Aquila's Bible, the Ebionites and the Elcesaites

Reading N°40 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

The Jewish nation had just undergone a cruel chastisement under Emperor Hadrian, but the Jewish Synagogue was still free. Its faith was not proscribed in the Roman Empire, its places of prayer were left standing, its meetings were legal.^[1]

Reproduction of a 6th century map of Aelia Capitolina

Among the pagans who, under Hadrian, were engaged in the construction of Aelia Capitolina, was - so it was said - a Greek from the province of Pontus, a relative of the Emperor. His name was Aquila. The extent of his knowledge and the energy of his character persuaded the Emperor to appoint him to superintend the immense building project. Impressed at sight of the virtues and miracles that were in evidence among the Christians, he asked for and received Baptism.^[2] But, as his heart was not purified by humility, knowledge remained his supreme god. He was reproved on account of his passion for astrology. This angered him. He was excommunicated. No longer wishing to be a Christian, ashamed to become a pagan again, he became a Jew. He imagined a Judaism that would break all the bonds connecting the religion of Moses with the religion of Christ, and that would set up the Old Law in opposition to the New. For this reason, says St. Epiphanius, he wrote a new Greek version of the Bible, "suppressing such parts as bore testimony in favor of Christ."^[3] A learned rabbi, Akiba (Akiva), helped him in the undertaking.^[4]

Such was the origin of the famous Greek Bible of Aquila, an important work, ingenious, carefully done, showing a deep understanding of the Hebrew language, but slavishly literal and obviously colored in the Messianic passages, as was remarked by St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, Origen, and St. Jerome.^[5] The Jews favored it as against the Septuagint, and made use of it in spreading their doctrines in the Greek world. They employed it also to corrupt Christianity and to nourish, in the Church, that Judaizing spirit which, in the teachings of the Ebionites and the Elcesaites, tended to base the religion of Christ on a very gross interpretation of the Old Testament.

The Ebionites, whose origin we observed at the very beginning of Christianity, had, by fusion with the sect of the Essenes, taken on a new development about the year AD 100. We find their doctrine set forth in a series of sermons and adventure stories published under the name of St. Clement of Rome.^[6] According to Essenean Ebionitism, God has a form and members, because every being is finite and limited. Created beings are divided into good and bad. So, too, there are good and bad prophets. The latter are descended from Eve, the female, evil element of the world. From Adam are descended the good prophets, the greatest of whom is Jesus. He is the son of God, but he is not God, for God is the Unbegotten, the Innascible, and Jesus is the begotten and the son.^[7]

The Elcesaites, whose ideas and practices we learn from Origen, St. Epiphanius, and the Philosophumena, took their doctrine from the Book of Elchasai, which was held to be a revelation made in the third year of Trajan (AD 100) by a gigantic angel, called the Son of God, having at his side a wife of like size, the Holy Spirit. A curious baptism, with magical formulas and odd incantations, was the form of initiation into this sect. All the ritualistic laws of the Jews were kept. Christ, born of Mary, as other human beings are born, was merely a reincarnation, for he had already passed through several bodies and had borne several names. The Philosophumena adds that the Elcesaites had also certain secret beliefs and practices.

These strange sects would count for little in the religious movement of mankind. Before long, they disappeared. It is mostly their oddness that draws attention to them. Yet they have a symbolic significance. The Ebionite, like the Elcesaite, is the proud Jew, inconsolable for the loss of his nationality and for the failure of his gross Messianism, trying to obtain a compensation in a majestic but vain fancy in which he seeks to draw the nations after him.^[8]

Footnotes

[1] Champagny, Les Antonins, II, 75. There are preserved some Judeo-Roman tombs of this period, with the palm, the candlestick, the titles of "father" and "mother of the synagogue."

[2] St. Epiphanius, De mensuris et ponderibus, chap. 14.

[3] Ibid.

[4] St. Jerome, In Isaiam, 49.

[5] Cf. Batiffol, art. "Aquila," in the Dict. de la Bible. Aquila's translation is incorporated in Origen's Hexapla.

[6] The Recognitiones is a popular romance. The pseudo-Clementine writings will be found in the first two volumes of Migne's Patrologia Graeca.

[7] Tixeront, History of Dogmas, I, 165 ff.

[8] Ibidem, p. 168 ff.

***

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In Commemoratione Omnium Fidelium Defunctorum

The Great Day of His Wrath
John Martin (1789-1854)

Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal on that fearful day,

When the heavens and the earth shall be moved,

When thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

I am made to tremble, and I fear, till the judgment be upon us, and the coming wrath,

When the heavens and the earth shall be moved.

That day, day of wrath, calamity and misery, day of great and exceeding bitterness,

When thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon them.

Justice and Rights

Thirty-Sixth in a Series on Catholic Morality

 by
 Fr. John H. Stapleton

Justice is a virtue by which we render unto every man that which to him is due. Among equals, it is called commutative justice, the which alone is here in question. It protects us in the enjoyment of our own rights, and imposes upon us the obligation of respecting the rights of our fellow-men. This, of course, supposes that we have certain rights and that we know what a right is. But what is a right?

The word itself may be clearer in the minds of many than its definition; few ignore what a right is, and fewer still perhaps could say clearly and correctly what they mean by the word. A right is not something that you can see and feel and smell: it is a moral faculty, that is, a recognized, inviolable power or liberty to do something, to hold or obtain possession of something. Where the right of property is concerned, it supposes a certain relation or connection between a person and an object; this may be a relation of natural possession, as in the case of life or reputation, a relation of lawful acquisition, as that of the goods of life, etc. Out of this relation springs a title, just and proper, by which I may call that object "mine," or you, "yours;" ownership is thereby established of the object and conceded to the party in question. This party is therefore said to have a right to the object; and the right is good, whether he is in possession or not thereof. Justice respects this right, respects the just claims and titles of the owner, and forbids every act injurious thereto.

All this presupposes the idea of God, and without that idea, there can be no justice and no rights, properly so-called. Justice is based on the conformity of all things with the will of God. The will of God is that we attain to everlasting happiness in the next world through the means of an established order of things in this life. This world is so ruled and our nature is such that certain means are either absolutely or relatively necessary for the attaining of that end; for example, life, reputation, liberty, the pursuit of happiness in the measure of our lawful capacity. The obligation, therefore, to reach that end gives us the right to use these means; and God places in every soul the virtue of justice so that this right may be respected.

But it must be understood that the rights of God towards us transcend all other rights that we may have towards our fellow men; ours we enjoy under the high dominion of Him who grants all rights. Consequently, in the pursuit of justice for ourselves, our rights cease the moment they come into antagonism with the superior rights of God as found in His Law. No man has a right to do what is evil, not even to preserve that most inalienable and sacred of all rights: his right to life. To deny this is to destroy the very notion of justice; the restrictions of our rights are more sacred than those rights themselves.

Violation of rights among equals is called injustice. This sin has a triple malice; it attacks the liberty of fellow-men and destroys it; it attacks the order of the world and the basis of society; it attacks the decree and mandate of the Almighty who wills that this world shall be run on the plan of justice. Injustice is therefore directly a sin against man, and indirectly a crime against God.

So jealous is God of the rights of His creatures that He never remains satisfied until full justice is done for every act of injustice. Charity may be wounded, and the fault condoned; but only reparation in kind will satisfy justice. Whatever is mine is mine, and mine it will ever remain, wherever in this world another may have betaken himself with it. As long as it exists it will appeal to me as to its master and owner; if justice is not done in this world, then it will appeal to the justice of Heaven for vengeance.

The six last commandments treat of the rights of man and condemn injustice. We are told to respect the life, the virtue, the goods and the reputation of our fellow-men; we are commanded to do so not only in act, but also in thought and desire. Life is protected by the fifth, virtue by the sixth and ninth, property by the seventh and tenth, and reputation by the eighth. To sin against any of these commandments is to sin against justice in one form or another.

The claims, however, of violated justice are not such as to exact the impossible in order to repair an injury done. A dead man cannot be brought back to life, a penniless thief cannot make restitution unless he steals from somebody else, etc., etc. But he who finds himself thus physically incapable of undoing the wrongs committed must have at least the will and intention of so doing: to revoke such intention would be to commit a fresh sin of injustice. The alternative is to do penance, either willingly in this life, or forcibly in the purging flames of the suffering Church in the next. In that way, some time or other, justice, according to the plan of God, will be done; but He will never be satisfied until it is done.

On the Condemnation of Error and the Grace of God

When asked to comment on the paragraphs of the Relatio Finalis which treat the matter of the so-called "divorced and re-married" and permission to Holy Communion, Cardinal George Pell remarked:

There's nothing in the paragraphs as they stand that is heretical or false doctrine or advocating a false practice.

Do you feel comforted? Me neither.

The Chinese have a saying:

不进则退

(bù jìn zé tuì)

To fail to advance is to retreat.

That is to say, if you are not advancing into enemy territory, if you are not capturing his troops, cutting off his supply lines and destroying his infrastructure, if you are not in some way compromising his ability to conduct war, you are losing.

Granted, the heretics and apostates attending the 2015 Synod were held in check insofar as they were prevented from injecting outright heresy into the Relatio Finalis. A great catastrophe was averted, and for that we should be thankful. But merely defending the truth, while absolutely necessary, is not enough to win this battle. The opposing error must be ruthlessly and relentlessly condemned, and those who proffer it obstinately must be excommunicated, anathematized, cursed and damned. Upholding truth and condemning error are two sides of the same coin; to attempt the one without committing equally to the other is to fail in both.

"But," I hear someone whine, "we can't do that, as it will drive people away from the Church. After all, as St. Francis de Sales said, 'You catch more flies with honey than vinegar'."

With all due respect to that great Saint: Offering honey to flies has brought us little more than an infestation of maggots.

Snark aside: If you are genuinely concerned that the condemnation of error could drive people away from the Church, I would like to familiarize you with a Catholic doctrine which has received far too little attention over the last 50 years: the Universality of Grace.

(As it seems full disclosure is all the rage these days: I do not possess a Ph.D. in theology. I'm just a Catholic blogger, and the following is my opinion.)

The doctrine of the Universality of Grace can be summarized in four short statements (all of which can be found, with ample source material, in Ludwig Ott's classic Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pp. 238-242):

• Despite men's sins, God truly and earnestly desires the salvation of all men.
• God gives all the just sufficient grace for the observation of the Divine Commandments.
• God gives all the faithful who are sinners sufficient grace for conversion.
• God gives all innocent unbelievers sufficient grace to achieve eternal salvation.

We hear much these days regarding God's desire to see all men saved from sin and the damnation it rightly deserves. Pope Francis, for example, brings it up at nearly every opportunity - something which is, in itself, perfectly laudable. But we hear virtually nothing of the corollary of this truth, i.e. that God always and everywhere gives everyone the sufficient grace they require in order to observe His Commandments, repent of their sins and seek out the means for achieving eternal salvation. This means that everything a person needs in the way of grace to eventually attain heaven is given to him in precisely that measure which he requires, and no one on the Day of Judgment will be able to say that God did not provide him with the sufficient grace to attain sainthood. In other words, if people fail to observe God's Commandments, repent of their sins and seek out the means for achieving salvation, they ultimately have no one to blame but themselves. Not me, not you, and certainly not God. (Which casts an entirely different light on the dogma extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, but that's another conversation for another day.)

But, what if someone takes offence at the words or actions of a Catholic?

Well, what of it? Are we to suppose that a layman or prelate who strongly condemns sodomy, adultery, pedophilia or any such sins, and thereby offends the sensibilities of another, could possibly thwart the will of almighty God in ensuring that such a person receives sufficient grace to effect his conversion? Not even the devil himself can accomplish such a feat. How, then, could any effort on our part bring about the same? If God always gives sufficient grace - and He does - then, regardless of whatever circumstances a person may find himself in, failure to attain heaven falls to him and his unwillingness to cooperate with that grace. Having an abusive father, an alcoholic mother, or a perverted uncle - or even, heaven forbid, a pedophile priest - does not grant you a Get Out of Jail Free card. It's on you and you alone to respond to God's gratuitous gift of grace.

But what of scandal? If, by speaking plainly regarding sin and forcefully in the condemnation of error, we drive people away from the Church, are we not effecting evil by our actions and thus guilty of giving scandal?

Hardly. Scandal is an action which is evil in itself and performed with the intent to bring about another's spiritual ruin. If your condemnation of sin occasions another person's either leaving the Church or refusing to enter her, the evil resides not in your having condemned the sin - which is always and everywhere good - but in the person's inordinate love of the same.

So, for heaven's sake, stop worrying about "offending" people by speaking plainly and emphatically in the condemnation of sin and error. To do so is to doubt both the sufficiency of God's grace as well as man's freedom and the moral culpability which results from it.

St. Anthony of Padua, Hammer of Heretics
proving that love of Christ requires hatred of error
since AD 1195

The Emperor Hadrian

Reading N°39 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by
 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

Emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138)

Hadrian, grandnephew and adopted son of Trajan, succeeded the latter in AD 117. He ruled the destinies of the Empire for twenty-one years. Hadrian was a cautious politician, more discreet than his predecessor, foregoing any ambition for conquests in Asia, confining himself to the task of being an attentive and diligent administrator, being his own minister of finance, of justice, of war, of the interior, and filling each of these offices with undeniable superiority. But he was also an artist, a traveler fond of every novelty, not fearful of offending the gods of his country by having himself initiated into all the mysteries of the Oriental religions. Viewing his character from these two angles, we would expect that Hadrian would be less a persecutor of Christianity than was Trajan. Would not the statesman resolutely sacrificing every ambitious undertaking for the sake of the Empire's tranquility, the philosopher skeptical of every religious creed, let the Christian religion develop freely at Rome and in the provinces? An important rescript, issued by Hadrian about 124,^[1] seemed to justify these anticipations. Licinius Granianus, a proconsul of Asia, complained that popular rage often induced magistrates to pass death sentences upon men whose only crime was the name they bore and the religious sect to which they belonged. If this did not imply a request for the revision of Trajan's rescript, it was at least a complaint about abuses in its application. The reply of the imperial philosopher was hesitant. He forbade "clamorous entreaties and outcries," with which the mobs hostile to the Christians used to besiege the magistrates. But he made no decision as to whether the name of Christian was punishable, or whether, to incur the rigor of the courts, a person must be guilty of some specific crime. He said:

If anyone accuses and proves that the aforesaid men do anything contrary to the laws, you will also determine their punishments in accordance with their offences.^[2]

In short, in words less firm than those of Trajan, the Emperor Hadrian took into account only the matter of external order. His decisions seemed more liberal than those of his predecessor; but they were no less fatal for the Christians. In fact, of the jurisprudence which, since Nero, considered the mere name of Christian as an offence against the national institutions, he abolished nothing; he found no fault with the popular frenzy which branded the disciples of Christ with the charge of atheism and immorality; he withdrew nothing of Trajan's regulation which directed magistrates to condemn every Christian who would refuse to sacrifice to the gods of the Empire. The popular charges became less clamorous, but they grew more numerous; though the magistrates appeared somewhat more exacting regarding the genuineness of the accusations, they continued pitilessly to condemn the accused who were denounced as Christians and proven to be so.

Thus Hadrian's reign was no less disastrous for the Christians than that of Trajan. The Acts of St. Faustinus and companions, of SS. Alexander, Hermes, and Quirinus, of St. Getulius, of SS. Sophia, Pistis, Elpis, and Agapius, of SS. Sabina and Seraphia, of SS. Herperus and Zoe (slaves), of St. Mary (a slave), and of St. Symphorosa and her sons all bear witness to the blood that was shed under the rule of this Emperor. To recover the historic truth at the basis of the acts of these martyrs, it is often necessary to sift the many legends with which popular imagination embellished them. Archaeological monuments of unquestionable authenticity, however, leave no room to question their substantial truthfulness and the genuineness of certain characteristic details.^[3]

Mary, a slave in the service of a decurion, was accused of being a Christian. The excited mob called for her death, crying out: "Let a terrible fire consume her alive." The judge said to her: "Since you are a slave, why do you not profess the religion of your master?" As remarked by the historian of the persecutions, this was a truly Roman question. Such is the idea which the Romans had of a slave's conscience. It was Seneca who wrote: "A slave never has the right to say: No."^[4]

Symphorosa was the widow of the martyr Getulius, who had been put to death at the beginning of Hadrian's reign for having evangelized the Sabine country. To her the Emperor said: "Sacrifice to the all-powerful gods, or I will sacrifice you along with your children." "Whence comes this happiness to me," she replied, "that I am worthy of being offered with my sons as a victim to God?" "Choose, either to sacrifice to our gods, or to die." In answer to this, she said: "I desire only to rest with my husband Getulius, whom you slew for the name of Christ." Hadrian, after having her variously tortured, ordered that she be thrown into the Anio, with a stone fastened to her neck. On the next day, the Emperor had her seven children put to death in various ways.^[5]

In one respect, Hadrian seems to have rendered the condition of the Christians better. He tracked them down and had them sentenced to death; but he let them talk. In his reign, the pleas on behalf of the Christian religion increased in number. These pleas, called apologies, were addressed sometimes to the emperor, sometimes to the senate, or to public opinion. Eusebius preserves this fragment from an apology presented to Emperor Hadrian by Quadratus, a disciple of the Apostles in Asia Minor:

The works of our Savior were always present, for they were true, those who were cured, those who rose from the dead, who not merely appeared as cured and risen, but were constantly present, not only while the Savior was living, but even for some time after He had gone, so that some of them survived even till our own time.^[6]

A few years later, shortly after AD 135, there appeared another apology, more celebrated among the Fathers, which seems to have served as a basis for the apologetic work of St. Justin. It is the Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus, by Aristo of Pella. The author personifies in a Jew (Jason) the whole list of objections which the pagans made against the Christian religion; he appears to have planned a complete apologetic. Eusebius, Origen, Celsus, and St. Jerome speak of this important work, of which, unfortunately, neither the original Greek text nor any translation has come down to us.^[7]

Bar-Cocheba (Kokhba) silver Shekel, representing the porch of
the Temple and his "star"; reverse: a vase containing the four
species of Sukkot, with the text: "to the freedom of Jerusalem".

The device of placing in the mouth of a Jew all the calumnies passed about by the people against Christianity is comprehensible at that period. The Christians remembered that the fiercest of the persecutions against their faith had been let loose through the denunciations of the Jews. Moreover, the Jews had just made themselves hateful to the Empire; to point to them as the sworn enemies of the Christian name might be good tactics. In AD 132, a deed of desperate fanaticism stirred up Judea. A certain Bar-Coziba ("Son of Deceit"), who changed his inglorious name to Bar-Cocheba ("Son of the Star"), claimed to be the star foretold by Balaam, i. e., the Messias. The eighty-five jubilees of Elias, according to the calculations of the rabbis, were near their close. The most famous of these rabbis, the scholarly Akiba, since then venerated by the Jews as a second Moses, gave royal anointing to Bar-Cocheba and set him upon a horse, the while he himself held the stirrup. The whole Jewish race, save those who acknowledged Jesus as the Messias, bounded with hope. So grave did the danger to the Empire appear, that Hadrian summoned Julius Severus, the ablest of his generals, from the interior of Britain. The revolt was put down without pity. Palestine was subdued and devastated with unfeeling and inexorable rigor. Those who escaped death on the field of battle were sold in the slave markets of Terebinth and Gaza. A man, so it was said, was sold at the price of a horse. Those who were not bought were taken to Egypt as slaves.^[8] What was left of Jerusalem was destroyed; the Temple site was plowed up and sowed with salt, as a sign of malediction and sterility. In the place of the hoy city there arose Hadrian's completely pagan city, Aelia Capitolina; on the ground but recently occupied by the Temple was placed a statue of the Emperor beside one of Jupiter.^[9]

Footnotes

[1] Modern criticism is unanimous in recognizing the authenticity of this rescript, quoted in full by St. Justin at the end of his First Apology. (See Waddington, Fastes des provinces asiatiques, pp. 197 ff.; Allard, Hist. des pers., I, 242; Renan, L'Eglise chrétienne, p. 32, note.)

[2] St. Justin, First Apology, 68.

[3] For a critical consideration of these Acta, see Allard, op. cit., I, 202-234, 266-280.

[4] "Servus non habet negandi potestatem." Seneca, De beneficiis, III, 19. On the substantial authenticity of the Acts of St. Mary, see Le Blant, Les Actes des martyrs, p. 184.

[5] Ruinart, Acta sincera, pp. 18-20; Leclercq, Les Martyrs, I, 207-209.

[6] Eusebius, H. E. IV, iii, 2; Funk, Patres apostolici, p. 371. Funk (loc. cit.) fixes upon AD 125 or 129 as the date of the writing of this Apology. Evidently the words "until our day" do not refer to the date of the Apology, but to the period of the author's childhood, i.e., the years 80-100. (Cf. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church, I, 149.)

[7] On Aristo, see Batiffol, Anciennes littératures chrétiennes, la littérature grecque, pp. 89 f.; Bardenhewer, Patrology, pp. 48 f.

[8] St. Jerome, In Zachariam, II; Origen, Against Celsus, VII.

[9] Champagny, Les Antonins, II, 71-74.

***

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On the Proper Treatment of Ambiguities

If Jesuits made doors....

In moment of refreshing candor, Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ made the following statement on the widely reported differences of opinion - even among Synod Fathers themselves - regarding the meaning of the Synod's Relatio Finalis  for the issue of the Communion of the so-called "divorced and remarried" (emphasis mine):

So what does it mean? A conservative might interpret it as closed to Communion because it was not mentioned in the text. A liberal might interpret it as including Communion since it is not explicitly excluded in the text. I think that the truth is that Communion was not mentioned because that was the only way the paragraphs could get a two-thirds majority. Like the Second Vatican Council, the synod achieved consensus through ambiguity.

If there remain any doubts about the status of the Benedictine Hermeneutic of Continuity, let them be put to rest: The proponents of the Hermeneutic of Rupture have the reigns of power firmly in their grip, and are so assured of their control that they are no longer ashamed to admit how they came to it, i.e. by way of ambiguity.

I suppose I remain somewhat naive insofar as the notion of a Catholic priest approving the use of intentional ambiguity as a tool of subversion never fails to cause in me a certain sadness. I just can't get my head around how a man who has dedicated his life to the One who is Truth shows no qualms in twisting the same to achieve his ends. It seems to be a deeply ingrained characteristic of mine, for I am no stranger to the history of the Catholic Church. But why, then, does the present situation cause in me such consternation, while the tales of the Arian Crisis merely tickle my intellectual curiosity? Perhaps it is because, unlike those heretics of old, who have long since gone on to their eternal reward, these souls still hang in the balance.

Be that as it may, we may nonetheless draw useful lessons from the past. In particular, this talk of synodal ambiguity calls to mind the 1786 Synod of Pistoia and the Apostolic Constitution Auctorem Fidei, written by Pope Pius VI in 1794, which condemned it. The whole document is worth studying, but the following passage seems especially pertinent (emphasis mine):

We have determined, in order to meet this probable calumny, to make use of the wise counsel, duly and cautiously applied, which several of our most holy predecessors along with highly esteemed bishops and even general councils had left attested and recommended with notable examples when they had cause to restrain the rise of dangerous or harmful novelties of this sort. 

They knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, they sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith which is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation. This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error. 

Moreover, if all this is sinful, it cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up the personal inclinations of the individual - such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it. [...]

In order to expose such snares, something which becomes necessary with a certain frequency in every century, no other method is required than the following: Whenever it becomes necessary to expose statements which disguise some suspected error or danger under the veil of ambiguity, one must denounce the perverse meaning under which the error opposed to Catholic truth is camouflaged.

Indeed, it is as Solomon said:

What is it that hath been? The same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? The same that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10)

Respect and Love of Parents

Thirty-Fifth in a Series on Catholic Morality

 by

 Fr. John H. Stapleton

We have finished with the three commandments that refer directly to God. The second Table of the Law contains seven precepts that concern themselves with our relations to God, indirectly, through the creature; they treat of our duties and obligations toward the neighbor. As God may be honored, so He may be dishonored, through the works of His hand; one may offend as effectively by disregard for the law that binds us to God's creatures as for that which binds us to the Creator Himself.

Since parents are those of God's creatures that stand nearest to us, the Fourth Commandment immediately orders us to honor them as the authors of our being and the representatives of divine authority, and it prescribes the homage we owe them in their capacity of parents. But that which applies to fathers and mothers, applies in a certain degree to all who have any right or authority to command; consequently, this law also regulates the duties of superiors and inferiors in general to one another.

The honor we owe to our parents consists in four things: respect for their dignity, love for their beneficence, obedience to their authority and assistance in their needs. Whoever fails in one of these requirements, breaks the law, offends God and sins. His sin may be mortal, if the quality of the offense and the malice of the offender be such as to constitute a serious breach of the law.

It is the great fault of our age to underrate parental dignity. In the easy-going world, preference is given to profligate celibacy over honorable wedlock; marriage itself is degraded to the level of a purely natural contract, its bond has lost its character of indissolubility and its obligations are shirked to meet the demands of fashion and convenience. When parents, unworthy ones, do not appreciate their own dignity, how will others, their children, appreciate it? And parenthood will never be esteemed while its true nature and sanctity are ignored and contemned; there is no dignity where the idea of God is excluded.

After God had created man, He left him to work out his destiny in a natural way; and immediately man assumed towards his offspring the relation that God first held towards himself - he assumed the prerogatives of paternity and of authority. All paternity belongs to God, and to Him alone; yet man is delegated to that lofty, quasi-divine function. God alone can create; yet so near does the parental office approach to the power of creation that we call it pro-creation.

It is true that man holds this privilege in common with the rest of animated nature, but with this difference: that the fruit of his loins is a child of God, with an immortal soul, an heir to heaven where its destiny is to glorify the Eternal during all eternity. And thus, man, in his function of parent, is as far differentiated from the rest of animal nature as the act by which God created man is superior to all His other creative acts.

If the tempter, when working out his plan for the fall of our first parents, had simply and unconditionally said: "Ye shall be as gods," his utterance would have in it more truth than he intended, for the mantle of parenthood that was soon to fall upon them made them like unto God. The children that romped around them, looked up to them even, almost, as they were accustomed to look up to the Creator. And little the wonder, since to their parents they owed their very existence.

As depositaries of authority, there is no human station, however exalted, comparable to theirs. Children are not merely subjects; they belong to their parents. Church and State, under God, may see to it that that authority is not abused; but within the bounds of right, they are held to respect it; and their acts that go contrary to the exercise of parental authority are, by the fact of such opposition, null and void. Before the State or Church, the family was; its natural rights transcend theirs, and this bowing, as it were, of all constituted human authority before the dominion of parents is evidence enough of their dignity.

"God could not be everywhere, therefore he made parents - fathers and mothers" - that is how the pagans used to put it. However theologically unsound this proposition may appear, it is a beautiful attempt at a great truth, viz., that parents towards us stand in God's stead. In consequence of this eminent dignity that is theirs, they deserve our respect. They not only deserve it, but God so ordains it.

Worthy of honor are they whom the Lord sees fit to honor. In the exalted station to which they have been called and in the express command made by the Lord to honor them, we see evidence of the dignity of parents; and the honor we owe them for this dignity is the honor of respect. By respect we mean the recognition of their superiority, the reverence, veneration and awe all well-born men instinctively feel for natural worth that transcends their own, the deference in tone, manner and deportment that naturally belongs to such worth.

It is much easier to say in what respect does not consist than to define the term itself. If it really exists in the heart - and there it must exist, to be at all - it will find expression in a thousand different ways, and will never be at a loss to express itself. Books will give you the laws of etiquette and will tell you how to be polite; but the laws that govern respect are graven on the heart, and he whose heart is in the right place never fails to read and interpret them correctly. Towards all, at all times and in all places, he will conform the details of his life with the suggestions of his inner consciousness. This is respect.

Respect has no substitute; neither assistance nor obedience nor love can supply it or take its place. It may happen that children are no longer obliged to help their parents; they may be justified in not obeying them; the circumstances may be such that they no longer have love or affection for them; but respect can never be wanting without serious guilt. The reason is simple: because it is due in justice, because it is founded on natural rights that can never be forfeited, even when parents themselves lose the sense of their own dignity.

Sinful, wicked and scandalous parents there have been, are, and will be. But just as they do not owe the excellence to any deed of their own, but to the free choice of the Almighty, so it depends not on themselves to forfeit it. God made them parents without respect for their personal worth. He is the custodian of their dignity. Good or bad, they are parents and remain parents. Woe unto those who despise the authors of their days!

Respect overlooks an innocent joke at the expense of a parent, when absolutely no malice is intended, when on both sides it is looked upon as a matter of good-natured pleasantry. It brooks humor. Not all familiarity breeds contempt.

But contempt, which is directly opposed to respect, is a sin that is never anything but mortal. It refuses honor, belittles dignity and considers parents beneath esteem. It is contempt to laugh at, to mock, to gibe and insult parents; it is contempt to call them vile, opprobrious names, to tell of their faults; it is contempt, and the height of contempt, to defy them, to curse them or to strike them. It is bad enough when this sort of thing is directed against an equal; but when parents are made the objects of contempt, it acquires a dignity that is infernal.

The malediction of Heaven, the almighty wrath of God follows him or her who despises a parent. We are repeatedly told in Holy Writ that such offenders "shall die the death." Scorn of parents is looked upon as a crime almost on a par with hatred of God. Pagans frequently punished it with death. Among Christians, it is left to the avenging wrath of God, who is pledged to defend the dignity of His delegated paternity.

It is not a rare occurrence to see just retribution visited upon parents who in their day were undutiful, unworthy and unnatural children. The justice of Heaven often permits it to be done unto us as we do unto others. Our children will treat us as we shall have treated our parents; their hands will be raised against us and will smite us on the cheek to avenge the grandsire's dishonor and tears, and to make us atone in shame for our sins against our parents. If we respect others, they will respect us; if we respect our parents, our children will respect us.

He who has a heart, and has it properly located, will not fail to love that which is good. He will have no difficulty in so doing; it will require neither command nor persuasion to make him do so. If he proves refractory to this law of nature, it is because he is not like the rest of mortals, because he is inhuman; and his abnormal condition is due, not to nature's mistakes, but to his own. And no consideration under heaven will be equal to the task of instilling affection into a stone or a chunk of putty.

That is good which is desirable, or which is the source of what is desirable. God alone is absolutely good, that is to say, good in Himself and the cause of all good. Created things are good in the proportion of their furnishing us with things desirable, and are for that reason called relatively good. They confer benefits on one and not perhaps on another. When I say: this or that is good, I mean that it is useful to me, and is productive of comfort, happiness and other desirable things. Because we are naturally selfish, our appreciation of what is good depends on what we get out of it.

Therefore, a child's first, best and strongest love should be for its parents, for the greatest good it enjoys, the thing of all others to be desired, the essential condition of all else - namely its existence - it owes to its parents. Life is the boon we receive from them; not only the giving, but the saving in more than one instance, the fostering and preserving and sustaining during long years of helplessness, and the adorning of it with all the advantages we possess. Nor does this take into account the intimate cost, the sufferings and labors, the cares and anxieties, the trouble and worriment that are the lot of devoted parenthood. It is life spent and given for life. Flesh and blood, substance, health and comfort, strength of body and peace of soul, lavished with unstinted generosity out of the fullness of parental affection - these are things that can never be repaid in kind, they are repaid with the coin of filial piety and love, or they remain dead debts.

Failure to meet these obligations brands one a reprobate. There is not, in all creation, bird or beast, but feels and shows instinctive affection towards those to whom it owes its being. He, therefore, who closes his heart to the promptings of filial love, has the consolation of knowing that, not only he does not belong to the order of human beings, but he places himself outside the pale of animal nature itself, and exists in a world of his own creation, which no human language is able to properly qualify.

The love we owe to our parents is next in quality to that which we owe to God and to ourselves. Love has a way of identifying its object and its subject; the lover and the beloved become one, their interests are common, their purpose alike. The dutiful child, therefore, looks upon its parent as another self, and remains indifferent to nothing that for weal or for woe affects that parent. Love consists in this community of feeling, concern and interest. When the demon of selfishness drives gratitude out of the heart and the ties of natural sympathy become strained, and love begins to wane; when they are snapped asunder, love is dead.

The love of God, of course, primes all other love. "He who loves father or mother more than me," says the Savior, "is not worthy of me." Filial love, therefore, must not conflict with that which we owe to God; it must yield, for it draws its force from the latter and has no meaning without it. In normal conditions, this conflict never occurs; it can occur only in the event of parents overriding the law that governs their station in life. To make divine love wait on the human is criminal.

It may, and no doubt does, happen that parents become unlovable beings through disregard for the moral law. And because love is not a commodity that is made to order, children may be found who justify on these grounds their absence of affection or even their positive hatred for such parents. A drunken parent, one who attacks the life, virtue or reputation of his offspring, a low brute who has neither honor nor affection, and whose office it is to make home a living hell, such a one can hardly be loved.

But pity is a form of love; and just as we may never despise a fallen parent, just so do we owe him or her, even in the depths of his or her degradation, a meed of pity and commiseration. There is no erring soul but may be reclaimed; every soul is worth the price of its redemption, and there is no unfortunate, be he ever so low, but deserves, for the sake of his soul, a tribute of sympathy and a prayer for his betterment. And the child that refuses this, however just the cause of his aversion, offends against the law of nature, of charity and of God.