POETRY AND HISTORY TEACHING FALSEHOOD.

The function of the poet is to speak essential truths as opposed to relative truths, and Mrs. Browning in “Aurora Leigh” testifies to this fact in the following lines:

“I write so

Of the only truth-tellers now left to God,

The only speakers of essential truth

Opposed to relative, comparative,

And temporal truths; the only holders by

His sun-skirts, through conventional gray glooms;

The only teachers who instruct mankind

From just a shadow on a charnel wall

To find man’s veritable stature out

Erect, sublime,—the measure of a man;

And that’s the measure of an angel says

The Apostle.”

It is much to be regretted that the poetry of the present day does not always fulfil this high purpose. The poets of to-day—and by poets of to-day I mean the poets of the past half-century—are not “the only truth-tellers now left to God.” Nay, they are often disseminators of falsehood. It is true the non-Catholic poet—a Wordsworth, a Byron, a Longfellow, or a Tennyson—by being true to art and inspiration, which has as its basis Catholic truth, sometimes unwittingly expresses a Catholic truth of the deepest significance. But as poetry is only a reflection of life idealized, and as there is nothing in poetry but what is in life, we may expect the anti-Catholic seeds scattered about by prejudiced hearts in the garden of the world to bear the poisonous blossoms of falsehood as they are translated and reflected in the pages of modern poetry.

And this is sometimes done indirectly. Sometimes, too, it is done by expressing a half truth or by seizing on some exceptional phase of Catholic religious life and impressing it upon the non-Catholic mind with an “Ab uno disce omnes.”

A concrete example will best illustrate this. Browning has a poem entitled “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church.” Now Browning’s poetic workshop was Italy, so this great psychological poet wrote:

“Open my heart and you shall see

Graven on it Italy.”

He found in the land of Dante and Michael Angelo fit subjects for his dramatic monologues. The art world of Italy opened up to Browning new themes, new thoughts. The intense life of its people, full of the sweetness and aroma of virtue and the dark tragedy of vice, gave him scope which he could not find elsewhere. Pity it is that he presents only the dark side of Italian character. Pity it is that the paganized and sensual Bishop of the Italian Renaissance depicted by Browning in “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church” did not find setting, in his poems, as a foil to the pure and pious men and women who prayed before the shrines and in the cloisters of Italy when the new wine of old classicism poured from Homeric flasks and casks had intoxicated the head and heart of that garden of Europe and turned possible saints into satyrs.

De Maistre, the great French publicist, has said that history for the past three hundred years has been a conspiracy against truth. Aye, and poetry, too, whose countenance should reflect the beauty of heavenly truth, often wears the mask of the assassin. To-day there are so-called advanced and up-to-date scholars in our universities and clubs who hold that “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church” is a true reflection of the religious life of the Italian Renaissance. They quote Ruskin as saying of that poem:

“I know of no other piece of modern English, prose or poetry, in which there is so much told as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit—its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the Central Renaissance, in thirty pages of the ‘Stones of Venice,’ put into as many lines, Browning’s being also the antecedent work.”

We would say just here to students of literature and history: Let not the shadow of a great literary name overawe you. John Ruskin did a great deal for art and criticism, but he is far from being an infallible apostle of truth in either domain; and though he loved the lowly, brown-hooded friars of St. Francis, this love was not based on spiritual affinity, but on the poetry and art bound up in their humble lives.

John Ruskin and Robert Browning, respectively art critic and poet, have done the religious life of the Italian Renaissance a grievous wrong—nay, they grossly misrepresent it when they say that this abnormal picture of a Renaissance Catholic bishop truly represents and reflects the religious life of Italy at that period. No doubt but a certain amount of abuses and corruption prevailed in the Church at that time, largely as a consequence of the worldly spirit which had gained entrance into it during its exile at Avignon.

However, all was not darkness and sin. The vivifying life of the Church was not exemplified in the Bishop of St. Praxed’s. As the great historian of the Popes of the Renaissance, Dr. Ludwig Pastor, says, “If those days were full of failings and sins of every kind, the Church was not wanting in glorious manifestations through which the source of her higher life revealed itself. Striking contrasts—deep shadows on the one hand and most consoling gleams of sunshine on the other—are the special characteristics of this period. If the historian of the Church of the fifteenth century meets with some unworthy prelates and bishops, he also meets in every part of Christendom with an immense number of men distinguished for their virtue, piety and learning, not a few of whom have been, by the solemn voice of the Church, raised to her altars.”

Limiting ourselves to the most remarkable individuals of the period of which we are about to treat, we shall mention only the saints and holy men and women given by Italy to the Church: St. Bernardine of Siena, of the order of Minorites, whose eloquence won for him the title of “Trumpet of Heaven and fountain of knowledge”; around him are grouped his holy brothers in religion, Saints John Capestran and Jacopo della Marca. St. Antonius, whose unexampled zeal was displayed in Florence, the very centre of the Renaissance, had for his disciples blessed Antonio Neyrot of Ripoli and Constanzio di Fabriano. In the order of St. Augustine are the following who have been beatified: Andrea, who died at Montereale in 1497; Antonio Turriani, in 1494. In 1440 St. Frances, the foundress of the Oblates, was working at Rome. The labors of another founder, St. Francis of Paula, who died in 1507, belong in part to this period. These names, to which many more might be added, furnish the most striking proof of the vitality of religion in Italy at the time of the Renaissance. Such fruits do not ripen on trees which are “decayed and rotten to the core.”

Indeed, it is astonishing what nonsense is talked about this period of the Italian Renaissance, especially as it influenced the religious life of the people. In one breath our would-be professors will tell you that the Italian Renaissance movement swept the Catholic Church into a vortex of paganism—pope, cardinals, bishops, and all; and in the next they will lead you to believe that the Catholic Church set its face against the new revival of classical learning, fearing that the development of the intellect would be prejudicial to the faith of the people. Either slander will effect its end.

As we write we have before us two historical works of somewhat recent publication: “Books and Their Makers During-the Middle Ages,” by George Haven Putnam, A.M., and “A General History of Europe,” by Professors Thatcher and Schwill, of Chicago University. As the latter is now used as a text-book in many American High Schools, we will deal with its worth and wisdom first.

There is but one Chicago University in the world, and we might expect its distinguished professors of medieval and modern European history to understand at least the elementary truths of the Catholic Church and something of its spirit and policy.

Let us examine for a moment some of the statements contained in this “General History of Europe,” by Professors Thatcher and Schwill. Here is a choice morsel which will amuse the student of Church history. The topic is “The Church and Feudalism.” The author says: “As late as the eleventh century it was not at all uncommon for the clergy to marry. Since fiefs were hereditary, it seemed perfectly proper that their children should be provided for out of the Church lands which they held. But unless all their children became clergymen these lands would pass into the hands of laymen and therefore be lost to the Church. One of the purposes of the prohibition of the marriage of the clergy was to prevent this alienation and diminution of the Church lands.”

And this little paragraph dealing with the Italian Renaissance, found on page 264 of the same work: “Medieval life knew nothing of the freedom, beauty and joy of the Greek world. . . . The medieval man had no eye for the beauty of nature. To him nature was evil. God had indeed created the world and pronounced it very good, but through the fall of man all nature had been corrupted. Satan was now the prince of the world. As a result no one could either study or admire nature.” Pray note the force of the auxiliary “could.”

Just think of it! A Catholic—a medieval Catholic—was forbidden to look at or admire a flower, a forest, or a mountain peak. How so much of nature got mixed up in the singing of “Old Dan Chaucer,” a Catholic poet of the fourteenth century, we know not. ’Tis a mystery. Chaucer is essentially the poet of the daisy, and robed it in verse long before Burns turned it over with his plough.

Then we have the brown-hooded and gentle Friar, St. Francis of Assisi, who was wont to call the birds of the air and the beasts of the field his brothers, and who composed canticles to the winds, the flowers and the sun. Did the erudite professors of Chicago University ever make a study of Gothic architecture, the distinct inspiration and creation of medieval times? If so, they will remember that plants and flowers play, in symbolism, an important part in ornamentation. The hatred of nature as well as the hatred of art imputed to the early Christians is simply a “fable convenue,” manufactured by the partisan and superficial historian who is either too dishonest or indolent to state or reach the real facts.

It is enough to say that Professors Thatcher and Schwill’s work is actually teeming with historical inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations of the Catholic Church. Whether by inference or blunt statement, these two professors have written themselves down in the pages of their history either as ignorant or dishonest historians, and it is unworthy of a presumably great university, such as Chicago, to give its imprimatur to such unreliable and unscholarly works.

But lest we may not have convicted as yet Professors Thatcher and Schwill of having misrepresented the truth, life and policy of the Catholic Church in the pages of their history, we shall cite one more paragraph found on page 172. It deals with monasticism. The author says: “The philosophic basis of asceticism is the belief that matter is the seat of evil, and therefore that all contact with it is contaminating. This conception of evil is neither Christian nor Jewish, but purely heathen. Jesus freely used the good things of this world and taught that sin is in nothing external to man, but has its seat only in the heart. But His teaching was not understood by His followers. The peculiar form which this asceticism in the Church took is called monasticism. . . . After about 175 A.D. the Church rapidly grew worldly. As Christianity became popular large numbers entered the Church and became Christians in name; but at heart and in life they remained heathen. The bishops were often proud and haughty and lived in grand style. Those who were really in earnest about their salvation, unsatisfied with such worldliness, fled from the contamination in the Church and went to live in the desert and find the way to God without the aid of the Church: her means of grace were for common Christians. Those who would could obtain, by means of asceticism and prayer, all that others received by means of the sacraments of the Church. There were to be two ways of salvation: one through the Church and her means of grace; the other through asceticism and contemplation.”

There is assuredly something of the historical naïveté of the schoolboy in the above. Mark when the Christian Church became corrupt—nearly one hundred and fifty years before it was upheld by the arm of Constantine and when it had been hiding for more than one hundred years in the Catacombs carving and painting in symbol the truths and mysteries of God. This was the corruption, that as Christ had birth in the lowly manger of Bethlehem so the Church, His Spouse, was cradled in humility, hidden away from the purple rage of the Cæsars, and, like a little child whose dreams are of the past and the future, was rudely fashioning her life and soul in terms of eternity, in symbols of the palm, the dove and the lamb.

Now let us cite from Putnam’s “Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages” an instance of historical contradiction within the compass of three pages. It is said that he who misrepresents the truth must have a good memory, but the author of “Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages” is evidently devoid of that faculty, otherwise he would not have contradicted himself in almost succeeding pages of his work. Here is the contradiction. He is speaking of book-making at the time of the Italian Renaissance. On page 331, Vol. I., the author says: “A production of Beccadelli’s, perhaps the most brilliant of Alfonso’s literary protégés, is to be noted as having been proscribed by the Pope, being one of the earliest Italian publications to be so distinguished. Eugenius IV. forbade, under penalty of excommunication, the reading of Beccadelli’s “Hermaphroditus,” which was declared to be contra bonos mores. The book was denounced from many pulpits, and copies were burned, together with portraits of the poet, on the public squares of Bologna, Milan and Ferrara.”

On page 333 of the same volume Putnam writes—and we beg the reader will compare carefully the two statements: “Poggio is to be noted as a free thinker who managed to keep in good relations with the Church. So long as free thinkers confined their audacity to such matters as form the topic of Poggio’s ‘Facetiae,’ Beccadelli’s ‘Hermaphroditus’ or La Casa’s ‘Capitolo del Farno’ the Roman Curia looked on and smiled approvingly. The most obscene books to be found in any literature escaped the Papal censure, and a man like Aretino, notorious for his ribaldry, could aspire with fair prospects of success to the scarlet of a Cardinal.”

These are the kind of books that stuff the shelves of the libraries in our great secular universities.

There is perhaps no other period in the history of the world that requires more careful investigation than that of the Renaissance in Italy, and this because of its complex character. Speaking of this complexity Dr. Pastor says: “In the nature of things it must be extremely difficult to present a truthful picture of an age which witnessed so many revolutions affecting almost all departments of human life and thought, and abounded in contradictions and startling contrasts. But the difficulty becomes enormously increased if we are endeavoring to formulate a comprehensive appreciation of the moral and religious character of such an epoch. In fact in one sense the task is an impossible one. No mortal eye can penetrate the conscience of a single man; how much less can any human intellect strike the balance between the incriminating and the extenuating circumstances on which our judgment of the moral condition of such a period depends, amid the whirl of conflicting events. In a rough way, no doubt, we can form an estimate, but it can never pretend to absolute accuracy. As Burckhardt, author of ‘The Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy,’ says: ‘In this region the more clearly the facts seem to point to any conclusion the more must we be upon our guard against unconditional or universal assertions.’”

It were well assuredly if some of our professors of history in the great secular universities—professors who assume to understand the Catholic Church and her policy better than her own clergy and laity—it were well, we say, if these would lay to their historical souls Pastor’s judicial words ere they indict the “Renaissance Period” and blacken the character of its popes, its prelates and its people.

The truth is that few if any non-Catholic students read Catholic historical works to-day. Jansen’s great work, dealing with the social and religious life of Germany in the period that preceded the advent of Luther, is considered to be the last word on this debatable ground, and yet how many non-Catholic students have ever opened its pages? The same may be said of Pastor’s monumental work. “Lives of the Popes Since the Close of the Middle Ages.” When this ignorance of Catholic fact is supplemented by the reading of such misrepresentation as is found in Browning’s poem, “The Bishop Orders His Tomb,” what hope can there be of justice to Catholic truth and the Catholic faith in our great secular universities?

We see, then, that not alone are the facts of history falsified, but the genius of the poet is enlisted to give glamor and glow to the historical slander.

Take again Tennyson’s poem, “St. Simeon Stylites.” This is a satire on ascetic life. Tennyson was a Broad Churchman, and it is said that he was particularly careful not to write anything that would offend the religious feelings of any of his friends. He saw, however, at the time of the “Oxford Movement,” the English mind in certain quarters look with favor on monasticism, and he wrote “St. Simeon Stylites” as a rebuke to the movement. But is it a true picture of the spirit and life of those early hermits of the desert? Not at all. Tennyson as a satirist did not aim at truth, but rather at exaggeration. So he puts into the mouth of this pillar-fixed saint these words of pride:

“A time may come, yea, even now,

When you may worship me without reproach,

And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones,

When I am gathered to the glorious Saints.”

The essence of the Catholic faith is not “the torpidity of assurance,” but the working out of one’s salvation in fear and trembling. That pride should sometimes gain entrance into the cloister and assume the garb of humility is no doubt true; but the self-renunciation which is the true spirit of the cloister, giving up all for the service of God, is in itself a mantle of virtue—a seamless garment of grace which neither the false satire of a Tennyson nor the flashlight of a Browning monologue can transform from a beauteous raiment of light.

It is true that the same pen which gave us “St. Simeon” gave us also these beautiful lines in “St. Agnes’ Eve,” a poem which is stirred with the loveliness and tenderness of religious life. St. Agnes on the very eve of death utters these ecstatic words in beatific vision:

“He lifts me to the golden doors;

The flashes come and go;

All heaven bursts her starry floors,

And strews her lights below,

And deepens on and up! The gates

Roll back, and far within

For me the heavenly Bridegroom waits

To make me pure of sin.

The Sabbaths of Eternity,

One Sabbath deep and wide—

A light upon the shining sea—

The Bridegroom with his bride.”

The student, before accepting Tennyson’s poetic or, more correctly, satiric picture of the hermits of the desert in the early centuries of the Church as represented in “St. Simeon Stylites,” would do well to study the condition of the Christian, or rather pagan, world at the time when the hermits fled to the desert. It is a remote period in the life of the world, and like all remote periods you must translate yourself into it if you would clearly and justly understand it. But we warn you that Kingsley’s “Hermits” will not enlighten you.

Catholics have no need to apologize for the life or policy of their Church during its reign of nineteen hundred years. It is a book open to the world, and every chapter in it is a record of the spiritual and intellectual progress of man. There have been, indeed, twilight epochs—spiritual eclipses—when man seemed to forget his divine destiny; but the Church of God still stood at her altars waiting for her people to kneel—waiting for the “Introibo ad altare Dei” to reach the heart of king and noble, peasant and slave.

Therefore as a student of history and literature we protest against every misrepresentation of Catholic truth, whether within the pages of history, fiction or poetry, no matter who may be its author—a professor in one of our New World universities, a Marie Corelli counting her gains as she kneels at the shrine of a publisher, a Tennyson striking the chords of falsehood and “looking down towards Camelot,” or a Browning constructing his little monologue chapel by the wayside to seduce from Catholic truth his poetic pilgrim—it is ever misrepresentation wearing the specious garb of truth, whether it be in history or fiction or poetry teaching falsehood.

THE STUDY AND INTERPRETATION

OF LITERATURE