And as for Himself, what had He to say to all this? A Transcendent God
Who hid Himself, a Divine Saviour Who delayed to come, a Comforter heard
no longer in wind nor seen in fire!
There, in the next room, was a little wooden altar, and above it an iron
box, and within that box a silver cup, and within that cup—Something.
Outside the house, a hundred yards away, lay the domes and plaster roofs
of a little village called Nazareth; Carmel was on the right, a mile or
two away, Thabor on the left, the plain of Esdraelon in front; and
behind, Cana and Galilee, and the quiet lake, and Hermon. And far away
to the south lay Jerusalem....
It was to this tiny strip of holy land that the Pope had come—the land
where a Faith had sprouted two thousand years ago, and where, unless God
spoke in fire from heaven, it would presently be cut down as a cumberer
of the ground. It was here on this material earth that One had walked
Whom all men had thought to have been He Who would redeem Israel—in
this village that He had fetched water and made boxes and chairs, on
that long lake that His Feet had walked, on that high hill that He had
flamed in glory, on that smooth, low mountain to the north that He had
declared that the meek were blessed and should inherit the earth, that
peacemakers were the children of God, that they who hungered and
thirsted should be satisfied.
And now it was come to this. Christianity had smouldered away from
Europe like a sunset on darkening peaks; Eternal Rome was a heap of
ruins; in East and West alike a man had been set upon the throne of God,
had been acclaimed as divine. The world had leaped forward; social
science was supreme; men had learned consistency; they had learned, too,
the social lessons of Christianity apart from a Divine Teacher, or,
rather, they said, in spite of Him. There were left, perhaps, three
millions, perhaps five, at the utmost ten millions—it was impossible to
know—throughout the entire inhabited globe who still worshipped Jesus
Christ as God. And the Vicar of Christ sat in a whitewashed room in
Nazareth, dressed as simply as His master, waiting for the end.
He had done what He could. There had been a week five months ago when
it had been doubtful whether anything at all could be done. There were
left three Cardinals alive, Himself, Steinmann, and the Patriarch of
Jerusalem; the rest lay mangled somewhere in the ruins of Rome. There
was no precedent to follow; so the two Europeans had made their way out
to the East, and to the one town in it where quiet still reigned. With
the disappearance of Greek Christianity there had also vanished the last
remnants of internecine war in Christendom; and by a kind of tacit
consent of the world, Christians were allowed a moderate liberty in
Palestine. Russia, which now held the country as a dependency, had
sufficient sentiment left to leave it alone; it was true that the holy
places had been desecrated, and remained now only as spots of
antiquarian interest; the altars were gone but the sites were yet
marked, and, although mass could no longer be said there, it was
understood that private oratories were not forbidden.
It was in this state that the two European Cardinals had found the Holy
City; it was not thought wise to wear insignia of any description in
public; and it was practically certain even now that the civilised world
was unaware of their existence; for within three days of their arrival
the old Patriarch had died, yet not before Percy Franklin, surely under
the strangest circumstances since those of the first century, had been
elected to the Supreme Pontificate. It had all been done in a few
minutes by the dying man’s bedside. The two old men had insisted. The
German had even recurred once more to the strange resemblance between
Percy and Julian Felsenburgh, and had murmured his old half-heard
remarks about the antithesis, and the Finger of God; and Percy,
marvelling at his superstition, had accepted, and the election was
recorded. He had taken the name of Silvester, the last saint in the
year, and was the third of that title. He had then retired to Nazareth
with his chaplain; Steinmann had gone back to Germany, and been hanged
in a riot within a fortnight of his arrival.
The next matter was the creation of new cardinals, and to twenty
persons, with infinite precautions, briefs had been conveyed. Of these,
nine had declined; three more had been approached, of whom only one had
accepted. There were therefore at this moment twelve persons in the
world who constituted the Sacred College—two Englishmen, of whom
Corkran was one; two Americans, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, a
Spaniard, a Pole, a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Russian. To these were
entrusted vast districts over which their control was supreme, subject
only to the Holy Father Himself.
As regarded the Pope’s own life very little need be said. It resembled,
He thought, in its outward circumstances that of such a man as Leo the
Great, without His worldly importance or pomp. Theoretically, the
Christian world was under His dominion; practically, Christian affairs
were administered by local authorities. It was impossible for a hundred
reasons for Him to do what He wished with regard to the exchange of
communications. An elaborate cypher had been designed, and a private
telegraphic station organised on His roof communicating with another in
Damascus where Cardinal Corkran had fixed his residence; and from that
centre messages occasionally were despatched to ecclesiastical
authorities elsewhere; but, for the most part, there was little to be
done. The Pope, however, had the satisfaction of knowing that, with
incredible difficulty, a little progress had been made towards the
reorganisation of the hierarchy in all countries. Bishops were being
consecrated freely; there were not less than two thousand of them all
told, and of priests an unknown number. The Order of Christ Crucified
was doing excellent work, and the tales of not less than four hundred
martyrdoms had reached Nazareth during the last two months, accomplished
mostly at the hands of the mobs.
In other respects, also, as well as in the primary object of the Order’s
existence (namely, the affording of an opportunity to all who loved God
to dedicate themselves to Him more perfectly), the new Religious were
doing good work. The more perilous tasks—the work of communication
between prelates, missions to persons of suspected integrity—all the
business, in fact, which was carried on now at the vital risk of the
agent were entrusted solely to members of the Order. Stringent
instructions had been issued from Nazareth that no bishop was to expose
himself unnecessarily; each was to regard himself as the heart of his
diocese to be protected at all costs save that of Christian honour, and
in consequence each had surrounded himself with a group of the new
Religious—men and women—who with extraordinary and generous obedience
undertook such dangerous tasks as they were capable of performing. It
was plain enough by now that had it not been for the Order, the Church
would have been little better than paralysed under these new conditions.
Extraordinary facilities were being issued in all directions. Every
priest who belonged to the Order received universal jurisdiction subject
to the bishop, if any, of the diocese in which he might be; mass might
be said on any day of the year of the Five Wounds, or the Resurrection,
or Our Lady; and all had the privilege of the portable altar, now
permitted to be wood. Further ritual requirements were relaxed; mass
might be said with any decent vessels of any material capable of
destruction, such as glass or china; bread of any description might be
used; and no vestments were obligatory except the thin thread that now
represented the stole; lights were non-essential; none need wear the
clerical habit; and rosary, even without beads, was always permissible
instead of the Office.
In this manner priests were rendered capable of giving the sacraments
and offering the holy sacrifice at the least possible risk to
themselves; and these relaxations had already proved of enormous benefit
in the European prisons, where by this time many thousands of Catholics
were undergoing the penalty of refusing public worship.
The Pope’s private life was as simple as His room. He had one Syrian
priest for His chaplain, and two Syrian servants. He said His mass each
morning, Himself wearing vestments and His white habit beneath, and
heard a mass after. He then took His coffee, after changing into the
tunic and burnous of the country, and spent the morning over business.
He dined at noon, slept, and rode out, for the country by reason of its
indeterminate position was still in the simplicity of a hundred years
ago. He returned at dusk, supped, and worked again till late into the
night.
That was all. His chaplain sent what messages were necessary to
Damascus; His servants, themselves ignorant of His dignity, dealt with
the secular world so far as was required, and the utmost that seemed to
be known to His few neighbours was that there lived in the late Sheikh’s
little house on the hill an eccentric European with a telegraph office.
His servants, themselves devout Catholics, knew Him for a bishop, but no
more than that. They were told only that there was yet a Pope alive, and
with that and the sacraments were content.
To sum up, therefore—the Catholic world knew that their Pope lived
under the name of Silvester; and thirteen persons of the entire human
race knew that Franklin had been His name, and that the throne of Peter
rested for the time in Nazareth.
It was, as a Frenchman had said, just a hundred years ago. Catholicism
survived; but no more.
