Hello,
I am looking for English translations of (or a way in which i can do the translations on the cheap)
Histoire universelle de l'église catholique by Fr Rohrbacher
It is a 29 volume series that Garcia Moreno read during his exile in Paris. I have found some of the original French books on archive.org
I can slowly translated page by page on chatgpt, but that will take a lot of grunt work and time. Not that I don't think it's worthwhile, but there must be a faster way.
Here is a preview of what i translated thus far:
Preface
Fifteen centuries ago, a holy doctor set out to refute in a few words all the human errors that had appeared from the beginning of the world until his time. To succeed, he established as an indisputable fact that the faith which then reigned in the holy and catholic Church of God was the same that existed from the beginning and which, since then, was revealed again by Christ. For, he said, for whoever wants to reflect on it with a love of truth, the holy catholic Church is the beginning of all things. And he proves it by the example of the first man, who was neither a Jew by circuмcision nor an idolater by the worship of idols, but being a prophet, knew the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and thereby was a Christian. He also proves it by the example of the patriarchs, including Abraham. From this, he concludes that all heresies, among which he includes paganism, were in fact and law posterior to the Catholic truth.
What Saint Epiphanius did in a succinct and polemical way in the fourth century of the Christian era, we have undertaken to do in the nineteenth century in a historical and more extensive way.
The consideration of the current world has brought us back to the same conclusion. We said to ourselves: there exists a human race.
But where does it come from? Where does it go? What does it know? - Only human beings can tell us that. - So we must ask them. - But how do we go about it? - Here is how. When we question an individual, we address their mind, their intelligent part. So, to question this collective individual called humankind, we must address its intelligent part, its head. - But where do we find it? A glance at the intellectual geography will suffice to show it to us.
There are four or five parts of the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceania. For intelligence, especially religious and moral intelligence, Oceania is below zero, Africa neutral, Asia dead: as it has been said, no other light comes to us from the East but the light of the sun. There is intellectual life only in Europe and America, that is to say, in Christian society: a society that embraces the whole earth, a society visibly constituted in the Catholic, apostolic, and Roman Church, which speaks and explains itself through the organ of its head, as the individual does through their mouth. So that is where we must address ourselves.
Now, the Catholic Church, in its current state, goes back to us for nineteen centuries, and from there, in a different state, to the origin of humanity. It thus embraces all centuries, from the 16th century to Adam. Outside of that, there is nothing like it; outside of that, there is no unity; outside of that, there are only fragments that, on their own, present only a heap of ruins, but which, in total Christianity, find their place, like the detached stones of the same building. The Catholic Church is thus the human race, divinely constituted and divinely preserved in unity, to answer whoever questions it, tell us where it comes from, where it is going, what are the main events of its long existence, and what are God's designs for it and for us. Its response is the history we write.
History means science of facts: science, reasoned knowledge, knowledge that explains the reason, causes, relationships, and effects. The history of humankind therefore includes not only the simple notion of the main facts concerning it, but also the explanation of those facts by their causes and results. "Now, as Bossuet said, the Catholic Church alone fills all preceding centuries with a sequence that cannot be contested. The law comes before the Gospel; the succession of Moses and the patriarchs is one and the same as that of Jesus Christ: to be awaited, to come, to be recognized by a posterity that will last as long as the world, is the character of the Messiah in whom we believe. Jesus Christ is today, He was yesterday, and He is forever and ever. Only the Catholic Church can teach us both the facts and the meaning of the facts. The unfortunate person who believes neither in God nor in His providence cannot even conceive the idea of human history. For him, everything is without cause, without rule, and without purpose. How can one imagine a cause, a sequence from nothing? Not believing in the most striking fact attested to him by mankind, the existence of God and His providence, how could he accept any other fact? How can he link several facts together, discover a cause, an intelligence in short, a history? The only history for him is silence and nothingness. Therefore, there is no possible history without faith in Providence. But whoever believes in divine Providence over mankind must also, if he wants to be consistent, believe in the Catholic Church. Because, besides embracing the whole earth, besides being the intelligent portion of humanity, besides having lived through all the centuries, it alone possesses, in both the new and the old Testament, a series of written monuments to which, neither for antiquity nor for completeness, there is nothing comparable in the world. The truth is therefore either there, or God has played with men: otherwise, the truth is in the Catholic Church, or God does not exist. For us, we have questioned these monuments with faith and love. The Church presents them to us in three languages, which were sanctified on the cross: Hebrew for the Old Testament, Greek for the New, and Latin for the authentic version of both, known as the Vulgate. Following the example and with the help of the most learned fathers of the Church and the most Catholic interpreters, we have questioned them in each of these languages. Where the Church has not fixed the meaning itself, we have followed, for the translation, the one that seemed most suitable to us to repel error and confirm the truth. The facts thus established from Scripture thus understood have served us as a rule for unraveling their vestiges in profane writers, in the traditions of ancient peoples, as well as in the discoveries of modern science, and to make even error serve as a stepping stone to truth.According to the doctrine of the Church, which is like the soul of its history and has already served us as a rule to discern what is true, false, and excusable in all human doctrines, whether from antiquity or from our times, here is how we believe we can best understand it:
The Church, the kingdom of God in this world, although it is not of this world, is like a very small seed that, when thrown into the ground, grows until it becomes a tree. The germ is in the seed, the tree is in the germ, but sometimes with imperceptible dimensions. To know the nature of a tree, the nature of its wood, its sap, and its fruit, it is necessary to consider it not only in its seed and seedling state but also and especially in its mature state as a tree; for what was imperceptible at first becomes palpable as it develops. So it is with the Church and its doctrine. To know it well, it must be studied not only at its birth and in its adolescence but also and especially in its adult stage when it begins to give birth to entire nations for God, not just individuals. What was only a germ in one century develops and grows in another; what was initially believed obscurely later becomes public teaching. We have therefore started from the current state of the doctrine and government of the Church to appreciate the progressive evolution of this doctrine and government in each century.
Protestant writers who have composed ecclesiastical histories have followed an entirely different approach. What each of them, based on their individual ideas, does not see in the Church in its seed and germ state, they cry out as abuse, corruption, as soon as they perceive it in its growth state, but especially in its mature state as a tree, covering the earth with its shade and nourishing the people with its fruit. It would be just as absurd to condemn a man's height because it is no longer his height as a child in swaddling clothes.
What has happened as a result? All histories, whether ecclesiastical or universal, made by Protestants, if reduced to their simplest expression, never say more than this: "God created the world with admirable wisdom; however, as soon as this world is created, everything is disrupted by the rebellion of the angel and man. A Savior is announced who will repair everything: this Savior is the Son of God; he comes after four thousand years."
He teaches, he behaves with truly divine wisdom. However, as soon as he is gone, his work deteriorates and his religion becomes corrupted century after century, until finally a defrocked monk from Germany arrives and forever mends the masterpiece of God and his son by teaching everyone that each person has only themselves as a rule. If an enemy of God and his providence wanted to make a sacrilegious parody, he could not have done it better. May God preserve us from ever conceiving such a thought about his wisdom and goodness. No! No! God is not a man who speaks and does not act. His word is spirit and life. He said to the son of Jonah, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." He said to him and his other disciples, "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world." This word is from the same one who said, "Let there be light!" and there was light, and light has not ceased to exist. Therefore, he is with his Church until the end of time, and he is with it every day. He is with it in the early centuries, he is with it in the Middle Ages, and he is with it today. What it does and teaches in the Middle Ages is not contrary to what it does and teaches in the first or in our own. It never experiences obscurity because the one who is the light itself is with it every day. To say or suppose otherwise is to slander the word of Christ.
Today, Providence gives a memorable lesson to some Catholics. Some, due to national or political prejudices, believed that they had the right to criticize the Popes, the councils, the doctors, in short, the Church of the Middle Ages, as having forgotten and misunderstood the doctrine and examples of the early Christians, as fomenting principles of revolt and anarchy. Today, honest and learned Protestants, and even unbelievers, acknowledge and publicly proclaim that it is precisely these Popes and councils of the Middle Ages who saved humanity, who triumphed on earth with justice and morality, otherwise the law of God. Children of the Church, let us at least learn from foreigners to honor our mother and no longer reproach her for her benefits!
The first motive that led us to undertake this work was the desire to justify the Catholic, apostolic, and Roman Church, against the reproaches that some of his own children allowed themselves to make towards him; to restore the facts they altered, the testimonies they suppressed, and thus refute the calumnies they spread, we first began with his history since Jesus Christ. However, when we arrived at the end of the third century, we became convinced that, in order to present the religion, the Church of God, in all its majesty, to make it triumph over all the quibbles of unbelief and heresy, and over all the prejudices of nations, especially certain false systems of philosophy, we had to, like the Church, embrace all the centuries. Without delay and without rest, we began our work. This is the result of our labor.
We wanted to write a history of the Catholic Church, not of the Church of any particular country, following the prejudices of any particular nation. We take as our rule of affection and thought, not our individual selves, nor any other, not even our homeland, but the Church of God, the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church. Discussions have taken place in recent years; we have tried to discover what is true on both sides, and we seem to have found more than once the point of reconciliation. Important discoveries have shed new light on the antiquities of India and Egypt: like the children of Jacob, we have taken advantage of these profane riches to embellish the sanctuary of the Eternal.
Note: In the footnote, the author explains that in 1828, while directing philosophical and theological studies of several young men in Rennes, M. F. de la Mennais came to dictate a plan combining philosophy and theology. The author refused to write it down since they perceived the tendency disapproved of by the Holy See. Another person wrote it, but the author refused to use it. They modified it in the direction that later became one of the two encyclicals of Pope Gregory XVI. The author says that the tendency they noticed in M. F. de la Mennais's ideas was the main reason for them to embrace all the centuries in their work on the history of the Church. They hoped to be able to preserve him from the confusion they feared for him. Since they couldn't render this service to one man, they wished they could do it for everyone.
Universal History of the Catholic Church.
Book One.
The Creation of the World and of Man.
The Catholic Church, in its entirety, is the society of God, with faithful angels and men. From all eternity, it existed in God, or rather was God himself: an ineffable society of three persons in one essence. Now it crosses the centuries, passes over the earth to associate us with this holy, universal, and perpetual unity, and returns with us into the eternity from which it came. While waiting to see and admire it one day, we repeat what we have learned from its journey through time.
The first to be called to this divine union were the angels. Created good, but free, God tested them like us. From then on, there was schism and heresy. Instead of taking the divine Word as their only rule, many took themselves as their rule. They were excluded from the communion of God but not from his providence.
Divided into nine choirs, subordinated to one another, the faithful angels form an invincible army. Their number is incalculable. When the Most High is seated on his throne, a thousand times a thousand serve him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand form his court (1 Dan.,7). He himself is called the God of gods.
Some angels are appointed to govern the stars, the elements, the kingdoms, and the provinces; others to guide individuals.
The apostate angels, perpetuating their crime, continue the war against God. God uses their malice to test men in this world and punish the wicked in the next. Some of these evil spirits dwell in the place of eternal punishment, while others are spread across the earth and in the air. Just as good angels are to be honored and invoked, so are the bad ones to be feared. The belief in good and bad angels is found, under one name or another, among all peoples.
To fill the place of the fallen spirits in his Church, God created man. He made him in his image and likeness. He created only one at first, to mark the unity. To this first man, he united a companion formed from his own flesh and bones. "He gave them counsel, a language, eyes, ears, and a heart to hear; he filled them with the knowledge of intelligence, showed them the good and the bad, fixed his gaze on their hearts to reveal to them the greatness of his works, so that they might celebrate the holiness of his name, glorifying him in his wonders and recounting the magnificence of his works. He also gave them precepts and made them heirs of a law of life; he established with them an eternal covenant and taught them his judgments. Their eyes saw the wonders of his glory, their ears heard his voice; he said to them: Beware of all that is unjust, and he commanded each of them to care for his neighbor." (1 ECCl., 17) To these two ancestors of mankind, God revealed what they needed to know about the origin of the world. One of their descendants in the twenty-fifth degree, but who was separated from them by only six intermediary persons, each of whom had lived for many years with the previous one, has preserved for us the written history. The ancient traditions of the peoples agree with it and find their coherence there. This man, to whom the human race owes the certainty of its true history, who, to be its guardian, constituted a people such that after thirty-four centuries it is still there, surviving all its conquerors, surviving itself, who predicted and represented in his person the Christ we adore, and in the Hebrew people the Catholic Church or society of which we are a part, this man is Moses. Let us listen to what he tells us on behalf of God and our first ancestors.
The Creation, the Six Days.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night: and the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament (or the expanse), And God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." God said again: "Behold, I have given you every plant that yields seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the animals of the earth, to every bird of the sky, and to everything that moves on the earth and has life, I have given every green plant for food." And so it was. God saw all that He had made, and indeed it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day (1). Thus the heavens and the earth and all their host were completed.
God finished His work on the seventh day and rested on that day, having completed all His work. God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all His work which He had created and made. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven (2).
The Trinity is revealed in the work of creation. Proof*.
This is how Moses summarized divine revelation and human tradition regarding the creation of the world. To understand it, let us listen to the universal interpretation.
The first word, "In the beginning," has three equally true meanings: in the beginning of time, in the beginning of things, and in the beginning, or the eternal Word. God created the heavens and the earth. The third meaning is the highest, without being any less literal than the others.
Christ Himself is called the beginning of the creation of God (3), the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (4). Paul, who had been to the third heaven, said that Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him (5).
The greatest doctor of the Church, Augustine, said to his people in Hippo: "Asked by the Jews, 'Who are you?' the young man replied, 'The beginning.' Therefore, these words of Genesis, 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,' mean, in the Son, who is the beginning" (6). "It is, therefore, in this beginning, that is, in Christ," says Ambrose of Milan.
Topic: Histoire universelle de l'église catholique (Read 734 times)