T.J. WalsheApologeticsChapter 20

Testimony of Christ Regarding His Divine Mission and His Doctrine — Part IV: The Christian Life and the Last Things

Art. III.—Testimony of Christ regarding the Christian Life.

Relation of the New Law towards the Old, and the chief Christian precepts, virtues and counsels.

I.—The New Law of Christ perfects the Mosaic Law.

“Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil” (Matt. v. 17).

From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount expurgates the Old Law from the interpretation of Scribes and Pharisees, and completes and perfects it as regards moral precepts. Not only is homicide sinful, but anger towards a fellow man; evil thoughts as well as evil deeds are forbidden; marriage is indissoluble; oaths must not be lightly taken; enemies must be forgiven; pure intention is necessary for good work. Christ from the beginning of His ministry teaches implicitly the abrogation of ceremonial observances. “Do not put new wine into old bottles” (Matt. ix. 17). He foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and therewith its ceremonial (Luke xix. 44). “God is a spirit and they that adore him must adore him in spirit and in truth” (John iv. 24). As St. Thomas writes: “The Old Law is eternal in its moral teaching; its ceremonial precepts endure until the fulfilment of the truth prefigured” (Iᵃ IIᵃᵉ q. 103 a 3 ad. 1).

II.—Christian Virtues.

(1) True Sanctity.

Sanctity is a special virtue—the virtue of religion—though general in its outlook. It refers all works of virtue to God; it disposes the soul by means of these works of virtue for the worship of God. It implies two qualities necessary for the application of the mind to God: innocence and firmness (IIᵃ IIᵃᵉ q. 81 a 8).

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice” (Matt. vi. 33).

“Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. v. 48).

“Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of my Father” (Matt. vii. 21).

“Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light” (Matt. xi. 29, 30).

“Whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother” (Mark iii. 35).

“Blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it” (Luke xi. 28).

Those who give alms, fast, pray, to be seen by men, “have received their reward” (Matt. vi. 5).

Herein is shewn the necessity of purity of intention. The above admonitions manifest the end, exemplar, rule, mode of reaching the end, and the fruits of Christian life.

(2) Faith.

(A) Synoptic Gospels.

“He who believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark xvi. 16).

External confession of Faith is required (Matt. x. 32).

“Thy faith hath made thee whole” (Luke xvii. 19).

“O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?” (Matt. xiv. 31).

“Where is your faith?” (Luke viii. 25).

“Thy faith hath made thee safe, go in peace” (Luke vii. 50).

(B) St. John’s Gospel.

(a) Necessity of Faith.

“If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins” (John viii. 24).

(b) Object of Faith.

“All things whatsoever I have heard of my Father I have made known to you” (John xv. 15).

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent” (John vi. 29). Motives of credibility are manifest: “though you will not believe me, believe the works” (John x. 38).

(d) Effects of Faith.

“The truth shall make you free” (John viii. 31, 32).

“Amen, amen, I say to you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life” (John vi. 47).

(3) Hope.

“Ask and it shall be given to you … what man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? … how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matt. vii. 7-11).

(4) Charity.

(a) Towards God.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind” (Matt. xxii. 37).

(b) Towards neighbours.

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. xxii. 39).

A stranger, even an enemy, who needs help, is our neighbour (Luke x. 25-37).

(5) Prayer.

(a) Its necessity.

“We ought always to pray” (Luke xviii. 1).

“Pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Luke xxii. 40).

(b) Conditions.

Right intention (Matt. vi. 5). Humility (Luke xviii. 14). Faith and Confidence (Matt. xxi. 22). Perseverance (Luke xi. 8). Charity (Mark xi. 25).

(6) Humility, Mortification, Self-denial, Patience.

Humility: “Learn of me to be meek and humble of heart” (Matt. xi. 29).

Mortification: “Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke xiii. 5).

Self-denial: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself” (Matt. xvi. 24).

Patience: “In your patience you shall possess your souls” (Luke xxi. 19).

(7) Prudent Diligence, Fidelity to Divine Grace, Vigilance, Zeal.

Prudent Diligence: Parable of Talents (Matt. xxv.).

Fidelity to Grace: “Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many” (Matt. xxv. 21). “None of those men that were invited shall taste of my supper” (Luke xiv. 24).

Vigilance: “Watch ye therefore; because ye know not what hour your Lord will come” (Matt. xxiv. 42). Also the Parable of the Virgins (Matt. xxv. 1-13).

Zeal: “I am come to cast fire upon earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?” (Luke xii. 49).

(8) Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes enumerate merits and rewards. Merits are works of virtue and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Rewards begin in this life and are perfected in heaven.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”—a rebuke to cupidity and pride.

“Blessed are the meek”—a contrast to those who cherish angry and hostile feelings.

“Blessed are they that mourn”—a contrast to those who find their consolation in pleasure and vanities, and who do not grieve for their sins.

“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice”: This beatitude describes active life in the service of God.

“Blessed are the merciful”: Active work must be saturated with the mercy and compassion which God exercises towards His creatures and specially commends.

“Blessed are the clean of heart”: This beatitude describes the contemplative life. All human affection is secondary to the love of God.

“Blessed are the peace-makers”: In the contemplative life, peace, which the world cannot give, is gained and communicated.

“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice sake”: This beatitude describes the heroic service of the saints.

There is no comparison between the Christian standard of ethical conduct and the pagan. Our Blessed Lord stresses the difference: “If you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? … And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? Do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. v. 46-48).

Art. IV.—End of the World; Last Judgment; Eternal Life.

I.—End of the World.

Modernists of the “Apocalyptic” school (Schweitzer, Loisy, etc.) assert that Christ announced the immediate end of the world. Jesus is represented as an enthusiastic fanatic, who believed that He would be manifested immediately from heaven as the Christ or the Son of Man (of the Book of Enoch) to judge the present, and to inaugurate the next, world. As His testimony was not realised, the claim of Divinity for Him must be abandoned.

(A) Signs of the end of the world, and of the second coming (παρουσία) of the Messiah.

(1) “There shall be false Christs and false prophets.”

(2) “As the lightning cometh out of the East and appeareth even into the West, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”

(3) “They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty” (Matt. xxiv. 23-31; xxvi. 64; Cf. Mark xiii. 21-27; Luke xvii. 20-36; xxi. 25-27).

(B) The time of the last coming of the Son of God is uncertain.

“Of that day and hour no one knoweth, no not the Angels of heaven, but the Father alone” (Matt. xxiv. 36).

“Of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the Angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father” (Mark xiii. 32).

The text means that the Son had not a commission to reveal the day (Cf. John xii. 49; Acts i. 7).

Many Rationalists and Modernists (Renan, Stapfer, O. Holtzmann, de Pressensé, Reuss, A. Réville, Loisy, etc.) argue from three texts especially to prove Christ’s prediction of the immediate end of the world—the “Parousia.”

(a) Matt. xxiv. 34. After the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the day of Judgment, Christ said: “Amen I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.”

(b) Matt. xvi. 28. Before His Transfiguration Christ said: “Amen I say to you there are some of them that stand here that shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

(c) Matt. x. 23. “When they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen, I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man come.”

In the thirteenth chapter of St. Mark and elsewhere Christ speaks in the same discourse of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world, and since the first event is a figure of the second, it is not easy to determine the words which belong to the first, and those which belong to the second. But the words of one who is wise must not be understood as to seem contradictory. Many non-Catholic exegetes (Godet, Sanday, etc.) as well as Catholic critics shew that the Rationalist and Modernist interpretation is not founded on the text of the Gospel, but is clearly opposed to it (Cf. Principles of Christian Apologetics, Chap. xvii.).

1° Christ said: “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed … which (i.e., in process of time) becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof” (Matt. xiii. 31-32). It is clear that an indefinite length of time is required for the expansion of the Church—the Kingdom of God. He sends His apostles not only to the people of Israel, but to the whole world: “Go ye therefore into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark xvi. 15; Matt. xxviii. 19; Luke xxiv. 47). He says expressly that before the Second Coming “unto all nations the Gospel must first be preached” (Mark xiii. 10). He predicts that “many shall come from the East and from the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. viii. 11; Luke xiii. 29). Again He said to Peter: “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. xvi. 18).

2° It does not follow from the words of Christ that the end of the world will take place immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. He prophesied a speedy coming in judgment on Jerusalem. He also threw this “doom” upon the background of a final coming or Day of Judgment. But St. Luke in two passages deprecates the immediacy of the Second Coming: “Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations be fulfilled” (Luke xxi. 24). And again: “He spoke a parable … because they thought that the Kingdom of God should immediately be manifested” (Luke xix. 11). In Matt. xxiv. 29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened,” etc., the words “immediately after” refer to the signs of the end of the world just enumerated (lightning coming out of the East and appearing even in the West, etc.), and not to the destruction of Jerusalem.

3° Christ up to the time of His Ascension said to His Apostles: “It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts i. 7) as He had said before His passion: “Of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the Angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray. For you know not when the time is” (Mark xiii. 32, 33). St. Jerome wrote that Our Lord wished the end to be uncertain, that man might always watch and pray.

4° The words recorded in Matt. xxiv. 34 which come after the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world: “This generation shall not pass till all these things be done,” are understood to mean either the generation of all the faithful and the end of the world, or the actual generation of men then living, and the destruction of Jerusalem. Others understand “generation” as meaning the nation (gens) of the Jews. In many places of Scripture “generation” stands for “nation” or “people.”

St. Peter, speaking of the Day of Judgment writes: “One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter iii. 8). God sees all things in eternity, and the prophet is sometimes enabled to regard future things as they are in the Divine mind.

5° The words recorded in Matt. xvi. 28: “Some that stand here shall not taste death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom,” are referred by some commentators to the Transfiguration, by others to the destruction of Jerusalem and the growth of the Church.

6° The words of Matt. x. 23 probably mean: Never stay anywhere to press the Gospel on those who do not want it. There will always be unevangelised places to be given their chance, before the Gospel is preached in the whole world and the end comes.

7° St. Paul writes (2 Thess. ii. 2): “Be not frighted … as if the day of the Lord were at hand.” St. Paul goes on to assert that a revolt must first come, and the man of sin be revealed, so that he “sitteth in the temple of God as if he were God.”

It is quite clear, from the above statements, that the time of the last coming of Christ remains uncertain. (Cf. Card. Billot: La Parousie.)

II.—The Last Judgment.

“They that have done good things shall come forth unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment” (John v. 29).

“The Son of Man shall send his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and them that work iniquity. And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. xiii. 41-43).

“Woe to thee Corozain, woe to thee Bethsaida… . It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you” (Matt. xi. 21, 22).

“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment. By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. xii. 36, 37).

“The Son of Man … shall render to every man according to his works” (Matt. xvi. 27).

Regarding lost souls, Christ teaches: “they shall go into everlasting punishment” (Matt. xxv. 46).

Angels “shall cast them into the furnace of fire” (Matt. xiii. 42).

Christ speaks of “the hell of unquenchable fire, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished” (Mark ix. 42-47).

III.—Eternal Life.

“They that shall be accounted worthy of that world and of the resurrection from the dead shall neither be married nor take wives, neither can they die any more; for they are equal to the angels and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke xx. 35, 36).

“The just shall shine as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Matt. xiii. 43).

“They shall see God” (Matt. v. 8).

“Their reward is very great in heaven” (Matt. v. 12).

“In my Father’s house, there are many mansions” (John xiv. 2).

The life of grace, which Holy Communion nourishes, is the beginning and seed of eternal life. “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John vi. 55-59).

Regarding the doctrine of the Resurrection the Church teaches the following truths:

(a) The risen body will be the same both specifically and numerically as in life.

(b) Numerical identity is sufficiently secured by the identity of the soul. Because of this identity of soul the boy and the man continue to be the same individual, notwithstanding change of material.

(c) Hence the risen body may not possess a single particle of the matter which constitutes its structure before death. The body which a man bears at death, has, after death, no nearer connexion with him than the material which he acquired and shed during life.

(d) When the Fathers and Councils insist that the resurrection shall be in the flesh which man bears in life and in which he lives and moves, they do not wish to teach the material identity of the flesh, but they intend to exclude the error of those, who, following Origen, taught that risen bodies will be spiritual, neither visible to sight, nor palpable to touch.

(e) The Church honours the dead body, but this honour is directed to the person who has died as a member of the Church, for whom supplication is made that he or she may enjoy a happy immortality complete in nature, i.e., with body as well as soul. The Church does not assert or deny that the body committed to earth may furnish material for the body to be assumed for eternity.

(f) Cremation—a pagan custom, renewed in the hatred of the Christian rite of burial, and to encourage the idea that death is the termination of individual existence—has been condemned by the Church, and is forbidden under severest penalties.

(g) Each human being shall have such a body as in life he would have attained, if nature had not erred or failed.

(h) Because the Body of Our Lord, after His death, remained hypostatically united to the Word, that identical Body rose from the dead. This truth needs assertion, as it seems to be either unknown or misunderstood even by capable apologists. Thus Sir Oliver Lodge writes: “to rise again from death to life on the third day … seems to mean resuscitation after the manner of Lazarus… . But an attempt to link the whole Christian Faith inextricably with an anatomical statement about flesh and bones is rash” (Cf. Man and the Universe, p. 255).