Outspoken Essays Part 7

[36] _Church Congress Report_, 1903, p. 15.

[37] _Ibid_., p. 17.

[38] _The New Theology and the Old Religion_, p. 162.

[39] _Church Congress Report_, 1903, p. 16.

[40] _Ibid_.

[41] _The New Theology and the Old Religion_, p. 163.

[42] _Dissertations_, pp. 41-49.

[43] _Church Congress Report_, 1899, p. 63.

[44] _Church Congress Report_, 1899, pp. 65-67.

[45] _Ibid_., 1896, pp. 342-346.

[46] _Epistle to the Ephesians_, pp. 113, 114.

[47] _Contemporary Review_, April 1899.

[48] _Ibid_.

[49] 'Go and sit thou by his side, and depart from the way of the G.o.ds; neither let thy feet ever bear thee back to Olympus; but still be vexed for his sake and guard him, till he make thee his wife--or rather his slave.'

ROMAN CATHOLIC MODERNISM

(1909)

The Liberal movement in the Roman Church is viewed by most Protestants with much the same mixture of sympathy and misgiving with which Englishmen regard the ambition of Russian reformers to establish a const.i.tutional government in their country. Freedom of thought and freedom of speech are almost always desirable; but how, without a violent revolution, can they be established in a State which exists only as a centralised autocracy, held together by authority and obedience?

This sympathy, and these fears, are likely to be strongest in those who have studied the history of Western Catholicism with most intelligence.

From the Edict of Milan to the Encyclical of Pius X, the evolution which ended in papal absolutism has proceeded in accordance with what looks like an inner necessity of growth and decay. The task of predicting the policy of the Vatican is surely not so difficult as M. Renan suggested, when he remarked to a friend of the present writer, 'The Church is a woman; it is impossible to say what she will do next.' For where is the evidence of caprice in the history of the Roman Church? If any State has been guided by a fixed policy, which has imposed itself inexorably on its successive rulers, in spite of the utmost divergences in their personal characters and aims, that State is the Papacy.

Beneath all the eddies which have broken the surface, the great stream has flowed on, and has flowed in one direction. The same logic of events which transformed the const.i.tutional princ.i.p.ate of Augustus into the sultanate of Diocletian and Valentinian, has brought about a parallel development in the Church which inherited the traditions, the policy, and the territorial sphere of the dead Empire. The second World-State which had its seat on the Seven Hills has followed closely in the footsteps of the first. It is not too fanciful to trace, as Harnack has done, the resemblance in detail--Peter and Paul in the place of Romulus and Remus; the bishops and arch-bishops instead of the proconsuls; the troops of priests and monks as the legionaries; while the Jesuits are the Imperial bodyguard, the protectors and sometimes the masters of the sovereign. One might carry the parallel further by comparing the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, and the later defection of northern Europe, with the disruption of the Roman Empire in the fourth century; and in the sphere of thought, by comparing the scholastic philosophy and casuistry with the _Summa_ of Roman law in the Digest.[50]

The fundamental principles of such a government are imposed upon it by necessity. In the first place, progressive centralisation, and the subst.i.tution of a graduated hierarchy for popular government, came about as inevitably in the Catholic Church as in the Mediterranean Empire of the Caesars. The primitive colleges of presbyters soon fell under the rule of the bishops, the bishops under the patriarchs; and then Rome suffered her first great defeat in losing the Eastern patriarchates, which she could not subjugate. The truncated Church, no longer 'universal,' found itself obliged to continue the same policy of centralisation, and with such success that, under Innocent III, the triumph of the theocracy seemed complete. The Papacy dominated Europe _de facto_, and claimed to rule the world _de jure_. Boniface VIII, when the clouds were already gathering, issued the famous Bull 'Unam sanctam,' in which he said: 'Subesse Romano pontifici omnes humanas creaturas declaramus, definimus, et p.r.o.nuntiamus omnino esse de necessitate salutis.' The claim is logical. A theocracy (when religion is truly monotheistic)[51] must claim to be universal _de jure_; and its ruler must be the infallibly inspired and autocratic vicegerent of the Almighty. He is the rightful lord of the world, whether he gives a continent to the King of Spain by a stroke of the pen, or whether his secular jurisdiction is limited by the walls of his palace. In the fourteenth century the Pope is already called 'dominus deus noster'--precisely the style in which Martial adulates Domitian. In the Bull of Pius V (1570) the claim of universal dominion is reiterated; it is a.s.serted that the Almighty,

'cui data est omnis in caelo et in terra potestas, unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam, extra quam nulla est salus, uni soli in terris, videlicet apostolorum principi Petro Petrique successori Romano pontifici in potestatis plenitudine tradidit gubernandam.'

But the final victory of infallibilism was the achievement of the nineteenth-century Jesuits, who completed the dogmatic apotheosis of the Pope at the moment when the last vestiges of his temporal power were being s.n.a.t.c.hed from him.

Now a government of this type is always in want of money. The spiritual Roman Empire was as costly an inst.i.tution as the court and the bureaucracy of Diocletian and his successors. The same necessity which suppressed democracy in the Church drove it to elaborate an oppressive system of taxation, in which every weakness of human nature was systematically exploited for gain, and every morsel of divine grace placed on a tariff. But this method of raising revenue is only possible while the priests can persuade the people that they really control a treasury of grace, from which they can make or withhold grants at their pleasure. It stands or falls with a non-ethical and magical view of the divine economy which is hardly compatible with a high level of culture or morality. The Catholic Church has thus been obliged, for purely fiscal reasons, to discourage secular education, particularly of a scientific kind, and to keep the people, so far as possible, in the mental and moral condition most favourable to such transactions as the purchase of indulgences and the payment of various insurances against h.e.l.l and purgatory.

Another necessity of absolute government is the repression of free criticism directed against itself. Heresy and schism in an autocratic Church take the place of treason against the sovereign. Cyprian, in the third century, had already laid down the principles by which alone the central authority could be maintained.

'Ab arbore frange ramum; fractus germinare non poterit. A fonte praecide rivum; praecisus arescit.... Quisquis ab ecclesia separatus adulterae iungitur, a promissis ecclesiae separatur. Alienus est, hostis est. Habere non potest Deum patrem, qui ecclesiam non habet matrem.'

Schismatics are therefore rebels, whose lives are forfeit under the laws of treason. Heretics are in no better case; for the Church is the only infallible interpreter both of Scripture and of tradition; and to differ from her teaching is as disloyal as to secede from her jurisdiction.

Even Augustine could say, 'I should not believe the Gospel, if the authority of the Church did not determine me to do so'; a statement which a modern ultra-montane has capped by saying, 'Without the authority of the Pope, I should not place the Bible higher than the Koran.' Bellarmine claims an absolute monopoly of inspiration for the Roman Church on the ground that Rome alone has preserved the apostolic succession beyond dispute.[52] As for the treatment which heretics deserve, the same authority is very explicit.

'In the first place, heretics do more mischief than any pirate or brigand, because they slay souls; nay more, they subvert the foundations of all good and fill the commonwealth with the disturbances which necessarily follow religious differences. In the second place, capital punishment inflicted on them has a good effect on very many persons. Many whom impunity was making indifferent are roused by these executions to consider what is the nature of the heresy which attracts them, and to take care not to end their earthly lives in misery and lose their future happiness. Thirdly, it is a kindness to obstinate heretics to remove them from this life. For the longer they live, the more errors they devise, the more men they pervert, and the greater d.a.m.nation they acquire for themselves.'[53]

In all matters which are not essential for the safety of the autocracy, an absolutist Church will consult the average tastes of its subjects. If the populace are at heart pagan, and hanker after sensuous ritual, dramatic magic, and a rich mythology, these must be provided. The 'intellectuals,' being few and weak, may be safely rebuffed or disregarded until their discoveries are thoroughly popularised. The p.r.o.nouncements of the Roman Inquisition in the case of Galileo are typical.

'The theory that the sun is in the centre of the world, and stationary, is absurd, false in philosophy, and formally heretical, because it is contrary to the express language of Holy Scripture. The theory that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor stationary, but that it moves with a daily motion, is also absurd and false in philosophy, and, theologically considered, it is, to say the least, erroneous in faith.'

The exigencies of despotic government thus supply the key to the whole policy and history of the Papacy. 'The worst form of State' can only be bolstered up by the worst form of government. There should therefore be no difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng between the official policy of the Roman See--which has been almost uniformly odious--and the history of the Christian religion in the Latin countries, which has added new l.u.s.tre to human nature. The Catholic saints did not fly through the air, nor were their hearts pierced with supernatural darts, as the mendacious hagiology of their Church would have us believe; but they have a better t.i.tle to be remembered by mankind, as the best examples of a beautiful and precious kind of human excellence.

The papal autocracy has now reached its Byzantine period of decadence.

During the Middle Ages Catholicism suited the Latin races very well on the whole. Their ancestral paganism was allowed to remain substantially unchanged--the _nomina_, but not the _numina_ were altered; their awe and reverence for the _caput orbis_, ingrained in the populations of Europe by the history of a thousand years, made submission to Rome natural and easy; a host of myths 'abounding in points of attachment to human experience and in genial interpretations of life, yet lifted beyond visible nature and filling a reported world believed in on faith,'[54] adorned religion with an artistic and poetical embroidery very congenial to the nations of the South. But a monarchy essentially Oriental in its const.i.tution is unsuited to modern Europe. Its whole scheme is based on keeping the laity in contented ignorance and subservience; and the laity have emanc.i.p.ated themselves The Teutonic nations broke the yoke as soon as they attained a national self-consciousness. They escaped from a system which had educated, but never suited them. Nor has the shrinkage been merely territorial. The Pyrrhic victories over Gallicanism, Jansenism, Catholic democracy (Lamennais), historical theology (Dollinger and the Old Catholics), each alienated a section of thinking men in the Catholic countries. The Roman Church can no longer be called Catholic, except in the sense in which the kingdom of Francis II remained the Holy Roman Empire. It is an exclusive sect, which preserves much more political power than its numbers ent.i.tle it to exert, by means of its excellent discipline, and by the sinister policy of fomenting political disaffection. Examples of this last are furnished by the contemporary history of Ireland, of France, and of Poland.

These considerations are of primary importance when we try to answer the questions: To what extent is the Roman Church fettered by her own past?

Is there any insuperable obstacle to a modification of policy which might give her a new lease of life? We have seen how much importance is attached to the Church's t.i.tle-deeds. Is tradition a fatal obstacle to reform? Theoretically, the tradition which she traces back to the apostles gives her a fixed const.i.tution. So the Catholic Church has always maintained. 'Regula quidem fidei una omnino est, sola immobilis et irreformabilis.'[55] The rule of faith may be better understood by a later age than an earlier, but there can be no additions, only a sort of unpacking of a treasure which was given whole and entire in the first century. In reality, of course, there has been a steady evolution in conformity to type, the type being not the 'little flock' of Christ or the Church of the Apostles, but the absolute monarchy above described.

It has long been the _crux_ of Catholic apologetics to reconcile the theoretical immobility of dogma with the actual facts.

The older method was to rewrite history. It was convenient, for example, to forget that Pope Honorius I had been anathematised by three ec.u.menical councils. The forged Decretals gave a more positive sanction to absolutist claims; and interpolations in the Greek Fathers deceived St. Thomas Aquinas into giving his powerful authority to infallibilism.

This method cannot be called obsolete, for the present Pope recently informed the faithful that 'the Hebrew patriarchs were familiar with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and found consolation in the thought of Mary in the solemn moments of their life.'[56] But such simple devices are hardly practicable in an age when history is scientifically studied. Moreover, other considerations, besides controversial straits, have suggested a new theory of tradition. A Caesar who, like the kings of the Medes and Persians, is bound by the laws of his predecessors, is not absolute. Acceptance of the theory of development in dogma would relieve the Pope from the weight of the dead hand.

The new apologetic is generally said to have been inaugurated by Cardinal Newman. His work 'The Development of Christian Doctrine,' is no doubt an epoch-making book, though the idea of tradition as the product of the living spirit of a religious society, preserving its moral ident.i.ty while expressing itself, from time to time, in new forms, was already familiar to readers of Schleiermacher. Newman gives us several 'tests' of true development. These are--preservation of type; continuity of principles; power of a.s.similation; logical sequence; antic.i.p.ation of results; tendency to conserve the old; chronic vigour.

These tests, he considered, differentiate the Roman Church from all other Christian bodies, and prove its superiority. The Church has its own genius, which yes and works in it. This is indeed the Holy Spirit of G.o.d, promised by Jesus Christ. Through the operation of this spirit, old things become new, and fresh light is shed from the sacred pages of Scripture. Catholic tradition is, in fact, the glorified but ever-present Christ Himself, reincarnating Himself, generation after generation, in the historical Church. It is unnecessary to enquire whether there is apostolic authority for every new dogma, for the Church is the mouthpiece of the living Christ.

This theory marks, on one side, the complete and final apotheosis of the Pope and the hierarchy, who are thereby made independent even of the past history of the Church. Pius IX was not slow to realise that the only court of appeal against his decisions was closed in 1870. 'La tradizione sono io,' he said, in the manner of Louis XIV. The Pope is henceforth not the interpreter of a closed cycle of tradition, but the pilot who guides its course always in the direction of the truth. This is to destroy the old doctrine of tradition. The Church becomes the source of revelation instead of its custodian. On the other side, it is a perilous concession to modern ideas. There is an obvious danger that, as the result of this doctrine, the dogmas of the Church may seem to have only a relative and provisional truth; for, if each p.r.o.nouncement were absolutely true, there would be no real development, and the appearance of it in history would become inexplicable.

This new and, in appearance, more liberal att.i.tude towards modern ideas of progress has raised the hopes of many in the Roman Church whose minds and consciences are troubled by the ever-widening chasm which separates traditional dogma from secular knowledge. While dogma was stationary--_immobilis et irreformabilis_--there seemed to be no prospect except that the progress of human knowledge would leave theology further and further behind, till the rupture between Catholicism and civilisation became absolute. The idea that the Church would ever modify her teaching to bring it into harmony with modern science seemed utterly chimerical. But if the static theory of revelation is abandoned, and a dynamic theory subst.i.tuted for it; if the divine part of Christianity resides, not in the theoretical formulations of revealed fact, but in the living and energising spirit of the Church; why should not dogmatic theology become elastic, changing periodically in correspondence with the development of human knowledge, and no longer stand in irreconcilable contradiction with the ascertained laws of nature?

Thus the dethronement of tradition by the Pope contributed to make the Modernist movement possible. The Modernists have even claimed Newman as on their side. This appeal cannot be sustained. 'The Development of Christian Doctrine' is mainly a polemic against the high Anglican position, and an answer to attacks upon Roman Catholicism from this side. Anglicanism at that time had committed itself to a thoroughly stationary view of revelation. Its 'appeal to antiquity'--a period which, in accordance with a convenient theory, it limited to the councils of the 'undivided Church'--was intended to prove the catholicity and orthodoxy of the English Church, as the faithful guardian of apostolic tradition, and to condemn the medieval and modern accretions sanctioned by the Church of Rome. The earlier theory of tradition left the Roman Church open to damaging criticism on this side; no ingenuity could prove that all her doctrines were 'primitive.' Even in those early days of historical criticism, it must have been plain to any candid student of Christian 'origins' that the Pauline Churches were far more Protestant than Catholic in type. But Newman had set himself to prove that 'the Christianity of history is not Protestantism; if ever there were a safe truth, it is this,' Accordingly, he argues that 'Christianity came into the world as an idea rather than an inst.i.tution, and had to fit itself with armour of its own providing.' Such expressions sound very like the arguments of the Modernists; but Newman a.s.suredly never contemplated that they would be turned against the policy of his own Church, in the interests of the critical rationalism which he abhorred. His att.i.tude towards dogma is after all not very different from that of the older school. 'Time was needed' (he says) 'for the elucidation of doctrines communicated once for all through inspired persons'; his examples are purgatory and the papal supremacy.

He insists that his 'tests' of true development are only controversial, 'instruments rather than warrants of right decisions.' The only real 'warrant' is the authority of the infallible Church. It is highly significant that one of the features in Roman Catholicism to which he appeals as proving its unblemished descent from antiquity is its exclusiveness and intolerance.

'The Fathers (he says complacently) anathematised doctrines, not because they were old, but because they were new; for the very characteristic of heresy is novelty and originality of manifestation. Such was the exclusiveness of the Christianity of old. I need not insist on the steadiness with which that principle has been maintained ever since.'

The Cardinal is right; it is quite unnecessary to insist upon it; but, when the Modernists claim Newman as their prophet, it is fair to reply that, if we may judge from his writings, he would gladly have sent some of them to the stake.

The Modernist movement, properly so called, belongs to the last twenty years, and most of the literature dates from the present century. It began in the region of ecclesiastical history, and soon pa.s.sed to biblical exegesis, where the new heresy was at first called 'concessionism,' The scope of the debate was enlarged with the stir produced by Loisy's 'L'evangile et l'eglise' and 'Autour d'un Pet.i.t Livre'; it spread over the field of Christian origins generally, and problems connected with them, such as the growth of ecclesiastical power and the evolution of dogma. For a few years the orthodox in France generally spoke of the new tendency as _loisysme_. It was not till 1905 that Edouard Le Roy published his 'Qu'est-ce qu'un dogme?' which carried the discussion into the domain of pure philosophy, though the studies of Blondel and Laberthonniere in the psychology of religion may be said to involve a metaphysic closely resembling that of Le Roy. Mr. Tyrrell's able works have a very similar philosophical basis, which is also a.s.sumed by the group of Italian priests who have remonstrated with the Pope.[57] M. Loisy protests against the cla.s.sification made in the papal Encyclical which connects biblical critics, metaphysicians, psychologists, and Church reformers, as if they were all partners in the same enterprise. But in reality the same presuppositions, the same philosophical principles, are found in all the writers named; and the differences which may easily be detected in their writings are comparatively superficial. The movement appears to be strongest in France, where the policy of the Vatican has been uniformly unfortunate of recent years, and has brought many humiliations upon French Catholics. Italy has also been moved, though from slightly different causes. In the protests from that country we find a tone of disgust at the const.i.tution of the Roman hierarchy and the character of the papal _entourage_, about which Italians are in a position to know more than other Catholics. Catholic Germany has been almost silent; and Mr.

Tyrrell is the only Englishman whose name has come prominently forward.

It will be convenient to consider the position of the Modernists under three heads: their att.i.tude towards New Testament criticism, especially in relation to the life of Christ; their philosophy; and their position in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Modernists themselves desire, for the most part, that criticism rather than philosophy should be regarded as the starting-point of the movement. 'So far from our philosophy dictating our critical method, it is the critical method that has of its own accord forced us to a very tentative and uncertain formulation of various philosophical conclusions.... This independence of our criticism is evident in many ways.'[58] The writers of this manifesto, and M. Loisy himself, appear not to perceive that their critical position rests on certain very important philosophical presuppositions; nor indeed is any criticism of religious origins possible without presuppositions which involve metaphysics. The results of their critical studies, as bearing on the life of Christ, we shall proceed to summarise, departing as little as possible from the actual language of the writers, and giving references in all cases. It must, however, be remembered that some of the group, such as Mr. Tyrrell, have not committed themselves to the more extreme critical views, while others, such as the Abbe Laberthonniere, the most brilliant and attractive writer of them all, hold a moderate position on the historical side. It is perhaps significant that those who are specialists in biblical criticism are the most radical members of the school.

The Gospels, says M. Loisy, are for Christianity what the Pentateuch is for Judaism. Like the Pentateuch, they are a patchwork and a compound of history and legend. The differences between them amount in many cases to unmistakable contradictions. In Mark the life of Jesus follows a progressive development. The first to infer His Messiahs.h.i.+p is Simon Peter at Caesarea Philippi; and Jesus Himself first declares it openly in His trial before the Sanhedrin. In Matthew and Luke, on the contrary, Jesus is presented to the public as the Son of G.o.d from the beginning of His ministry; He comes forward at once as the supreme Lawgiver, the Judge, the anointed of G.o.d. The Fourth Gospel goes much further still.

His heavenly origin, His priority to the world, His co-operation in the work of creation and salvation, are ideas which are foreign to the other Gospels, but which the author of the Fourth Gospel has set forth in his prologue, and, in part, put into the mouth of John the Baptist.[59] The difference between the Christ of the Synoptic Gospels and the Christ of John may be summed up by saying that 'the Christ of the Synoptics is historical, but is not G.o.d; the Johannine Christ is divine, but not historical.'[60] But even Mark (according to M. Loisy) probably only incorporates the doc.u.ment of an eye-witness; his Gospel betrays Pauline influence.[61] The Gospel which bears his name is later than the destruction of Jerusalem, and was issued, probably about A.D. 75, by an unknown Christian, not a native of Palestine, who wished to write a book of evangelical instruction in conformity with the ideas of the h.e.l.lenic-Christian community to which he belonged.[62] The tradition connecting it with Peter may indicate that it was composed at Rome, but has no other historical value.[63]

The Gospel of Matthew was probably written about the beginning of the second century by a non-Palestinian Jew residing in Asia Minor or Syria.