Is Sungenis Right About the "Root" in Romans 11?

Robert Sungenis has insisted that the "root" written of by St. Paul in Romans 11 must be Christ alone. In his CASB 2 (p. 149), he claimed this was "the constant teaching of the Fathers." 

Here are two other examples:

This is certainly a novel interpretation. Unfortunately for Moss, it totally distorts the words of Romans 11:17-20… Moss believes that the “root” of Romans 11 is Israel, not Christ, and that as the Gentiles are saved as they are grafted into Israel. This is wrong. The root is Christ, not Israel.….It is as if Moss is saying, “You Gentiles are only saved because of us Jews, and in order to appreciate that fact, you should practice these Jewish rituals.”

And more recently, Sungenis wrote:

   

Paul does not say 'root of Israel.' He refers to Israel as a 'branch,' not the 'root.' One cannot be both a branch and a root, which means that someone else is the root, which is Christ...the Church does not draw nourishment from the 'root of Israel' for Israel is not the root in Paul’s analogy. Christ is the root, and Israel is merely a branch...Whatever else Benedict XVI believed about the relationship between Christians and Jews, he never says “Israel is the root” in Paul’s analogy.

The “Moss” that Sungenis refers to above David Moss, president of the Association of Hebrew Catholics (AHC). Sungenis seemed clearly irritated at what he perceived as David Moss’ Jewish arrogance (“You Gentiles are only saved because of us Jews…”). But as we'll see below, it seems to be Sungenis's long standing anti-Jewish predispositions that are coloring his interpretation of what Moss wrote. 

Sungenis almost treats this passage as though the meaning of it has been dogmatically defined in the way he interprets it and thus Moss or anyone else is dangerous heretic for contradicting that interpretation. But there are two problems with this strong criticism. The first is that David Moss has never said that “the root is Israel, not Christ.” Here Bob puts words into Moss’s mouth that make the case look more ominous, more absolute. In fact, I have confirmed with Moss that he has no issue with seeing the root as Christ as well. He never intended to “deny” this possibility.  The second problem is that there is a considerable number of Catholic authorities who disagree with Sungenis's interpretation -- including, ironically, Benedict XVI. 

To make matters worse, Ben Douglass, who was Sungenis's own vice president at the time, has stated that Sungenis selectively cropped quotes to make the Church Fathers appear to say the exact opposite of what they actually said about Israel as the "Olive Tree" in Romans 11. This is all documented in The Theologyof Prejudice, which is well worth reading.


So let's take a look at the passage in question. 

In Romans 11, St. Paul writes at length about God’s relationship with the Israelite people.  In particular he focuses on understanding the fact that so many of his Jewish brethren have not accepted the promised Messiah.  Did this mean that the children of Israel were rejected by God? And what implications did this have for the Gentiles?

St. Paul then writes: 

For if their (the Jews’) rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?  If the firstfruits are holy, so is the whole batch of dough; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place and have come to share in the rich root of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches.  If you do boast, consider that you do not support the root; the root supports you.  Indeed you will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is so.  They were broken off because of unbelief, but you are there because of faith.  So do not become haughty, but stand in awe.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you either.  (Rom. 11: 15-22)

So, who or what exactly is the “root” to which St. Paul refers?  Contrary to Sungenis's insistence, it would seem that a very common answer is the Patriarchs of Israel. Although, there is certainly solid evidence that “root” may also refer to Jesus Christ, the Israelite par excellence. And there is some evidence that it may also be considered to refer to Israel itself, including a statement by our current pontiff.

So what do we make of these apparent discrepancies?  I would argue that these varying interpretations reveal a deeper truth, not a contradiction.  To be grafted onto the Patriarchs of Israel, Israel itself or Jesus Christ (the Israelite par excellence) essentially amounts the same thing in the imagery St. Paul chose.  It is God’s life-giving grace that flows through the roots and trunk of the tree, grace which is mediated to the branches. In human terms, the life-giving grace of God has been mediated to men through Abraham and the Patriarchs of Israel, Israel itself and of course Jesus Christ, the Israelite par excellence, the representative head of Israel (Galatians 3). 

In Scripture, Isaiah prophesied that Christ would sprout forth from the “stump of Jesse”, the father of King David (Isaiah 11:1).  Jacob/Israel and Judah are spoken of as “taking root” in Isaiah 27:6 and 37:31, respectively. The Old Testament expressly describes Israel as the olive tree itself in Jer. 11:16 and Hos 14:7 (not merely "a branch" as Sungenis insists). And Christ is clearly spoken of as the “root” in Revelation 5:5 and 22:16. God’s grace was showered upon man because of and through the faith of Abraham, and continued in this way through certain of his progeny, eventually passing through Jacob (Israel) and culminating in the Israelite par excellence, Jesus Christ.

Below are several interpretations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Church Fathers and various Catholic scripture scholars, including Benedict XVI:

1) Fr. George Leo Haydock, A Comprehensive Catholic Commentary, page 1,494.

“By the root, says St. Chysostom, he understands Abraham and the Patriarchs, from whom all the Jewish nation proceeded, as branches from that root…”

2) Moffat New Testament Commentary:  The Epistle to the Romans, page 178.

 “The ‘root’ is the patriarchs”

3) Dom Bernard Orchard, Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture 1951, page 1072 and 558, respectively: 

“(St. Paul) is no renegade, and Israel…has not lost the holiness which she inherited from the Patriarchs, who are…her roots.”

“’In the days to come, Israel shall take root…’ The world’s salvation is from Israel.”

4) Fr. Richard Stack, Lectures on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, 1806, page 330:

 “By the root is meant Abraham…”

5) Fr. Charles Callan, The Epistles of St. Paul, page 184:

“The firstfruit and the root mean the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. who were holy men and faithful servants of God.”

6) Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Many Religions- One Covenant, page 32:

“we must .. first ask what this view of the historical figure of Jesus means for the existence of those who know themselves to be grafted through him onto the 'olive tree Israel', the children of Abraham.”  [Note:  Here Benedict XVI clearly sees the Gentiles as being grafted on to Israel].

7) St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures, XX, 3) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Philip Schaff, pg 147:

“Then, when ye were stripped, ye were anointed with exorcised oil, from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ. For ye were cut off from the wild olive-tree, and grafted into the good one, and were made to share the fatness [abundance] of the true olive tree. The exorcised oil therefore was a symbol of the participation of the fatness of Christ, being a charm to drive away every trace of hostile influence.”

8) St. Augustine:

Sermons, XXVII, 12:

"Therefore did the Lord at once graft the wild olive into the good olive tree. He did it then when He said, 'Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”

"So then for this reason that people did not come to Him, that is by reason of pride; and the natural branches are said to be broken off from the olive tree, that is from that people founded by the Patriarchs [Israel]."

Augustine to Faustus the Manichean, Bk 9 2:

"You say that the apostle, in leaving Judaism, passed from the bitter to the sweet. But the apostle himself says that the Jews, who would not believe in Christ, were branches broken off, and that the Gentiles, a wild olive tree, were grafted into the good olive, that is, the holy stock of the Hebrews, that they might partake of the fatness of the olive."

9) The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#755):

"The Church is a cultivated field, the tillage of God. On that land the ancient olive tree grows whose holy roots were the prophets."

10) Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Romans), Bray (Editor), p 293:

a) Diodore:  “First fruits and root both refer her to the patriarchs, the lawgiver and the prophets.”

b) Pseudo-Constantius: “The root refers to Abraham…”

c) Theodore of Mopsuestia: “by root he means, Abraham…”

d) Theodoret of Cyr;  “the root is Abraham…”

e) Pelagius: “Do not rejoice in the fall of the Jews…you do not supply them with life, but they supply you.”  [Here Pelagius seems to see Israel, or the Jews, as the root that mediates God’s grace.]

f) Ambrosiaster:  “the Jews were not rejected for the sake of the Gentiles.  Rather it was because they were rejected that they gave an opportunity for the gospel to be preached to the Gentiles.  If you boast against those onto whose root you have been grafted, you insult the people who have accepted you so that you might be converted…You will not continue like that if you destroy the thing on which you stand.”  (Here Ambrosiaster seems to be saying that the Gentiles “stand” on the Jews, that they have been grafted onto them.)

g) Chysostom: “if the Gentile, who was cut off from his natural fathers and come, contrary to nature, to Abraham, how much more will God be able to recover his own!”

h) Chrysostom: Ver. 16. "For if the first-fruits be holy, the lump also is holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches;"So calling in this passage by the names of the first-fruit and root Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the prophets, the patriarchs, all who were of note in the Old Testament; and the branches, those from them who believed.  

(Homilies on Romans, Homily XIX)

i) Pseudo-Constantius: “Paul says that the Gentiles have been grafted against nature onto the root, that is, onto the faith of the Patriarchs.”

[This article was originally published in 2006.]

Clearing Roy Schoeman of Sungenis' Slander

Roy Schoeman, a faithful, orthodox Roman Catholic who came to the Church from Judaism, has long been targeted by Sungenis for multiple "critiques." Until now, Sungenis' most deplorable "critique" was the one in which he had not even read Schoeman's book before feeling justified in impugning his honesty.

But more recently, Sungenis stooped to a new low by jumping to publish a fraudulent quote and attributing it to Schoeman, without first making any effort to verify it. Yet, when Sungenis learned for certain that the quote was fraudulent, he promptly published a retraction and apology and sent a personal apology to Schoeman...right?

Not exactly.

Ben Douglass recounts the sorry story.

New and Old Postings by Ben Douglass

Ben Douglass has reposted his excellent materials on the Sungenis and the Jews controversy. Douglass' perspective is unique, having stayed at CAI well into the controversy.

Oy Vey! Or Benjamin Douglasstein Kvetches about Robert Sungenis

How does one reason with a man who, when he is told that someone rejects a belief which he has attributed to him, insists that that person must be lying, and that secretly he must still affirm that belief?...

See the whole article at http://www.pugiofidei.com/sungenis.htm


You maniac! You're blowing up! Ah, save you. God save you from hell!!!

I for one think that Judaizing is a serious problem in today's Church, and hope to be an effective opponent of it. The reason I don't want Sungenis writing about Jews and Judaism is not because I oppose any and all criticism of them, but because after such and so many egregious violations of justice and charity, Sungenis has disqualified himself from engaging these issues....

See the whole article at http://www.pugiofidei.com/sungenis2.htm


A Last Response from Douglasstein

Sungenis goes on to make the absurd claim that his critics have attacked his wife and children. Not surprisingly, no quotations are provided. This is because no one has ever attacked his wife and children. It was Sungenis who tried to bring his wife into this debacle by claiming her as an independent witness to the events surrounding Michael Forrest's departure from CAI. Even then, Sungenis' critics never attacked her, they simply asked him questions with a view to establishing whether she really was an independent witness, or whether she got her information second-hand from him. Not surprisingly, Sungenis was very cagey about answering their questions. As Jacob Michael discovered, this is because he [Sungenis] had already admitted that she was only a second-hand witness in his essay "Jacob Michael and the Jews"....

See the whole article at http://www.pugiofidei.com/sungenis3.htm


The Origin of the Schoeman Forgery Revealed, Sungenis up to Old Tricks

A young man named Steve Tolles sent this quote to Sungenis, and Sungenis promptly and without verification published it as sure evidence that Roy Schoeman is indeed a Judaizer. Soon after, Sungenis' own most devoted defender, Mark Wyatt, googled the quote and discovered that it was patched together from some of Schoeman's actual words . . . and other material of unknown origin. . . . Sungenis' reaction was truly reprehensible: he stated that he would assume the quote was genuine until proven otherwise, he requested a signed affidavit from Schoeman swearing that he did not write the words in question, and he suggested that perhaps Schoeman changed his original words at the Association of Hebrew Catholics conference before putting them on the AHC website...

See the whole article at http://www.pugiofidei.com/fraud.htm


The Orthodoxy of Roy Schoeman

Schoeman did in fact publicly repudiate all the heresies which Sungenis has attributed to him. Schoeman has not merely repudiated them in private correspondence. And what was Sungenis' reaction? He said that it was "disingenuous" of him to attempt to disavow them. On other occasions as well, Sungenis has insisted that Schoeman actually does hold these beliefs which he professes to repudiate. So, rather than admit that he has misrepresented Schoeman, Sungenis prefers to imply that he is a liar. This is no way to treat anyone, much less a Catholic brother in Christ....

See the whole article at http://www.pugiofidei.com/sungenis4.htm

Justice, not Fear

The best definition of anti-Semitism, I believe, is the one most commonly found in dictionaries: prejudice against Jews. And prejudice is best understood according to its etymology: to pre-judge. The anti-Semite will form hostile judgments about Jews prior to any dispassionate consideration of rational evidence. His treatment of Jews and Jewish issues will be, to put it mildly, heavily biased and tendentious. So will be his exegesis of texts by and about Jews. He will have an irrational predisposition to see the worst in Jews, and to see Jews in the worst. He will suspect his enemies to be secret Jews, even in the absence of evidence. He will habitually, uncritically swallow any spurious claim which disparages Jews (any stick good enough to beat the Jews with), and seek to undermine any statement which praises them. Lastly, when the issue is the Jews his faculty of reasoning will be manifestly impaired. Now, on to specific things that Robert Sungenis has said and done....

See the whole article at http://www.pugiofidei.com/sungenis5.htm

Jewish Conspiracy Behind Titanic Disaster

In light of the overwhelming evidence produced in this shocking documentary, one must concede that Jews were indeed behind the sinking of the Titanic. However, the "smoking gun" seems to have been missed by the person who produced this documentary. As another blogger has noted publicly:

"It was an iceBERG that sunk the Titanic. Coincidence you say? I think not!"

Indeed.

Unfastened Coins: The Sinking of the Titanic

We await a breaking News Alert at CAI to fill the world in on even more proof of Jewish involvement in this disaster.

More Notable Quotes From Sungenis

There are many interesting quotes to be found in one of Sungenis’ latest “articles” Adventures in Blogland. Below you will find a small sampling:

1) Sungenis: “I am merely doing the same thing Jesus did when he confronted the sins of the Jews…Unfortunately, the Jews haven’t changed in our day. They are still the same godless racists they were in Jesus’ day. Few of them have repented of their sins.” (page 10)

2) Sungenis: “The nation of Israel has control of AMDOCS, the central telephone operation in the United States. It's one way the Mossad spies on American citizens, including you and those you talk to." (page 30)

3) Sungenis: “Do I need to say more? I have the whole history of Catholicism behind me, and these Fathers, Doctors, Saints and the God-Man himself said much worse things about the Jews than I ever have. What is really happening today folks is that we have been taken over by Jewish propaganda, and there are a few Catholic/Jewish ideologues…Many of them are paid handsomely by Zionist groups to say whatever they can to silence people like me. They are bent on promoting the godless state of Israel for some pie-in-the-sky dream they have, even against their own Catholic religion (at least that’s the religion they claim to have), and they will smear anyone who gets in their way. The Jews have done this for centuries against good people, and it continues today.” (page 19)

Of course, this “article” is also littered with the personal lies that have become the hallmark of Sungenis’s “work” in recent years as well. As mothers have been known to warn: if you lie, you had better have a good memory. Alas, Sungenis does not.

Sungenis claims he removed his articles from the racist organization National Vanguard after being contacted by his then-VP Ben Douglass and now he wonders, why all the hubbub? Well, aside from the obvious question as to why Sungenis used such an obviously racist source in the first place, even Cliff Notes would object to his severely (and conveniently) condensed version of events.

The reality is that Sungenis left the articles up by this racist organization for two weeks after being warned by his VP, Ben Douglass. It was only after Matthew Anger published an article exposing what Sungenis had done and Douglass once again vehemently objected to Sungenis about the blatantly racist nature of National Vanguard that Sungenis finally agreed to remove the material. Additionally, Sungenis neglected to inform his readers that he initially responded that he "could care less" whether National Vanguard was a racist group or not (read here).

Let us not forget the crystal clear warning Sungenis gave to Dave Armstrong who dared to put up material from a couple of conservative political commentators:

Sungenis: “If you have no political affiliation with these neo-cons, then I suggest you put a disclaimer on your site, otherwise people are going to get the wrong impression, and you can't blame them if they do. Any person with common sense who sees their names on your web site would assume that you support the political views of the aforementioned unless you say otherwise.”
(Sungenis, Q&A, January, 2005, Question 3).

Indeed. By Bob's own standard, we should naturally assume that his use of the racist National Vanguard is a sign of his personal support for their views. To date, the most he has managed to say about National Vanguard and similar sources is that they are "considered by some to be extreme". Sungenis hasn't yet told us whether he considers them to be unsavory and extreme.

Then we have the following:

Sungenis: “A few months ago I had made a quote about Michael Hoffman (Jewish critic) stating that, at this point...I would trust Michael Hoffman a lot more than I trust Michael Forrest… Obviously, Mr. Forrest is a conniving slanderer, just like Jacob Michael and Benjamin Douglass.”

It seems Sungenis can’t even remember what he himself writes any longer or be bothered to check before piling on more inaccuracies and slander. Here is the quote to which Sungenis actually referred (from March 27, 2007):

“Sungenis: Actually, as of now, I trust Michael Hoffman a lot more than I do Benjamin Douglass.”
(Page 12)

Someone might want to let Mr. Sungenis know that the “conniving slanderer” he meant to calumniate in his latest article is the man he very recently dubbed “like a brother” and showered with a great deal of praise for his scholarship and integrity: Ben Douglass, not Michael Forrest. Although, Sungenis' confusion is perhaps understandable in light of the similar stories of so many CAI VPs who are first touted by him as the best thing since sliced bread...only to later be ripped apart by him as connivers and opportunists once they've had enough of his anti-Semitic shenanigans and quit.

Of course, while we're at it, let us not forget one of the more blatant personal lies Sungenis has told about his dealings with Michael Forrest. He has been absolutely adamant that his wife was an “eyewitness” to his phone conversation with Forrest before Forrest quit:

Sungenis: “Mr. Forrest yelled to me on the phone that I was an anti-semite…My wife was a witness to the whole fiasco. No one else was an eyewitness…”
(Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, page 3)

and in attempting to prove to David Palm that his wife actually heard his conversation with Forrest, Sungenis wrote:

Sungenis: "My conversations on the phone are often held on speaker-phone, and my wife, since she works for CAI as a secretary and bookkeeper, is often listening to my conversations, whether by happenstance or deliberately."
(e-mail of January 20, 2007)

Apparently, either his mother never warned him about telling lies and the need for a good memory or he forgot her advice. Read on from October 2006, when he at least told the truth about the source of his wife's account:

Sungenis: "Mr. Forrest never denied to me that he had a gig or a promoter for the gig around the beginning of 2005. He told me these things on the phone, and my wife remembers it because I told her about the whole conversation."
(JMATJ, p. 54, emphasis added)

Of course, this may be a simple matter of definitions. Perhaps Sungenis will tell us the “real” definition of “eyewitness” is someone who takes his side in an argument and that only the Zionists who want to kill him think it means something else.

Current Status

This blog was originally created in response to Robert Sungenis’s problematic views and history related to the Jewish people.  In 2006 during negotiations with Sungenis we expressed our willingness to take down this material if he would remove all such material and provide assurance that there would be no return to it.

Unfortunately, those negotiations were unsuccessful.  Recently Sungenis contacted one of our contributors and indicated that he was removing the material to which this blog responds and that there would be no return to it.  As this essentially meets the objective we sought in 2006, we were willing to take down the material originally hosted here.

This is not intended to imply that Sungenis has retracted and/or apologized for the statements on Jewish issues that were formerly documented here.  He has not done so.  Instead, he has recently stated, both publicly and privately, that he believes God has given him a new vision/direction related to the issue of geocentrism.  As a result of his desire to pursue this new vision/direction, Sungenis writes,  “I’ve publically declared that I am no longer addressing [Jewish] issues and don’t wish to discuss them with anyone” and “I . . . will never discuss them again.”  However, he has said that he still personally holds to the same beliefs and considers them to be true.

At present Sungenis and some of his close associates have once again brought public accusations against his diocese and former ordinary. As such, some articles documenting the falsehood of those charges has again been made available to the public. 

G. K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy, Chapter 2: The Maniac

Pages 18-19

Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, “That man will get on; he believes in himself.” And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written “Hanwell.” (Footnote: An English religious visionary whose ‘revelations’ attracted many followers). I said to him, “Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Supermen. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums…

…If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter…Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.

Pages 20-21

It is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity as in itself attractive. But a moment’s thought will show that if disease is beautiful, it is generally some one else’s disease. A blind man may be picturesque; but it requires two eyes to see the picture. And similarly even the wildest poetry of insanity can only be enjoyed by the sane. To the insane man his insanity is quite prosaic, because it is quite true. A man who thinks himself a chicken is to himself as ordinary as a chicken…It is only because we see the irony of his idea that we think him even amusing…In short, oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people…

…Now, if we are to glance at the philosophy of sanity, the first thing to do in the matter is to blot out one big and common mistake. There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man’s mental balance…Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like…Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom…

Pages 22-25

And if great reasoners are often maniacal, it is equally true that maniacs are commonly great reasoners…

The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that his actions are causeless. If any human acts may loosely be called causeless; they are the minor acts of a healthy man; whistling as he walks; slashing the grass with a stick…It is the happy man who does the useless things; the sick man is not strong enough to be idle. It is exactly such careless and causeless actions that the madman could never understand; for the madman…generally sees too much cause in everything. The madman would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. He would think that the lopping of the grass was an attack on private property. He would think that the kicking of the heels was a signal to an accomplice. If the madman could for an instant become careless, he would become sane. Everyone who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humor or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense, satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s.

Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic’s theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: “Oh, I admit that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.”

Pages 26-27

Curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is casting out a devil. And however quietly doctors and psychologists may go to work in the matter, their attitude is profoundly intolerant…Their attitude is really this: that the man must stop thinking, if he is to go on living. Their counsel is one of intellectual amputation. If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell…

Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity. Now, as I explain in the introduction, I have determined in these early chapters to give not so much a diagram of a doctrine as some pictures of a point of view. And I have described at length my vision of the maniac for this reason: that just as I am affected by the maniac, so am I affected by most modern thinkers. That unmistakable mood or note that I hear from Hanwell (note: the false prophet) I hear also from half the chairs of science and seats of learning today; and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in more senses than one. They all have exactly the combination we have noted: the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take one thin explanation and carry it very far. But a pattern can stretch forever and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white on black, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on black. Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot make a mental effort and suddenly see black on white…

…It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world.

Page 29

The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist’s world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.