The Formation of Christendom, Volume II. Allies Thomas William

is His presence alone which confers four gifts upon the body which He vivifies.

      It was the will, says S. Augustine,99 of the Father and the Son that we should have communion with each other and with Them by means of that which is common to Them, and by that gift to collect us into one, which, being one, They both have; that is to say, by the Holy Ghost, who is God, and the gift of God. For, says S. Thomas,100 the unity of the Holy Spirit makes unity in the Church. It is not by similarity, or by juxtaposition, or by agreement, how much less by concessions and compromises, that unity exists in the body of Christ, but because the Spirit is one, because all gifts, however various, all functions, however distinct, are distributed by this One.

      For the same reason truth dwells in this Body, because He is the Spirit of Truth. Our Lord Himself has defined His great function in this particular, to lead His disciples by the hand101 into all truth, to teach all things, and remind of all things which made up His own teaching. This function began on the day of Pentecost, and lasts to the day of judgment, and belongs to the Body of Christ, and to it alone, and belongs to it because it is animated by the Spirit of Truth. And this animation is like the Head, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It is not of any past time more or less than of the present or the future. It is the illumination which belongs to that whole last day, through which the Body of Christ grows, teaches, labours, and suffers, until the mortal day break into the light of eternity.

      His third gift to the Body is that of charity, and for the same reason, because He is this Himself. He who is not only the Unity of the Father and the Son, but their mutual Love, coming as the gift of that Divine love which redeemed the world by the sacrifice of its Maker, and as the Spirit of that Love, who invested Himself with human flesh, creates in this human dwelling-place that one charity which bears His name, and is of His nature, and which in that one body joins the wills of men together as His Truth joins their intellects. If the Body of Christ has one prevailing charity, which reaches to all its members, and encompasses the least as well as the greatest, it is because the heart is divine.

      1

      Tertull. Apolog. xxiv, “Ideo et Ægyptiis permissa est tam vanæ superstitionis potestas, avibus et bestiis consecrandis, et capite damnandis qui aliquem hujusmodi Deum occiderint. Unicuique etiam provinciæ et civitati suus Deus est, ut Syriæ Astartes, ut Arabiæ Disares, ut Noricis Belenus, ut Africæ Cælestis, ut Mauritaniæ Reguli sui,” &c.; and Minucius Felix, Octavius vi., in like manner.

      2

      See Aug. de Civ. Dei, l. viii. 24.

      3

      Döllinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, pp. 528, 529.

      4

      From Heide

1

Tertull. Apolog. xxiv, “Ideo et Ægyptiis permissa est tam vanæ superstitionis potestas, avibus et bestiis consecrandis, et capite damnandis qui aliquem hujusmodi Deum occiderint. Unicuique etiam provinciæ et civitati suus Deus est, ut Syriæ Astartes, ut Arabiæ Disares, ut Noricis Belenus, ut Africæ Cælestis, ut Mauritaniæ Reguli sui,” &c.; and Minucius Felix, Octavius vi., in like manner.

2

See Aug. de Civ. Dei, l. viii. 24.

3

Döllinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, pp. 528, 529.

4

From Heidenthum und Judenthum, pp. 101-2.

5

Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 480.

6

Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 107.

7

Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 469.

8

Ibid. pp. 468, 480.

9

Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 344.

10

Ibid. p. 312.

11

“Epulæ, lectisternia, nudipedalia.”

12

These incidents are taken from various places in Heidenthum und Judenthum, pp. 531, 549, 550, &c.

13

Champagny, Les Antonins, liv. v. c. 3.

14

De Divinat. ii. 72.

15

Valerius Max. i. c. 2, 3.

16

Merivale's History of the Romans, ii. 447.

17

See Varro, quoted by S. Aug. De Civ. Dei, lib. vi. 5.

18

De Civ. Dei, l. vi. 5, 6, 7.

19

“Illam theatricam et fabulosam theologiam ab ista civili pendere noverunt, et ei de carminibus poetarum tanquam de speculo resultare: et ideo ista exposita, quam damnare non audent, illam ejus imaginem liberius arguunt.” De Civ. Dei, vi. 9; id. vi. 7.

20

“Quæ sunt ergo illa sacra quibus agendis tales elegit sanctitas quales nec thymelica in se admittit obscœnitas.” De Civ. Dei, vi. 7.

21

“Omnes cultores talium deorum – magis intuentur quid Jupiter fecerit, quam quid docuerit Plato vel censuerit Cato.” De Civ. Dei, ii. 7.

22

De Civ. Dei, ii. 6. “Demonstrentur vel commemorentur loca – ubi populi audirent quid dii præciperent de cohibenda avaritia, ambitione frangenda, luxuria refrænanda.” See also sec. 28.

23

See Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 398. Herodotus, i. 199. Baruch, vi. 42-3.

24

See S. Athan, con. Gentes, 5-9. In like manner S. Theophilus, lib. i. ad Autolyc. c. 2.

25

In order to form a notion how far this division of gods could descend, and what an incredible depth of turpitude it reached, see De Civ. Dei, l. vi. c. 9, de officiis singulorum deorum. Its foulness prevents any adequate representation of it.

26

See S. Thomas, Summa, 2, 2, q. 94, a. 4.

27

Of this whole polytheism in the mass S. Paul pronounces the judgment: Οἵτινες μετήλλαξαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν τῷ ψεύδει, καὶ ἐσεβάσθησαν καὶ ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει

99

Ib. tom. v. 392 e.

100

S. Thomas in Joh. i. lec. 10: “Nam unitas Spiritus Sancti facit in Ecclesia unitatem.”

101

ὁδηγεῖν.