The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1915. A NEW PRESBYTERIAN' SAINT

New Zealand Tablet, 25 February 1915, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1915. A NEW PRESBYTERIAN' SAINT

ISTORY tells us that the rise of the -class of wealthy ' retired ’ merchants and manufacturers in England was marked by a curious phase of upstart vanity. The nonveaux riches some of whom perhaps scarcely knew their grandfathers—sought to disguise their humble if honorable origin by brandnew family trees and genealogical tables, crests, mottoes, and coats of arms, obligingly furnished lor the occasionand for a consideration—by enterprising adventurers or by the everobliging officials of the Heralds’ Office. Pot-boiling artists were always ready—also for a considerationto provide whole portrait galleries of ‘ ancestors,’ which, when duly smoked and dried, looked tolerably antique. The last and the present centuryespecially since the days of the Oxford Movement—have witnessed a similar craving on the part of certain of the Protestant denominations for a more hoary ancestry than hey had at one time dreamed of, or than history, or even their own • standard historians, are prepared to accord to them. The Reformers seized the old Catholic Church property they took—and sadly battered—the old family portraits of saints and. sages. Now a little knot of pious eccentrics, not even representative of the Church to which they belong, gravely ask us to believe that the old 1 massing priests ’ —who stood by the Pope and held the whole body of Catholic teachingare their own ancestors in the faith : the Vere de Vere portrait gallery is made to stand for the ancestors of a Smith de Smith. * The claim we have referred to was advancedrat least by implication late as last week by the Rev. Alex. Whyte, an earnest and—except as being the occasional victim of historical hallucinations of the kind under noticein every way estimable Presbyterian minister; The occasion was the opening of a Presbyterian Girl’s College in Dunedin : and in the course of his address as president of the Board of Governors of the college, Mr. Whyte committed himself to the statement that ‘ the Scottish Church ’—which in this context means the Presbyterian Church —‘goes back to Columba.’ The statement is the echo of a fantastic theory of ‘ continuity ’ which was broached many years ago but which has long been discarded by scholars, and which is now universally acknowledged as false by sincere and competent judges. The longest and strongest link in this very weak chain is that which was based on the supposed history of the Culdees, who were

looked upon as a' kind of monkish order, indigenous to the soil, which existed before the introduction of Christianity into Ireland and Scotland by the Roman missionaries, and of whom the great abbot of lona was the founder or chief. . Protestant scholars of standing are now unanimous in scouting this theory. ‘ Before their history was ascertained,’ says Chambers’s Encyclopaedia (Art. ‘ Culdees ’)■, ‘ opinions were held regarding them which now find few, if any, supporters among archaeologists. It was believed that they were our first teachers of Christianity ; that they came from the East before corruption had yet overspread the Church; that they took the Scriptures for their sole rule of faith ; that they lived under a form of Church-government approaching to Presbyterian parity ; that they rejected prelacy, transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, the veneration of relics, image-worship, and the celibacy of the clergy; and that-they kept their simple worship and pure doctrines undefiled to the last, and were suppressed only by force, and fraud, when the Roman Catholic Church triumphed over their older and better creed. For all this it is now clearly seen that there is no foundation. There is no reason to suppose that the Culdees differed in any material point of faith, discipline, or ritual from the other clergy of the British Islands and Western Christendom.’ The Presbyterian writer Cunningham bears similar testimony : ‘ Some writers have attempted to prove that the Culdees repudiated auricular confession, the worship of saints and ’mages, the doctrines of Purgatory and the real presence in the Sacrament of the Supper ; and have delighted to portray them as free from almost all the errors and superstitions of the Roman Church, the holy children in the midst of Babylon. An impartial examination of their history shows this to be a fond delusion, and it is a pity it should be longer indulged in, as neither Presbyterianism nor Protestantism can gain anything by it.’ ( Church History of Scotland, Vol. 1., p. 93.) And the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Art. ‘ Culdees ’) clinches the exposure of this foolish figment in the following sentences : * It was long fondly imagined by Protestant writers that the religious belief and worship of the Cffildees supplied complete evidence of primitive truth having been preserved free from Roman corruptions in one remote corner of Western Europe. It is now certain that this opinion is entirely opposed to historical evidence. In doctrine, ritual, and government, there was no difference between the Culdees and the monastic communities in the Latin Church.’ * As to Columba himself, apart from the fact that he was a son of the Irish Church, which was essentially papal and Roman, we have sufficient information in regard to the faith which he professed ana practised in the exhaustive Life by Adamnan, written by one who ‘ was quite near enough to the fountain head, both in time and place, to draw from authentic sources.’ We have also what are practically contemporary documents‘in the shape of the Stowe and Bobbio Missals which, according to the highest authorities, date from the sixth or not later than the early years of the seventh century, and which, according to these same authorities, represent, with but few variations, the Mass as celebrated in the Celtic Church during the lifetime of St. Columba. A very few quotations from these two sources will suffice to show the simplicity of those who can befool themselves into believing that the monk Columba had aught in common with Presbyterianism. In the Life we find repeated references to Mass for the living and Mass for the dead, the Blessed Eucharist, Confession, fasting, the Divine Office, vows, relics, and such decidedly un-Presbyterian practices as blessing of salt and water, palms, etc. v Not to enter into unnecessary detail, we may test Columba’s position by his belief and practice in regard to two such cardinal Catholic and Roman doctrines as the Primacy of the Pope and the Sacrifice of the Mass. To the Bobbio Canonwhich is practically identical with the Canon of the Stowe Missal —is prefaced the prayer; ‘ Deus qui heato I J etro, etc.’, in honor of St. Peter’s pontifical authority. The Pope is prayed for by name in the -following manner: * Una cum, devoUssimo famulo tuo ill Papa nostro Sedis Apostolicae — 1 Thy most de-

voted servant N., our Pope; of the Apostolic See.’ Among the Masses occurring after the Canon is one of the feast of the ‘ Chair of Peter,’ containing the following significant collect : O God, Who on this day didst give to blessed Peter after Thyself the headship of Thy Church. . . . We humbly pray Thee as Thou didst constitute him pastor for the sake of the flock, and that Thy sheep might be preserved from error, so now Thou wouldst save us through his intercession.’ A beautiful expression of Catholic doctrine, but not exactly the sort of thing we are accustomed to, hear from Presbyterian pulpits. With regard to the Sacrifice of the Mass, we possess ample evidence that the Celtic monks believed the Eucharist, to be the true Body and Blood of our Lord, and also a real sacrifice for the living and the dead. Among the terms employed to designate the Mass in St. Columba’s Life by Adamnan are these; the solemn Offices of the Mass; the Mystic Sacrifice.; the consecration of the Body of Christ; the celebration of the Holy Mysteries of the Eucharist ; the consecra- , tion of the Holy Oblation. It would be difficult to express in clearer terms the true Catholic doctrine. But what Presbyterian minister would employ such words to designate his Communion service? In the Stowe Missal (sixth century) the words of Consecration, and all that follows, down to the Memento for the dead are literally the same as every Catholic priest repeats to-day in his daily Mass. Then after the divine words of Consecration, the great Celtic saint who spread the light of the Gospel through Scotland recited the same beautiful prayer, which is repeated in our daily Mass : ‘ Humbly, we beseech Thee, O Almighty God, that all of us who receive through the participation of this altar the Most Holy Body and Blood of Thy Son may be filled with every grace and blessing.’ # * We might go on multiplying such evidence almost indefinitely, but the process would be akin to that of breaking a butterfly upon the wheel. To complete our refutation of this exploded ‘continuity’ theory, and to show the impassable gulf which separates the faith of Columba from that of Scottish Presbyterianism, it is only necessary to compare the testimony above cited - with the utterance of the Confession of Faith on the two test doctrines selected. (1) With regard to the supremacy of the Pope: ‘ There is no other head of the Church,’ says the Confession, ‘ but the Lord Jesus Christ; nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that anti-Christ, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.’ (2) The Sacrifice of the Mass. ‘ That doctrine,’ says the Confession, which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood (commonly called Transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest, or by any other way, is repugnant not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason ; overthroweth the nature of the Sacrament ; and hath been and is the cause of manifold superstitions, yea, of gross idolatries.’ If our Presbyterian ministers were true disciples of John Knox they would be denouncing instead of praising the Popish Abbot of lona. The whole claim of the president of the Columba College is, in truth, matter for jest rather than for serious treatment. Our Scottish friends are not only inconsistent what is much more unforgivable they have, for the nonce, lost their sense of humor.