The Abbe du Frenoy acknowledges the visions and revelations which are clearly marked in Scripture; but is there not reason to fear that certain persons may apply the rules of criticism which he employs against the visions of the male and female saints of whom he speaks in his work, and that they may say, for instance, that Jeremiah yielded to his melancholy humor, and Ezekiel to his caustic disposition, to predict sad and disagreeable things to the Jewish people?[706]
We know how many vexations the prophets endured from the Jews, and that in particular[707] those of Anathoth had resolved to put their countryman Jeremiah to death, to prevent him from prophesying in the name of the Lord. To what persecutions were not himself and Baruch his disciple exposed for having spoken in the name of the Lord? Did not King Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, throw the book of Baruch into the fire,[708] after having hacked it with a penknife, in hatred of the truths which it announced to him?
The Jews sometimes went so far as to insult them in their dwellings, and even to say to them,[709] _Ubi est verb.u.m Domini? veniat_; and elsewhere, "Let us plot against Jeremiah; for the priests will not fail to cite the law, and the prophets will not fail to allege the words of the Lord: come, let us attack him with derision, and pay no regard to his discourse."
Isaiah did not endure less vexation and insult, the libertine Jews having gone even into his house, and said to him insolently[710]--_Manda, remanda; expecta, re-expecta; modic.u.m ibi, et modic.u.m ibi_, as if to mock at his threats.
But all that has not prevailed, nor ever will prevail, against the truth and word of G.o.d; the faithful and exact execution of the threats of the Lord has justified, and ever will justify, the predictions and visions of the prophets. The gates of h.e.l.l will not prevail against the Christian church, and the word of G.o.d will triumph over the malice of h.e.l.l, the artifice of corrupt men, of libertines, and over all the subtlety of pretended freethinkers. True and real visions, revelations, and apparitions will always bear in themselves a character of truth, and will serve to destroy those which are false, and proceed from the spirit of error and delusion. And coming now to what regards myself in particular, M. du Frenoy says, that the public have been surprised that instead of placing my proofs before the circ.u.mstances of my apparitions, I have given them afterwards, and that I have not entered fully enough into the subject of these proofs.
I am going to give the public an account of my method and design.
Having proposed to myself to prove the truth, the reality, and consequently the possibility of apparitions, I have related a great many authentic instances, derived from the Old and New Testament, which forms a complete proof of my opinion, for the certainty of the facts carries with it here the certainty of the dogma.
After that I have related instances and opinions taken from the Hebrews, Mahometans, Greeks, and Latins, to a.s.sure the same truth. I have been careful not to draw any parallel between these testimonies and the scriptural ones which preceded. My object in this was to demonstrate that in every age, and in all civilized nations, the idea of the immortality of the soul, of its existence after death, of its return and appearance, is one of those truths which the length of ages has never been able to efface from the mind of nations.
I draw the same inference from the instances which I have related, and of which I do not pretend to guarantee either the truth or the certainty. I willingly yield all the circ.u.mstances that are not revealed to censure and criticism; I only esteem as true that which is so in fact.
M. du Frenoy finds that the proof of the immortality of the soul which I infer from the apparition of the spirit after death, is not sufficiently solid; but it is certainly one of the most palpable and most easy of comprehension to the generality of mankind; it would make more impression upon them than arguments drawn from philosophy and metaphysics. I do not intend for that reason to attack any other proofs of the same truth, or to weaken a dogma so essential to religion.
He endeavors to prove, at great length,[711] that the salvation of the Emperor Trajan is not a thing which the Christian religion can confirm. I agree with him; and it was useless to take any trouble to demonstrate it.[712]
He speaks of the young man of Delme,[713] who having fallen into a swoon remained in it some days; they brought him back to life, and a languor remained upon him which at last led to his death at the end of the year. It is thus he arranges that story.
M. du Frenoy disguises the affair a little; and although I do not believe that the devil could restore the youth to life, nevertheless the original and cotemporaneous authors whom I have quoted maintain that the demon had much to do with this event.[714]
What has princ.i.p.ally prevented me from giving rules and prescribing a method for discerning true and false apparitions is, that I am quite persuaded that the way in which they occur is absolutely unknown to us; that it contains insurmountable difficulties; and that consulting only the rules of philosophy, I should be more disposed to believe them impossible than to affirm their truth and possibility. But I am restrained by respect for the Holy Scriptures, by the testimony of all antiquity and by the tradition of the Church.
"I am, sir, Your very humble and very obedient servant, D. A. CALMET, Abbot of Senones."
Footnotes:
[703] Dom. Calmet has a very bad opinion of the public, to believe that it values so little what is, perhaps, the best and most sensible part of the book. Wise people think quite differently from himself.
[704] Neither Gregory of Tours, nor Sulpicius Severus, nor Peter the Venerable, nor Pierre Damien, have ever been placed in a parallel line with the fathers of the Church. In regard to the latter, it has always been allowable, without failing in the respect which is due to them, to remark certain weaknesses in their works, sometimes even errors, as the Church has done in condemning the Millenaries, &c.
[705] An excellent maxim for fomenting credulity and nourishing superst.i.tion.
[706] What a parallel! how could any one make it without renouncing common sense?
[707] Jeremiah xxi. 21.
[708] Jerem. x.x.xvi.
[709] Jerem. xvii. 15.
[710] Isai. xxviii. 10.
[711] Tom. ii. p. 92 _et seq._
[712] It is true that what Dom. Calmet had said of this in his first edition, the only one M. Lenglet has seen, has been corrected in the following ones.
[713] P. 155.
[714] A bad foundation; credulous or interested authors.
THE END.