The Catholic World
Chapter 303 : Long ages gone, the angels Hailed thee with pure delight.The blooming of thy day-time.

Long ages gone, the angels Hailed thee with pure delight.

The blooming of thy day-time.

The radiance of thy night; And e'en thy Maker named thee As pleasant in his sight--

Soon lost that early joyance, Brief worn that birth-day crown!

The very stars of heaven Look sorrowfully down On fairest flowers withered Beneath man's sinful frown.

Blinded, and banned, and broken, Along thy penance-path.

Thy vesture streamed over With the torrents of man's wrath; Thou treadest through the ether A thing of shame and scath.

{307} Lift up thy head, poor mourner, Shake the ashes from thy brow; Lay off thine age-worn sackcloth And wear the purple now: Amid the starry brethren, Who honor hath, as thou?

The dust from off thy bosom The Maker deigns to wear; "The word made flesh," in heaven, Hath given thee such share No grandeur of thy brethren With it can hold compare.

Blest art thou that his footsteps Along thy pathways trod; Blest art thou that his pillow Has been thy gra.s.sy sod; And blest the burial shelter Thou gavest to thy G.o.d.

And for that little service, Divine the meed shall be: When "fervent heat" hath melted The starry choirs and thee, The moulded dust of Eden Shall live eternally.

"The first-born of all creatures"

Doth wear it on his throne, The vesture of humanity By which he claims his own.

How infinite the pardon That doth thy penance crown!

GENEVIEVe SALES.

March 22, 1806

{308}

Translated from French.

L'ABBe GERBET. [Footnote 50]

BY C. A. SAINTE-BEUVE.

[Footnote 50: "Considerations sur le Dogme Generateur de la Piete Cathiolique." 4e edition, chez Vaton. 1859]

For a long time I have been reserving this subject for some feast-day, for Corpus Christi or some festival of Mary, feeling that holiness belongs to it; unction, grace mingled with science, and a reverential smile. "But why," some of our readers will say,--"why does l'Abbe Gerbet's name imply all this?" I shall try to show them the reason and give some idea of one of the most learned, distinguished, and truly amiable men that the church of France possesses, as well as one of our best writers; and, without embarking on vexed or doubtful questions, to delineate for them in soft tints the personality of the man and his talent.

But in the first place, that I may connect with its true date this modest name, which has rather courted oblivion than notoriety, let me remind my readers that during the Restoration, about the year 1820, when that regime, at first so unsettled, was beginning to enter into complete possession of its powers, a movement arose on all sides among the youthful spirits, ardently impelling them to literary culture and philosophical ideas. In poetry Lamartine had given the signal of revival, others gave it in history, others again in philosophy; and among the young people there sprang up a universal spirit of emulation, a unanimous determination to begin anew. It seemed as if, like a fertile land, the French mind, after its compulsory rest of so many years, were eagerly demanding every kind of cultivation. Yes, in religion then, in theology, it was the same; a generation had sprung up full of zeal and animation, who tried, not to renew what is in its nature immutable, but to rejuvenate the forms of teaching and demonstration, adapt them to the mental condition of the times, and make the principle of Catholicity respected even by its opponents.

For, in the words of one of these young Levites in the beginning of the movement, "to act upon the age, we must understand it."

I could cite the names of several men who, with shades of difference known in the ecclesiastical world, had this in common, that they stood at the head of the studious and intelligent young clergy: M. Gousset, now cardinal archbishop of Rheims, and standing in the first rank of theologians; Mgr. Affre, who met his death so gloriously as archbishop of Paris; M. Douey, the present bishop of Montauban; and M. de Salinis, bishop of Amiens. But at that time, between the years 1820 and 1822, one name alone among the clergy offered itself to men of the world as a candidate for widespread fame. M. de Lamennais in his first Catholic fame had enforced the attention of all by his "Essay on Indifference," stirring a thousand thoughts even in the minds of the astonished clergy.

And here for the first time we meet l'Abbe Gerbet. He was born in 1798 {309} at Poligny, in the Jura. After completing his first studies in his native town, he pa.s.sed through a course of philosophy in the academy of Besancon; and in obedience to an instinctive vocation, which awoke within him at the age of ten years, began his theological studies in the same city. During the dangers of invasion, in 1814-1815, he went into the mountains to visit a curate, a relation or friend of his family, and remained there to study. Thither came one day a young student of the Normal School, Jouffroy, two years his senior, who in going home to pa.s.s his vacation in the village of Pontets, had paused a moment on the way. Jouffroy, though in the first flush of youth and learning, and wearing the aureole upon his brow, did not disdain to enter into discussion with the young provincial seminarian. He combated the proofs of revelation, and especially contested the age of the world, relying upon the testimony of the famous Zodiac of Denderah, so often invoked in those days, and so soon destroyed. The young seminarian, in the presence of this unknown monument, could only answer: "Wait." These two young men never met again, compatriots though they were, and from that day forth adversaries; but l'Abbe Gerbet and Jouffroy, while carrying on a war, pen in hand, never failed to do so in the most dignified terms of controversy, and Jouffroy, whose heart was so good despite his dogmatic language, always spoke of l'Abbe Gerbet, if I remember rightly, with feelings of affectionate esteem.

On arriving in Paris at the close of the year 1818, l'Abbe Gerbet entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, but his health, which was already delicate, not allowing him to stay there long, he established himself as a boarder in the House of Foreign Missions, where he followed the rules of the seminarians. He was ordained priest in 1822 at the same time with l'Abbe do Salinis, whose inseparable friend he has always remained.

A little later he was appointed a.s.sistant professor of the Holy Scriptures in the Theological Faculty of Paris, and went to live in the Sorbonne. Having no lectures to deliver, he soon began to a.s.sist M. de Salinis, who had been made almoner in the college of Henry lV., and it was at this time that he first knew M. de Lamennais.

At twenty-four years of age, l'Abbe Gerbet had given evidence of remarkable philosophical and literary talent, and had sustained a Latin thesis with rare elegance in the Sorbonne. By nature he was endowed with all the gifts of oratory, a sense of rhythmic movement, measure, and choice of expression, and a graphic power which, in one word, must become a talent for writing. To these endowments he added an acute and elevated faculty for dialectics, fertile in distinctions, which he sometimes took delight in multiplying, but without ever losing himself among them. In the very beginning of his friends.h.i.+p with M. de Lamennais, he felt, without perhaps acknowledging it to himself, that that bold and vigorous genius, who was wont to open new views and perspectives, as it were by main force, needed the a.s.sistance of an auxiliary pen, more tempered, gentler and firm,--a talent that could use evidence judiciously, fill up s.p.a.ces, cover weak points, and smooth away a look of menace and revolution from what was simply intended as a broader expression and more accessible development of Christianity. L'Abbe Gerbet clothed M. de Lamennais'

system as far as possible with the character of persuasion and conciliation that belonged to it: to soften and graduate its tendencies was properly the part he filled at this time of his youth.

Upon this system I shall touch in a few words that will suffice to explain what I have to say of l'Abbe Gerbet's moral and literary gifts. Instead of seeking the evidences of Christianity in such and such texts of Scripture, or in a personal argument {310} addressed to individual reason, M. de Lamennais maintained that it should, in the first place, be sought in the universal tradition and historical testimony of peoples, for he believed that even before the coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of Christianity a sort of testimony was to be traced, confused certainly, but real and concordant, running through the traditions of ancient races and discernible even in the presentiments of ancient sages. It seemed to him demonstrable that among all nations there had been ideas, more or less defined, of the creation of man, of the fall and promised reparation, of the expiation or expected redemption--in short, of all that should one day const.i.tute the treasures of Christian doctrine, and was then only the scattered and persistent vestige of the primitive revelation. From this he argued that the lights of ancient sages might be considered as the dawn of faith, and that without, of course, being cla.s.sed among the fathers of the primitive church, Confucius, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Herac.l.i.tus, Socrates, and Plato should be considered up to a certain point as preparers for the gospel, and not be numbered among the accursed. They might almost be called, in the language of the ancient fathers, primitive Christians--at least they were like so many Magi travelling more or less directly toward the divine cradle. By this single view of an anterior Christianity disseminated through the world, by this voyage, as it were, in search of Catholic truths floating about the universe, the teaching of theology would have been wonderfully widened and enlarged, for it necessarily comprised the history of philosophical ideas. M. de Lamennais' system, which is especially attractive when developed historically by the pen of l'Abbe Gerbet, has not since then been recognized by the church. It appeared to be at least delusive, if not false; but perhaps, even from the point of view of orthodoxy, it can only merit the reproach of having claimed to be the sole method, to the exclusion of all others; combined with other proofs, and presented simply, as a powerful accessory consideration, I believe that it has never been rejected.

It may be understood, however, even without entering into the heart of the matter, that in 1824, when l'Abbe Gerbet, in concert with M. de Salinis, established a religious monthly magazine, ent.i.tled the "Catholic Memorial," and began to develop his ideas therein with modesty and moderation, but also with that fresh confidence and ardor that youth bestows, there was, to speak merely of the external form of the questions, a something about it that gave the signal for the struggle of a new spirit against the stationary or backward spirit.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned theologians, whether formalist or rationalistic, who found themselves attacked, resisted and took scandal at the name of traditions which were not only Catholic but scholastic and cla.s.sic.

But in l'Abbe Gerbet they had to deal with a man thoroughly well read in the writings of the fathers, and possessed of their true significance. He could bring forward, in his turn, texts drawn from the fountain-head in support of this freer and more generous method; among other quotations, he liked to cite this fine pa.s.sage from Vincent de Lerius: "Let posterity, thanks to your enlightenment, rejoice in the _conception_ of that to which antiquity gave respectful credence without understanding [its full meaning]; but remember to teach the same things that have been transmitted to you, so that, while presenting them in a new light, you do not invent new doctrines." Thus, while maintaining fundamental immutability, he took pleasure in remarking that, in spite of slight deviations, the order of scientific explanation has followed a law of progress in the church, and has been successively developed; a fact which he {311} demonstrated by the history of Christianity.

"The Catholic Memorial," in its very infancy, stirred the emulation of youthful writers in the philosophical camp. It was at first printed at Lachevardiere's, where M. Pierre Leroux was proof-reader, and the latter, on seeing the success of a magazine devoted to grave subjects, concluded that a similar organ for the promotion of opinions shared by himself and his friends might be established with even better results.

In that same year, 1824, "The Globe" began its career, and the two periodicals often engaged in polemic discussions, like adversaries who knew and respected each other while they clearly understood the point of controversy. For the benefit of the curious, I note an article of M. Gerbet's [Footnote 51] (signed X.) which represents many others, and is ent.i.tled "Concerning the Present State of Doctrines;"--the objections are especially addressed to MM. Damiron and Jouffroy. It was the heyday then of this war of ideas.

[Footnote 51: 1825. Vol. 4th, p. 188. ]

L'Abbe Gerbet's life has been quite simple and uniform, marked by only one considerable episode--his connection with l'Abbe de Lamennais, to whom he lent or rather gave himself for years with an affectionate devotion which had no term or limit except in the final revolt of that proud and immoderate spirit. After fulfilling all the duties of a religious friends.h.i.+p, after having waited and forborne and hoped, Gerbet withdrew in silence. For a long time he had been all that Nicole was to Arnauld--a moderator, softening asperities and averting shocks as far as possible. He never grew weary until there was no longer room for further effort, and then he returned completely to himself. These ultra and exclusive methods are unsuited to his nature, and he hastened to withdraw from them, and to forget what he would never have allowed to break out and reach such a pa.s.s if he had been acting alone. It needs but a word, but a breath, from the Vatican to dissipate all that seems cloudy or obscure in l'Abbe Gerbet's doctrines. His gentle clouds inclose no storm, and, in dispersing, they reveal a depth of serene sky, lightly veiled here and there, but pure and delicious.

I express the feeling that some of his writings leave upon the mind, and especially the work that has just been reprinted, of which I will say a few words. "Les Considerations sur le Dogme generateur de la Piete Catholique," that is to say, Thoughts upon Communion and the Eucharist, first appeared in 1829. It is, properly speaking, "neither a dogmatic treatise nor a book of devotion, but something intermediate." The author begins by an historical research into general ideas, universally diffused throughout antiquity--ideas of sacrifice and offering, as well as of the desire and necessity of communication with an ever-present G.o.d, which have served as a preparation and approach toward the mystery; but, mingled with historical digressions and delicate or profound doctrinal distinctions, we meet at every step sweet and beautiful words which come from the soul and are the effusion of a loving faith. I will quote a few, almost at hazard, without seeking their connection, for they give us an insight into the soul of l'Abbe Gerbet. As, for instance, concerning prayer:

"Prayer, in its fundamental essence, is but the sincere recognition of this continual need (of drawing new strength from the source of life) and an humble desire of constant a.s.sistance; it is the confession of an indigence full of hope."

"Wherever G.o.d places intelligences capable of serving him, there we find weakness, and there too hope."

And again:

"Christianity in its fulness is only a bountiful alms bestowed on abject poverty."

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"Is there not something divine in every benefit?"

"Charity enters not into the heart of man without combat; for it meets an eternal adversary there--pride, the first-born of selfishness, and the father of hatred."

"The gospel has made, in the full force of the term, a revolution in the human soul, by changing the relative position of the two feelings that divide its sway: fear has yielded the empire of the heart to love."

L'Abbe Gerbet's book is full of golden words; but when we seek to detach and isolate them, we see how closely they are woven into the tissue.

The aim of the author is to prove that, from a Christian and Catholic point of view, communion, accepted in its fulness with entire faith, frequent communion reverently received, is the most certain, efficacious, and vivid means of charity. In speaking of the excellent book ent.i.tled "The Following of Christ," he says:

"The asceticism of the middle ages has left an inimitable monument, which Catholics, Protestants, and philosophers are agreed in admiring with the most beautiful admiration, that of the heart. It is wonderful, this little book of mysticism, upon which the genius of Leibnitz used to ponder, and which roused something like enthusiasm even in the frigid Fontenelle. No one ever read a page of the 'Following of Christ,' especially in time of trouble, without saying as he laid the book down: 'That has done me good.' Setting the Bible apart, this work is the sovereign friend of the soul. But whence did the poor solitary who wrote it draw this inexhaustible love? (for he spoke so effectively only because of his great love.) He himself tells us the source in every line of his chapters on the blessed sacrament: the fourth book explains the other three."

I could multiply quotations of this kind, if they were suited to these pages, and if it were not better to recommend the book for the solitary meditation of my readers; I would point out to be remembered among the most beautiful and consoling pages belonging to our language and religions literature, all the latter part of Chapter VIII. Nothing is wanting to make this exquisite little book of l'Abbe Gerbet's more generally appreciated than it now is but a less frequent combination of dialectics with the expression of affectionate devotion. Generally speaking, the tissue of l'Abbe Gerbet's style is too close; when he has a beautiful thing to say, he does not give it room enough. His talent is like a sacred wood, too thickly grown;--the temple, repository, and altar in its depths are surrounded on all sides, and we can reach them only by footpaths. I suppose that this is because he has always lived too near his own thoughts, never having had the opportunity to develop them in public. Feeble health, and a delicate voice which needs the ear of a friend, have never allowed this rich talent to unfold itself in teaching or in the pulpit. If at any time he had been induced to speak in public, he would have been obliged to clear up, disengage, and enlarge not his views, but the avenues that lead to them.

In 1838, being troubled with an affection of the throat, he went to Rome and, always intending to return home soon, remained there until 1848. It was there that in the leisure moments of a life of devotion and study, in which, too, the most elevated friends.h.i.+p had its share, he composed the first two volumes of the work ent.i.tled "A Sketch of Christian Rome," designed to impart to all elevated souls the feeling and idea of the Eternal City. "The fundamental thought in this book,"

he says, "is to concentrate the visible realities of Christian Rome into a conception and, as it were, a portrait of its spiritual essence. An excellent interpreter in the way he has chosen for himself, he goes on to speak of the monuments not with the dry science of a modern antiquary, {313} or with the _naf_ enthusiasm of a believer of the middle ages, but with a reflective admiration which unites philosophy to piety.

"The study of Rome in Rome," he says again, "leads us to the living springs of Christianity. It refreshes all the good feelings of the heart, and, in this age of storms, sheds a wonderful serenity over the soul. We must not, of course, attach too much importance to the charm which we find in certain studies, for books written with pleasure to one's self run the risk of being written with less charity. But none the less should we thank the Divine Goodness when it harmonizes pleasure with duty."

In these volumes of l'Abbe Gerbet, introductions and dissertations upon Christian symbolism and church history lead to observations full of grace or grandeur, and to beautiful and touching pictures. The Catacombs, which were the cradle and the asylum of Christianity during the first three centuries, interested him especially, and inspired in him thoughts of rare elevation. Here are some verses (for l'Abbe Gerbet is a poet without pretending to be one) which give his first impressions of them, and show the quality of his soul. The piece is called "The Song of the Catacombs," and is intended to be sung.

[Footnote 52]