58 THE STONES OF VENICE

show the baseness of the schools of architecture and nearly every other art, which have for three centuries been predominant in Europe, I believe the result of the inquiry may be serviceable for proof of a more vital truth than any at which I have hitherto hinted. For observe: I said the Protestant had despised the arts, and the Rationalist corrupted them.¹ But what has the Romanist done meanwhile? He boasts that it was the papacy which raised the arts; why could it not support them when it was left to its own strength? How came it to yield to the Classicalism which was based on infidelity, and to oppose no barrier to innovations, which have reduced the once faithfully conceived imagery of its worship to stage decoration? Shall we not rather find that Romanism, instead of being a promoter of the arts, has never shown itself capable of a single great conception since the separation of Protestantism from its side.* † So long as, corrupt though it might be, no clear witness had been borne against it, so that it still included in its ranks a vast number of faithful Christians, so long its arts were noble. But the witness was borne-the error made apparent: and Rome, refusing to hear the testimony or forsake the falsehood, has been struck from that instant with an intellectual palsy, which has not only incapacitated her from any further use of the arts which once were her ministers, but has made her worship the shame of its own shrines, and her worshippers

* Appendix 12: “Romanist Modern Art” [p. 436].

† Perfectly true: but the whole vital value of the truth was lost by my sectarian ignorance. Protestantism (so far as it was still Christianity, and did not consist merely in maintaining one’s own opinion for gospel) could not separate itself from the Catholic Church. The so-called Catholics became themselves sectarians and heretics in casting them out; and Europe was turned into a mere cockpit, of the theft and fury of unchristian men of both parties; while, innocent and silent on the hills and fields, God’s people in neglected peace, everywhere and for ever Catholic, lived and died.² [1879.]

¹ [Above, § 36.]

² [Perhaps Ruskin had here in his mind not only the meaning of the word “catholic” (kaq’ olon), but the definition in the “bidding prayer,” then as now in use at Oxford: “Ye shall pray for God’s Holy Catholic Church, that is, for the whole congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the world.” (See History of the Book of Common Prayer, by F. Procter, 1875, p. 172.) See further on this subject, Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds.]

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