The Personality of the Church

CHURCH

I DO not propose to be so foolish as to attempt to define what I mean by Personahty, nor even to describe it at any length. It is not the resultant of innumerable living cells in union, nor the sum of intellectual and emotional qualities, nor is it even identical with Character. It is partly these, no doubt, and may be viewed, or even sometimes stated, in the terms of each of these three systems, yet it transcends them all. It may be compared, perhaps, by an amateur such as myself, most luminously, to a chord of music, — "not a fourth sound, but a star." Like the flame of fire, the fragrance of a rose, the glory of a sunset, it may be analyzed and accounted for by the philosopher or the chemist, but it can be apprehended only by the poet, artist, or lover. So at least it seems to me.

The point, however, which I wish to discuss with myself is the fact of the personality, or at least something resembling it, of which we are aware in every society, divine or human. Just as the personality of a man transcends the sum of his attributes, or appears to do so — for a character may be attractive to me, who dislike every one of its component elements so far as I know them — so the personality of a society may be something very different from what one would conceive to be the aggregate of those personalities which compose it. It is a notorious fact, for example, that a company consisting of pleasant, right-minded folk is often found in its public acts to show neither courtesy nor conscience: a board of ten directors may cheerfully pursue a career of social crime which would be the horror of each of its members; a college may he composed of twelve tolerant scholars, and yet in its policy afford a shocking picture of narrow-minded and ungenerous bigotry.

Yet the explanation of this is not far to seek; it is to be found in the fact that in all human societies the bond of union is not one of courtesy or conscience, still less of immortal souls: it is rather for commerce or learning, or some other mutual material advantage that they combine. A director of a railroad may be a church-w^arden or a mystic, but he is not united with his fellows in that capacity; and the result, therefore, of Monday morning deliberations is what might be expected of a number of persons who have officially left their Christianity at home. The religion, and even the motives that guide each gentleman in his domestic dealings, are wholly absent, not indeed from him, but from the contribution that he makes to the business for whose sake he is seated at the green-covered table.

Instances might be indefinitely multiplied of this curious social fact. A mob collectively may be swayed by motives which each howling unit would unhesitatingly repudiate; a jury may, after an hour's deliberation, condemn a fellow-creature to death on evidence which each juryman would scarcely think sufficient to turn the balance in the buying of a horse; and yet, who can doubt that trial by jury is, on the whole, supremely just? The fact remains, explain as we will, that when once a union is set up between sentient wills there comes into being a strange character — I had almost called it Personality — which appears at any rate certainly transcendent of, and even alien to, the various elements of which it ought to be the result.

If this thought is a significant one, when we consider its bearing on human societies, how far more pregnant it becomes when we transfer it to that astonishing society which we call the Catholic Church. In that Church we have a union based, not upon commercial considerations, or the pursuit of science, but upon huge and monstrous facts which wc are scarcely able even to apprehend. The souls of men are concerned, united one to another, not for temporal ends, but eternal. They are brought together, not for purposes of pressing earthly claims or conducting worldly business, or even advocating a certain system of thought, but that they may minister to the infinite glory of God and find a spiritual salvation which cannot even be pictured to the imagination. Again, the units which compose this society are selected on account, not of their capacity, but their needs; no nation or class is excluded; the saint has no more claim than the sinner, the theologian than the dunce. None are rejected save those who reject; none are encouraged save those who voluntarily correspond. Yet, with all this, if the Church's claim is true, the union that binds her children together transcends that of all human societies, as her object transcends theirs. The contribution that each must make is not that of one set of faculties, of this or that hour of time, of this piece of experience or that intention; but of his whole self, body, mind, and immortal soul; and each such self is welded into union with its fellows after a fashion for which there is no adequate analogy in the world. It is through a new and mystical birth that each must pass — a birth that changes character while it does not obliterate characteristics; and it is through this very birth, in the presence of which even the professed theologian is apt to doubt his powers, that every soul enters into a mysterious life flowing from God and permeating, not earth alone, but Heaven and Purgatory as well, which is named the Communion of Saints.

Again, approaching the subject from the dogmatic standpoint, we find a number of phrases in the Scriptures descriptive of this extraordinary fact, which appear to open to believers new ranges of thought as to its contents — Christ compares Himself to a Vine, of which His disciples are the branches, and seems, by the metaphor, to insist yet more strongly on the actually

Divine nature of His Cliurch's personality. From one point of view the Church is composed of its members, from anotlier it is identical with Himself. In one phrase we are informed that He is the Head and we the members, and in another that the Body, too, is His, indwelt by His Spirit and guided by His jNIiud. In brief, if we accept the New Testament as an authoritative guide, we are informed that, while our instincts are riorht in attributing: some kind of personality or character to every society, however loosely held together, the personality of the Divine Society which is called the Church is infinitelv more worthy of the name, for that by virtue of the mystical union of all believers, or perhaps in response to it, there comes down upon it that transcendent personality from which all others flow, even that Divine character which is the possession of God alone. If a board of directors or a college of scholars generates a character alien from its component elements so far as we know them, the Catholic Church, on the other hand, generates a thing that on one hand we may call the Communion of Saints, and on the other the Spirit or the Mind, or even the Person of Jesus Christ Himself.

Now I am not the man to pursue this line of thought further; perhaps I am not even the man to pursue it so far; but it appears to me to illuminate a large number of dark subjects. Let me mention two.

(1.) The act of faith, to one who can accept my presentation, appears no longer to be an unreasonable thing, for its object is no longer an elaborate system of thought which the convert is required to criticize, but a personal character. Few men are capable, if indeed any are, of passing final judgment upon a philosophy or an art; but no man is excusable if he refuses to judge of one who claims his friendship: in fact, he cannot refuse, when once the claim is made clear.

I have no right to say dogmatically that

I know that homoeopathy is a dchision, unless I have made an exhaustive study of its contents, and perhaps not even then; but I have a perfect riglit to say that I will choose this doctor and not that: and this, I think, is a fair though rough parallel to the search after religious truth. The Church comes to me, not under the guise of a creed, but in the habiliments of a person. "Look well at me," she says, "read my history if you will, ask for my testimonials, study what I have to say; but, above all, give me a personal interview. Exercise that faculty which you exercise in the choice of a wife, or a doctor, or a friend, and act upon it. You may reject me as many others have done and will do to the end of time. Men make mistakes w4th the best intentions in the world, such as the conscientious Pharisee or the distraught sinner made when they looked upon Jesus Christ and passed by. I do not even say that it will necessarily be your fault; it nuiy well be that education, or prejudice, or natural blindness, will lead even you to misread my eyes; but do not make the mistake of thinking that your judgment is a matter only of learning or profound study: it is not chiefly that; it is a personal thing within the range of all normal persons. I am not merely the aggregate of my members, or the total of my units. You need not know my history, or have precise knowledge of my doctrine, or estimate the statistics of the world's morality. I am a kind of person, like yourself, and I desire to be so treated."

(2. ) The claim to infallibility, too, looked at in the light of this supposition, is no longer an absurd thing. It is said, sometimes with a show of reason, that the judgment of a body of persons acting in concert cannot exceed in value the judgment of all those persons acting separately. So Fulke said to Campion. Yet we have seen, even in human societies, how widely such judgments may differ. The decision of a jury may be something very different from the aggregate of the opinions of its members, since each may be dull and yet all shrewd. How mucli more, then, may not the judgment of a Divine Society, united by a mystical bond of which we can scarcely do more than guess the nature, transcend the judgment of each of its members mechanically added together? And above all, in view of the phrases which I have quoted, it surely should not be hard for those who accept Jesus Christ as God, to allow that the judgment of His Church, which in one aspect is indistinguishable from Himself, is as infallible as His own! Each reason, each quotation, each illustration of an Ecumenical Decree, may be faulty, yet the decision itself be true.

Lastly, it cannot be denied that the Catholic Church, at any rate, seems to present the phenomenon of a personal character quite unlike that of any other society. She is accused by her enemies of being at once unchanging and changeable, obstinate, and capricious. She appeals to the imagination and the heart at least as much as to the critical faculty. Men fall in love with her, as they do not fall in love with the Royal Geographical Society; she does not depend upon her material accessories — she is loved or loathed as much beneath a corrugated tin roof as beneath fretted vaults and spires; coarse boors and unemotional peasants die for her as cheerfully as refined scholars and attenuated mystics live by her. And, on the other hand, her enemies hate her with a passion that can only be personal, they witness to her life by the very fury with which they attack it. In other words, she presents exactly those phenomena which surround a lovable person whose character is sufficiently magnetic to affect all who come within her range with either adoration or hatred. Above all she is credited, even by those who deny her claims, with endowments that can only properly belong to a sentient being; she never forgets, it is said, she plots, she welcomes, she inspires. Mr. Mallock, in a moving paragraph or two, describes her claim to have been present at the empty tomb of her Lord and Spouse, and explains that her children believe in the Resurrection, not because of documentary evidence, but because of her word who was an eye-witness of that supreme credential of hers and His. "I saw it," she cries; "1 witnessed the meeting of His Mother and mine; I was in the boat with John and Peter; I stood witliin the upper room when the doors were shut; I watched the cloud receive Him: I saw — I who speak with you now."

Yes, there is no question about it that if ever I find myself able to receive Christianity as Divine, I shall seek it at the moutli of one who can vouch for its truth, and in whose trustwortliiness I myself believe. Documents and criticism are not foundations on which spiritual Hfe, self-sacrifice, and eternal issues can be safely reposed; I have neither time nor power to sift evidence and weigh testimonies, nor sufficient self-confidence to reject this as an accretion and accept that as a survival. I must put myself, if ever I feel personally justified in doing so, in the hands of one whom I perceive to be Divine, whose life is as continuous as the centuries, whose memory is as unfaihng as time, and through whose glowing eyes I see the Spirit of God to shine....