THE Revelation of God came to the world through the Hebrews, a
people unused to abstract speculation, their very language too bald
for Philosophy, so that Theology had to take the language of
poetry, concrete images taking the place of definitions or
syllogisms. These characteristics, whilst they prevented very great
development of doctrine, were a safeguard against its perversion.
When in the fullness of time Christ brought that complete
Revelation of which Judaism was but the prologue, it was to the
Hebrews that He spoke. He gave them His whole teaching-but in their
own tongue, their own forms, not only of speech but of thought. Yet
His Church was to be no longer the Jewish Church, but the Catholic
Church. His Revelation was to all mankind and was to be received
and assimilated not by the practical ethical Hebrew only, but by
the subtleminded Greek, by the Eastern mystic, and by the
childlike, untrained mind of far-off Goth and Barbarian. When on
the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended upon that little band
which Christ had formed and trained, they went forth to bring all
minds into captivity to the truth; and these were not minds empty,
waiting passively for the truth, but minds already active, with
ideas, theories, and habits of thought of their own. Into minds
thus preoccupied the Christian Faith was to enter-to seize and act
upon and mould them, and, within certain very rigid limits, to be
reacted upon by them. When Revelation took its rightful place as
Ruler and Judge, then all of natural truth or mental power that a
man had was enriched and crowned by it; al1 that was false or
imperfect being abolished or rejected. The Faith itself being more
clearly set forth, more deeply penetrated, as the minds of men were
brought to bear upon it, gave forth all its strength, light, and
sweetness. That way lay development-a process which began the first
moment a Christian meditated on Christ's teaching, and it shall not
cease as long as one of the Faithful remains to keep the Faith. But
whenever Faith came to a mind not prepared to give it the first and
ruling place, but determined to judge and test it by its own
prepossessions, its own prejudices -then the truth became
perverted, one-sided: and so were born heresies: so began the first
heresy: so will heresies arise until Christ returns and Faith ends
in Vision. Well might the Apostles have quailed at the task before
them. Silnple Palestinian Jews, how should they commend their faith
to the whole Gentile world, a world whose thought was so alien from
their own? But their Risen Master had promised that the Holy Ghost
should bring to their minds all things whatsoever He had told them.
In this knowledge, with this strength, they went forward knowing
that whatever their personal weakness, however limited their
individual knowledge or capacity, their mission could not fail, for
He who had sent them had promised that the gates of hell should not
prevail against them and that He would be with them even to the
consummation of the world.
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