As I sit retired before my fire. That’s how I ended my last post, and in sitting there, I became gradually convicted that I needed to write an addendum, I suppose a correction, for any misunderstandings that may have arisen from my personal witness to the danger of becoming too “deep in history” (if you haven’t, please read that last post before proceeding). I’m left wondering whether some of you may have been left speechless, transmogrified, through a misunderstanding of my intent.

By declaring that I personally found a danger in becoming too deep in history, I did not mean to imply, in any way, that one should not make every effort to become “deep in history”. George Santayana’s famous quip, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, continues to be prophetically true.

We’re seeing this played out in the present political chaos of our nation, our world, across Christendom, and sadly also in our Church. It’s repeatedly obvious that our politicians are able to instill the chaos they too often foment because they merely assume the American populous is generally ignorant of our political history, let alone what just happened yesterday—let alone what the politicians said just yesterday—and to a sad extent, the politicians’ assumptions are right.

When someday someone writes a history, for example, of the present chaos in our country and world over the question of immigration, what will they write? Just concerning the present riots happening across our country, what is, not just the correct history of these events, but the correct explanation of this pervasive and seemingly inexhaustible source of violence? I find it terribly disturbing to hear radically opposed politicians, looking at the same facts, and yet pontificating radically opposed, irreconcilable interpretations, with no seeming interest in getting to the actual facts behind the chaos, but only in reinforcing their particular political platforms, even if it foments more violence, chaos, and disunity. And one thing these politicians presume is that the general populous is historically ignorant of how reminiscent the present chaos and divisions are to the volatile periods just before the American Revolution, the American Civil War, as well as before any of the world’s many conflicts throughout the previous century until now. Of course, we presume none of this could ever happen again—but this is precisely what most people thought historically before all of these previous brutal conflicts. Once again, Santayana’s prescient warning—in 1905 before any of the 20th-century wars!

Saint Paul made this same warning to the first generation Christians. Several times in his epistles, he warned that the Old Testament Scriptures were a crucial historical foundation for Christians to understand how Christ’s teachings were now to guide their lives in this final age of the Church. To his fellow Christians at Rome, Paul wrote, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope” (Rom 15:4). To the Christians at Corinth, he made a similar statement: “Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor 10:11).

Saint Paul was emphasizing that the history of the Jewish people was a prophetic warning to the New Testament Church not to follow in the footsteps of their rebellious fathers. As their apostolic founder and spiritual leader, Saint Paul insisted that these early Christians become deep in their own religious history:

Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were … We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did … We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did … nor grumble, as some of them did … Therefore, my beloved, shun the worship of idols. (1 Cor 10:6-10,14)

Saint Paul was warning these first century Christians to know and listen to the history of their forefathers and not repeat the same mistakes that brought God’s wrath upon them: in their new life in Christ, they must not worship idols, indulge in immorality, grumble, or put the Lord to the test. Why? Because, like their forefathers, even with all the blessings and divine assistance these first Christians had received by grace through faith in Christ, through the new life received in baptism, and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, yet Saint Paul warned them, “Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man” (1 Cor 10:11-13a). 

The Old Testament stories, laws, histories, psalms, proverbs, and prophesies were all to serve as historical instructions for the first century Christians. Is this true, also, for us twenty century later, in this End of the Ages? Do they continue to be a warning to us not to do what our Old Testament forefathers did more than two thousand years ago? Of course they do, as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 117: “The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As Saint Paul says, they were written ‘for our instruction.’”

My simple, though perhaps obtuse point, is that it remains utterly crucial that we today become deep in history, not just in biblical salvation history, but in how our Christian forefathers, during the past two thousand years of Christian history, have either listened to or not listened to Saint Paul’s warnings and taken his advice—so that we can learn from the experiences and wisdom of our forefathers, to not repeat their mistakes.

In my previous article, using the metaphor of peeling an onion, I suggested that the examination of the “first few layers helps one clearly discern that it is an onion, what kind, whether it’s healthy, et cetera”, leading to the comment that “some historical research is essential, even necessary to clarify the soundness of one’s present position”. Though in my previous post I reflected on why becoming too “deep in history” proved a danger for me, I don’t think this is the most perilous problem facing the majority of Christians today; rather, it’s not becoming “deep in history” at all. More often than not, few people make the least effort to examine the outside crinkled layers of their own personal historical onion. And I know from personal experience how one’s assumptions and prejudices can blind oneself to the dangers of one’s personal truncated understanding of history.

I’ll not pretend to even try a clearer explanation of this—I’ll leave that to those of you with far superior credentials—but only confess that, after my 73 years, the only trustworthy key I’ve found to guide me through my continued study of history and Scripture, as well as the present chaos, is the promise Christ made to His hand-chosen apostles, centered around the leadership of the man He called Peter. He promised that after He was gone, the Holy Spirit would come and empower them, revealing to them the truth of how to understand their historical past and apply this to the future. Under His guidance, they would go forth with His authority, and that He would be with them forever.

The earliest Church writers all emphasized that this promise was fulfilled and that this authority passed on to the successors of these apostles, and that the church of a successor of an apostle was the continuing foundation for knowing the fulness of the gospel message. Here, for example, is what Eusebius wrote in his Ecclesiastical History, III.XXXVII (written AD 312-326):

Many others besides them [bishops and leaders he has mentioned] were well known at this time and take the first rank in the Apostolic succession. These pious disciples of great men built in every place on the foundations of the churches laid by the Apostles. They spread the preaching and scattered the saving seeds of the kingdom of Heaven, sowing them broadcast through the whole world. … As soon as they had no more than laid the foundations of the faith in some strange place, they appointed others as shepherds and committed to them the task of tending those who had been just brought in, but they themselves passed on again to other lands and peoples, helped by the grace and co-operation of God …

This is precisely what Saint Paul instructed Saint Timothy to do: “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:1-2).

This becomes the safe authoritative boundary within which, I believe, one must always read history—as well as one’s Bible! As soon as one abandons this, lifting one’s self up above this apostolic authority as it has existed throughout Church history in the Magisterium in union with Peter, one becomes in danger of wandering off into the myriad of paths one finds today in the chaos of our present world. This is what I meant when I pointed out the danger of becoming too deep in history: I myself had stepped over and outside this protective authoritative boundary in my reading of history, and found myself wallowing into “the uncertain, unsteady reign of historic onion skins”.

Many centuries ago, Saint Augustine made the following bold warning:

A man cannot have salvation, except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church he can have everything except salvation. He can have honor, he can have Sacraments, he can sing alleluia, he can answer amen, he can possess the gospel, he can have and preach faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; but never except in the Catholic Church will he be able to find salvation. (“Discourse to the people of the church at Caesarea”, AD 418)

This has often been quoted as a proof-text for the Church’s supposed claim that “there’s no salvation outside the Catholic Church”, but Augustine’s statement is a bit more nuanced. On the one hand, it’s important to note that Augustine was confirming that many avenues of grace can be found outside the Catholic Church (as reconfirmed in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council), but on the other hand, he was warning that apart from the protective authority of the Apostolic Succession—outside the boundaries of the Spirit empowered leadership of those successors of the apostles charged to guard, preserve, and proclaim the fullness of the gospel—“never except in the Catholic Church will [a person] be able to find salvation.” The eternal danger outside the Church—and even more today than in Augustine’s day—is the question of how can any one ever be certain they have found salvation? If one, for example, takes the time to study the history of the ever expanding assortment of non-Catholic Christian traditions across America and around the world, even around the block, one discovers—if one’s prejudices don’t prevent one from seeing—that the one most significant thing they can’t agree on is perhaps the most important thing: what one must do to be saved. 

If I may add one more thought to this already long post, there’s a verse in the psalms that poses the question that has led to continuing divisions between Christians: “if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps 11:3). What are the “foundations”? Are they “destroyed”? Who are “the righteous” with the authoritative responsibility to decide what to “do”?Christendom is divided over these questions. What I’ve come to see is that the only trustworthy answer is the Church established by Christ in His apostles which, as Vatican II affirmed, “subsists in the Catholic Church” (Lumen Gentium, 8).

As I closed my last post, I admitted that, in the end, none of this can necessarily be proven by reason or apologetical arguments to anyone outside the Catholic Church. I can envision the reams of arguments I might receive from the non-Catholic historians and authors I’ve read, as well as the dozens of Protestant friends, neighbors, and classmates who, in the end, have not been drawn home to the Catholic Church through their own reading of history. Rather, in the end, this all remains far more a matter of faith than reason, trusting that the Lord continues to “be with” the Church He established in His apostles, as He promised, guiding and guarding their successors in union with the successor of Peter. 

As I continue to sit retired before my fire, I’ll close by confirming what I said before, that it’s not so important to continue becoming deeper in history, or even deeper in Scripture—though I think both are crucial—but to become deeper in the rich teachings of the Catholic Church, especially when it comes to growing by grace in Christ, through humility and obedience, faith and love.

[If you have any questions about the Catholic faith, please pose them to the good staff at the Coming Home Network, at https://chnetwork.org. ]