WHAT is the secret and so potent attraction of the Saints? Renan
says somewhere that he would have given everything he had to have
seen St. Mary of Egypt pacing the desert in ecstasy, half-starved
and turned to the semblance of Nebuchadnezzar. And Renan liberally
discounted the value, not only of Theology, but also of the
particular virtue, the loss of which had driven that Saint to such
an unusual mode of life. The interest in sanctity evidently
survives theological and ethical pre-occupations. Indeed, to-day,
the Saint is perhaps an object of higher intrinsic interest to "
unbelievers" than to the faithful. For to the faithful he is
primarily useful, either as being efficacious in various troubles
of life or, on a higher plane, as a sort of spiritual agent,
obtaining graces for his clients. o admirabile commercium But, like
everything else, this celestial intercourse suffers from the
defects of its qualities. I do not wish to be understood as making
light of superstition. The humblest blossom of that luxuriant
garden is of infinite value, nor do the roots of our most highly
rationalised opinions grow outside it. Nevertheless the important
position of the Saint in the Catholic economy does tend to conceal
his real personality from his worshippers.' He inevitably tends to
be considered more as a means to an end, than as an object
intrinsically worthy of contemplation. In these circumstances the
actual historical value of his personality is apt to be obscured by
legend and fancy. Legend, of course, if at all contemporaneous, is
of the highest value as illustrating his effect on those with whom
he came in contact. We could ill spare in the life of St. Francis
the Wolf of Gubbio. Modern devotional fancy is less illuminative.
It throws no light upon the character of St. Anthony of Padua to
learn that centuries after his death he recovered some papers lost
by that devout man King Charles II. What then is it that
constitutes the intrinsic interest of the Saint when his
supernatural value has gone? One reason, I think, for this interest
is that the Saint represents, in a quite unique manner, the
satisfaction of a desire which all men more or less obscurely feel.
Ever since man emerged from amid the labyrinth of irrational
forces, which, until his appearance, determined the evolution of
life on the planet, he has sought for power. Power at first over
the hostile or indifferent nature which surrounded him, over the
stream, the spark of fire, the wild bear: then over his fellow-men,
and, at length, when he began to turn his gaze inwards, over
himself. It is noticeable that all the really primitive myths
divinised various aspects of power, celebrated the triumph of
force. As the social arts began to develop, and, among them, of
sheer necessity, morality, men began to attribute moral qualities
to the force which they felt around them, above them, and within
them. "N'ayant pas pu faire que Ie juste soit fort, nous avons fait
que Ie fort soit juste," says Pascal. This attribution, however, no
less than morality itself, was an afterthought unconsciously
conceived in the interest of his self-preservation-for, without
morality of some sort, man would soon have disappeared before the
wolf and the bear. And, by giving the ultimate sanction of force to
his social rule of thumb, he naively betrayed his intuition that
that ultimate force was the more fundamental reality.
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