The prophets of the past.

— A work entitled The prophets of the past, n by Barbey d'Aurévilly, contains the eulogy of Joseph de Maistre and of Bonald, because they remained ultramontane throughout their lives, whereas Chateaubriand is therein censured and Lamennais insulted and presented under an odious aspect.

The following passage shows with what spirit the book is conceived:

“In this world, where spirit and body are united by an indissoluble mystery, corporal punishment has its spiritual reason for existing, because man does not have the mission of unfolding creation. Well then! if, instead of burning the writings of Luther, whose ashes fell upon Europe like a seed, they had burned Luther himself, the world would have been saved for at least a century. Burn Luther, they will cry out; but I do not essentially insist upon the stake, provided that error be suppressed in its manifestation of the moment and in its continuous manifestation, that is, the man who said or wrote it and who calls it truth. That is much for the lambs of anarchy, who bleat nothing but liberty! A man of genius, the most positive who has lived since Machiavelli and who was absolutely not Catholic, but, on the contrary, somewhat liberal, said, with the brutality of a necessary decision: ‘My policy is to kill two men, when necessary, to save three.’ Now, by killing Luther, it is not three men who would be saved at the cost of two: it was thousands of men at the cost of a single one. Besides, there is more than the economy of the blood of men: there is the respect of the conscience and of the intelligence of the human race. Luther falsified both the one and the other. Then, when there is a teaching and a social faith — it was, at that time, Catholicism — they must be defended and protected, under penalty of perishing, one day or another, as a society. Hence tribunals and institutions to take cognizance of offenses against faith and teaching. The Inquisition is, therefore, of logical necessity in any society.”

— If the principles we have just cited were no more than the personal opinion of the author of that work, there would be no reason to concern ourselves with many other eccentricities. But he does not speak only in his own name, and the party of which he makes himself the organ, not disapproving of them, at least gives them a tacit adherence. Moreover, it is not the first time that, in our days, these same doctrines are publicly advocated, and it is quite certain that they still constitute the opinion of a certain class of persons. If one is not stirred enough, it is because society has too much awareness of its strength to take fright. Each one understands that such anachronisms harm, above all, those who commit them, because they dig more deeply the abyss between the past and the present; they enlighten the masses and keep them awake.

As one sees, the author does not disguise his thought and takes no oratorical precautions; he does not beat about the bush: “It would have been necessary to burn Luther; it would have been necessary to burn all the fomenters of heresies, for the greater glory of God and the salvation of religion.” It is clear and precise. It is sad for a religion to found its authority and stability upon such expedients; it is to show little confidence in its moral ascendancy. If its base is absolute truth, it should defy all contrary arguments; like the Sun, it suffices that it show itself to dissipate the darkness. Every religion that comes from God has nothing to fear from the caprice nor from the malice of men; it draws its strength from reasoning; and if it were in the power of one man to overthrow it, one of two things: either it would not be the work of God, or that man would be more logical than God, since his arguments would prevail against those of God. The author would have preferred to burn Luther rather than his books, because, he says, the ashes of these fell upon Europe like a seed. It must be granted, then, that the autos-da-fé of books profit more the idea one wishes to destroy than they harm it. There is a great and profound truth verified by experience. For this reason, to burn the man seems to him more effective, because, in his opinion, it is to halt the evil at its source. But, then, does he believe that the ashes of the man are less fecund than those of the books? Has he reflected on all the offshoots produced by the ashes of four hundred thousand heretics burned by the Inquisition, without counting the much greater number of those who perished in other tortures? Burned books give only ashes; but human victims give blood, producing indelible marks that fall upon those who shed it. It was from that blood that came the fever of incredulity which torments our century, and if faith is being extinguished, it is because they wished to cement it with blood, and not with the love of God. How to love a God who has his children burned? How to believe in his goodness, if the smoke of the victims is incense agreeable to him? How to believe in his infinite power, if he needs the arm of man to make his authority prevail through destruction? They will say that this is not religion, but abuse. If such were, in fact, the essence of Christianity, there would be nothing to envy in paganism, even as regards human sacrifices, and the world would have gained almost nothing by the exchange. Yes, it is certainly abuse; but when the abuse is the work of chiefs who have authority, who make of it a law and present it as the most holy orthodoxy, it is not to be wondered at if, later, the little-enlightened masses confound the whole in the same reprobation. Now, it was precisely the abuses that engendered the reforms, and those who advocated them reap what they sowed.

It is to be noted that nine tenths of the three hundred and sixty-odd sects that have divided Christianity since its origin had for their object to draw nearer to the evangelical principles, it being rational to conclude that, if they had not departed from them, these sects would not have formed. And with what weapons were they combated? Always with iron, fire, proscriptions, and persecutions; sad and poor means of convincing! It was in blood that they wished to stifle them. For lack of reasoning, force was able to triumph over individuals, to destroy them, to disperse them, but it was not able to annihilate the idea. This is why, with some variants, we see them reappear ceaselessly, under other names or under new chiefs.

As has been seen, the author of that book is favorable to heroic remedies. However, as he fears that the idea of burning will make people cry out in the century in which we are, he declares that he does “not essentially insist upon the stake, provided that error be suppressed in its manifestation of the moment and in its continuous manifestation, that is, the man who said or wrote it, and who calls it truth.” Thus, provided that the man disappear, the manner matters little to him. It is known that resources are not lacking: the end justifies the means. So much for the manifestation of the moment; but, in order for error to be destroyed in its continuous manifestation, it is necessary, of necessity, that all the adherents who have not been willing to surrender of their own accord disappear. One sees that this leads us far. Besides, if the means is harsh, it is infallible for ridding oneself of any opposition. In the century in which we are, such ideas cannot but be importations and reminiscences of preceding existences. As for the lambs that bleat liberty, it is again an anachronism, a recollection of the past; in fact, formerly they could only bleat, but today the lambs have become battering rams: they no longer bleat liberty; they take it.

Let us see, nevertheless, whether by burning Luther they would have halted the movement, of which he was the instigator. The author does not seem very certain of this, for he says: “The world would have been saved, at least for a century.” A century's respite, that is all they would have gained! And why? Here is the reason.

If the reformers expressed only their personal ideas, they would reform absolutely nothing, because they would find no echo. A single man is powerless to stir the masses if these are inert and do not feel some fiber vibrate within them. It is to be noted that the great social renewals never come abruptly; like volcanic eruptions, they are preceded by precursory symptoms. The new ideas germinate, are in effervescence in a number of heads; society is agitated by a kind of shudder, which puts it in expectation of something.

It is in these moments that the true reformers arise, who thus see themselves as representatives, not of an individual idea, but of a collective, vague idea, to which the reformer gives a precise and concrete form, and he triumphs only because he finds spirits ready to receive it. Such was the position of Luther. But Luther was not the first, nor the only promoter of the reform. Before him there were apostles such as Wickliffe, John Huss, Jerome of Prague; these last two were burned by order of the council of Constance; the Hussites, persecuted with rigor after a fierce war, were vanquished and massacred. They destroyed the men, but not the idea, which was taken up again later under another form and modified in some details by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc., whence it is permissible to conclude that, if they had burned Luther, this would have served for nothing and would not even have given a century's respite, because the idea of the reform was not only in the head of Luther, but in that of thousands of heads, from which there were bound to come forth men capable of sustaining it. It would have been but one crime more, without profit for the cause that had provoked it; so true is it that, when a current of new ideas crosses the world, nothing can halt it. Reading such words, one would say they were written during the fever of the religious wars, and not in the times when doctrines are judged with the calm of reason.

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