April 1893

Manila

Manila, April 1893

MR. JOSE RIZAL

MY MOST BELOVED IN CHRIST DON JOSE,

I received your affectionate letter of 5 April of the present year.

A slight indisposition has prevented me from answering it in due time.

I am glad that you are getting to like the work of Mgr. Bougand. May your faith be reborn with its perusal, the faith that we are missing in you. Faith cannot be called the result of rationalization; it is a supernatural gift of God our Lord, because faith being the beginning and root of justification, cannot be acquired through natural forces only. It needs besides the aid of divine grace. Faith is a voluntary gift for which man freely submits his reason to the authority of [a] revealing God. Neither is it blind on this account because it is proposed on evident and unimpeachable motives of credibility that attest to the objective truth or existence of revealed dogmas though their understanding is beyond our understanding! The physicist perceives the phenomena of nature, the chemist the effects of the combination of the constituent elements of bodies, the astronomer the asteroids and other celestial bodies invisible to the naked eye, the magnetic worker deduces from the variations of his needle the operation of the solar spots and protuberances, the polar lights, the passage of the sun’s eclipse, of the earthquakes and hurricanes, and so with the rest of the learned men with their respective sciences. I concede that they know the existence of phenomena; but do they really understand which of them are in themselves comprehensible? Then it can be known likewise with the instrument of divine grace, which is of supernatural range, the truth of the existence of revealed dogmas without understanding the mysteries contained in them. The authority of [a] revealing God confirmed by supernatural phenomena, which are miracles and prophecies, are enough for us to affirm the Supernatural existence of the dogmas.

However, as it is desired that the supernatural act of faith be human and therefore deliberate and free, it cannot be blind, because then the will reasonably subjects understanding to the yoke of faith, or rather the authority of revealing God and both faculties aided by divine grace, illuminating and impulsive, give assent to revealed truths of the supernatural order.

You do not deny the possibility of miracles whose existence I demonstrated in one of my former letters by the fact of the resurrection of Lazarus and Jesus Christ, the first being performed as the divine mission of Jesus Christ and the second as proof of his divinity. Signs of unfaithfulness; do you want to see proven the existence of miracles? Go to Lourdes or read the history written by Henry Laserre or the annals of Lourdes and you will be convinced until the last evidence that miracles occur independently of hallucination and imagination and without making illusions, phenomena take place beyond the reach of every human and natural force. There, only eyes are necessary to see, common sense to appreciate the continuity of supernatural phenomena, and knowledge to analyze them and to be convinced as the most intelligent physicians of the world have been really convinced that nature is really impotent to bring about the sudden healing of the chronic cares of a bone with the potable water of that historic spring.

You admit the possibility of revelation and miracles and you deny their convenience; but having proved to you that miracles exist and therefore revelation confirmed by the said miracles, by that mere fact it remains demonstrated the opportunity of revelation and miracles. Anyhow as these cannot be done except by God, Who never acts superfluously but in conformity with the plan devised from eternity for His external glory, it turns out that what is in conformity with the divine plan is convenient, and therefore so are the miracle and revelation that in this case meet. Therefore all that you say that though God cannot contradict Himself in suspending in certain cases the laws of nature, it occurs to you to say however that in this case God shows Himself inferior to Himself inasmuch as He could achieve the same effects without suspending his laws and in this He resembles a poor ruler that in order to get out of a difficulty suspends the effectiveness of laws substituting for it His will, the opposite of one who governs in peace and strengthens what is established, does not apply in this case; for there is no parity between the example that you adduce and the case before us. Because the ruler as such enjoys an authority shared and limited by God Himself, as St. Paul says Non est protestas nisi a Deo,[1] while God has absolute and unlimited power. Man who governs according to law is not the primary author nor the true factor and arbiter of the same while God, primary author, origin of all law, is the one who points out to him his horizons and course, limits his authority and excludes it in definite cases when and how He pleases for the sake of the eternal laws of morality and justice or when it is demanded by reasons of high convenience for the glory of God, as it happens precisely in the miracles where the order of the physical world is subordinated to that of the moral and supernatural, making a minor force cede its action to a greater and more efficacious superior order for the fulfillment of the sublime ends established by the author of these three worlds that contribute towards the total and complete evolution of the happiness of man who obeys God and serves Him — in the world of nature, in the world of grace, and in the world of glory.

Thus, for example, He agreed that the three boys praise God in the midst of the voracious flames of the oven of Babilonia and that Daniel remain seated in the den in the midst of hungry lions without being hurt. Let the bull of Anacreon stop bellowing and let us not pretend to act as counselors of divinity, limiting its marvels, rather, overtaken by admiration and respect, let us exclaim with the Apostle St. Paul: “Oh the profundity of the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how incomprehensible are His decisions, how inconceivable are his ways! Because, who has known the designs of the Lord? Or who is the one who gave him first something that he may be compensated for it? All things are His and all are for Him, and all exist in Him; to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Therefore miracles are not ill-used so long as they are performed by God to confirm a truth or to defend a supernatural virtue, because then the author of nature, of grace, and of glory subordinates as He pleases the kingdom of nature to that of grace so that through this that of glory may be reached easier. There you have, my dear Rizal, the explanation of the convenience and even the necessity of the miracles that God performs for the sake of men; and let us not go into scrutinizing the secret intentions of God and in wanting Him to rectify the mistake on pain of bellowing like the bull of Anacreon and for which the Highest can reprimand us from the whirlwind of our tangled lucubrations, Quis est iste involvens sententias sermonibus imperitisUbi eras quando Poneban fundamenta terrae . . .[2] etc.

You say that “in examining impartially, comparing, and scrutinizing revelation or revelations that every religion or many religions pretend to possess, you cannot help but recognize in all of them the human fang and the stamp of the time in which they were written.” Let us lay aside the false religions for which I grant you readily all that you affirm. Dealing with the Catholic religion, I assure you, my dear friend, that you have not examined impartially nor have you been able to compare or analyze the truths revealed by Catholicism to recognize in all of them the human fang and the stamp of the time in which they were written. What fang and what stamp? That of the writers who wrote the sacred books through divine inspiration? But do we Catholics at any rate wish to declare that the sacred books have nothing human in them? And by chance for this reason you have the right to affirm that the sacred books were not divinely inspired? Because God has made use of human instruments to communicate with men, we have to deny that He is the Author of the inspiration of the sacred books? When a composer plays on the keys of the organ a piece communicating to him the sounds according to his inclination, will it be denied by chance that he is the author of the harmony rather than the bellows, the air, the pipes, the strings, and the keys that produce the physical sounds? Lingua mea calamus scribae velociter scribentis[3] the Prophet King said of himself in writing his psalm and he said rightly inasmuch as his language expressing the inspiration of his mind was the pen that the Holy Ghost used to communicate with us its revelation.

The divine inspiration that the Catholic Church recognizes and affirms in the canon books of the Bible enshrines according to Cardinal Ceferino Gonzales a special action of God over the mind and will of the sacred writer by virtue of which He moves and guides him to write definite things, which either they are revealed to him by God Himself if they are unknown to him or are superior to human reason, or in the case when the writer already possess a knowledge of them, He assists and helps him, sometimes so that he would not incur in an error in writing them down, sometimes so that he would write only what God wants and in the form, condition, and circumstances that He wants. Not all the contents of the sacred books can be called revealed truths in the strict sense of the word, though all can be and ought to be called inspired.

On the other hand, neither can we say that all the revealed truths are found in the sacred books, because there are revealed truths that are not recorded in them but in tradition, for as the Vatican Council says, “Supernaturalis revelation, secundum universalis Ecclesiae fidem, continentur in libris scriptis, et sine scripto traditionibus.’[4] From this we gather (1) the canon books do not contain all revelation and (2) all revelation presupposes and embodies inspiration, but not all inspiration presupposes and embodies revelation properly speaking. Then, provided that the Catholic Church recognizes under the human fang the divine finger of inspiration is enough to assure that the books of the Old and New Testament recognized as such by the Catholic Church are to be received by the faithful as sacred and canonical. Thus the Vatican Council affirms: Veteris et Novi Testamenti libri, integri cum omnibus suis partibus pont in ejusdem concilii decreto recensetur et in veteri. Vulgata Latina edition habentur, pro sacris et canonicis suscipiendi sunt. Eos vero Ecclesiae pro sacris et canonicis habet, non ideo, quod sola humana industria concinnati, sua deinde auctoritate sun approbati; nec ideo dumtaxat quod revelationem sine errore contineant, sed propterea quod Spirity Sancto inspirante conscripti; Deum, habent auctorem, atque est tales ipsi Ecclesiae traditi sunt.[5] In such a case the human fang will be the divine instrument in the manner that the organ and orchestra are the human instruments of the original compositions of Verdi, Mozart, and Rossini, with the difference that these instruments are automatic and the first one of is free and therefore, in order to know if it is form God, it has to be submitted to a test, or rather to the touchstone, which is the verdict of the Catholic Church, the only repository and infallible teacher who can discern the true from the false revelation.

As to the stamp of the time in which were written the revealed truths that the Catholic Church possesses, it is evident that as men lived in the time when the revelation ought to have taken place and inasmuch as it has to be communicated to men of diverse epochs, the revelations inevitably carry with them the stamp of the times during which they were written.

And what greater proof of the authenticity of a book than that stamp can you wish? It matters only to know that the books recognized by the Catholic Church as sacred and canonical are really authentic and divinely inspired, in which case we have to acknowledge that God is the Author, however much you may recognize in them the human fang and the stamp of the time in which they were written. Do you want to say that because of the stamp of the time in which the sacred books were written it can be inferred that its primitive content was falsified with myths in accordance with the ideas that prevailed in the society of diverse historical epochs until our times and consequently the sacred trust of revelation contained in the sacred Scriptures and in the tradition of the Catholic Church has not been preserved pure and complete?

You see, my friend, that by no means do I hide from you the weight of the problem. We are then going to solve it and I will do it with the words of the celebrated Lacordaire: “There where writing rises, where the immobilized account appears, where the inscribed bronze is placed in front of the generations of men, the mythical power of men immediately vanishes. For then the fact in its true proportions remains before their eyes; it remains dominating their imagination and against it a thousand years or one day are of no avail. From Heredotus to Tacitus have you seen myths in history? Was Charlemagne converted into a myth at the end of one thousand years? Augustus Caesar, upon being sunk into the depths of the past, had he assumed any mythical appearance? No. The modern historian tries to discover the myth in the farthest place, as for example, in the beginnings of Rome, Romulus and Remus. Why? Because though it was near writing, though it pre-existed formerly in other countries, it had not yet received the custody of Roman history. But once the generals plot of history comes to life, the mythical mould is instantly broken.

Whatever transformation might have been fraudulently introduced into the sacred pages during the prevalent period of writing, the authentic fact of interpolation was not written down with impunity, without the unanimous protests of learned Jews and Christians and even of the dissident sects themselves. And why should it not be so when even the number of words, syllables, and letters and accents of which writing was composed, nay, the number of ve[6]……….. demerit and responsibility of human acts deliberately and freely performed by this second rational cause whom we call man. And just as a Catholic does not lay his works on God neither does he impose his will upon Him, on the contrary he prays every day to Him in Our Father, “Do your will on earth as in Heaven.”

In the Catholic doctrine it is God who imposes His will on man: Si vis ad vitam ingredi serva mandata.[7] Obedience to God is exactly the great precept of Christianity and Judaism and disobedience to the divine commands has always been considered a kind of idolatry — tamquam Peccatum ariolandi est non obedire. He who wants to enter the kingdom of Heaven must keep the Commandments and he who does not keep them will be damned. It seems to me that this is not imposing our will on God but that of God on us, the opposite of what the Polish magnates did in choosing their king to which you allude.

You add besides that we all make God in our image and likeness without excepting myself when I said: “He who made eyes, will not see He who fashioned ears, will not hear?” And seeming to you that you had heard in these phrases something like the lowering of Anacreon’s bull, you continue with a certain irony: “He who made horns will not know how to gore?” And then drawing the moral, you say: “What is perfection in us can be an imperfection in God.” And in the following line: “No, let us not make a god in our image, poor inhabitants that we are of a little planet lost in the infinite spaces. However brilliant and sublime our mind may be, it is scarcely a spark that shines and is extinguished in a moment, and it alone cannot give us an idea of that bonfire, of that conflagration, of that abundant light that is called God, you have not wished to incur in the errors of pantheism or fetishism, for on the contrary the lowering of the bull would be most solemn.”

I ought then to conclude that your phrases have been written in an allegorical sense and better still in the analogical sense. Therefore do me the kindness of interpreting mine in the latter sense when 1 said: “He who made eyes, will not see? He who fashioned ears, will not hear?” For

God does not need eyes to see nor ears to hear nor does God see with this physical sight nor hear with ears like ours but He sees and hears with His eternal wisdom and infinite immensity with which attributes He is present to all and comprehending all in such a way that according to the Apostle “In Him we live, we move, and we are.” God possess in essence the positive perfections called simpliciter tales in an infinite and absolute degree. Creatures share the perfections of God in finite and analogical degree.

Perfection in us can be an imperfection in God taken in the same degree and sense, but not in what 1 have just explained. God, author of horns, of course knows how to gore without the need of using horns. Because, as first cause, He produces the effects of the second causes be they horns or whips, famines, pestilences, wars, earthquakes, floods, conflagrations, ruins, and desolations; for without being each one of these calamities, He can cause them all solely with His will, assistance, and providence. Consequently in attributing to God the effects of the second causes, though they be gorings, we attribute to Him in the most eminent, simplest, and foremost way all the virtue and efficacy of the second causes, His workmanship.

In dealing with Revelation you hold off the subject when you say: “I believe in the revelation of nature that surrounds us everywhere, in that mighty voice, eternal, incessant, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal, like the Being from which it comes, in that revelation that speaks to us and pervades us from our birth until our death.”

Good God! But we are dealing here with that other revelation supernatural, properly speaking, that has been communicated by God to man with regard to his eternal salvation… And what can the supposed living revelation of nature teach us with regard to our justification, sanctification, and eternal salvation? Not a single word. We would remain completely in the dark with respect to your ultimate end if the luminous beacon of supernatural hope, based on the faith in revealed truths that God communicates to us with His grace, did not shine in our soul.

And even with respect to the moral order, I assure you, my dear friend, that that revelation of nature that dazzles and seduces you so much is very pale, and though it surrounds us everywhere, plays with us hide and seek, quite often we do not succeed to find it. Its voice, far from being strong, reaches us, which the majority of men would not even notice, if that luminous and supernatural gleam of Christian moral did not continually pass across mankind. Neither is its voice eternal as neither is nature that produces it is eternal; it is not incessant, because being felt only in the bosom of conscience, how many times are its cries silenced with the wens that bad life forms on it. How often not even the most tenuous rumor, not even the lightest aura of its beneficent influence will be heard on account of that ignoti nulla cupido?[8]

When darkness reigns in the mind, its opacity prevents truths to have resonance in the heart. And indeed the voice of nature is corrupting for us when our faculties are debased. Let them say it, if not the infinity of philosophico-moral errors maintained by the greatest sages of the pagan world and modern rationalists who figure sadly on the pages of the history of our philosophy. Consider it certain that that voice of nature by itself in view of the condition of our flagging nature, far from being clear and distinct, obscure and confused enough, and is very far from being universal crier of the law that God since the beginning had engraved in the hearts of men, but had to engrave it afterwards on stone tablets both times and proclaim it amidst lightning and thunderbolts because of the forgetfulness of men themselves. Despite this, you review the pages of the history of countries and nations, races and tribes in diverse times and ages and you will find how in all of them, with the exception of Christianity, all kinds of errors in the natural, ontological, psychological, theological, and ethical order have swarmed. And how many savage peoples exist today, I don’t say any more in the jungles of Africa, Asia, America, and Oceania, but even in cultured Europe that ignore the most transcendental and primitive truths of sane morality! How much ignorance of natural law in certain classes of European society! How many savage peoples to be subdued could be formed with those centers of nihilism anarchism, communism, and socialism!

If in the state of spiritual darkness in which minds are submerged and in the filthy quagmire of vices in which a large part of mankind today vegetates, despite the luminous wake that the Immaculate Doctrine of Catholicism is leaving behind everywhere, capable of illuminating everything and purifying it with its wholesome atmosphere, our society has become a Lazarus covered with the most loathsome moral leprosy, what would it be before the coming of Jesus Christ when the worship of all vices personified in the lewd marbles of the Pantheon deified the overflowing of all passions and the excesses of all crimes? And if nature has not succeeded to make its voice heard clearly, distinctly, and universally by all human minds, hearts, and conscience, how much less will it speak to them and pervade them from the time man is born until he dies? You read for God’s sake and saturate well your spirit with chapters 54 and 55 of book 3 of the imponderable Imitation of Christ. These are his most precious sentences:

Opus est gratia tua et magna gratia ut vincatur natura ad malum semper prona ab adolescentia sua.

Nam per Primum hominem Adam lapsa, et vitiata per Peccatum, in omnes homines poena hujus maculae descendit; ut ipsa natura, quae bona et recta a te condita fuit, pro vitio jam et infirmitate corruptae naturae Ponatur, eo quod motus eius sibi relictus ad malum et inferiora trahit.

Nam modica vis quae remansit est tamquam scintilla quaedam Iatens in cinere.

Haec est ipsa ratio naturalis, circumfusa magna caligine, adhuc judicium habens boni et mali, veri falsique distansit adimplere omne quod approbats nec pleno jam honine veritatis nec sanitate affectionum suarum potiatur…[9]

There are other books, therefore, that radiating its light at a time over nature makes it more attainable to our minds and wills and reveal to us better than nature the work and goodness of God, His love, His providence, His eternity, His glory, and His wisdom. These are the sacred books interpreted in the sense in which the Catholic Church receives them and the tradition of the revealed truths that in trust this same Church faithfully preserves and interprets with infallible authority as we are going to prove later on. You affirm rightly that Coeli ennarant gloriam Domini et opera manuum ejus anuntiat firmamentum![10] But you must know that these are the works of the finger of God only, opera digitorum suorum… Ipse dixit et facta sunt mandavit et creata sunt.” However, there are other works that we could call not of the finger but of the arm and even of the right arm of the Highest because they were achieved by Him eminently and wisely. Such are the Incarnation of the Word and Redemption of mankind by Himself, the Glorification of Mankind of Our Lord Jesus Christ and his Church. Mankind needs this Bible and this Gospel in order to reestablish peace with God, to love Him as it is convenient in this life and enjoy Him eternally in the other. Do not look for the code of divine positive law in the works of nature and under the august canopy of the heavens as if from them would shower the manna that will give us the eternal life, but in the divine tradition and in the sacred books filed in the temple of the Catholic Church where the treasures of supernatural revelation are preserved in all their purity and entirety. For him who agrees with the faithful and genuine interpretation of the Catholic Church there do not exist in matters of faith and customs obscure passages or phrases in the Bible or in tradition. The interpretation of the Bible in conformity with the rules Catholic hermeneutics, far from provoking hatreds, wars, and dissensions, on the contrary unites the minds and fraternizes the hearts with the same ideas, the same principles, the same purpose, identical tendencies, and identical and aspirations. Is this not better than interpreting blindly the mute phenomena of nature with the desperate theories of monism? Undeceive yourself; in order to adjust our life to the immutable laws of God or rather His positive will, the inviolable laws of nature are not enough, and to utilize its forces for our benefit, it is necessary besides for the perfection of man to subject our life, mind, and will to the inviolable positive laws revealed by God and to utilize supernatural forces that He communicates to us through the medium of His divine graces by virtue of the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the achievement of our sanctification and eternal life. And when, I ask now, have men begun to fraternize in fact except when they have found the second page of the work of God or rather the redemption by Our Lord Jesus Christ and his law of grace? Adam tore off and threw to the ground the first page and mankind of the ancient world found scattered isolated characters that the greatest sages (like Zoroaster, Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles, Cicero, etc,) endeavored to gather together without ever succeeding completely to achieve it and much less to practice it.

Who really achieved this glory was Jesus Christ, who, wresting the decree of condemnation from the hands of our common enemy, he nailed it with himself on the cross and erasing it with his blood, sealed with it the integral precepts of natural law, confirming them with the law of grace that before his death and glorious ascension to heaven he proclaimed and ordered to be proclaimed by his disciples to all the peoples of the universe. Until then mankind “like the prodigal son who, blind before the happiness of the parental home, had sought others abroad,” wandered miserably and full of rancor during many centuries. Jesus Christ introduced into the world the true peace. He made the men who received it adopted sons of God and heirs of heaven. The precepts of absolute necessity and utility pertaining to natural law have been written by God not in the phenomena of nature but in the convolutions of our conscience

The heart is the best temple in which to worship God in spirit and truth and in which His sacred law has to take root. However this inner temple requires another external one to render to God the external cult, the sincere expression of the internal, before men and as men composed of body and soul. For this reason, we are more compelled to worship this good and provident God who endowed us with soul and body, natural and supernatural riches (with which we possess what is needed for our salvation), who opened us the book of natural law and of supernatural revelation entrusting both to the infallible guardianship of the body of prelates and clergy of the Catholic Church who as such instructs the learner in the canons of the ecumenical councils and in the dogmatic decisions of the Roman pontiffs. For that same reason, we ought not only to listen to the voice of God on the altar of our heart when the priest of our conscience officiates in it, speaking to us as the intermediary of God Himself when he proclaims our natural duties but also to the voice of the infallible authority who has received from the Supreme Being the divine mission of teaching us, supporting us in the duties of natural law and instructing us in the duties of divine positive law so that with its fulfillment, in cooperation with the divine grace and by virtue of the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we attain at most the merited justice of our eternal salvation. In this sense the better religion will be that which can best obtain for us the supernatural and eternal purpose that God intended when He created and redeemed us; because this religion is the one which is more in harmony with the constant natural and supernatural aspirations of man, expressed by St. Augustine in these persuasive words: Fecisti nos Domine ad te et irrequetum est cor nostrum donec conquiescat in te.[11] And here is the principal excellence of the consoling doctrine of the religion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because, besides being the only true religion, it is also the only one that satisfies completely the aspirations of man.

When you say that the voice of your conscience can only come from God, you do not judge by deduction but you prejudge the question as if the only criterion that we could have in fact were the testimony of conscience, as if God could not communicate with us through other channels.

But if you judge by deduction, you judge by reasoning and not by the innermost and authoritative testimony of conscience. Then also right reasoning can derive from God; and if the supernatural is beyond the reach of your reasoning and of the innermost testimony of your conscience, you do not want to examine the motives of credibility of the supernatural fact, how can you venture to deny such facts and for that same reason the supernatural truths without prejudging the question? Well, for the mere reason that you do not want to examine the facts or the supernatural truths you cannot judge them by deduction.

You say that God could not have created you for your own harm; we are agreed. Nor for nothing or for indifference, because otherwise “for what are our sufferings for the fulfillment of our duties, for what are the slow torture of our incessant aspiring?” Therefore, God must have created man for some good purpose, realizable after this life, because if God is just, where will He reward one who dies unjustly for defending His justice? Where will He punish the sinner that because of his vices has received in this world only pleasures, riches, and honors? God created me so that I may love Him and serve Him in this life and enjoy Him eternally in the next. To attain this purpose, the grace of God, the merits of Jesus Christ, and our good works are necessary. God and Jesus Christ are responsible for the first two so long as we do not put an obstacle with our sin. God would be inconsistent if having created us for a purpose had not provided us with the means necessary to achieve it; and for that same reason having created us for a supernatural purpose, He ought to have endowed us with supernatural means to attain it. These consist of the grace of God obtained by virtue of the merits of the Incarnation and redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

I proved to you in one of my former letters that Jesus Christ is true God and true man. This suited the disposition of redemption inasmuch as this had to take place according to the plans of God with all the rigor of deserved justice to satisfy duly outraged divine majesty, and resulting that the gravity of an offense is measured principally by the dignity and nature of the offended persons, these being infinite in God, the offenses directed to God as much for the sin of our first parents as for our present ones, are invested with a character of objectively infinite gravity. Well now, just as the gravity of an offense is measured by the dignity of the offended object, the compensation or satisfaction of the same ought to be measured also by the dignity of the person who compensates.

If the value of the compensation is equivalent to the value of the offense, then the compensation is justly deserved. If the value of the compensation is less than that of the offense and the offended part accepts it as satisfactory, the debt is cancelled; but if it is condoned in part and in part satisfied, the compensation given is called congruous; however, if the debt cannot be paid and it is excused entirely, instead of payment it is called condonation.

This being understood, it was impossible that man by himself pay satisfactorily for his sins. On the other hand, God, exceedingly just, in Whom goodness, sanctity, mercy, and justice are identified with His very essence, did not want to condone the offended party, He demanded complete satisfaction with all the weight and rigor of deserved justice that His outraged divine majesty merited. Man, not being able by himself to give this satisfaction, the wisdom of God is proven already the convenience and necessity of the Incarnation of the Son for the redemption of the human race fallen on account of the original sin of our first parents and the present sins of each one. Mercy et verita obviaverunt sibi, justitia et pax osculatae sunt.[12] Then it was when in the disposition of the divine plan was decreed the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of Mary for the redemption of humankind and as a consequence of that decree were the divine maternity of Mary, her exemption from original and actual sin by virtue of the future merits of her only Son, her perpetual virginity compatible with her divine maternity, her death, resurrection, ascension to heaven, coronation and glorification of Mary as the Mother of God and Queen of the Blessed. Then it was when the council of the Most Holy Trinity was held before the just indignation of the Eternal Father who rejected as unmerited any other offering, sacrifice, or holocaust. The sacrifice of His Only Son as an expiatory victim was accepted by the Father on account of the zeal of His external glory, of His deep love for men and His desire for their eternal happiness. Though, as soon as the mystery of the Incarnation was realized in the purest womb of Mary, Jesus Christ could timely remind his Eternal Father of the sacrifice that he had made to Him, its merit and its effects, saying: Hostiam, et oblationem noluisti: corpus autem aptasti mihi: Holocantomata pro peccato non tibi placuerunt. Tune dizi: Ecce venio: incapite libri scriptum est de me: Ut faciam, Deus, voluntatem tuam.[13] It was desirable therefore that Christ the Redeemer be God so that he would give us sufficient remedy and that he be man so that he would give us sufficient example. The Word took human nature and became Man so that man may be freed by man himself – Christ God-Man mediating between man and God. Inasmuch as he ought to free every man, it was necessary that God be invested[14]…………………………………………

and consequently the being of man of the substance of his Mother for which she is and ought to be called Mother of God. It is fitting to observe that in the Incarnate Divine Word, outside of the two distinct and separate natures, there ought to be admitted two wills and two operations, one divine and the other human, each one proper to their respective nature.

This being understood, we now come to the solution of the transcendental problems that you propose. “Who died on the cross? Was it God or was it man? If it was God, I cannot understand how a God can die, how a God, conscious of His mission can exclaim in his bitter melancholy: Pater, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste! And on the cross the sorrowful, My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? This cry is absolutely human; it is the cry of a man who rusted in the justness of God and in the goodness of his cause and then saw himself a captive of every goodness of his cause and then saw himself a captive of every kind of injustice, without hope of salvation. Except the Hodie mecum eris, all the cries of Christ on Calvary reveal a man in torment and in agony, though, what a man! For me Christ Man is greater than Christ God. If it were a God who said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing!” those who laid hands on him ought to have been forgiven unless we say that God resembles certain men who say one thing and then do another. All these subtleties of theology in explaining the union of God with man is for me an effort of fantasy. What fragile mould of human clay contains all the weight of God, Creator of the worlds?”

Who died on the cross? I reply, Christ as man; that When Christ died, his soul separated from the body and [the] person of Christ remained united to the soul and to the body. However, as personality is the subject or term of attribution of all operations that are predicated on nature, in saying that Christ suffered and died as man, it can also be said that God suffered and died as the divine person of Christ sustained his human nature at the moment of the separation of the soul from the body which continued being Christ after of his death because they were sustained by the divine person. You do not understand how a God conscious of His mission can exclaim in His bitter melancholy, Pater, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste! and on the cross the sorrowful: “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” These cries are proper of the human nature of Jesus Christ but substantially joined to the person of the Word. The first quotation expresses an act of the human will of Christ. Will is a quality of nature, not of hypostasis, as it consists of the Most Holy Trinity in which, though there are three distinct persons there is only one sole will. Then this expression Pater, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste! is nothing more than an act of the human will of Christ. We all know that power or faculties are specified by their acts or operations. In this case, the act or operation is human. Then the principle or faculty of acting will also be human. It is true that human faculties are proper to nature and not to the person. Therefore this act of the human will of Christ was proper to his human nature. Thus the subject or term of attribution or subsistence of the human nature of Christ is the second person of the Most Holy Trinity. Therefore the acts of the nature of Christ can and ought to be attributed to the person of Christ himself and here is the reason why the sacrifice of Christ though consisting of acts proper to his human nature which were the sufferings of the passion and death of the Redeemer, had however an infinite value or merit and for that reason they were sufficient, abundant, and superabundant for the redemption of all the members of the human species.

Note that I have said sufficient, abundant, superabundant for the redemption of the human species; but I have not said effective; because despite the esteem and love that God professes mankind and of the infinite value of the sacrifice of the Cross, such are the concept, esteem, and love of God for his external glory and the respect for the integrity of our free will and such is the importance that gives to the personal merit of the intelligent, rational, and free being that He subordinates to these considerations the general plan of his Providence and the success of our eternal predestination.

The sorrowful cry in the 4th word of Christ from the Cross is explained in the same way as the Pater, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste! In this occasion the comforting presence and help of his Eternal Father ceased to perceive the humanity of Christ and exhausted until the dregs the pena de daño[15] that the sinner deserves for having abandoned his God to join his fellow creatures preferring their company to that of God Himself. It was right therefore that God should hold off from the sinner who ignores Him in favor of his fellow creatures and these very same creatures worshipped by men should constitute his eternal torment, the ena de sentido,[16] in hell.

However, Christ Our Lord suffering and dying for men on the cross, expiated for the penalties of daño and sentido merited by sinners; for the pena de sentido with his physical torments and for the Pena de daño with his moral torments, especially for having been abandoned and isolated by his Eternal Father as he indicated in his fourth word. This word was uttered by Christ Man, not as a cry of despair as some heretics allege but as the cry of the humanity of Christ “who trusted in the justness of his Eternal Father, in the goodness of his cause, and found himself at the same time a prey of all kinds of injustice without hope of salvation,” (in his physical torments); because having voluntarily offered himself to be sacrificed to expiate the sins of men and to atone fully for them, the Eternal Father made him pay until the last cent. By virtue then of the abundant reparation of Christ who died for us, we can all share the efficacy of his blood and those who avail of his merits really share it. I say of his merits because the justification of the sinner, though it is the work of supernatural grace, granted by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, however these merits are not applied efficaciously without the freest consent or deliberate will of the sinner.

And thus St. Augustine says: Qui fecit te sinete non slavavit te sinete.[17] The other difficulty that you present is now resolved: “If the one who said, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do’ had been a god, those who have laid hands on him ought to have been forgiven unless we say that God resembles certain men who say one thing and do another.”

The Apostle St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews, chapter 5, says of Christ that “he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears” to his Eternal Father and was heard and “being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all of them that obey him,” that is, for those who believe in him and obey his law. According to this, the prayer of Christ in the first word was said as man, and was listened to and accepted by his Eternal Father. Through this, Christ obtained pardon for those who laid hands on him. However, some of these freely availed themselves of the merit and grace of Christ and actually obtained pardon while the others, on the other hand, did not want to avail themselves voluntarily of such grace and rejected it, and then ample grace to obtain pardon was merited and conceded so that the interested persons could avail themselves of it, but the grace did not produce the desired efficacy, not because of God but for lack of free cooperation on the part of men. Sometimes the same sun ray that softens wax hardens clay, so the grace offered to the good thief, because of its efficacy produces a saint and rejected by the bad thief produces a reprobate. Thus the blood of Christ shed to wash the sins of men could fall contrary to the intention of Christ himself. At the demand of the Jews, clamoring for vengeance, he who, according to the prophecy of Simon, was appointed for the resurrection of many was made the target likewise for the ruin of others. For this reason St. Paul exhorts us not to despise the treasures of the goodness, patience, and forbearance of God. “Don’t you know perchance that the benignity of Christ invites you to repent? You, on the contrary with your hardness and impenitent heart are hoarding up wrath and more wrath for the day of vengeance and the declaration of the Just judgment of God Who will have to pay each one according to his works, giving the eternal life to those who, by means of perseverance in good works, aspire for glory, for honor, and for immortality, and pouring out his fury and indignation over stubborn spirits who do not surrender to the truth but embrace injustice.” In this manner those who shun redemption in this life justify the ire of the Supreme Judge of the living and the dead on Judgment Day. God is good, but He is not so good-natured that He will allow the entry into heaven of those who willingly die in mortal sin. All the words of Christ except the Hodie mecum eris in paradiso,[18] declare his humanity in torment and agony, and in a certain way Jesus Christ during those moments hides his divinity; because then the hour had come of draining until the dregs the cup of passion that his Father offered him. However, Jesus Christ, even shedding his blood on the cross, was true God as St. Paul said to his bishops: Attendite vobis et universo gregi in quo vos Spiritus Sanctus posuit Episcopos regere ecclesiam Dei quam adquisivit sanguine suo.[19] I pray you not to utter the insubstantial blasphemy that Christ Man is greater than Christ God because Christ is Man-God and consequently more than man only. Neither is it an effort of fantasy nor theological subtlety to

wish to explain the dogma of the union of God with man as if this were impossible, as if this manner of redeeming man and satisfying God were indecorous to God Himself and not convenient or necessary to man. If the Incarnation then was possible, if it was decorous to God, convenient and necessary to man, why should we deny a fact so clearly demonstrated by Jesus Christ in his words, works, doctrines, examples, miracles, and prophecies? What fragile mold of human clay, you object, contains all the weight of God, Creator of all words? And who told you that the Incarnation of the Son of God, the divinity of Christ, comes contained in his humanity? The fragile mold of the humanity of Christ in the Incarnation on the contrary is supported by the personality of the Word, creator with the Father and the Holy Ghost of the visible and invisible worlds. Theology does not appeal to mere subtleties to explain the union of God with man but it illumines philosophy, determines and strengthens the metaphysical truths and with the explanation of the dogmas, it traces the horizons and safe courses of knowledge, and it is the safe guide of learned men so that they may not err in the investigation of truth, as it happens here, in dealing with the hypostatical union of the Word of human nature. It clarifies and circumscribes the concepts of nature and person as in the Eucharist, the substance and the accident, quantity and extension, and so in the other treaties of philosophy.

You are presented with another objection with respect to the miracles of Christ. It consists of the “apostasy of his disciples and their incredulity of the resurrection of the Master. Had they been witnesses of so many marvels and resurrections, they would not have abandoned him so cowardly and they would not have doubted his resurrection.”

Well, this is precisely what you ought to convince you of the veracity of the great miracle of the Resurrection of the Lord which was so evident that it dispelled the incredulity of his disciples; and because even with such disproportionate means as the Apostles were, the power and wisdom of redemption shone still more. Christ chose his disciples from among the common people who were rough, ignorant, weak, and poor, who ate without washing their hands, who rubbed between their hands the grains of wheat to eat them, who were impertinent in their questions so that sometimes the Redeemer said to them: Adhuc et vos sine intellectu estis.[20] There is nothing strange then that such matter-of-fact and timorous people who did not understand quite often the words of Christ and believed that the kingdom of Christ was going to be this [in] world when they were not yet well grounded in the faith should abandon Christ at a critical moment and because of the great novelty of the case they should hesitate before the very evidence of their Master, believing that they were seeing in him a ghost. Christ, on the other hand, knowing that doubt sprang more from the coarseness and weakness of that people rather than from their malice and stubbornness (like the Pharisees) pitied their flight and Peter’s prevarication and forgave easily their little faults that came from their bashfulness and little learning.

For this reason, after his resurrection, he visited or appeared to the Apostles frequently. He talked to them of the kingdom of God or the Church that he sought to found. He comforted and cheered them in the faith and sometimes scolded them seriously for their lack of faith, as when he said to them: “Oh fools and dull men to believe all that the prophets announced already!” What? By chance was it not advisable for him, Christ, to suffer all these things and thus enter into his glory? And lastly appearing before the Apostles when they were seated at the table, he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who had seen him after he was risen. However, when Christ observed that that Apostles were at the beginning preoccupied, believing that they were seeing in him some ghost, he advised them gently and kindly, telling them: “Touch and look because spirits have no flesh and bones as you see I have,” and he ate with them to convince them of truth of his resurrection. And in fact such was their conviction and joy that followed their first doubts and fears, especially after Jesus Christ had fulfilled his promise to send them the Holy Ghost that, full of enthusiasm and kindled with the sacred fire of charity, they sallied forth into the streets and plazas of Jerusalem, becoming other men, brave and vigorous, preaching Christ dead, resurrected, and ascended to heaven. I believe, said a sage, the witnesses who allowed themselves to be killed and all those poor fishermen, disciples of Christ who, according to you, apostatized against their Master at the moment he was going to be led to the inhuman sacrifice of the cross and who, after the resurrection of Jesus Christ still hesitated, later became persevering witnesses of the incarnation, life, doctrine, Passion, resurrection, and ascension to heaven of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and until the end of the world. And this testimony was given by the Apostles and disciples who saw Jesus Christ die, rise again, and ascend to heaven and for giving this testimony they were brought to the courts, vituperated, put in irons, imprisoned, whipped, tortured, exiled, and killed in infamous places of execution. However, these men and nevertheless, these men formerly so pusillanimous later ibant gaudentes a conspectu concilii quoniam digni habiti sunt, pro nomine Jesu contumelian pati.

Omni autem die non cessabant in templo, et circa domos docentes, et evangelizantes Christum Jesum.[21] These same Apostles formerly apostates and so cowardly, according to you, said to the judges who threatened them so that they would not speak or teach in the name of Jesus: Si justum est in conspectu Dei, vos potius audire quam Deum, judicate. Non enim Possumus quae vidimus et audivimus non loqui.[22]

However, for what reason did Jesus Christ choose such humble people as the Apostles were, to spread his Gospel throughout the known world then and insure it until the end of the world with seemingly so contemptible origins? Why did he not choose the most powerful emperors in the world to perpetuate his work of redemption until the end of the world? Why did he not even use to spread his Gospel the most eloquent orators, the wisest philosophers, experts, and jurists of the world? Precisely because the work of Jesus Christ was not human and natural but supernatural and divine.

St. Paul said to the Corinthians:

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called:

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

And the base things of the world, the things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are;

That no flesh should glory in his presence.

But of him are ye in Jesus Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption:

That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.[23]

If the religion of Jesus Christ has achieved such a marvelous success in the world with such weak foundations and preaching everywhere the doctrine of the cross contrary to the impetus and unfolding of passions, substituting for them mortification that the practice of Christian virtues engenders; if the doctrine of the Cross, considered a scandal and madness by worldly men, has spread so rapidly and firmly throughout the face of the earth, some supernatural power must be hidden in that mysterious Cross. This cannot be other than the virtue and power of the immense wisdom and infinite fortitude of Jesus Christ that hang from it: Et ego si exaltatus fuero e terra omnia traham ad me ipsum.[24] Such was the work of the Son of God narrated by the Prophets until the smallest trifles and details of his life, passion, death, resurrection, and glorious ascension to heaven. Such was the Son of God, author of so many marvels performed in confirmation of his divinity, divine mission, and heavenly doctrine.

Although the will has an enormous power over the imagination and vice versa, never will it be so great that it will surpass the natural forces of both. Such for example, never shall the will be so powerful that by a simple order it could convert water into the color, flavor, and strength of old wine, as it happened at the wedding in Cana, or of such enormous natural power that it had exerted on the imagination of the governor of the feast who, uninformed of the miracle performed by Jesus Christ, according to the Scriptures, scarcely had he tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew the water knew), he called the bridegroom, and said to him: “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; bout thou has kept the good wine until now.”[25] That the hour of making publicly the first miracle had not yet come proves only that the prayers of the just, and especially those of the Virgin, are efficacious to move the will of God and achieve what would not be achieved without her previous prayer.

I supposed also that you will easily concede to me even in the midst of the enlightenment of the XIX century that by a single act of the plain will and of imagination five thousand men cannot be satisfied with five loaves of ordinary bread and two little fishes.

These prodigious works of our Lord Jesus Christ giving sight, hearing, and speech to men born blind and deaf-mute, movement to paralytic men, life to the dead and resurrection likewise after death were done in confirmation of his doctrine, in proof of his divine mission and of his divinity itself. Therefore, not only was the doctrine of Christ supernatural and divine, but he was truly sent by God and the only begotten and natural son of the Eternal Father, he is, namely, God Himself. The masterpiece of Our Lord Jesus Christ on earth with which he has wished to perpetuate the application of the fruits of his redemption and divine teachings is the Catholic Church, founded on the indestructible rock of Peter and his legitimate successors. This work was original with our Lord Jesus Christ and more wisely and more skillfully conducted than all the other religions because it is the direct heir of the many religious, artistic, and political knowledge of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. What has that to do with the Christian religion? The latter has its branches in the heart of the people, its base and root in the heart of Christ where it was born. Neither is it founded in the imagination of the multitude nor in the affection of women but in the will of God in the efficacy of supernatural grace by virtue of the merits of Christ. Its mysteries are perfectly clear as dogmas of faith with regard to its existence. Its authentic and demonstrated miracles, far from being puerilities, always presuppose necessity by reason of the truths of a transcendental and superior order. In the Church of Christ divisions or dissensions that are called sects or heresies have never existed because the Church is one, like Christ and the faith he professes.

So that you may be fully convinced of what the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ is, I promise, God willing, in another letter, to enter fully in the study of the origin, constitution, records, and endowments of this same Church, founded on the indestructible rock of Peter. We shall understand therefore the question of the primate or visible head of the Church, who are the Roman Pontiffs, the legitimate successors of St. Peter. The origin of the Church instituted by Jesus Christ belongs to history and it is recorded in the Holy Gospels. With both documents on hand I hope to prove to you the true doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ and with its help resolve all your difficulties about it.

Your affectionate servant in Christ who does not forget you in his poor prayers.

PABLO PASTELLS, S.J.

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