European Origins

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 42, 26 October 1922, Page 33

European Origins

In continuance of a recent course of lectures (says the London Catholic Times),' Mr. S. N. Miller,^M.A., of Glasgow University, said that the unity of the HLgean was due to communication by water. This meant exchange not only of merchandise,. but of aptitudes, experience, and ideas. The age of iEgean culture was roughly from 4000 to 1000 8.0. The development was from nomadic to primitive settled life, then to the civilisation of the iEgean. The Germans and other tribes of the northern grass lands of Europe did not produce civilisation out, of their own barbarism. The discovery of bronze by the /Egean people-gave art, engineering, and sanitary arrangements a great impetus among them. This immense change in material culture produced no important change in the social structure. The people still remained in small local communities. In the' old- towns discovered in Crete they found the houses were all of the same size. There appeared to have been none among the people of outstanding, wealth. The iEgean civilisation came to an end about 1200 8.C., with the invasion of the people of the grass lands. The Formation of Christendom. The Roman expansion was quite different to the expansion of the Barbarians. It was The , Romans were formed from the people of the Danube grass land, who combined with the people of the Tiber’s banks. ■ It was a unity from the beginning. The Roman expansion was the incorporation of the Romans. The office of Caesar . was built up out /of the magistracy. It was a popular government. Caesar’s government did not so much govern as co-ordinate. The Roman world was articulated into provinces. Each province was a complex of small local communities. Caesar was an executive officer. The vehicle of revelation —the Jews— intensely conscious of a mission. They lay astride the highway from Egypt to the /Egean. They were dispersed and crushed, yet retained their identity. The revelation was carried on by individuals, the race rejected it. The faith passed from the Jew to the centre prepared for it at Rome. It gave to that ’civilisation,, a sense of cohesion it did not destroy antiquity but fulfilled it. The gradual formation, enlargement, transmission, and-fulfilment through literature, art, and custom, which, when fulfilled, turns out to be the Christian Catholic soul, shows the visible continuity rand identity. From Antiquity to Medievalism. It was important to notice how the Catholic mind conserved itself through the Dark Ages and also the tremendous length of time covered by the transition. The evidence of this period was meagre. Looking back from the 12th century to the Christian Empire one was apt to get a false impression by the apparent juxtaposition. The cause of the Dark Ages was the struggle between civilisation and barbarism. It was not the Latin and the German or a question of State. The Germans were not a State. The Romans were not a State in the sense of a modern State. It was not a matter of race. The barbarians looked upon civilisation as the negation of barbarism. The barbarians saw things they liked in civilisation and obtained them at first by looting. The Roman process was one of regulated immigration. • At the close of the Roman Empire the barbarians came into the Empire through congestion on the Roman frontier, and frontier conditions were set up in the heart of the Empire. The entrance completed the incorporation of the barbarians. They entered into its town life and came into contact with the diocesan system and the. Church and bishops. Which was the formative influence, German barbarism or the Catholic Church, on the secular side? The 1 Protestant historian would not admit it was the Catholic ' Church, because he did not understand the social influence of the Church. Ho attributed the change to the natural endowment of the German working itself out, and not to - the action of the Church on the mind of the barbarian. The Protestant with his idea of , an invisible Church, did - not think of the Church as a * body j which" laid down a social system. The Protestant did not think of the Church ? as a body of men and women who carried with them the secular traditions and customs, arts, etc., in addition to a body of religious truth. The Catholic Church' did not

destroy the personal traits. We must study what happened to those things which were brought into civilisation. What matters in civilisation was not the origin, but the mould. Civilisation developed from one root in the ifigean. The development was from primitive pastoral conditions to settled conditions. -It absorbed an Arian element and became Greece. It absorbed another Arian element and • became Rome and developed Christendom. It absorbed the Germans and ushered in the Renaissance and the Reformation. This last was the greatest danger of all,' because it had come out of Christendom itself. The Reformation held up the Renaissance; All the activity since in material . things was due to the loss of vision of the soul. Disintegration was the key word of Protestantism. The vital principle had gone out of it . and the parts preyed upon each other. 9 Concluding, Mr. Miller said “Fill up the gap between the family and the local community, and between the local community, and the centre authority. Electoral devices are means to make forms of government workable. The centralised solution is Protestant; it takes for granted that the Catholic Church can no longer guarantee the . guardianship of the moral law.” <*X> - ———■— Compton Mackenzie V • , .. Nobody can doubt Compton Mackenzie’s brilliancy or - dexterity (writes May Bateman, in the September Catholic World). But he will only be the great novelist which some dull him now, when he eschews unworthy lures. “Deep down,” as the children say, he actually is a far more natural and sincere character than, as yet, still to use a childish phrase, he „is “big” enough to let us see. The twist in his nature, which makes him deliberately exploit one minute section of the kaleidoscopic world in its alternating florid and scarlet, or squalid and drab phases, ""limits his observation and irretrievably restricts interest in his work. How is it that a writer who has travelled so widely and has, withal, such sensitive. perceptions, can become thrall-to an obsession, and writ© and re-writ© part of the same story so continually? Over and over again in his different books, Ave find allusions to the same thing which happened to the same people Michael and Sylvia, ,• Michael Avery and Jenny, Guy and Pauline, Dorothy Lonsdale and Lily Haden, as the case may be, until he ends by provincialising the half-world itself With hawklike eyes that can see in many directions, he deliberately puts on blinkers; with the winged spirit of youth to carry him far, ho lurks in the incredibly narrow ways of one small area of teeming life. How account for this limitation of power except by an unworthy explanation? The man who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage is neither true man nor true artist. /. Compton Mackenzie, with the great art of capturing youth, has used it often to unworthy ends. The spirit of individual books with their infinite possibilities is not a static, but dynamic force. The choice of the right books is every bit as important as is the. choice of the right friends. This is why a writer with the power not only to “see true” himself, but to make others see it, acts culpably when he narrows his vision and looks too long on what is perverted and artificial. Hibernian Society, Napier The ordinary fortnightly meeting of St. John’s branchi of the Hibernian Society, Napier, was held in St. Patrick’s Hall, on the 17th inst., when there was a fair attendance of members (writes a correspondent). P.P. Bro. ’ Cunningham, presided. Sick pay amounting to £8 and accounts (£3 11s 2d) were passed-for payment. Every endeavor is being made by the executive to ensur'd the thorough success of the banquet arranged to take place on the 31st : inst. An excellent programme has been arranged for the occasion. Bro. J. W. Callaghan, who has done splendid service for the branch as secretary, and later as auditor, will,, be farewelled at this gathering, prior to his departure for Wellington, where he has secured a ’ good appointment. In. the departure of Bro. Callaghan the district will suffer a. severe loss as he has always taken a most active part in the work of the Hibernian Society, as well ; as in ( education and other Church interests, also sports. He has been chairman of the local Rugby Union for a considerable period. > v * * -*■ ’’