MUTILATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 83 reading appointed after Easter, containing the interesting records of the first struggle and enterprises of the Christian Church, Rome has given little more than one half. The readings of the Old Testament have fared little better. The narratives of the creation and fall in Genesis are given in full; but, with the worst taste, the narrative of Joseph and his brethren is sadly mutilated; not more than one chapter, the 37th, is given, thus omitting the greater part of a narrative more interesting and instructive than all the legends of the Breviary. The narrative of Abraham's and Isaac's lies are omitted. Jacob's deceit is, indeed, given, but accompanied with a patristic comment that turns his lie into a mystery, if not into a virtue.1 For a like reason, we must suppose, the narrative of the destruction of Sodom, and of the conduct of Lot, are also omitted. Yet we find the narrative of David's great sin, in 2 Sam., inserted at length, along with a quotation from Ambrose, entitled, "The apology of David," which is in fact an eulogy on David's piety in the wrong time and place, illustrative enough of the undistinguishing comments of the Christian writers of the 4th and 5th centuries.3 Of the Book of Exodus very little is given. The 20th chapter, containing the law, is wholly omitted in the Breviary. We found the half of the ten commandments inserted in the Missal. From Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the quotations are next to none. But perhaps they are referred to, and it is presumed, as in the Church of England service, that the priest of Rome has a copy of the entire Scriptures always at hand, to which to turn for his Scripture lesson when too long to quote in the Breviary. But we find no references nor injunctions to the effect of having a copy of the Scriptures, nor assumption thereof. The Breviary is, evidently, designed to be a book sufficient of itself to satisfy the priest with Scripture, because satisfying the church to which he belongs. The chapters cited are, it is true, numbered in the Breviary so that he might easily discover the omitted as well the admitted Scripture readings; but the verses are not numbered, and he cannot, by simple inspection of his Breviary, discover the extent to which Mother Church has mu 1 Breviary Notes to Second Sunday of Quadragesima, at page 250 of Latin Breviary. 2 Genesis is read on Septuagesima Sunday and after, p. 220 &c., Brev. 3 Quotation from Ambrose, p. 426, Brev. tilated each portion. A careless attention to the Breviary gives no information as to the extent to which Scripture is broken up and marred in its sense and spirit. Our first impressions on opening the Breviary were quite different from what they now are, and strongly inclined. us to soften the charge of hiding Scripture from her priesthood. To them, at least, and to her professed religious, she seemed a truer instructor, was our thought, as we first turned over the pages of the Breviary, saw book following book, and chapter following chapter, as if all Scripture, with all its treasures, had been truly unfolded. This also was the high ideal of the Breviary-a noble ideal-worthy of a church of Christ to cherish, that all Scripture should be read by the religious once a year, and to which the Breviary was designed as a guide. But Rome's promises are to the ear, and ever broken to the hope. The following doggerel would persuade us that before Rome's priesthood the whole of Scripture is revolving all the year long in continuous, unbroken, unmutilated succession. We need not say now how untruly this is realised in the Breviary : "Disce per hoc Scriptum quid sit vel quando legendum Post natale sacrum, recitat sacra lectio Paulum Ite Ezechiel, Daniel, durabant mense Novembri What, to appearance, could be a fairer or fuller setting forth of Scripture than this! So full a Scripture feast, that we felt, as if from these Scripture readings, we could account, in some measure, for the number of spiritual minds still finding food within her pale, for her singular revivals and modern conquests over the Reformation in Europe. But on entering the interior of this temple, we experienced the same kind of disappointment as if expecting to meet the faces of loved and loving friends, we were shown only their skeletons and anatomised parts. Under the knife of Rome, much of the body and life of Scripture has disappeared; duties are divided from doctrines-and kindred truths torn from their relations-and the sweetest Scripture narratives are cleft asunder to adapt them to the teachings and practices of a church which exalts herself "above all that is called" God, and furnishes her priesthood with a Bible Breviary, like herself, a great pretence to be what it is not another proof that Rome's higher minds are more than half conscious of the unsoundness of her own pretensions, and durst not trust even her priesthood in the daily presence of the unmutilated Word of God. Yet mutilated as the Bible of the Breviary is, it is surely infinitely better than the no-Bible of the great majority of the Romish laity. The Word of God, even mutilated and disjointed, is still so far the Word of God, and as the worst translations that have ever been made of that Word cannot wholly disguise her great truths and lessons from mankind, so the selections of Rome in the Breviary present a wonderful contrast in matter and manner to those legends and lessons of the church with which they stand associated. Provision there is in the Breviary for spiritual life in Rome; reading and meditating on its Scripture lessons, many have doubtless found the Saviour whom they sought and sat at the foot of the cross, though still dwelling within her church pale, ecclesiastically bound, yet spiritually free, delighting themselves in the fine wheat of Scripture, yet, through habit, tolerating the superstitions of their church, and even defending them when assailed. The Bible in the Breviary may have led a Bernard or a Pascal to the Bible itself, and the Bible in the modern priest's Breviary, may lead him to avail himself of the greater facilities than existed in Bernard's or even Pascal's time, for the study of Holy Scripture in its integrity, and lay the foundations of those new sentiments and feelings, by which we may look, ere long, for a new reaction in Europe, in favour of that truly Christian as well as Protestant cry-" The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible." 1 In the Breviary as in the Missal, the Scripture lessons contain many rebukes to the teaching and superstitions of Rome, which cannot but speak to the conscience of the priest, and will speak with new power when the day of Divine awakening shall again come. But this mutilated Bible of the Breviary gives to the priest at least an entire Psalter, and in doing so, has provided devotionally for the piety of God's own people in her pale. But as we have seen how Rome has provided, in the most beautiful of all the prayers of the Missal, for the private preparation of the priest for mass, yet, in practice, these prayers are repeated while in the act of robing; so the Psalter is recited in a way, and to an amount, that must, in the great majority of cases, render all devotional feeling impossible, whatever may be the devotional manner. For the edification of Ireland, the Breviary has gravely recorded the manner in which St Patrick, its great national saint, recited his Psalter: "Besides his daily care of the churches, he never relaxed his invincible spirit of prayer, for they say (aiunt) that he was accustomed to recite daily the Psalter, together with canticles and hymns, and two hundred prayers. Three hundred times per day he adored God on bended knees, and at whatever canonical hour of the day, a hundred times he fortified himself with the sign of the cross. Dividing the night into three parts in the first he ran through a hundred psalms, and knelt two hundred times; in the second, the remaining fifty psalms, immersed in cold water, and, with heart, eyes, and hands, directed to heaven, he applied to be absolved; the third, stretched on the naked stones, he gave to gentle sleep." Such is the model saint of Ireland of the fifth century. Rome indeed tries to save itself while inserting this Irish foolery by its aiunt, "they say," implying that it does not believe or affirm what it thus records, for the reading of all her priests and religious. But by such means the Church of Rome has fostered the spirit of exaggeration in Ireland, until it is difficult for an Englishman to know what is meant, and the sense of truth and plain dealing is almost a lost sense. 1 Breviary, 17th March. Butler had the sense to omit this account, and is evidently ashamed of his own Breviary for retailing this fable. Had he written now instead of last century, we are not sure he would have so shrunk from it. When we find F. Newman gratuitously avowing his belief in all these legends, we see the tone of prevailing feeling to be very different from that of last century, in the pale of Rome itself. PATRISTIC LESSONS. 87 CHAPTER VI. PATRISTIC LESSONS OF THE BREVIARY AND LEGENDS. Lessons from the Fathers.-Number.-Proportion from different Fathers.—Expositions of Scripture.-Illustrations of Romish commentary.- Gregory's canon of interpretation.-Faithful teaching of the Breviary on the divinity of Christ. The Legends.-The retort on Protestants.-The Martyrologies.— The difference between Romish legends and Protestant martyrologies.-The obscure work most miracles; the apostles fewest.-The opinion of Gregory the Great on miracles.-The martyrs of the Breviary contrasted with Scripture martyrs. Gorgonius, Thecla, St Vitus.-The Breviary supplement to the account of the Apostles, St Andrew, James the Less, St John.-Internal evidence against them. WE have seen what the Breviary makes of the Bible. It is not so easy to give an idea of the use made of the fathers and doctors in the patristic lessons which accompany the Scripture ones. These quotations had need to be laboriously compared, sentence by sentence, with the best editions of their originals, to ascertain their fidelity. Alteration was so much more easy, and is so much more difficult of detection, than in the Scripture lessons. The book of God's word, though an epitome of many books, and of many ages, and many things, is yet a real Breviary which every man may read over many times in his life, and of the fidelity of which, every man may judge. But the fathers and doctors of the first twelve centuries, from Irenæus to Thomas Aquinas, are scattered over above three hundred volumes, through which few have found their way, and fewer still can retain any vivid recollection. In such a chain of fathers, 1 In "The History of the Church of Rome to the end of the Episcopate of Damasus, 384," by Rev. John Shepherd, London, 1851, the reader may see some remarkable evidences of the manner in which the church historians, Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, &c., have been altered to countenance the pretensions of Rome. In the middle ages, everything was tampered with that could touch Romish claims; so that a true church history is a thing not directly to be had from church historians. |