Chapter 22 — The enemies of religious propagate distinct falsehoods concerning them, and first that they are false apostles

We have still to consider the falsehoods propagated against religious by their enemies.

The opponents of religious are not content with calumniating their victims; they strive likewise to cast upon them suspicion of being guilty of heinous crimes. They assert that religious are worthy of detestation, and that they are unfit society for other men. They fill up the measure of their detraction by declaring religious to be responsible for all the evils which have ever come upon the Church, or which ever shall assail her; and they declare that religious are likewise accountable for every trouble under which the Church at present labors. They are further accused of being the false apostles who disturbed the primitive Church, and also of being the thieves, robbers and creepers into houses against which the Church has for all time been warned; and they are also said to be those heralds of antichrist who, in the latter days of the Church, are to bring danger upon her.

We will in due order refute these calumnies.

First, religious are accused of being false apostles. In order to show how untruly this epithet is applied to religious, we must first examine what is meant by false apostles.

In the Sacred Scripture we find other expressions of the same kind, such as false prophets, and false Christs. The following words of St. Peter, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you (2 Pet 2:1), apply to all these disseminators of falsehood. For the office of a preacher and an apostle, is to be a mediator between the Lord and his people, by preaching the Word of God. Thus St. Paul says: so we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us (2 Cor 5:20). Now a man may be a false apostle or a false prophet for one of two reasons.

First, he may not be sent by God: I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied (Jer 23:21).

Second, a false apostle or prophet will proclaim not the Word of God, but his own inventions: do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes; they speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord (Jer 23:16).

Both these two accusations are brought against false prophets and apostles in the following words of Ezechiel 13:6: they have spoken falsehood and divined a lie; they say, "says the Lord," when the Lord has not sent them. Alluding to the pertinacity of such false teachers, the Prophet adds: and yet they expect him to fulfil their word. When Jeremiah was condemned as a false prophet, he hastened to exculpate himself from both these charges. He said: in truth the Lord sent me to you. (Jer 26:15.) This refers to the first accusation. He adds: to speak all these words in your ears. This is his defence against the second charge (Jer 26:15).

The false apostles of the New Testament were recognisable likewise by these two characteristics,

namely, first that they were not sent by God,

and second that they propagated false doctrine.

Now preachers bearing a commission from the bishops of the Church are sent by God. St. Augustine, in his Epistle to Orosius, interprets the word "apostle" as signifying send. There are, he says, four kinds of apostles. Those sent by God, those sent by God by means of man, those sent by man alone, those who are sent by their own inclination. Moses was sent by God, Joshua by God and man. They who in our times are raised by public favour to the priesthood are sent by man alone. False prophets are sent by none; they go forth at their own desire. (The text is in reality found in Jerome, Commentary on Galations, at the end of the prologue (CCSL 77A; PL 26:311D-312C).) The saint adds: he should be considered as sent by God, who is not chosen out by human praise or flattery, but who is recommended by the excellence of his life and by the wishes of apostolic priests. (Source not found.) Those who preached heretical doctrine were likewise called false apostles. This we know by the testimony both of St. Paul and of the Gloss, on his words. When the Apostle writes: there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ (Gal 1:16), the Gloss comments: these were the false apostles who said that the Gospel was opposed to the law of Moses. (Peter Lombard, Commentaries on the Psalms and St. Paul, at Gal 1:16 (PL 192:97A).) Again, on the words, false Christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders (Mark 13:22), the Gloss says: this verse is to be understood as referring the heretics who attacked the Church, declaring that they were Christs. The first of these impostors was Simon Magus; the last will be antichrist. (Glossa ordinaria 5, 620 at Mark 13:22 (PL 114:227, at the verse labelled verse 21).)

He who preaches without, any commission to do so, or teaches false doctrine, does so inspired by some bad motive, either of covetousness, or pride, or vain glory. Such men are deprived of the grace of God; and consequently commit sins, more or less heinous. But everyone who preaches for the sake of gain or popularity is not, necessarily a false apostle or false prophet; otherwise there would be no distinction between a hireling and a false apostle. They who preach for the sake of anything save of the glory of God and the good of souls are hirelings; let their preaching be true or false, authorised or unauthorised. But such men cannot be called false prophets, unless they either bear no commission, or teach false doctrine. In the same way, every sinner who administers the sacraments, or preaches the Word of God, is not necessarily a false apostle or a false prophet. For true prelates are true apostles; although at times they may be sinful.

Thus, the detractors of religious who call them false prophets or false apostles are, by their own words, convicted of folly or malice. For the fact that religious may be guilty of sins more or less heinous, such as seeking their own glorification, taking vengeance on their enemies, and the like, cannot make them false prophets or false apostles, provided that they bear a commission to preach, and that they teach true doctrine, The enemies of religious do not presume to question the orthodoxy of their preaching. To the arguments against the right of religious to preach, we have already fully replied. It remains then for us to say that those who accuse religious of being false apostles or false prophets are themselves guilty of falsehood. They may, with the same deceitfulness, accuse others of the same crime. The fact that false apostles have done many things which other sinners and even just men have done, is no reason for calling those other men false apostles also. We have, however, already shown the fallacy of such an argument.