Protestantism and Catholicity

Had the human intellect followed in its development the way marked out for it by the Church, European civilization would have gained at least two centuries; the fourteenth century would have been as far advanced as the sixteenth was. To convince ourselves of the truth of this assertion, we have only to compare writings with writings, and men with men; the men most firmly attached to the faith of the Church attained to such eminence that they left the age in which they lived far behind them. Roscelin's antagonist was St. Anselm; the latter always remained faithful to the authority of the Church; the former rebelled against her: and who, let met ask, would have the hardihood to compare the dialectician of Compiègne with the learned Archbishop of Canterbury? How vast the difference between the profound and skilful metaphysician who composed the Monologue and the Prosologue, and the frivolous leader of the disputes of the Nominalists! Have the subtilties and cavillings of Roscelin any weight whatever against the lofty thoughts of the man who, in the eleventh century, to prove the existence of God, could reject all vain and captious reasonings, concentrate himself within himself, consult his own ideas, compare them with their object, and demonstrate the existence of God from the very idea of God, thus anticipating Descartes by five hundred years? Who best understood the true interests of science? Show me how the intellect of St. Anselm was degraded or shackled by the influence of the formidable authority of the Church, by any usurpation on the part of Popes of the rights of the human mind. And can Abelard himself be compared, either as a man, or as a writer, with his Catholic adversary, St. Bernard? Abelard was a perfect master of all the subtilties of the schools; noisy disputes were his amusement; he was intoxicated with the applause of his disciples, who were dazzled by their master's talents and courage, and still more by the learned follies of the age; yet what has become of his works? Who reads them? Who ever thinks of finding in them a single page of sound reasoning, the description of a single great event, or a picture of the manners of the time, in other words, the least matter of interest to science or history? On the contrary, what man of learning has not often sought this in the immortal works of St. Bernard?

It is impossible to find a more sublime personification of the Church combating against the heretics of his time than the illustrious Abbot of Clairvaux, contending against all innovators, and speaking, if we may use the term, in the name of the Catholic faith. No one could more worthily represent the ideas and sentiments which the Church endeavored to diffuse amongst mankind, nor more faithfully delineate the course through which Catholicity would have led the human mind. Let us pause for a moment in the presence of this gigantic mind, which attained to an eminence far beyond any of its contemporaries. This extraordinary man fills the world with his name – upheaves it by his words – sways it by his influence; in the midst of darkness he is its light; he forms, as it were, a mysterious link, connecting the two epochs of St. Jerome and St. Augustine, of Bossuet and Bourdaloue. In the midst of a general relaxation and corruption of morals, by the strictest observances and the most perfect purity he is proof against every assault. Ignorance prevails throughout all classes; he studies night and day to enlighten his mind. A false and counterfeit erudition usurps the place of true knowledge; he knows its unsoundness, disdains and despises it; and his eagle eye discovers at a glance that the star of truth moves at an immense distance from this false reflection, from this crude mass of subtilties and follies, which the men of his time termed philosophy. If at that period there existed any useful learning, it was to be sought in the Bible, and in the writings of the holy Fathers; to the study of these, therefore, St. Bernard devotes himself unremittingly. Far from consulting the vain babblers who are arguing and declaiming in the schools, St. Bernard seeks his inspirations in the silence of the cloister, or in the august sanctuary of the temple; if he goes out, it is to contemplate the great book of nature, to study eternal truths in the solitude of the desert, and, as he himself has expressed it, "in forests of beech-trees."

Thus did this great man, rising superior to the prejudices of his time, avoid the evil produced in his contemporaries by the method then prevailing. By this method the imagination and the feelings were stifled; the judgment warped; the intellect sharpened to excess; and learning converted into a labyrinth of confusion. Read the works of the sainted Abbot of Clairvaux, and you will find that all his faculties go, as it were, hand in hand. If you look for imagination, you will find the finest coloring, faithful portraits, and splendid descriptions. If you want feeling, you will learn how skilfully he finds his way into the heart, captivates, subdues, and fashions it to his will. Now he strikes a salutary fear into the hardened sinner, tracing with great force the formidable picture of the divine justice and the eternal vengeance; then he consoles and sustains the man who is sinking under worldly adversity, the assaults of his passions, the recollection of his transgressions, or an exaggerated fear of the divine justice. Do you want pathos? Listen to his colloquies with Jesus and Mary; hear him speaking of the blessed Virgin with such enrapturing sweetness, that he seems to exhaust all the epithets that the liveliest hope and the most pure and tender love can suggest. Would you have vigor and vehemence of style, and that irresistible torrent of eloquence which nothing can resist, which carries the mind beyond itself, fires it with enthusiasm, compels it to enter upon the most arduous paths, and to undertake the most heroic enterprises? See him with his burning words inflaming the zeal of the people, nobles, and kings; moving them to quit their homes, to take up arms, and to unite in numerous armies that pour into Asia to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. This extraordinary man is every where met with, every where heard. Entirely free from ambition, he possesses, nevertheless, a leading influence in the great affairs of Europe: though fond of solitude and retirement, he is continually obliged to quit the obscurity of the cloister to assist in the councils of kings and popes. He never flatters, never betrays the truth, never dissembles the sacred ardor which burns within his breast; and yet he is every where listened to with profound respect; his stern voice is heard in the cottages of the poor and in the palaces of kings; he admonishes with terrible severity the most obscure monk and the Sovereign Pontiff.

In the midst of so much ardor and activity, his mind loses none of its clearness or precision. His exposition of a point of doctrine is remarkable for ease and lucidity; his demonstrations are vigorous and conclusive; his reasoning is conducted with a force of logic that presses close upon his adversary, and leaves him no means of escape: in defence, his quickness and address are surprising. In his answers he is clear and precise; in repartee, quick and penetrating; and without dealing in the subtilties of the schools, he displays wonderful tact in disentangling truth from error, sound reason from artifice and fraud. Here is a man formed entirely and exclusively under the influence of Catholicity; a man who never strayed from the pale of the Church, who never dreamed of setting his intellect free from the yoke of authority; and yet he rises like a mighty pyramid above all the men of his time.

To the eternal honor of the Catholic Church, and utterly to disprove the accusation brought against her, of exerting an influence hostile to the freedom of the human mind, I must observe that St. Bernard was not the only man who rose superior to the age, and pointed out the way to genuine progress. It is unquestionably certain, that the most distinguished men of that period, those least influenced by the evils that so long kept the human mind in pursuit of mere vanities and shadows, were precisely the men most devotedly attached to Catholicity. These men set an example of what was necessary to be done for the advancement of learning; an example that for a long time had, it is true, but few followers, but which found some in subsequent ages: now it is to be observed that the progress of learning was due to the credit obtained by this method – I speak of the study of antiquity.

The sacred sciences were the chief object of attention at this period; as the intellect was theologically developed, dialectics and metaphysics were studied with a view to their application to theology. With Roscelin, Abelard, Gilbert de la Poirée, and Amaury, the phrase was: "Let us reason, subtilise, and apply our systems to all sorts of questions; let our reason be our rule and guide, without which knowledge is impossible." With St. Bernard, St. Anselm, Hugh and Richard de St. Victor, Peter Lombard, on the contrary, it was: "Let us see what antiquity teaches; let us study the works of the holy Fathers; let us analyse and compare their texts; we cannot place our dependence exclusively on arguments, which are sometime dangerous and sometimes futile." Which of these two judgments has been actually confirmed? Which of these methods was adopted when real progress was to be made? Was not recourse had to an unremitting study of ancient works? Was it not found necessary to throw aside the cavils of the dialecticians? Protestants themselves boast of having taken this way; their theologians consider it an honor to be versed in antiquity; and would be offended if treated as mere dialecticians. On which side, then, was reason? With the heretics, or with the Church? Who best understood the method most favorable to intellectual progress? The heretical dialectician, or the orthodox doctor? To these questions there can only be one reply. These are not mere opinions – they are facts; not an empty theory, but the actual history of learning, as known by all the world, and as represented to us in irrefragable documents. Unless prepossessed by the authority of M. Guizot, the reader certainly cannot complain that I have eschewed questions of history, or claimed his belief on my own bare word.

Unhappily, mankind seemed doomed never to find the true road without going a long way round; thus the intellect, taking the very worst way of all, went in pursuit of subtilties and cavils, forsaking the beaten track of reason and good sense. At the beginning of the twelfth century the evil had reached to such a height, that to apply a remedy was no slight undertaking; nor is it easy to say how far matters might have gone, nor what evils would have ensued in various ways, had not Providence, who never abandons the care of the moral, any more than of the physical universe, raised up an extraordinary genius, who, rising to an immense height above the men of his age, reduced the chaos to order. Out of the undigested mass, by retrenching here, adding there, classifying and explaining, this man collected a fund of real learning. Persons acquainted with the history of learning at that time will readily understand that I speak of St. Thomas Aquinas. Rightly to appreciate the extraordinary merit of this great Doctor, we must view him in connection with the times and circumstances of which we are treating. Beholding in St. Thomas Aquinas one of the most luminous, most comprehensive, and most penetrating intellects that have ever adorned the human race, we are almost tempted to think that his appearance in the thirteenth century was inopportune; we regret that he did not live in a more recent age, to enter the lists with the most illustrious men of whom modern Europe can boast. But, upon further reflection, we find that the human mind owes so much to him, we see so clearly the reason why his appearance at the time when Europe received his lectures was most opportune, that we have no other feeling left than one of profound admiration of the designs of Providence.

What was the philosophy of his time? Amidst the strange compound of Greek and Arabian philosophy and of Christian ideas, what would have become of dialectics, metaphysics, and morality? We have already seen what sort of fruit began to grow out of such combinations, favored by a degree of ignorance unable to distinguish the real nature of things, and encouraged by pride that pretended to a knowledge of every thing. And yet the evil was only beginning; its further development would have been attended with symptoms still more alarming. Fortunately, this great man appeared; the first touch of his powerful hand advanced learning two or three centuries. He could not root out the evil, but at least he applied a remedy; owing to his indisputable superiority, his method and his learning soon won their way everywhere. He became, as it were, the centre of a grand system, round which all other scholastic writers were forced to revolve; he thus prevented a multitude of errors that without his intervention would have been almost inevitable. He found the schools in a state of complete anarchy; he reduced them to order; and on account of his angelic intellect, and his eminent sanctity, was looked up to as their sublime dictator. This is the view I take of the mission of St. Thomas; it will be viewed in the same light by all those who study his works, and do not content themselves with a hasty perusal of a biographical article respecting him.

Now this man was a Catholic, and the Catholic Church venerates him upon her altars, and I do not see that his mind was shackled by authority in matters of faith; it goes abroad freely amongst all the branches of knowledge; he unites in his person such extensive and profound acquirements as to appear a prodigy for the age in which he lived. We observe in St. Thomas, notwithstanding the purely scholastic method which he adopted, the same characteristic that we discover in all the eminent Catholic writers of the times. He reasons much; but it is easy to see that he does not trust entirely to his reason, but proceeds with that wise diffidence which is an unequivocal sign of real learning. He avails himself of the doctrines of Aristotle; but evidently would have made less use of them, and more of the Fathers, but for his leading idea, which was, to make the philosophy of his time subservient to the defence of religion. The reader must not suppose that his metaphysics and moral philosophy are a congeries of inexplicable enigmas, as a knowledge of the period at which he wrote might lead us to apprehend. Nothing of the kind; and any one who entertains such an idea has evidently not spent much time in the study of his writings. His metaphysical works, it must be acknowledged, make us perfectly acquainted with the dominant ideas of the time; but it is equally undeniable, that in every page we meet with the most luminous passages on the most complicated questions of ideology, ontology, cosmology, and psychology; so much so, that we almost imagine we are reading the works of a philosopher who wrote after the fullest development of the sciences had been attained.

What his political ideas were, we have already seen; were it necessary, and did the nature of the present work permit, I might here produce many fragments from his Treatise on Laws and on Justice, distinguished for such solid principles, such lofty views, so profound a knowledge of the nature of society, that they would occupy an honorable position amongst the best works on legislation written in modern times. His treatises on virtues and vices, whether considered generally, or in detail, exhaust the subject, and defy all subsequent writers to produce a single idea of any importance that has not been already either developed, or at least suggested in them. Above all, his works are remarkable for moderation and extreme reserve in doctrinal expositions, in which respect they are eminently conformable to the spirit of Catholicity; and assuredly if all writers had followed in his footsteps, the field of science would have presented us with an assembly of sages, and would not have been converted into a blood-stained arena for furious combatants. Such is his modesty, that he does not relate a single incident in his life, private or public; from him we hear nothing but the language of enlightened reason, calmly dispensing its treasures: the man, with his fame, his misfortunes, his labors, and all his vain pretensions, with which other writers are wont to weary us, never appears for an instant.41

CHAPTER LXXII.

ON THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN MIND FROM THE ELEVENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT TIME

I think I have satisfactorily vindicated the Catholic Church from the reproaches cast upon her by her enemies, for her conduct during the eleventh and twelfth centuries in reference to the development of the human mind. Let us now take a rapid survey of the march of intellect up to our own times, and see what titles Protestantism can produce to the gratitude of the friends of progress in human knowledge.

If I mistake not, the following are the phases through which the human mind has passed, since the revival of learning in the eleventh century. First came the epoch of subtilties, with its heaps of crude erudition; then the age of criticism, with appropriate attempts at grave controversies on the meaning of records and monuments; and finally came the reflecting age, and the inauguration of the philosophical period. The eleventh and succeeding centuries, to the sixteenth, were characterized by a fondness for dialectics and erudite trifles; criticism and controversy formed the distinctive characteristics of the sixteenth, and part of the seventeenth centuries; the philosophical spirit began to prevail towards the middle of the seventeenth, and continued to our own time. Now of what advantage was Protestantism to learning? None; Protestantism found learning already accumulated – this I can easily prove – Erasmus and Louis Vives shone in the time of Luther.

Did Protestantism promote the study of criticism? Yes; just as an epidemic that decimates nations aids the progress of the medicinal art. But we must not suppose that the taste for this kind of literary labor would not have been disseminated without the aid of the pseudo-Reformation. As monuments came to light, as a knowledge of languages became more general, as the public acquired clearer and more correct notions of history, people would naturally set themselves to discriminate between the apocryphal and the authentic. The necessary documents were at hand, and were studied unremittingly; for this was the favorite taste of the epoch. Under such circumstances, how is it possible there should have existed no desire to examine to what author, and to what age, such documents severally belonged; to investigate how far ignorance or dishonesty had falsified them, had taken from, or added to them? On this subject, I need only relate what took place relative to the famous decretals of Isidore Mercator. These decretals had been received, without opposition, during the centuries anterior to the fifteenth, owing to the want of antiquarian and critical research; but the moment that knowledge and facts began to accumulate, the edifice of imposture gave way. As early as the fifteenth century, Cardinal Cusa challenged the authenticity of certain decretals that had been supposed to be anterior to Pope Siricius; and the reflections of the learned Cardinal led the way to other attacks of a similar kind. A serious discussion arose, in which Protestants naturally took part; but it would unquestionably have been engaged in all the same, if Catholic writers had been left entirely to themselves. When the learned came to read the codes of Theodosius and Justinian, the works of antiquity, and collections of ecclesiastical records, they could not possibly fail to observe that the spurious decretals contained sentences and fragments belonging to an era posterior to the time to which they were referred; and when once such doubts had arisen, error was sure to be promptly exposed.

We may say of controversy, what we have just said of criticism. There would have been no want of controversy, even if the unity of the faith had never been violated. In support of this assertion, the recollection of what occurred amongst the different schools of Catholics is quite conclusive. These schools were engaged in controversy amongst themselves, in the presence even of the common opponent: and we may rest assured that, if their attention had not been partially diverted by that enemy, their polemical discussions would have been maintained only with the greater energy and warmth. Protestants have no more the advantage over Catholics, as regards controversy than as regards criticism. However true it be that some of our theologians did not see the necessity of opposing the enemy with arms superior to those taken from the arsenal of Aristotelian philosophy, it is quite certain that a great number of them took up a sufficiently lofty position, and were thoroughly impressed with the importance of the crisis, and urged the introduction of very great modifications into the course of theological studies. Bellarmin, Melchior Cano, Petau, and many others, were no way inferior to the most skilful Protestants, whatever may have been the boasted scientific merits of the defenders of error.

The knowledge of the learned languages must have contributed in an extraordinary degree to the progress of critical and controversial learning. Now I do not see that Catholics were behind others in the knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Anthony de Nebrija, Erasmus, Louis Vives, Lawrence Villa, Leonardus Aretinus, Cardinal Bembo, Sadolet, Poggio, Melchior Cano, and many others, too numerous to mention; were they, I ask, trained in Protestantism? Did not the Popes, moreover, take the lead in this literary movement? Who patronized the learned with greater liberality? Who supplied them with more abundant resources? Who incurred greater expenses in the purchase of the best manuscripts? Nor let it be forgotten, that such was the taste for pure Latinity, that some among the learned objected to read the Vulgate, for fear of acquiring inelegant phrases.

As regards Greek, we need only bear in mind the causes that led to its diffusion in Europe, to be convinced that the progress made in the knowledge of this language owes nothing whatever to the pseudo-Reformation. It is well known that, after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, the literary remains of that unfortunate nation were brought to the coasts of Italy. In Italy the study of Greek was first seriously commenced; from Italy it spread to France, and to the other European states. Half a century before the appearance of Protestantism, this language was taught in Paris by the Italian Gregory de Tiferno. At the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, Germany itself could boast of the celebrated John Reuchlin, who taught Greek with great applause, first at Orleans and Poictiers, and afterwards at Ingolstadt. Reuchlin, being on one occasion at Rome, so felicitously explained, and read with so pure an accent, a passage from Thucydides, in the presence of Argyropilus, that the latter, filled with admiration, exclaimed: "Gracia nostra exilio transvolavit Alpes; our exiled Greece has crossed the Alps."

Respecting Hebrew, I will transcribe a passage from the Abbé Goujet: "Protestants," says he, "would fain have it thought that they effected the revival of this language in Europe; but they are forced to acknowledge, that whatever they know of Hebrew they owe to the Catholics, who were their teachers, and the sources whence, even to this day, is obtained all that is most valuable in Oriental literature. John Reuchlin, who lived the greater part of his time in the fifteenth century, was unquestionably a Catholic, and one of the most skilful Hebrew scholars, and was also the first Christian who reduced the teaching of that language to a system. John Weissel of Groningen had taught him the elements of this language, and had himself pupils in whom he had awakened a love for this study. In like manner, it was by the exertions of Picus de Mirandula, who was a strict Catholic, that a taste for the study of Hebrew was revived in the West. At the time of the Council of Trent, most of the heretics who then knew that language had learned it in the bosom of the Church they had forsaken; and their vain subtilties respecting the meaning of the sacred text excited the faithful to still greater assiduity in the study of a language so well calculated to insure their own triumph and the defeat of their opponents. In devoting themselves to this branch of study, moreover, they were only following out the intentions of Pope Clement V., who, as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, had ordained that Greek, and Hebrew, and even Arabic and Chaldean, should be publicly taught, for the benefit of foreigners, at Rome, at Paris, at Oxford, at Bologna, and at Salamanca. The design of this Pope, who so well knew the advantages resulting from well-conducted studies, was, to augment the learning of the Church by the study of languages, and to raise up doctors capable of defending her against every form of error. By means of these languages, and more especially of Hebrew, he intended to renew the study of the sacred books, that the latter, when read in the original, might appear more worthy of the Holy Spirit who inspired them, and by their combined grandeur and simplicity, when better known, awaken greater reverence for them; and that, without derogating from the respect due to the Latin version, it might be felt that an intimate acquaintance with the originals was peculiarly serviceable in confirming the faith of believers, and confuting heretics." (L'Abbé Goujet, Discours sur le renouvellement des Etudes, et principalement des Etudes ecclésiastiques depuis le quatorzième siècle.)