Full Text for CTM Miscellanea 16-10 (Text)

694 Miscellanea Miscellanea The Returning Soldiers Bernard Iddings Bell, lecturer on preaching at the Seabury-Western Theological Seminary i.. Chicago, in an essay on "The Church and the Returning Veteran," in the Dec., 1944, Atlantic Monthly relates how he after extensive research has arrived at a very definite opinion: "It seems an indisputable fact that with the exception of a quite small minority those in the armed forces, officers and men, neither know much nOT care much about Christianity. This is most apparently true of those who call themselves Protestants, less so of Catholics (Roman and Anglican). . .. They have performed their war duties like the valiant young pagans they are, never bothering their heads about God except perhaps when sheer, stark danger of death aroused their longing for supernatural protection -a kind of religious awareness which almost always fades away as soon as the battle is done." We cannot ignore a statement such as this, especially because it is very much like that of other competent observers. Any other conception of the situation is wishful thinking. There is no great spiritual revival sweeping through the armed forces. It is well for us to know that. It will save us boL'l nIne and disappoii"ltment later on. We regret this state of affairs, but it reminds us of a remark of a gray-haired army chaplain, then a major, made a few years ago. "Really," he said, "the Church has begun to worry about most of these men about twenty years too late." He implied that in the Army an increase in religious interest and appreciation was almost too much to be hoped for. What can we expect of that group? Have we reasons to be op­timistic? Bernard I. Bell continues: "Not many even of the professedly religious soldiers in either group seem to have much understanding of the more intimate and penetrating devotional implications of their faith, just as few shew t..~at t..~ey understand the relationship of that faith to their personal behavior. . .. The religion even of those who admit that in some sense they regard themselves as 'religious,' with rare exceptions, seems not to have penetrated much below the surface of their thinking and to have little to do with patterns of conduct." This assertion may be hard to take. It allows of but one conclusion: inadequate religious instruction and training when these men and women were boys and girls. How can they give answer to every man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is in them when they have had but a vague impression or a shallow draught of that hope? How can they be really loyal to Him of whom they have not heard so intensively, so consistently, and so thoroughly that He lived Ln. them and they in Him? Perhaps they themselves, perhaps they to whose spir­itual care they were committed at an earlier day, took Christian train­ing too lightly. It would seem as if somewhere someone has failed. Frankly, the prospects are far from bright. We have the "rare ex­ceptions," but, apart from those, we shall doubtless be disappointed if we expect these veterans to flock to our churches immediately upon Miscellanea 695 their return. Surely, we shall be pleased to welcome them and ready, too, but we should also know that many of them will worry not a whit whether we welcome them or not. Most of them have never had any connection with any church, and many others have had only a nominal one. They are looking forward only to good jobs, fine pay, and easy work. Beyond that goal they have never learned to look. These veterans, with negligible exceptions, have, as B. I. Bell also says, "been educated to believe that life's satisfactions overwhelmingly are material and of this world, satisfactions in the pursuit of which the Church certainly is not needed. . .. The American soldier, in other words, is the product of the American system of education, a system which concentrates attention almost wholly on mastery of materials ... with the apparent assumption that man does live by bread alone, though it be desired t..~at the bread be spread with butter and jam." He has been "miseducated." Ours will be a formidable task -to re-educate grown men and women by the honest and conscientious preaching of the Word, by seek­ing them out wherever they may be, and by exercising patience and friendly consideration. Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man, is a stranger to them. Close acquaintance with Him cannot be established in a few short hours. Thorough Christian indoctrination takes time. And as we look still farther into the future, let us now resolve to do all we can so that at a later day no one will ever again have reason to say that "we have begun to worry about most of these men twenty years too late." "S." in the Northwestern Lutheran Some More Light on the Origin of Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health" Recently the pastor of Christian Temple, Baltimore, Md., Dr. Walter M. Haushalter (successor of Peter Ainslie) issued a pamphlet the chief contents of which should be brought to the. attention of our readers. The facts here submitted were known before, but they are given further substantiation by the investigation and judgment of a group of experts whose competency cannot be questioned. The title of the pamphlet is "Validation of the Lieber-Hegel-Eddy Source Document." We herewith quote the greater part of it. "The Metaphysical Religion of Hegel, a manuscript by Francis Lieber giving an exposition of the spiritual philosophy of George William Frederick Hegel, was published in London (Rationalist Press) and in Boston (A. A. Beauchamp) in 1936. This 8,200-word document was pub­lished in substance and in photostat with an account of all that was then known of it under the title, Mrs. Eddy Purloins From Hegel. Because the substance of Lieber's essay and its language verbatim was used by Mary B. G. Eddy to the equivalent of thirty-three pages of Science and Health, and since the Lieber Document antedates Mrs. Eddy's book by nine years, The Metaphysical Religion of Hegel has come to be known as the Lieber-Hegel-Eddy Source Document. I was in London in August, 1936, when a two-column review appeared in the London Times Literary Supplement. In the August 22d issue of the London Times 696 Miscellanea Literary Supplement I published, in response to the invitation of the editors, the following statement: "'Your reviewer raises the issue of the authentication of the Lieber Document, expressing the belief that its authenticity is more probable than absolutely proven. There is no tribunal for authenticating his­torical documents of this nature. For the testing of the Lieber Docu­ment appeal was made to the Congressional Library, the American Historial Society, the American Library Association, and the United States Bureau of Standards. Each one disclaimed ability or responsibility for the office. I would welcome the creation of a Documentary Tribunal composed of impartial scholars. The Lieber Document would be placed before such an authorized Tribunal and its judgment would be un­questioned. The publishers and I have been satisfied on its authenticity. We possess bills of sale and sworn affidavits from the family ill whose possession it was for fifty years. Six years have passed since the Lieber papers came into our possession and everything learned about them since confirms the authenticity.' "Now, fourteen years after its discovery and eight years after its publication a Validation of the Lieber-Hegel-Eddy Source Document is herewith published. The Validation is done by a group of American University professors and documentary experts. All did the service without financial compensation and everyone consulted on the matter brought in all opinion affirmative for its authenticity. The expertS con­sulted were Dr. John French, Librarian of the Johns Hopkins University; Dr. W. Stull Holt, • .<\ssociate Professor of Histor.f in Johns Hopkins Uni­versity; Dr. Sidney Painter, Associate Professor of History in Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Johannes Mattern, Professor of Philosophy in Johns Hopkins University; Mr. Arthur P. Myers, Handwriting and Docu­mentary Expert. The research was conducted in Johns Hopkins Uni­versity because it is the repository of many accredited writings of Fran­cis Lieber. "The statement of the Johns Hopkins University Professors reads: 'We have examined wit..~ care the docu..-nent entitled Metaphysical Re­ligion of Hegel by Francis Lieber. The evidence presented left no doubt in our minds that the document was written in the 1860's and that its history was as described by Mr. Haushalter. Signed W. Stull Holt, Sidney Painter, John C. French, Johannes Mattern.' Mr. Arthur P. Myers is a handwriting expert of twenty years' professional practice, during which time he has served in many celebrated cases. His statement fol­lows: 'I have made an exhaustive, scientific, microposcopic examination of the Metaphysical Religion of Hegel and I have compared it with authentic writings of Francis Lieber in the Johns Hopkins University Library and I give it as my definite and positive judgment that all the above mentioned writings bearing the name of Francis Lieber were written by one and the same person, My opinion is not based on photo­static copies but on examination of the original documents. It is there­fore my judgment that the manuscript The Metaphysical Religion of Hegel by Francis Lieber is a document of unmistakable and unimpeach­able authority. To this authenticity I am willing to testify further in court. Arthur P. Myers.' " A. Miscellanea 697 A Note Concerning the Text and Meaning of Acts 16:12 In Classical Philology (Vol. XL, No.2, April, 1945) an article written by Professor J. A. O. Larsen of the University of Chicago has the title "Hellenistic Federalism," which in a note dwells on a point that for a long time has interested students of the New Testament, the true text and meaning of Acts 16: 12. Macedonia once upon a time consisted of several republics. Were the old divisions still extant at the time when Paul made his celebrated second missionary journey which took him to Philippi, Macedonia? Professor Larsen says: "An inscription proving the continued existence of the four republics under the Flavians was published over a generation ago." He continues, "The inscription, in turn, makes it clear that the account in the Acts of the Apostles of Paul's visit to Philippi contains a reference to one of these republics or 'parts,' as they were called, and supplies an additional proof of their survival under the empire." In a special note he looks at the various aspects of the textual and exegetical problems involved, surveys the various solutions that have been proposed, and then gives his own conclusion. With the permission of Classical Philology we herewith reprint his note. "In Acts 16: 12 we find, according to Codex Vaticanus: cIiLAI.rutOU<;, 7\1:L<; tlo1:Lv ltQOO1:T} ~EQLllo<; 1:li<; MuxEllovLu<; ltOA.t<;, XQA.())VLU. For variant readings and discussions of the text see in F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1920-33), the critical commentary of J. H. Ropes in Vol. III, and the further commentary of Lake and H. J. Cadbury in connection with the translation in Vol. IV. K. W. Clark, Eight American Praxapostoloi (Chicago, 1941) gives no variant which sheds further light on our problem. "The passage as it stands causes difficulty. Yet the one point which should be clear is that ~EQLllo<; must mean one of the four 'parts' of Macedonia and does not mean 'district' or 'region.' It is true that in Liddell-Scott-Jones 'region, district,' is given as one of the meanings; but, aside from Acts 16: 12, all illustrations are from Egypt, where the word was used for a subdivision of a nome or other territorical unit (Preisigke, Woerterbuch, s. v.). Hence, in all likelihood, it has a similar specialized meaning when applied to a part of Macedonia -the meaning found in the inscription discussed in n. 13. ''To students of the inscription it will immediately occur that, if we can read ltQoo"tT}<; ~EQ(OO<; in Acts 16: 12, we shall have exactly the same expression as the one used in the inscription and the perfectly correct and accurate information that Philippi was a city of Macedonia I. Ac­cording to Livy (XIV. 29. 5-6 and 9), this included the district between the Strymon and the Nestus rivers and some points east of the Nestus and had as its capital Amphipolis. The district between the two rivers -and it was in this that Philippi was located -remained a part of Macedonia under the Empire (see particularly Paul Collart, PhHippes [Paris, 1937], p.139, n. 8). The emendation favored here was suggested even before the publication of our inscription (see especially the com­mentary of F. Blass, Acta apostolorum [Goettingen, 1895], and cf. his Philology of the Gospels [London, 1898], pp. 67-69), gives the best 698 Miscellanea meaning for the passage, and has indirect manuscript support (primae partis in certain manuscripts of the Vulgate). Under the circumstances it should be accepted unhesitatingly. It is accepted by Collart (op. cit., p. 457, n. 3; cf. also p.l90, n.l); see also J. Schmidt, P.-W., XIX, 2234-35. "The natural meaning of the passage in the form given in Cod. Vat. is that Philippi was the capital of a meris of Macedonia. Codex Bezae, reading l for JtQUl"tT]<;), though it must be admitted that this does not account for the reading of Cod. Vat. In favor of JtQoo"tT]<; is primae partis cited by Ropes as found in three Vulgate manuscripts following the tradition of Languedoc. Since there is no parallel in any extant Greek manuscript, Ropes regards the reading as of Latin origin. Lake and Cadbury, who discuss the passage at length, follow Ropes but say that JtQoo"tT]<; !-tEQl/)o<; would be the more satisfactory reading if it had better manuscript authority. To this it can be said that it would be surprising if a Western translator or copyist, while making a mistake, should pro­duce something so much more satisfactory than the original. It is better to suppose that primae partis is derived from a Greek original. The suggestion that it might be due to Diocletian's division of Macedonia is not very plausible." A. Some Notes on Spiritism By ARNOLD LUNN Ten years ago Mr. Hilaire Belloc predicted that Spiritism was destined to prove one of the most dangerous rivals to the Catholic Church. I believe that he will be vindicated as a true prophet. Spiritism is a formidable rival, because the Spiritist, in his approach to the problem of miracles, is the least unscientific of those who reject Christianity. He is unhampered in his search for truth by the negative dogma -"miracles do not happen." His theory does not fit all the facts and is inconsistent with important facts, but it fits far more facts than the theories of old-fashioned secularists like Mr. Joseph McCabe or those Modernists whose ideas were modern when great-grandmother looked pretty in crinolines. Many years before I became a Catholic, I attended various seances with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and with Sir Oliver Lodge's favorite medium, and as a result expressed, in books published at the time, views identical with those which I now hold. I mention this because Miscellanea 699 if ever I write on the subject, I am always referred to by Spiritists as a champion of Catholic views on Spiritism, the implication being that my negative verdict is imposed on me by the Church. I thought then, and I still think, that, under exacting test con­ditions, psychic phenomena have been observed wllich are inexplicable within the framework of the laws of nature. I consider it to be proved that mediums often display knowledge of facts which were unknown to them through the normal channels. I believe that a very small pro­portion of these phenomena may be the work of discarnate spirits, but I do not believe -and I have never believed -that we get in touch with the dead. Recent experiments which have demonstrated the reality of telepathy and clairvoyance seem to me to tell against the Spiritist hypothesis. Dr. J. B. Rhine carried out, over a period of years, a series of experiments at Duke University which are fully described in his book, Extra-Sensory Perception. For the purpose of these experiments, packs of cards were used which contained cards of five different types, marked respectively with a circle, a square, a cross, an asterisk, and wavy lines. If an experimenter in one room looks at a card and the percipient in the other room tries to record the card looked at, we have an experiment in telepathy. If the percipient attempts to name a card before it is turned up by the experimenter, we have an experiment in clairvoyance. The distinction is Lmportant. Telepathy is the communication of thought from one mind to another; clairvoyance is a supernormal method of arriving at knowledge unknown to any other living oeir..g. It is admitted by Spiritists that to prove spirit communication it is not enough for the medium to prove that she is aware of facts which she did not previously know but which were known to the departed spirit. She may merely be reading telepathically the mind of the sitter. If, however, the medium reveals knowledge of facts unknown to living beings, but subsequently proved to be known to the dead person, must we assume that the dead person has communicated them? Not neces­sarily, if they are e1..plicable in terms of clairvoyance. In the Rhine experiments, if pure chance alone was decisive, we should expect the percipient to score approximately twenty per cent of hits. Some of the percipients achieved results the odds against which could be expressed by the figure 1 followed by fifty naughts. These experiments have continued in England. "Dr. Soal's paper," writes Dr. D. D. Broad in Philosophy (November, 1944), "provides evidence which is statistically overwhelming not only for telepathy but for precognition." These experiments are all but decisive against materialism. The wave analogy is fallacious. The rays would have to originate not only in the agent's brain, but also in the cards. Moreover, the results often improve with distance, whereas the effect of all other waves known to physics decreases inversely with the square of the distance. If spirits co-operated in these experiments, it was without the knowledge or the wish of those who conducted the experiments. Now it is quite clear that if extrasensory perception be established­as I believe it to be -it is quite unnecessary to postulate a spirit in 700 Miscellanea order to explain the fact that mediums in trance, like Dr. Rhine's ex­perimenters in their normal condition, often disclose information unknown at the time to any living being. Even in the case of the best mediums there is a curiously fatuous element. "Phinuit," the spirit control of the famous American medium Mrs. Piper, claimed to be the spirit of a French doctor. He startled his sitters by the accurac-y of his knowledge of their past histories, but when a sitter began to talk to him in French, there was an embarrassed silence. Dr. Phinuit explained that he had had so many English patients he had forgotten his native language. Spirit messages echo the wishes of those who consult them. Good people receive edifying injunctions to morality, but those in search of less exacting sex codes than the Christian have no difficulty in finding spirit directors among the departed who will provide the kind of advice they are prepared to take. Up to the very outbreak of the war the spirits continued to proclaim that war was unthinkable. Of course, there is no reason why the spirits should be infallible, but it is a little disconcerting that the proportion of the ill informed seems to mount so rapidly on the other side of the barrier. All the spirits predicted peace, whereas in the summer of 1939 most people I met believed that war was inevitable. Beauty is as characteristic of genuine miracles as ugliness and futility of the supenlormal phenomena of the seance room. The reader should exa.>uine the photographs of "materializations" in the works of Schrenk-Notzing, Geley, or Richet. "Ectoplasm," the mysterious, whitish substance which organizes itself, as I have obser"Ted myself, into the shape of a body or a face or a hand, seems to obey a law which compels it to materialize in futile, foolish, or repellent forms. Most ectoplasmic faces are as vacant of expression as the face of an idiot. Almost all are repulsively ugly, and some are terrifying in their expression of evil. If spirits are responsible for these manifestations, we may be sure they are unclean spirits. -America (R. C.), Apr. 21, 1945. Interesting Information on China Writing in the Presbyterian, Mrs. W. H. Clagett speaks of a number of things in China that are striking when viewed by a visitor. Our readers will be glad to read this live description. "Throughout World War II, it has not been just 'one more river to cross,' but many more rivers to cross, and that at great hazards. In imagination, let us take a swift journey to the Orient and note two of the world's strangest bridges. "We will go first to Nanking, China, and see 'the Pepper Pot Bridge.' This bridge is so called because on it is erected a more than life-size superstructure in the shape of a pepper pot, in which structure is concealed the body of a Chinese immured alive for murdering his father. "Perhaps no other people have a greater reverence for their parents and ancestors than have the Chinese. Indeed, the veneration of their ancestors is the basic principle upon which their religion is founded, and this unfilial conduct is regarded as the most heinous of crimes. While Miscellanea 701 it is true that for a long period of time human life was China's cheapest commodity, yet the entire country is aroused by a crime against a parent. The rare crime of patricide is punished in a most terrible and bizarre manner. The parricide is placed in an upright position upon a bridge, and around him is built a cement or rock tower shaped like a pepper pot. Within this structure, the murderer is immured alive to stand for all time in this erect position as a warning to other wayward sons. "God's command to us is: 'Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee'; and again, God says: 'Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right'; and again, God says: 'Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.' Note, that this is a commandment with a promise from God, and note that God says that it is right that children should obey their parents and that it pleases God when we obey our parents. Thus, when we obey God's command and honor and obey our parents, we please our heavenly Father; we give joy to our parents; and we enrich and bless our own life. May our Father help us always to love God and to honor our parents. (See Ex.20:12; Eph. 6:1, 2; Col. 3:20.) "We will next go to Shanghai and see what is perhaps the most curious bridge in all the world -the bridge built to baffle the devil and the evil spirit -'The Bridge That Makes the Devil Dizzy.' "This bridge, instead of being built in a straight line, is zigzag, a con­tinuation of short, sharp comers and angles. The Chinese believed that evil spirits could travel only in a straight line. Thus they built this bridge in this zigzag form, believing that these repeated comers and angles would bafflle the evil spirits, even the devil, and cause them to lose their way and thus prevent their getting Olcross the bridge in pursuit of their victilns. It is because of this belief in evil spirits that the streets of old Chinese towns are crooked, going off at angles at every few paces. Also, the Chinese, in building their homes, made many comers and angles on the roofs and eaves of their homes so as to con­fuse the evil spirits, cause them to lose their way, and thus prevent them from getting into the house. "The Chinese of old lived in constant fear of evil spirits, and at­tributed to them all kinds of malignant power over practically every act of their life. Yet the Chinese, in their simplicity, believed that they could deceive these evil spirits by the most childish acts. For instance, the birth of a boy brought great joy to the parents. But alas, this joy brought with it great fear also -fear of the evil spirits! They had been taught that, did the evil spirits know their babe was a boy and of their joy because of the birth of a boy, these evil spirits would do their utmost to injure the babe, or even take his life. Therefore the evil spirits must not know that their babe was a boy; so they dressed him in girl's clothes and called him by a girl's name. "It was this belief in the power of evil spirits, and also their deep reverence for their ancestors that delayed the introduction into China of many vital modem inventions. "The old Chinese believed that man has three souls, that at his 702 Miscellanea death, one soul went out into the other world; one went with the body to the grave; and the third remained in the home. This belief gave rise to what is commonly known as ancestor worship, to the religious ceremonies at the graves of their ancestors and in the home. In honor of their ancestors they sacrificed much of their scanty acres in erect­ing grave mounds, which mounds were sacred and must never be pro­faned by the plough. "Also, they believed that the evil spirits dwelt in the earth, pos­sessed great power, and would wreak vengeance on those who might dig into the ground. It was this fear of evil spirits that prevented the Chinese for centuries from mining their coal and other minerals. "It was this belief also, that delayed the cOllstruction of railroads, the telegraph system, etc. When the Western nations wished to build a railroad in China, this was violently opposed, even by such men as Li Hung Chang (1822-1901), and it was only after much diplomacy that consent was obtained to construct the railroad. But alas! when it was thought that every obstacle had been surmoui"lted, such pressure was brought to bear upon Li Hung Chang that consent to build the railroad was revoked. The people were in terror of the evil spirits should they be disturbed by digging into the earth for tunnels, etc. Thus, the difficult job of getting Li Hung Chang and others in authority to grant the building of the railroad had to be done over from scrap, and fortu.i"iately for China herself, the railroad was built. The same terror of evil spirits held up the introduction into China of the telegraph and other modern conveniences. "But we must not stress unduly this singular belief on the part of oid China, but rather emphasize China's early and old civilization. It is a fact that China discovered the germ of practically all modem inventions of the 18th and 19th centuries. She used these only so far as they supplied her immediate need and did not carry these in­ventions out to their logical and greater conclusion. As an example, China invented the compass, and yet she did not expand the power of this invention, but for centuries was satisfied to use the antiquated junk vessels on her waterways, and it was not until 1881 that she made even a feeble beginning toward a navy, and then only after her wars with foreign powers aroused her to her danger. Also, China invented gunpowder, but the profession of a soldier was held in low repute until the war with Japan brought a rude awakening to the necessity for military organization (1894.-1895). "One of China's early and most important inventions was the in­vention of printing. She first invented printing from blocks, and the oldest known book printed from blocks was printed by a Chinese in 868. This book was discovered in the Chinese Province of Kansu in 1900. It bears the statement 'Printed, 868, by Wang Chieh for free general distribution, in order, in deep reverence, to perpetuate the memory of his parents.' "China also invented printing from movable type, and books were printed from movable type in China as early as 1041, some 400 years before Gutenberg (1398-1468) discovered this art."