parallelism of structure. Thus one desiderates the necessary parallel to ἐν Χριστῷ, that shall convey the notion of elect and predestined. The necessary condition of election, implied in the words ἐν Χριστῷ, is just as requisite in the case of the living remnant who are to be admitted to the glorified presence of the Redeemer. In other words, both structural similarity and verbal correspondence demand a qualifying determinative to οἱ ζῶντες of meaning analogous to ἐν Χριστῷ. Where is this determinative to be found ? Precisely in the word ἡμεῖς, which must bear the required meaning. Thus in the incriminated pronoun of the first person-the great prop of Rationalist pretensions-we find the exact analogue to ἐν Χριστῷ. And both structure and sense evince this meaning. Just as ev Χριστῷ νεκροί designates the Christian dead who died in the grace and charity of Christ, so must ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες mark the Christian living entitled to union with Christ in eternity, because they were united to Him in time. And thus, by another road, we get back to the corporate or generic ἡμεῖς, which Cardinal Billot illustrates as follows : If I, who am a Frenchman [his Eminence wrote before the armistice], were to say that we have just won a second battle of the Marne, nobody would dream that I represent myself as being of the number of those who actually won the victory. And if addressing a more numerous audience I were to add that in all probability we shall shortly be in Berlin, none of my audience would consider himself included in the collective pronoun used by me. An apposite remark of Father Prat on the same point will not be out of place. 'As the Christian Church never dies, not only St. Paul but Christians generally may well identify themselves with it, as though they were to assist in the far distant future in its triumphs or in its trials.' It may be objected that in the foregoing solution no proof has been tendered to demonstrate the assertion that living remnant' rather than 'living survivors' is the correct rendering of the debated text. Without insisting on the glaring tautology involved if the latter rendering were accepted, it may be briefly stated that Greek usage, as revealed by all available lexicographical evidence, is preponderatingly in favour of 'living remnant.' Substantival derivatives from the verb in question, such as ὑπόλειμμα and λεῖμμα occurring in St. Paul (Rom. ix. 27; xi. 5) are used only in the sense of 'remainder,' ' residuum,' 'remnant.' The verb itself occurs only once in the New Testament, in this very text which is the subject of discussion. Hence illustrations of its use must be sought elsewhere. If we turn to the Classics it will be found that περίλειμμα is used by Plato as the equivalent of our word 'remnant.' Further, all instances of the verbal use cited by Liddell and Scott, Thayer and Bretschneider, go to show that περιλείπεσθαι is invariably translatable by 'to be left behind, to remain over.' A passage is quoted from Herodotus, where in English we might speak of 'the only one left,' or 'the sole remaining hero,' as 'the sole survivor.' Incidentally one may be pardoned for calling the attention of our worshippers of non-Catholic erudition to the fact that all these Lexicographers-in high repute for learningsimply copy one from the other. Liddell and Scott copied from a German author. Thayer copied from Liddell and Scott to parade his erudition; and he further incorporates all the additional examples supplied by Bretschneider. None of these compilers most probably did any original research work if the paragraphs on περιλείπεσθαι be taken as the measure of their methods. We Catholics are sometimes only too prone to bend the knee to the supposed overwhelming eruditon of Rationalist scholarship. The more one gets behind that scholarship, the more one learns to distrust it. J. DONOVAN, S.J. THE DEPOSITIONS ABOUT THE By J. B. WILLIAMS The actual facts of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 have long been in dispute. Whether the rebellion itself was really commenced by the Irish at all is one subject of controversy. Whether there were so many English in Ireland as the depositions about the rebellion apparently proved to have been killed is another, and so on with minor points. But the principal subject of controversy-the one point which is of cardinal importance is, admitting, as every sensible man must admit, that some murders were committed, were they either in number or in their accompanying cruelty such as are depicted in the depositions of 1641 ? The main point is whether the depositions about the rebellion are, as a whole, true or false. Are they to be accepted in their entirety or rejected as worthless ? It does not seem that a middle course is possible. Some writers there have been who have whole-heartedly accepted the evidence of these depositions; but these writers have invariably been of the extreme Protestant type, and the general verdict of more scholarly historians seems to amount to the opinion that atrocities there must have been, for what rebellion is ever free from them, but not upon the scale exhibited in the documents now preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. 6 The latest Irish historian, Mr. Dunlop,1 remarks that the question of the degree of credibility to be assigned to these depositions can never be satisfactorily settled until they are published in their entirety'; and tells us that, in considering the attitude of the seventeenth-century Englishman towards the Irish on this subject the question of the truth or falsehood of the depositions ought not to be considered, that 'the belief in the massacre, not the so-called 1 Ireland under the Commonwealth, i. Historical Introduction, p. exviii. 1 massacre itself,' is 'the point upon which we should concentrate our attention.' In an age when 'Papists' were considered capable of any villainy, and when the whole English nation literally lost its reason over Titus Oates's trumped up (and by no means new) tale, the depositions, of course, found acceptance by seventeenth-century Englishmen in the mass. And from this standpoint the so-called massacres of 1641 have always been put forward as both a cause and a palliative of the deeds of the pseudo-Commonwealth in Ireland. Cromwell himself, in his Wexford dispatch, makes mention of atrocities supposed to have been perpetrated by the Irish in that town as an excuse for his own brutality, and it would not be difficult to multiply citations of the like nature from the public utterances of the rulers of the time. But the real point is not what seventeenth-century Englishmen in the mass believed, but what the rulers of the times believed. It is to Cromwell and to his associates that the ten years' cruelties of the so-called Commonwealth were due. Did Cromwell, for instance, believe in these atrocities when he slaughtered the women at the market cross of Wexford 1 in 1649? Or, if Cromwell believed in the atrocities, had his nominal masters, the self-styled 'Council of State,' any real trust in the depositions ? The facts I am about to relate will supply the answer -possibly to the first, and certainly to the second, question. When Bishop Henry Jones presented to Parliament the first batch of depositions, taken by himself as a Commissioner, in 1642, the House of Commons was decidedly of the opinion that they should be printed, and, accordingly, on 21st March, 1642, an order of the House of Commons was passed for this to be done. Under the title of 'A Remonstrance of divers remarkable passages concerning the Church and Kingdom of Ireland,' these first depositions were published in due course in 1642.2 Eighty-seven dispositions appeared in this volume, as well as the text of the Commissions from Charles I, and other matter. 1 S. R. Gerdiner's objection to this story-that it was first told in 1763, by the Abbé Macgeoghan, in his Histoire d'Irlande-has more than once been refuted by the present writer. The story is contemporary, and was first told by James Heath in 1663, in his 'Flagellum,' a life of Cromwell. Sooner or later, contemporary Irish corroboration will follow. 2 Thomason tract (at the British Museum), E. 141. (30). After this, the depositions seem to have been forgotten until the time when Cromwell's expedition to Ireland was planned, in 1649. The Order Books of the 'Council of State' narrate that on May 9, 1649, the Council having been informed that Thomas Waring, formerly clerk of a commission under the Great Seal of Ireland for taking examinations concerning the losses and sufferings of the Protestants, has such examinations and that they would much tend to the vindication of the Protestant cause and perpetuating infamy upon the Irish Papists; and good testimony being given by Sir William Parsons, Sir Gerard Lowther and others, of Waring's labours and pains, refer the preparing and publishing of such examinations to Sir William Parsons and Sir Gerard Lowther, who are to speed the perfecting thereof; the rather as many here, by their cavils and queries, not knowing the true state of affairs of that other nation, turn obstructors of their intended relief, weaken the hands of the well affected in both nations, and, in effect, secure the designs of the rebels there. That these instructions were carried out, there can be no doubt, for on the 8th of January, 1650, £100 was ordered to be paid to Thomas Waring 'for his book containing examinations of the bloody massacre in Ireland.' He received this sum (the equivalent of £400 of our money) the same day.1 Two months later on Waring himself stated that the book of depositions was in the press and issued a preliminary pamphlet about it, published (according to the old collector Thomason) on 19th of March, 1650. It follows, therefore, that up to the month of March, 1650, there was every intention to print the depositions. They had been transcribed and their editor had been paid for his work. Waring's tract was entitled : A Brief Narration of the Plotting, Beginning and Carrying on of that Execrable Rebellion and Butcherie in Ireland. With the unheard of, Devilish Cruelties and Massacres, by the Irish rebels exercised upon the Protestants and English there. Faithfully collected out of Depositions taken by Commissioners under the great seal of Ireland. Hereunto are added observations, discussing the actions of the late King and manifesting the concernment of the Protestant army now employed in Ireland. Published by special authority. London, Printed by B. Alsop and T. Dunster. And are to be delivered at Bernard Alsop's house in Grub Street, M.D.C.L. The Preface states : There is publishing a large volume of Depositions (though far short of what might have been produced, a great part of that Island being ever since in the hands of the rebels) where the Reader may at large satisfie 597. 1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1649-1650, pp. 131-2, 474 and VOL. XV-2 |