The Bohemians

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Panegyric of the Clergy

c h a p t e r s i x t e e n Panegyric of the Clergy “I have not taken this chair to instruct you about the utility of the clergy to which you belong—for who would dream of attacking the existence of the clergy?1 which is as necessary as the worship it supports. The slanderous topics of attack on the clergy are: its riches, its mores, its love for the government, and its open-mindedness. And on these scores will I undertake to justify it. “I shall demonstrate that within the church, all the excesses for which her ministers may be justly accused are individual divagations; the overwhelming majority of the clergy are pure, as loyal to its morality as to its dogma, and vigilant over sweet politics and pure religion. First, I prove that a separation of powers between politics and religion is not essential to Christianity; then that such a distinction was born of royal decadence, and adopted by the clergy as a safeguard rather than a principle of justice. Therefore nothing prevents the clergy from wielding both temporal and spiritual power: not only may the priest become a magistrate, but also there is no impediment to his ascending the throne. In conclusion, the only remedy for mankind’s ills is either for the king to take holy orders, or for us to crown a priest. The only revolution capable of eliminating the obstacles to the reestablishment of true principles lies here: thus we reunite on a single tree trunk two branches which ought never have been divided in the first place, and lead mankind into the delightful, pleasant grove promised him by religion, but so oft denied him by passion.* * The Mullahs of Persia maintain that royalty must never be separated from the sacerdocy; that as the sole source of civil law is the Koran, knowledge and interpretation of law should be 106 chapter sixteen “What is the Clergy? What is this body whose members spend their whole lives trying to bring man closer to Divinity? We must go back to origins, and investigate the sources of our holy religion to discover the truth about who or what the clergy must have been before the existence of priests in this world. Not in the writings of the Gospel, not in the Church Fathers, but in other respected texts written by the Holy Spirit with a plume from an angel’s wing, may we discover its Type or venerable model. Indeed, the clergy in Rome have always sensed as much: they have always taken the tribe of Levi for their model, and built their organization along the lines of its theocratic government: high priest, pontiff, levites correspond to pope, cardinal, bishops, priests. The deserts of Palestine offer prototypes for even the lowliest monks.3 “Examine the world’s first clergy, led by Aaron: we will see it wield a single power: the executive power to carry out God’s laws. This body never arrogated to itself a distinct legislative power. God gave his laws on Mount Sinai; Aaron put these laws into practice in the field; Moses marched at the head of their armies while his brother dispensed justice. “The ungrateful populace, weary of theocracy, begged for a ruler: ‘Give us a king to lead our armies.’ But the sort of king they were asking for was a simple captain; the high priest was the supreme interpreter of law. Samuel supports Achish against King Saul. In Ezra’s time, who but a priest could reestablish the code of statutes? And was not Caiaphas the judge at the first trial of Jesus of Nazareth?4 Let us conclude, then, that secular and religious powers were combined under ancient law. Or rather that there existed only one single power: and this power belonged to priests. Didn’t the author of our own religion say he came not to destroy the law, but to perfect it? Therefore, whatever he did not change in the Law must clearly stay the same. “Some people do object, claiming to find a basis for two separate powers in Jesus’s saying ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.’5 But their interpretation is labored and inadmissible. Jesus had been asked a different question: whether tribute must be paid to a foreign ruler, not a question about the power or body of the priesthood. Moreover, when Caiaphas rendered judgment...