to be embodied in the writings of the Fathers were 
 not fabricated in similar fashion. St. Jerome com- 
 plained, just like any Protestant Society in our 
 day, that the Church usurped in the name of 
 Tradition the sanction and authority of Holy Writ ; 
 and the traditions which he deprecated were derived 
 from Pagan sources. 
 
 The manufacture of tradition is carried on under 
 the mask of so-called interpretation ; and interpreta- 
 tion, as M. Loisy tells us and as we all know, is 
 governed by all sorts of political and opportunist 
 considerations the necessity of compromising 
 between philosophy and Christian tradition, the 
 natural exigencies of propagandism, and many other 
 reasons of strategy or politics anything, in short, 
 except the desire to obtain essential truth. What 
 is called the interpretation of old doctrines is usually 
 the creation of new ones. At least twelve addi- 
 tional Articles of Faith were created by the Council 
 of Trent and by Pius IV in the sixteenth century. 
 There was a prolonged and angry debate in the 
 Council on the question whether Apostolic Tradition 
 was on a level with Scripture, and the historians 
 inform us that there were as many opinions as 
 tongues. It was made perfectly clear that the 
 belief in the supreme authority of tradition (as it 
 is now understood ) was not held everywhere, always, 
 or by all Christians. Similar discord, accompanied 
 
 1 " The age was rife with forgeries," says Professor Tyndall. 
 " The end being held to sanctify the means, there was no lack of 
 manufactured testimony."
 
 TRADITION 213 
 
 by much strong language, prevailed at the lengthy 
 deliberations of the Vatican Council in 1870, when 
 the Pope, in the face of much determined and 
 highly enlightened opposition, was declared infallible, 
 and the innovating power of the Church in doctrinal 
 matters largely extended. 
 
 " La Tradizione son' io / am tradition," said 
 Pius IX, who assumed the newly woven mantle 
 of infallibility ; and the words give us the situation, 
 as it now stands, in a nutshell. Tradition is the 
 Pope, and the bishops do not count unless they are 
 " in agreement with the Pope " : as Tyrrell puts it, 
 they " are simply on parade at a legal ceremony," 
 and, if a doctrinal dispute arises among them, we 
 have it on Cardinal Mercier's authority that " the 
 Pope settles it by his supreme authority." J To 
 Apostolic Tradition is now added " Ecclesiastical 
 (or, as I should prefer to say, Papal) Tradition," 
 and the poor layman must believe both under threats 
 of hell-fire. The Pope can interpret tradition at 
 his own sweet will : he is the originator of fresh 
 revelations, not merely the guardian of old ones, as 
 heretofore. A wholly novel system of doctrinal 
 teaching is thus inaugurated by the ecclesiastics. 
 They take what is at best merely the opinion of a 
 school, and convert it into a dogma under the pre- 
 tence that it was fixed and accepted from the 
 beginning. The commandments of modern men are 
 set up as the precepts of God in primitive ages ; 
 iwhat M. Loisy (writing as a Catholic apologist) 
 termed "the artifices of interpretation" are called 
 into play, and "the rags of the ancient Catholic 
 tradition " are employed to hide the shame of a new 
 and extremely discreditable fabrication of imposture. 
 
 The work of traditional exegesis, according to 
 M. Loisy, " seems in permanent contradiction with 
 ithe principles of a purely rational and historical 
 
 * Medievalism, by G. Tyrrell, p. 55.
 
 214 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 interpretation " : in other words, there now remain 
 very small limits or restraints upon Papal powers 
 of doctrinal innovation. What is new-fangled and 
 of external origin will be represented as having 
 been there potentially and " implicitly " all the 
 time. " You applaud what is ancient, but live from 
 day to day upon novelties," as Tertullian justly 
 observed. " Do not come to me with the latest 
 phase of opinion which the world has seen, and 
 protest to me that it is the oldest," said Newman 
 in one of his sarcastic diatribes against Anglicanism : 
 with more reason, perhaps, he might have addressed 
 his remarks to the Roman Curia. 
 
 But the theory of traditional infallibility occa- 
 sionally proves too much even for the ingenuity of 
 Papal casuists. Tradition, for example, as inter- 
 preted in numerous Papal pronouncements, told us 
 that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in the form in 
 which we now have it : the verbal inerrancj^ of 
 Scripture has always been a plank in the Papist 
 platform. But even Roman obscurantism now shies 
 at the final chapter of Deuteronomy, where the 
 great Hebrew lawgiver appears as the chronicler of 
 his own obsequies. "It is evident that the dear 
 man Moses did not write this," as the famous mystic, 
 Jacob Boehme, 1 said of the Mosaic story of creation. 
 Roman Catholic tradition, therefore, has been caught 
 tripping, and, when once its inerrancy is disproved, 
 it can no longer be accepted as an article of general 
 belief. It is highly improbable, however, that the 
 trust of the faithful in its efficacy will be greatly 
 shaken. They seem quite content that orthodoxy 
 should be the Pope's 'doxy, that policy should be 
 allowed to modify old dogmas, invent new ones, and 
 adapt institutions and ritual to the requirements of 
 an individual imperious will. Since the Vatican 
 Council, and still more under the Pontificate of 
 
 1 See Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, ii, 118.
 
 TRADITION 215 
 
 Pius X, the ecclesia discens, the lay mind, has been 
 regarded as a sort of putty mould prepared to receive 
 the impress of the reigning Pope's ideas. 
 
 " A perfectly new platform of doctrines is 
 created," said Newman of the " new dogmas " 
 introduced by the Vatican Council. ' The whole 
 Church platform," he added and surely good 
 English Roman Catholics will believe their favourite 
 hero" seems to me likely to be off its ancient 
 moorings : it is like a ship which has gradually 
 swung round, or taken up a new position." ' Tradi- 
 tion broken down, assent replaced by evasion. Was 
 it worth having come so far to find so little ? ' is 
 Mr. Fawkes's comment. 1 The sham antiques of the 
 Roman Kabbalists (Kabbala means oral tradition) 
 are novelties, '" with youth in their countenance," 
 introduced for political ends ; but the real nature 
 of the transaction, the abrogation of ancient tradition, 
 is concealed from the laity under a mist of verbiage 
 which the mass of the faithful do not understand. 
 They shrug their shoulders and leave the matter 
 in the hands of their spiritual guides. Roman 
 Catholics, and the majority of other sectarians, are 
 overpowered by the glamour of big words, and 
 governed in religious matters by a superstitious 
 regard for names rather than realities.* If we 
 could substitute the words " rumour," " legend," 
 " myth," or " gossip " for " Tradition," its glamour 
 would evaporate, and its true value as evidence 
 might be made apparent. 
 
 To sum up, Roman Catholic traditions are the 
 product of human minds in an unenlightened and 
 
 1 Studies in Modernism, p. 44. 
 
 * A curious example came to my notice a year or two ago. An 
 excellent servant in our employ was an ardent Ritualist, and fond 
 of discussing religious questions. My wife asked her one day if they 
 believed in transubstantiation at her church. "Yes, we do," said 
 the girl; "only we call it /rarwsubstantiation." "Well," said my 
 wife, " that doesn't make much difference, does it ? " " Oh, yes, 
 it does," said the girl very earnestly : " it's quite different."
 
 216 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 superstitious age, and they bear clear traces of their 
 earthly origin. The hall-mark of truth is lacking to 
 them, and each year that passes lowers their credi- 
 bility in the eyes of reasonable people. Their actual 
 sources are shrouded in mystery. When they are 
 not the deliberate inventions of interested persons, 
 they describe phenomena or events as they appeared 
 to the people of their time, and register the speculative 
 theories and conclusions formed by those people on 
 wholly inadequate grounds. 
 
 J(. <. 
 
 U. D, (Harv'd) 
 
 CITY HEALTH DEPT 
 
 . /WGCLE3; CALIF 

 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE SONS OF GOD 
 
 " The sons of God must not espouse the daughters of men " (The 
 REV. GEORGE BAMPFIELD on Mixed Marriages, and their evils). 
 
 " Let no man beguile you of your reward, being a voluntary in 
 humility, and . . . vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind " (CoLos- 
 SIANS ii. 1 8). 
 
 And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin 
 Is pride that apes humility. 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 HUMILITY is the badge of all good Roman Catholics. 
 The religion is a system of spiritual servitude, of 
 timid subjection to formal ordinances and priestly 
 domination ; so its teachers naturally impress on 
 their pupils the virtues of meekness, the supreme 
 importance of complete submissiveness, and the 
 disfranchisement of will and judgment in spiritual 
 matters. The Romanist ideal is admirably expressed 
 in Bishop Ken's lines upon St. Thomas a Kempis, 
 which are printed on the frontispiece of the Imitatio 
 Christi : 
 
 Thrice happy Saint, remote from haunts of ill. 
 Employed in hymn, and dispossessed of will. 
 
 Here we have the model pietist of monastic imagina- 
 tion a humble man who has surrendered his personal 
 volition into priestly keeping, and occupies his time 
 and energies in singing hymns. Similarly, Newman, 
 
 ! a true son of the Church, glorifies the servile temper 
 in language which Dean Inge rightly characterizes 
 
 i as somewhat nauseous. He regarded inaction, terror, 
 and obsequiousness as the hall-marks of true piety ; 
 
 his great aim was to make people anxious and afraid. 
 
 217
 
 2i8 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 W. G. Ward, again, recommended as most acceptable 
 to the Deity an attitude which is self-depreciatory, 
 penitential, and " abject." This spirit of deferential 
 abjectness is often displayed by Roman Catholics to 
 their priests, as well as to Omnipotence, as anybody 
 who has travelled much in Papist countries must 
 know. 1 Pride other people's pride, that is to say 
 is the deadly sin in the eyes of the Catholic ecclesi- 
 astic ; it, and independence of mind, are the qualities 
 more opposed than anything else to the genius of 
 his religion, the deadliest corrosives of that abso- 
 lutist system upon which Romanism is based. That 
 servility to mere outward formula, coupled with 
 blind unreasoning obedience, debases the human 
 character and eats into the heart of true religion, 
 does not concern the men for whom piety consists 
 in the surrender of our mental personality to the 
 superior wisdom of spiritual instructors. 
 
 Leaving the ecclesiastics for a moment, let me 
 cite the authoritative opinion of a distinguished 
 English layman who has joined the Roman com- 
 munion. Mr. G. K. Chesterton, dealing with the 
 Irish Question in a communication to the Observer 
 (November 30, 1920), says that the fundamental 
 blunder in the relations between Irish Protestants 
 and Catholics is the arrogance displayed by Ulster ; 
 and he bids us observe the marked difference in this 
 respect between uppish Belfast and meek, humble 
 Dublin. This arrogance is, for Mr. Chesterton, a 
 matter of morals " more moral, indeed, than morals." 
 " Catholic opinion," he tells us, " regards superiority 
 not only as a sin but as a weak indulgence, a thing 
 cowardly and corrupting like a drug " ; pride is the 
 absolute annihilation which makes devils and destroys 
 
 1 A soldier who served for some years on the French Front told 
 me that, among all the wonderful and dreadful things he had seen, 
 nothing impressed him more than the sight of an old woman grovelling 
 on the ground before a German priest in a town near Cologne, and 
 getting up bespattered all over with mud.
 
 THE SONS OF GOD 219 
 
 men ; and the egoist who makes himself the standard 
 of everything is more hopelessly diseased and de- 
 graded than the man who has had six mistresses or 
 has murdered six men. 
 
 Let me remark, in passing, that Quebec freely 
 accuses Ontario of a similar superciliousness ; and a 
 greater than Mr. Chesterton, St. Thomas a Kempis, 
 teaches that "it is great wisdom and perfection to 
 esteem nothing of ourselves." There is no doubt 
 whatever about the Church's theory concerning these 
 matters ; but we have also to consider her practice. 
 Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that pride 
 is the deadly sin that it is represented to be ; let us 
 admit freely that few of us are as humble as we ought 
 to be ; but when Roman Catholics rate us for our 
 sinful arrogance, and warn us as to its deplorable 
 consequences, it behoves us to consider whether 
 they are the proper people to deliver the lecture. 
 We must ask whether the Church of Mr. Chesterton's 
 choice a Church which is isolated, exclusive, and 
 aristocratic on principle is herself a shining exemplar 
 of the particular virtues which she parades before 
 mankind. Is she in a position to admonish Belfast, 
 Toronto, or anybody else on their airs of superiority, 
 or to contrast them unfavourably with her own 
 alleged meekness ? We know that her ministers 
 profess that " humble conceit of ourselves " which 
 St. Thomas recommended, and no doubt practised 
 himself : they frequently don the robe of humility, 
 but they wear it with a doubtful grace. Also, there 
 are amongst them men who, while professing a con- 
 stant esteem of others, adopt very singular methods 
 of manifesting it. Persistency in detachment breeds, 
 as usually happens, an attitude of superiority. 
 
 Mr. Chesterton is an acknowledged authority on 
 heretics, and I must remind him that the official 
 theologians of his Church regard heretics people, 
 that is to say, whose only crime is that they are
 
 220 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 unable to share her views with men guilty of the 
 worst crimes and the vilest vices. Pope Benedict, 
 who if we may credit St. Thomas a Kempis 
 ought to " think always well and highly of others," 
 disparages the earnest English and American Pro- 
 testants of Rome in language that would appear 
 quite shocking to that admirable Saint. The Pope 
 is a religious aristocrat, if ever there was one. He 
 will not meet other Churches on terms of equality. 
 His terms are unconditional surrender. Is there no 
 note of " superiority " here ? And the words of 
 reproach which he used concerning the Protestants 
 in Rome " emissaries of Satan " have the authentic 
 ring of spiritual hauteur. He would be the last person 
 in the world to acknowledge that a non-Catholic is 
 the spiritual equal of a Papist. Similarly, the atti- 
 tude of Cardinal Newman in private life a courteous 
 and affable man towards his religious inferiors was 
 occasionally in later days arrogant in the extreme. 
 His satire and criticism of the beliefs entertained by 
 poor benighted Protestants were sometimes extremely 
 witty, but the tone is presumptuous and overbearing. 
 Even in these days the Roman Catholic who, obeying 
 his natural instincts, marries a Protestant lady is 
 considered to be uniting himself with one who is 
 on a lower plane of Christianity : it is a shocking 
 m&alliance, in fact, because, as Father Bampfield 
 justly observes, " the sons of God must not espouse 
 the daughters of men." So convinced, moreover, is 
 the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bathurst (in Australia) 
 of this fact, that he told his flock the other day that 
 he " would discourage friendships and affection be- 
 tween young people of opposing faiths," ' because 
 he found that mixed couples had no '" hatred of 
 heresy." In plain words, the Bishop's spiritual 
 pride has made him a fomenter of sectarian strife, 
 a creator of artificial barriers between the sexes, 
 
 1 The Sydney Morning Herald, January 17, 1921.
 
 THE SONS OF GOD 221 
 
 and of discord among young people whom Nature 
 intended to coalesce. What a strange role for a 
 spiritual overseer, a minister of a Christian brother- 
 hood, to play in life ! How redolent are his words, 
 and those of Father Bampfield, of that haughty 
 caste-spirit which delights in contemning the poor 
 neighbour who is outside the pale ! 
 
 Yet the same lack of true humanity, of the 
 genuine milk of human kindness, has been shown 
 by the Church in all ages. She is a well-spring, not 
 only of public strife, but of domestic unhappiness. 
 Every consideration of natural benevolence, family 
 affection, and the social instinct must give way to 
 her imperious will and to what are supposed to be 
 her interests. The corporate sense of self-importance 
 induces even saints to behave brutally. St. Jerome 
 scorned the idea of thinking about a mother's tears, 
 or respecting the ties of kindred and filial reverence. 
 Your widowed sister may throw her gentle arms 
 about you ; but, where Mother Church is concerned, 
 " cruelty is the only piety." St. Bernard bereaved 
 mothers of their children, the aged of their last 
 solace and support, and praised most those who 
 left most misery behind them. 1 Once more I say, 
 ' What a role for gentle and dove-like men to play 
 in life ! " Only a Church which makes herself the 
 standard of everything (a very wicked and foolish 
 thing to do, as Mr. Chesterton rightly says) could be 
 guilty of such malignant egoism. 
 
 From the Roman Catholic standpoint the Bishop 
 of Bathurst was of course acting quite correctly. 
 The Church of Rome regards her children as a gens 
 sancta, a caste apart from, and superior to, the pre- 
 sumptuous persons who dispute her authoritative 
 
 1 Quotations of this kind could easily be multiplied. See Vaughan's 
 Hours with the Mystics, p. 137; Cohen's Religion and Sex, p. 217; 
 Milman's History of Latin Christianity, ii, 121 ; Lecky's History of 
 European Morals, ii, 134-135.
 
 222 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 claims ; and the laity entertain a denominational 
 contempt, which at times they are at no pains to 
 conceal, for other religions and for the benighted 
 beings who cannot see eye to eye with them on 
 transcendental matters. They inherit the traditions 
 of those ancient peoples who regarded themselves as 
 God's people, if not actually His sons or descendants. 
 Many friends of mine, who know Catholics and like 
 them, have complained to me of their tacit self- 
 assertion, and their quiet assumption of a superiority 
 based on an ill-founded certitude that they are wholly 
 right and we are wholly wrong. God, if we are to 
 believe their Church, distributes His favours de- 
 nominationally, and without any regard to personal 
 deserts. Grace, as we have seen, is the monopoly 
 of a sect ; and if the poor pariah outside the pale is 
 damned eternally, so much the worse for him. To 
 slay the heretic is not only right, but a kindness to 
 him. The heresiarch is an embodied evil, and should 
 be dealt with by the competent authority. " To 
 spare him is a false and dangerous pity. It is to 
 endanger the souls of thousands, and it is uncharitable 
 towards himself." J Not all Roman Catholics hold 
 these extreme views, but they unanimously consider 
 " our separated brethren " thus, with a suave 
 urbanity which sometimes thinly disguises a bitter 
 scorn and dislike, do they term their Anglican fellow- 
 Christians to be divided from the Roman flock as 
 the goats are divided from the sheep. The highest 
 of High Churchmen lacks the required denomina- 
 tional cachet ; and, as for mere Evangelical " piety 
 coloured by character," it has, in orthodox nostrils, 
 a distinct savour of goatishness. Anglican episcopacy 
 may achieve unity with Rome any moment it likes, 
 but only at the price of complete submission to the 
 Papacy : for the Protestant goatherds, with their 
 
 ' Cardinal Newman, quoted by Dean Inge in Outspoken Essays, 
 p. 178.
 
 THE SONS OF GOD 223 
 
 invalid priestly Orders and doubtful episcopal ones, 
 to claim equality with the duly accredited shepherds 
 of the faithful is a piece of rank presumption. Yet, 
 strange to say, the desire of furthering reunion with 
 Rome is a lure which always attracts the Ritualist 
 as a May-fly attracts a trout, and he will endure much 
 in order to attain it. The acme of humiliation was 
 reached in 1896, when the late Lord Halifax, sadly 
 ill-advised by his fellow High Churchmen, visited 
 Rome and humbly begged the Pope to recognize the 
 validity of Anglican Orders. He was hospitably 
 received and informed that an answer to his petition 
 would be forwarded in due course. It arrived event- 
 ually in the form of a Bull, the tone whereof was 
 neither meek nor humble, but had the true dogmatic 
 ring appropriate to a haughty and exclusive episco- 
 pate. The British nobleman had called for Orders, 
 but the sons of God, mindful of their ancestry, bluntly 
 informed him that they had none to give. " Motu 
 proprio," they said, " certa scientia, pronuntiamus et 
 declaramus ordinationes ritu Anglicano actas irritas 
 prorsus fuisse et esse, omninoque nullas " ("of our 
 own initiative, with infallible knowledge, we pro- 
 nounce and declare that Anglican Orders always have 
 been, and still are, entirely void, and altogether of 
 no effect "). J Disheartened by this cruel rebuff, Lord 
 Halifax took counsel with his friends in the English 
 Church Union ; and Roman Catholic modesty in 
 action, thought, and demeanour was once more 
 ^exemplified in a somewhat striking manner. 
 
 To the non-Catholic mind humility of the 
 dictatorial Roman type savours of presumption : 
 as Dr. James Martineau pertinently observes in his 
 Seat of Authority, " an over-acted humility trans- 
 parently covers a presumption more than royal." * 
 
 1 See Studies in Modernism, p. 102. 
 
 The royal " we," assumed by Roman Catholic prelates, is one 
 tance.
 
 224 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Cowper has some very apposite lines on the same 
 subject : 
 
 Pride may be pampered while the flesh grows lean, 
 Humility may clothe an English Dean ; 
 
 Pride thrives in misery, and abundant grows 
 In misery fools upon themselves impose. 
 
 There is a species of self-abasement which often 
 leads to its exact opposite an overwheening sense 
 of self-importance, which in the Roman Church 
 attains proportions that are absolutely staggering. 
 The clerics entertain the most extraordinary notions 
 about their consequence in the eyes of God. 
 We learn, to take one example, from St. Alphonsus 
 Liguori that " Jesus died to institute the priest- 
 hood." It was quite unnecessary, the Saint says, 
 for Him to die to save the world. He could have 
 achieved that object by much simpler and pleasanter 
 means ; but, if He had not died, where would the 
 priest have found a victim to offer up in the Mass ? l 
 
 Such self-complacency would be almost incredible 
 did we not see continually in the Church human 
 pride at its apex, coupled with an affected lowliness 
 which is theatrical rather than convincing. Resigna- 
 tion mingles with self-assertion ; pride of place and the 
 lust for authority with a sense, occasionally genuine, 
 'of utter unworthiness. The ecclesiastics deprecate 
 violence, but many of them encourage rebellion ; 
 they preach gentleness and non-resistance, and then 
 burn or maltreat some poor wretch for daring to 
 think differently from themselves. The Pope is 
 servus servorum, the servant of God's servants, but 
 he is also potestate Petrus, unctione Christus, " ruler 
 of the orb of earth," a second God upon earth. " We 
 hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty," 
 Leo XIII is reported to have said, and there is no 
 
 1 The Dignity and Duties of the Priest, or Selva, by St. Alphonsus 
 Liguori, edition of 1888, pp. 26, 33.
 
 THE SONS OF GOD 225 
 
 doubt that he thought so. The successors of Boni- 
 face VIII do not shout out their pretensions so loudly 
 as he did, but they have a pretty large idea of their 
 human dignities and prerogatives, and thoroughly 
 enjoy being reminded that they are terrestrial divini- 
 ties. The Casarian attitude is perfectly genuine ; 
 the bowed head and bended knee are a more or 
 less transparent pose. The subordinate ecclesiastics, 
 with their suave and deprecatory attitude, are no 
 less taught, as their imitators the Anglican Tract- 
 arians were taught, to " magnify their office " while 
 magnifying the Lord, and they are not slow to follow 
 the advice. Precepts enjoining humility, however 
 admirable in themselves, are " peculiarly for home 
 use," as Ruskin has it ; but the Church, while 
 approving the subservience for the laity, thinks it a 
 very poor thing for clerics. 
 
 The same inconsistent blend of opposing qualities 
 is shown in the Church's theory of the cosmic order. 
 While representing man as a miserable worm, and 
 otherwise depreciating him in the scale of creation, 
 the Catholic propositions about religion and the 
 world's order nevertheless make humanity the final 
 cause of the universe. The Divine purpose was 
 centred upon his regeneration and salvation, a notion 
 that Voltaire illustrated in the witty fancies of 
 Micr omegas. ' The little animalcule in the squaffc 
 cap who makes the giant laugh in a Homeric manner 
 by its inflated account of itself as the final cause of 
 the universe is the type of the philosophy on which 
 Catholicism is based." I 
 
 Tyrrell, who was himself a Jesuit for many years, 
 and describes the Society as incorrigible and irre- 
 formable, depicts in vigorous language " the spirit 
 ! of corporate conceit " existing in an Order which 
 regards itself as the bodyguard of the Madonna, 
 'her select Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms ; and the 
 
 1 Diderot, by Lord M or ley, p. 102.
 
 226 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 ' braggart boastful spirit " which he tells us is a 
 marked feature of the Corporation hardly seems con- 
 sonant with the spirit of the Head whose name it 
 bears. People in close touch with another Roman 
 Catholic brotherhood, that of the Sacred Heart, do 
 not represent its members as being by any means in- 
 different to social distinction or other attributes of 
 earthly grandeur : we are also given to understand 
 that they, like the Jesuits, are regarded in celestial 
 circles as being among the smartest of smart Societies. 
 Yet we have no proof that Heaven views these vain- 
 glorious regulars with any special favour : the evidence, 
 as a matter of fact, is all the other way. As the 
 Lollards said, " God made not priests, for in Christ's 
 time there were no priests. What need to go to the 
 feet, when we may go to the Head ? " I In a more 
 remote antiquity Agamemnon (as reported by 
 Euripides in his Iphigenia at Aulis, 520) was no 
 believer in clerical disinterestedness or humility, but 
 described the whole tribe of seers and diviners as 
 " one ambitious pest " (^iAdfiov KO.KOV). As Dr. Inge 
 reminds us (Outspoken Essays, p. 236), even St. 
 Augustine rejected the priestly intermediary, and only 
 wanted to know God and his own soul ; " these two 
 things, and no third whatever." 
 
 The self-depreciatory Romanist who rebukes the 
 pride of reason, but himself rushes audaciously into 
 regions where wiser men scarcely dare to tread, is 
 surely displaying an overweening self-confidence. 
 Who is the more humble, the man who freely con- 
 fesses his ignorance in the face of impenetrable 
 mysteries, or the cocksure person who asserts that 
 he knows all about it and complacently offers us his 
 facile, reach-me-down solutions of enigmas that have 
 defied the finest human intellects for centuries ? 
 Mr. McCabe, who has made a careful study of the 
 figures, estimates that there are about 190,000,000 
 
 1 See Studies in Mysticism, by the Rev. R. Jones, p. 366.
 
 THE SONS OF GOD 227 
 
 Roman Catholics in the world, and that out of this 
 number 120,000,000 are entirely illiterate : * nor does 
 a censorious world usually credit the remaining 
 70,000,000 with an endowment of overwhelming 
 brain-power. But the sons of God are far from 
 sharing these estimates of their mental capacity. 
 Cardinal Manning assures us that " the collective 
 intelligence, culture, experience, instincts, and dis- 
 cernment, natural and supernatural, of the Catholic 
 episcopate is the highest light of council upon earth." 
 Irish bishops, men of humble exterior for the most 
 part, are convinced that they are infallible trans- 
 mitters of divine enlightenment ; and the keen, 
 logical intellects of the Papist clergy and laity 
 (including, I suppose, the 120,000,000 illiterates) 
 make them unequalled judges of the soundness of 
 arguments people who would never be able to con- 
 tent themselves with such as are not really sound. 2 
 Before this galaxy of mingled wisdom and logical 
 acumen, holiness, and humility there are many who 
 still bow their heads in silent admiration. But 
 others recognize that there is another side to the 
 shield, and view with less favour the spirit of cor- 
 porate and individual self-complacency displayed by 
 these unassuming ecclesiastics. Uriah Keep was, I 
 believe, a " British Low Protestant " the type to 
 which the Month assures its readers that I conform 
 but his genus is not confined to any one denomina- 
 tion. The opinions held by the late Father George 
 Tyrrell concerning certain obsequious, yet truculent, 
 pillars of the Papacy are on record ; and here and 
 there a cynic or heretic may still be heard to echo 
 his fervent prayer, " I trust I am not humble, from 
 
 what I know of humble men." 
 
 
 
 1 The Popes and their Church, p. vii. 
 
 a Mr. Belloc is quoted (The Literary Guide, October, 1921) as saying 
 ithat "the Catholic Church is the one place where real thought is 
 always to be found."
 
 " The Gospel by which is meant the personal teaching of Christ 
 has passed through four great transformations." ... It is now " a 
 standpoint rather than a creed." ..." The lines on which mankind 
 is now advancing are not those of ecclesiastical or dogmatic Christi- 
 anity " (Studies in Modernism, pp. 316-17). 
 
 " Institutional religion does not represent the Gospel of Christ, 
 but the opinions of a mass of nominal supporters. It cannot be 
 expected to do much more than look after its own interests, and reflect 
 the moral ideas of its supporters " (Outspoken Essays, by DEAN INGE, 
 p. 264). 
 
 " A profound reconstruction is demanded " (Ibid., p. 135). 
 
 THEOLOGY has been described as religious intel- 
 lectualism. Theologians represent the intelligentsia 
 of the Church ; their work is purely a work of the 
 understanding, and ought not, properly considered, 
 to be credited with any more divine sanction than 
 the labours of chemists or geologists or the students 
 of ethics. Religion, which is quite different from 
 theology, but is habitually confused with it, rests, 
 like philosophy, on a temperamental basis rather 
 than on the reasoning faculties. Even " Heaven is 
 a Temper," we have lately been told by a very 
 intelligent lady ; we can all attain it, if only our 
 temper be the right one : and religion is certainly 
 une affaire de gout personnel, as I believe Renan 
 observed. You catch it, or I would rather say it 
 catches you, whenever your system is ready to 
 entertain the germ. People say that Jones has 
 " got religion," just as they say that Smith has got 
 the influenza. As taste and temperament change, 
 
 228
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 229 
 
 religion changes too ; and theology, after its wont, 
 follows the fashion and cuts its coat according to its 
 cloth. All the talk about identity and immutability 
 of doctrine or practice is the merest moonshine. 
 
 Those highbrows of dogmatism, the Scholastics, 
 sought and claimed success for their efforts to 
 arrive at eternal truth by means of the syllogism : 
 dialectic, basing itself on philosophy and revelation, 
 was made supreme, and the formal logic of Aristotle 
 replaced the intuitive methods favoured by Plotinus 
 and the other neo-Platonic philosophers. The dia- 
 lectical process is now rejected by most people, and 
 the judgment of St. Ambrose, who condemned it, 
 has been vindicated. Modern theology, having come 
 to the conclusion that mere belief in a proposition 
 is an insufficient form of faith, is now casting about 
 for new methods of verifying its hypotheses, and is 
 showing a willingness to be content with something 
 less than certainty. It does not go quite so far as 
 Newman, or suggest that a 3 to 2 probability 
 ought to be enough to satisfy any good Christian, 
 but it is losing a good deal of the old intransigent 
 self-confidence. The attitude of the educated 
 Japanese towards religion has been wittily described 
 as "an attitude of politeness towards possibilities " ; 
 and Newman showed himself more than polite towards 
 them. He obligingly provided us with a large 
 " inventory of possibilities," a repertory of fairly 
 tenable hypotheses ; and then proceeded, somewhat 
 unscrupulously, to treat them as though they were 
 certainties. He professed the deepest contempt for 
 the via media of Anglicanism, but constructed a middle 
 road of his own which the Church clearly saw would 
 lead her into perilous places. 
 
 The relations existing between Roman Catholi- 
 cism and theology are varied, and they have been 
 rendered more difficult, instead of easier, by the 
 mental exercitations of men like Newman, who, as
 
 230 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 the Roman cleric observed, " mix up and confuse 
 everything.'* The Church always endeavours to 
 make out that Christ was a theologian, a charge 
 which He would probably have repudiated with the 
 utmost indignation. Catholic theology calls itself a 
 science, which it never was and never will be. In 
 spite of its claim to be the protector and regulator 
 of science, it finds itself compelled in these days to 
 conciliate the progressive spirit ; but when it tem- 
 porizes with modern thought, it does so at its peril. 
 The two cannot mix any more than oil and water. 
 When liberalism and Curialism meet, one of them 
 has got to go under : amalgamation can only mean 
 that one has absorbed, and by absorbing has destroyed, 
 the other. The Rev. A. L. Lilley quotes * Abbe 
 Marcel Hebert as saying that a day may come when 
 " Catholicism will make its act of Protestantism, and 
 then there will be an end of the latter." Such a 
 day, Mr. Lilley thinks, may be the beginning of 
 Catholicism : to my mind it will certainly be 
 the end of Romanism. It seems probable that the 
 Church, in spite of the Curia's professions to the 
 contrary, will be compelled to modernize herself, 
 but the patchwork process cannot go on indefinitely. 
 Grafts may be called natural growths ; fictions of 
 unchanged doctrine and immutable sacred traditions 
 may be piled up mountain-high, one atop of another, 
 but they only make confusion worse confounded. 
 The doctrine has changed ; the Church has had to 
 bow the knee to the laws of natural and political 
 development, and she may be compelled to make 
 further concessions. Tyrrell, with other liberal 
 Catholics, thinks that the desperate efforts of theology 
 to maintain the semper eadem fiction, the struggle of 
 conservatism against the irresistible laws of change 
 and growth, have been the means of saving Christi- 
 anity from destruction, or, at any rate, from trans- 
 
 1 Modernism, p. 64.
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 231 
 
 formation out of all recognition. He finds comfort 
 in the reflection that, amid all the protective theo- 
 logical accretions, " the nucleus of Christianity has 
 been preserved like a fly in amber, or like a mammoth 
 in ice." J The result hardly seems commensurate 
 with the vast labour expended in achieving it ; and 
 some of us would like (if I may slightly vary the 
 metaphor) to thin down the huge protective husk 
 and to be allowed to see a little more of the kernel 
 it envelopes. 
 
 Certain Modernists prophesy that the Christianity 
 of the future will consist of mysticism and charity, 
 with the Eucharist in its primitive form as an out- 
 ward bond ; and Tyrrell thinks that one day the 
 historical lie of the Papacy will be recognized, and 
 that we shall have a Catholic Church without an 
 infallible Pope. Mysticism of a sort we already 
 possess in plenty, but religious charity is as yet 
 sadly to seek. The mystical tide is now flowing 
 strongly in the denominational world, and it seems 
 probable that the dogmatic and institutional element 
 in religion will be still further replaced by the personal. 
 Let us hope that the mysticism of coming generations 
 will be of a quality superior to that now supplied 
 by professional occultists and spook-raisers, or the 
 accredited miracle-men of the Papacy. We do not 
 want to perpetuate the sorcery of the fashionable 
 tea-party, graced by the presence of some drawing- 
 room Cagliostro or journalistic Swedenborg, or to be 
 taught by the pundits of the East, or of Rome, to 
 seek Quietist perfection by sitting on nail-studded 
 chairs and contemplating our navels. As to the 
 Spiritualists and necromancers of our day, I do not 
 know of any more depressing people. Their dreams, 
 the communications they profess to give us from 
 most unentertaining wraiths concerning the quality 
 of the food and drink and tobacco in the nether 
 
 1 Autobiography, ii, 218.
 
 232 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 world, etc., etc., are the reverse of inspiriting. 
 " There is not even a fine nightmare among them," 
 as Oscar Wilde justly complained. ' They are 
 commonplace, sordid and tedious." 
 
 The ordinary Roman Catholic of our time will, 
 of course, continue to insist on a full measure of 
 undiluted magic and supernaturalism, pressed down 
 and running over. He wants a religion that is 
 " warm." He would shiver at " the cold Christs 
 and tangled Trinities " of the schoolmen, but finds 
 abundant consolation in the more ardent, but exceed- 
 ingly primitive, mysticism which the Church serves 
 up to her votaries. He still maintains a robust faith 
 in her future, and not a few among the faithful look 
 forward with hope and longing to a restoration of the 
 temporal power. To the British critics of Papal 
 futility during the world-crisis the selected British 
 champions of the Vatican reply, with Benedict XV, 
 that " to-day " the Pope could do no more. " His 
 power is too weak," they say ; those who desire the 
 Pope to arbitrate effectively should " labour to 
 strengthen it " with bayonets and guns and other 
 embodiments of material force. And this, in their 
 opinion, may yet be done. So far from holding that 
 the Papacy is a mere transient or embarrassed 
 phantom, or that (as D'Argenson thought, so early 
 as 1753) " every priest, all priesthood, all revelation, 
 all mystery " will be banished, 1 they believe that it 
 will reach its apogee some time during the present 
 era. Let me cite the view of an exceptionally able 
 and influential Roman Catholic, Monsignor R. H. 
 Benson, son of the late Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 In his striking novel, The Dawn of All (1911), the 
 Monsignor presents us with a dream of the Papacy 
 in the not far-distant future, which, in his preface, 
 he describes as a sketch of " the kind of develop- 
 ments which may reasonably be expected [my italics] 
 
 1 Diderot and the Encyclopedists, by Lord Morley, p. 180.
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 233 
 
 about sixty years hence," if the pendulum of modern 
 thought swings in favour of orthodoxy. About half 
 a century from now the reign of mediaevalism will 
 return ; and the Pope, Father and Sovereign Lord of 
 princes and monarchs, will wield a power such as no 
 living being on earth had ever wielded before. 
 Theology is then paramount over the civil law, 
 reason once more bows its head to ecclesiastical 
 authority, and the dogmatist has the time of his life. 
 All the ancient pageantry of the Papacy, its frills 
 and feathers and furbelows, its gold lace and gew- 
 gaws, reappear on a vastly augmented scale, and are 
 depicted with intense gusto by the author. Haughty 
 Cardinals, attended by gorgeous flunkeys, sweep by 
 in splendid Rolls-Royces, and the population grovels 
 as it ought to grovel before such gilded and 
 sanctified magnificence. Lines of passenger airships 
 (named after archangels !) ply regularly between 
 London and the great Continental capitals, each 
 airship being luxuriously equipped and furnished 
 with an oratory. Religious persecution of the most 
 flagrant and unblushing kind is in full swing, and is 
 frankly justified and approved by the author, though 
 he repeats the stale old pretence (now abandoned by 
 many enlightened Roman Catholics) that it is the 
 State, not the Church, which is responsible for slaying 
 unbelievers. English heretics are handed over by 
 the ecclesiastics to the secular arm, for execution or 
 other punishment, as offenders against society ; and 
 an amiable monk, who has been condemned to death 
 for somewhat mildly heterodox views, cheerfully 
 acknowledges the justice of the sentence as he is 
 led out to his doom. The Socialists and heretics 
 not unnaturally rise in revolt against sacerdotal 
 pretension and tyranny, and there is a parley be- 
 tween their Envoy and the Pope, who represents the 
 Christian Powers. His Holiness says that he accepts 
 no terms ; those he offers are " absolute and uncon-
 
 234 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 ditional submission to myself/' and he warns the Envoy 
 that the air-fleets of orthodoxy start at midnight on 
 their voyage of destruction. The Envoy bids him 
 reflect upon the appalling slaughter and suffering 
 which will ensue. The Pope justifies himself by 
 saying that he is Christ's Vicar, and by quoting the 
 old familiar tag about his Master coming to send, 
 not peace, but a sword into the world. The rebels 
 are smashed up by the Papal forces ; and the book 
 ends with a florid description, where all the resources 
 of the dictionary are drawn upon for a suitable 
 exhibition of lavish verbiage, of the Pope being 
 rowed in a magnificent galley between lines of saluting 
 warships, with fleets of stately airships circling over- 
 head, and receiving the homage of the assembled 
 earthly potentates, during a grand ecclesiastical 
 regatta at Portsmouth. 
 
 So runs the modern Papist's dream, which has 
 always been the dream of good Catholics throughout 
 the ages : it still remains the ideal for which Ultra- 
 montanes, who are the controlling power in the 
 Church, are continually striving. The modern and 
 democratic ideas which certain Roman preachers 
 now expound are merely a cloak donned for a purpose, 
 to be thrown off whenever occasion requires. Mean- 
 while liberal theology goes on its way, unperturbed 
 by the thought of future massacre by renascent 
 clericalism, and with very different aims and aspira- 
 tions. Its view is that the sun of institutionalism is 
 setting, and that it must abandon the theory of the 
 necessity of priestly mediation, and rely henceforth 
 on personal and direct communion with the Creator. 
 The Rev. Alfred Fawkes, alluding to the results of 
 Biblical exegesis and research, points out that much 
 of what is generally understood by Christianity has 
 disappeared in the critical analysis. " The soul has 
 been preserved, but the body has evaporated : Chris- 
 tology, the Church, her creeds, her sacraments are
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 235 
 
 gone." l The debris which blocked the entrance to 
 the temple having been cleared away, we are allowed 
 to have access to the shrine ; and modern theology, 
 finding that dogmatic assertion about religion is not 
 to be trusted, is relying more and more on a kind 
 of personal intuition which it terms " experience." 
 This becomes, for some people, a divine revelation 
 which takes the place of reason and conscience ; and 
 for them it is sufficient. But, while it may un- 
 doubtedly form an admirable basis for personal 
 religion, as the foundation of a religion that is at 
 once magical and intercessory, dogmatic and insti- 
 tutional, it is obviously inadequate. You cannot 
 with any show of decency visit with severe spiritual 
 penalties a man who does not share your private 
 intuitions, or refuses to accept their validity and 
 relevance. How far the thrill of a deep emotion may 
 be regarded as a criterion of objective reality is 
 a subject on which the world will always be divided, 
 and I do not now propose to consider it at length. 
 But we may say with some confidence that the theory 
 will never meet with general acceptance. Mr. A. J. 
 Balfour observes in his Foundations of Belief (p. in) 
 that the most immediate experiences (based upon 
 observation of physical objects and experiments 
 thereon) carry with them no inherent guarantee of 
 their veracity ; and with still more certainty can we 
 say this of " mystical " experiences. What is true 
 for one man in this sphere is not necessarily true 
 for another. Mr. H. G. Wells, for instance, " ex- 
 periences " his finite Invisible King ; orthodox 
 Romanists and Anglicans of earlier epochs experi- 
 enced an infinite Being of wholly different calibre. 
 Hindoos and Mohammedans have personal revela- 
 tions quite different from ours ; and, amongst our- 
 selves, the inner light of Brown may be but darkness 
 to Robinson. Their visions and conceptions are 
 
 1 Studies in Modernism, p. 61.
 
 236 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 facts, no doubt, but only subjective facts : they are 
 real for them, but not necessarily so for the other 
 man. The intense conviction of the visionary is no 
 proof that his vision is objectively true. In a word, 
 the " personalist " method of hunting religious truth 
 is little more than a form of cultured revivalism, a 
 riot of subjectivity which only results in hopeless 
 contradiction. To make the psychical phenomena of 
 individual consciousness the fulcrum of a creed that 
 claims to be universally authoritative, is to sign the 
 death-warrant of dogma. 
 
 Tyrrell is probably right when he declares that 
 there never is, and never can be, a new religion : 
 certainly the new religions which people offer us 
 nowadays have about as much novelty as the ever- 
 lasting hills. The witch of Endor anticipated Sir 
 Oliver Lodge and Sir A. C. Doyle, and she was very 
 old in her day : I believe the revelations of others 
 among our new prophets date from about the same 
 epoch. We are approaching an impasse, and the 
 way out is not yet clear, though far from me be it 
 to say that such a way may not be found. We have 
 yet to discover a criterion of right belief as opposed 
 to merely sincere belief, and to seek some means 
 whereby the life of religion may be broadened and 
 rendered more rational. Since intellect, as Newman 
 correctly informs us, is "at the utmost but tolerated 
 by the Church," the great mass of reasonable people 
 will probably continue to gather their mental and 
 spiritual sustenance outside the Roman communion. 
 Dean Inge has expressed the opinion that a code 
 believed to rest on Divine authority, which must 
 not be modified or criticized, " is the most paralysing 
 thing in the world " ; and the Roman creed is cer- 
 tainly an admirable code for paralytics. It does 
 not develop our faculties, or help us to create new 
 ones, but cramps those we already possess. It holds 
 out to us no common hope for this world or the
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 237 
 
 next ; it offers us no universal or genuine emotion 
 with which our hearts can thrill in unison, but insists 
 on the old narrowness and bids us be content with 
 the dry husks of a pettifogging formalism for which 
 the large majority of mankind have no longer any 
 use. They have small respect for a system where 
 the sorriest scrub of a priestling claims to make God 
 out of paste every morning of his life, dispenses 
 (or refuses), at his own discretion, absolution to 
 intelligent men and women ; holds himself at liberty 
 to insult decent wives and their children, and other- 
 wise comports himself as a small god upon earth. 
 There can be no place in any well-ordered community 
 for the malice and uncharitableness of the profes- 
 sional mischief-maker, lay or clerical. People are 
 sick and tired of the sectionalism which sets the 
 nations adrift one from another, and creates perma- 
 nent cleavages in sect and class in each community. 
 If the old theology insists upon still remaining a 
 sword of division, pooh-poohs reunion as a sign of 
 weakness and decay, and prefers to waste its time 
 and ours in squabbling over formulas that have now 
 grown meaningless, the world will have done with it. 
 Orthodoxy will become mere rationalism pietized. 
 
 Mr. Fawkes has reminded us l how, in the warfare 
 that goes on incessantly between the temporal and 
 spiritual powers, the Church (like the Serpent in the 
 Creation story) lies in wait for the State's heel ; and 
 he thinks that it may with equal truth be said that 
 every Church is anti-social and unethical. It would 
 certainly be difficult to conceive anything more 
 opposed to the interests of morality, religion, or social 
 order than the conduct of the Latin Church during the 
 last decade. It is now some years since Mr. Fawkes's 
 book was published ; and subsequent events in Ire- 
 land, America and Australia all over the world, in 
 fact have given additional point to his remarks. 
 
 1 Studies in Modernism, p. 143.
 
 238 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 There are many lions in Rome's path at the 
 present time, and some of them are distinctly for- 
 midable. The political elements of the Church in 
 many countries are rebelling against the secular 
 authority assumed by the ecclesiastics ; and the 
 Archbishop of Genoa has recently resigned on 
 the ground that his authority has been defied by the 
 laity. Similar trouble appears to threaten the Irish 
 hierarchy. But perhaps the most serious problem 
 confronting the Curia is that of clerical celibacy. 
 The secession of the Czecho-Slovakian Church, which 
 was chiefly due to this question, has been described 
 as " a tremendous blow to Catholicism " ; and it is 
 undoubtedly an event of great importance. Over a 
 million Bohemians have joined the Orthodox Greek 
 communion, and the Jugo-Slavs, following their 
 example, are leaving the Roman Church in con- 
 siderable numbers. The mutterings of revolt are 
 also heard in Italy, Spain and other Catholic coun- 
 tries ; and we are not surprised to learn that the 
 Vatican is growing anxious. Celibacy, in spite of its 
 obvious disadvantages, is the mainstay of clerical 
 authority. The Roman ecclesiastics, with their keen 
 insight into human nature on its lower and more 
 commonplace side, are well aware that the confes- 
 sional would cease to give them that complete 
 mastery over the human soul on which their power 
 is based, if the priests were allowed to marry. No 
 prudent woman would ever confide the intimacies of 
 her private life to a married priest of the ordinary 
 Roman Catholic type ; and the boasted " seal " of 
 the confessional, already a poor safeguard against 
 the divulging of family secrets, would be still 
 further diminished in efficacy. The Roman Curia 
 has good reason to be alarmed at the spread 
 of a movement which at present is only in its 
 infancy. The rebellion against an abominable and 
 unnatural system, which is an affliction to the priests
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 239 
 
 and the cause of untold social evils, is bound to 
 increase. 
 
 Social considerations are stated on good authority 
 to be the most potent factor in affecting conver- 
 sions to Rome, and I know of no people in the world 
 so amenable to their influences as Catholics. The 
 venerable antiquit}' of the Latin Church elle a treize 
 cents ans dans le venire, as an admiring Frenchman 
 said appeals to some people as a mark of social 
 distinction ; but even old people can be vulgar 
 sometimes, and the essential cheapness and vulgarity 
 of latter-day Catholicism may in time be recognized 
 even by the most fashionable. It is just possible that 
 a day may come when the Roman religion will cease 
 to be the futile and debasing creed that it now is 
 the football of self-seeking politicians, a cause of 
 perennial strife and ill-blood all over the world 
 and become a blessing instead of a curse to mankind ; 
 but there are few signs as yet of so desirable a con- 
 summation. We admire the courage of Catholics 
 and the devotion they show to a lost cause ; we are 
 well aware that they would die for their opinions 
 just as there are probably men who would die for 
 the multiplication-table or the theory of relativity. 
 We only suggest to them that it is better to live 
 heroically (as we know they can live) for the common 
 good of mankind, than to die or pine away heroically 
 for opinions which may be and indeed often have 
 been proved to be completely mistaken. 
 
 Clerics, no less than laymen, see that things 
 cannot go on much longer upon the old lines. Dog- 
 matic theology is in the melting-pot, and we must 
 leave it to extricate itself as best it can. The doctrinal 
 retreat " according to plan " to previously prepared 
 positions in the rear is fast degenerating into a rout ; 
 and as yet it is doubtful at what point, and how 
 far back, the final stand will be made. A reconstruc- 
 tion is certainly demanded, as Dr. Inge says, and it
 
 240 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 will come ; but the ground has got to be cleared in 
 advance, and the Roman lumber must be swept 
 away first. Catholic theologians, in particular, are 
 confronted with the unpleasant alternative of either 
 admitting that they have hitherto been wrong in 
 which case they can hardly expect us to regard 
 them as infallible or of running the risk of being 
 swept away in a flood of derision by the advancing 
 tide of modernity. Probably the rationalizing process 
 will go secretly, but steadily, forward in the Churches, 
 with occasional set-backs towards reaction in the form 
 of Syllabi, Decrees, and other Papal fulminations. 
 Blind Authority will continue laying about him 
 lustily with his futile staff ; but his blows get ever 
 feebler, and even Roman Catholics are beginning to 
 find that they do not hurt much. On the other side 
 the attack from criticism and comparative mythology 
 is only just beginning. " At present," says Sir 
 J. G. Frazer in his preface to The Golden Bough, 
 " we are only dragging the guns into position : they 
 have hardly yet begun to speak." 
 
 Science is Catholic, Romanism exactly the reverse. 
 Beside the " fertilizing compound " which we term 
 modern thought the conceptions of the theologians 
 are for the most part tame and barren. The Church, 
 a kind of religious Cook, would act as guide, showman, 
 and arbiter of our journey through life, and thus 
 deprive us of the gratification and the stimulus 
 which people derive from managing their own affairs 
 and finding things out for themselves. Hence it has 
 come about that the individualist or " personalist " 
 standpoint is asserting itself more and more in the 
 religious sphere : men are ceasing to reject, from 
 cowardice and " because of their unbelief," the new 
 revelations that are offered them. The spiritual 
 gaze fixed obstinately backwards is being replaced 
 by trust in an earthly future and the " rapture of 
 the forward view." We shall probably find, too,
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 241 
 
 that, as the years go on, conduct will be made the 
 ultimate test of religion. The large majority of 
 sensible people have made up their minds that right 
 behaviour is of far greater importance than any 
 loud-voiced, but frequently insincere, assertion of 
 belief in nebulous transcendental hypotheses. They 
 do not regard scholasticism as the last word in 
 spiritual enlightenment, or as in any way a guarantee 
 of sound ethics. They observe, on the contrary, 
 that a rigid system of religious faith is not in- 
 compatible with a notable deterioration in morals. 
 They will judge doctrine more and more by 
 its social fruits, and reject a creed which exalts 
 mere pietistic fervour above ordinary or "natural" 
 virtue. 
 
 Nor is there any need to fear that unbridled 
 licence will follow the decay of dogmatic religion, 
 or that mankind will lose itself in " quagmires of 
 sensuality " down this new path. If ever the world 
 lost itself in such quagmires, it was during those 
 so-called ages of faith the darkest, and probably 
 the dirtiest, which this earth has ever known when 
 the Papacy was supreme. 
 
 In that dear middle-age these noodles praise, 
 
 as Bishop Blougram puts it with perhaps unnecessary 
 bluntness, we have it on the testimony of the Church's 
 noblest saints and prophets that mankind was excep- 
 tionally wicked, and the clergy were no better than 
 the rest. If morality depended on superstition, or 
 exclusively on a belief in the supernatural, the out- 
 look would be dark indeed. Our divorce courts have 
 been very busy of late, owing to the peculiar con- 
 ditions set up by the War ; but, in spite of occasional 
 set-backs, the world gets wiser, and therefore better, 
 as it grows older and less orthodox. Let us trust 
 the secular conscience, which, as ecclesiastics now 
 concede, is superior to that of the Churches. In any 
 
 16
 
 242 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 case, we have no faith in the Roman Church as a 
 guardian of true morality. 1 
 
 It may fairly be hoped that that particularly 
 unpleasant form of the religious spirit, which expresses 
 itself in perpetual squabbling with rival denomina- 
 tions, will become increasingly unpopular. The sec- 
 tarian nuisance must be reckoned among the worst 
 and most needless of our present afflictions a running 
 sore on the human body, a canker eating into our 
 national and civic vitality. In the words of Cromwell, 
 " Every sect saith, ' Oh, give me Liberty ! ' But 
 give it him, and, to his power, he will not yield it 
 to anybody else." Let each man worship God in 
 the way that to him appears best and most seemly, 
 and address himself directly to the Deity, without 
 the intervention of any unnecessary third party. 
 Above all, let him leave the other man to go his 
 own religious way, so long as that way is the way of 
 peace. As Cowper says, 
 
 Grant them the rights of men : and, while they cease 
 To vex the peace of others, grant them peace. 
 
 That peace would be nearer, perhaps, if an end could 
 be put to the somewhat grotesque, and largely 
 insincere, ecclesiastical demagogy which is a new 
 element of disorganization in modern society. The 
 unnatural alliance between Socialism, or Sinn Fein 
 anarchism, and reactionary sacerdotalism is hardly 
 likely to be permanent, and we may fairly hope to 
 be spared a clerico-plebeian oligarchy perhaps the 
 worst form of oligarchy which could possibly be 
 conceived. Certain churchmen are now dangling 
 before the working man the prospect of a mundane 
 utopia, s instead of the " bric-a-brac rococo heaven " 
 
 1 See Appendix II. 
 
 1 Organized religion, Dean Inge is reported to have said, "is 
 always on the winning side and is nothing more than a creaking 
 weathercock."
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 243 
 
 satirized by Tyrrell ; but the trades unions are not 
 greatly impressed by the latest clerical gospel, and 
 continue to pin their faith on coal and railway 
 strikes. 
 
 Magical religion may be expected to dwindle by 
 degrees, though we may be sure it will make a stout 
 fight for life. The religious minister of the future 
 will probably become more and more a pastor pur et 
 simple, the shepherd of his flock, rather than an 
 ecclesiastical sorcerer with claims to talismanic powers 
 and attributes that can never be substantiated. 
 Man, as his powers develop, will not be satisfied 
 with mere assertions which are neither verified nor, 
 so far as we at present know, verifiable. If he finds 
 that the affirmation of those absolute values, which 
 we are all seeking, cannot be honestly achieved, he 
 will content himself with such approximations as 
 are within his reach. He wants an anodyne for the 
 ills of life, but not at the price of surrendering his 
 reasoning faculties. In the meantime the attempts 
 at accommodation between the new ideas and the 
 old, the amendment and patching-up of religious 
 dogma, may be expected to continue. The Solera 
 system (as I believe it is termed by wine-merchants), 
 by which the cask is continually replenished with 
 new liquor as the old is drawn out, will be applied 
 to theology. New and heady vintages will be put 
 into the old bottles ; and it is very doubtful if the 
 bottles will prove equal to the strain. 
 
 Before closing I would make another and final 
 appeal for honesty, courage and lucidity in our 
 treatment of religious questions. Let us pay in full 
 our debt to candour in these matters, which is now 
 reaching a considerable figure. The average man of 
 education and common sense is satisfied with one 
 kind of truth. He does not profess to distinguish 
 between " truths of fact " and " truths of faith," 
 and he emphatically rejects the notion that there
 
 244 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 are different orders of verity, or that " an ostensibly 
 historical proposition may be false as a matter of 
 fact, but true for faith." l As his intelligence en- 
 larges, and his means of acquiring knowledge is 
 increased, he will be less inclined to accept the 
 argument of balancing theologians that " whatever 
 suits souls is true." To plain questions he will 
 expect plain answers, not answers that wrap up 
 momentous issues in loose verbiage and a cloud of 
 intentional obscurity. He will demand to be told 
 definitely which passages in Scripture he is to take 
 in the literal sense, and which in the allegorical 
 which are plain prose, which merely poetry. We 
 want to know whether events, which are represented 
 to us as actual physical occurrences, happened in 
 reality, and in the way in which we have always 
 been led hitherto to suppose they happened. Such 
 cryptic phrases as, " It may have to be relegated to 
 the subjective order of phenomena," 'It is a truth 
 of faith, not of fact," and similar shifts of the em- 
 barrassed faithful, will fail to satisfy us. 
 
 The world has changed, and we must change 
 with it, if we would cease to be ineffectual. We want 
 new incentives to mental activities, not old Roman 
 dopes for budding enthusiasms. Let us seek as 
 teachers men who offer us full freedom of the human 
 mind and spirit, not an unwholesome prison-house 
 of the soul. A CrTurch divorced from the general 
 intelligence of the people carries within itself the 
 seeds of dissolution : it is only because most Catholics 
 are ignorant that their Church endures. We cannot 
 have one set of truths for the study and the closet, 
 and another for the market-place. Religious authority 
 may keep silence on the grave questions that are 
 now agitating men's minds refrain (as the clergyman 
 said) from disturbing the placid faith of its aged 
 parishioners ; but such silence is akin to the silence 
 
 1 See Outspoken Essays, by Dean Inge, p. 113.
 
 THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 245 
 
 of death. Qui cherche la verite trouvera Dieu. On 
 the other hand, I' art de chicaner avec Dieu, with 
 its elaborate technique devised and perfected by 
 generations of Roman theologians, is a miserable 
 art, as irreligious as it is immoral. Neither in 
 Scripture nor anywhere else is there any valid 
 sanction for obscurantism, or for the boon companion 
 of obscurantism mendacity. Browning may be 
 right when he suggests that, under the guidance of 
 the Latin Church, 
 
 Men have outgrown the shame of being fools ; 
 
 but the Roman Catholic or other devotee who seeks 
 to be a fool for Christ's sake, or to pervert the truth 
 in God's service, should first satisfy himself that his 
 intentions are acceptable to God. 
 
 I At the time of the Reformation Protestantism 
 jettisoned much of the damnosa hereditas it had 
 received from Romanism in the shape of false beliefs, 
 Churchianity," a rotten moral theology, and a dead- 
 weight of superstition ; but more of the superfluous 
 cargo will have to be thrown overboard before the 
 ship is rendered seaworthy and fit for the rough 
 weather she seems likely to encounter. This done, 
 we can continue our voyage with a reasonable confi- 
 dence that new havens will be found where the vessel 
 of the human soul may cast anchor and ride in 
 safety. The barque of Peter will remain at its old 
 moorings in the land-locked harbour of medievalism ; 
 but our craft must answer the call of the great waters, 
 and steer for the open sea. Even though the pursuit 
 of essential truth be difficult, and dangers attend 
 the adventure which I take leave to doubt we 
 may face them without undue trepidation. In all 
 probability we shall find that, as usually happens, 
 the boldest course is also the safest, and that in this 
 high enterprise the path to true happiness and 
 tranquillity lies.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE MARRIAGE FORM 
 
 LAST year, by a happy chance, one of the jealously guarded 
 marriage forms, which an autocratic Church compels Pro- 
 testant no less than Catholic parties to a mixed marriage 
 to sign, came into my hands. It appeared in the National 
 Review for October 1920, and I am assured on good 
 authority, and believe it to be the fact, that the document 
 had never before been made public. It is now reproduced 
 here, and the reader's attention is called to certain im- 
 portant points illustrative of the Church's insolent attitude 
 towards Protestant or civil marriage. 
 
 The Form of Application for a Mixed Marriage must be filled in 
 by the Priest making the application and signed by both parties in 
 his presence. It is not allowed to send forms away for this purpose. 
 
 No. 
 Date 
 
 APPLICATION FOR DISPENSATION FROM THE IMPEDIMENT OF MIXED 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Man's Name 
 
 Domicile > 
 
 Religion , 
 
 Place and Date of Baptism 
 
 Woman's Name 
 
 Domicile * 
 
 Religion 
 
 Place and Date of Baptism 
 
 Canonical Reasons (to be stated fully) 
 
 1 i.e. Domicilium, vel quasi domicilium, in vevo sensu canonico. 
 
 347
 
 248 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 ii 
 
 PROMISES TO BE SIGNED BEFORE APPLICATION. 
 
 To be signed by the Catholic Party. 
 
 I, the undersigned, do hereby solemnly promise and engage that 
 all the children, of both sexes, who may be born of my marriage, 
 shall be baptized in the Catholic Church, and shall be carefully brought 
 up in the knowledge and practice of the Catholic Religion ; and I 
 also promise that (according to the instructions of the Holy See) 
 my marriage in the Catholic Church shall not be preceded nor followed 
 by any other religious marriage ceremony. 
 
 (Signature) 
 
 To be signed by the non-Catholic Party. 
 
 I, the undersigned, do hereby solemnly promise and engage that 
 
 I will not interfere with the religious belief of 
 
 my future wife (or husband), nor with her (or his) full and perfect 
 liberty to fulfil all her (or his) duties as a Catholic ; and that I will 
 allow all the children, of both sexes, who may be born of our marriage, 
 to be baptized in the Catholic Church, and to be carefully brought 
 up in the knowledge and practice of the Catholic Religion. 
 
 (Signature) 
 
 Date 
 
 N.B. Tertia promissio, de conversione compartis acatholicae pro 
 viribus curanda, a parte Catholica saltern viva voce fieri debet. 
 Insuper, si partes jam cohabitaverint, declarandum hie erit an proles 
 exinde nata sit, et, quatenus affirmative, utrum in Catholica Religione 
 baptizata et educata fuerit. 1 
 
 Name of Priest . . 
 Address 
 
 The Ne Temere Decree, as I explained in my former 
 book, is merely a republication (with certain amplifications) 
 of the Council of Trent's Tametsi Decree issued in 1564. 
 The Tametsi enacts that no marriage is valid (it is declared 
 
 1 I append translation, with apologies to classical scholars : " The 
 third promise, concerning the conversion of the non-Catholic party, 
 which should be sought after to the best of one's abilities, ought to 
 be made by the Catholic party at least by word of mouth. Moreover, 
 if the parties have already cohabited, it must here be declared if there 
 has been any offspring of the union, and, in so far as the answer is in 
 the affirmative, whether it has been baptized and educated in the 
 Catholic Religion."
 
 NE TEMERE DECREE MARRIAGE FORM 249 
 
 to be " invalid " and null, without any reservation : the 
 Church does not merely say that the marriage is of no effect 
 in Catholic eyes. It is an invalid marriage, not merely in 
 the sight of Rome, but " in the sight of God ") unless the 
 ceremony is performed in the presence, or by permission, of 
 the parish priest or of the Ordinary, and in the presence of 
 two or three witnesses. Otherwise, as we are still frequently 
 informed, the supposed marriage "is no marriage at all," 
 but merely a state of " legalized concubinage." 
 
 The provisions of this remarkable ordinance, in them- 
 selves sufficiently startling, have since been supplemented 
 " tightened up," as Catholics express it by the Roman 
 ecclesiastics during the last few years, and without any 
 authoritative pronouncement on the part of the Church. 
 In the first place, the Tridentine Decree was not dealing 
 with " mixed " marriages at all, but with clandestine mar- 
 riages, which were considered to be a danger to morality. 
 Secondly, the marriage ceremony now has to be performed, 
 not merely (as enacted by the Ne Temere and Tametsi 
 Decrees) in the presence of a Romish priest and witnesses, 
 but by the priest, in a Papist Church and with Papist rites. 
 Thirdly, the contracting parties are now required to sign 
 certain promises, of which no mention is made in the Trent 
 or Ne Temere Decrees. The latter prescribe no form of 
 application to the Roman Chuich for permission to marry ; 
 nor are the parties required to make the stringent engage- 
 ments which are now exacted from them. The Catholic 
 party now has to promise, not only that the children shall 
 be baptized and brought up in the Roman faith, but that 
 there shall be no other religious marriage ceremony. The 
 non-Catholic bridegroom who vainly imagined himself to be 
 a free citizen of a free country finds himself compelled, 
 at the bidding of a foreign Church and under pain of losing 
 his bride-elect, to promise solemnly that he will not inter- 
 fere with the lady's religious opinions, and also that he will 
 allow his children to be brought up in a faith which he does 
 not believe, and which in many cases he views with entire 
 disapprobation. It will further be observed that in the 
 " third promise " (carefully veiled in the obscurity of the 
 Church's execrably bad Latin) the Catholic party is made 
 to promise to do that which the Protestant must promise
 
 250 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 not to do namely, to attempt the conversion of his (or 
 her) yoke-fellow. There is also an unpleasant suggestion of 
 pre-marital intercourse between the parties to the union, 
 which any self-respecting person would regard as a gratuitous 
 insult. The Marriage Form states that these things are 
 done " according to the instructions of the Holy See," but 
 we are not informed when, where, or by whom these 
 instructions were issued. 
 
 In some cases, where the parties are already married 
 according to the rites of a Protestant church, the eccle- 
 siastics insist on re-marriage in a Catholic place of worship, 
 and the Church claims, and frequently exercises, the right 
 to expose the man and wife to open scandal if her orders 
 are not obeyed. The parties are described in the certificate, 
 issued on official paper by the Government of a Protestant 
 State, as " bachelor " and " spinster " respectively, and 
 the wife has to sign the document in her maiden name. I 
 have before me, as I write, a photograph of one such cer- 
 tificate : the couple had been married several years, and 
 had two children. In another recent case the parties, who 
 had been married some years previously and had one child 
 of the union, were required to remarry in a Roman Catholic 
 church ; and the Protestant husband was invited (the 
 document is now in my possession) to describe the partner 
 of his joys and sorrows as " my future wife." He very 
 properly told the priest to go somewhere, and the 
 demand was not insisted on. 
 
 In the case of rich or titled persons the Church is more 
 complaisant, and frequently waives what she is pleased to 
 call her " rights." The whole matter demands the atten- 
 tion of the Government and the public, and Roman 
 Catholics should be restrained by law from making insulting 
 references to British subjects who are married according to 
 the laws, the social and religious customs of their country, 
 and from describing the offspring of those who are so 
 married as illegitimate.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 
 
 IN the National Review for August 1920 the late Father 
 Garrold, S.J., alluded to what he called my " gratuitous 
 statement (in the Roman Mischief -Maker] that morality in 
 Catholic countries is worse than elsewhere " ; and he declared 
 the assertion to be " unsupported by an iota of evidence." 
 Also the Month of February 1920, in the course of an ex- 
 haustive review of my book, says that, " After all, it is the 
 pragmatic test that is conclusive herein. Do the ill-results 
 which Mr. Stutfield apprehend really come to pass ? Are 
 Catholics who go habitually to confession morally worse than 
 Protestants who don't ? " 
 
 Thus directly challenged, and seeing that the matter lies 
 at the very root of the controversy, I have been at consider- 
 able pains to arrive at the real facts ; and, aided by the kind- 
 ness and diligence of many valued correspondents in various 
 quarters of the globe, I am now enabled to show that there 
 is an immense amount of evidence much of it supplied by 
 Romanists to show that Papist morality all over the world 
 is much lower than that of the people whom the Church 
 describes as heretics. 
 
 Let us begin with our own country. Protestants assert that 
 Roman Catholics in Great Britain are four times as criminal 
 as non-Catholics ; and a letter in the Tablet of July 19, 
 1913, deplores the distressing fact that (according to official 
 statistics published in The Times) the Catholics of England 
 and Wales, forming about 4-75 of the total population, " con- 
 tributed about four times their due share " of the inmates of 
 His Majesty's prisons at that time. The writer further pointed 
 out that the Roman Church (with a much smaller total popu- 
 lation) supplied nearly three times as many prisoners as all the 
 
 251
 
 252 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 leading Protestant Nonconformist bodies combined ! Catho- 
 lics " contributed actually a larger share than any other body 
 except the Established Church." I may mention that the 
 latter, being the fashionable denomination, is regularly credited 
 with a bigger proportion of criminals than it deserves. The 
 Government issued on March 28, 1906, the following return 
 of prisoners in Great Britain * : Salvation Army, n ; Congre- 
 gationalists, 53 ; Baptists, 132 ; Methodists, 496 ; Presby- 
 terians, 1,803 ; Jews, 262 ; Church of England, 16,235 > 
 Catholics, 5,378. This has been worked out as giving the 
 following proportions per 100,000 of population, but I cannot 
 guarantee the exact figures : for the Nonconformist Churches 
 and Jews, 2, 3, 9, 10, 46, 116 respectively ; Anglicans, 118 ; 
 Catholics, 247. 
 
 I have failed to obtain recent official figures for England, 
 as the authorities appear to have discontinued issuing religious 
 statistics of prisoners. We must therefore rest content with 
 earlier information. The Times of October 27, 1874, review- 
 ing a Government Report, showed that, while Scotland fur- 
 nished only 2-3 per cent, of our criminals, Ireland supplied 
 14-2 per cent.; "and the Irish female constitutes no less 
 than one-fifth of the whole female prison population of England 
 and Wales." A letter in the Liverpool Daily Courier of 
 January 4, 1876, states that the Romanists (forming one- 
 fourth of the Liverpool population) furnished four-fifths of 
 the criminals. The Times of November 26, 1878, says that 
 " it is among the Roman Catholics that the most extraordinary 
 records are obtained ; an absolute majority of the prisoners 
 (in Liverpool), male and female, belong to that communion. 
 Of the 12,285 prisoners during the year, 8,453 were Roman 
 Catholics." The Catholic Times of April 17, 1885, gives 
 some no less illuminating statistics concerning " a state of 
 things which the Catholic public cannot contemplate without 
 feelings of sadness and humiliation." Out of 21,324 prisoners, 
 " 13,676 were Catholics, while Protestants and all other 
 denominations numbered only 7,648." A year later Mon- 
 signor Nugent, who did excellent work among the poorer 
 and more criminal classes, gave corroborative evidence ; 
 
 1 Government Report of March 28th, quoted by Mr. A. Le Lievre, 
 to whose work, The Protestant's Treasury, I am indebted for the bulk 
 of the information in the two succeeding paragraphs.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 253 
 
 and the Universe confessed that " the vice and immorality 
 existing among the Catholic body in Liverpool are fearful . . . 
 a horrible, a hideous blot on the Catholic character in the great 
 northern seaport." . . . "In Liverpool the strongest phalanx 
 in the devil's army is recruited from the ranks of Catholicism. 
 Of the three great divisions in that gloomy host thieving, 
 harlotry, and intemperance the majority are members of 
 our community." The above statements are confirmed by 
 information I have received from barristers on the Northern 
 Circuit and others ; and I am told that a similar state of things 
 prevails in Birkenhead. There is very little doubt that magis- 
 trates in large towns like Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester 
 would corroborate these allegations. 1 The Tablet of Feb- 
 ruary 12, 1898, said in a leading article : " Throughout England 
 25 per cent, of the persons in prison are Catholics." The latter 
 form less than one-twentieth of the total population ; and 
 Cardinal Vaughan, Lord Edmund Talbot, M.P., Father 
 Bernard Vaughan, and other Catholics lamented at various 
 times a state of things which was " a disgrace " to the Church. 
 In Scotland the Irish Catholics who form an element of 
 turbulence and demoralization in every country which they 
 make their home are equally a community of law-breakers. 
 The North British Daily Mail, referrring to observations 
 made in 1876 by the Irish Census Commissioners, said : 
 " But for the presence of the Irish Roman Catholic element 
 in our city, we might dispense with the services of three- 
 fourths of our policemen, might shut up the same proportion 
 of our workhouses and gaols, and reduce our assessments for 
 the support of pauperism and the repression and the punish- 
 ment of crime, to one-fourth of the present amount. ... Of 
 the Roman Catholic population i in every 27 is a criminal 
 prisoner, of the remainder only I in 132 belongs to this cate- 
 gory." In a leading article on the Scotch Criminal Statistics 
 for 1901, the Scotsman pointed out that the figures showed 
 the Roman Catholics to be about five times as criminal as the 
 Protestants. In 1903, out of 53,763 prisoners received into 
 Scottish prisons, 22,246 were Irish and 28,995 Scotch. The 
 Irish form about one-tenth of the population. The Report 
 
 1 See also the Quarterly Review for January 1888 for confirmatory 
 statistics.
 
 254 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 on the Judicial Statistics of Scotland for 1907 gives the number 
 of convicted persons received into prisons and police cells 
 as 57,213. Of these, 22,914 were of Irish nationality. An 
 Edinburgh newspaper stated in 1904 that " the Roman 
 Catholic churchgoers in the Cowgate and Canongate furnish 
 more visitors to the police court than all the Presbyterian 
 churchgoers in Edinburgh put together." 
 
 Turning to America, I have no recent Canadian figures to 
 offer ; but the Quarterly Review for January 1888 states 
 that the Roman Catholics of Ontario, forming only 16 per 
 cent, of the population, supplied in 1881 3,844 offenders out of 
 6,940. Out of 8,112 commitments to the Toronto prison 
 in thirteen years, 2,812, or 34-66 per cent., were Roman 
 Catholics. The late Mr. Robert Sellar states on page 364 of 
 his Tragedy of Quebec (4th edition, 1916) that the statistics 
 of police and criminal courts in Canada, added to the reports 
 of municipal officials, judges, superintendents of charitable 
 institutions and hospital physicians, show the Papists to be 
 an exceedingly troublesome class. The United States, on 
 the other hand, furnish statistical and other evidence in 
 overwhelming abundance. Let us give priority to that of 
 Romanists. That excellent prelate, the late Cardinal Farley, 
 asked " why there are so many Roman Catholic boys who 
 find their way behind prison bars ? " In 1912 he said : " We 
 are too generously represented in penal and other institutions." 
 Addressing a Catholic meeting in New York in 1916, Judge 
 Collins (R.C.) said : " In the Children's Court 146,000 cases 
 are brought up every year : 60 per cent, of these are Catholics ; 
 65 per cent, of the boys in the reformatories are Catholics." 
 Monsignor Francis Hall followed with the lament that " It 
 is a dreary commentary on our religion that so many of our 
 children should pass before the judges and receive sentence 
 for felonies and other misdemeanours." Catholics form 
 about one-ninth of the United States population ; in New 
 York the proportion is somewhat greater. The New York 
 penitentiaries eight years ago held 26,157 prisoners, of whom 
 15,064 were Papists. The Milwaukee House of Correction 
 in 1913 contained 67 per cent, of Catholics ; and in the work- 
 house of St. Paul, Minnesota, where the population has only 
 about 7 per cent, of Catholics, 54 per cent, of the inmates were 
 members of the Roman Church. My friend Mr. George L.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 255 
 
 Fox, of Newhaven (Conn.) whose letters in the Spectator 
 and the National Review have helped to open the eyes of 
 Englishmen as to the anti-British propaganda carried on by 
 Roman Catholics in America has kindly sent me some 
 further statistics of affairs in his State. The 1920 Report of 
 the Directors of the Connecticut State Prison shows the 
 following percentages : 59-73 Catholics ; 30-20 Protestants ; 
 4 03 Hebrews ; 6-04 Agnostics. The Report of the Directors 
 of the State Reformatory gave 52-4 Catholics; 41-5 Protes- 
 tants ; 4-9 Hebrews. Another Report shows 61-4 Catholics ; 
 35-2 Protestants ; 3-4 Hebrews. Out of 1,271 inmates of the 
 Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet, 571 were Roman 
 Catholics. 
 
 The drunkenness of Romanists, and the immorality which 
 prevails amongst their women, are a constant source of vexa - 
 tion to good Catholics. " How," asked a well-known temper- 
 ance reformer, Canon W. Murnane, at a meeting in Birmingham 
 some years ago, " How can you expect conversions when 
 a Roman Catholic prison chaplain can assert that of six 
 or seven thousand women brought into the prison yearly, 
 more than 80 per cent, are Catholics ? " Monsignor Nugent 
 and other good priests engaged in rescue work have much to 
 say on the subject. " Nine out of ten," said the Monsignor 
 in the League Hall, Liverpool, on November II, 1886, " of 
 the girls to be seen at night along London Road or Lime Street 
 are Catholics ; there is no use hiding it." A well-known 
 New York physician, Dr. W. H. Sanger, author of The History 
 of Prostitution, interrogated 2,000 New York outcast women. 
 972 said they were Protestants, 977 Roman Catholics, the 
 remainder " non-professors." " Of the Catholic outcasts, no 
 fewer than 706 were born in Ireland ! " J In an article in 
 the Catholic World for September 1890, Father Walter Elliot, 
 a well-known priest belonging to the Paulist Fathers, said 
 that " In many cities big and little we have something like 
 a monopoly of the business of selling liquor, and in not a few 
 something equivalent to a monopoly of getting drunk. . . . 
 From Catholic domiciles miscalled homes three-fourths of 
 
 1 The Protestant's Treasury, p. 69. It appears, says the Quarterly 
 Review, that " an overwhelming majority of the habitual criminals 
 and of the public courtesans come from the Roman Catholic sections 
 of the population."
 
 256 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 the public paupers creep annually to the almshouses, and more 
 than half the criminals snatched away by the police to prison 
 are by baptism and training members of our Church. Can 
 anyone deny that the identity of nominal Catholicity and 
 pauperism existing in our chief centres of population is owing 
 to the drunkenness of Roman Catholics ? And can anyone 
 deny that this has been the horrible truth for something 
 like thirty-five years ? . . . The neighbourhood of a Roman 
 Catholic Church is a good stand for the saloon business ; and 
 this is equally so in nearly every city in America. Who has 
 not burned with shame to run the gauntlet of the saloons 
 lining the way to the Roman Catholic cemetery ? " 
 
 Through the kindness of various correspondents in Mel- 
 bourne and Sydney to whom I am greatly indebted for the 
 trouble they have taken in the matter I am enabled to give 
 some interesting statistics, culled from official reports, con- 
 cerning crime in Australia. From these statistics I gather 
 that the Roman Catholics of New South Wales are, compared 
 with their co-religionists elsewhere, exceptionally virtuous 
 folk. That is to say, they are only twice as wicked as the 
 heretics. In the four years, 1915-1918, there were 2,191 
 Catholics in gaol under sentence, and 3,255 non-Catholics. 
 As the former constitute about one-fifth of the total Australian 
 population, this gives them about double their proper propor- 
 tion of delinquents. In 1920, out of 1,035 prisoners, 420 
 were Roman Catholics. In Victoria the Papists, we are told, 
 gave a very poor account of themselves in 1917. " For 
 every 10,000 of the population they had 8-95 prisoners in 
 gaol, and the Protestants 4-37." In other words, they would 
 appear and have been stated to have had more than ten 
 times their due proportion of prisoners. Previous years made, 
 according to extracts from the Victorian Year Book for 1917, 
 and other official sources, a still worse showing. In 1871 
 the ratio of prisoners constantly detained, " per 10,000 of 
 population," is given as Protestants 18-88, Catholics 32-59 ; 
 in 1881, Protestants 14-36, Catholics 32-98; in 1891, 
 Protestants 1312, Catholics 29-33 ; in 1901, Protestants 
 7-19, Catholics 17-63; in 1911, Protestants 4-90, Catholics 
 11-07 > m I 9 I 9> Protestants 3-38, Catholics 7-61. It strikes 
 me, however, that possibly by " population " is meant popula- 
 tion of denomination : it seems difficult to believe that Vic-
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 257 
 
 tori an Papists can be more than five times as wicked as their 
 brethren in New South Wales. In New Zealand, Queensland, 
 South Australia and Tasmania Roman Catholic criminality 
 exceeds in a very considerable, but not specially remarkable, 
 degree that of the non-Catholic community, including the 
 native races. I should add that, if the comparisons in all the 
 States were made with the Protestants alone, the showing 
 would be much more to the disadvantage of the Roman 
 Church, as Jews and Chinese and other races contribute largely 
 to the criminal classes. 
 
 " The statistics of homicide," says the great criminologist. 
 Professor Cesare Lombroso, " are a sure guide as to a people's 
 state of culture." x Lord Acton, writing to Lady Blenner- 
 hassett, says that the Ultramontanes were " worse than the 
 accomplices of the Old Man of the Mountain, for they picked 
 off individual victims, but the Papacy contrived murder 
 and massacre on the largest and also on the most cruel and 
 inhuman scale. They were not only wholesale assassins, 
 but they also made the principle of assassination a law of the 
 Christian Church and a condition of salvation." He also 
 condemned the Papal party who condoned these deeds as 
 " infamous in the last degree." 2 With these high examples 
 before them, Roman Catholic nations are naturally well to 
 the fore in the matter of homicide, and the recent Irish murder 
 campaign becomes more easily comprehensible. Lombroso 
 gives the following statistics of homicides per 100,000 inhabi- 
 tants in various countries : Italy, 96 ; Spain, 58 ; Portugal, 
 25 ; Hungary, 75 ; Austria, 25 ; Sweden and Norway, 13 ; 
 France and Belgium, 18 ; Germany and England, 5 each. 
 In the United States, Scandinavians, Germans, T iish and Eng- 
 lish furnished between them, on an average, about 8 homi- 
 cides per 100,000 in each nation; but Italians had 58-1, and 
 Mexicans 116-9. ^ n *8&4 there were 434 murders committed 
 in the province of Palermo alone, compared with 170 in the 
 whole of England. 3 According to the Catholic Universe 
 for January 21, 1899, 128 murders were committed in Rome, 
 which had a population of 274,000. There were fewer murders 
 
 1 The North American Review, December 1897. 
 * Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, by the 
 Rev. J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence, i. 55. 
 3 The Fortnightly Review, November 1887. 
 
 17
 
 258 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 in London during a space of more than five years. The 
 British Quarterly Review for January 1856 gives some extra- 
 ordinary figures presenting a vivid contrast between the 
 respect shown for human life in Catholic and non-Catholic 
 countries : the years, of course, are picked ones. In 1835 
 England had one murder or attempted murder per 178,000 
 inhabitants ; Scotland I per 270,000. In 1826 Spain had 
 I per 4,113 ; Naples I per 2,750 ; the States of the Church 
 i per 750 ! The writer of the Fortnightly article alluded to 
 just now, Mr. Strachan Morgan, says (p. 651) that Naples, 
 with 300,000 inhabitants, had in 1881 196 assassinations and 
 823 homicides. " Taking the whole country (Italy), the annual 
 average of murder is sixteen times greater than is that of 
 England." He describes the social conditions in Sicily as 
 appalling : " adultery, incest, uxoricide and prostitution are 
 terribly frequent." Racial characteristics, climate and other 
 factors must, of course, be taken into account in judging of 
 these matters, and obviously many (but by no means all) 
 of the above facts and figures have been selected for contro- 
 versial purposes ; but I do not think that there can be any 
 reasonable doubt that the general conclusions which they 
 seem to establish are correct. It is at least quite clear that 
 religion, in Roman Catholic countries, has acted as a very 
 ineffective deterrent. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, when Europe under the moral 
 guidance of the Popes and priests was a cesspool of sexual 
 and other depravity, the laity were wont to excuse themselves 
 by saying that they were no worse than their clerical mentors ; 
 and morality amongst the Romanist clergy in our day leaves 
 much to be desired. Let us freely admit that there are thou- 
 sands of noble Catholic priests who lead pure lives of whole- 
 hearted devotion to duty ; but such men, especially in Latin 
 countries where the Church is paramount, form a small 
 minority. If Catholic priests, as the Roman theologians in- 
 form us is the case, frequently lead loose lives, the fault is less 
 theirs than that of a Church whose wicked celibacy system 
 makes widespread unchastity inevitable. 1 An Australian 
 journal quotes a passage from Dollinger stating that " Liguori 
 
 1 Priests were forbidden by the Church to marry in the fourth and 
 fifth centuries. There were many later prohibitions, and celibacy was 
 officially and finally enforced in the eleventh century.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 259 
 
 himself confesses that ' the most virtuous priests are con- 
 strained to fall at least once a month.' ' I am not acquainted 
 with the passage in question, but the Saint more than once says 
 something of the sort in his numerous works, and in his Selva 
 (p. 213) he asks : " How does it happen that there are so many 
 priests in the world, and so few holy priests ? " Mr. McCabe, 
 a very competent and careful authority, gives English priests 
 a moderately good character, and English nuns an excellent 
 one, but he states that in Catholic countries such as Spain 
 clerical immorality is general. 1 The same may be said of 
 Southern Italy (where 95 per cent, of the priests are stated 
 to be immoral), Sicily and Malta. A Roman Catholic who 
 had lived many years in Hungary told me not long ago that, 
 while the Orthodox (Greek) clergy usually married, nearly 
 all the Romanist priests in that country kept " establishments." 
 When, six weeks later, I read that the neighbouring Czecho- 
 Slovakian Church had severed its connection with Rome on 
 the celibacy question, I was not surprised. People long 
 resident in Peru and Chili tell me that priestly morals out 
 there are atrocious. 2 In Argentina they are said to be bad 
 enough, but distinctly better than in the adjoining countries 
 The clerical ethics of Mexico approximate to those of Peru 
 Lecturing to our troops in France, under War Office auspices 
 in 1918, I obtained startling confirmation of the reports as 
 to the goings-on of French priests in the towns, but many 
 of the village cures are excellent men. 
 
 The same conditions have prevailed for centuries, and 
 they will continue until holy Mother Church, who is herself 
 a lady with a past, ceases to force her priests to live lives 
 of thwarted natural instincts. Bad enough in our day, the 
 consequences of celibacy in the Middle Ages were simply 
 appalling. " The immorality of the clergy," says Mr. Rufus 
 Jones (Studies in Mysticism, p. 131), " from the highest rank 
 to the lowest order, was universally recognized." The 
 " fearful picture of social conditions is hardly more sombre 
 
 1 Twelve Years in a Monastery, p. 107. 
 
 a Cardinal Vaughan, travelling through South America in 1863, 
 was greatly shocked by what he saw. The priests in Peru scandalized 
 the people, and " the monks here are in the lowest state of degradation, 
 and a suppression of them would be an act of Divine favour " (Life 
 sf Cardinal Vaughan, by J. G. Snead-Cox, i. 125, 136).
 
 260 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 than the dark pictures of the moral condition of the clergy, 
 high and low," which are to be found in the chronicles of 
 bishops, saints, friars, priests and lay chroniclers of the period. 
 Nor was the corruption temporary or sporadic ; it lasted 
 continually for much more than a thousand years. It began 
 in very early times, as we learn from the letters of St. Jerome, 
 who describes the priests and laity, men and women, as sordid, 
 greedy, unchaste and utterly irreligious. He warned the 
 virtuous young ladies under his charge not to remain in a 
 room with a Roman priest * ; and his " fierce declamations 
 afford a terrible picture of the disorders prevalent among 
 those vowed to celibacy, and of the hideous crimes resorted 
 to " in order to conceal their guilt. 2 In 494 we find Gelasius I, 
 one of the ablest Popes, " lamenting the incestuous marriages 
 entered into by the virgins dedicated to God." The condition 
 of Spain, Africa, France and Italy are depicted by sundry 
 writers of the period in the darkest colours. At a later date, 
 in certain Swiss Cantons, and in parts of Spain, the laity 
 had a lively appreciation of the inconveniences attending 
 clerical celibacy. They compelled " a new pastor, on taking 
 up his charge, to select a concubine as a necessary protection 
 to the females under his care." 3 Not all the nunneries were 
 bad, by any means, but many of them are described as 
 " notoriously no better than brothels " ; and the monasteries 
 were worse. Amid a variety of remarkable ordinances the 
 palm must be accorded to that of St. Theodore Studita, who, 
 in the ninth century, found it necessary to prohibit the impor- 
 tation of female animals into monasteries. 4 Uncleanliness 
 apparently came before godliness in that " convent of a hun- 
 dred and thirty nuns, who never washed their feet, and who 
 shuddered at the mention of a bath." 5 
 
 Of the Papal Court at Avignon, Petrarch, who claimed to 
 tell only part of the truth,[said that " chastity was a reproach 
 
 * Letters xxii and cxxv ; see McCabe's The Popes and Their Church, 
 p. 18. 
 
 The History of Sacerdotal Celibacy, by H. C. Lea, i. 108 (third 
 edition) . 
 
 B Lea, quoted in Religion and Sex, by C. Cohen, p. 221. 
 
 4 Testament, v ; see Lea's Sacerdotal Celibacy, i. p. 121. 
 
 3 Lecky's History of European Morals, ii. pp. 107-110, quoted in 
 Religion and Sex, p. 212.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 261 
 
 and licentiousness a virtue." " The aged priests were fouler 
 in their wickedness than the younger, while with the Pontiff 
 the vilest crimes were pastimes." * King Pedro of Spain in 
 1351 ordered, as Lea (i. 382) tells us, that all clerical concu- 
 bines should be plainly attired, and wear a red fillet round 
 their heads. In French nunneries " infanticide was common, 
 and priests had to be forbidden to have mothers, aunts or 
 sisters living in their houses," on account of the frequent 
 scandals which arose. 3 Pope Gregory IX described the German 
 Church as " abandoned to lasciviousness, gluttony, and all 
 manner of filthy living," the clergy " committing habitually 
 wickedness which laymen would abhor." 3 The Teutonic 
 prelates excused their shocking conduct by pointing to the 
 example set by the Pope. " A protest was made by the 
 Senate of Rome in 1568 against the reforming efforts of Pius V 
 on the ground that the compulsory celibacy of priests would 
 make it impossible for the citizens to preserve the virtue of 
 their wives and daughters." 4 ^Eneas Silvius, afterwards 
 Pius II, wrote in 1453 : " Whether I look upon the deeds of 
 princes or of prelates, I find that all have sunk, all are worth- 
 less. . . . Execration and falsehood and slaughter and theft 
 and adultery are spread among you, and you add blood to 
 blood. . . . There is no shame in crime, for you sin so openly 
 and shamelessly that you seem to take delight in it." 5 As 
 an example of the openness and shamelessness, I may mention 
 that the rigid moralists who formed the reforming Council 
 of Constance in 1414 " were accompanied by an army of 
 prostitutes." In the pages of Lea's two lengthy books, and 
 those of many other authors, the curious reader may sup to 
 the full off details of a similarly unpleasant character. 
 
 There were always plenty of good men and women who 
 strove hard to stem the tide of iniquity, but their efforts 
 were unavailing. Prominent among these was St. Catherine 
 of Siena, great woman, great saint and mystic and would-be 
 reformer. "Oh me ! " she cried, " that which Christ won 
 upon the wood of the Cross is spent with harlots ! " And 
 she bade the Papal Legate " get rid of the wolfish shepherds 
 
 1 The Medieval Inquisition, by C. T. Gorham, p. 15. 
 Ibid., p. 15. 3 Ibid., p. 16. 
 
 Ibid. J Ibid., p. x.
 
 262 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 who care for nothing but eating and fine palaces and big 
 horses." To Gregory XI she wrote that " ever since the Church 
 has aimed more at temporal than at spiritual things it has 
 gone from bad to worse." J St. Catherine was a favourite 
 with God, and had familiar conversations with Him concern- 
 ing the morals of Catholic priests. Her remarkable Dialogues, 
 translated into English, were published in 1896 by Messrs. 
 Kegan Paul, and we are told that their special value lies in 
 the fact that they are " nothing more than a mystical exposi- 
 tion of the creeds taught to every child in the Catholic poor 
 schools." 
 
 In response to a request from the Saint for more explicit 
 information concerning the ministers of the Holy Church, 
 God is represented as delivering to His " dearest daughter " 
 and " Seraphic Virgin " an astounding harangue. The speech 
 is too long, and in places too blasphemous, for reproduction 
 in full, but I give some extracts. The priests (said the 
 Lord) " are My anointed ones, and I call them My Christs, 
 because I have given them the office of administering Me to 
 you ; and have placed them like fragrant flowers in the mysti- 
 cal body of the Holy Church." " No man should offend them, 
 because in offending them he offends Me, and not them ; 
 for I have forbidden it, and have said that I do not wish My 
 Christs to be touched by their hands." " They are My 
 Christs, and you ought to love and reverence the authority 
 which I have given them. This dignity belongs to good and 
 bad alike " (p. 261). Then follow some very lengthy and 
 striking examples of the habits and characters of these 
 " fragrant flowers " of clericalism. " Oh ! temples of the 
 devil : I have appointed you to be earthly angels in this 
 life ; and you are devils. . . . Woe ! Woe to their wretched 
 life ! For they waste with harlots that which My only begotten 
 Son, the sweet Word, acquired," etc. (264) . " They have chosea 
 for their table the public tavern, and there openly cursing 
 and perjuring themselves, full of many miserable sins, have 
 become animals through their sins, and live lasciviously in 
 word and deed. " " These incarnate demons adorn with Church 
 property their she-devils, with whom they live in iniquity 
 and impurity. . . . They have made My Church into a 
 
 1 Studies in Mysticism, by the Rev. R. Jones, pp. 303, 304.
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC MORALITY 263 
 
 stable, and lie there in the filth of their impurity, for they 
 keep their she-devils in the Church as a bridegroom his spouse 
 in his house." For several pages the unfortunate clerical 
 reprobates are thus chastised with the lash of the Divine scorn 
 and vituperation, but my readers will probably have heard 
 enough. This extraordinary effusion earned an elaborate review 
 and hearty approbation in the Month for June 1896. Lastly, 
 we learn from Liguori (Selva, p. 80) that Our Lord said to St. 
 Brigitta, who was also a great favourite in celestial quarters, 
 " I see on earth Pagans and Jews, but I see none so wicked 
 as priests " ; and He asked, " How many priests are now in 
 hell for sins against purity ? " 
 
 The Church is thus confronted with a mass of testimony, 
 some of which Roman Catholics at any rate cannot impugn, as 
 to the ravages of the moral disease which infects her organism. 
 It is for her to diagnose the case and to find a remedy. I 
 suggest that it is high time the Roman pundits turned from 
 the study of scholastic subtleties to the consideration of the 
 more pressing problem of clerical celibacy. Roman Catholics 
 maintain that these crying evils are, as Newman assured us, 
 " no prejudice to the sanctity of the Church." They " affect 
 not the vessel and treasure of Catholic Faith " a familiar 
 argument which is presumably meant for Catholic consump- 
 tion only. Where sin abounds, there grace doth yet more 
 abound ; and it may be that, as we learn from certain Catholic 
 mystics, sin affords an occasion for repentence, and so operates 
 as a ladder whereby we may climb to Heaven ; but those 
 who are entrusted with the administration of law and the 
 maintenance of order in civilized communities can hardly be 
 expected to rest satisfied with these comforting assurances. 
 The Roman Church, regarded as a moral agent, is, and always 
 has been throughout history, a conspicuous failure ; and 
 the real secret of the failure has always, to a great extent, 
 lain in the corruption of her clergy. Fructu cognoscitur 
 arbor : by their fruits ye shall know them. History proves 
 that Cowper's poetic instinct guided him aright. " 'Tis in 
 the Church the leprosy begins."
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. Essay on Development. 
 Apologia. 
 
 Parochial and Plain Sermons. 
 Sermons on Subjects of the Day ; and 
 
 other works. 
 DEAN INGE. Outspoken Essays. 
 
 Christian Mysticism ; and other works. 
 LORD ACTON. Lectures on Modern History. 
 Letters to Mary Gladstone. 
 Correspondence. 
 
 LORD BRYCE. The Holy Roman Empire. 
 ALFRED LOISY. The Gospel and the Church. 
 
 Les Evangiles Synoptiques ; and other works. 
 REV. ALFRED FAWKES. Studies in Modernism. 
 ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI. Tne Dignities and Duties of .the 
 
 Priest ; or Selva. 
 Theologia Moralis. 
 
 The Glories of Mary ; and other works. 
 JOSEPH McCABE. The Popes and their Church. 
 
 Crises in the History of the Papacy. 
 The Bible in Europe ; and other works. 
 BISHOP GORE. Roman Catholic Claims. 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. Past and Present. 
 
 Latter-Day Pamphlets. 
 R. H. HUTTON. Cardinal Newman. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE. Enarrationes in Psalmos ; and other works. 
 ST. THOMAS A KEMPIS. Imitatio Christi. 
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 
 LORD MORLEY. Diderot and the Encyclopaedists. 
 
 On Compromise ; and other works. 
 G. K. CHESTERTON. Heretics. 
 
 The Uses of Diversity. 
 265
 
 266 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 R. H. BENSON. Tradition. 
 
 The Dawn of All. 
 
 A. J. BALFOUR. The Foundations of Belief. 
 J. M. ROBERTSON. Christianity and Mythology. 
 
 Pagan Christs. 
 
 REV. RUFUS JONES. Studies in Mysticism. 
 PHILIP VIVIAN. The Churches and Modern Thought. 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER. The Origins of Christianity. 
 DR. E. A. ABBOTT. Philomythus. ] 
 SIR E. A. WALLIS BUDGE. Literature of the Ancient Egyptians. 
 
 History of the Egyptian People. 
 R. A. VAUGHAN. Hours with the Mystics. 
 T. VEBLEN. Theory of the Leisure Class. 
 BERTRAND RUSSELL. Mysticism and Logic. 
 BISHOP SHUTTLE WORTH. Not Scripture, but Tradition. 
 DR. JAMES MARTINEAU. The Seat of Authority. 
 CANON MOZLEY. Theory of Development. 
 AUGUSTINE BIRRELL. Obiter Dicta. 
 Miss JANE HARRISON. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek 
 
 Religion. 
 
 SIR J. G. FRAZER. The Golden Bough. 
 BLAISE PASCAL. The Provincial Letters. 
 
 Pense'es, 
 
 REV. A. L. LILLEY. Modernism. 
 C. G. MONTEFIORE. The Synoptic Gospels. 
 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO. The Saint. 
 P. G. BLYTH. Christianity and Tradition. 
 C. T. GORHAM. The Medieval Inquisition. 
 H. C. LEA. Inquisition in Middle Ages. 
 
 History of Sacerdotal Celibacy. 
 DEAN MILMAN. Latin Christianity. 
 W. H. LECKY. History of European Morals. 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 Catholic Encyclopaedia. 
 Encyclopaedia Biblica. 
 Numerous Roman Catholic pamphlets, and other publications.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Dr. E. A., 77, 78, 199, 210 
 Acton, Lord, 8, 41, 54, 61, 66, 191, 
 
 257 
 
 ^Eneas Silvius, 67, 261 
 Alexander VI, Pope, 54, 70 
 Ambrose, St., 186, 188, 229 
 Amen-hetep IV, 152 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 45, 112, 166, 
 
 189 
 
 Archer, W., 154 
 Aristotle, 97, 119, 192, 229 
 Augustine, St., 73, 132, 166, 172, 205 
 Australia, 8, 25, 44, 256 
 
 Bacon, Roger, 203 
 
 BaLfour, A. J., 235 
 
 Bampfield, Father G., 217, 220 
 
 Barnes, Canon, 22, 178 
 
 Barry, Canon W., n, 32 
 
 Bathurst, Bishop of, 220, 221 
 
 Belloc, Hilaire, 44, 46, 136, 227 
 
 Benedict VIII, 68 
 
 Benedict XV, 220, 232 
 
 Benson, R. H., 206, 232 
 
 Bernard, St., 112, 162, 166, 221 
 
 Bernardine de Busto, 75 
 
 Birrell, Augustine, 23, 31, 38, 186, 
 
 193 
 
 Bishops, Irish, 8, n, 13, 14, 71 
 Boehme, Jacob, 214 
 Bolshevism, 28, 30 
 Boniface VIII, 69, 71, 121, 225 
 Bourne, Cardinal, 14 
 Brigitta, St., 263 
 Browning, Robert, 241, 245 
 Bryce, Lord, 67, 70 
 Budge, Wallis, 126, 157 
 Busenbaum, 91 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 119 
 
 Carlyle, 38, 47, 154, 185, 187 
 
 Casement, Roger, 8 
 
 Catherine, St., of Siena, 261, 262 
 Cecil, Lord Hugh, n, 12 
 Celibacy, Clerical, 238, 259, 263 
 Chesterton, G. K.,34, 58, 136, 151, 218 
 Christina Mirabilis, St., 76 
 Chrysostom, St., 73, 81 
 Clement VI, 58 
 Clement XIV, 86 
 Clement, St., 201 
 Constantino, Emperor, 64, 67 
 Cowper, ii, 224, 242 
 Crime in Catholic countries, 251 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 242 
 Cyprian, St., 63, 205 
 Czecho-Slovakian Church, secession 
 
 of, 238, 259 
 
 Damian, St. Peter, 70 
 
 Darling, Mr. Justice, 85, 88 
 
 Decretals, false, 68 
 
 Denbigh, Lord, n, 16 
 
 Devlin, M. P., 24 
 
 Diana, 89 
 
 Diderot, 20, 149, 151, 164 
 
 Dionysius, the false, 115, 117 . 
 
 Dionysus, 130 
 
 Dispensations, 162 
 
 Disraeli, 8 
 
 Dogma, 182, 184, 195. 236 
 
 Donation of Constantioe, 67, .zia 
 
 Donation of Pippin, 68 
 
 Doyle, Father W.. 93 
 
 Egyptians, religion of, 99, 126, 152 
 Erigena, 37, 133 
 Escobar, 89 
 Eudes, J. F., 156 
 Euripides, 129, 201, 226 
 
 Faber, Father, 37, 41, 81 
 Farley, Cardinal, 254
 
 268 
 
 PRIESTCRAFT 
 
 Fawkes, Rev. A., 49, 54, 95, 114, 
 
 215, 234, 237 
 F6nelon, 169, 192 
 Finlay, Father Peter, 14 
 Firmilian, St., 63 
 Foch, Marshal, 83 
 Fogazzaro, 40, 43, 155 
 Forgeries, Papal, 61, 63, 66, 67, 69, 
 
 210, 212 
 Fox, G. L., 255 
 
 Frazer, Sir J. G., 73, 96, 127, 240 
 Freud, Dr., 145 
 
 Garrold, Father R. P., 139, 142, 251 
 
 Glastonbury, 79 
 
 Gnosticism, 104, 115, 118 
 
 Gore, Bishop, 29, 54, 56 
 
 Grace, 107, 167, 222 
 
 Gratry, Pere, 60 
 
 Gregory the Great, 65, 69, 112 
 
 Gury, Father, 88, 92 
 
 Halifax, Lord, 223 
 Harrison, Miss Jane, 128, 132 
 Hellenism in Church doctrine, 101, 
 
 103, 106, 114 
 Hildebrand, Pope, 69, 70 
 Holy Coat, 77, 78 
 Honorius I, 65, 133 
 Houtin, Abb, 45, 174, 197 
 Hiigel, Baron von, 179, 196 
 Hutton, R. H., 199, 203, 209 
 
 Ignatius, St., 104, 134 
 
 Inge, Dean, 15, 29, 51, 60, 81, 99, 123, 
 
 126, 228 
 
 Innocent III, 68 
 Innocent X, 86 
 Irax, Prince of Media, 156 
 Ireland, 10, 15, 218 
 Irtnaeus, 211 
 
 Jerome, St., 65, 73, 212, 221, 260 
 
 Jesuits, the, 85, 157, 225 
 
 Jews, the, 26 
 
 John XXII, Pope, 71 
 
 Jowett. Dr., 54, 123, 151 
 
 Justin Martyr, 96, no, in, 127, 130 
 
 Le Maistre, Joseph, 38 
 Leo the Great, 64 
 Leo XIII, 71, 179, 224 
 Leslie, Shane, 9 
 
 Liguori, St. Alphonsus, 40, 42, 75, 80, 
 88, 134, 142, 225, 258, 263 
 
 Lilley, Rev. A. L., 179, 230 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 118, 236 
 Logos, the, 103, 114 
 Loisy, Alfred, 53, 70, 99, too, 106, 
 
 120, 181, 213 
 Lombroso, Cesare, 257 
 Loyola, St. Ignatius, 45, 142 
 
 McCabe, Joseph, 63, 69, 73, 137, 22& 
 
 Malebranche, 167 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, 14, 84, 94, 206,. 
 
 227 
 
 Mannix, Dr., 8, 25 
 Mariolatry, 80, 81, 109, 112 
 Marne, battle of the, 84 
 Marriage Form, Roman Catholic, 
 
 18, 19, 247, 250 
 
 Marriage question, the, 17, 19, 249 
 Marsilius of Padua, 58 
 Martineau, Dr James, 47, 223 
 Maternus Firmicus, 96, in 
 Mercier, Cardinal, 16, 17, 135, 183, 
 
 206 
 
 Mexico, 26, 130, 259 
 Michelet, J., 73, 189 
 Middle Ages, the, 157, 241, 258 
 Miracles, Roman Catholic, 76, 78 
 Mithraism, 57, 104, no, 127 
 Montefiore, C. G., 52, 53 
 Month, the, 31, 32, 44, 186, 193, 195, 
 
 251 
 
 Moore, George, 53 
 Morley, Lord, 20, 33, 149 
 Moses, 97, 181, 214 
 Mozley, Canon, 108, 190 
 Mysticism, 128, 138, 231 
 
 Ne Temere Decree, 18, 25, 33, 247, 
 
 249 
 Newman, Cardinal, 16, 43, 44, 78, 95, 
 
 98, 123, 165, 170, 175, 191, 199 
 New Zealand, 18, 25, 257 
 
 O'Dwyer, Bishop, 42 
 Ontario, 219, 254 
 Origen, 106, no 
 Orphic mysteries, 128 
 
 Paracelsus, 143 
 Parks, Dr. Leighton, 9 
 Pascal, 34, 80, 86, 150, 197 
 Pascendi Encyclical, 46, 90, 98, 177, 
 
 196 
 
 Paul, St., 56, 58, 59, 129, 132 
 Pelagius, 63
 
 INDEX 
 
 269 
 
 Pershing, General, 83 
 
 Peruvian sacrament, 131 
 
 Philo, 103, 162 
 
 Piffl, Cardinal, 19 
 
 Pius V, 28, 261 
 
 Pius IX, 61, 65, H2, 207, 213 
 
 Pius X, 40, 46, 47, 61, 175, 177, 
 
 203 
 
 Plato, 23, 48, 97 
 Plotinus, 115, 117, 224 
 Poles, the, 26 
 Porphyry, 127, 128 
 Predestination, 150, 166 
 Psycho-analysis, 140, 141, 145 
 
 Quarterly Review, the, 254, 255 
 Quebec, the Church in, 14, 17, 38 
 Quietism, 170, 231 
 
 Reformation, the, 245 
 Robertson, J. M., 57, in, 128 
 Russell, Bertrand, 26, 171, 192 
 
 Sacred Heart, 226 
 
 Sainte Beuve, 91 
 
 Saturday Review, the, 104, 154, 156 
 
 Scholasticism, 118, 192, 229, 241 
 
 Sectarianism, 24, 28 
 
 Sellar, Robert, 255 
 
 Shaw, G. B., i2i, 158 
 
 Sinn Fein, 8, 10, 12, 25 
 
 Sixtus V, 3, 196 
 
 Socrates, 151, 163, 200 
 
 Solera system, theological, 243 
 
 Spain, 26, 259, 260 
 
 Spectator, the, 23 
 
 Spiritualism, 169, 231 
 
 Stephen, Leslie, 95, 100, 117, 165 
 
 Studita, St. Theodore, 260 
 
 Swedenborg, 158, 231 
 Sylvester, St., 67 
 Symbolism, 176, 177 
 Syncretism, 99, 123 
 
 Tablet, the, 87, 251, 253 
 
 Taigi, Venerable Maria, 82 
 
 Teresa, St., 81, 134 
 
 Tertullian, 63, 96, 214 
 
 Thomas a Kempis, St., 192, 193, 195, 
 
 217, 219 
 
 Transubstantiation, 133, 215 
 Trent, Council of, 18, 133, 212, 248, 
 
 249 
 Tyrrell, Father G., 22, 42, 74, 140, 
 
 156, 164, 174, 225, 230 
 
 Ulster, 24, 28 
 
 Unatn Sanctam Bull, 71 
 
 Urban II, Pope, 135 
 
 Valla, Laurentius, 67 
 Vatican Council, 46, 203, 213, 215 
 Vaughan, Cardinal, 253, 259 
 Vaughan, R. A., 114, 122, 195 
 Veblen, Professor T., 158 
 Vestments, origins of, 109 
 Victor, Bishop, 62 
 Vincent de L6rins, St., 208 
 Virgin Birth, in 
 Voltaire, 149, 183, 225 
 
 Wells, H. G., 153, 235 
 Whittaker, T., 151 
 Wilde, Oscar, 39, 79, 232 
 Wyclif, 167 
 
 Zebedee's wife, 56 
 Zosimus, Pope, 63, 64, 68
 
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