[LIBRARY") UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA I SAN DIEGO OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. A Critical History. Crown octavo. $2.00, net. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Two volumes. Octavo. Per set, $3.50. SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Octavo. $2.50. HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Five volumes. Cloth. Per volume, $2.00. SACERDOTALISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A CRITICAL HISTORY BY HENRY C.( SHELDON Professor in Boston University New York: EATON & MAINS Cincinnati: JENNINGS & GRAHAM Copyright, 1909, Djr EATON & MAINS. CONTENTS PART I THE ROMAN TYPE CHAPTER I THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY SECTION PAGE I. STATEMENT AND DEFENSE OF THE PRINCIPLE 3 II. THE BEARING OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY ON THE RELATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 15 III. THE BEARING OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY ON PERSONAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES 31 IV. REFLECTIONS ON THE THEME OF THE CHAPTER 44 CHAPTER II PAPAL ABSOLUTISM I. GALLICANISM IN THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 55 II. BEGINNINGS OF AN ANTI-GALLICAN OR ULTRAMONTANE MOVEMENT UNDER DE MAISTRE AND OTHERS 70 III. ULTRAMONTANE PROPAGANDISM AS CARRIED ON BY THE PAPACY AND ITS ALLIES UP TO THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 86 IV. THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND ITS DECREES 104 V. DEVELOPMENTS FOLLOWING THE VATICAN COUNCIL 121 VI. CRITICISM OF THE DOGMA OF PAPAL SUPREMACY 137 VII. CRITICISM OF THE DOGMA OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 179 CHAPTER III SOME FEATURES OF THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM I. THE GENERAL CONCEPTION OF THE SACRAMENTS 222 II. THE NECESSITY OF BAPTISM 231 III. TRANSUBSTANTIATION 239 IV. JUDICIAL ABSOLUTION IN THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. . 257 CHAPTER IV THE OUTLOOK FOR ROMAN SACERDOTALISM 277 v vi CONTENTS PART II GREEK, ANGLICAN, AND OTHER TYPES CHAPTER I THE GREEK TYPE, ESPECIALLY AS REPRESENTED IN RUSSIA SECTION PAGE I. SCOPE OF DEVELOPMENTS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 287 II. POLITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 297 III. THE CEREMONIAL AND SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 305 IV. A COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE OF GREEK SACERDOTALISM. . . 311 CHAPTER II THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC MOVEMENT I. ANTECEDENTS AND GENERAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT. 313 II. THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY AS RECOGNIZED BY ANGLO- CATHOLICS 334 III. THE DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 347 IV. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 356 V. ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTESTANTISM AND ROMANISM RE- SPECTIVELY 373 VI. ESTIMATE OF THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC MOVEMENT 392 CHAPTER III LESS IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS OF SACERDOTALISM I. THE STANDPOINT OF THE MORE RADICAL NEO-LUTHERANS. 430 II. IRVINGITE THEORIES 432 III. MORMON THEORIES 437 CONCLUSION 447 PREFACE As will appear from a glance at the subject-matter of the volume, we have understood the essence of sacerdo- talism to lie in a profound emphasis on priestly authority and on sacramental efficacy. The name is indicative of the system which exalts the office of the priestly hier- archy and the virtue of the rites supposed to depend for their valid administration upon that hierarchy. Whatever may be the value of this treatise, the vast importance of the theme with which it deals cannot be questioned. Over against the unwonted progress of free thought and scientific investigation in the last century, movements toward radical jorms_^of sacerdotalism have been inaugurated, pushed forward with desperate energy, and crowned with large measures of apparent success. The result has been to pass over to the twentieth cen- tury the grounds of antagonisms as fundamental and far-reaching as have ever been known in the history of Christianity. So far as the lay element in the Christian world is concerned the sharp antipathies of the sixteenth century may have been very appreciably abated ; but the spirit, purpose, and action of priestly hierarchies were never surcharged more deeply than at present with an intense hatred of that evangelical teaching which empha- sizes the freedom and responsibility of the individual in the sphere of religious belief and practice. If that viii PREFACE teaching is to maintain itself it must be at the expense of earnest warfare. Doubtless the greater part of the mil- itant task lies in the exposition and illustration of evan- gelical truth. But in relation to thoroughly antagonistic interpretations of Christianity it is highly important to understand both sides. The champion of the evangelical standpoint who responds to the claims of sacerdotalism with nothing better than a shake of the head, a shrug of the shoulders, or an expression of contempt, simply advertises his own shallowness. His method is too closely akin to the sacerdotal plan of refuting by anathe- mas to claim a grain of respect. It is due to rational religion that it should be defended by rational means. As a consistent friend of rational religion the evangelical pastor or teacher will not spare the pains requisite for a good understanding of the sacerdotalism with which he is compelled directly or indirectly to make battle. If in seeking that understanding he derives any aid from the present volume, the author will have accomplished his main purpose. It will not be assumed, of course, that the author designs to bring a railing accusation against sacerdotal Churches. A Church which incorporates sacerdotalism may incorporate along with it a large part of the real treasure of Christianity, and thus be able to boast of a history adorned by many examples of saintly character and holy living. With the utmost cordiality we admit this fact. The pith of our criticism is, that so far as a Church is controlled by sacerdotalism itTias turned away from the spiritual ideaTof Christiamty~ahd taken up a PREFACE ix role hostile to the prevalence of rational religion in the jfrofjd. The reader may notice that in some instances we have overstepped the limits of the period with which the book is more specially concerned, and have cited from treatises written in the first years of the twentieth century. It will be found, however, that the citations serve, as a rule, to illustrate views which had become more or less repre- sentative of sacerdotal parties in the preceding century. Boston University, January, 1909. PART I THE ROMAN TYPE CHAPTER I THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY I. STATEMENT AND DEFENSE OF THE PRINCIPLE THE theme of this chapter is so closely implicated with that of the following that it is somewhat difficult to observe strictly the line of demarcation between them. Still, if we take the nineteenth century in its entirety, it must appear that the question of church authority and the question of papal authority have not been counted identical by the entire body of Roman Catholic thinkers. It is clear also that in a purely theoretical view it is pos- sible to distinguish between the provinces of the two authorities, and to make room for diverse judgments on their respective claims. We find, therefore, a sufficient warrant for beginning with the subject of ecclesiastical authority, even though in its treatment we may not be able to avoid altogether such matters as might properly be discussed under the category of papal absolutism. On the former theme there is not much to record in the line of strictly new developments. Throughout the preceding century the traditional theory as to the nature TijTJjir^in^f rhurrh nnthority, the theory bequeathed by the middle ages, was taken in its general outline as indubitably true. What we have to do, therefore, in the present chapter, is to observe the terms in which the theory has been expressed, and the applications which have been made of it to questions of large practical import. 3 \4* THE ROMAN TYPE "That the Church is the infallible organofjtruth is the fundamental dogma of the Catholic religion." The author of this declaration, J. H. Newman, 1 has not been rated in the official circles of Romanism as a model of orthodoxy; but in the given statement he used language which could not have been improved upon by the most thoroughly informed and faithful expounder of the Roman system. A veritable doctor ecclesia could not have framed a more acceptable proposition. At least he would not care to amend except by giving expression to the compass of the truth in relation to which the Church serves as the infallible organ. An equivalent of Newman's proposition encounters the reader of the Roman Catholic literature of the last century at every turn. He finds it in the catechetical treatise. Thus Keenan remarks : "A fundamental prin- ciple of the Catholic religion is that the Church is in- "fallible." 2 "The true Church," says Gaume, "is infalli- ble. It always has been so. It shall always be so." 3 In an American catechism designed for youthful pupils we read: "To believe the Catholic Church is to believe God himself." 4 Writers on canon law treat the proposition in question as a primary maxim of the system which they are called upon to expound. The Church, as Phillips represents, is the one authority which gives to Scripture its sanction and to tradition its guarantee. To^ explain a single text of_^cjipjtjire^contrary_tq_the interpretation ofthe Church_ i An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, 1870, p. 146. * Controversial Catechism, revised edit., 1896, p. 46. The first edition appeared a half century earlier. * The Catechism of Perseverance, trans, from the tenth French edit., 1895, II. 255. 4 Catechism of Christian Doctrine for Parochial and Sunday Schools, No. II, approved in 1874. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 5 is toincur the guilt of heresy. 1 Hergenrother describes the Church as societas perfecta, societas supretna, "the visible kingdom of God upon earth," and argues that her infallibility is a necessary inference from her perpetuity, since only the Church that is built on an indefectible faith ,..-- .... o "waaHMB w- can be secure of continued existence/ Apologetic treatises rate in common the infallibility of the Church as the indispensable basis of Christian confi- dence. "There must be an infallible authority," says Schanz, "if there is to be any revelation or any faith in the world. Anything short of this would fail in the task which Christ imposed on his Church. . . . Infallibility is not an arrogant assumption, but a matter of life and death for the Church." 3 In like manner Gibbons affirms, "Faith and infallibility must go hand in hand. The one cannot exist without the other. There can be no faith in the hearer unless there is an unerring authority in the speaker. . . . The Church is not susceptible of being reformed in her doctrines. The Church is the work of the incarnate God. Like all God's works, it is perfect." 4 "To^be infallible." urges Devivier, "gemrajlly_speakig, is_to_pt>ssess the privilege, of never deceiving or being deceived^ this privilege_hi j^gard-lQ the.J^hurch means that she can neither alter the doctrine of Jesus Christ, nor misunderstand the true meaning of what our divine Saviour taught, commanded, or prohibited. No doubtN God only is infallible in nature, but he may by a special j niifta< WMM .*>^MP^'*?*' J J providence protect those from error whom he has / charged to teach in his name, so that their teaching shall/ 1 Kirchenrecht, 1845-1890, II. 306, 441. 2 Lehrbuch des Katholischen Karchenrechts, second edit., 1905, pp. 1925. 3 A Christian Apology, trans, by Glancey and Schobel, 1896, III. 216, 227. 4 The Faith of Our Fathers, 1877, pp. 89, 91. 6 THE ROMAN TYPE never deviate in anything from the truth. Now God has Vgranted this infallibility to his Church." 1 "The teaching authority of the Church," contends Russo, "was insti- tuted by God himself ; it is supported by him ; it is like- wise imposed upon us by him under pain of eternal dam- nation. Therefore if we err in admitting the teaching of the Church, our error is to be attributed to God himself." 2 By no class of Roman Catholic writers is larger ac- count made of the infallibility of the Church than by the compilers of dogmatic systems. The proper idea of revelation, Scheeben contends, accounts it not merely a means of consolation and edification for the individual, but a sovereign law of God for the faith, thought, and action of all men whether taken collectively or individu- ally, a means of uniting them into one Church of truth and holiness. This revelation must be promulgated and interpreted by an authoritative medium, by one able truly to represent the absent Christ, and therefore infallible. Such a medium has been provided in the Catholic hier- archy. Through that hierarchy the whole apostolic deposit, the written and the oral alike, has been pre- served in its true and full sense and in its original purity. This is the Catholic claim, and if it be not true, then the hierarchy must be written down as a diabolical rather than a divine institution, and its cathedra must be termed not a cathedra vcritatis, but a cathedra pestilential The contemporary dogmatist, Heinrich, maintains that Christ established a magisterium ecclesiasticum, which alone gives assurance of the authenticity, integrity, and I. 1 Christian Apologetics, p. 399. * The True Religion and its Dogmas, 1886, pp. 114, 115. 1 Handbuch der Katholischen Uogmatik. 1873-1903, 7, 8, 9, 15, 22, PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 7 inspiration of Scripture, and which within its limits is infallible. Nor are these limits of narrow compass. T infallibility of the Church extends not only to all truths and facts in the deposit of faith, "but also to all truths and facts which are necessary for the preservation, the explanation, and the promulgation of the deposit of J faith." It implies full competency to distinguish between^ true and false tradition. It implies no less a prerogativey to silence the objections of science in so far as they impinge against any part of the faith of the Church. "Reason itself understands that natural science can err, not, however, divine revelation and the infallible teach- ing authority." Accordingly, Giinther was in error when he assumed that the decisions of the Church have given not the absolutely correct sense of dogmas, but only a sense relatively correct in its adaptation to the times when the decisions were made ; and that it is the function of modern scientific study to work out the correct sense. Frohschammer also went astray in teaching that dogmas must undergo modification to meet the demands of ad- vancing science. As the Vatican decree declares, "The doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention, to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the spouse of Christ, to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared." 1 In due respect to infallible au- thority the faithful must yield an inward assent, not only to defined dogmas, but to all the customary teach- ings of the Church. Even to lesser censures, or those which come short of denouncing opinions as heretical, Catholics are obligated to render an unreserved, inner, be- 1 Const. Dogmat. de Fide Cath. , cap. iv. 8 THE ROMAN TYPE lieving accord. 1 Hurter notices that the Church has rather assumed than formally declared its infallibility. "Indi- rectly," however, "the Vatican Council has vindicated this prerogative for the Church, or set it forth as in--* dubitable, by defining that the Roman pontiff is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith and morals." 2 It may perhaps be observed that most of the writers cited above penned their convictions in the last half of the nineteenth century. This may be explained in large part by the fact that the later decades of the century were much more fertile in theological treatises than the earlier. Certainly it does not signify that belief in the infallibility of the Church was not regarded as part and parcel of Roman Catholic orthodoxy in the first half of the cen- tury. The most that can be admitted in the way of con- trast is that in the later period there was an intensified sense of the need of emphasizing the notion of infallible authority, and accordingly that notion was brought to sharp expression, and in not a few instances was given a somewhat broader scope than had been asserted for it by theologians a generation or two back. As compared with Scheeben and Heinrich, Mohler and some others of the earlier theologians may have used rather indefinite terms in relation to the theory of ecclesiastical infallibility ; but still they made it sufficiently evident that they regarded infallibility as a fundamental postulate of the Roman Catholic system. 3 The claim of infallibility for the present hierarchy 1 Lehrbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, 1900, pp. 40-74. 1 Theologiae Dogmaticae Compendium, eleventh edit., I. 290. 1 See Mohler, Symbolik, 36, 38. The first edition was issued in 1833. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 9 evidently involves a powerful demand to assert a high technical theory of biblical authority. The infallibility jrf the hierarchy cannot well be accounted a matter of direct intuition. It is exceedingly convenient, therefore, not to say strictly necessary, to have some sacred texts/ to which appeal can be made, and the texts in order to\ afford a perfectly secure basis must be rated as infallible./ Thus a practical demand arises for a stiff maintenance of biblical inerrancy. Moreover, it would involve a very peculiar form of self-appreciation on the part of a hier- archy to deny to prophets and apostles an aloofness from errofc which it asserts for itself. Men with any sense of religious propriety could hardly fail to shrink from such a brazen procedure as that. Still further, it requires very little acuteness to apprehend that the granting of any freedom to criticism within the biblical range would naturally open the door to a perilous license for criticism in the ecclesiastical range. It is no cause for surprise}*, therefore, that Roman Catholic authority has been funda- I mentally opposed to making any concession to the de- 1 mands of modern biblical criticism which might imply the possibility of errors in the Scriptures, at least of any / not chargeable to a faulty transcription. Perrone writV ing near the middle of the century, while he does not assume that the sacred writers received all their matter by dictation proper, asserts for them a measure of divine influence which rendered their compositions entirely free from error immune 's a quavis vel levi erroris labe. 1 Referring to the list of books accepted by the Council of Trent, the Vatican Council (1869-70) declared: "These the Church holds to be sacred and canonical not because, 1 Praelect. Theol., Pars, ii, sect, i, De Sacra Scriptura, cap. ii. io THE ROMAN TYPE having been carefully composed by mere human industry, they were afterward approved by her authority, nor merely because they contain revelation, with no admixture of error, but because, having been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and have been delivered as such to the Church herself." 1 That this language is to be taken in the sense of an affirmation of biblical inerrancy is clearly established by subsequent declarations of popes, Roman congregations, and theologians. Says Leo XIII: "All the books in their entirety which the Church receives have been writ- ten in all their parts by the dictation of the Holy Spirit; so far is it in truth from being possible that any error should coexist with divine inspiration, that such inspira- tion by itself excludes and rejects error, and that neces- sarily, inasmuch as God the supreme Truth cannot be the author of any error. . . . That the Holy Spirit appropriated men as instruments makes no difference, as if, forsooth, something could proceed, not from the primary author, but from the inspired writers. For the Holy Spirit by a supernatural virtue so excited and moved them to the task of writing, and was so present with them in writing, that all those things which he might command, and those alone, they both rightly con- ceived in their minds, and wished faithfully to write, and appropriately expressed with infallible truth." 2 Fol- lowing precisely in the wake of his predecessor upon this point, Pius X approved the recent act of the Roman Inquisition in condemning this proposition : "Divine inspiration is not so extended to the whole of Sacred 1 Const. Dogmat. de Fide Cath., cap. ii. 1 Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, Nov. 18, 1893. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY n Scripture as to secure each and every part of it from all error." 1 The Congregation of the Index has indicated, if less explicitly, still with sufficient distinctness, its adherence to the same standpoint by placing, in 1887, Lenormant's Les Origines de 1'Histoire in the list of prohibited writings, and by retaining the critical works of Richard Simon in the revised list of the year 1900. Among the theologians of the last few decades those who are regarded as models of Roman orthodoxy have given unambiguous expression to the notion of biblical iner- rancy. The dependence of the sacred writer upon the Holy Spirit, argues Scheeben, guarantees "the absolute truth and wisdom of Holy Scripture up to the least item (bis ins kleinste)." 2 "The Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament," writes Heinrich, "are not sacred and divine writings merely because through the spe- cial assistance of God they are free from error, but because they were written by that aid of the Holy Spirit which is called inspiration, in virtue of which God himself is the author not only of the truths con- tained in Holy Writ, but also of their expression in writing, although by the mediation and service of the sacred writers." 3 In a somewhat full discussion of the subject Billot makes these very emphatic statements: "The sacred books are in their entirety from God, and in their entirety from man, just as a work of art is wholly from the instrument, and wholly from the artificer. . . . No prudent person will deny that the absolute inerrancy of Sacred Scripture is a most firm dogma of the Catholic religion. For even if in this matter no 1 Sacrae Romanae et Universalis Inquisitionis Decretum, July 3, 1907. a Handbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, I. in, 112. 1 Lehrbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, pp. 53, 54. \: 12 THE ROMAN TYPE solemn and express definition of any council or pontiff can be adduced, because in past times the necessity did not arise for a definition of this kind, still the universal and perpetual declaration of the Church is sufficiently clear, and to this the sense implanted in all the faithful altogether responds. . . . All who admit errors in the Scriptures are marked with the mark of heresy." 1 Like views could easily be cited from other writers. 2 How unequivocal a place the doctrine of biblical inerrancy holds in Romish dogmatics may be seen in the care taken to render formal respect to that doctrine even by such Roman Catholic scholars as have been most inclined to affiliate with the newer criticism* This point finds illus- tration in Lagrange, 3 not to mention the more adven- turous writer, the Abbe Loisy. 4 In short, a contributor to the Civilta Cattolica seems to have spoken with very good warrant when he said, "There is no Catholic dogma more solidly established than the infallibility of the Scriptures." 5 It is plain, therefore, that the assumption of infalli- bility, if in any wise it is to be rationally grounded, in- volves the task of proving the inerrancy of a given list of books, as well as the inerrant agency of the Church in all solemn determinations of questions of faith and morals. What have Roman apologists and dogmatists done toward the accomplishment of this task ? We are not able to discover that they have done any- thing better than to register easy-going assumptions. 1 De Inspiratione Sacrse Scripturae, second edit., pp. 63, in, 112. * See Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, I. 197199; Procter, The Catholic Creed, pp. 31-35; Coppens, A Systematic Study of the Catholic Religion, p. 49. * Revue Biblique, Jan., 1898. Etudes Bibliques, pp. 18, 19, 56. 5 La Questions Biblica nelT Exegesi, i8th series, vol. vii. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 13 They assume that there is no difficulty on God's side in making intellectually limited and morally imperfect men infallible organs of truth; that there can be no suitable basis of doctrinal confidence apart from recourse to such organs; and that consequently such organs are to be recognized both in those who gave the original deposit of faith and in those who are intrusted with the office of identifying and interpreting that deposit. Of the demands of a reasonable psychology they take next to no account, and treat with practical disdain the prosaic task of making a scientific induction from the total con- tents of the biblical books and of ecclesiastical history. Gaume, though rated by some Roman Catholics as a rather shallow and extravagant writer, speaks here for the whole tribe of infallibilists. "Nothing is easier/' he says, "than to prove that the true Church is infallible, and ought to be so. Four questions only! Was our Lord infallible? No one doubts it. Could he communi- cate his infallibility to those whom he sent to teach man- kind ? No one doubts it ; for, being God, he could do all things. Did he communicate his infallibility to his apos- tles and their successors? Yes; for he said to them, 'Go teach. I will be with you all days, even to the end of the ages.' Should he communicate his infallibility to his apostles and their successors? Yes, he should; otherwise we should have no means of knowing with certainty the true religion. Yet God wishes that we should know with certainty the true religion, since he wishes that, under pain of everlasting damnation, we should practice it, and to be ready to die rather than call in question any of the truths which it teaches/' 1 i Catechism of Perseverance, II. 354, 255. I 4 THE ROMAN TYPE In addition to the scriptural words cited above in favor of the infallibility of the Church the text is appealed to which declares that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, also that which emphasizes the obli- gation of men to hear the Church, or warns them that in showing despite to the messengers of Christ they will commit the sin of showing despite to Christ himself. 1 It evidently gives rise to an appearance of a vicious circle in reasoning when the apologist makes the authority of Scripture dependent upon the infallible Church, and then turns around and supports the infallibility of the Church on scriptural texts. Occasionally a Romish writer has taken cognizance of this appearance. In order to obviate it, the plea is made that over against those who recognize biblical authority it is legitimate to proceed from their point of view in sustaining the infallibility of the Church. Thus M. J. Spalding says: "If I am arguing with a brother Christian who admits the authority of the New Testament and denies the authority of the Church, I may logically reason from the former to the latter. If arguing with an infidel who denies the New Testament, I adopt another course altogether: I first prove to him the divine authority of the Church by the self-same arguments by which a Protestant would attempt to prove to him the divine origin and character of Christianity." 2 This doubtless is the best that can be urged in answer to the charge of circular reasoning ; but it has the disadvantage of suggesting that as respects the ultimate basis of faith the Protestant is just about as well off as the Catholic. 1 Matt, xviii. 17 ; Luke x. 16. 1 Lectures on the Evidences of Catholicity, fifth edit., 1870, p. 275. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 15 Attempts are sometimes made to support the dogma of ecclesiastical infallibility by appeals to the virtues and achievements by which the Church has been distin- guished. But it is hardly worth while to make place for specimens of such argumentation. Even if full credit should be given to the facts on the score of which the appeals are brought forward, it would only be made to appear that a high degree of goodness has pertained to the Church; and the proving of that much would not bring us in sight of the proof of infallibility. False alternatives are made when it is urged that the Church, in case its claim to infallibility is unfounded, could not be the seat of any notable good. A comprehensive and many-sided institution may bear not a little of good fruit in spite of the extravagant claims made by its official representatives. II. THE BEARING OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIAS- TICAL AUTHORITY ON THE RELATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE An energetic inculcation of the infallible authority oi\ the Church prepares a logical basis for a stalwart asser- J tion of the rightful preeminence of the Church as ay governing power in the world. Since the former had free course in Roman Catholic literature, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, we should expect to find the latter, in the same period, very much in evidence. Such in fact is the case. From the fifth\ decade onward it is easy to find a succession of strong ; statements on the superiority of the Church over the / State, and on the consequent right of the Church toj limit and direct the action of the State. These state- 16 THE ROMAN TYPE ments may have come from representatives of the so- called Ultramontane party; but they have something more than a party significance. Everyone who knows the history of the last century knows that by its close "Ultramontanism" and "regnant Catholicism" had be- come very nearly identical terms. In any fair interpreta- tion of the ecclesiastical constitution, as it was left by the Vatican Council, the pope counts for vastly more than the entire remainder of the church officiary. Writers then, who have spoken agreeably to the papal conscious- ness have a special title to be rated in the line of Roman orthodoxy. Taking Phillips as our first witness, we notice that the antithesis which he assumes between clergy and laity affords a very congenial point of view for magnifying the authority of the Church as compared with that of the State. "The clergy," he says, "is the sanctifying, the teaching, the ruling Church; the laity is the Church to be sanctified, to be taught, to be ruled." 1 Belonging thus purely to the category of a subject and a pupil in the Church, the layman is consistently restricted in his civil capacity from acting contrary to the direction of the Church. He would take on in some sense the role of a teacher should he attempt to challenge any mandate which the Church lays upon him. As magistrate, says our author, he must learn the divine law from the Church. In supervising education he must conform to the judgment of the Church as to what is compatible with the interests of faith and morals. He is under obligation to uphold the Church in securing the execution of the laws which it makes for its subjects. As compared with 1 Kirchenrecht, I. 283. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 17 the ecclesiastical power he stands upon a subordinate plane. "A glance at the difference between spiritual and worldly sovereignty shows the impossibility of coor- dination." So far superior is the one to the other that in the last resort the Church can depose the temporal ruler. It has assumed, in fact, to exercise this right, and therefore must be credited with it or be charged with usurpation. 1 In an elaborate essay by E. S. Purcell, which was evi- dently written in view of the treatise of Phillips, we have the like theories asserted with notable absence of reserve. As the essay is contained in a book 2 which was edited by Archbishop Manning, it may be presumed that he ap- proved it at least for substance of doctrine. The follow- ing are some of its statements: "Every act which emanates from the civil power must be in exact con- formity with the laws of the Church; any infringement of these laws is a violation of the essential principle on which all authority rests conformity with the divine will. But what is conformable to the divine will the Church alone can declare; and to all such declarations the civil power must render unhesitating obedience. . . . The State is not competent to determine by its own authority its proper range and sphere; these are shaped out for it by the action of the Church. ... If we throw ourselves into the life and strife of those times when the power of the popes was at its highest, we are utterly unable to reconcile with such a state of things the .theory which some modern Catholic apologists, with Gosselin at their head, have set up to account for the 1 Kirchenrecht, II. 110-116, pp. sjoff. * Essays on Religion and Literature, 1867. i8 THE ROMAN TYPE existence of the deposing power of the popes. I cannot for an instant believe that this power, so tremendous in its character, was conferred on the papacy by the Chris- tian kings and people, or that it was the mere result of the peculiar condition and circumstances of Europe. The popes themselves did not speak of their power to depose princes as of a right derived from the will of kings and princes. They had a far higher idea of the source of this authority. In issuing decrees which made the mightiest monarchs tremble they never regarded themselves as delegates only of a political society. They were not mere umpires before whom the nations had agreed to come for judgment, but judges on a tribunal set up by no earthly arm. They were not the vicegerents of Christendom but of Christ. . . . Writers have argued and nations have declared that popes have no power to depose kings, but no pope that I am aware of has accepted such arguments or indorsed such declarations, and there- fore I will follow what the popes have said and done rather than the opinions of Gallican legists and the decla- rations of heretical parliaments. . . . The child, says the divine law, belongs to the parent, not to the State, and the Christian parent is bound to educate the child according to the direction of the Church. ... In fine, in all civil matters affecting spiritual interests, according to the principle already stated, the Church is predomi- nant." Its authority, as Purcell goes on to state, is ade- quate to annul the election or succession of an heretical prince, and also to depose from the throne the prince who falls into heresy. 1 Referring to the fact that in the latter part of the 1 See in particular, pages 413-418, 458, 459. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 19 eighteenth century the faculties of divinity in the univer- sities of Paris, Louvain, Douai, Salamanca, Alcala, and Valladolid, in answer to questions propounded by William Pitt, denied the existence of the deposing power in the Church, Purcell contends that these faculties repre- sented an era particularly characterized by a slump into Gallicanism, that they were little better than puppets of the contemporary rulers, and that their judgment is totally lacking in authority. "The pope, who is the alpha and omega of the sovereign power of the Church, has alone to be consulted, has alone to decide as to the rights of the papacy." The theory embodied in the above statement on the measure of ecclesiastical authority comes out very dis- tinctly in the declarations of Liberatore. True CatholP\ cism, he says, cannot accept either the supremacy of the \ State, the full independence of the State, or the separa- | tion of the State from the Church. "It sustains the neces- / sity of harmony between the State and the Church, but the necessity of a harmony which proceeds from the subordination of the one to the other. Apart from such subordination that word would be void of sense, since concord and peace are only the permanence of order, and order cannot be had unless things are disposed according to their mutual relations." 1 In confirmation of this posi- tion Liberatore cites the bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII, in which the idea that the State possesses an authority in any wise coordinate with that of the Church is repudiated as no better than Manichaean dualism. This bull, he maintains, confirmed as it has been by Leo X and by the Fifth Lateran Council, is of decisive dog- * La Chiesa e lo Stato, 1872, p. 21. 20 THE ROMAN TYPE matic weight. Every sincere Catholic must accept its teaching. There is no gainsaying these words of Boni- face VIII: Unum corpus, unum caput. Oportet igitur gladium esse sub gladio, et tcmporalem auctoritatem spiritual} subiici potestati. 1 "The State has no indirect power over the Church, but, on the contrary, the Church has indirect power over the State. And so it is able to annul the civil laws or the sentences of the external forum, when they are opposed to the spiritual good ; and it is able to check the abuse of the executive power and of arms, or indeed to prescribe their use, when the de- fense of the Christian religion makes demand therefor. The tribunal of the Church is higher than that of the civil power. Now, the superior is able to revise the causes of the inferior ; but the inferior is in no wise able to revise the causes of the superior." 2 "According to Catholic doctrine, the civil power bears comparison to the spiritual as the body to the soul." 3 Molitor seems to agree with Liberatore in his estimate of the bull Unum Sanctam. He speaks of it as affording the model exposition of the proper relation between Church and State, though admitting that in dealing with the unchristianized society of the modern world it may not be practicable to carry out the scheme which it dic- tates. 4 In accord with Purcell he represents that the basis of the deposing power, as understood by the popes, was not simply the general custom or consent of mediaeval Europe, but a constitutional prerogative, a right inherent in the pope as the supreme official of the Church. Illus- trating from the act of Pius V in declaring Queen Eliza- 1 La Chiesa e lo State. 1872, pp. 23-25. * Ibid. p. 46. 3 Ibid. pp. 364, 265. * Burning Questions, 1876, pp. 134-138. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 21 beth deposed, he says : "In the bull Regnans in coelis he appeals, as the authority of his right to pronounce judicial sentence, not to any power intrusted to him by men, nor to any custom which had become law by being exercised for centuries, but he expressly and unequivocally declares that he proceeds against the Queen of England by virtue of the authority delivered to him by Christ himself in the person of Peter. And the predecessors of Pius V cer- tainly acted in similar case in the same spirit, and with the same consciousness of justice." 1 The above senti- ments are brought to expression through the medium of a dialogue, but there is no occasion to doubt that they reflect the real standpoint of the author. The Church as a perfect society, argues Costa-Rossetti, cannot be subject, even indirectly, to the civil society. On the other hand, the civil society is properly subor- dinate to the Church in spiritual and mixed matters, and indirectly also in things purely temporal. "Those are called mixed matters which are at once spiritual and temporal, or those which are in such sense spiritual that they have intimate connection with temporal things, for example, material goods possessed by the Church, the sacrament of matrimony and its temporal effects, ecclesi- astical benefices, and the constitution governing bishops and the incumbents of parishes, etc. Now, in these the civil society is subordinate to the authority of the Church ; for the Church is an independent or perfect society as respects all things which are related to the attainment of its proper end; but these mixed things are such." 2 The writer adds that the settlement of any disputes which 1 Burning Questions, 1876, pp. 126, 127. 1 Philosophia Moralis, editio altera, 1886, pp. 723-725 22 THE ROMAN TYPE may arise over these mixed matters between Christian princes and ecclesiastics falls within the competency of the supreme pontiff, though in deference to actual condi- tions the pontiff in recent times has customarily resorted to the use of concordats. 1 "The publication," says Philipp Hergenrother, "in- terpretation, and preservation of the Christian moral law pertains to the Church, and in this sphere the State is obligated to give heed to her voice. ... In case of conflict between ecclesiastical and civil law the preference is intrinsically due to the ecclesiastical; for the aim of the Church is the higher." 2 On the subject of the deposing power Hergenrother takes moderate ground. While he does not deny that such a power is based in the official authority of the pope, he concludes that it is not based in that alone, but requires in addition such a system of public law as prevailed in the middle ages. 3 Herein evidently he exhibits poor agreement with the papal in- terpretation as brought out above by Purcell and Molitor. Writers who treat of the deposing power very com- monly acknowledge at least an obligation of prudence on the part of the Church not to attempt to put it into practice under present conditions. So, for instance, S. B. Smith. For the rest, this writer asserts in emphatic terms the preeminence of the Church over the State. "In whatsoever things," he says, "whether essentially or by accident, the spiritual end that is, the end of the Church is necessarily involved, in those things, though they be temporal, the Church may by right exert its power and the civil State ought to yield. . . . The 1 Philosophia Moralis, editio altera, 1886, p. 726. * Lehrbuch des Katholischen Kirchenrechts, second edit., pp. 64, 68. ' Ibid., p. 72. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 23 Church alone can fix the limits of its jurisdiction; and if the Church can fix the limits of its own jurisdiction, it can fix the limit of all other jurisdiction at least so as to warn off its own domain. . . . It is unmeaning to say that princes have no superior but the law of God ; for a law is no superior without an authority to judge and apply it." 1 The theoretical primacy of the Church over the State may be regarded as logically affecting the nature of a concordat between the two. According to one view the concordat has the character of a bilateral contract; pope and prince are equally bound by it. Another view, in the interest of the subordination of the civil to the spiritual power, denies to the concordat a bilateral character. The latter view is maintained by Liberatore. As he conceives, the position of the pope in entering into this class of engagements is analogous to that of the Divine Author of Old and of New Testament promises. "Concordats are pontifical privileges and concessions (privilegi e indulti pontificii) under the form of contract." Too much account is not to be made of the mere form. In essence the concordat is, on the side of the pope, a privi- lege conceded to a particular party, and as such can be recalled or modified by him whenever the good of the Church requires. The acknowledgment that this right of recall or modification resides in the pope by no means involves an equivalent right in the temporal prince. "Not because the legislator, seeking the good of the society which he governs, abrogates a part of the law, has the subject the right to reckon himself released from the observance of the part left untouched and in force. 1 Elements of Ecclesiastical Law, seventh edit., 1889, I. 254, 355. 24 THE ROMAN TYPE Now, the concordat has the character of a private law in relation to a given kingdom ; and the prince in stipulating it intervenes in the quality of a representative of the people which receives it, and therefore in the quality of a subject." 1 The like view is sustained by Palmieri and Tarquini. The former remarks on the nature of con- cordats : "By far the more common opinion among Italian theologians is, that these conventions are not true bilateral contracts, and that they do not bind the Roman pontiff to the other party by the proper obligation of a contract, through which the exercise of his authority con- trary to the things which are agreed upon is impeded and nullified beyond the consent of the other party." 2 That this theory is very agreeable to the theocratic claims of the papacy cannot well be denied; but the competing theory that the concordat has the proper nature of a con- tract has large currency outside of Italy. 3 In one relation Pius IX appears to have given the weight of his approval to the dominant Italian theory. In a letter to Professor Moritz von Bonald of Strassburg, June 19, 1871, he com- mended an exposition of the nature of concordats con- tained in a recent writing of the professor, which exposi- tion was comformable to the Italian standpoint. 4 Naturally the popes under modern conditions have felt considerable restraint as respects making open and ex- plicit publication of the subordination of the State to ecclesiastical authority. To award the approving smile and to stretch out the hand of patronage to those who 1 La Chiesa e lo Stato, pp. 381-386. * Tractatus de Romano Pontifice, p. 558. 8 See Dictionnaire de Drpit canonique by Andr6 and Condis, article "Concordat"; Costa- Rossetti, Philosophia Moralis, pp. 726, 727; P. Hergen- rother, Lehrbuch des Katholischen Kirchenrechts, pp. 82, 83. 4 Hoensbroech, Der Ultramontanismus, p. 134. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 25 range themselves on the side of high Ultramontane max- ims must seem to them the more discreet ways of promul- gating the dogmas of ecclesiastical supremacy and papal overlordship. Still, the recent popes have not failed to give sufficiently unambiguous indications of their posi- tion on this theme. Pius IX did so in 1864, when he formally condemned the statement that Roman pontiffs and ecumenical councils have exceeded the limits of their power and usurped the rights of princes; also when, in the same connection, he reprobated the idea of with- drawing public education from ecclesiastical control and placing it under civil direction. 1 Other indications, and those of a very significant type, were given by Pius IX as to his theory of the relation of Church and State. In repeated instances, and in relation to various countries, he declared items in civil laws, which he regarded as obnoxious to the interests of the Church, to be null and void. He put forth declarations of this kind against acts of the government of Piedmont, January 22, 1855 ; against Spanish legislation, July 26, 1855; against laws of Sardinia, July 27, 1855; against Mexican laws, December 15, 1856; against proceedings of the govern- ment of New Granada, September 17, 1863; against leg- islative or constitutional provisions of Austria, June 22, i868. 2 In the last instance the papal deliverance ran as follows : "In virtue of our apostolic authority we reject and condemn the aforesaid laws, and everything which in them and other matters touching upon the rights of the Church has been enacted, done, or attempted by the Austrian government or by any subordinate officials ; we J Syllabus of Errors, Nos. 23, 47, 48. See Gladstone, Vaticanism, 1875 ; Von Schulte, Die Macht der romischen Papste uber Fursten, Lander, Volker und Individuen, third edit., 1896. 26 THE ROMAN TYPE declare in virtue of our authority that these decrees have been and will remain null and empty of all force." Sim- ilar terms were employed by the pope in condemning the Prussian May laws, February 5, 1875. From Leo XIII, who combined a high degree of diplo- matic astuteness with an equal measure of doctrinaire temper, we have such sentences as the following: "No one can serve two masters. If the one is obeyed the other must of necessity be discarded. Now, as to which should be preferred, no one ought to doubt. Evidently it is a crime to abandon obedience to God for the sake of satisfying men; it is impious to break the laws of Jesus Christ that one may obey magistrates, or, under pretext of conserving civil right, to violate the rights of the Church. If the laws of a commonwealth are openly at variance with divine right, if they involve any injury to the Church, or contradict religious duties, or violate the authority of Jesus Christ in the supreme pontiff, then truly to resist is duty, to obey is crime. Both that which ought to be believed and that which ought to be done the Church by divine right teaches, and in the Church the supreme pontiff. It belongs to the pontiff not only to rule the Church, but in general so to order the action of Christian citizens, that they may be in suitable accord with the hope of obtaining eternal salvation." 1 A rather suggestive specimen of his prerogative to order the action of Christian citizens was given by the pontiff in connec- tion with the instruction to Roman Catholics in Italy to refrain from voting in national elections. The formula that it is "not expedient" to use the suffrage, which had been given out at an earlier date, was declared at the 1 Encyclical Letter, Jan. 10, 1890. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 27 command of the pope, July 30, 1886, to mean that it is "not permitted" "non expedire prohibitionem im- portat" 1 As has been intimated by the language of one or an- other expositor of the Church's prerogatives, her un- \ rivaled position involves the conclusion that she cannot | concede to the State the principal part in the management j of education. This conclusion has been strongly asserted by recent popes. Writing in 1864 to the Archbishop of Freiburg, in reprobation of the plan of education adopted by the civil power, Pius IX declared: "Certainly in whatever places and regions this most pernicious plan should be undertaken, or be carried to a fulfillment, of expelling the authority of the Church from the schools, and the youth should be miserably exposed to harm in respect of faith, the Church would be obliged to advise all the faithful, and to declare to them, that such schools, as being adverse to the Catholic Church, cannot be at- tended with a good conscience." 2 Near the end of the same year the pontiff formally enforced his point of view upon the Roman Catholic world by including in the Syl- labus of Errors the following propositions: "The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools open to the children of all classes, and, generally, all public institutes intended for instruction in letters and philos- ophy, and for conducting the education of the young, should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority, govern- ment, and interference, and should be fully subject to the civil and political power, in conformity with the will of rulers and the prevalent opinions of the age. 1 Quoted in Civilta Cattolica, Feb. 2, 1895. 2 Cited by Konings, De Absolutione Parentibus, Qui Prolem Scholis Publicis seu Promiscuis Instituendam Tradunt, Neganda necne, 1874, p. 13. 28 THE ROMAN TYPE This system of instructing youth, which consists in sepa- rating it from the Catholic faith and from the power of the Church, and in teaching exclusively, or at least pri- marily, the knowledge of natural things and the earthly ends of social life alone, may be approved by Catholics." 1 Leo XIII made it evident that he was ready to support the standpoint of his predecessor. In an encyclical addressed to the French bishops, January 8, 1884, he stated that it is a fixed principle of the Church to con- demn schools which are not under ecclesiastical direction Ecclesia semper scholas quas appellant mixtas vel neutras apcrte damnavit. 2 In the admonitions of the Roman congregations public schools of the modern type, or those under civil as op- posed to ecclesiastical direction, have been declared unfit to be patronized by the faithful. Thus the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, in an epistle addressed to the bishops under its jurisdiction, April 25, 1868, took pains to enumerate the reasons in view of which public schools are generally to be prohibited to Catholics as being positively injurious. 3 An identical judgment was expressed by the Inquisition in the instruction relative to the public schools, which was sent, June 30, 1875, to the bishops in the United States. After quoting from the letter of Pius IX to the Archbishop of Freiburg the fathers of the Holy Office proceeded to remark : "These words inasmuch as they are based on the natural and the divine law, enunciate a general principle which holds universally and refers to all places where the most de- structive system has been unfortunately introduced. It 1 Nos. 47, 48. Cited by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. Cited by Konings, De Absolutione, pp. n, 12. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 29 is therefore necessary that the illustrious prelates should, by all possible means, keep the flock intrusted to their charge aloof from the corrupting influence of the public schools." 1 In the light of such declarations there seems to be very little chance for a Roman Catholic, who really purposes to pay loyal respect to authority, to dispute the right of the Church to the supreme control of education. In-/ deed, if we may trust the interpretation of a contributor to an American periodical, the chance to dispute such right is beyond all question excluded. Referring to papal deliverances on the subject, he remarks : "Some may say that these utterances of the Holy See are not ex cathedra, that they are consequently not infallible, and that we may think what we please of them. Such statements would be highly irreverent to the authority of the Church, to say the least ; but in the case before us we think that they would not be far short of heretical. For, granting that they are not ex cathedra pronouncements, they still par- take of absolute infallibility from the universal consent of the bishops of the whole Catholic world, who, though dis- persed, when unanimously agreeing with the supreme head of the Church and with one another on any point of doctrine are infallible judges of the faith." 2 The same writer gives expression to his own conviction as to the logical demands of legitimate ecclesiastical authority in these unrestrained terms: "The State that takes educa-\ tion into its own hands, though it may permit religious ] instruction, violates the most fundamental of the divine/ rights of the Church. Whatever view, then, we may choose, to take of state education, it is a most flagrant 1 Cited by James Conway in the Catholic Review, Oct., 1884. 2 Ibid. 30 THE ROMAN TYPE injustice, a most impious and sacrilegious violation of the holiest rights of God and man." 1 Taking together the teachings of writers in highest repute for orthodoxy, the public instructions of the popes, and the acts by which they have illustrated their concep- tion of their official prerogatives, we are perfectly justi- fied in saying that the essential content of the mediaeval doctrine of the subordination of civil to ecclesiastical authority has been appropriated by the Roman Catholic Church in the most recent times. The corollary which belongs logically with the dogma of the Church's infalli- bility has been recognized and promulgated. Doubtless one and another spokesman for Roman Catholicism, being under the pressure of a special environment, have preferred to make rather limited account of the pre- eminence of the ecclesiastical over the civil power. But in doing so they have failed to keep in sympathetic rela- tion with the central administration. In the view of popes and Roman congregations Gallicanism is rank poison, and Gallicanism is chargeable against any theory which departs appreciably from the mediaeval conception of the normal relation between Church and State. It is appropriately noticed in this connection that in the approved Roman Catholic theory the area over which the authority of the hierarchy by right extends is not limited to the Roman Catholic membership proper. It includes all the baptized, to whatever Christian commun- ion they may reckon themselves. "Every baptized per- son," says Liberatore, "is more a subject of the pope than he is of any other earthly ruler." 2 For a sober and repre- sentative statement of the obligations of non-Catholics 1 Catholic Review, Jan., 1884. l La Chiesa e lo Stato, p. 39. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 31 we may take the following from the pen of Philipp Her- genrother: "The Church considers all the baptized as subject to her laws. Whoever is validly baptized is made through baptism a member of the one Church of Christ. Baptism involves obligation to the fulfillment of the entire Christian law, subjection to the jurisdiction of the Church. In consideration of the baptismal character all the baptized are in duty bound to observe in general the laws of the Church. Still, a distinction is made here in point of doctrine. Formal heretics, namely, those who by their own act of rebellion have fallen away from the Church, are bound by all the church laws without excep- tion. Other non-Catholics are subject only to those laws which aim primarily at the common good of Christendom, not, however, to those which respect immediately the sanctification of the individual." 1 III. THE BEARING OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ECCLESIAS- TICAL AUTHORITY ON PERSONAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES A Church reputed infallible in all solemn determinaA tions in the domains of faith and morals, and claiming in \ respect of rightful authority a distinct primacy over all 1 civil communities of Christians, might be expected to assert a full measure of control over the individual. t Making its own authority the unrivaled interest, it must be inclined to watch jealously against the extension of personal rights and liberties beyond the limits com- patible with that interest. As a matter of fact, exponents of Roman Catholic teaching throughout the preceding i Lehrbuch des Katholischen Kirchenrechts, p. 117. Compare Heinrich, Lehrbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, p. 643. 33 THE ROMAN TYPE century have clearly evinced their conviction that, in the normal course of things, the individual cannot be per- mitted to order his religion according to his own choice, / but must be put under emphatic restriction as respects freedom of worship, of speech, and of press. Doubtless here and there a courageous voice has been raised in the Roman Catholic Church for a large measure of liberty, and lay administration within Roman Catholic domains has been in many instances friendly to liberty. Western civilization has moved in that direction. But when we consult the standpoint of the hierarchy, or take account of the tenets which may be regarded as part and parcel of a triumphant Roman orthodoxy, we are compelled to acknowledge that restriction in the sense indicated is distinctly and emphatically set forth as a proper and necessary requisition. This is the ground taken by the principal writers cited in the preceding section. "Neither Church nor State," says Phillips, "which are bound together upon the true basis of divine law recognizes tolerance. The Church does not, because neither true peace nor true love recog- nizes tolerance ; the State does not, because, in conformity with its principle, it ought to tolerate nothing which does not agree with divine righteousness. . . . Should the Church tolerate one adversary or sect, it must tolerate every one and therewith make a surrender of itself. The secular magistracy, however, which is penetrated with the truth taught by the Church, must occupy the same standpoint. As little as that magistracy permits an inde- pendent society within its domain, because this would lead to its own destruction, as little as it permits its subjects to be robbed of temporal welfare through uproar PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 33 and civil war, even so little should it permit that, through societies which separate themselves from the authority of the Church, which it is bound as a faithful confederate to protect, the aforementioned subjects should be deceived as respects the salvation of their souls." 1 In these words the master of canon law sketches what he regards as demanded by the true ideal. That ideal absolutely ex- cludes tolerance for all dissenting forms of religion. It follows, therefore, that tolerance can claim at most only a relative right, such as may be based upon obligations to respect existing treaties and constitutions while they remain standing. In an apology for papal policy, Joseph Hergenrother, while discountenancing the subversion of religious liberty in countries where it has long been established, contends for the obligation of a Roman Catholic State to keep the door closed against its intrusion. "The authorization," he says, "of every form of worship is a grave injustice in purely Catholic countries like Spain and South America. The unity of the nation in faith is too great a benefit for the State to be sacrificed without necessity ; and where only one religion exists the State has duties toward it, and should protect it as far as possible from attacks and divisions." 2 Liberatore approves a papal characterization of liberty of conscience, in which it is described not as man's right, but as his madness. 3 Viewed aside from considerations of opportuneness or political prudence, and judged ac- cording to its nature, "liberty of conscience is liberty of perdition." 4 "As the individual, so the State has the 1 Kirchenrecht, II. 511-513. 2 Catholic Church and State, Eng. trans., 1876, pp. 359, 360. 8 La Chiesa e lo Stato, p. 49. * Ibid., p. 54. 34 THE ROMAN TYPE obligation to embrace the true religion, and, having em- braced it, it has not merely the right but the duty to secure the tranquil possession and conservation of it to its subjects with the exclusion of access to all false religions; and that not by imposing faith, which is in- duced by preaching, not by force, but by forbidding in the external order, over which alone it has power, the profession of false cults." 1 The English convert, W. G. Ward, referring to a noted address of Montalembert, blames him for making toleration an ideal of human right, instead of simply a matter of prudence under certain conditions. "The highest ideal," he says in substance, "is not a universal liberty to differ, but the union of society in one true religious belief. And it is the duty of government to preserve that union so far as it exists." 2 "Liberty of worship," writes Costa-Rossetti, "in a society in which unity of Catholic religion exists, cannot be conceded; where indeed this unity is not possessed it cannot in itself be produced by force, but liberty of a false worship should be conceded for the sake of avoid- ing greater evils. . . . Where unity of the Catholic, the only true, religion prevails all other worships, which are consequently false and prohibited by the revealed law founded in the law of nature, constitute a public scandal ; and public scandals are to be sternly prohibited and punished by authority." 8 Philipp Hergenrother treats as indubitable maxims the following statements : "The Church rejects the prin- ciple of free investigation which makes reason the judge 1 La Chiesa e lo fitato, p. 70. 2 Wilfrid Ward, W. G. Ward and the Catholic Revival, p. 168. 8 Philosophia Moralis, pp. 727, 729. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 35 K over God's utterances and over her own teaching office; she knows herself as the only true Church, and cannot recognize Protestantism as another equally legitimate form of Christianity. . . . She rejects in principle the freedom of all worships. Freedom of worship is in itself an evil." 1 It is interesting to observe, in this relation, in what robust terms an American writer, bidding plain defiance to an uncongenial environment, sets forth the Roman Catholic platform. Including in the list of liberties em- phasized in modern times liberty of conscience and of worship, liberty of the press, liberty of education or in- struction, and liberty of association, he adds: "They are all false in principle. The Catholic religion alone is true and binding upon all men, and this religion is identified with the Roman Catholic Church. This Church alone, by the will of God, has the right to exist and to spread throughout the world, to demand faith and obedience from all men. Every doctrine opposed to her teaching and all morals contrary to her moral law are condemned without further proof or appeal. Neither religious error nor moral evil, the two deadly poisons for the intellect and the will, can ever have any right of existence or propagation. . . . Neither the Church nor the State can be taxed with intolerance and tyranny when they seek, as they did in the middle ages, to regulate the exer- cise of the human will, and to diminish for men the facilities for evil, and thus prevent them from risking their happiness and welfare. Such restrictions, so far from being an act of violence, are, on the contrary, a great benefit to society, facilitating for its members the 1 Lehrbuch des Katholischen Kirchenrechts, pp. 115, 116. 36 THE ROMAN TYPE accomplishment of duty and rendering neglect or viola- tion of duty more difficult." 1 Besides emphasizing the obligation of the State to exer- cise, where feasible, a coercive function in favor of the sole supremacy of the Roman Catholic religion, repre- sentative expounders of that religion claim for the Church itself a vis coactiva, a power to restrain not merely by spiritual penalties but by temporal as well. For example, Bouix claims that this power is unquestion- ably a part of the ecclesiastical prerogative. "Omitting," he remarks, "excommunication, suspension, privation of office and emoluments, also degradation, we say that the Church has always used corporal and temporal punish- ments properly so called, namely, scourging, imprison- ment, fasting, fines, exile, and the like; there being ex- cepted, nevertheless, effusion of blood, that is, the punish- ment of mutilation or death." 2 Bouix notices that the contrary view has been rejected by popes and councils, and in recent times has been condemned in the censure passed by Pius IX on the system of Nuytz. 3 That the Church has a coactive jurisdiction, involving a com- petency to visit corporal punishments, is stoutly asserted by Palmieri. 4 "The principle," says Granderath, "that she possesses the power of outward punishment, the Church naturally cannot surrender. Meanwhile, though she holds fast her principle, in applying it she takes account of the conditions of the time." 5 Philipp Her- genrother coincides with Bouix both as respects the un- questionable competency of the Church to visit temporal 1 Devivier, Christian Apologetics, pp. 437, 440. 1 Tractatus de Judiciis Ecclesiasticis, I. 52. 'I. 65, 66. 4 Tractatus de Romano Pontifice, pp. 13 iff. 5 Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, I. 191. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 37 punishments and the proper restriction on the range of those punishments. He notices that De Luca occupies an exceptional position in assigning to the Church the right to visit the penalty of death. 1 In some instances the privilege of the Church to punish offending ecclesiastics with imprisonment was made a matter of express stipu- lation. Such a provision appears, for example, in the concordat made by Pius VII with the Republic of Italy in 1803, and also in that made with the King of the Two Sicilies in i8i8. 2 The hierarchical consciousness as to the grave de- mand which exists for curbing the free expression of thought found practical manifestation throughout the century in the censorship exercised by the Con- gregation of the Index and also to considerable extent by the Roman Inquisition. Some heart-searching, it is true, took place within the ranks of the faithful as to the legitimacy of a censorship which customarily con- demned without either affording any opportunity to the censured party for explanations or assigning any reasons for adverse judgments. Thus on the eve of the Vatican Council eleven French bishops recommended that a milder procedure should be adopted in passing judgment on books. 3 A similar recommendation was subscribed by some German bishops. 4 A company of Catholic laymen went further. In an address to the Archbishop of Treves they pointed out that the established plan of censorship is far from securing an impartial dealing with books, since under it the accident of denunciation must largely 1 Lehrbuch des Katholischen Kirchenrechts, pp. 538-541. Bullarium Romanum, XII. 61 ; XVI. 6 1 Granderath, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, I. 443. 4 Granderath, I. 444. 38 THE ROMAN TYPE determine the choice of the objects of condemnation ; that it often involves great injustice to eminent authors, who have given expression with good intent and perhaps inad- vertently to some error, and who nevertheless are branded before the public as of dangerous tendency by being placed in a common catalogue with the writers of truly infamous productions ; and that it imposes a fear of being defamed which must rest like a leaden weight on the investigations of Catholic scholars. "We cherish, there- fore," they say in conclusion, "the wish that it may please the ecumenical council about to assemble to abolish the Index of Prohibited Writings." 1 Montalembert said that he would subscribe to every line of this lay memorial. 2 Others gave expression to their dissatisfaction with the despotic surveillance exercised over literature through the Index. But no heed was given to criticism and protest. The branding process went on unchecked. In the course of the nineteenth century, by the evidence of the edition of the Index published in 1900, very nearly thirteen hun- dred writings were specifically censured by being placed in the prohibited list. Nor do these figures by any means indicate the full extent of prohibited territory, since a great portion of theological literature, namely, all that produced by non-Catholic scholars, is condemned in the mass as unfit for the inspection of Catholic minds. There is reason to believe that this overgrown censorship has been to a very considerable degree nugatory; but as a token of hierarchical animus it has a very distinct sig- nificance. It publishes in large characters the intrinsic bent to intellectual despotism which may be expected to 1 Cecconi, Storia del Concilio Ecumenico Vaticano, Doc. clvii., Vol. II, pp. 318322. * Doc. clix., p. 326. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 39 distinguish a priesthood laying claim to infallible authority. /" The record of the papacy in relation to the subject of ) I personal rights and liberties remains to be noticed. That / record has been substantially uniform from the beginning to the end of the century. In their teachings and in their acts of administration the popes from Pius VII to Leo XIII have declared themselves the faithful heirs of mediaeval traditions. Pius VII in a letter to the nuncio at Vienna in 1805 approved the plan of Innocent III for repressing heresy, according to which private offenders were exposed to the penalty of confiscation of goods, and heretical princes were liable to be deprived of their sovereignty through the release of their subjects from all oaths of loyalty. This seemed to him a salutary plan, and he only regretted that the evil times made resort to it quite impossible. 1 Leo XII took pains to condemn the\ school of thought "which professes tolerance or indiffer- \ ence not only in civil but also in religious questions, and \ which teaches that God has given man full liberty, so that he may without any danger to his salvation join / the sect which best suits his private judgment" 2 "a con^ demnation," says Nielsen very justly, "that in its conse-\ quences, and interpreted according to Roman Catholic j principles, became a condemnation of liberty of con-/ science and religious freedom." 3 Gregory XVI in th6 encyclical of May 26, 1832, characterized as madness (delir amentum') the opinion that "liberty of conscience should be asserted and vindicated for everyone." 4 1 Janus (Bellinger), Der Papst und das Concil, pp. 34, 35. * Bullarium Romanum, XVI. 47. 1 History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century, II. is. 4 Cited by Baur, Geschichte der Christlichen Kirche, V. 255. 40 THE ROMAN TYPE An approving reference was made by Pius IX to the language of Gregory XVI. In the encyclical Quanta Cur a, issued in 1864, he used these vigorous terms : "You know well, venerable fathers, that in this time not a few are found who, applying to civil association the impious and absurd principle of naturalism, as it is called, dare to teach that the most excellent plan of public society and civil progress requires that human society should be con- stituted and governed without respect to religion, as if it did not exist, or at least without making any distinction between the true and the false religions. And contrary to the teaching of the Sacred Scriptures, the Church, and the holy fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that that is the most excellent condition of society in which the government does not recognize the duty of coercing with prescribed punishments the violators of the Catholic re- ligion except so far as the public peace may demand. Proceeding from this altogether false idea of the proper management of society, they do not fear to foster the opinion injurious in the highest degree to the Catholic Church and to the salvation of souls, called by our prede- cessor of venerable memory, Gregory XVI, a madness, that is, the opinion that liberty of conscience and of wor- ship is the proper right of every man, which ought to be proclaimed by law in every rightly constituted society, and that citizens have a right to a total liberty which ought not to be restrained by any civil or ecclesiastical authority, and in the use of which they may be able to make open publication of their views whether by voice, or by the press, or in any other way. While they rashly make such affirmations, they do not think and consider that they preach a liberty of perdition." Some of these PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 41 papal phrases might be regarded as describing an over- wrought scheme of liberty, a liberty running into license ; but others of them evidently smite such a scheme of tolerance as is very commonly recognized by existing governments. That the pope meant to discountenance the modern notion of religious tolerance received addi- tional demonstration in the contents of the Syllabus of Errors which accompanied the encyclical. In that sylla- bus the following stand among the condemned proposi- tions : "The Church has not the power of availing herself of force, or of any direct or indirect temporal power. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other modes of worship. It has been wisely provided by law, in some countries called Catholic, that persons coming to reside therein shall en- joy the public exercise of their own worship." 1 Very little skill is required to deduce the positive propositions which follow logically from the condemnation of these sentences. In the affirmative version of the Jesuit Schrader the first of them runs as follows : "The Church has the power to apply external coercion : she has also a temporal authority direct and indirect." 2 Leo XIII was as explicit as possible in declaring his agreement with his predecessors. Having referred to the strictures passed by Gregory XVI on liberty of con- science, and cited the words in which that pontiff con- demned the separation of Church and State, and having also taken note of the safe guidance afforded to Catholics by Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors, he added : "From these decisions of the popes, it is clearly to be understood 1 Nos. 24, 77, 78. * Cited by Gladstone, Vaticanism, p. 77. 42 THE ROMAN TYPE that the origin of public power is to be sought from God himself, and not from the multitude ; that the free play for sedition is repugnant to reason; that it is a crime for private individuals, and a crime for States, to observe nowhere the duties of religion, or to treat in the same way different kinds of religion; that the uncontrolled right of thinking, and publicly proclaiming one's thoughts, is not inherent in the rights of citizens, nor in any sense to be placed among those things which are worthy of favor or patronage." 1 The statement of the pope that it is a crime for States to proceed on the prin- ciple of the parity of creeds is subsequently modified by the admission that a civil administrator is excusable for granting a place to various forms of religion when he cannot do otherwise without incurring great loss or dam- age. Leo XIII left no ambiguity, however, about his conception of the greatness of the intrinsic obligation of the secular ruler to award a preferred place to the Roman Catholic Church. He returned to the subject in the encyclical on Christian Liberty, June 20, 1888. Stated in brief the assumption in this document is that the State owes it to God to profess and to patronize the true reli- gion ; that it is not difficult to determine, at least in any Roman Catholic domain, that the Roman Catholic is the true religion ; and that in conserving a privileged place to this religion restrictions ought to be placed upon free- dom of speech and of the press. /^ Concrete examples are not wanting of the inclination / of Leo XIII to give practical application to the maxims which he has dogmatically asserted. In a number of in- \stances he has bewailed the disgrace which has befallen 1 Encyclical on the Christian Constitution of States, Nov. i, 1885 _ PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 43 Rome through the contaminating presence of ProtestantX schools and places of worship, and complained of the power which has despoiled him of the faculty of worthily I guarding the seat of Christ's vicar from this pollution. J He says: "Every reason persuades that in the holy city, consecrated by the blood of the chief apostle and of so many heroes of Christianity, the religion of Christ ought to reign supreme, and the universal teacher of the faith, the avenger of Christian morality, ought to have unre- stricted power to close here the access to all impiety and to maintain the purity of Catholic instruction." 1 A kin- dred application of maxims was made in 1889, m tne earnest admonition which the pope addressed to the emperor of Brazil against the scheme of the minister of state to grant liberty of worship and teaching. Such a scheme, he argues, as involving the parity of creeds be- fore the law, detracts from the rights of "that one true religion which God has established in the world and dis- tinguished by characters and signs very clear and definite, in order that all may be able to recognize it as such and embrace it." And he remarks further: "With the said liberty is placed in the same line truth and error, the faith and heresy, the Church of Jesus Christ and any human institution whatever. . . . Already on other occasions, in public documents addressed to the Catholic world, we have demonstrated how erroneous is the teaching of those who, under the seducing name of liberty of wor- ship, proclaim the legal apostasy of society from Its divine Author." 2 1 Epist. ad Card. Vicarium Monaco la Valetta, June 26, 1878; Epist. ad Card. Nina de Praecipuis Pontificis Curis, Aug. 27, 1878; Epist. ad Card. Vicarium Monaco la Valetta de Scholis Urbis, March 25, 1879; Litters Encyclicae ad Episcopos Italise, Feb. 15, 1883, 3 Epist., July 19, 1889. 44 THE ROMAN TYPE Thus the popes in their teachings fall not a whit below the plane of the most stalwart maxims of the theologians on the propriety and duty of restricting personal liberties in the interest of the supremacy of the Roman Catholic religion. Both alike repudiate the separation of Church and State; both alike insist that where the conditions make it feasible the State should give a preferred and in- deed an exclusive place to the Roman Catholic religion; both alike contend that large restrictions should be placed upon freedom of speech and of the press. If any differ- ence is observable between the two parties, it lies in the fact that some of the theologians have admitted a larger qualification of the obligation of secular rulers to shut out competing worships than the popes have seen fit explicitly to sanction. IV. REFLECTIONS ON THE THEME OF THE CHAPTER We should not be following the dictates of economy in attempting at this point a comprehensive criticism of the Roman Catholic principle of ecclesiastical authority. As the infallible authority of the Church has been brought into requisition to proclaim and enforce the dogma of the infallibility of the pope, and also is irreversibly committed to an ultra sacramental system, it is exposed to the full weight of the enormous objections which hold against that dogma and that system. The consummating stage of criticism must wait, therefore, for the presentation of those objections. Still, it will be quite in order to notice here the flimsiness of the grounds on which the infallible authority of the Church is maintained. The scriptural ground hardly admits of sober discus- sion. Only an exegesis already believed to be infallible PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 45 can gain any credit for its performance when it attempts to wrest the notion of ecclesiastical infallibility from biblical texts. Take the statement most relied upon, namely, the declaration that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against the Church. Suppose the spiritual brotherhood founded in Christ is to be characterized by an imperishable life, is to remain in the world and to have an enlarging dominion therein so long as earthly history shall continue ; then the declaration of the Master would be gloriously fulfilled ; an historical demonstration would be wrought out that his Church is able to stand against all the forces which make for destruction. Sur- vival, progress, and high achievement are all that it is in any wise necessary to put into the words of promise. They contain no sort of assurance that the Church will always go forward in a perfectly straight line, will be hampered at a given stage by no imperfect or mistaken conceptions, and will never need to mend a single formula to which it has once given its sanction. It might be that this society should have a title to immortality, and yet be subject in no slight degree to the law of progress through trial, conflict, and emendation, which notoriously governs men in every field of achievement. It might be that a one-sided development should occur, and then find a practical offset through an opposing development; that out of conflicting types the higher and more comprehen- sive type should be evolved. It might be that neither the Greek, nor the Roman, nor the Protestant form should be destined to hold the field ; but rather that through their interaction a form more adequate to express the pure content of Christianity and to satisfy the whole round of man's religious needs should be evolved. We are 46 THE ROMAN TYPE not saying that such will be the outcome. The point of emphasis is that an outcome of that sort would amply satisfy the demands of Christ's promise. To put into his words a hard and fast assurance of infallibility is per- fectly gratuitous. Take, again, the expressed obligation to hear the Church, or to give heed to those who fulfill in the Church the office of teaching. Would there be no serious duty in that direction, no solemn requirement to study closely the general wish and welfare, unless the Church should be accounted infallible? Would the individual who dis- turbs the Christian brotherhood by a spirit of faction and ill-grounded contention do no despite to Christ unless that brotherhood should be rated infallible? Manifestly such obligations carry no suggestion of a strictly infalli- ble authority. If authority must be inerrant in order to have a claim to respect, then there is good scriptural war- rant for assigning to the temporal ruler that marvelous endowment. "The powers that be," says Paul, "are or- dained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power withstandeth the ordinance of God ; and they that with- stand shall receive to themselves judgment." 1 Paul says these words in behalf of obedience to those who bear the sword, that is, secular rulers. No stronger words can be found in the New Testament relative to the obligation to obey ecclesiastical authority. Let it be confessed, then, that secular rulers are infallible, or let it be admitted that the New Testament affords no ground for ascribing in- fallibility to a priestly hierarchy. In a double view the Scriptures render poor service to the claim of infallibility for the Church. Not only do 1 Rom. xiii. 9, PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 47 they fail to affirm it; by indisputable facts of their con- tents they refute it. As was observed in the first section of the chapter, Roman Catholic authority in the attempt to safeguard itself has been driven to assert a high tech- nical theory of the Bible. Through councils, popes, and theologians it has installed a stringent theory of biblical inerrancy. Now such a theory has been brought into desperate straits. The progress of scientific investigation in the modern era has been continually enlarging the body of devout scholars who discover absolutely com- pelling grounds for its rejection. This is not saying that scientific investigation properly cancels or even curtails appreciation for the Bible. On the contrary, it can be affirmed that it serves to exalt the primacy of the Bible in the world's literature. The change which it effects respects the ground of appreciation. Instead of permit- ting the assumption of a detailed infallibility to serve as that ground, it emphasizes the incomparable wealth of the biblical contents, the fact that the Bible as a whole contains the materials of a perfect ethical and religious system, the system within which man finds the most efficacious means of satisfaction and spiritual upbuilding. Charged with a consciousness that this imperishable dis- tinction belongs to the Bible, scholars are able to reconcile themselves to the conclusion that the sacred book contains an element of errancy. At any rate, they are compelled to admit that the tokens of errancy are there, and cannot be denied without absolutely discrediting their power of rational vision. Doubtless it is easy for the Roman Catholic hierarchy to thrust out the foot of authority against these scholars and all their conclusions. But in the field of scientific induction a foot-thrust does not 48 THE ROMAN TYPE secure final settlements. It did not retire the Copernican theory, and there is no likelihood that it will be able to retire the verdict which critical scholarship is bringing against a strained traditional conception of the Bible. Thus the dogma of ecclesiastical infallibility runs at this point against appalling difficulty. The very attempt to safeguard it through scriptural sanctions has furnished against it means of victorious assault. On the plane of rational considerations the principle of ecclesiastical infallibility is sadly in need of being ac- credited. A sane psychology is puzzled to discover how from fallible units an infallible whole can be derived. If the bishops taken singly cannot be trusted implicitly, why should they be above suspicion when a controlling major- ity happens to compound a decision. We are quite justi- fied in asking with the Jesuit Reynaud : "If yEsop's ass, though in a lion's skin, was still but an ass, would a whole herd of such animals form an assembly of lions?" 1 It is urged indeed by the Romish apologist that we are not to consider what might be expected on the basis of natural sequence, but must take account of a supernatural cause, namely, the operation of the Divine Spirit. But who has shown that the Holy Spirit either hasjgiven or could have given infallible direction to every company of bishops which has chosen to meddle with abstruse points of dogma ? The historic assemblies have sometimes approx- imated to the character of mobs in the violence of the passions by which they have been shaken. To suppose that such companies even the best of them can be withheld by the Holy Spirit from speaking before they are ready to speak infallibly, or be constrained to utter 1 Putnam, The Censorship of the Church of Rome, I. 138. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 49 only infallible truth when they do happen to speak, is to predicate the rankest kind of determinism. The Holy Spirit who, beyond all shadow of doubt, can accomplish that much ought to find no serious obstacle to placing a correct creed in any man's head at any point in his career. But if the Divine Agent, in a consistent use of his power, can overmaster constitutional limitations to that extent, why are men left to stumble on in error? On the same supposition, what means the scriptural teaching about the liability of grieving the Holy Spirit, about the way of faith being blocked by a false temper, about the obscura- tion which necessarily results from an evil eye or mixed purpose, about gaining the knowledge of truth through obedience to the demands of truth? The implication of such lines of representation is as plain as the day. To suppose the infallible determination of doctrine to have been given over unconditionally to a hierarchy is to sup- pose a thing repugnant to the fundamental ethical stand- point of the New Testament. The Pharisees who sought honor of one another could not get the right vision of truth. The fact that they sat in Moses' seat availed nothing to that end. No more will lordly claims to be in the line of succession from Christ through the apostles avail. As certainly as the free wills of unsanctified men can block the way of the Holy Spirit, and are distinctly liable to block his way to a greater or less extent, there can be no sure guarantee that a crowd of ecclesiastics will deliver themselves infallibly at any given point. Least of all can a guarantee of that sort be afforded in relation to a crowd which makes a boast of its infallibility. The proud claim itself has a natural efficacy to aggravate errancy. In proportion as it dominates the consciousness SO THE ROMAN TYPE it works disinclination to review or to revise a position which has once been assumed. It provides thus a motive to canonize mistakes, a temptation to make blunders im- mortal. The hope of an ideal construction of Christianity at the hands of a hierarchy which makes a speciality of asserting its infallibility is out of the question. Doubtless divine promise encourages the expectation that such a construction will be achieved. The leading of the Spirit is a real factor in history. The humble and obedient gen- erations will be led forward in the apprehension of truth. But there is no rational ground to suppose that the progress will take place through the exercise by a priestly hierarchy of a magical prerogative to put a sheer infalli- bility into dogmatic pronouncements and anathemas. It was noticed that the Romish apologist makes great account of the practical necessity of ecclesiastical infalli- bility. He urges that unless there is a visible guide equipped with an inerrant faculty for determining the true Scriptures, for rightly interpreting them, and for settling points of controversy, men will be left without any definite rule of faith, without any basis of assurance in matters of belief. Protestantism, he contends, in its repudiation of the infallibility of the Church, has no rule of faith, and simply sets its votaries adrift on a sea of conflicting opinions. In reply it is to be said, in the first place, that the con- venience of an endowment is wretchedly insufficient proof of its existence. It would be very convenient to have a holy Church in the world, a Church holy not merely in a few elect representatives but in the great mass of its members. What awful reproach Christianity has suf- fered from the crying misdeeds and besotted lives of PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 51 great multitudes of its professed adherents! With what luster, on the other hand, would it be crowned, and with what victorious efficacy would its message be informed, if in all its ranks the ideal spirit of Jesus could have full sway! It would be inexpressibly convenient to have a holy Church. But that fact affords no warrant for affirming that the Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing actually exists in the world. No more does the asserted convenience or practical necessity of infalli- ble guidance prove the existence of an infallible Church or hierarchy. As for the statement of Gibbons that the Church, like all of God's works, must be perfect, there is no call for refutation. Common eyesight furnishes the needful answer. Theory cannot be permitted to contra- dict fact ; and on the side of theory, too, it is quite obvious that the Church, as being made up of men who are in part self-formed, may very well show marks of imperfect workmanship. Again, it is to be observed that the supposition of in- fallibility is one thing, and intelligent vision of the cre- dentials of infallibility is quite another thing. Evidently the passive acceptance of the supposition affords no rational basis of assurance. In the use of that expedient one gains the same kind of security which was gained by the old lady who was afraid to walk across the crazy bridge at Bath, and so got herself carried across inclosed in a sedan chair. 1 What is won is not assurance against danger of falling into error, but a muffling up of the eye- sight which may conceal in some measure the danger. On the other hand, if one undertakes to inspect the cre- dentials of the asserted infallibility of the Church, he 1 Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church, p. 74. 52 THE ROMAN TYPE will find that by no means is he clear of grounds of doubt and incertitude, not to say of downright skepticism. No Protestant, in fact, encounters from his standpoint a more difficult and perplexing task than that devolved upon the Romanist. It is quite as easy to gain a solid conviction as to the beauty, worth, and truthfulness of the essential biblical system as it is to determine whether the Church through all the enormous range of its complex history has given credible proof of its infallibility. To pass upon the adequacy or inadequacy of that proof is a task of private judgment. The Romanist, then, no more than the Protestant has any reputable way for escaping the exercise of private judgment. Unless he is to be a mere lifeless image moved from without, he must judge of the legitimacy of the claim to infallible authority with which the Church confronts him, and in view of the tremendous character of the claim it is obvious that he is bound to judge on the ground of the closest scrutiny that he is able to make. Accordingly, to represent that the supposi- tion of ecclesiastical infallibility releases him from the difficulties and hazards of private judgment is to indulge in a transparent sophistry or untruth. Private judgment cannot be shut out by any supposition, any more than an intelligible foundation for the earth can be secured by placing it upon an elephant, and the elephant upon a tortoise. The individual who is told that he must rest upon the infallible authority of the Church is under rational constraint to ask upon what certain proofs the infallible authority of the Church rests; and, if in the first instance he gives hasty assent to the high ecclesias- tical demand, a serious obligation for renewed inquiry and investigation cannot well be escaped. No one is en- PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 53 titled to a settled assurance on the ground of carelessness, indifference, or lazy assumption. The normal assurance can be gained by no cheaper means than the labor in- volved in working out a synthesis of reason, history, and experience. To attempt to gain it by an easy and sum- mary method is to indulge in essential quackery. Closely inspected the standpoint of the infallibilist may be seen to have a certain affiliation with skepticism. It involves a very disparaging estimate of the power of divine truth to attest itself in human consciousness gen- erally. It implies that only by the enginery of a hier- archy supernaturally manipulated can truth be propelled into the world and kept on its way. Evidently in such a point of view there is an element of distrust, an inclina- tion of the plane of thought toward an agnostic or skep- tical outcome. 1 The criticism of the principle of ecclesiastical infalli- bility, even within the limits appropriate to this volume, necessarily calls for a very considerable reference to the contents of church history. But we prefer to postpone this part of our theme. In the present connection it will suffice to notice how modern civilization repudiates capital inferences from the principle of infallibility. As was noticed above, the priestly hierarchy infers that the civil State should be distinctly subordinate to the ecclesiastical power, that a preferred place should be given by the State to the Roman Catholic religion, and that wherever it is practically possible every competing form of religion should be excluded under pains and penalties. Now, it is undeniable that modern civilization, as expressed in the 1 Compare Oman, The Problem of Faith and Freedom in the Last Two Centuries, pp. 23, 267. 54 THE ROMAN TYPE fixed policies of Christian nations, has been moving in a direction adverse to these inferences. Its trend is contradictory to the assumptions of the ecclesiastical power. Of course, it costs the ecclesiastical power no trouble to rejoin that modern civilization is at fault and needs to be corrected. But the antithesis remains and must work distrust as to the legitimacy of the claim to infallible authority which is paraded by the hierarchy. The thought will claim recognition that reason, con- science, and experience, as represented in the great lay forces of the world, must count for something, and that the type of civilization which they are helping to work out is quite as likely to be in the right as is the type which suits an ambitious priesthood. CHAPTER II PAPAL ABSOLUTISM I. GALLICANISM IN THE EARLY PART OF THE NINE- TEENTH CENTURY A PROPER understanding of the movement by which \ papal absolutism of the most unmitigated type that is, \ papal sovereignty unrestricted by the least remnant of \ coordinate authority and armed with the sanctions of in- \ fallibility was raised to the rank of dogma requires, first of all, an estimate of the barrier put in its way by the / opposing form of belief which is customarily termed / Gallicanism. Taken in its general sense the word "Gallicanism" is indicative of a moderate papal theory. It affiliates with the platform put forth by the Council of Constance, which plainly qualifies the monarchy of the pope and denies to him an independent infallibility. In sustaining itself against papal hostility it is not unnatural for Gallicanism, at least in a country governed by Roman Catholic rulers, to expect support from the civil power, and in return to construe liberally the prerogatives of that power within the ecclesiastical domain. But this is a secondary trait and is not of necessity characteristic of a party which contends for substantial limitation of papal absolutism. It will not be arbitrary, therefore, in the present discus- sion to treat the contention for such limitation as the distinctive feature of Gallicanism. Proceeding from this point of view, we have, as our immediate task, the 55 5 6 THE ROMAN TYPE determination of the extent to which a Gallican, as op- posed to an Ultramontane or absolutist, theory of the papal monarchy had place in the first part of the nine- teenth century. We respect special associations of the subject in beginning with France. A material abatement from the very pronounced Gal- lican articles, which were drawn up by Bossuet and sub- scribed by an assembly of the French clergy in 1682, had already occurred before the outbreak of the Revolu- tion of 1789. The prolonged strife over the Unigenitus constitution had wrought for that result. A fraction of the nation, it is true, may have been made by the strife all the more hostile to high papal claims. But the party including a majority of the bishops which undertook to cooperate with the pope in forcing the unholy consti- tution down the throats of the people was under practical constraint to magnify the obligation of ready obedience to papal mandates. Thus lessons in Ultramontanism began to be voiced by episcopal lips, and the field com- manded by the Gallican traditions was much abridged. During the storm of the Revolution there was, of course, little ambition for active controversy over the old points of dispute relative to church constitution. The great question was whether the Church could find means of survival under any form. But evidently the memory of the enormous upheaval could hardly fail to affect, in the following period, the balance between Gallicanism and Ultramontanism. In so far as it begot a horror of revolutionary violence it impelled to increased apprecia- tion for any long-standing authority which might serve as a bulwark against the forces of disruption. The par- tisans of high papal claims undoubtedly derived from it PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 57 a vantage ground in driving forward their scheme of centralized authority. While thus an opposing current was being prepared, Gallican sentiment was still a very considerable factor at the beginning of the century. Probably in the first decades very few of the clergy were inclined positively to advocate the Ultramontane platform. At the same time they may not have been very fervent or pronounced advo- cates of Gallicanism; but there are reasons for believing that a large proportion of them gave a general recognition to its standpoint. Prominent among these reasons are known facts respecting the education of the clergy. The manuals of theology most in use in the seminaries were of a Gallican cast. This was notably the case with Bailly's Theology, which served as a text-book in a majority of the seminaries during the first half of the century. It distinctly repudiated the notion of papal infallibility, as- serted the ecumenical character of the Councils of Con- stance and Basle, and placed restrictions on the preroga- tive of the pope to judge bishops. 1 Manifestly a Church which patronized this manual so extensively must have been in no slight degree imbued with Gallican sentiments. An evidence in the same direction is furnished by Bouvier's Theology. This manual, as appears from the edition of 1834, if a degree or two less Gallican than that of Bailly, still maintained that papal infallibility is but an opinion which one is as free to reject as to accept, that the bishops are judges of the faith instead of being mere witnesses thereto, and that the council is competent to examine a pope suspected of heresy or schism, and, if 1 Michaud, De la Falsification des Catchimes Fran9ais et des Manuels de Th6ologie, 1872, pp. iijff. 58 THE ROMAN TYPE he is found guilty, to condemn or depose him. 1 Further proof is supplied by reference to the circulation of various works bearing a Gallican stamp, such as the Dictionary of Bergier in its earlier form, Lequeux's Manual of Canon Law, and Guettee's History of the Church of France. The last named, which was issued near the middle of the century, was commended by forty-two French bishops. 2 Could the testimony of Baroche, the minister of wor- ship, be accepted, it would be necessary to conclude that even at the time when the Vatican Council was about to assemble the great majority of the French clergy were averse to the Ultramontane theory of papal supremacy and infallibility. 3 But the minister seems to have over- estimated the strength of Gallican sentiment at that point. In the preceding years powerful forces had been at work for its repression. What we have clear warrant for say- ing is, that for about half of the century Gallican text- books were extensively used in the education of the clergy, and that a full third of the bishops, including the most potent representatives of the French episcopate, were opposed, up to the conclusion of the Vatican Coun- cil, to the high papal scheme which was consummated by that assembly. That the same standpoint was represented by civilians charged with governmental responsibilities cannot fairly be questioned. In fine, though not a domi- nant factor, Gallicanism was still a great factor at the middle of the century. This is admitted in a recent Ultramontane history. Speaking of the Gallican plat- form, Granderath says: "This teaching, so flattering to the national feeling of the French, was prescribed by state 1 Michaud, pp. i38ff. * Ibid., pp. iggff. Cecconi, Storia del Concilio Vaticano, Doc. cxxxix. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 59 authority to the institutions of learning and established itself in clergy and people, and, although the number of its adherents was greatly reduced in the nineteenth cen- tury, it still held on to the time of the Vatican Council. It claimed among its advocates and representatives not only laymen and statesmen, but also a considerable list of bishops and priests." 1 In Germany during the last years of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth, the recoil from the spectacle of revolutionary violence and rash experimenta- tion, which had been furnished by France, tended to nar- row the room for the Gallicanism which had been prac- tically exemplified by the Austrian monarch Joseph II, and promulgated in theory by the writings of John Nicolas von Hontheim and Paul Joseph Riegger. 2 Still, this period witnessed some special manifestations of a disposition to champion Gallican principles. Karl von Dalberg, who held for a time the dignity of Elector of Mayence under the Napoleonic regime, and who was administering the bishoprics of Regensburg and Con- stance at his death in 1817, was a patron of such princi- ples. In Heinrich von Wessenberg, who enjoyed the con- fidence of Dalberg and stood in close relation with him, a resolute champion of Gallicanism appeared. A book published by him in i8i5 3 sketched the plan of a new constitution for the Catholic Church of Germany, a scheme which was judged to tend toward loosened con- 1 Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, I. 152, 153. * The noted work of Von Hontheim was published (1763-64) under an assumed name. The title ran, Justini Febronii de statu ecclesite et legitima potentate Romani Pontificis hber singularis ad reuniendos dissidentes in religione christianos compositus. 3 15ie deutsche Kirche. Ein Vorschlag zu ihrer neuen Begrundung und Einrichtung. 60 THE ROMAN TYPE nection with Rome and enlarged dependence upon the State. Views in line with those of Wessenberg were ad- vocated in the same era by Werkmeister and others. 1 From the close of the second decade there was a strengthening of churchly feeling among German Catholics. Between that point and the Vatican Council a considerable development in the direction of Ultramon- tanism undoubtedly occurred. Romanticism, with its fondness for mediaeval ideals, contributed in a measure to that end. Friedrich Schlegel and his contemporaries of kindred spirit were inclined to assume a friendly attitude to Ultramontane writings and teachings. Still, it is not to be overlooked that in interest and purpose the Catholic Romanticists were at a considerable remove from the party in which Dechamps and Manning figured as spokesmen and managers. 2 It should be noticed also that the so-called Ultramontane party of which Joseph Gorres was the leader, while disposed vigorously to champion 'Roman Catholic interests, was not Ultramon- tane in the most emphatic sense, or in the sense of pur- posing and striving to put every contrasted school under the ban. 3 On the other side, it is to be observed that factors more or less opposed to the intrusion of Ultramontanism con- tinued to assert themselves in the sphere of German Catholicism. Among these was an appreciative acquaint- ance with the modern philosophies as opposed to an exclusive adherence to the teaching of the scholastics. A 1 Werner, Geschichte der Katholischen Theologie in Deutschland seit dem Trienter Concil, 1866, pp. 342-358. 7 Some of Schlegel's statements must be positively afflictive to the eye- sight of the later Ultramontane school. See his Philosophy of History, trans, by J. B. Robertson, chaps, xiii-xviii. 8 Friednch, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, I. aop. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 61 thinker so little in love with mediaeval scholasticism as Hermes naturally exerted an influence adverse to papal absolutism; and it is on record that his disciple, Droste- Hulshoff, in his book on canon law, spoke of papal infal- libility as being notoriously denied in Germany the rank of an item of faith. 1 There was also a speculative vein in such men as Mohler and Staudenmaier that did not lend itself readily to the promotion of a genuine Ultra- montane scheme. Mohler indeed spoke of the typical Ultramontane theory as representing an extreme set over against a contrary extreme in pronounced Gallicanism. 2 Among his contemporaries Brenner, Rothensee, and Drey commented adversely on the supposition of papal infal- libility. The last named says in his noted Apologetik: "The pope is not by himself infallible. He is indeed the official successor of Saint Peter, as the bishops are the successors of the apostles, but inspiration -the only sure guarantee of infallibility the inspiration of Saint Peter has been as little transmitted to him as the inspiration of the other apostles to the bishops." 3 In the field of historical investigation a very decided repudiation of the high papal theory was brought forth. Hefele, the learned historian of the councils, came to the conclusion that in a fair treatment of recorded facts it is impossible to rescue the notion of papal infallibility. Dollinger, whom Werner in 1866 declared to have ranked for nearly a generation as the most learned theologian of Catholic Germany, 4 advanced to an in- vincible conviction as to the unhistoric and mischievous 1 Friedrich, I. 527. See also Werner, Geschichte der Katholischen Theologie, pp. 411, 412. Kirchengeschichte cited by Friedrich, I. 528, 529. 3 Cited by Friedrich, I. 4 Geschichte der Kathblfschen Theologie, p. 470. 533- ische 6a THE ROMAN TYPE character of the Ultramontane postulates. In his earlier writings, it is true, largely ruled as they were by an ambition to sustain the Roman Catholic against the Protestant interpretation of history, he did not figure particularly as the critic of Ultramontane claims. But as these claims began to be obtrusively asserted, and his continued investigations gave him a clearer insight into their intrinsic falsity, he set himself against them with tremendous force and decision. His energy of spirit was doubtless an appreciable factor in equipping for a valiant opposition to Ultramontanism such eminent historical critics as Friedrich, Langen, and Schulte. Judging from what took place shortly before the Vatican Council and during the sessions of that assem- bly, we are obliged to conclude that the advances made by Ultramontanism in Germany in the preceding part of the century, though substantial, were far from secur- ing to it a general ascendency. Testimony to this fact is contained in the dispatch which was sent by the papal nuncio from Munich, March 17, 1869. In this message the pope's agent represents that a special type of liberal- ism, to which he applies the name of "Germanism," has taken hold of a large class of the cultured. Its distinguish- ing characteristic, he says, is a declared sympathy with the methods and scientific systems of the Protestants and a reaction against the doctrinal influence of Rome and of the Roman congregations. It would set aside the old scholastic philosophy and theology, and have the Church proclaim the liberty of science, abolish the Congregation of the Index, and explain the propositions of the Sylla- bus as antiquated formulae of the curia. 1 In thus writing 1 Cecconi, Storia del Concilio Vaticano, II. 440-444. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 63 the nuncio doubtless referred more directly to the party of which Dollinger was a leading spirit. His language was quite too strong to describe the attitude of the Ger- man bishops. Still, it was true, as the nuncio regret- fully reported a few months later, that the great majority of the German bishops were averse to erecting the notion of papal infallibility into a dogma. 1 The record of the Vatican Council leaves no room for doubt on this point. A later judgment matches that of the nuncio as re- spects the existence in Germany of a formidable opposi- tion to the absolutist scheme of the Ultramontane party. ' "The pamphlets," says Granderath, "which appeared in Germany in such large numbers against the council, are filled with Gallicanism and render testimony respecting the dissemination which this teaching enjoyed in Ger- many before the council." Working with this Gallican leaven was the rationalizing tendency which came over from Protestantism and deeply penetrated the Catholic schools. "It would be easy to make a numerous collec- tion of genuinely rationalistic teachings from the theo- logical writings and lectures of the first half of the nineteenth century. In the course of the century the Catholic theology sought indeed to free itself from that unchristian spirit. Still, it continued to suffer from the effects of the distemper beyond the middle of the century, and it was the more difficult for it to attain to a com- plete cure as it lacked a sound philosophy, which is the basis of theology." In the interpretation of the Scrip- tures large dependence was placed upon Protestant science, and a quite inadequate measure of attention was given to dogmatics. As for the doctrine of papal infalli- 1 Cecconi, Storia del Concilio Vaticano, II. 489. 64 THE ROMAN TYPE bility, "at the time when the summons for assembling the Vatican Council was issued, it was denied in some universities and theological institutions, represented in others as more or less probable, and only in a few set forth as an established teaching. Therefore even the clergy had for the most part only an obscure and inaccu- rate knowledge of it, and neither understood sufficiently the evidences upon which it is based nor were in condi- tion to refute objections to it. In the religious instruc- tion of the laity it was touched upon only as a matter of controversy among theologians, or was not even men- tioned, so that the citizens of Kreuznach in an address to their bishop could say not without warrant that the doctrine which it is wished to define had been entirely unknown to them up to that time." 1 / If these representa- tions of the Ultramontane and apologetic historian can be trusted, it is evident that papal infallibility even in the years immediately preceding the Vatican Council had very scanty recognition in the common religious con- sciousness of Catholic Germany, was treated, outside of a limited sphere, as a debatable school question, and to a large extent in scholarly circles was squarely repudiated ^as untenable. Relative to Switzerland the writer just cited makes this significant statement: "With the Swiss the charac- teristic bent to freedom, and the disposition, easily ex- plained, to carry over the self-government to which they are accustomed in civil life to the domain of the Church, gave ground for expecting that the opposition to the scheme of the council, which threatened to increase the 1 Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, I. 153-155: II. 259-261, 654. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 65 restriction upon freedom, would find a sharper and more open expression than in Germany." 1 This is equivalent to admitting that in the view of a freedom-loving people the scheme of the Vatican Council is intrinsically odious. That it was utterly distasteful to not a few of the Swiss is a well-established fact. The majority of their bishops, it is true, gave it their sanction in the council. But they only partially represented their constituents. Many of the latter joined in voicing exceedingly vigorous declara- tions against the Vatican project. As Mgr. Agnozzi said in a communication to Cardinal Antonelli, January 28, 1870, Dollinger had many friends and adherents of his teaching among the Swiss clergy. 2 Full proof of this was given in the sequel. The "Old Catholic" movement, in which the protest against the transactions of the Vatican Council took an organized form, struck its roots more deeply into Swiss than into German soil. As respects Roman Catholics in Great Britain, a very full chain of evidence supports the conclusion that up to the middle of the nineteenth century Ultramontane theories had next to no recognized standing among them. In the first place, we have the evidence furnished by a writing entitled "Roman Catholic Principles in Refer- ence to God and the King," which went through thirty- five editions between 1748 and 1813. Therein we read the following unambiguous declaration : "It is no mat- ter of faith to believe that the pope is in himself infalli- ble, separated from the Church, even in expounding the faith: by consequence papal definitions or decrees, in whatever form pronounced, taken exclusively from a 1 Granderath, II. 661. Ibid., II. 660. 66 THE ROMAN TYPE general council, or universal acceptance of the Church, oblige none under pain of heresy to an interior assent." 1 A statement quite in accord with that of the widely circulated writing just mentioned was made by Bishop Baines in 1822. "Bellarmine," he wrote, "and some other divines, chiefly Italians, have believed the pope in- fallible, when proposing ex cathedra an article of faith. But in England or Ireland I do not believe that any Catholic maintains the infallibility of the pope." 2 In 1825 James Doyle was questioned by a select com- mittee appointed to inquire into the state of Ireland. To the inquiry, "Do the Catholic clergy insist that all the bulls of the pope are entitled to obedience?" he made this reply: "By no means. The pope we consider as the executive authority of the Catholic Church; and when he issues a bull, enforcing a discipline, already settled by a general council, such bull is entitled to respect. But he may issue bulls which would regard local discipline or other matters not already defined, and in that case his bull would be treated by us in such manner as it might seem good to us." An examination of Daniel Murray in the same year gave occasion to these inquiries and responses : "Quest. Is a decree of the pope valid with- out the consent of the council? Ans. A decree of the pope in matters of doctrine is not considered binding on Catholics, if it have not the consent of the whole Church, either dispersed or assembled, by its bishops in council. Quest. Have the Irish Catholic bishops adopted or re- jected what are called the Galilean liberties? Ans. Those liberties have not come under their consideration 1 Cited by Kenrick, Concio in Concilio Vaticano Habenda et non Habita, p. 46. 3 Cited by Gladstone, Vaticanism, p. 48. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 67 as a body. The Irish Catholic bishops have not, there- fore, either adopted or rejected them. They have adopted, however, and that too on their oaths, the lead- ing doctrines which the Gallican articles contain, that is, the doctrines which reject the deposing power of the pope, and his right to interfere with the temporalities of princes. That is distinctly recognized, not as one of the Gallican liberties, but as a doctrine which the gospel teaches." 1 Keenan's Catechism, which was extensively used in Great Britain and America through the middle part of the century, asks this question : "Must not Catholics be- lieve the pope in himself infallible?" The reply reads: "This is a Protestant invention; it is no article of the Catholic faith; no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body that is, by the bishops of the Church." 2 The extensive currency of Gallican sentiments in the first part of the century was very distinctly acknowledged by Newman. Referring to such language as that quoted from Baines, Doyle, and Murray, he said : "We must recollect that at that time the clergy, both of Ireland and England, were educated in Gallican opinions. They took those opinions for granted, and they thought, if they went so far as to ask themselves the question, that the definition of papal infallibility was simply impossible." 3 This statement was penned a half decade after the Vatican Council. Several years before the council New- man had indicated how remote he was from Ultramon- tane zeal by saying respecting papal infallibility, "I have 1 Cited by Kenrick, Concio, pp. 89, 90. Cited by Gladstone, Vaticanism, p. 125. Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 1875, p. 13. 68 THE ROMAN TYPE even thought it likely to be true, never thought it certain." 1 Referring to the time when Newman was converted to Romanism (1845), David Lewis testifies: "In those days there was a good deal of Gallicanism in England, not to say Jansenism, and the English college in Rome was anything but Roman." 2 Picturing the condition of things twenty years later George Talbot wrote from the Vatican : "Roman principles go very much against the grain of English Catholics." 3 Less than a year before Manning expressed the conviction that from various causes nine out of ten among English Catholics were going wrong, that is, as he undoubtedly meant, were not acting in a way favorable to the project of the Ultra- montane party. 4 In the United States very little in the way of stanch Ultramontane conviction came to manifestation before the Vatican Council. As late as 1866 Spalding, Arch- bishop of Baltimore, though he shared in that order of conviction more largely than many of his colleagues in the episcopate, and expressed himself as personally in- clined to the conclusion that the pope is infallible when speaking ex cathedra, still declared of this conclusion, "It is an opinion, for all this, and no Catholic would ven- ture to charge the great Bossuet, for example, with being wanting in orthodoxy for denying it, while he so power- fully and eloquently established the infallibility of the Church." 5 That many of the bishops in the United i Letter to W. G. Ward, Feb. 18, 1866, cited by Purcell, Life of Cardinal Manning, II. 321, 322. 2 Purcell, II. 307. 'Ibid., II. 267. 4 Letter of Jan. 12, 1865, cited by Wilfrid Ward in the volume on W. G. Ward and the Catholic Revival, pp. 187, 188. 8 Lectures on the Evidences of Catholicity, pp. 263, 264. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 69 States and Canada were concerned to keep papal infalli- bility from being lifted above the plane of a mere opinion was made evident by the act of twenty-four of them, January, 1870, in signing a request to the pope not to introduce the definition of infallibility to the council. Only about two fifths of them, it is true, cared to push their opposition to the extent of rendering a decided neg- ative when the question came to a vote. But in giving their signatures to the petition they indicated on which side their preference lay. And in case of some of the most prominent among them it is evident that their op- position to the definition of papal infallibility was based on something deeper than mere considerations of ex- pediency. Kenrick of .Saint Louis made it plain that he did not believe in the dogma by attacking both the scrip- tural and patristic supports alleged in its behalf. 1 Pur A cell of Cincinnati gave an equally distinct token of genuine skepticism in making use of these words : "Sev- eral of us believe that ecclesiastical history, the history of the popes, the history of the councils, and the tradi- tions of the Church, are not in harmony with the new dogma; and it is for this that we believe that it is very inopportune to wish to define, as of faith, an opinion which appears to us a novelty in the faith, that seems to us to be without solid foundation in Scripture and tradi- tion; which, it appears to us, is contradicted by irref- ragable monuments." 2 \ The review makes it plain that the absolutist theory\ of the unrestricted and infallible sovereignty of the pope \ held through the first half of the nineteenth century in I 1 Concio Habenda et non Habita. 1 Letter to the Bishop of Orleans, cited by R. H. Clarke, Lives of the Deceased Bishops, III. 223, 224. 70 THE ROMAN TYPE 'vast sections of the Church no better rank than that of a school opinion, and that as such it was very largely adjudged to be unfounded and false. The possibility of turning the challenged opinion into authoritative dogma lay in the lack of vital opposition in the countries least touched by modern thought, and in the subservient attitude toward the Roman pontiff of a crowd of de- \ v pendents. II. BEGINNINGS OF AN ANTI-GALLICAN OR ULTRA- MONTANE MOVEMENT UNDER DE MAISTRE AND OTHERS Somewhat of a basis for Ultramontanism was pro- vided in the Napoleonic reconstruction of the Church in France as effected in 1801. The Gallican standpoint, it is true, came to view in the concordat which was pub- lished at that date, and was strongly asserted in the accompanying "organic articles." But, on the other hand, the scheme of reconstruction gave the pope an opportunity to magnify his lordship over the French bishops. In order, in conformity with Napoleon's plan, to reduce the number of archbishoprics and bishoprics from one hundred and fifty-six to sixty, he required the whole body of prelates to hand in their resignations, and declared those deposed who failed to render an obedient response within a very limited period. This was a tre- mendous exercise of papal sovereignty. Very incisive protests were naturally called forth. But, inasmuch as he was backed up by the irresistible monarch, the pope was able to carry out his part in the autocratic transac- tion. A practical illustration was given of the Ultramon- tane doctrine relative to the thorough subordination of PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 71 the episcopal to the pontifical rank. 1 The moral effect, however, of the performance was qualified by the relation of the papal to the imperial agent. We may, therefore, consider another feature of the Napoleonic settlement as probably rendering the larger contribution to an Ultra- montane movement. In that settlement the lower clergy were left in a very dependent relation to the bishops. Accordingly, a motive was given them to look to the sovereignty of the pope as a refuge. Grievances at the hands of their immediate ecclesiastical lords inclined them to more tolerant views of the high assumptions of a distant lord. It was not long after the Napoleonic settlement that the distinctive theories of Ultramontanism began to be vigorously championed. Gifted writers took the pen in their behalf, and influential treatises were put in circu- lation before the second decade of the century had passed. Foremost among these writers were De Maistre and Lamennais. The name of De Bonald may also be men-/ tioned with a good degree of propriety. While he dia not deal largely with ecclesiastical matters, he bestowed elaborate attention upon points of view which could easily be given a very effective bearing upon ecclesiastical conceptions. He was an absolutist in his governmental theories. He contended that the universe was built on a monarchical plan, and considered that a non-monarchical government would be a strange and artificial thing, as clear an instance of the infraction of natural law as would appear in case of a body released from the force of gravitation. Furthermore, he was a most pronounced traditionalist. He conceived the race to be substantially 1 Friedrich, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, I. 34ff. 72 THE ROMAN TYPE destitute of the power of invention. Its entire furnishing ideas, language, arts, institutions, doctrines is a contribution from without. Primarily it was bestowed by God upon the primitive man, and from him has been transmitted through the successive generations. As a procession of blind men by taking hold of hands avail themselves of the guidance vouchsafed to the one at the head of the line, so through the medium of tradition the race is connected with the divinely directed progenitor, and is able in spite of its intrinsic blindness to walk securely. 1 In the emphatic assertion of such premises De Bonald was greatly influenced by the horror with which he regarded the French revolution. / The same motive was decidedly influential with De Maistre. "The French revolution," he wrote, "resembles nothing which has been seen in past times. It is Satanic in its essence. Never will it be totally extinguished ex- cept by the contrary principle, and never will the French V resume their place until they have recognized this truth." 2 Since the Revolution asserted the rights of the indi- vidual and the claims of reason, its cure, according to the above statement, must be sought in the principle of absolute authority. And that is where it was placed by De Maistre in reiterated and emphatic declarations. In his theory of the State he was an absolutist. He had no tolerance for the notion of a divided or limited sover- eignty. "All government," he says, "is absolute, and the moment that one is able to resist it, under pretext of error or injustice, it no longer exists." 3 What is thus claimed for the sovereign within the 1 Faguet, Politiques et Moralistes du Dix-neuvi&me Sicle, premiere series, pp. yoff. 2 Du Pape, edit, of 1852, I. 15. s Du Pape, I. 20. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 73 limits of the individual realm is claimed for the pope in the wider sphere of the Church. Indeed, the controlling purpose of the celebrated treatise Du Pape (1819) was manifestly the advocacy of the claims of papal absolu- tism. Its leading proposition is that in the decisive au- thority of the Roman pontiff lies the necessary bond of unity and guarantee of order for Christendom. "It is Christianity," writes De Maistre, "which has formed the European monarchy, marvel too little admired. But without the pope there is no veritable Christianity; with- out the pope the divine institution loses its power, its divine character, and its converting force; without the pope there is but a human belief, incapable of entering into hearts and modifying them, so as to make man sus- ceptible to a high degree of knowledge, morality, and civilization. All sovereignty whose front has not been touched by the efficacious finger of the great pontiff will remain always inferior to others, as well in duration as in dignity and in the forms of its government. Every nation, even the Christian, which has not felt sufficiently the formative action [of the pope] will likewise remain everlastingly below the others, all things besides being equal; and every nation that becomes separated after receiving the universal seal will feel finally that it lacks something, and will be brought back sooner or later by reason or misfortune." 1 De Maistre speaks of the infallibility of the pope, and evidently supposes that there is some sort of ground for its affirmation in divine promise. But still he makes it plain that for him the practical demand for finality in papal mandates is the determining reason for predicating 1 Du Pape, I. 345, 346. 74 THE ROMAN TYPE infallibility. He says: "Infallibility in the spiritual order and sovereignty in the temporal order are two per- fectly synonymous words. . . . He who has the right to say to the pope that he is deceived has, on the same ground, the right to disobey him, a course which would annihilate the supremacy (or infallibility)." 1 From this point of view De Maistre is thoroughly in- tolerant of the Gallican conception of the superior au- thority of a general council. That conception starts one, he maintains, on the straight road to a dismemberment of sovereignty. "Once admit appeal from the papal de- crees, and there is no longer government, no longer unity, no longer a visible Church." 2 The Gallican should also remind himself that the superior authority to which he would appeal is unsuited to existing conditions. "The world has become too great for general councils, which seem to have been made for the youth of Christianity." 3 While thus placing an overwhelming emphasis on the presence of a living organ of ecclesiastical authority, De Maistre gave a passing recognition to the principle of traditionalism so greatly dwelt upon by De Bonald. "There is no dogma," he remarks, "in the Catholic Church, there is not even a general usage pertaining to the higher discipline, which has not its roots in the lowest depths of human nature, and consequently in some uni- versal opinion more or less altered here and there, but common nevertheless, in its principle, to all peoples in all times." 4 In arguing for his theory of the papal monarchy De Maistre paid some attention to historical data. But it is quite in order to say that he gave no adequate con- > Du Pape, I. 20-24. * Ibid., I. 25. Ibid., I. 42. * Ibid., I. 290. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 75 sideration to the stones of stumbling, and indicated a much too easy 'way of disposing of them. If we find, he contends, the general record of the popes conformable to the high office ascribed to them, then we may discard the margin of troublesome facts. 1 But this is far from legitimate in connection with so precise and absolute a proposition as that which makes the popes, in virtue of their office, the infallible organs of ecclesiastical authority. To proceed in that way would be like making an unquali- fied assertion of the indefectibility of the twelve disciples, and then claiming that the apostasy of Judas, inasmuch as he was only one twelfth of the apostolic college, in no wise involved a contradiction of the assertion. The very imperfect historical vision of this protagonist of Ultramontanism has thus been commented upon by a friend of Montalembert : "De Maistre has everywhere seen that which he wished to see, and he has seen it ex- ceedingly well; he has neglected that which he ought to have seen, and which, in fact, he did see, and in that lay the weakness of this great spirit." 2 Maret's judgment is of like tenor. Speaking of De Maistre's use of the record of the councils, he says : "He proceeds in this examination in such fashion that after having followed him with attention one asks himself if he had really read the acts of the councils, of which he speaks with a mar- velous superficiality (legerete)." 3 / In the beginning of his career Lamennais was in full / agreement with the maxims of De Bonald and De i Maistre. His ultimate inclination to popular sovereign- 1 Du Pape, I. 120. 3 Baron Eckstein, cited by Friedrich, I. 139. 8 Du Concile Gn6ral et de la Paix Religieuse, II. 313. 7 6 THE ROMAN TYPE ty, which impelled him into a divergent path, did not come to any distinct manifestation in his earlier writings. The treatise which formed his most notable contribution to Ultramontane literature, namely, the Essay on Indif- ference in Matter of Religion, the first volume of which was issued in 1817, was quite conformable in its main propositions to the theories of contemporary advocates of absolutism. What distinguished him in particular was the oratorical skill and fervency with which he put for- ward his absolutist creed. A fundamental proposition of Lamennais is that truth, especially religious truth, can be attained only by reliance upon authority as opposed to reliance upon individual reason. With characteristic preference for unqualified antitheses he paints the contrast between these two meth- ods in these strong terms : "Two doctrines are present in the world : the one tends to unite men, and the other to separate them; the one conserves the individuals in re- lating all to society, the other destroys society in carrying back all to the individual. In the one all is general, the authority, the beliefs, the duties; and each existing only for society concurs to maintain order by a perfect obe- dience of the reason, of the heart, and of the senses to an invariable law. In the other all is particular; and the duties are only interests, the beliefs only opinions, the authority only independence." 1 The latter of these two doctrines, which Lamennais regards as tending by force of its unholy individualism to put the very existence of society in question, is represented by him as embodying the standpoint of philosophy. Accordingly, his attitude toward philosophy is sharply polemical. "Philosophical 1 Essai sur 1' Indifference en Matiere de Religion, tome II, pref., v-vii. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 77 doctrines," he says, "all negative, or, what is the same thing, all destructive, have for general principle the sovereignty of man. The man who declares himself sovereign puts himself, by that very act, in revolt against God and against all power established by God. Now, he who revolts hates ; hatred is therefore the general sen- timent which philosophical doctrines engender." 1 "The great errors of the spirit were almost unknown in the world before the rise of Greek philosophy. It is that which caused them to spring up by substituting the prin- ciple of particular examination for that of faith." 2 "The false systems of philosophy adopted successively since Aristotle, the influence of which has reached even into Christian schools, have all a common tendency. They cast the mind into vagueness, as substituting pure ab- stractions for the reality of things. Never considering aught but the isolated man, and thus depriving him of the support of tradition, they oblige him to seek in him- self all the necessary truths, and the certainty of these truths, attributing to the reason of each individual the rights of the universal reason, of the divine reason itself, and setting free from all dependence as from all authority." 3 Another proposition which is fundamental to the re- ligious system of Lamennais is that the truth which has the unqualified right to command the individual is mani- fested to successive generations through the medium of tradition, and that the content of the authoritative tradi- tion is dictated by the general as opposed to the indi- vidual reason. The following citations may serve to illustrate the way in which this ever-recurring proposi- x Essai sur 1'Indiflference, II, pref., xv. Ibid., III. 45. Ibid., III. 4. 78 THE ROMAN TYPE tion is enforced: "There exists necessarily, for all intel- ligences, an order of truths or knowledge primitively revealed, that is to say, received originally from God, as the condition of life, or rather as the life itself; and these truths of faith are the immovable foundation of all spirits, the bond of their society, and the reason of their existence." 1 "The first man received these primary truths upon the testimony of God, the supreme reason, and they are preserved among men, being perfectly mani- fested by the universal testimony or expression of the general reason." 2 "Religion is but the indissoluble en- chainment of testimonies which reach back and mount up to God." 3 "The certitude increases for us in propor- tion to the concert and the number of authorities." 4 "To appeal from authority to reason, from the common understanding to the private understanding, is to violate the fundamental law of reason itself, is to unsettle the moral world, is to constitute the empire of universal skepticism, and to excavate an abyss where all truths, all beliefs, will necessarily come to be engulfed." 5 "The general reason cannot err or fail to attain its end. . . . It is not so with the individual reason, and one sees why : infallibility is not necessary to it, since it is always able, when it makes a slip, to rectify its errors by consulting the general reason." 6 In his stress upon the notion that the common reason of mankind witnesses to the essential content of the true religion, which was delivered primarily by God to the head of the race, Lamennais experienced a strong motive to assume the recognition of that content even among Essai, II. 77. * Ibid., II. 94. Ibid., IV. 85 Ibid., ILaj. Ibid., II. 43. Ibid., II. 91, 92. non-Jewish and non-Christian peoples. We find with him, in fact, very sweeping statements on this point. "In vain," he says, "will one bring up the existence of paganism, in order to show that the general reason is able to err. We shall prove that all of the general found in paganism is true, that all the false which it included was of the nature of local superstitions and errors of the particular reason." 1 Again, speaking of the basal truths contained in the primitive revelation, he remarks : "They are the same with all peoples, and vary only by the de- gree of their development. Some see more, others less, but all see without exception, and they see but that which has been everywhere, that which has been and always will be seen by all men." 2 "Turn back toward the first ages of the world; in the midst of local and transient errors you will see always the same beliefs, those which are the foundation of ours, spread universally; and at whatever epoch you might wish to locate their invention, history will contradict you." 3 In order to make the foregoing propositions serve a Catholic purpose, Lamennais added the declaration that the truths delivered in the original revelation and recog- nized by the common reason passed over in their perfec- tion into Christianity, and that within the Christian sphere the Catholic Church is the one authoritative wit- ness to these truths and the infallible expositor of them. There is, he contended, no breach of continuity in the one universal religion. "Christianity before Jesus Christ was the general reason manifested by the testimony of the human race. Christianity since Jesus Christ is the general reason manifested by the testimony of the Essai, II. pref.. Ixxiv. * Ibid., II. 77. Ibid., III. n. 8o THE ROMAN TYPE Church." 1 "The Catholic Church is the sole religious society which binds the present to the past upon which it supports itself; the sole which has succeeded and has not commenced ; the sole which has never varied ; the sole which has a symbol or exercises the right to command spirits; the only one which promises certitude, since it alone claims infallibility. Outside of it one finds but the absence of authority, absence of law, absence of religion, in a word, but the individual reason and its opinions, its contradictions, its errors." 2 As respects the infallible authority attributed to the Church, Lamennais made it evident that he considered the pope to be its superior organ. His opinion of Gallicanism was no more favor- able than that expressed by De Maistre. The doctrinaire character of the above construction is quite obvious. In connection with each of his main propositions Lamennais runs into exaggeration and ar- bitrary assumption. It is true enough, doubtless, that the general reason affords a valuable basis of conviction ; but that the general reason is infallible, outside of a very limited sphere, or that it is sure to be right as against the individual reason, is not made evident by our apolo- gist. A fallible reason in each of a multitude of indi- viduals does not become infallible by being taken col- lectively; and, if the reference be made to tradition, it is perfectly conceivable that the reliable witnesses to it should be, at a particular stage, a select minority rather than an overwhelming majority. Moreover, it is the plain testimony of history that individual initiative, the exceptional thinking of some gifted personality, whose insight has reached beyond that of the great mass, has Essai, II, pref., Ixviii, Ixix. * Ibid., III. 35, 36, PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 81 been again and again the efficient cause of intellectual clarification and of moral and religious uplift. The gen- eral reason, always right, and always like to itself, is an unhistoric fiction, when taken in the broad sense of Lamennais. And this is as much as saying that his rep- resentation of a primitive revelation and of its transmis- sion among all peoples is overdrawn to the point of being fanciful and untenable. The representation cannot stand in sight of a full and impartial review of history. The great literary prophets of Israel reached conceptions which were above the plane even of the most enlightened spirits of the age of the Judges. The apostles gained points of view which were beyond the horizon of the prophets. All great peoples, even the most favored, have needed a better light than that which shone upon their early pathways. Race experience under divine tuition and guidance has manifestly accomplished far more than Lamennais places to its credit. He gives plausibility to his propositions only by making a one-sided inventory of facts. Especially unwarrantable is his shift to make it appear that Roman Catholic dogmas are none other than the truths to which the common reason has always given consent, and that consequently all deniers of those dog- mas are guilty of a species of insane individualism, an anarchistic revolt against the essential bond of social unity. Take Roman Catholic dogmas, strip off every- thing which has not been asserted by the common reason of the race through successive generations, and what would be left ? A modest list of truths comprising a por- tion of those which have sometimes been classed under the head of "natural religion." What has the common reason of the race known respecting scores of dogmatic 8a THE ROMAN TYPE specifications which have been imposed under anathema specifications on the mysteries of the Godhead, on original sin, on the work of grace, and on the sacra- ments? Nothing at all. It is only by a flight through mid-air that Lamennais gets from the stock of truths asserted by the common reason to the complex system of Roman Catholic dogmas. There is no other way to cross the abyss which lies between the two. It may be noticed that there is a strain in the effusions of this champion of high ecclesiasticism which might very naturally cause some uneasiness to Roman Catholic minds, especially to those penetrated with a sense of official dignity. This stress upon the function of the common reason might it not be regarded as logically tending to push into the background the conception of a priestly hierarchy as a medium of enlightenment and guidance? In truth, the suspicion that such was the case began to insinuate itself. Thus, in spite of the ac- claim with which the writings of Lamennais were re- ceived, his position had already been compromised in some measure when a new phase in his career precipitated a crisis. The new phase consisted in the advocacy of a revised conception of the State and of the proper relation be- tween Church and State. An experience of censure at the hands of the civil authority, on the score of some obnoxious points in his Ultramontane teaching, tended to disaffect him toward the existing form of government. Moreover, the stress which he came to place upon the function of the general reason was intrinsically favorable to the notion of popular sovereignty. Thus it resulted that he took up that notion and combined it with his high PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 83 ecclesiastical theory. A democratic constitution of the State conjoined with a theocratic constitution of the Church became his ideal. At the same time, he con- cluded that the proper independence of spiritual society requires the separation of Church and State, and on this basis he urged that the Church ought to reconcile itself to a total withdrawal of the contributions made by the State to the support of worship. Such were the views which became the staple of his addresses to the public by the year 1830. They held a conspicuous place in the columns of the periodical entitled the Avenir, which served as the organ of Lamennais and his associates from October, 1830, to the same month in the following year. A longer life for the periodical was made impossi- ble by the opposition which arose. Lamennais appealed his case to Rome, and went thither in person. Gregory XVI rendered his decision in the encyclical Mirari vos (1832). It amounted to an unequivocal condemnation of the scheme advocated in the Avenir. Lamennais made his submission ; but it was not deemed satisfactory ; and as he continued to write in a strain badly conformed to the model of the papal encyclical, he was proscribed, and ceased to rate himself as a Catholic. 1 The observations made by Lamennais in Rome, while he was waiting for a decision on the merits of his teach- ing, may have had some effect in disinclining him to work longer for the Ultramontane project of bending the neck of the world under Roman rule. At any rate, shortly after his sojourn he spoke very bitterly of what he saw in the ecclesiastical metropolis. Referring to 1 Faguet, Politiques et Moralistes du Dix-neuvi&me Siecle, deuxifcme s&ie; Boutard, Lamennais, sa Vie et ses Doctrines. 84 THE ROMAN TYPE the pope and his surroundings, he said: "Imagine to yourself an old man surrounded by men, many of them tonsured, who manage his affairs ; men to whom religion is as indifferent as it is to all the cabinets of Europe ambitious, covetous, avaricious, blind and infatuated as the eunuchs of the lower empire. Such is the govern- ment of this country, such are the men who have every- thing in their hands, and who daily sacrifice the Church to the vilest and the most vainly conceived of their tem- poral affairs. ... I went to Rome, and I beheld there the foulest cesspool which has ever sullied the eyes of man. The vast drain of the Tarquins would be too nar- row to give passage to so much uncleanness. There is no god there but interest." 1 Among those who looked to Lamennais as their chief in the years immediately preceding the rebuff which was administered by the encyclical of Gregory XVI, two young men, Lacordaire and Montalembert, held the most conspicuous place. Disengaging themselves from their former leader, these gifted persons continued to render efficient service to the Ultramontane cause in France. For a season they did not disdain to work in association with such intemperate partisans as Veuillot and Gaume. But after the middle of the century they began to take a distinct course, and were regarded as representing the moderate wing of the party with which they had been affiliated. Ultimately, Montalembert, who lived to wit- ness a part of the proceedings of the Vatican Council, became so far separated in sympathy and conviction from those who were pushing forward an extreme type of 1 Cited by Gibson, The Abb de Lamennais and the Liberal Movement in France, 1896, pp. 205, aai. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 85 Ultramontanism to the goal of formal ratification that he came to be rated among Catholic liberals. The ad- dress which he delivered at Malines in 1863 contained such an outspoken plea for liberal principles that not a few suspected that Pius IX had it specially in view in issuing the reactionary Syllabus of Errors. 1 The sus- picion may not have been very well founded, but it did not misrepresent the variance which, from that time, existed between Montalembert and the party which seconded the absolutist scheme of Pius IX. He disliked the temper manifested by that party, and found therein a token that the elevation of Ultramontane tenets to the rank of dogma would furnish a basis for ecclesiastical despotism. Accordingly, he set himself against the Vatican scheme, and denounced it in words of fiery in- dignation. In a letter to Dollinger, November, 1869, he spoke of the "abyss of idolatry" into which the French clergy had fallen, and just before his death in the follow- ing March he employed his failing strength in a protest against the "idolatrous undertaking" which was being prosecuted in Rome. 2 The rise and progress of the Ultramontane party in France was specially indebted to the three men whose work has been sketched, to De Maistre, Lamennais, and Montalembert. Of these De Maistre died very soon after the publication of the book which gave expression to the Ultramontane creed. Whether a disillusionment would have been wrought in his case, had he lived to gain the benefit of a wider observation and to get farther away from the abhorred spectacle of the French revolu- / 1 Leroy-Beaulieu, Les Catholiques Libraux, 1885, pp. 192-195. 2 Granderath, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, I. 283; II. 576. 86 THE ROMAN TYPE 'lion, cannot, of course, be determined. But we have the fact that the other two members of this celebrated list ended at a point remote from the distinctive creed of Ultramontanism. They were led to repudiate the work of their own hands. They could not, however, annul the results. The possibility of the Vatican Council rested in no small degree upon what they had done to undermine the dominion of Gallican traditions in France. III. ULTRAMONTANE PROPAGANDISM AS CARRIED ON BY THE PAPACY AND ITS ALLIES UP TO THE VATICAN COUNCIL / The tendency toward Ultramontanism which was fos- tered by the reaction against the French revolution was energetically and persistently seconded at Rome. By every practical expedient that was offered to their hands the popes and their agents wrought for the suppression of Gallican principles and for the promulgation of their absolutist creed. S Among these expedients a notable function was ful- / filled by the revision or condemnation of writings that entered prominently into religious education or touched \ upon the theme of papal prerogatives. In France the phraseology of the catechisms was made by degrees agreeable to Ultramontane presuppositions. "Roman" was sometimes substituted for "Catholic." The state- ment that after Jesus Christ the apostles were the founda- tion of the Church was changed into the declaration that Peter and his successors constitute the foundation. The headship of the pope was brought to a more definite ex- pression than had formerly been in use, and occasionally . PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 87 toward the middle of the century his infallibility was rather plainly indicated. A like procedure was exempli- fied to a considerable extent in Germany. While thus a Roman color was being given to the catechisms, an equivalent change was wrought in the liturgy. By a combination of zealous Ultramontanists with the pope the liturgy which had been current in France was finally put aside in favor of the Roman. Effective work was also done to bring the manuals of theology and other works used by the clergy into line. The hand of the reviser was set to work upon passages that gave offense to Ultramontane tastes. In this way Bouvier's Theology underwent a very decided transformation. A beginning was made toward redeeming Bailly's Theol- ogy from its Gallicanism by a like process. But the process was not deemed to be altogether adequate in this instance, and so in 1853 this long-honored manual was put into the Index of Prohibited Writings. The like fate had befallen the Manual of Canon Law by Luqueux in 1851, and Guettee's History of the Church of France in 1852. In the condemnatory sentence which overtook the writings of several distinguished German Catholics, namely, those of Hermes in 1835, those of Giinther in 1857, and those of Frohscham- mer in 1862, the ends of Ultramontane propagandism may not have been the sole motive; but still it is true that the instigation to condemnation came from the party specially connected with that order of propagan- dism. The responsibility undoubtedly lay in the same quarter for the proscription, in 1849, f Hirscher's book on the Ecclesiastical Conditions of the Present. The first book to challenge the infallibilist project of the approach- 88 THE ROMAN TYPE ing Vatican Council that of Renouf 1 was placed in the Index in January, 1869, and in November of the same year Bellinger's powerful polemic against papal infallibility was also consigned to the proscribed list. 2 Meanwhile by the exercise of influence upon provincial and plenary councils, or by doctoring their decrees prior to publication, the pope was able to accomplish not a little for the positive commendation of infallibilist tenets. 3 What has been said is enough to show that through the whole middle part of the century a most glaring lesson was given as to the direction of papal hostility and of papal favor. In the face of those lessons aspirants for ecclesiastical preferment could not fail to see what course they must take in order to gain the benefit of the enor- mous power exercised by the pope over the filling of official positions. And more direct instructions on this point than those contained in the events just narrated were afforded. > In dealing with persons and parties the !.oman pontiff took pains to advertise his purpose to recognize in serviceability to the scheme of Ultramon- tane propagandism the maximum claim to patronage. ,An illustration was given in connection with an Irish appointment. The primate of Armagh died in 1849. 'In due time, as usual, the names of three approved can- didates were forwarded to Italy. But to the astonishment of the clergy, all the three were set aside, and Paul Cullen, rector of the Irish College in Rome, was ad- 1 The Condemnation of Pope Honorius, 1868. 2 The book, based on articles which had appeared shortly before in the Allgemeine Zeitung, was issued under the title, Der Papst und das Concil, von Janus. 3 On the matter of the paragraph see Michaud, De la Falsification des Catchimes Francais et des Manuels de Theologie; Friedrich, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, Vol. I; Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century, pp 5875. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 89 vanced to the archiepiscopal chair." 1 What dictated this arbitrary proceeding? One can answer without any re- sort to arts of divination. According to the judgment of the pope there was need of Ultramontane propagan- dism in Ireland, and Paul Cullen was considered a suit- able instrument for carrying it forward. A subsequent transaction in connection with the archbishopric of Westminster makes an equally scanty demand for a skilled interpreter. In 1862 Dr. Errington, the coadju- tor of the incumbent, Cardinal Wiseman, and his natural successor, was required by pontifical fiat to resign. As a Roman Catholic historian remarks: "The removal of Dr. Errington by the supreme act of the pope was a stretch of papal authority not easily forgotten on either side. It was in truth what Pope Pius IX called it, 'a coup d'etat of the Lord God.' " 2 Three years after the coup d'etat a most appropriate supplement was furnished. On the death of Wiseman the names of three candidates for the vacant see were recommended by the chapter to the consideration of Rome. All three were set aside, and by the sovereign act of the pope Manning was made archbishop of Westminster. In this case no doubt the intrigues of the appointee and of his agent at the Vatican were a very potent factor. But the Ultramontane motive is also perfectly manifest. Errington was thrust aside because he was understood to harbor liberal and mod- erate views. Manning was placed in the seat of authority because he could be trusted to promulgate the creed of papal absolutism without apology and without excessive deference to scruples as respects methods. Such in- 1 Killen, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, 1875, II. 507. 1 Purcell, Life of Manning, II. 95. 90 THE ROMAN TYPE stances were illuminating as to what might be expected in the future administration of the Church. It was only a consistent chapter in the history of papal patronage which was written when it came to be recorded that nine of those who had served on the dogmatic commission of the Vatican Council had been elevated to the dignity of cardinals. 1 /resides serving the Ultramontane cause by the promo- tion of individuals, papal patronage helped forward that /cause by bestowing special marks of favor upon period- i icals. Pius IX was closely associated with the Jesuits in 1850 in starting the publication of the exceedingly potent organ of high ecclesiasticism, the Civilta Cattolica ; and in 1866 he took pains to emphasize his appreciation of this stalwart journal by constituting its writers a col- lege with special privileges. 2 In another quarter he gave a token of his regard for Ultramontane journalism, which, if less conspicuous, was not less significant, inas- much as the object of the manifested regard seems to have been of singularly scanty merits outside of the in- clination and the effort to consummate a practical deifica- tion of the pope. A Roman Catholic writer who, in virtue of his relations, ought to have been able to make a just estimate of the noted captains in the Ultramontane ranks proffers this description of the party in question : "An intolerant and turbulent faction of Catholics in France, headed by Veuillot and the Univers, put their own extravagant interpretation on the Syllabus of Errors, and made use of it to assail and to calumniate with the most passionate rhetoric and bitterest abuse 1 Friedrich, III. 337. 2 Cecconi, Storia del Concilio Vaticano, II. 389-394. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 91 such eminent and zealous Catholics as Mgr. Dupanloup, the bishop of Orleans; Montalembert, the recognized champion of the Church; Lacordaire, Falloux every Catholic, in a word, who resented the dictation of a knot of fanatics." 1 Surely the ringleader of a "knot of fana- tics" had no special claim on pontifical favor. Never- theless we have the record that it was given in a very practical form at the time when the government laid its hand on the organ of the wordy agitator. "On the sup- pression of his paper," says Purcell, "Pope Pius IX sent a handsome sum of money to M. Veuillot." Evidently in the view of the pontiff Ultramontane zeal was the thing supremely deserving. Specimens of pontifical patronage like these may rightly receive no small degree of emphasis when one is considering the means by which the Vatican project was carried forward to a triumphant issue. The bishops as a body would have needed to be deeply imbued with a spirit of independence and of superiority to all earthly ambitions, in order to escape the temptation to shrink from open opposition to the potentate upon whose favor so much depended, not to say, in order to repress the dis- position to stimulate his good will by a show of ready acquiescence in his designs. , A further means which was utilized in behalf of the\ scheme of papal autocracy was the insinuation of a re- \ vised theory of tradition or of the satisfactory proofs of I the real existence of a valid tradition. The earlier/ theologians proceeded on the supposition that a substan- tial traditionary basis could not be claimed in behalf of a tenet for which a chain of patristic testimonies, reach- 1 Purcell, Life of Manning, II. 273. 92 THE ROMAN TYPE ing back close to the apostolic age, could not be produced. This was evidently a normal supposition in connection with the commonly accepted maxim that the whole de- posit of faith was with the apostles, so that the introduc- tion of a dogma unknown to them would be nothing less than a specimen of rashness and usurpation. But this sober interpretation of the meaning and scope of tradi- tion was not congenially related to the dogmatic scheme toward the installation of which the pontificate of Pius IX was directed. Accordingly, as demand tends to create supply, a modified interpretation was brought for- ward. Stress was carried over from the line of early witnesses for a doctrine, and placed upon the approving voice of the majority of believers in the present. It is enough, it was claimed, if the germ of the doctrine came to expression in patristic literature. When this dim cer- tificate is supplemented by the consciousness of the present Church, then the conclusion is warrantable that the requisite traditionary basis for a dogmatic definition is afforded. This point of view was suggested as far back as the time of Bellarmine. 1 Early in the pontificate of Pius IX another Jesuit, Perrone, in a monograph on the possibility of rendering a dogmatic definition of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, 2 gave it a formal exposition and commendation. Several contemporary theologians awarded it their approval. For a succinct and bold statement of this revised and accommodating theory we may take these sentences of Bishop Malou: "There are writers who are of opinion that only then can tradition serve as an evidence of the truth when one is in 1 De Verbo Dei, lib. iv, cap. g. De Immaculata B. V. Man* Conceptu, an Dogmatico Decreto definiri possit. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 93 condition to support the same through a line of express witnesses through all the centuries. This view is decid- edly incorrect, if not a downright error. The Church lives, and she lives by virtue of the life of Jesus Christ, whose body she is; she lives by virtue of the life of the Holy^ Spirit, whose bride she is. As soon as anything is generally accepted in the holy Church, the general witness of the living Church is an infallible evidence that this truth is contained in tradition, and indeed inde- pendent of every memorial of antiquity." 1 Roman authority may have shrunk from a formal ap- probation of the reconstructed theory of tradition. To have given that would have been much like making con- fession of the lack of historical sanctions for its dogmatic projects. Nevertheless, there is no reason to doubt that the new theory, supremely adapted as it was to thrust historical objections out of sight, helped to embolden Pius IX for his first great stroke in dogmatic absolutism the proclamation, in 1854, of the immaculate concep- tion of the Virgin as a dogma of the Church. In respect of historical basis no dogma could be more glaringly destitute. The Scriptures cannot be seen to make the least approach to it, except by the aid of an arbitrary mysticism which puts into the biblical content whatever one wishes to find there. To suppose in the simple dec- laration that Mary was an object of favor or grace a designed reference to the conditions of her conception, is to give place to a perfectly gratuitous fancy. As well might one find in the declaration that the disciples, on the day of Pentecost, were filled with the Holy Spirit an evident intention to affirm of them peculiar antenatal * Cited by Friedrich, I. 635. 94 THE ROMAN TYPE conditions. An equal lack of manifested intention to broach or to advocate the notion of the immaculate con- ception of the Virgin is characteristic of early patristic literature. Indeed, it is quite warrantable to say that deep into the scholastic era that notion remained sub- stantially foreign to the minds of theologians. Lauda- tory titles, it is true, began to be applied to Mary at a comparatively early date. With the advance of the tend- ency to saint-worship it was inevitable that she should be highly exalted. It is no occasion for surprise, there- fore, that she should have been glorified as the pure, the holy, the immaculate Virgin. Such rhetorical effusions simply express a warm appreciation of the unsullied virginity, the sanctity, and the high vocation of the mother of Christ. They might have been a hundred times as numerous as they were and yet have inclosed no slightest design to refer to so recondite a matter as the nature of the conception of Mary. In fact, the same writers who plainly excluded the notion of the immacu- late conception freely applied these forms of description. Quite as little does the feast of Mary's conception, which may have received some attention in a part of the Church by the eighth century, furnish, when taken in its primary character, any evidence of dogmatic intention. It was no feast of the immaculate conception. Like the contem- porary feast of John the Baptist, it celebrated the fact of conception the gracious bestowment of an offspring destined to signal honor. Even in the twelfth century, as is shown by the tenor of the reference of Bernard of Clairvaux, 1 the feast does not appear to have been directed specifically to the celebration of the immaculate 1 Epist. clxxiv. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 95 nature of the conception which it commemorated. As Muratori observed, such a feast as the one in question would not have been prohibited even by an authoritative declaration that Mary was not immaculately conceived. 1 We are not required, then, to find here any token of the dogma of Pius IX, and may take without essential discount the adverse testimonies of fathers and scholastics. Among the former a number in- dicated that they had no thought of exempting the Virgin from original sin through the assumption of an immaculate conception inasmuch as they used language which implies that they did not even excuse her from certain actual faults, such as overanxiety, ambition, or lack of faith. 2 A considerable group evinced that no thought of the Virgin's exemption was in their minds by asserting in absolute terms that Christ alone escaped the taint of human sinfulness. 3 In the middle ages many writers, the most eminent included, unequivocally ruled out the supposition of the immaculate conception, either by express denial or by the statement that Mary was sanctified in the womb of her mother. 4 As specimen statements we may note those of Anselm and Aquinas. The former wrote respecting Mary: "Her mother con- ceived her in sin, and she was born with original sin, since she also sinned in Adam, in whom all sinned." 1 Stap, L'Immacul6e Conception, p. 192. * Irenaeus, Cont. Haer., iii. 16. 7; Origen, In Luc., Horn, xvii; Chrysostom, In Joan., Horn, xxi; Basil, Epist. cclx. n. 9; Cyril of Alexandria, In Joan., lib. xii, cap. xix, ver. 25. 3 Justin Martyr, Dial cum Tryph., ex; Tertullian, De Anima, xli; Origen, In Levit., Horn. xii. n. 4; Ambrose, In Luc., lib. ii. n. 56; Augustine, De Peccat. Merit., i. 57, ii. 38, ii. 57; Ephrem the Syrian, Margarita Pretiosa. 4 John of Damascus, De Fid. Orth., iii. a; Paschasius Radbertus, De Partu Virg., lib. i; Damiani, Liber Gratissimus, xix; Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, ii. 16; Aquinas, Sum. Theol., iii. 27. a; Bonaventura, Sent., lib. iii, dist. iii, p. i, art. i, q. i et 2, cited by A. Stap, L'lmmaculee Conception, pp. 100, 101. 96 THE ROMAN TYPE "The blessed Virgin," said Aquinas, "contracted original sin, but she was purified from it before she was born from the womb." In thus expressing themselves these writers represented the dominant scholastic teaching. It was with good reason that Duns Scotus, who was the first distinguished theologian to champion the supposi- tion of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, based his conclusion on speculative grounds. There was no historical basis to which he could appeal. As Melchior Canus said in the sixteenth century : "All the saints who have chanced to mention the matter have asserted with one voice that the blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin." 1 To this common voice the papacy itself contributed an accordant note. Innocent III declared in the most explicit terms that Mary needed to be purified from original sin 2 ; and Innocent V expressed the same judgment without ambiguity. 3 In fine, to reach the dogma of the immaculate conception it was necessary to trample under foot an extended line both of patristic and scholastic testimonies. 4 Pius IX was in desperate need of the sanction provided through the revised theory of tradition. In a double sense the dogmatic decree of 1854 on the immaculate conception of the Virgin was a congenial and fruitful antecedent of the consummating work for papal absolutism which was accomplished in the Vatican Council. On the one hand, it gave a signal illustration of the fact that historical difficulties which might be 1 Loci Theol., vii. i. 2 Opera, Migne, IV. 506, Serm. in Sol em. Purificat. Virginis also Serm. in Solem. Assumpt. Virginis. 1 Cited by Stap, L'lmmacule'e Conception, p. 13. 4 For the original texts see the author's History of the Christian Church, Modern Church, Part III, pp. 44-51. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 97 regarded as insuperable need not stand in the way of reaching a desired goal. Why should the accumulated records of the centuries be accounted an insurmountable obstacle to the proclamation of the unlimited and in- fallible monarchy of the pope, while yet those who were looking to this end had in view the easy shift by which the patristic and scholastic consensus on the subject of the Virgin's conception had been brought to naught? Surely after that achievement the ambitious fashioners of new dogmas ought to have had any amount of courage to meet the frown of history. On the other hand, the decree of 1854 involved practically an assumption and exercise of the prerogatives of a dogmatic infallibility. In issuing that decree on his sole authority Pius IX had already made use of a power the formal assertion of which was a leading purpose in the assembling of the Vatican Council. Let it be granted that the act of Pius IX was premature, a usurpation, the like of which would justly expose the chief magistrate of a republic to im- peachment ; it is yet true that the Church tamely accepted the usurpation. A logical basis was thus provided for the formal imposition of the yoke of infallibility. The Jesuit Schrader was only stating openly an induction which anyone might easily have made when he wrote in 1865: "Pius IX, through the act of December 8, 1854, did not indeed theoretically define the infallibility of the pope, but practically he laid claim to it." 1 If report may be trusted the pontiff himself confessed that his act was prophetic of the Vatican definition. 2 Besides employing this portentous expedient for com- mitting the Church to his absolutist scheme, Pius IX 1 Friedrich, I. 291. *Friedrich, Tagebuch, p. 394. 98 THE ROMAN TYPE was conspicuously alert to make use of his opportunities to insinuate teachings comformable to that scheme. He inserted them in his very first encyclical, issued Novem- ber 9, 1846 a fact which goes to show that the liberal- ism to which he made a temporary concession in the government of the Estates of the Church never extended to his ecclesiastical theory. In that manifesto these strong words occur: "It plainly appears in how great error they are involved who, abusing reason and esteem- ing the oracles of God a human work, rashly presume according to their own preference to explain and to in- terpret those oracles, although God himself has consti- tuted a living authority, which might teach and establish the true and legitimate sense of his heavenly revelation, and settle all controversies in matters of faith and morals by an infallible judgment. And this living and infallible authority is operative only in that Church which, having been founded by Christ the Lord upon Peter, the head of the whole Church, prince and pastor, whose faith was promised never to fail, has always had its legitimate pontiffs, deriving their origin without interruption from Peter himself, occupying his chair and being heirs and defenders of the same doctrine, dignity, honor, and power. And since -where Peter is there is the Church, and Peter speaks through the Roman pontiff, and always lives and exercises judgment in his successors, and presents to inquirers the truth of the faith, therefore the divine oracles are plainly to be held in that sense in which this chair of blessed Peter holds and has held them." Statements carrying the same implication that the Roman pontiff is the one and sufficient standard occur in the Syllabus of 1864. They are implicitly con- PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 99 tained there in the condemnation passed upon the asser- tions that the decree of the apostolic see fetters the free progress of science; that the Roman pontiffs (and ecu- menical councils) have exceeded the limits of their power and even committed errors in defining matters of faith and morals; that the Roman pontiffs by their too arbitrary conduct have contributed to the division of the Church into eastern and western; and that the Roman pontiff ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with, progress, liberalism, and civilization as lately intro- duced. 1 Again, at the centenary of Peter in 1867 pains were taken to emphasize the idea that the pope is the in- comparable standard. He is described as the universal pastor upon whom all must lean for strength and direc- tion. Addressing the assembled bishops Pius IX said : "As Saint Leo the Great indicated, 'the Lord entertained a special care for Peter and prayed specially for the faith of Peter, since the state of the others would be more certain if the mind of the chief should not be overcome. In Peter, therefore, the fortitude of all is made secure and the aid of divine grace is so ordered that the firm- ness which through Christ is bestowed upon Peter is con- ferred through Peter upon the other apostles.' Where- fore we cherish always the persuasion that it cannot but result that you should receive a share of the fortitude with which Peter by the extraordinary gift of the Lord was endowed, as often as you may take your station near to the person itself of Peter, who lives in his successors, and simply touch the soil of this city which has been watered by the sweat and victorious blood of the sacred prince of the apostles/' 2 1 Nos. 12, 23, 38, 80. *Cecconi, Storiade Concilio Vaticano, I. 342, 343, Doc. x. loo THE ROMAN TYPE In enumerating the expedients which helped forward the Vatican project, it would be a serious error not to mention the utilization of sentimental devotion and allied means. In the years immediately preceding, as also in those following, the proclamation of the dogma of the immaculate conception, the cult of the Virgin was prosecuted with almost unexampled fervor. Pius IX himself gave a powerful incentive to the cult by well- nigh exhausting the language of worshipful recognition. In the letter which he addressed to the bishops in 1849 relative to the proposed definition of the immaculate con- ception he said : "You know very well, venerable breth- ren, that the whole of our confidence is placed in the most holy Virgin, since God has placed in Mary the fullness of all good, that accordingly we may know that if there is any hope in us, if any grace, if any salvation, it re- dounds to us from her, because such is his will who hath willed that we should have everything through Mary." 1 In the dogmatic decree of 1854 the pope gave a like es- timate of the position of Mary in these words : "Having been made by the Lord Queen of heaven and earth, and exalted above all the orders of angels and saints, stand- ing at the right hand of her only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by her mother's prayers she does most potently impetrate, and finds what she seeks, and cannot be frustrated." Many of the bishops expressed them- selves in equivalent terms. Some of them did not shun to proclaim the association of the Virgin with the Son of God in the work of redemption by styling her "Co- Redeemer" or "Co-Redemptress." In an elaborate treatise on the Immaculate Conception, published in 1 Cited by Pusey, Eirenicon, pp. 122, 123. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM lot 1857, Malou, Bishop of Bruges, applied this title to Mary, and went on to assert for her a certain primogeni- ture among all creatures in these astonishing terms: "One understands with what justice the Holy Spirit could speak of the origin of Mary when he revealed the eternal origin of the Word, and with how good a right the Church has been able to apply to Mary the words of Scripture which concern the birth of the Divine Wisdom. When understood of the conception of the Mother of God, there is no longer any obscurity in these words, 'The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his ways, before that he created aught.' Mary is presented here as the first of creatures. . . . This primogeniture sup- poses in Mary a superiority, in some sort eternal and wholly celestial, which assimilates her to the Son of God." 1 While thus pope and bishops were raising their high acclaim to the Virgin, means of effective appeals to the masses were zealously employed. The reputed ap- pearance of the immaculate mother, in 1858, to a peasant girl at Lourdes was utilized to the full. Great proces- sions were gotten up in honor of the celestial visitant, and it began to look as if Roman Catholic France would be turned into a kindergarten, where grown-up people, as well as little children, would elect to be fed on fairy tales. The promotion of the cult of the Virgin, however it may have been designed to result, was not indifferently related to the project of a relative deification of the pope. Minds that were overflowing with sentimental devotion were in a specially apt frame to lavish their tribute at the feet of one whom they were solicited to regard as the 1 Cited by Stap, L'Immacul6e Conception, pp. 21 off. loa THE ROMAN TYPE infallible vicar of Christ. At any rate, zealots for the cult of the Virgin were in general zealots for the exalta- tion of the pope. Some of the tributes rendered in the latter direction were very extraordinary. In 1866 the Bishop of Bordeaux described the pope as "the center of divine government and the living incarnation of the authority of Christ." 1 Veuillot in the same year did obeisance in this formula: "The pope is, like Jesus Christ, the absolute ruler of consciences and scepters; Jesus Christ, sovereign master of all things, resides in the pope not only by the title of pontiff, but still further by that of king of kings." 2 A contributor to the Civilta Cattolica in 1868 estimated the papal office in these terms: "The treasures of this revelation, treasures of truth, treasures of justice, treasures of spiritual gifts have been deposited upon earth in the hands of one man, who is the sole dispenser and custodian of them. . . . This man is the pope." 3 In words that fairly invite question as to the sanity of their authors, individuals at the height of this sentimental effervescence even ven- tured to apply to the pope such names as the "Holy Spirit" and the "Eucharist" meaning probably by the latter designation to style the pope the visible shrine of the most holy presence of the God-man. Gratry testi- fies that these strange expressions were used in com- munications addressed to himself. 4 To swell the tide of sentimental devotion, and to work with it in the direction of the Vatican ideal, two notable practical expedients were employed. The first of these was the Infallibility League, the plan of which was sketched 1 Original given by Friedrich, I. 499. * Friedrich, I. 500. 8 Original given by Janus (Dollinger), Der Papst und das Condi, p. 43. 4 Letters to Dechamps, trans, by Bailey, letter iii, pp. 22, 23. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 103 in an article published in the Civilta Cattolica, June 15, 1867. The members of this league obligated themselves to profess, even at the price of shedding blood, if neces- sary, the dogma of papal infallibility. 1 How largely the bishops took on an obligation of this kind remains in question. The record of two of them in the matter has been reported by Manning as follows: "On the eve of Saint Peter's Day (1867) I and the bishop of Ratisbon were assisting at the throne of the pope at the first ves- pers of Saint Peter ; we then made the vow drawn up by Liberatore, an Italian Jesuit, to do all in our power to obtain the definition of papal infallibility. We undertook to. recite every day certain prayers in Latin contained in a little book still (1881) in my possession." 2 The second of the two expedients was the consecration of a prayer union entitled the Apostolate of Prayer of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus to the service of the in- fallibility project. This union was widely disseminated. It is alleged to have attained by 1869 a membership of several millions. A form of prayer prescribed in that year by the general director, the Jesuit Ramiere, ran as follows: "O blessed Peter, upon whom Jesus Christ has founded his Church, obtain from this divine Lord abun- dant graces for the council, and in particular, if such be the divine pleasure, obtain for us this distinguished favor, that in the august assembly of the pastors of souls the supreme pastor, thy successor, may be declared in- fallible in his decrees when he speaks as universal pastor." 3 On the whole, there is reason to conclude that Fried- 1 Cecconi, Storia del Concilio Vaticano, II. 434-436. * Purcell, Life of Manning, II. 420 3 Civilta Cattolica, 1869, VI. 356. 104 THE ROMAN TYPE rich spoke with insight, when, referring back to the time of the Vatican Council, he said: "The attempt which was then made to attach the curia and the Ultramontane party to Scripture and tradition was entirely vain. Not out of them sprang the tendency toward papal infalli- bility, but out of the papal cult which in an unexampled manner was fostered and enlarged in the last decades. This, however, amounts to nothing else than a sinking back into a mythologizing heathenism, which consists partly in this very thing, that it cannot hold fast to reli- gious ideas and potencies in a purely spiritual sphere, but proceeds to materialize, incorporate, and personify them." 1 IV. THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND ITS DECREES / The preceding history, as recounted in this chapter, amounts to a history of the antecedents of the council, which was opened December 8, 1869, had its last im- portant session July 18, 1870, and was declared sus- pended October 20 of the same year, shortly before Rome had passed into the possession of Victor Emmanuel and been incorporated with the kingdom of Italy. As we have seen, a reaction against the violence and excesses of the French revolution gave a certain advantage to Ul- tramontanism, as against the Gallicanism which was still extensively held at the beginning of the century. At this juncture a plausible case was made out for the former by such gifted advocates as De Maistre and Lamennais. Their writings, though far from being specimens of sober and rigorous method, were well adapted to reinforce 1 Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, II. 428. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 105 reactionary tendencies, and to marshal them into the service of ecclesiastical absolutism. Meanwhile every development in this direction was zealously seconded by the pope and the curia. Power, patronage, benedictions, censures, fostering of sentimental devotion, all expe- dients, in short, which were adapted to render aid in reaching the absolutist goal, were industriously employed through the middle decades of the century. Thus every- thing was made ready for the revolutionary act by which every remnant of provision for coordinate authority was eliminated from the constitution of the Roman Catholic Church, and all sovereignty was formally declared to be concentrated in the pope. The full time for the Vatican Council had come. It is true, doubtless, that in the more alert and scholarly portions of the Church a broad zone of opposition still remained to turning a doubtful school opinion into a dogma; but the possibility of the despotic performance was now in sight. In a way the council existed before it was convenec Anxiety to make it conform to the Vatican model caused] an antecedent shaping process to be applied in a manner j unparalleled in conciliar history. The first step was taken in December, 1864, just before the publication of the Syllabus of Errors, when Pius IX secretly broached his purpose to call a council. A little later five cardinals were appointed as a commission to consider preliminary questions. The first meeting of the commission occurred in March, 1865. Already at this meeting the secretary the titular archbishop of Sardes made the very sig- nificant suggestions that it was important to have the matters with which the council might deal brought into a state of preparation beforehand, and also to make sure 106 THE ROMAN TYPE that the Italian bishops should be present in full force as being most likely to act in accord with the apostolic see. Within a moderate interval from the meeting of the commission letters were secretly sent out to a number of bishops, selected by the pope, for the purpose of gathering in opinions on the choice of subjects for the consideration of the council. At this point it lay in the design of Pius IX to call the assembly for 1867, the cen- tenary year of the martyrdom of Peter. But the dis- turbed condition of Italian politics interposed a barrier to this part of his scheme. Practical work, however, went forward at a fair pace. The Special Directive Con- gregation, or Central Commission, which was appointed in accordance with the recommendation of the initial meeting noticed above, held a number of sittings (1865- 1867), and at length outlined a scheme of five commis- sions. Each of these had a cardinal for president, and for members consulters who were in good repute with the pope and the curia, nearly half of them being resi- dents of Rome. Their respective tasks concerned dogma, discipline, religious orders, missions and Oriental churches, and ecclesiastico-political matters. Before the end of 1867 most of them had held sittings. Thus not a little had been done for the molding of conciliar decisions before the formal summons for the assembling of the council had been issued, for that did not occur till June 29, 1868. Of course, this work was largely provisional; but that fact does not avert the conclusion that it involved an abridgment of the function ordinarily pertaining to an ecumenical assembly. It was of the nature of a shackle upon the free action of the council to be confronted by a list of propositions formulated by bodies with whose PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 107 selection and proceedings it had been conceded no sort of agency. And this limitation was much aggravated by the rule which was adopted respecting the right of initia- tive. This rule, adopted by the Directive Congregation and approved by Pius IX, provided that the right of introducing matters to the council should belong in the full sense to the pope alone. The privilege conceded to the bishops consisted simply in the permission to make recommendations to a commission selected by the pope, which commission was to pass on the recommendations and then refer them to the pope for a final judgment. In the matter of amending propositions a greater degree of liberty was granted. Commissions or deputations elected by vote of the council, and having charge re- spectively of questions relative to dogma, to discipline, to religious orders, and to Oriental affairs, were to take the amendments into consideration. Those offering the amendments, however, had no acknowledged right to appear before the deputations to justify the desired changes. In short, the scheme worked up for the coun- cil, in advance of all action on its part, was peculiarly adapted to make it an instrument for the fulfillment of papal ambitions. 1 v In its composition the council was well adapted to ful\ fill the role of a papal instrument. Most of its members | had reached their official stations through favor of the/ pope. By the year 1869 fully eight ninths of all those in the actual exercise of the episcopal office, all but twelve of the cardinals, and all but thirty-seven of the two hun- dred and thirty bishops in partibus infidelium and apos- 1 The facts recorded in the paragraph are for the most part matters of common recognition in the histories of the council by Cecconi, Friedrich, and Granderath, io8 THE ROMAN TYPE tolic vicars had been appointed under the auspices of Pius IX. Of the assembled body, amounting at the maximum to over seven hundred, more than one third were Italians. Italy, in fact, was represented by a larger number than all the other sections of Europe put to- gether. A considerable section of the council, just about one fourth, as being made up of bishops in partibus in- fidelium, apostolic vicars, abbots, and generals of orders, stood for no diocesan constituency. Many of these held a very dependent relation to the pope and the curia, and were not likely to be unmindful of their obligations to the party by whose grace admission to the ecumenical assembly was conceded to them. 1 Thus the composition of the council furnished beforehand a tolerably secure guarantee respecting its action. The simple preponder- ance of the Latin nations in its membership was prophetic of an absolutist and infallibilist outcome. In the education of the clergy in these nations the high papal theories had received practically the full benefit of the vast chain of forgeries perpetrated in their behalf along the course of the centuries forgeries of pseudo Cyprian and pseudo Isidore, forgeries taken up by Gratian and other canonists, forgeries of the thirteenth century which deceived Thomas Aquinas and through his powerful commendation gained wide influence. Grant that by the nineteenth century the forgeries had in large part been unmasked ; in effect they were by no means put out of the field. Some of them kept a place in writings held in the highest reverence, like those of Liguori ; and the inferences drawn from them permeated many of the text-books. In short, Dollinger may be 'Friedrich, I. 438; III. 206-211. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 109 credited with a perfectly clear understanding of what he was doing when he uttered this bold challenge : "I offer to bring forward proofs that the bishops of the Romance countries, Spain, Italy, South America, and France, who formed the enormous majority at Rome, had, together with their clergy, as regards the papal power, already been led astray by books of doctrine out of which they had derived their knowledge during their college years; for the passages quoted in these books as proofs are for the most part false, fabricated, or garbled." 1 That the council, which in the composition of its majority was so well adapted to take the line of papal preference, was designed from the start to serve above all as an instrument for promulgating the absolute and infallible sovereignty of the Roman pontiff, cannot fairly be questioned. No doubt those who prefer not to admit that this was the controlling design are able to point to the fact that in the official preparations for the council conspicuous attention was not given to the subject of papal infallibility. But, of course, a plea of this kind has very little weight, since it was the plainest dictate of prudence not to advertise the infallibilist program, and thus to excite opponents to bring out and to marshal their full strength. The history of the council shows plainly enough what was the design of the council. Moreover, unambiguous hints were furnished in the an- tecedent events. The preparatory dogmatic commission seems to have concerned itself with the infallibility ques- tion as early as 1868. In February of 1869 it occupied itself with its discussion during several sessions, and again in June of the same year returned to its considera- 1 Letter to Archbishop von Scherr, March 28, 1871. no THE ROMAN TYPE tion. 1 The commission did not, indeed, assume unquali- fiedly that the question would come before the council, and considered it best to leave the matter of its introduc- tion dependent on the request of the bishops ; but still the action taken shows plainly enough the direction of ex- pectation, and, we may also say, the direction of purpose, since the members of the commission were perfectly assured that the request of which they spoke would be forthcoming when the Ultramontane wing of the council should be informed that the opportune moment had ar- rived. Additional tokens of intention may be found in the origination of an Infallibility League, in the devote- ment of a prayer union to the cause of infallibility, and in the character of the report, already referred to, which the nuncio sent from Munich, September 10, 1869. Why should the nuncio in a message to his master in Rome, express his regrets over the coldness of the German bishops toward the project of erecting papal infallibility into a dogma unless he was confident that this project was one to which the mind of the pope was devoted? We conclude, therefore, that the pre- diction, published in the Civilta Cattolica, February 6, 1869, that the impending council would proclaim by acclamation the dogma of papal infallibility was not simply the adventurous statement of an indi- vidual contributor, but a valid revelation of the leading purpose in calling the council and in shaping beforehand its transactions. Possibly the "acclamation" feature had not been very seriously considered ; but the enthronement of the given dogma was undoubtedly most earnestly con- templated. i Cecconi, I. 374. 275; Friedrich, I. 643, 745. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM in Since the council was called, not for the purpose of investigating and finding out the truth, but for the achievement of a predetermined end, Pius IX was not fulfilling an altogether inconsistent part in throwing the weight of action and speech on the side of the party de- voted to that end. He could afford to expend a little zeal in that direction, since in gaining the sought-for declara- tion respecting his unlimited and infallible sovereignty he was securing, in addition to all else, a kind of indem- nity bill for his presumptuous and arbitrary act in pro- claiming as dogma the immaculate conception of the Virgin. At any rate, he proceeded in the manner of the partisan and the advocate. His confirmation of the con- demnation passed by the Congregation of the Index upon Bellinger's scathing criticism of the infallibility dogma was conspicuously posted in Rome six days before the opening of the council. Maret's treatise, only second to that of Dollinger in the effective array of historical ob- jections which it presented, was forbidden to be placed on sale and distributed in the ecclesiastical capital. Evi- dently the council was not called for any purpose of investigation, otherwise the demand would have been to put such learned and searching works into the hands of every member, instead of attempting to brand them as unfit for sight or touch. Quite in line with this effort to seal up sources of information were the instructions given to Theiner, prefect of the Vatican archives, not to permit anyone to see the acta of the Council of Trent which were placed in his keeping, and the subsequent dismissal of the prefect because he was thought not to have been sufficiently alert to keep inconvenient informa- tion out of sight. The pope, furthermore, gave emphatic us THE ROMAN TYPE expression to his antipathy toward the anti-infallibilist minority in the council by the use of very disparaging terms on various occasions. In an address before fifteen hundred people he spoke of "blind leaders of the blind" in a way which left no one to doubt that he meant the bishops of the opposition. While speaking at the Ameri- can College in Rome he openly deplored the antagonistic position taken by a part of the American bishops. When he heard the news of Montalembert's death he was un- kind enough to rate him, notwithstanding his services to the Ultramontane cause, as being in view of his recent liberal tendencies only "a half-Catholic." Smiting re- marks were made about others who were classed as adversaries, and words of blandest approbation bestowed upon those who by writings, speeches, or resolutions gave expression to their zeal for the absolutist program. 1 How hopeless is the attempt to exculpate Pius IX from the charge of having played the role of the partisan may be judged from the way in which a stanch infallibilist justifies his course. "It is said," writes Hergenrother, "that in the disputes respecting the council the pope most plainly sided with one party, encouraging and commend- ing the infallibilists by word and in writing, and blaming their opponents. Should he then have been silent when men were beginning to cast doubts upon a truth of which he was convinced? ... Is it not the right and the duty of the pope to protect the faith of the Roman Church from calumny, and to defend it at every point, to uphold the decrees and censures of his predecessors, to preserve the prerogatives of the apostolic see?" 2 In PP 1 Friedrich, Vat. Konzil, III. 100, 101, 389-391, 713, 798-808; Tagebuch, i. 64, 155. 3 Catholic Church and Christian State, p. 143. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 113 answer to the fervent apologist we may remark, in the first place, that it was scarcely in good form for the pope to make a show of calling a deliberative assembly, and then to treat its members as worthy of stripes for claim- ing anything like a free use of the prerogatives properly belonging to judges of the truth and makers of de- crees. And in the second place we may answer, that one is putting forth very exorbitant demands when he asks us to suppose that supernatural guid- ance shaped the action of an assembly in the man- agement of which the crassest mundane expedients had so prominent a part. Privilege of debate under such conditions did not amount to full conciliar privilege. The worth of the privilege, too, was materially abridged by the bad acous- tic properties of the hall of assembly. According to thoroughly reliable testimony only the best speakers could make themselves heard by more than a fraction of the audience. As regards the bulk of permitted speech-making, if we judge by the standard of party politics, we may say that the minority were given a re- spectable opportunity to present their side of the case, though they were subject to annoyance by the knowledge that the power of closure was in unfriendly hands, and also by positive rumors at one stage or another that closure was about to be imposed. If we judge by the in- trinsic demands of the tremendous issues at stake we shall be obliged to conclude that the amount of examina- tion awarded to the grounds and merits of the decrees which the council was asked to approve was paltry and even ridiculous. The formal discussion of the entire constitution on the Church, including three chapters on ii4 THE ROMAN TYPE the primacy of Peter and the Roman pontiff and a fourth on infallibility, fell between May 1 1 and July 18. The speakers belonging to the majority or infallibilist party may be credited with doing about as well as the merits of their case would permit. They exhibited a fair degree of industry and acuteness in parrying the force of objections and in making the most of the his- torical evidences for their absolutist theories. But what- ever the grade of the special pleading in which they en- gaged, it was still special pleading, and nothing higher, which was continually being put on exhibition in their argumentation. They as good as ignored the fundamen- tally important bearing of the moral character of the popes upon doctrinal impeccability or infallibility. In their dealing with history they showed amazingly small regard for perspective. Going through the broad field of Christian antiquity, they seized upon isolated state- ments, put an exaggerated meaning into them, and made them to count for more than the general tenor of the collective action of the Church through generation after generation. They greatly magnified the importance of certain councils having a very scanty claim to an ecu- menical rank, notably that of the Council of Florence, an assembly composed of no more than sixty-two members from the entire Western Church, fifty of whom were Italians. 1 On the other side, they dealt much too slight- ingly with the enormous obstacles raised against their dogmatic theories by the combined action of councils and popes at Constance and Basle. Very largely they went on the implicit assumption that convenience is a test of truth; and now and then one of their number Friedrich, III. 498. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 115 explicitly argued that it was expedient and necessary to have a pontiff declared to be infallible, who, in the exer- cise of his independent sovereignty, would be able to smite quickly the errors which are ever pouring into the modern world a style of argument that would have some claim to respectability, if there were any decent proof of the existence of that kind of a pontiff, if variety of belief were the supreme evil, and if an untrammeled despotism over the souls and minds of men were nothing to fear or deplore. With practical resort to the test of convenience prominent advocates of the infallibilist creed lightened the demand for meeting historical objections by smuggling in the fiction that Scripture and tradition are so fully on the side of that creed that it is not neces- sary to resolve all the objections which history presents. In individual instances fervid apologists met difficulties with such arbitrary assertions as can be compared to nothing less than the requirement to ignore the sight of one's eyes in full daylight. Here belongs the declaration of Archbishop Cullen that no council ever condemned Pope Honorius as a heretic. 1 In opposing the dogmatic scheme submitted to the council the minority were somewhat hampered by their antecedent record. For the most part prior to the coun- cil, instead of opposing the declaration of papal infalli- bility on the score of the baselessness and falsity of the proposed dogma, they had opposed the declaration on the ground of its being inopportune. Possibly in some cases that was the extent of their objection ; but there is reason to believe that in many cases the objection went further. 1 Relatively full sketches of the speeches delivered in the council are given by Granderath, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, vol. III. ii6 THE ROMAN TYPE Naturally a bishop standing by himself, and speaking in his individual capacity, would be moved to offer the mildest rather than the most irritating ground of his opposition to a project backed up by the tremendous force of the pontiff and the curia. He would prefer to speak of the declaration of the infallibility dogma as contrary to a wise opportunism than to declare doubts about the truth of the dogma. We conclude, then, that it is every way probable that the area of real doubt was much larger than that which came to manifestation among the bishops of the minority prior to the Vatican assembly. Certainly within the assembly not a few of them expressed themselves in terms which import that they doubted the dogma itself to which they were asked to subscribe. Their arguments were arguments not merely against the advisability of declaring infallibility, but such as hold against the truth of infallibility. How- ever, as a party the minority never escaped the disad- vantage resulting from the timid appeal to inoppor- tunism. There was no sufficient threat of bad conse- quences involved in a standpoint of that kind to deter a resolute majority from pressing on to the full execution of their scheme. A tense struggle, nevertheless, was made by the minority both within and without the coun- cil. They appealed with good effect to various historical passages which rationally may be considered as barring out the new dogmas. They emphasized the drastic na- ture of a conciliar action which, at so late a period in the history of the Church, should take a school opinion and impose it upon the faithful under stress of anathema. Finally, they contended that for the proposed dogmas the substantial unanimity, which ought always to go before PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 117 creedal prescriptions, was wanting. That they had a fair warrant for this last contention is shown by the record of the council. At the preliminary vote on the constitution relative to the Church, July 13, eighty-eight members declared themselves for the negative, and sixty- two, some of whom, however, were stanch infallibilists, gave a qualified affirmative vote. The number deciding unqualifiedly for the affirmative was four hundred and fifty-one. Of the eighty-eight who had voted in the neg- ative, fifty-six declared, in a final missive which they sent to the pope, that they still adhered to their judg- ment, but would not appear at the public session ap- pointed for the eighteenth of July. At that session five hundred and thirty-three votes were given for the affirm- ative. In itself this is no insignificant number. But when due account is taken of the territories which lay back of the minority bishops, and it is remembered that four fifths of those finally giving their voice for the vic- torious dogmas were composed of Italian bishops, car- dinals, officers of the curia, and apostolic vicars, it will be recognized that the decrees of the Vatican Council were representative rather of a party in the Church than of the Church. Though the debate was mainly relative to the" dogma of papal infallibility, the formulated dogma on the administrative supremacy of the pope was of no less importance. Indeed, it may be con- tended with a fair show of reason that the latter was; the more important of the two. Besides implicitly assertA ing infallibility, it explicitly affirmed that the pope is in- vested with a perfectly unlimited jurisdiction and power, of control .in the Church. It is impossible to imagine iig THE ROMAN TYPE language more emphatically expressive of absolute rule than the following: "Since by the divine right of apos- tolic primacy the Roman pontiff is placed over the uni- versal Church, we teach and declare that he is the supreme judge of the faithful, and that in all causes, the decision of which belongs to the Church, recourse may be had to his tribunal, and that none may reopen the judgment of the apostolic see, than whose authority there is no greater, nor can any lawfully review its judg- ment. Wherefore they err from the right course who assert that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council, as to an au- thority higher than that of the Roman pontiff. If, then, any shall say that the Roman pontiff has the office merely of inspection or direction, and not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to the discipline and government spread throughout the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal part, and not all the fullness of this supreme power; or that this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the churches, and over each and all the pastors and the faith- ful: let him be anathema." A power thus ordinary and immediate over every church and every individual, what else is it than a power to which the thought of constitutional limitations is utterly foreign? what else than a power to which the whole body of officials in the Church, from the lowest to the highest, is purely instrumental? what else than a power as remote from the possibility of lawful challenge as would be the authority of incarnate Deity? PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 119 The decree on infallibility was formulated in these words : "We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith and morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Re- deemer willed that his Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith and morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are irre- formable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. But if anyone which may God avert presume to contradict this our definition: let him be/ anathema." Taken with the foregoing this decree evidently makes the pope absolutely the whole Church in respect of au- thority. If he commands none can say him nay as regards outward obedience. If he imposes beliefs, none can say him nay as regards inward assent. Formally, to be sure, his right to impose beliefs lies within the bounds of faith and morals. But who has the preroga- tive to fix those bounds? Manifestly none other than the supreme master, whose authority is ordinary and immediate over all the faithful, and is not subject to contradiction by any finite power whatever. Moreover, it is not to be overlooked that, apart from the liability to arbitrary extension, the bounds of faith and morals are exceedingly comprehensive. There is comparatively lit- tle in all the great practical concerns of life that does not touch more or less directly the one domain or the other. lao THE ROMAN TYPE As respects the phrase ex cathedra, it is undoubtedly the approved judgment among Roman Catholic scholars that this covers not only decrees formally addressed to the whole Church, but also decrees and teachings which, though addressed to only a part of the faithful, must be regarded as meant for all, or which could not well apply to one part to the exclusion of another. 1 The attachment of anathemas to the Vatican decrees is, of course, an indifferent matter to an outsider. At least the meeting of them in the text produces no more serious effect upon him than does an instance of profane swear- ing in a connection where he has every reason to expect its emergence. It should be said, however, to the credit of certain members of the council that they expressed a very considerable aversion to the Roman custom of mul- tiplying anathemas. 2 They evidently felt that such a custom was better suited to the court of Caiaphas than to an assembly of the professed followers of the Jesus who called to blessing rather than to cursing. It does not appear, nevertheless, that the council was moved to a sparing use of the empty thunderbolts. Though it closed with unfinished business, it had already braced its decisions with more than a score of anathemas. Pos- sibly, had it reached the end of its contemplated program, it would have rivaled the extraordinary record of the Council of Trent in this matter. The latter assembly gave expression to a genuine sacerdotal consciousness by promulgating thirty-three anathemas in connection with the theme of justification and ninety-three in relation to the various topics of sacramental theory. 1 Scheeben, Handbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, I. 228, 229; Palmieri, Tractatus de Romano Pontifice, p. 716. 2 Granderath, II. 381, 382, 385, 416, 420, 473. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 121 V. DEVELOPMENTS FOLLOWING THE VATICAN COUNCIL \ The triumph of the Ultramontane program left the \ bishops of the minority in a very unenviable plight. To accept the decisions of the council would mean acquies- cence in what their judgment pronounced to be an un- warrantable dogmatic revolution. On the other hand, rejection of those decisions, besides involving a total de- struction of their official standing, would expose them to the charge of indulging in that rationalizing temper and lack of submission to constituted authority which they had been accustomed to emphasize as the capital fault of Protestantism. By their admission of the infalli- bility of the Church they were logically bound to accept the decrees of the council, unless there was substantial ground for the judgment that the Church would deny to the council the character of a free ecumenical assembly, or, at least, question whether its decisions relative to papal prerogatives had commanded that moral unanimity which may properly be adjudged requisite for the pro- mulgation of dogmas of the faith. But most of them speedily drew the inference that they could not trust to such means of relief, and accordingly made their sub- mission. A few hesitated for a period to drink the cup so nauseating to their spirits, and meanwhile put words on record which could only serve to emphasize the depth of their final abasement before arbitrary authority. This\ was the case with Hefele. Second to no man in the coun- \ cil in respect of historical knowledge, he saw that the Vatican decrees were refuted by unimpeachable facts./ 122 THE ROMAN TYPE / How deeply his soul revolted against the demand to sub- scribe to them is abundantly indicated in his correspond- ence. Thus he wrote, September 14, 1870: "To recog- nize as divinely revealed something which is not true in itself, let him do it who can, I cannot." Again he de- clared, November u, in the same year: "Here in Rot- tenburg I can as little conceal from myself as I could in Rome, that the new dogma lacks a true biblical and tra- ditional foundation, and injures the Church immensely, so that she has never suffered a more bitter or deadly stroke." In the same communication he gave a clear intimation of his judgment on the course of the German episcopate, in speaking of it as a body "which has changed its conviction overnight, and in part gone over to a very zealous and persecuting infallibilism." With undiminished bitterness of spirit he wrote, January 25, 1871 : "Unhappily I must say with Schulte, 'I lived many years grossly deceived.' I believed I was serving the Catholic Church, and I served the caricature which Romanism and Jesuitism have made out of it. First in Rome it became thoroughly clear to me that what one aims after and practices there has only the appearance and the name of Christianity, only the husk; the kernel has disappeared, and all is totally externalized." 1 With /this strange preface to submission we may compare that / furnished by Strossmayer, Bishop of Bosnia and Syr- i mien, confessedly one of the most accomplished orators ; in the Vatican assembly. Writing to Professor Rein- kens, October 27, 1870, he said: "My conviction which I am ready to maintain before the judgment seat of God, as I maintained it in Rome, is steadfastly and un- 1 Schulte, Der Altkatholicismus, pp. 223-228. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 123 waveringly this : that the Vatican Council lacked the freedom necessary to make it a true council, or to justify it to fashion decrees suited to bind the conscience of the entire Catholic world. The evidences for this lie before the eyes of the whole world. The order of business, as first drawn up, was a product of an absolutism which completely contradicts the spirit of Christianity and the true organism of the Church. . . . The second order of business was manifestly designed to block the way to that freedom which individual bishops had used in spite of the first order of business. . . . Everything which is calculated to serve as a guarantee of freedom in par- liamentary discussion was most carefully excluded ; everything adapted to make a discussion instrumental to a predetermined opinion was employed in a most lavish, and one may say, a most shameless, way. And finally, as even this did not seem to suffice, advance was made to open violation of that ancient Catholic maxim : quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. In a word, the most naked and abhorrent employment of papal in- fallibility was necessary, in order to make possible the elevation of infallibility to a dogma." In June of the following year the bishop showed that his judgment had undergone no revision by penning these words : "If ever in history an assembly was precisely the opposite of what it ought to have been, that was the case with the Vatican Council. All that could happen to compromise the voca4 tion of the council, and to make it unworthy of the assist- ance of the Holy Spirit, occurred in fullest measure." 1 ^ Such are some of the more notable specimens of the in- ward protests with which the defeated bishops approached 1 Schulte, Der Altkatholicismus, pp. 251-255. 124 THE ROMAN TYPE the ordeal of prostrating themselves before the advancing car of papal absolutism. While the opposition of the bishops ended in abase- ment, there were Roman Catholics in whom the union of scholarship and conscience formed an insuperable barrier against the acceptance of the Vatican dogmas. Out of their midst came the practical protest which took on the form of the Old Catholic movement, in which an attempt was made to present the model of a communion essen- tially Catholic but free from Roman accretions. In 1873 the movement obtained episcopal organization through the instrumentality of the Jansenist Church in Holland. As respects numbers the Old Catholics can scarcely be said to have inaugurated a formidable schism, though their adherents were rated ere long above a hundred thousand. Their work, however, was far from being void of significance. Favored with a band of accom- plished and energetic scholars such as Dollinger, Friedrich, Huber, Reinkens, Michelis, Reusch, Langen, and Schulte they achieved a work in historical criticism well adapted to be a fruitful source of influence in any domain from which scientific scholarship has not virtu- ally been banished. Within this group Dollinger, who, if he did not take an active part in the organization of the Old Catholic movement, gave it his countenance, was doubtless the most interesting and masterful person- ality. Unmoved alike by the extreme of censure and by flattering solicitations, he continued to express himself as occasion required in words which remind not a little of the hardy spirit which rebuked hierarchical pretense in the sixteenth century. Writing in 1871, on the eve of his excommunication, he thus repelled the proposal of PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 125 submission to the infallibility tenet: "As Christian, as theologian, as historian, as citizen, I cannot accept this doctrine. I cannot do so as a Christian, because it is incompatible with the spirit of the gospel, and with the lucid sayings of Christ and the apostles ; it simply wishes to establish the kingdom of this world, which Christ declined to do, and to possess the sovereignty over the congregations, which Peter refused for everyone else, as well as for himself. I cannot do so as a theologian, be- cause the whole genuine tradition of the Church stands irreconcilably opposed to it. I cannot do so as an his- torian, because as such I know that the persistent en- deavor to realize this theory of a universal sovereignty has cost Europe streams of blood, distracted and ruined whole countries, shaken to its foundations the beautiful organic edifice of the constitution of the older Church, and begotten, nursed, and maintained the worst abuses in the Church. Finally, I must reject it as a citizen, because with its claims on the submission of states and monarchs and the whole political order of things to the papal power, and through the exceptional position claimed by it for the clergy, it lays the foundation for an endless and fatal discord between the State and the Church, between the clergy and the laity." In 1879 ne testified : "Having devoted during the last nine years my time principally to the renewed study of all the ques- tions connected with the history of the popes and the councils, and, I may say, gone over the whole ground of ecclesiastical history, the result is that the proofs of the falsehood of the Vatican decrees amount to a demonstra- tion. When I am told that I must swear to the truth of those doctrines my feeling is just as if I were asked to 126 THE ROMAN TYPE swear that two and two make five and not four." The following year, in response to a virtual request to sacri- fice intellect on the altar of dogma, he wrote: "If I should do so, in a question which is for the historical eye perfectly clear and unambiguous, there would then no longer be for me any such thing as historical truth and certainty; I should then have to suppose that my whole life long I had been in a world of dizzy illusion, and that in historical matters I am altogether incapable of distinguishing truth from fable and falsehood. The very ground would thus be taken away from under my feet, and that too for my religious views ; since even our religion is founded, of course, on historical facts." 1 Within the party which had cried up papal absolutism before the council the victory of their cause cannot be said to have wrought appreciably in favor of moderation of spirit. One or another representative, it is true, in the face of an adverse public sentiment, may have been interested to abridge rather than to magnify the import of the Vatican dogmas. But, on the whole, the party which previously had been prodigal of tributes to the papal dignity went on strewing incense with a lavish hand. The pontificate of Leo XIII was drawing near to a close before the least sign of a diminished store of the grateful offerings was made apparent. Within a year from the council the Civilta Cattolica gave a place to this high strain : "The pope is the chief justice of the civil law. In him the two powers, the spiritual and the temporal, meet together as in their head; for he is the vicar of Christ, who is not only eternal priest, but also King of kings and Lord of lords. . . . The pope by 1 Declarations and Letters on the Vatican Decrees, pp. 103, 104, 125, 133. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 127 virtue of his high dignity is at the head of both powers." 1 In a later number we are informed that the two great centers of supernatural virtue on earth are Lourdes and the Vatican. "In both places it is understood and felt that Jesus Christ lives and works from God invisible there in the person of his beloved mother glorious in heaven, visible here in the person of his vicar humbled upon earth." 2 The same level of description is attained in the following from Liberatore: "The pope sums up in himself all the virtue of the pastoral ministry upon earth, in the double function of maintaining doctrine un- shaken and keeping alive the practice of the gospel. Take away the pope and the Church will speedily go to pieces; the world will fall back into the ancient super- stition and into the squalid corruption of paganism." 3 Archbishop Manning, though writing under conditions which admonished to restraint, did not fall much behind the Italian apologist when he penned these lines : "I am not afraid of defending the condensed statement of Donoso Cortes: 'The history of civilization is the his- tory of Christianity; the history of Christianity is the history of the Church ; the history of the Church is the his- tory of the pontiffs.' " 4 In the treatise on the papacy by Palmieri equivalent forms of statement occur. "The Roman pontiff," he says, "has not only the supreme executive power, but also the supreme legislative and judicial, and that belongs to him independently of the consent and will of the Church." Though he cannot rightly abolish the episcopal office, he is competent to take away from any number of bishops their jurisdiction 1 Civiltk Cattolica, March 18, 1871. * Series XV, vol. viii, p. 547. 3 La Chiesa e lo Stato, p. 432. 4 The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, 1875, p. 133. ia8 THE ROMAN TYPE and to install others in their places. No canons can bind him. "In so far as they proceed from other bishops they cannot bind the Roman pontiff; for the entire remainder of the body is inferior to the head, but the inferior can- not bind the superior; in so far, indeed, as they proceed from the Roman pontiff they cannot bind him again; because no one can exercise coactive power against him- self, and they are not able to bind his successors since these possess the same power." In case the pontiff speaks ex cathedra, there is no occasion to go back of his pro- nouncement and to inquire into its antecedents. "Even if examination is necessary that a definition may be made, this is known by itself, that is, by its own marks; to wit, if it is given forth by the Roman pontiff as doctor of the Church and defined as a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church." 1 So the leisure of the world is most happily provided for. All men may remain quietly in their seats, and wait for the pontifical voice to speak the illuminating and final sen- tence. If we may trust Philipp Hergenrother that voice is infallible in such a matter as the canonization of saints, since this falls within the domain of "dogmatic facts," where it will not answer to have an erring pontiff. 2 In that section of his pontificate which followed the Vatican Council Pius IX found rather conspicuous occa- sions, both in his relations to the government of Prussia and to the kingdom of Italy, to manifest the order of papal consciousness that dwelt in him. As was noticed in another connection, in the course of his contention with the former the so-called Kulturkampf he illus- 1 Tractatus de Romano Pontifice, pp. 447, 457, 468, 713. Kirchenrecht, p. 277. Compare Heinrich, Lehrbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, p. 74. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 129 trated his sense of pontifical sovereignty by declaring certain laws of the realm null and void. To the latter, which granted him inviolability for his person and full custody of his palaces, but otherwise abolished his tem- poral rule, he refused all recognition. He declined to tolerate for a moment the supposition that the act by which the Estates of the Church had been wrested away from the vicar of Christ could ever be legitimated. His wrath against the chief agents in the political unification of Italy broke out again and again into envenomed speech. In what unmeasured terms he was disposed to excoriate Victor Emmanuel and his associates may be judged from the following apocalyptic passage: "Woe, then, to him and to them who have been the authors of so great scandal. The soil usurped will be as a volcano, that threatens to devour the usurpers in its flames. The petitions of millions of Catholics cry aloud before God, and are echoed by those of the protecting saints who sit near to the throne of the Omnipotent him- self, and point out to him the profanations, the im- pieties, the acts of injustice, and make their appeal to God's remedies." 1 Aside from these instances of wrathful censure Pius IX probably gave in his later years no more significant speci- men of his infallible sovereignty than that contained in the extraordinary honor which he bestowed upon Liguori in pronouncing him a Doctor of the Church (1871). In manifold ways this was a genuine piece of Ultramontane administration, since Liguori was distinguished by ex- traordinary devotion to the cult of the Virgin, by indus- trious advocacy of the high papal theories, and by such 1 Cited by Gladstone, Speeches of Pius IX, p. 19. 130 THE ROMAN TYPE conspicuous affiliation with the casuistry of the Jesuits that they could recognize in his elevation a pontifical approval of their order as well as a deserved recompense for their exceptional services to the cause of papal absolu- tism. Thus, to crown Liguori was a consistent supple- ment to the work of the Vatican Council. As such naturally it claimed very scanty respect from those who were not well affected toward the proceedings of the council. Dollinger declared it the greatest monstrosity that had ever occurred in the domain of theological doc- trine an unmitigated scandal, thus to raise to the plane of an Augustine "a man whose false morals, perverse worship of the Virgin, constant use of the grossest fables and forgeries, make his writings a storehouse of errors and lies." 1 At a later date Dollinger gave a pretty fair justification of this strong impeachment of Liguori's trustworthiness. 2 In Leo XIII (1878-1903) it is quite just to recognize a man of larger learning, wider outlook, and more prudent regard for the demands of skilled diplomacy than was Pius IX. But whatever tribute may be paid to his personal accomplishments and official aptitudes, the fact is not to be ignored that his pontificate was in a straight line with that of his predecessor as regards the distinctive features of Ultramontane administration. In the first place, it was marked by industrious patronage of sentimental devotion. We greatly doubt whether any pope besides in the whole list has made so ample a record in this matter. In repeated messages, many of them addressed to the whole Roman Catholic world, Leo XIII 1 Declarations and Letters on the Vatican Decrees, pp. 119, 120. * Dollinger und Reusch, Moralstreitigkeiten in der romisch-katholischen Kirche, 1889. See in particular I. 396-412. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 131 took pains formally to commend the cult of the Virgin. Moreover, he was conspicuously alert to magnify the virtue of her good offices in messages having a main relation to other themes. It would be difficult to imagine a deeper sense of dependence upon measureless might and grace than comes to expression in such declarations as the following: "In the heart of the Romans is the ancient devotion to the mother of the Saviour; but now, in consideration of the more pressing peril, let us recur more frequently and with intenser ardor to her who has crushed the serpent and conquered all heresies." "We consider that no means could be more efficacious than our gaining by the religious practice of the veneration due to her, the favor of the sublime mother of God, the Virgin Mary, depositary of our peace with God and dis- penser of celestial graces, who has been placed at the highest summit of heavenly power and glory that she might aid mankind on its way of toil and peril toward the eternal city. It has always been the principal and most solemn care of Catholics, in troublous affairs and uncertain times, to flee to Mary for refuge and to repose upon her maternal goodness. By this is plainly shown not only the most certain hope, but also the confidence which the Catholic Church has always placed with good reason in the mother of God." "We should take refuge in Mary, in her whom the Church rightly and deservedly calls salvation-bringer, helper, and deliverer." "We wish that, constantly and without interruption, recourse should be had in the Church to God and to the great Virgin of the Rosary, the strongest aid of Christians, at whose power tremble even the magnates of the abyss." "The most holy Virgin, as she was the bearer of Jesus 13* THE ROMAN TYPE Christ, is the mother of all Christians, whom indeed she bore at Mount Calvary amid the supreme pains of the Redeemer." "As no one can come to the supreme Father except through the Son, so, it might almost be said, no one can come to Christ except through the mother." "All grace [so reads an approved citation] which is com- municated to this age has a triple process. For in com- pletest order it is dispensed from God to Christ, from Christ to the Virgin, from the Virgin unto us." 1 Besides rendering these direct tributes to the Virgin, Leo XIII endeavored to manifest a worshipful heart toward her by the expenditure of unexampled zeal in promoting reli- gious devotion to her spouse. 2 The motive for the ex- penditure finds clear expression in these words of the pontiff: "The fact that the worship of Saint Joseph is advanced daily and that affectionate devotion to him is on the increase may certainly be expected to be pleasing and acceptable to Mary, the immaculate mother of God, whose favor we are strongly confident of earning by. this means." 3 With this absorbing cultivation of the worship of the saints Leo XIII combined, as we should expect, a high estimate of the religious efficacy of the relics of the saints. A sufficient token of his profound appreciation of these tangible sources of piety appears in his approving reference to the verdict of John of Damascus : "The bodies of the saints are perennial foun- tains in the Church, from which, like streams of salva- tion, celestial gifts and all those things of which we 1 See in order Epist. ad Card. Vicarium Monaco la Valetta, June 26, 1878; Encyc., Sept. i, 1883; Encyc., Aug. 30, 1884; Epist. ad Card. Vicarium Parocchi, Oct. 31, 1886; Encyc., Aug. 15, 1889; Encyc., Sept. 22, 1891; Encyc., Sept. 8, 1894. 2 Encyc., Aug. 15, 1889; Litterae Apostol., Jan. 28, 1890, June 3, 1890, March 3, 1891. 3 Littene Apostol. de Festo S. losephi, June 3, 1890. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 133 stand in special need are poured forth to the Christian peoples." 1 In relation to a second feature of Ultramontane ad- ministration Leo XIII kept well up to the level of his predecessor. He was careful to maintain a high strain as respects the prerogatives of the Roman pontiff. In dealing with governments, it is true, he had too much discretion to provoke defiant or contemptuous responses by assuming the lordly tone of the ecclesiastical dictators of the middle ages. But, judged by their logical impli- cations, the claims which underlie his declarations could not be accounted modest even when placed alongside those of an Innocent III. As appears in an encyclical already cited at some length, he makes the instructions of the Roman pontiff the indisputable standard both of belief and conduct. "As a union of minds," he says, "requires perfect agreement in one faith, so it requires that wills be entirely subject and obedient to the Church and to the Roman pontiff, as to God. . . . Both that which ought to be believed and that which ought to be done the Church by divine right teaches, and in the Church the supreme pontiff. Wherefore the pontiff ought to be able to judge, in accordance with his author- ity, what the divine oracles contain, what doctrines ac- cord and what disagree with them; and in like manner to show what things are honorable, what are base. . . . It belongs to the pontiff not only to rule the Church, but in general so to order the action of Christian citizens that they may be in suitable accord with the hope of obtaining eternal salvation." 2 As a specimen of theocratic con- 1 Litterae Apostol. de Inventione Corpora S. Jacobi M., etc., Kal. Nov., 1884. * Encyc. de Praecipuis Civium Christianorum Officiis, Jan. 10, 1890. 134 THE ROMAN TYPE sciousness the above has scarcely been overmatched in the whole history of the papacy. And other utterances of Leo XIII are of kindred significance. We find him speaking of the pope as being for all Catholics "the mas- ter of their faith and the ruler of their consciences." 1 "In forming opinions," he says, "it is necessary to hold whatever things the Roman pontiffs have delivered or shall deliver, and to profess them openly as often as the case may demand." 2 Again he remarks : "The Church, by the will of God, is a perfect society ; and as it has its own laws, so it has its own magistrates, properly dis- tinguished as to grade of authority, of whom the chief is the Roman pontiff, by divine right set over the Church and subject to the authority and judgment of God alone." 3 An expression in the sentimental order, but not a little significant of a sense of official elevation, is con- tained in the following words addressed by the pope to pilgrims from Holland on occasion of the jubilee in 1893: "If, in the painful situation which we deplore, the supreme pontiff reproduces the dolorous image of Christ on Calvary, it seems also that he reproduces the glorious similitude expressed by the divine oracle, 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.' It is, in truth, just and consoling to con- sider how much love the nations bring more and more to the holy see, from which is derived in return an ever- increasing abundance of saving benefits." 4 As respects a third feature of Ultramontane adminis- tration Leo XIII distinctly transcended the record of 1 Epist. ad Card. Nina, Aug. 27, 1878. * Encyc. Immortale Dei, Nov. i, 1885. 1 Allocutio ad Cardinal es, June i, 1888. * Cited by Mgr. de T'Serclaes, Le Pape Leon XIII. vol. II, pp. 618,619. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 135 Pius IX. No other modern pontiff has labored with such tireless industry to enthrone over the higher educa- tion of the Roman Catholic world the mediaeval system of philosophy and theology. A negative expression of his zeal for this project was given in the condemnation visited upon the system of Rosmini (1887), who con- fessedly stood in the first rank of the philosophical writers of Italy in the nineteenth century. Why did Leo XIII consent to crown the assault which the Jesuits had kept up against the teaching of this distinguished man for a full generation? A good part, at least, of the explanation lies in the fact that Rosmini manifested a measure of sympathetic interest in the modern philoso- phies and was not very closely tied to the scholastic model. A token of this ground of censure appears in the approving reference to the study of Thomas Aquinas which was contained in the epistolary supplement to the sentence published by the Inquisition against the teaching of Rosmini, and which may safely be regarded as ac- commodated to the papal standpoint. But there is very little occasion to emphasize this negative expression of the purpose and ambition of Leo XIII. The positive expressions are so full and unambiguous that no one can misconstrue their import. In the light of them it is as plain as the day that Leo XIII considered it immensely important to anchor Roman Catholic scholarship to the scholastic philosophy and theology as embodied more especially in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Early in his pontificate he issued an encyclical to all the bishops of the Catholic world for the express purpose of com- mending the study of the scholastic system, or, to speak more precisely, the Thomistic system. This was fol- 136 THE ROMAN TYPE lowed by a brief declaring the angelic doctor patron of all Roman Catholic schools, as also by numerous other messages in- which the pontiff took pains to exalt the merits of the teaching of the great thirteenth-century scholastic. Indeed, it seems warrantable to say that, aside from his efforts to promote the cult of the Virgin, the pontiff was not more industriously devoted to any project than to that of hailing back philosophy and theology to the general type represented by Thomas Aquinas. 1 And his motive in all this strenuous endeavor was, of course, something more substantial than the mere gratification of personal fondness for an author. He was evidently moved by a keen sense of the demands of the scheme of papal absolutism and infallibility. To safeguard this scheme he considered it necessary to can- cel diversities in speculative thought, and to work toward a homogeneous system thoroughly in harmony with the unlimited sovereignty of the Roman pontiff. A very intelligible indication that this was the controlling con- sideration in his mind is contained in the character of the tribute paid to Aquinas in the following sentence : "That most sapient doctor always proceeds within the limits of the truth as one who not only never contends with God, but always adheres to him most closely and obediently, whatever may be the way in which he discloses his secrets; as one, also, who is not less sacredly obe- dient to the Roman pontiff, and who reverences the divine authority in him, and holds that to be subject 1 See Encyc., Aug. 4, 1879; Allocutio, March 7, 1880; Litterae Apostol. in forma brevis, Aug. 4, 1880; Epist. ad Episcppos Belgii, Aug. 3, 1881; Oratio, Jan. 18, 1885; Epist. ad Archiepisc. Baltimorensem, April 10, 1887; Epist. ad Archiepisc. et Episc. Bavanse, Dec. 22, 1887; Litterae Apostol. de Facultate Theol., Dec. 10, 1889; Litterae Apostol. de Hierarcnia in Mexico Ordinanda. 1891; Epist. ad Card. Goossens, March 7, 1894; Epist. ad Episcopos Peruvienses, May i, 1894. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 137 to the Roman pontiff is altogether necessary to salva- tion." 1 No further exposition is needed to show that Pius X was building on the foundation of his predecessor when, in his blast against "modernism," he gave command that the scholastic philosophy should be made the basis of sacred studies, and added that by the scholastic philoso- phy was meant especially that form of teaching which had been transmitted by Thomas Aquinas. 2 In short, the occasion to contrast Leo XIII either with his prede- cessor or with his successor, in respect of accommodation to modern ideas and tendencies, is very scanty. Anyone who looks beyond the form and color imparted to his communications by a good degree of diplomatic skill, and studies the essential content of his numerous instruc- tions to the faithful, will discover that he inculcated a system saturated through and through with premises agreeable to the ecclesiasticism of the thirteenth century. VI. CRITICISM OF THE DOGMA OF PAPAL SUPREMACY The dogma fails in a double sense of a biblical basis, and may properly be described as antiscriptural rather than scriptural. Within the limits of exegetical sobriety there is no possibility of establishing the assumption, so necessary to the dogma, that Peter was clothed with a constitutional primacy, or primacy of governing author- ity. As for the second necessary assumption, namely, the transference of the supposed constitutional primacy of Peter to the Roman bishop, a sane exegesis cannot 1 Epist. ad Archiepisc. et Episc. Bavariae, Dec. 22, 1887. 8 Encyc., Sept. 8, 1907. 138 THE ROMAN TYPE find for it the least semblance of a ground in the Scrip- tures. Relative to the first assumption it may be admitted that Christ spoke of Peter as a foundation, 1 though patristic / opinion was largely inclined to the contrary conclusion. 2 But why did Christ speak of Peter as a foundation? Manifestly because of his extraordinary confession. In the firm enlightened confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, Peter stood forth as the right kind of a man to do the work of a founder, as a suitable stone for the spiritual edifice that was to be raised in the world. In glad recognition of the character revealed in the illuminated utterance of the disciple, Christ made his response. It is perfectly gratuitous to put into that re- sponse any reference to official or governmental pre- eminence. The stress was upon the character of the true confessor, and a perfectly adequate meaning is given to the commendatory words when they are taken as a vivid prophetical picturing of the work which should ensue from that character. The fulfillment came in the first years of the history of the Christian Church. In that season of sharp trial the spirit of the heroic confessor in Peter, joined with natural aptitudes for leadership, armed him with superior might, and qualified him to do a work of foundation against which the gates of hell could not prevail. In his strong declaration at Caesarea Philippi, Christ drew aside for a moment the veil from this lumi- nous chapter in the record of the disciple, and evidently he did it in order to reward Peter on the spot for his great confession. Had there been an equal occasion to Matt. xvi. 18. 1 For the extensive list on that side see Langen, Das Vaticanische Dogma, I. 40-49- PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 139 prophesy over the other disciples, Christ could have said something about their function in the foundation of the Church. Respecting John he could have used words, in consideration of the ultimate influence of this disciple, scarcely less emphatic than those addressed to Peter ; and had it come within the range of practical discourse to speak of Paul, he could have applied to him with un- diminished emphasis the very same words which were addressed to the older apostle. Only a narrow and inter- ested exegesis can find occasion to take the description of Peter as a foundation in an exclusive sense. Indeed, the very Gospel in which the description occurs gives a clear intimation that it is not thus to be taken. While speaking in immediate conjunction with Peter's confession Christ mentioned him alone as a bearer of the keys, and as ful- filling the responsible office of binding and loosing. Nothing was said at that point about the other disciples. But we know from a subsequent passage that in the mind of Christ the prerogative of the keys was assigned to the disciples in common. To all of them he said: "What x things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 1 A plain suggestion is there-/ fore given that the lack of reference on a special occasion to their function as a foundation was in no wise designed to indicate that they were not to fulfill that function, or that one of their number was to achieve a fulfillment of it to which the others were not, in proportion to their con- secrated abilities, eligible. There is also in the same Gospel a further testimony to the fact that it was quite foreign to the mind of Christ to make distinctions among 1 Matt, xviii. 18. 140 THE ROMAN TYPE f the disciples in respect of essential prerogatives. "Ye know," he said, "that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you; but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant." 1 Moreover, the total neglect of any evangelist, aside from Matthew, to reproduce the words descriptive of Peter as a foundation may properly be taken as a sign that in the consciousness of the apostolic community these words were not understood to give that apostle the tremendous preeminence assigned to him by Romish exegesis. If we look beyond the Gospels, there is nothing dis- coverable in the New Testament which implies a consti- tutional primacy in Peter ; on the contrary, there is much that refutes the notion of such a primacy. A certain leadership he doubtless exercised, but it was a kind of leadership which superior personal qualities always call forth, just the kind which a masterful man in a senate or parliament naturally becomes invested with, though in point of constitutional prerogatives he remains precisely on a level with his colleagues. No scrap of extant his- tory pictures for Peter any different sort of leadership. It is not made apparent that on his own responsibility he ever appointed anyone to office in the primitive Chris- tian community, or sent anyone upon an ecclesiastical mission. He himself is said to have been sent by the apostles on a mission to the converts in Samaria. In connection with the Council of Jerusalem he is repre- sented to have figured simply as one of the chief speakers, 1 Matt. xx. 25, a6. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 141 neither being asked to submit nor to confirm the decrees which were enacted. In all the Pauline epistles there is no indication that the apostle to the Gentiles ever con- sidered himself as specially an agent of Peter or as sub- ject to his direction. Naturally, at an early stage in his ministry he took pains to confer with one who had been so prominent in the line of practical leadership. Any prudent and alert worker, anxious to make the best of the situation, would have done likewise. But how remote Paul was from the consciousness of any governmental supremacy of Peter is vividly indicated by the tone of his narrative in the Epistle to the Galatians. As appears in that narrative, he felt free to withstand Peter to his face on a point of conduct or practical administration. Fur- thermore, he signified in the same narrative, in that he described the apostle of the circumcision simply as one among several "reputed to be pillars," that he knew noth- ing about him as a monarch over the apostolic group. A token of an identical ignorance was given when, in cata- loguing the different ranks of the ministry, he mentioned first of all the apostles, and forebore to hint that there was any intermediary between them and Christ. The same disregard of an exceptional position of Peter was manifested in the description of Christians as built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. It would appear also that Paul never broached the notion to his Corin- thian disciples that Peter stood above the other apostles as the immediate bearer and exponent of Christ's author- ity, otherwise one section of them could hardly have counted it appropriate to make special allegiance to Christ antithetic to allegiance to Peter, and another section 142 THE ROMAN TYPE would have convicted themselves of folly in choosing the leadership of Paul over that of the far more exalted apostle. Evidently the Roman theory of the Petrine primacy had never dawned upon these Corinthians. It never emerged above the New Testament horizon. The revelator gives no token that it had ever come within the range of his vision. He saw apostolic names graven on the foundations of the wall of the heavenly city. He has not reported that one of these names was placed aloft and distinguished by emblems of official preeminence. Since Peter was a foundation as doing the work of a founder, and this work was dependent upon his character as a true confessor, literal heirship to his place in the foundation lies outside the range of rational construction. In respect of his office as apostle or missionary at large, he might transmit to a successor some of his functions; but to impute to him, in the character of a foundation, a line of successors would be very much like giving a line of successors to Adam as the first man, or to Wash- ington as the father of his country. Having no consti- tutional primacy he could not, of course, transmit any- thing of the sort to the Roman bishop or to any other selected official. As regards the New Testament, it is needless to say that it is as silent about the assumed transmission as the tombs of ancient Egypt. So far is it from reporting the transmission that it does not report even a single one of its necessary conditions. It does not certainly inform us that Peter was ever in Rome. Only through the assumption that the "Babylon" from which the apostle sends a salutation in his first epistle was a mystical name for the imperial capital is the least ground obtained in the apostolic writings for predicating a PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 143 Roman sojourn; and that assumption is greatly in need of a more thorough justification than it has ever received. Granting that Peter was in Rome, we cannot claim, in the light of New Testament data, that he was there for any considerable period, since, on the contrary supposi- tion, the total absence of any reference in the book of Acts and the Pauline epistles to his presence and labors there would be an enigma. No more can we claim, in view of the same data, that the apostle could have ful- filled the office of Roman bishop, inasmuch as the New Testament by speaking rather of "bishops" than of a bishop in connection with a Christian community, and also by apparently using the terms "bishops" and "pres- byters" interchangeably, affords very good ground for challenging the conclusion that the office of bishop in the customary sense of the term had yet been evolved in the apostle's day. Thus a necessary premise of the papal theory is destitute of sanction, not to say peremptorily excluded by New Testament evidence. We have not se- cured Peter to serve as bishop of Rome; and even if we had, what would be the result? We should simply have an instance in which an apostle, or missionary at large, condescended to do a piece of local administration, and his successor in the local station in the natural order of things would not succeed to his general office, any more than the pastor of a local church would return from his summer vacation a bishop, in case a bishop had con- descended to fulfill the pastoral office in the interim for the local congregation. The truth is, the representation that Peter acted as bishop of Rome, carried into that office a universal jurisdiction, and transmitted this to a successor in the local office, is not only absolutely void 144 THE ROMAN TYPE of basis in New Testament history, but glaringly in- congruous with the historical situation. It tramples all probability in the dust and overrides a whole line of scriptural implications. The representation is also dis- countenanced by the tenor of the postapostolic tradition respecting the primitive Roman episcopate, though a con- fusing element ere long came into that tradition through a tendency to judge early by existing conditions, through an ambition for high sanctions against opponents in con- troversy, and through romancing delineations of apos- tolic history in the pseudo Clementine literature. As reported by Irenaeus, our earliest and most trustworthy witness in the matter, the postapostolic tradition cannot fairly be credited with having placed Peter in the list of Roman bishops at all. It seems to have begun the count with Linus. "The blessed apostles," says Irenaeus, in his most detailed reference to the subject, "having founded and built up the church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus ; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bish- opric." 1 Going forward with his list, Irenaeus names the Roman bishops in order up to the twelfth, and among these Hyginus is ranked as the eighth. In a couple of other instances Hyginus, being mentioned by himself, is assigned the ninth place in the existing text of Irenseus. 2 In one of these instances he is named the ninth from the apostles, and in connection with both of them, old Latin versions afford a measure of authority for substituting eighth. Since in the itemized statement Cont. Haer. III. iii. j. a Cont. Haer. I. xxvii. i, III. iv. 3. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 145 Irenaeus most unequivocally makes Hyginus the eighth bishop, there is some ground for concluding with Har- nack that the text of this father has been tampered with in the two instances mentioned, so as to give it an appear- ance of agreement with the later and greatly expanded tradition relative to Peter's agency in the founding and early government of the Roman church. On the general theme of the evidence of the old Roman lists Harnack draws this conclusion: "It is certain that in Rome at the end of the second century Peter was not reckoned as bishop; for Irenasus expressly designates Sixtus as the sixth bishop and gives prominence to Paul as the founder of the Roman church not less than to Peter. Also still at the beginning of the third century Peter was not reckoned as the first Roman bishop; for the Roman author of the writing, which Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., v. 28) has copied, numbers Victor as the thirteenth bishop, and so does not reckon Peter in the list." 1 The explanation of the double fiction of Peter's con- stitutional primacy and of its transmission to the Roman bishop is nothing remote or hidden. The major part of it lies in the imperial greatness of Rome, and the residue in the apostolic associations of the Roman church. But for the mighty working of the former factor an entirely different theory of the location of the episcopal primacy might have resulted. Suppose, for example, that before the end of the first century Ephesus had become the un- rivaled seat of imperial greatness and glory, the famed center of the world power, and had continued to hold the proud distinction for a prolonged age. What in that event would have prevented the bishop of Ephesus from 1 Die Chronologic des altchristlichen Litteratur, I. 171, 173. 146 THE ROMAN TYPE arrogating to himself a full equivalent for all that came to be claimed by the bishop of Rome ? Certainly no rela- tive lack of a New Testament basis for a Johannine as compared with a Petrine primacy would have stood in the way of that result. What can create a higher title than love? Who then among the apostles could claim preeminence with so good a right as the disciple whom Jesus loved? Moreover, was it not intimated that pre- cisely this apostle should abide till the coming of his Lord? and how could this intimation gain an adequate fulfillment except through a line of Ephesian bishops in whom, so to speak, John should live and rule to the end of the dispensation? An argument of this kind for an Ephesian primacy is every whit as good as that which can be made, on a New Testament basis, for a Roman primacy. But Ephesus was not the center of world em- pire, and her bishop too plainly lacked the means of mag- nifying himself into a lord of Christendom to permit in him the necessary hope and courage for such an en- terprise. The imperial associations and secular importance of Rome necessarily secured for the resident bishop, at a comparatively early date, a special degree of prominence, entirely irrespective of his constitutional prerogatives. Nevertheless, in the ante-Nicene period, he nowhere at- tained to a genuine papal standing, or position of govern- ing authority over the Church at large. As for the type of absolutism asserted by the Vatican Council, no one dreamed of such a thing in that age. Among all the flattering tributes which naturally accrued to the Roman bishop as the head of. the church in the great capital not one contemplates him as the possessor of a general and PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 147 independent sovereignty. A good part of them have so little significance for church polity that they might prop- erly pass without mention had not the anxious apologist placed them on exhibition. Here belongs the reference of Ignatius to the Roman church as having a "presi- dency of love." 1 The phrase occurs in a catalogue of laudatory epithets, and ample justice is done to it when it is treated simply as a compliment to the spirit of charity and brotherly ministering characteristic of the Christian society at Rome. It is the society, not the bishop, which is the subject of the commendation. In fact, Ignatius ignores the existence of the bishop, and seems besides not to have supposed the Roman see to be the special patrimony of Peter, since he places Paul on a parity with Peter when naming those who had formerly laid commandments on the Roman Christians. With scarcely more propriety than the martyr bishop of An- tioch is Tertullian brought onto the witness stand. It is true that Tertullian is on record as calling the Roman bishop "Pontifex Maximus, the bishop of bishops." 2 But the very use of a distinctively heathen title was a token of irony, and Tertullian left no doubt about his ironical intent by associating the high-sounding phrase with a decree of the Roman prelate which he declared could not be posted with propriety except "on the very gates of the sensual appetites." 3 So far from paying here a tribute of respect, Tertullian was employing his rhetorical gift to devise a condensed formula for giving expression to defiance and scorn. A third supposed in- stance of respect to Roman supremacy, if not quite so completely groundless as the foregoing, has no real sig- 1 Epist. ad Rom., L * De Pudicitia. i. Ibid., i. 148 THE ROMAN TYPE nificance. We refer to the character of the reply made by Dionysius of Alexandria to the Roman bishop of the same name, who on occasion of adverse reports about the teaching of the former wrote an epistle in exposition of what he considered to be the true faith. The reply of the Alexandrian bishop was doubtless in an irenic vein. It was such a letter, however, as any prudent and peace- loving man who wished to avert a threatened disturbance might have written. There was no acknowledgment in it of the supremacy of the Roman see. The incident may betoken that among would-be leaders in ecclesiastical af- fairs, at the middle of the third century, the Roman bishop felt his own importance to a very considerable degree; but it furnishes no evidence whatever in the direction of a papal constitution of the Church. Among all the supposed witnesses, in the ante-Nicene period, to the supremacy of the Roman bishop, Irenaeus and Cyprian are given the greatest prominence. This results from the fact that each of them, under stress of controversy, used a phrase or two which can be made, when taken out of the proper connections, to imply an exceptional place for the church in Rome.- Both of them nevertheless are exceedingly perilous witnesses for the Roman cause. The words of Irenaeus which are as- sumed to be so very significant are preserved only in a Latin version. This runs as follows: "Ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conser- vata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio." 1 In determin- ing the force of this sentence not a little depends upon the ' Cont. Haer., III. iii. a. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 149 meaning assigned to convenire ad. If the phrase is ren- dered "to agree with," then some sort of an obligation to agree with the church at Rome is apparently affirmed. On the other hand, if the phrase is supposed to signify "to convene at," or "come together to," the sentence would import that on account of the practical necessity which exists for men to come to Rome from all sections, the Roman church has the benefit of testimony from all sides, and is especially suited to serve as a depository of valid tradition. The latter interpretation accords with the meaning borne by convenire ad in the Vulgate, and some countenance has recently been given to it by Roman Catholic scholars as well as by Protestant students of ecclesiastical history. 1 But suppose the alternative interpretation is adopted, and Irenaeus is understood to say that, on account of the superior primitiveness or authority of the Roman church, it is necessary to agree with this church, has he given us even then a lesson on a primacy of governing authority vested in the Roman bishop? Nothing of the sort. He has not mentioned the bishop; he has mentioned only the Chris- tian church at Rome. And about this church he has said nothing in respect of governing authority, but has merely emphasized a certain superiority belonging to it as a witness to the genuine apostolic teaching. The whole context shows that the only authority of which he was thinking was that which sprang from superior opportunities to know the truth, and the only obligation which he affirmed was the obligation to consult a spe- cially trustworthy source of information. And even as a 1 Consult Bright, The Roman See in the Early Church; Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome. ISO THE ROMAN TYPE source of information the Roman church was not ac- corded by him a thoroughly exceptional position. The special appeal to the Roman church was made as a matter of convenience. In his great task of refuting the Gnostics, Irenaeus wished to set forth a corrective to their arbitrary interpretations. He pointed, therefore, to the fact that there were numerous churches in which the apostles had labored, and in which the truths which they had preached had been handed down by a continuous line of successors. Since it would be a long-drawn process to mention all these churches and to prove a continuous succession in each of them, he said that he would select one which had enjoyed special advantages for appropriating and perpetuating Christian doctrine "the very great, the very ancient, and universally known church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul." Thus in perfectly unambiguous terms he puts the Roman church in a class with other churches which had enjoyed the personal supervision of the apostles. Moreover, the significance of the selection of Rome is appreciably reduced when account is taken of the location of Irenaeus, since he wrote in the West, and the Roman was the only apostolic church in that section of the empire. His standpoint may properly be regarded as identical with that represented by Tertullian when the latter said that outside of the Scriptures appeal ought to be made to the churches of apostolic origin and association; Christians in the East appealing to Smyrna, Corinth, Philippi, and Ephesus, while Christians in Italy could most conveniently resort to Rome. 1 And the inference which thus is dictated by 1 De Prescript. Haeret., xxxii, xxxvi. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 151 the tenor of his most complimentary reference to the Roman church finds powerful confirmation in his con- duct. In the Easter controversy he made it evident that he knew nothing about a supremacy of the Roman bishop over the Church at large by going straight in the face of the policy of Victor and industriously opposing his measures. "Not only to Victor," says Eusebius, "but likewise to most of the other rulers of the churches, he sent letters of exhortation on the agitated question." 1 The maximum tribute of Cyprian to the Roman see is contained in the expression, Petri cathedra atque ecclesia principalis unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est "the chair of Peter and the principal church, whence sacerdotal unity has arisen." 2 Two things need to be noticed re- specting these words. They occur in the midst of a fiery denunciation of certain excommunicated persons, who had given Cyprian an infinitude of trouble, and whose attempt to gain support in Rome he wished to picture as being in itself a kind of assault on the dignity of the Roman episcopate as represented by the Cornelius to whom he was writing. The connection dictated that he should say his very best word for the Roman church and episcopal chair. Again, it is to be observed that Cyprian in employing the above language spoke as a man of the West, with his outlook substantially limited by a western horizon. As the great missionary center of the West the Roman church could be described with measurable pro- priety as the mother church of that region, the point from which the ecclesiastical organism had been extended in all directions. But the description, if applied to the entire Christian area, would be simply false; and it is 1 Hist. Eccl., v. 34. * Epist. Hv, Ad Cornelium, 14. 152 THE ROMAN TYPE scarcely to be presumed that Cyprian had any sober in- tention to sanction such a trespass against historic truth. In throwing out a complimentary phrase he did not stop to distinguish closely between what was pertinent to the apostle Peter and what was pertinent to the Roman church. His view respecting the providential employ- ment of Peter to symbolize ecclesiastical unity he has taken pains to set before us in another connection. Stripped of the forged clauses, which were interpolated near the end of the sixth century, his statement runs as follows: "Although to all the apostles, after his resur- rection, he gives an equal power, and says, 'As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you: Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto him; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they shall be re- tained'; yet that he might set forth unity, he arranged by his authority the origin of that unity, as beginning from one. Assuredly the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed with a like partnership both of honor and power; but the beginning proceeds from unity, which one Church, also, the Holy Spirit in the Song of Songs designated in the person of our Lord, and says, 'My dove, my spotless one, is but one.' "* The passage is doubtless a specimen of the fanciful exegesis often found among the fathers, but its meaning is quite obvious. Twice over the assertion occurs that the other apostles were endowed with the same power or authority as was Peter. His distinction consisted simply in the fact that his share of authority just equal to that of the others received a prior mention, in order that he might serve to symbolize the appropriate unity of the De Unitate Ecclesiz, 4. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 153 Church. Having no exceptional supremacy, he could not, of course, transmit any. And it is matter of com- plete demonstration that in the thought of Cyprian he was not understood to have passed over to the Roman bishop any extraordinary prerogatives. The very titles by which the Carthaginian prelate names the Roman are not a little significant. He calls him, not sanctissimus dominus or anything of the kind, but just "brother" or "col- league." In his formal theory, too, he makes no room for a papal dignitary within the episcopal body. He represents the bishops as constituting one great fraternity, a unity accordant with the oneness of the Church, each member of which inheres in the whole body and is re- sponsible thereto. "This unity," he says, "we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the Church, that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole." 1 The stress is here upon the relation of each bishop to the entire episcopal body, not upon the relation of all the rest to some one exalted to a posi- tion of lordship. The logical implication of the repre- sentation is that the supreme authority is lodged in the whole body and cannot be assumed by one member with- out gross usurpation. This implication Cyprian took pains to express in unambiguous terms in the controversy with the Roman bishop Stephen on the subject of the rebaptism of heretics. Addressing an assembly of North African bishops, he said: "It remains that upon this matter each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting anyone from the right of De Unitate Ecclesiae, 5. 154 THE ROMAN TYPE communion, if he should think differently from us. For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience ; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another." 1 Since this strong language, as Hefele admits to be probable, 2 was directed against the obtrusive policy of Stephen, it amounts to a clear-cut and comprehensive denial of any constitutional supremacy of the Roman bishop over the Church at large. And Cyprian's conduct throughout was in line with the formal denial. On the question of rebaptism he refused to make the least con- cession to the demands of Stephen. In connection with another matter, also, he denied any superior jurisdiction in the Roman bishop, giving counsel to the Spanish churches not to reverse the action by which they had excluded the bishops Martialis and Basilides, who had betrayed the authorities at Rome into espousing their cause. "Neither can it rescind," he wrote, "an ordination rightly perfected, that Basilides, after the detection of his crimes, and the baring of his conscience even by his own confession, went to Rome and deceived Stephen our colleague, placed at a distance, and ignorant of what had been done, and of the truth, to canvass that he might be replaced unjustly in the episcopate from which he had been righteously deposed." 3 In short, it is the height of absurdity, in the light of his explicit declara- tions, to suppose that Cyprian accorded to the Roman 1 The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian, A.D. 256. Conciliengeschichte, 6. ' Epist. Ixvii, 8 5- PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 155 bishop anything like a papal standing in the later sense. Some of the contemporaries of Cypi lan also made a very unmistakable manifestation of their anti-papal standpoint. This was notably the case with Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. In a letter to Cyprian he charged Stephen with practical defection from the plain instructions of Peter and Paul, with a captious and quar- relsome bearing toward the bishops in various parts of Christendom, with breaking the bond of peace, making himself a stranger in all respects to his brethren, and rebelling against the sacrament and the faith with the madness of contumacious discord. 1 This is not the pic- ture of an infallible vicegerent. It is rather the picture of a headstrong and meddlesome colleague. Another Eastern contemporary of Cyprian, namely, Origen of Alexandria, might be asked to witness on the present theme. His statements, however, are rather in- determinate. On the one hand, he spoke in a high, not to say fanciful, strain respecting Peter's place in the spiritual kingdom 2 ; on the other hand, he represented the apostles generally as being equally with Peter intrusted with the keys, and as fulfilling in relation to the founda- tion of the Church the same office which was appointed to him. Indeed, he judged that all true confessors are entitled to the honorary name which was given to the illustrious apostolic confessor." 3 The rating of the Roman bishop by the Church at large is one thing; attempts on the part of the Roman bishops to magnify their importance and to extend their jurisdic- tion are quite another thing. It lay in the nature of the 1 Epist. Ixxiv in works of Cyprian. 4 Comm. in Matt., xiii. 31; Comm. in Epist. ad Rom., lib. v, n. 10- 1 Comm. in Matt., xii. 10, n, 14. 156 THE ROMAN TYPE case that in connection with the progressive evolution of the episcopate something in the way of such attempts should occur. Their forthcoming, as previously re- marked, is in no sense a testimony to the primitive con- stitution of the Church. It would have been necessary to suppress the operation of ordinary mundane causes in order to prevent their appearance. The stimulus of the imperial associations of their charge naturally gave a Caesarian tinge to the consciousness of the Roman bishops. As heads over the church in the great capital, they could easily be tempted to think that their advices to their brethren ought to be specially potent, and that a certain forwardness in giving advices, as corresponding with the opportunities providentially attached to their high position, would be rather obligatory than blame- worthy. For the ante-Nicene period, however, there is only moderate occasion to contrast what was claimed by the Roman bishops with what was conceded to them. Some instances there were of self-inflation, some cases of rather intemperate endeavors to push forward preferred policies or points of view; but the prelate who applied to himself the full papal measure, or dared to assert a constitutional supremacy over the whole Church, is no- where disclosed. He is not disclosed in Clement; for, while this representative of the Roman see sent, in the name of the Roman Christians, a letter of advice to the Corinthian church, the tone of the communication was rather that of the preacher, convinced of the truth of his message and of the consequent obligation of those ad- dressed to give it good heed, than that of the ecclesiastical magnate. Even in Victor the proper figure of a pope is not discoverable. He undertook, indeed, to excom- PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 157 municate the churches of proconsular Asia and its neigh- borhood, because of their divergent position on the time of the Eastern festival. 1 But this harsh sentence, in the absence of the concurrence of other bishops, meant only the withdrawal of the fellowship of the local church of Rome. As the concurrence was not rendered, Victor seems to have been stranded in his high-handed proce- dure, and to have deemed it prudent to beat a retreat. So little, in fact, is he exhibited by his total performance as an ecclesiastical lord, that he would distinctly have improved the record on the side of papal claims had he exchanged places with the bishop of Lyons. "Suppose," remarks Salmon, "it had been Irenseus who had rashly broken communion with the Asiatic churches; suppose that Victor had then written a letter to Irenaeus, sharply rebuking him, and had also written to the other bishops, warning them not to separate from those who had been unwarrantably excommunicated ; and suppose that in con- sequence of this action of Victor's the threatened schism had been averted, would not that have been paraded as a decisive proof of papal supremacy? and certainly it would be one far stronger than any which, as things are, early church history can furnish." 2 With the case of Victor we naturally associate that of Stephen. Nothing needs to be added to what was said above to indicate the perfect freedom with which the latter, no less than the former, was resisted by the contemporary bishops. The evidence goes to show that he was of a somewhat aggres- sive and assertatory temper; but that he ever formulated a distinctive papal claim is not on record. A prelate in any one of the great metropolitan seats might have mani- 1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v. 24. The Infallibility of the Church, p. 386. 158 THE ROMAN TYPE fested essentially the same ambitious use of official power and influence. Indeed, a fairly good parallel was fur- nished later by such aggressive exponents of episcopal rule in Alexandria as Cyril and Dioscurus. So along the whole line from Linus to Sylvester the man who played the full role of a pope, or even undertook to do so, is not discernible. The extent to which the Roman bishops projected themselves into the affairs of the Church was even smaller than might have been expected. There is ground for concluding that many of them must have been men of mediocre abilities, and that scarcely one in the list was comparable with Cyprian in respect of execu- tive force. A reference may perhaps be expected to an imperial judgment in favor of the Roman see, namely, that which was rendered by Aurelian for the purpose of determining who should hold the church edifice in Antioch, whether the deposed Paul of Samosata or the one installed in his place. The judgment was to the effect that those should hold the edifice with whom the Christian bishops in Italy and in the city of the Romans should communicate. 1 This decision shows, as might be expected, the respect of the emperor for the primacy of Italy. But it is very equivocal evidence for any special preeminence of the Roman bishop. On the basis of a monarchical constitu- tion of the Church, known and acknowledged as such, it would be a strange procedure to coordinate the bishops of all Italy with their Roman brother, and besides to name him after them. 2 The absence of any credible basis for the dogma of 1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., vii. 30. 1 Compare Bright, The Roman See in the Early Church, pp. 56, 57. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 159 papal supremacy either in Scripture or in the records of the ante-Nicene Church involves the conclusion that it could be installed only by a veritable tour de force. Had it been any part of the revelation committed to the apos- tles it could not, as being of immense practical signifi- cance, have been kept out of the knowledge and recogni- tion of Christendom for three centuries. But failing to claim a satisfactory basis in the apostolic revelation, writ- ten or oral, it could never legitimately become any part of the essential Christian system ; for it is an approved maxim of Roman Catholic theology that nothing which is not based in that primary revelation can attain the rank of dogma. s In reviewing that portion of the patristic era which followed the Council of Nicaea it is necessary, in the interest of a fair estimate of evidence, to respect certain premises which are likely to be slighted by the apologist, though he would hesitate formally to challenge their cor- rectness. In the first place, the truth properly claims\ recognition that the sphere of constitutional right cannot j safely be measured by the sphere of actual influence. J There was obviously a tendency on the side of the latter \ to overreach the former. Suppose, for instance, that the/ Roman bishop, at the date of the Nicene Council, had attained at least the initial standing of a patriarch, in virtue of which a certain primacy of jurisdiction, not very definitely determined, was accorded to him over a considerable section of the West. That degree of distinc- tion would almost inevitably work for the further exten- sion of his practical agency. The constitution of the Church might absolutely refuse to recognize any higher 160 THE ROMAN TYPE character in him than that of patriarch; but as patriarch of imperial Rome he would have a certain advantage over his colleagues, a certain primacy of honor. People looking around for a powerful patron would experience a motive to appeal to him where there seemed to be a fair possibility of gaining his cooperation. So the invitation and the opportunity would be given to extend his influ- ence beyond the limits of his jurisdiction proper. An apt illustration of what would naturally take place under such conditions is afforded by the history of the Anglican Church. "The jurisdiction of the archbishop of Canter- bury is confined to the province of Canterbury; but just because he is, by the consent of all, acknowledged to be the first bishop on the roll of the Anglican episco- pate, therefore his influence extends throughout the whole Anglican communion. He naturally presides in the Lam- beth Conference ; he has the chief share in deciding what subjects shall be discussed there ; his advice is continually asked in regard to matters occurring in the colonial churches ; in a very true sense the care of all the churches is upon him ; and all this comes to him simply because he is the first. No canon gives him this influence ; nor does that influence arise out of his pretending to any primacy by divine right." 1 As in this Anglican instance influence outran jurisdiction proper, so is it enormously probable that in the Roman instance influence passed beyond the constitutional limits of jurisdiction. A discovery, there- fore, of the hand of the Roman bishop in affairs beyond the borders of his patriarchate, in the post-Nicene age, would be no adequate proof that the constitution of the Church was papal rather than patriarchal at the 1 Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome, p. 9. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 161 opening of that age, or even for a long interval after- ward. A second thoroughly warranted premise or maxim N may be given expression in the proposition that highly rhetorical tributes rendered by individuals, and especially by individuals interested to secure the favor of a powerful patron, have a very limited right to be taken as repre- senting the standpoint or judicial verdict of an age. /IT is questionable, indeed, whether such tributes can be taken as fairly representing the individuals uttering them. The case of Jerome is illustrative. In one connection he wrote to the Roman bishop in this strain: "I speak with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of the cross. Giving precedence to no one except Christ, I am joined in communion with thy blessed eminence, that is, the chair of Peter. I know that upon that rock the Church has been built." 1 Undoubtedly there is a savor of incense in these words; and there was occasion for it, for Jerome at the time of writing was under stress as respects his reputation for orthodoxy. 2 When less in need of a favorable judgment of the Roman magnate, Jerome could pen words having a very different sound, as appears in the following: "If authority is sought, the world is greater than a city. Wherever a bishop may have been stationed, whether at Rome, Eugubium, Con- stantinople, Regium, Alexandria, or Tanis, he is of the same merit, and the same priesthood. Neither the power of riches nor the lowliness of poverty makes a bishop more or less exalted. But all are successors of the apos- tles." 3 On occasion he could so absolutely ignore the 1 Epist. xv, ad Damasum. Dollinger und Friedrich, Das Papstthum. Neubearbeitung von Janus, 1892, p. n; Epist. cxlvi, ad Evangelum. i<52 THE ROMAN TYPE demands of the Roman theory of episcopal primacy as to favor the supposition that episcopacy as a whole had no place in the original ecclesiastical constitution, the churches primarily having been governed by the common counsel of presbyters. 1 Much the same order of comment applies to the complimentary reference of Optatus of Mileve to the position of the Roman bishop. "You can- not affect ignorance," he says to an opponent, "of the fact that the episcopal chair was first established by Peter in the city of Rome, in which Peter sat, the head of all the apostles, in which one chair unity should be maintained by all ; that the other apostles should not each set up a chair for himself, but that he should be at once a schismatic and a sinner who should erect any other against that one chair." 2 Herein the North African father went apparently a long stride beyond Cyprian's representation of Peter as simply a means of symbolizing unity; indeed, he penned a sentence which can hardly be matched from the literature of the fourth century in the extent of its tribute to Roman claims. But can his emphatic words be taken as a trustworthy expression of his entire attitude toward Rome? There are good reasons for believing that it would be rash so to take them. Optatus was in the mood of the anxious and hard-pressed disputant. He was arguing against the great aggressive faction of Donatists, and it suited the controversial demand to magnify the importance of com- munion with that ancient apostolic church which had remained from the first generation of believers the center of Western Christendom. He makes use of a very intel- ligible object lesson to convince his opponents of their 1 Comm. in Epist. ad Titum, i. 5. * DC Schis. Donat., ii. a. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 163 reprehensible schism. But suppose that Optatus had been confronted by an emergency of an opposite char- acter, such as an attempt by the Roman bishop to inter- fere with the local rights and privileges customarily enjoyed in North Africa. Would he have thought it necessary or appropriate, in that event, to emphasize the need of harmonious relations with Rome ? It is the next thing to an absolute certainty that he would have done nothing of the sort. He was in all probability of like passions with other North Africans, and we know with what decision, within a few decades of the time when Optatus wrote the cited treatise, they repelled the inter- meddling of the Roman bishops in their affairs. In synods convened at Carthage in 407 and 418 they laid an injunction upon the clergy, at least upon all below the rank of bishop, to be content with African tribunals, and even denounced permanent exclusion from the African Church against those who should appeal to authorities beyond the sea. We conclude, then, that the Romanizing sentence which Optatus flung at the Donatists did not more than half express his own mind. In general, phrases of this order, on record for the post-Nicene age, are subject to discount on the score of their occasion. They sprang out of the tense conditions of one of the most desperately controversial epochs in all history. The major part of their explanation lies here, though some account may be made of a bent to rhetorical effervescence characteristic of the time. Why should not the fathers speak in high-sounding terms of Peter and his reputed successors? They were not sparing of grandiloquent words in describing other persons of rank and distinc- tion. Gregory Nazianzen lauded Cyprian as a kind of 164 THE ROMAN TYPE universal pastor, who "presided not only over the church of Carthage and over Africa, but also over all the coun- tries of the West, and well-nigh over all the region of the East, of the South, and of the North." 1 Hesychius, a presbyter of Jerusalem, called James "the commander- in-chief of the new Jerusalem, the ruler of priests, the prince of apostles." 2 Epiphanius described James as the one "to whom the Lord first intrusted his throne upon earth," 3 and Chrysostom named John "a pillar of the churches throughout the world" and Paul an "apostle of the world." 4 Even the staid Leo the Great could go so far in the language of compliment as to ascribe to the contemporary emperor a faith proof against all error. 5 tanifestly, where so free a range was given to rhetorical license, it is needful to scan very closely the tributes j which specially circumstanced individuals may have paid to the Roman bishop, before taking them at their face value. * / Extending the statement just made, we may lay down, as a third warrantable premise, that the word or act of an interested party or group is not hastily to be accepted as a true index of the antecedent or existing constitution of the Church. It is not established, for example, that an assembly thoroughly representative of the whole Church would have voted in favor of such canons as were enacted by the Council of Sardica in 343. By these canons it was provided that a deposed bishop, who considered himself to have been dealt with unjustly, should have the right to appeal to the Roman bishop; that the latter, in case he should deem the appeal well- 1 Orat., xxiv. 12. * Apud Photium, Bibliotheca, cclxxv. ' User., Ixxii. 4 Cited by Barrow, Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy, 1818, p. 112. 6 Epist. clxii. 3. Nee fidei vestrae ullus possit error illudere. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 165 founded, should be authorized to make up a new tribunal from the bishops in the neighborhood of the accused, and, if thought best, to send legates who should have a place in said tribunal ; that the office of the bishop thus appealing should not be filled until Rome had either con- firmed his sentence or provided for a new trial. This legislation, dictated by a sense of the deplorable lot to which unoffending bishops were often reduced in the fierce contentions of the time, makes the most conspicu- ous instance of deference to the Roman bishop afforded by any fourth century council. The historians Socrates 1 and Sozomen, 2 it is true, represent Julius of Rome as appealing to a canon which provided that nothing should be done in the Church without the consent of the Roman bishop. But the appeal seems to have been destitute of a proper warrant. No competent authority, not to say any synodal authority whatever in the ancient Church, ever passed such a canon. The legislation at Sardica evidently merits no such broad description. Moreover, the council which passed the Sardican canons was essen- tially an assembly of Western bishops. As respects the import of their action, it is doubtless to be said that it indicated a readiness to honor the Roman bishop; but so far was it from bringing to manifestation a papal con- stitution of the Church that it put the opposite on exhi- bition. The official whose prerogative, in case of conflict- ing claims to an episcopal position, was limited to a choice between ratifying the decision of the local tribunal and the provision of a new trial, and who besides, instead of holding this prerogative by a right inherent in his posi- tion, needed to have it conferred by a legislative act of 1 Hist. Eccl., ii. 17. Hist. Eccl., iii. 10. 166 THE ROMAN TYPE an assembly, was no true pope in the later sense, and was separated by a whole diameter from the Vatican type. / Over against the language of compliment and contro- versial finesse put forth by individuals, the post-Nicene age presents us with one great and decisive fact. The collective voice of the Church never once in that age recognized in the Roman bishop a constitutional suprem- acy over the entire ecclesiastical domain. No one of the first six ecumenical councils, not to mention later assem- blies, acknowledged in him any higher character than that of patriarch. Within the patriarchal system one or another of them may have granted to him a loosely de- fined honorary precedence. This much naturally resulted from the force of historical associations. The honorary precedence, as was clearly intimated both by the Council of Constantinople and by that of Chalcedon, was due to the distinction of the Roman patriarchate as being in- clusive of the ancient imperial city. 1 It involved no special prerogative for the Roman bishop outside of his patriarchate; and the Council of Chalcedon indicated as much by affirming for the patriarch of Constantinople the same prerogatives as were exercised by his Roman colleague an assignment contradictory to the supposi- tion that the authority of the former within the limits of his patriarchate could be crossed by that of the latter. Now this absolute arrest of ecumenical legislation at the outlining of the patriarchal system has the virtue of an historical demonstration. It shows beyond the possibility of reasonable challenge that the Church of that age, taken as a whole, knew nothing of a monarchical constitution, 1 See the sixth canon of Constantinople and the twenty-eighth of Chalce- don. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 167 and had no intention to create such a constitution. The pope may have been there incipiently, or in the sense that a masterful personality on the episcopal throne of ancient Rome could be counted on to employ the advantages of his position to push his influence and to enlarge the circle of his practical administration. Leo the Great (440-461) and Gregory the Great (590-604) did this to a conspicu- ous degree, and sometimes manifested a sense of official importance that was not remote from a papal conscious- ness. 1 But the pope, as a recognized factor of the ecclesi- astical constitution, was not there. It is simply prepos- terous to suppose that he could have been there and yet not come to notice in a single sentence of ecumenical legislation. Amid the enormous agitations of those cen- turies he could not possibly have been kept out of sight in the great representative assemblies. Nothing above a patriarch with a loosely defined honorary primacy was visible, because, from the point of view of the constitu- tion, as generally interpreted, nothing higher was in existence. And this ignoring of the idea of the papacy in the legislation of the councils is paralleled in no small degree in the patristic literature. Writers make no ref- erence to it in instances where they could hardly have escaped mentioning it had the knowledge of its existence been in their minds. Take, for example, the representa- tions of a man who was so much exercised about ranks, earthly and celestial, as the pseudo Dionysius. Had he been aware of the existence of ecclesiastical monarchy in his time probably near the end of the fifth century he would doubtless have pictured the ecclesiastical mon- 1 See Leo, Epist. x, xii, civ; Serm. iii-v; Gregory, Epist. v. 18, 20, ai; ix. 68. 168 THE ROMAN TYPE arch. But he has not done so. In a specification of the grades of the hierarchy he stops short of monarchy, and ends with coordinate dignitaries. Mentioning as the highest rank apostles and their successors, he says: "If any of these should make a slip, let him be corrected by those who are coordinate with him." 1 An equivalent picture of ecclesiastical ranks was sketched by Isidore of Seville in the seventh century. He left the papal monarch out of consideration, and enumerated patriarchs, arch- bishops, metropolitans, and bishops as constituting the four ranks of the episcopate. 2 In view of this line of description it becomes doubtful whether the authors of the most flattering references to the dignity of the Roman bishop put into their words the proper papal sense. Even within the limits of the patriarchal regime, they could place, especially when writing from a Western standpoint, no little emphasis on communion with Rome as a means of conserving ecclesiastical unity. In any event the thor- oughly dominant judgment of the Church in the post- Nicene period recognized no higher rank than the patri- archal. The Vatican theory that bishops universally owe their right of exercising jurisdiction to the Roman bishop was utterly foreign to the consciousness of the age. There is no reason to suppose that any body of prelates outside of the Roman patriarchate ever so much as en- tertained the thought of deriving their jurisdiction from that source. The Sardican canons constitute no objection to this statement. Besides being destitute of ecumenical authority, these canons show, in that they limit the power which they confer upon the Roman bishop to the con- 1 Epist. viii. 4. * Dollinger und Friedrich, Das Papstthum, Neubearbeitung von Janus, pp. la, 13- PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 169 firmation of the verdict of local tribunals relative to de- posed bishops, or to the provision of a new local tribunal, that even their f ramers had no idea that bishops generally were beholden to Rome for jurisdiction over their epis- copal districts. On Vatican premises, as indicated above, this legislation was doubly foolish and unwarrantable, since it undertook both to confer a power inherent in the papal office, and to reduce that power far below its constitutional measure. While the theory of the papal monarchy was ignored! in the legislation of the ecumenical councils, it was also j strikingly ignored in their convocation and management./ In the calling of the first eight of these assemblies no bishop had anything more than an advisory function, and even that much was not always conspicuous enough to go on record. They were summoned by the authority of the emperor. The evidence is quite lacking that the bishop of Rome participated in any sense in issuing the call for the Council of Nicaea. The unsupported assump- tion relative to his agency in the matter, put forth long after the disappearance of living witnesses, is more than offset by the silence of Eusebius and of the most ancient documents. In calling the second ecumenical council which, indeed, was not attended by the Western prelates the Roman bishop, as Hefele confesses, had no part. The third council was convened by the joint action of the emperors of the East and the West. Very likely the Roman bishop was apprised of the imperial purpose, but it does not appear that he was in any wise acknowledged as a copartner in the calling of the council. In the negotiations which preceded the meeting of the fourth ecumenical assembly Leo the Great took a prominent 170 THE ROMAN TYPE part. But his preference to have the assembly in the West was not followed, and the ultimate call rested upon the will of the emperor. The connection of the Roman bishop with the fifth ecumenical council makes little else than a chapter of humiliations. It does not appear that he had any responsible agency in bringing about the assembly, or any more honorable relation to it than that of a forced compliance at the hands of the autocratic Justinian. '"" The papal theory of church constitution was also con- spicuously ignored in respect of the presidency of these ^assemblies. It is certain that this in large part fell to the imperial commissaries, and so was not in the hands of the bishops, except in a restricted sense. As respects the episcopal presidency, which a line of references seems to require us to recognize as having existed, the Roman bishop was sparingly represented. At Nicsea the presi- dential honor fell to Hosius, bishop of Cordova in Spain. It is true that the statement of Gelasius of Cyzicus, a writer of the fifth century, can be adduced for the suppo- sition that Hosius presided in the place of the absent Sylvester of Rome. But the statement occurs in the midst of a paragraph which has every appearance of being a bungling falsification of the text of Eusebius. 1 Such worthless testimony counts for nothing against the substantial evidence which makes for the contrary conclu- sion. On the one hand, we have the fact that there is nothing in the records of the council, or in the references of contemporary writers, to indicate that Hosius did not act in his own name. On the other hand, we have the fact that the extraordinary esteem of the emperor for this 1 Bright, The Roman See in the Early Church, pp. 71, 72. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 171 prelate 1 and the high reputation which he enjoyed in the Church naturally pointed him out as a suitable man for the honor of the presidency. "Hosius," writes Theodoret, "was the most highly distinguished of all those who as- sembled at the Council of Nicaea." 2 On the ground of historical probability, therefore, it 'is perfectly futile to set up a claim for the Roman bishop in relation to the presidency of the first ecumenical council. It is also mat- ter of history that he did not preside over the second and fifth in the list of ecumenical assemblies. The presi- dency of the former of these two was in fact held, up to his death, by Meletius, a bishop who was not even in communion with Rome at the time. 3 At the third ecu- menical council, which was a rather shabby specimen of the ecumenical genus, Cyril of Alexandria acted in some sort as the lieutenant of the Roman bishop, and later was supposed to have presided in his stead, though the fact is not above question. 4 At Chalcedon the function which, in the absence of some obstruction, the honorary primacy of the Roman patriarch would naturally bring to him was accorded. The episcopal presidency of this assembly is understood to have been exercised by two Roman presbyters acting as representatives of Leo the Great. In respect of the ratification of their decrees the e menical councils of the post-Nicene era cannot be said to have given any illustration of papal theory. It is not recorded that the earlier of them entertained the thought of a submission of their action to the Roman bishop. If a special measure of deference was paid to Leo the Great Socrates, Hist. Eccl., i. 7. Hist. Eccl., ii. 15. * Compare Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome, pp. xiv, 165, 361. 4 Friedrich, Tagebuch, pp. 400, 401, 172 THE ROMAN TYPE by the Council of Chalcedon it was evidently with the diplomatic intent to mollify the Roman magnate and to evoke his consent to a piece of legislation which was known to be obnoxious to him. In its twenty-eighth canon that assembly treated of the patriarchal rights of the bishop of Constantinople in a way vastly more agree- able to New Rome than to Old Rome. Prudently alert to the demand to do something to avert a rising storm, the fathers of the council addressed Leo in complimen- tary terms, and asked him to confirm the canon. How little of real inclination they had to submit to his decision was disclosed in the sequel. The twenty-eighth canon remained in force in the East in spite of the Roman protest. 1 It appears, moreover, that in condemning the canon Leo the Great thought it expedient to rest on conciliar sanction. He pronounced against it as being incompatible with the Nicene canons. As for the request that Leo should confirm the general body of the Chalce- donian decisions, which was presented two years after the council by the emperor Marcion, a sufficient explana- tion is afforded by the existing exigency. The request was made in order to take away the opportunity of the Monophysites to sustain their own opposition to the work of the council by reference to the dubious attitude of the Roman bishop toward the same. That this was a promi- nent consideration is evident from the fact that the em- peror made explicit mention of it in his letter to Leo. 2 Manifestly the epistles to the Roman bishop which fol- lowed the legislative action of the council were greatly influenced by a diplomatic purpose. The real standpoint > Schaff, History of the Christian Church, III. 280-283. 1 Epist. ex, in works of Leo. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 173 of the council was embodied in its legislation. And here the ninth canon, as well as the twenty-eighth, deserves notice. The former provides that appeals should receive a final decision at Constantinople. Of course, it may be presumed that the Latin patriarchate was not, in the view of the council, a part of the field from which appeals might come to the Eastern capital. Still the canon made Constantinople to contain the ultimate tribunal for a very broad territory, and so ruled out the notion of an all- inclusive jurisdiction of the Roman bishop. It stands in the undisputed record as an ecumenical negation of the papal theory. So mountainous is the barrier raised against the papal theory by the record of the ecumenical councils that it seems to be almost a work of supererrogation to employ any further means of criticism against that theory. But an interesting test may be secured by consulting the trend of the extant writings of fathers of exceptional intelli- gence and activity, at once distinguished as theologians and as men of affairs. From this class none can be more appropriately selected than Basil and Augustine, the one representing the Greek branch of the Church and the other the Latin. To scan the writings of these two men is very much like viewing an authentic cross-section of the age. Take the case^of^Basil (329-379). He lived in a time of stirring events, and has left an extraor- dinarily effective mirror of his relations to them and judgments upon them in a body of three hundred and sixty-six epistles. How much indication of a knowledge of a monarchical or papal constitution of the Church does he give in these writings, so well calculated to re- flect the polity of the time? None whatever. While he 174 THE ROMAN TYPE is free to confess the great need of aid from the West for the struggling orthodox party of the East, he refers, as a rule, to the Western bishops generally, and not to the occupant of the Roman see. 1 Nowhere does he hint at the concentration of sovereignty in the Roman bishop. His most complimentary utterances in no wise pass above the level which might have been reached by anyone who was cognizant of the practical potency of the Roman magnate and of the patriarchal constitution of the Church. 2 From Augustine (353-430), inasmuch as he lived within the limits of the Roman patriarchate, we should expect more distinct tokens of a sense of connection with Rome than are found in the writings of Basil. More- over, the demands of the struggle with the Donatists gave him much the same incentive to emphasize the need of keeping in communion with the great apostolic church of the West which was conspicuous in Optatus of Mileve. Nevertheless, even in his controversial writings against the Donatists, Augustine abundantly reveals that he did not conceive of the constitution of the Church in the genuine papal sense. He mentions the apostolic see of Rome as if he counted it simply a conspicuous factor in the basis of catholic unity, and not by any means the whole basis. He says to the Donatists : "I bring against you the charge of schism, which you will deny, but which I will straightway go on to prove; for, as a matter of fact, you do not communicate with all the nations of the earth, nor with those churches which were founded by the labor of the apostles."* Again, in answer to a possible 1 See Epist. Ixvi, xc, ccxxxix, ccxlii. * Epist. Ixix, Ixx. * Contra Litteras Petil., ii. 37. Compare ii, 118; Epist. xliii. 7; Epist. ccxxxii. 3. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 175 plea of the schismatics that the Roman bishop and the other bishops beyond the sea, who had acted as his col- leagues, were not authorized to disturb the verdict of a certain African tribunal, he reminds them that the Roman bishop and his associates had the authority of a commis- sion from the emperor to do what they did. Furthermore, he argues that if the Donatists had really desired a just settlement, they could readily have discovered the means of its consummation. On the supposition that the bishops who decided the case at Rome were not good judges, "there still remained a plenary council of the universal Church, in which these judges themselves might be put on their defense; so that, if they were convicted of mis- take, their decisions might be reversed." 1 Such language is decidedly remote from disclosing the believer in the papal monarchy. In the light of it we can see what a disreputable fraud is practiced against Augustine when the words, "Rome has spoken, the case is ended," are set forth as representative of his standpoint. His stand- point was not adequately represented by the ill-considered sentence which he actually uttered, and in that sentence he mentioned two synods as preceding and giving counte- nance to the judgment of the apostolic see. 2 That he was not minded to take the mere word of the Roman bishop as a finality was sufficiently demonstrated. He was undoubtedly in full accord with the action of the North African clergy in correcting Zosimus as respects his dealing with the Pelagians. More significantly still, he excused Cyprian's position respecting the rebaptism of heretics, on the ground that the Church in his age had Epist. xliii. 14, 19. 2 Serm. cxxxi. Jam enim, de hac causa, duo concilia missa sunt ad sedem apo$tolicam, inde etiam rescripta venerunt, Causa finita est, iy6 THE ROMAN TYPE not rendered an authoritative decision on that subject, 1 a form of statement amounting to a declaration that the voice of the Roman bishop was not authoritative, since that prelate had rendered his decision in very plain terms, and even made intemperate efforts to force its acceptance upon the Church in Cyprian's region. In addition to all the rest, Augustine dealt very unkindly with the demands of the papal theory in the matter of scriptural interpreta- tion. He seems not to have admitted in his matured exegesis that Christ, in Matt. xvi. 18, named Peter the rock upon which he would build his Church. "On this very account," he writes, "the Lord said, 'On this rock I will build my Church,' because Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, therefore, he said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock was Christ." 2 In the same connection he interprets the position of Peter in receiving the promise of the keys as distinctively repre- sentative or symbolical. Therein "he represented the universal Church." As John reclining on the Saviour's bosom typified the whole Church drinking from the foun- tain of the divine breast, so Peter, in receiving the promise of the keys, typified the binding and loosing prerogatives which were to accrue to the whole Church. Elsewhere, also, Augustine plainly expressed his judg- ment that Peter, in the matter of the keys, was made a type of the Church rather than the bearer of any exclu- sive authority. "Did Peter," he asks, "receive those keys, and Paul not receive them ? Did Peter receive them, and John and James and the rest of the apostles not receive 1 De Bapt. contr. Donat., ii. 5. * Tract in Joan., cxxiv. Compare Retract, i. ai. i; Serm. cclxx. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 177 them? Or, are not those keys in the Church, where sins are daily remitted? But, since Peter was sym- bolically representing the Church, what was given to him singly was given to the Church. So, then, Peter bore the figure of the Church." 1 It appears, accordingly, that Augustine was quite consistent in not representing the Roman bishop to have received from Peter a monarchical authority over the Church. He did not suppose that Peter himself was the possessor of such an authority. Reference has been made to the advantage which, with the progressive unfoldment of the hierarchical system, ; necessarily accrued to the Roman bishop from the im- perial associations of his position. In the post-Nicene period striking illustration was given of the extent of this advantage. The rank of the city determined the rank\ of the resident bishop. Though Jerusalem was the y ^ mother of all the churches, her bishop was the latest to be numbered among the patriarchs, and remained at the end of the list. The inferior importance of the city was reflected in the rank of her bishop. Antioch, though the second center of primitive Christianity, was compelled to see her patriarch rated, in the scale of importance, after the head of the church of Alexandria. The greater metropolis took the greater episcopal distinction. Finally the bishop of Constantinople, though relatively, if not absolutely, destitute of the advantage of honorable asso- ciations with the apostolic age, was able, just because Constantinople took rank as "New Rome," to overtop all rivals in the East, whether at Jerusalem, Antioch, or Alexandria. In all probability he would have been a most formidable rival to the bishop of Rome, in the race 1 Serm. cxlix. 178 THE ROMAN TYPE for episcopal precedence, had not the latter begun to enjoy the benefit of imperial associations nearly three cen^ turies earlier. Thus we have in the form of the clearest kind of an object lesson an explanation of the greatness of the Roman bishop. It was an offspring of the great- ness of imperial Rome. The apostolic associations of the Roman see were undoubtedly helpful; but they were of secondary efficacy. Nor is this conclusion refuted by the fact that the Roman bishop and his eulogists gave a chief emphasis to those associations. Of course they did. They could not have been so foolish as to magnify a secular ground of precedence when one much more suitable to the uses of ecclesiastical ambition and client- ship was available. So we see, from this point of view, the apocryphal character of the supposition that the original constitution of the Church provided for a line of popes from Peter onward. History not only shows that there was no line of genuine popes in the early Church, but also gives a perfectly intelligible explanation of such advance toward the papal rank as was actually achieved by the Roman bishops. Were it necessary, on a question of original church [constitution, to weigh evidence beyond the patristic period, it would not be difficult to discover grounds of objection to the papal theory in succeeding times. Of three things in particular account might be made. In the first place, notice might be taken of the fact that the ex- tensive forgeries, which were perpetrated in the middle ages in behalf of the papal power, are so much testimony that an inadequate basis for that power was supplied by the patristic period. In the second place, emphasis might be put upon the historic truth that the Eastern branch of the PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 179 Church persisted in refusing to give a legislative sanction to any general supremacy of the Roman bishop, and finally in the eleventh century solemnized its repudiation of obligation to follow Roman standards by withdrawing from communion with the Latin Church. And finally, reference might be made to the pronounced Gallican legis- lation of the councils convened in the first half of the fifteenth century, a legislation which indeed provided a standing ground for a pope, but not for such a pope as was set before the face of men by the Vatican Council. There is, however, in the present connection, only moderate occasion to deal with these grounds of refuta- tion of the papal theory, and we shall content ourselves with such reference to one or another of them as the fol- lowing theme may require. VII. CRITICISM OF THE DOGMA OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY All facts and considerations adduced in the preceding section against the theory of papal supremacy enter, to the full extent of their significance, into the disproof of the theory of papal infallibility. The latter but gives expression to a special branch of the sovereignty asserte by the former. Official infallibility in the Romish syste with its doctrine of an infallible Church, is a corollary from official supremacy. It is just because the pope i held to be by divine right the supreme head of the Church on earth, armed with an authority from which there is no appeal, that he is credited with the right to issue irre- formable decisions in the sphere of faith and morals. Take away his supremacy, make room for an authority i8o THE ROMAN TYPE superior to that of the pope, or even coordinate there- with, and the logical basis is gone for infallibility in the sense of the Vatican decree. The superior authority would be competent to revise papal decisions, and the co- ordinate authority could rightly require that nothing be given out as a finality without its consent. Most unmis- takably, therefore, the existing dogma of papal infalli- bility is refuted by all the evidence which goes to show that the apostolic Church knew nothing about a suprem- acy of governing authority in Peter, and that the post- apostolic Church through century after century was equally ignorant of a constitutional supremacy of the Roman bishop over the ecclesiastical domain as a whole. With this thought in view we may properly dispense with an extended consideration of the scriptural evidence alleged for papal infallibility, and may also abridge our review of the history of the first six centuries. As re- Aspects the scriptural data, there is very slight occasion to { award any further consideration to Matt. xvi. I6-I9. 1 / Neither for Peter nor for the Church is there any note ( of infallibility here in the technical ecclesiastical sense, / and the Roman bishop does not come into view at all. ( The same may be said of the other two main passages \ which are cited in the infallibility decree, namely, Luke xxii. 31, 32, and John xxi. 15-17. Apart from a pre- existing faith in the inerrancy of Ultramontane exegesis no one can discover in these verses the slightest sugges- tion of a line of infallible popes. As Archbishop Kenrick saw and declared, at the time of the Vatican Council, the words recorded in Luke had sole reference to the personal needs of Peter. 2 On the eve of the apostle's desperate sin 1 See chap, i, sect, iv; chap, ii, sect vi. *Concio, p. 33. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 181 in denying his Master, and in order to furnish before- hand a means of recovery, the compassionate Christ told Peter that he had prayed for him that his faith might not fail, and furthermore took pains to provide for the future enheartenment of the fallen man by intimating that in spite of his hour of weakness and shame he might even become a source of strength and stability to his brethren. There is no reference here to Peter as an inerrant dogma- tist. Christ prayed for him, not that he might be saved from every aberration in theological theory, but that his living, practical confidence in his Lord and spirit of loyal adhesion to him might not be fatally wrecked; and the office anticipated for the apostle, when once he should be lifted out of the pit of his dismal apostasy, was simply the office of infusing the like disposition of confidence and loyalty into his brethren. To take faith in this con- nection in the sense of a bond to orthodoxy or a lien on correct dogmatics is to smother under a dry, artificial, scholastic conceit the sense to which every word and cir- cumstance of this dramatic passage bear testimony. The passage contains no assurance of dogmatic infallibility for Peter himself, much less for a line of good, bad, and indifferent officials who may assume to wear the Petrine badge. The like remark applies to the Johannine verses. These constitute, in fact, just the fitting sequel to the verses in Luke. The disciple who had professed special love to his Master had figured in the shameful scene of the threefold denial. While that scene was still a matter of bitter remembrance Christ deftly recalled it by the thrice-repeated question, "Simon, lovest thou me?" The question was well adapted to stir to recollection of the rash boast of superior fidelity, as the repeated exhorta- 182 THE ROMAN TYPE tion, "Feed my sheep," was fitted to emphasize in the mind of the rebuked and grieved disciple the demand to prove thereafter his devotion and love by pastoral fidelity. / The entire historical picture is so thoroughly individual / in character, so intimately and delicately related to the V. case of Peter, that it is enough to give one a sense of profanation to have the arbitrary theorist come along and try to metamorphose it into a charter for a perpetual dogmatic absolutism. In connection either with the Lucan or the Johannine passage the infallibilist has no more right to find any reference to the pope than the anti- infallibilist has to infer, on the ground of words ad- dressed to Peter, that each succeeding bishop of Rome will be guilty of a profane denial of Christ, will need to be converted, and can properly be represented as a mouth- piece of Satan. The words used in the former class of instances have every appearance of being as strictly lim- ited to a personal application as are those in the latter class. Patristic exegesis was often lacking in sobriety; but in the first six centuries it was not extravagant enough to serve, to an appreciable degree, the demands of the Vatican theory of papal infallibility. The fathers of that period did not interpret the biblical texts relative to Peter in the sense of that theory. 1 To one who has looked at all extensively into their writings the average attempt to read the infallibility dogma into their interpretation of the given texts can only serve to mirror the dearth of materials appropriate for such an enterprise. Take so 1 For significant instances of interpretation see Origen, Comm. in Matt. xii. 10, ii, 14; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. xi. 3; Basil, Horn. xx. 4; Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. in Joan. xxi. 15-17; Hilary, De Trin., vi. 36-38; Theodoret, Orat. de Divina Charitate; Chrysostom, In Matt., Horn. liv. a, Ixxxii. 3. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 183 respectable an apologist as Schanz. It can safely be said that not one of his witnesses, belonging to the period in question, outside the interested party seated in the epis- copal chair at Rome, is truly a witness to a faith in the infallibility of a perpetual succession of Roman bishops, or even to the imagination of such a thing. A good proportion of the passages cited by him might better be used to prove that their authors had not so much as heard of an inerrant tribunal established in any single episcopal seat. The rest of them, where not simply the language of compliment, recognize only such official prominence and responsibility as might be attached, irrespective of a charism of infallibility, to the incumbent of a great apos- tolic seat and the possessor of an honorary primacy in the patriarchal system. 1 Schanz, in truth, half confesses the poverty and inconclusiveness of the testimonies ad- duced by admitting that in clearness and fullness they distinctly fall short of the claims which the Roman bishops have put forth in their own behalf. 2 This resort to the estimate which the interested party has made of itself has an appearance of faulty procedure, and is very poorly justified by the plea of Schanz that prophets and priests are the best judges of their own vocation. False prophets are nothing unheard of, and, if priests are to be trusted to estimate themselves, then the caste of Brah- mans should be given full liberty to require the world to rate them as a kind of gods on earth. However, the critic of the infallibility dogma has very little reason for 1 It is noticeable that the witnesses for papal infallibility which Billot (Tractatus de ecclesia Christi, Tomus Tertius, pp. 179-187) has thought it advisable to cite all belonged to the Latin patriarchate, and for the most part had occasion to emphasize against schismatic parties the worth of communion with the one church of the West distinguished by apostolic asso- ciations. Judged by the tenor of their writings, not one of them is a wit- ness to the Vatican dogma. 2 Christian Apology, III. $isff. i84 THE ROMAN TYPE wishing to shut out the testimony of the Roman bishops of the first six centuries. Naturally a propensity to of- ficial boasting found expression now and then in high- sounding words about the orthodoxy and the doctrinal responsibilities of the successors of Peter. But not a single instance is on record of a serious assertion of any- thing like the plenary independent sovereignty over the dogmatic domain which is affirmed by the Vatican decree. Even Leo the Great, the most masterful personality in the entire list of Roman bishops for those centuries, was remote from indulging in an assertion of that kind. While he laid considerable stress on the offices of Peter in strengthening the brethren and feeding the flock, he made a very dim connection between these offices and the prerogatives of the Roman bishop. 1 In fact, it was only through the agency of Peter as heavenly patron that the Petrine offices were represented by him to have been continued. Referring to the injunction laid upon the apostle to feed Christ's sheep, he added: "Which also now without doubt he does, and follows the command of his Lord as a pious pastor, confirming us by his exhorta- tions, and not ceasing to pray for us, that we may not be overcome by any temptation." Between being thus assisted by a patron saint and replacing him in the world as the possessor of an infallible magisterium the distance is manifestly immense. In the reference of Pelagius II to the gospel texts a somewhat more significant relation between the Petrine offices and the Roman bishop may be implied than that which is pictured in the statements of Leo the Great ; but so far was the former from claiming outright a doctrinal infallibility that he seems not to have 1 Serm. iv; Epist. Ixxxiii. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 185 ascribed as much as that to Peter himself. 1 In short, we judge the truth to be with the Old Catholic contention that the proper Vatican dogma had not a single advocate, even among the Roman bishops of the first six centuries. 2 Of course, it would matter little, as respects the merits of the dogma, if one and another advocate had appeared. The sense of official importance, stimulated by imperial associations, might easily attain an extravagant growth in less than six centuries. While thus the expressions of individual opinion, which^ are claimed on the side of a recognition of the infallibility I of the Roman bishop, reduce under close inspection to a) paltry residuum, continental facts offer their conclusive testimony that the early Church knew nothing of an in-j fallible potentate at Rome armed with a supreme author- ity in the field of doctrinal decisions. Through the l period of almost incessant controversy reaching from 320 to 680 he was not in a single instance asked or per- mitted by the Church as a whole to fix a point of dogm< Theological warfare was conducted and settled precisely 1 as it would have been had the Christian world enter- tained no suspicion of the existence of an infallible offi- cial. The ecumenical council was regarded as the one tribunal competent to make decisions binding on the uni- versal Church. Independently of the council the Roman bishop could impose nothing as a matter of common obli- gation. Within the council he was sometimes an inap- preciable factor, and was never a lord or master to whom the assembled bishops felt bound to give heed. If a large measure of deference was paid to Leo the Great at 1 Epist. iii, v. 2 See in particular the judicial review of the evidence by Langen, Das Vaticanische Dogma. 186 THE ROMAN TYPE Chalcedon, it was because this representative of the Roman see was an eminent theologian as well as a potent administrator, and had written a doctrinal letter which promised a settlement to the terrible and exhausting Christological controversy. It was not assumed by Leo, nor imagined by the council, that he had any sovereign jurisdiction in the matter at issue. The exclamation which followed the reading of his letter, "Peter has spoken through Leo!" is of no significance whatever as respects doctrinal authority. Equally complimentary words were uttered in the same breath respecting Cyril of Alexandria, and the teaching of Leo's letter was approved simply be- cause it was agreeable to the convictions of the assembly. 1 Facts of this order, we contend, afford overwhelming evidence of what the church constitution of that age was in the ecumenical point of view. In any fair review of history they must be brought to the front. To take a chance statement here and there from individual writers, and to overlook besides the qualifying considerations which belong with these as well as the great number of opposed statements, may suit very well the needs of the apologist; but such procedure is outside of and beneath historical science. If the true canons of an historical judgment are to be applied, the primacy must be given, in connection with an effort to weigh the testimony of an age, to the great representative events which voiced the collective thought and conviction. When this course is pursued on the present theme the verdict cannot stand in doubt^The verdict must be that the Church which /fhrbugn" centuries, and amid the most pressing occasions , for doctrinal settlements, never had recourse to an infalli- 1 Mansi, Conciliorum Collectio, VI. 971-976. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 187 ble vicegerent at Rome did not believe in the existence) of such an official. _>/ A somewhat striking comment on the tenor of the his- torical evidence is being furnished by Roman Catholic writers. One and another of them give a hint of an un- easy consciousness respecting the bearing of the early Christian records on the high papal claims, in that they are inclined to speak disparagingly of the competency of historical investigation to find out the truth apart from a close alliance with dogmatics. 1 The carrying out of this point of view would obviously tend to a slackened ambition for historical research. Doubtless the passages most serviceable in sustaining the established dogmas would continue to be brought forward, but for an earnest all-sided investigation there would be no adequate motive. The Vatican dogmas tend unmistakably to lower the in- centives to a comprehensive study of the patristic records. Even in the middle ages, and within the limits of Latin Christendom, great communities gave striking demon- strations of their ignorance respecting the privilege and obligation to submit disputed questions to an infallible oracle at Rome. The predestinarian controversy, which was excited in France near the middle of the ninth cen- tury by the teaching of Gottschalk, was treated by the local authorities as purely their own concern. Any in- tervention which the pope may have attempted, in re- sponse to the appeal of the condemned and sorely pun- ished monk, seems to have been met with indifference. In connection with the controversy over the religious 1 Granderath, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, II. 271; Billot, De Immutabilitate Traditionis contra Modernam Haeresim Evolutionismi, second edit., 1907, passim. i88 THE ROMAN TYPE use of images, about a half century earlier, a still more striking exhibition of independence of papal judgment was given. While the pope approved the decision of the Second Council of Nicaea in favor of image worship, Charlemagne and the clergy of his realm repudiated that decision. At the Synod of Frankfurt in 794 they gave full proof of their adhesion to the platform of the Libri Carolini, which had been issued four years previously, and which, though rejecting the iconoclastic extreme, contained a very sharp criticism of the practice of image worship. Again in the following reign the Prankish clergy, at an assembly in Paris in 825, used their privilege to dissent from the pope. Indeed, they scarcely fell short of ridiculing papal apologetics. Referring to a letter on the subject by Adrian I, they said : "He inserted in the same letter certain testimonies of the holy fathers, which according to the measure of our understandings are thor- oughly irrelevant (valde absona), and without the slight- est pertinency to the question at issue." 1 Evidently these men had never heard of the infallibility of the Roman pontiff, or, if the claim to such endowment had come to their knowledge, were ready to treat it as farcical. Among the historic denials of papal infallibility, the two which most powerfully supplement the practical nega- tion of the first six centuries are those contained in the action of the sixth ecumenical council (680), and of the Council of Constance (1414-1418) together with that of the Council of Basle in its earlier sessions (1431-1437). The first named, endeavoring to give a finishing blow to the Monothelite heresy, pronounced the anathema 1 Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 4s; Dollinger und Friedrich, Das Papstthum, pp. 337, 338. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 189 against its principal representatives and supporters. Among those who fell under this capital censure was Pope Honorius I (621-638). It was judged that in his letters to Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, he had given his sanction to the distinctive Monothelite conten- tion respecting the presence of only a single operation of will in the incarnate Christ. Accordingly, he was con- demned as one of the ringleaders in the camp of the heretics. After laying Sergius and others under anathe- ma the council proceeded: "We have provided that to- gether with these, Honorius, who was pope of ancient Rome, should be cast out of God's holy Catholic Church, and anathematized, because we have discovered, through the writings which he addressed to Sergius, that in all things he followed his view and confirmed his impious dogmas." In the letter of notification sent to Pope Agatho, whose death occurred too soon for him to receive the communication, the council declared : "We have over- thrown the tower of the heretics and slain them through the anathema, namely, Theodore of Pharan, Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, etc." The seventh and eighth ecu- menical councils approved the action of the sixth, and mentioned Honorius as being equally with the Monothe- lite leaders of the East a subject of the anathema ; indeed, in the one case the name of Honorius is placed right in the midst of the names of the Eastern leaders, and in the other is located before that of Cyrus of Alexandria. The emperor, in the edict which he issued for the confirma- tion of the action of the sixth council, numbered Hon- orius among those who had infected the churches with their false teachings, and rated him along with Theodore of Pharan, Sergius, etc., as a subject for the anathema, igo THE ROMAN TYPE "since he agreed with them in everything, ran with them, and served as a support to heresy." That in the Western version of the proceedings of the sixth council Honorius was numbered among anathematized heretics is indicated by perfectly unambiguous tokens. One of these occurs in the biography of Leo II, the pope who succeeded Agatho. "He received," it is stated, "the holy synod ... in which were condemned Cyrus, Sergius, Hon- orius, Pyrrhus, etc." Thus three successive councils, whose ecumenical character is well established in the estimate of the Church, anathematized Honorius I as a heretic and a patron of heresy. That they regarded him as having sinned against the faith in his highest official capacity there is not the slightest reason to doubt. No sane student of history can suppose that beyond the damnable fallibility as they considered it which the pope put on exhibition, they recognized an ex cathedra infallibility. If they had any knowledge of the latter, their act of indiscriminate condemnation was simply criminal, as recklessly and ruthlessly assailing the very foundations of the dogmatic structure. 1 The relation of Pope Leo II to the sixth ecumenical council is significant in a double respect. On the one hand, he acknowledged the ecumenical character of this assembly, repeatedly calling it in his letter to the emperor "sancta et universalis synodus." On the other hand, he gave assent to the condemnatory sentence of the council in these terms : "We equally anathematize the inventors of the new heresy, that is, Bishop Theodore of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paulus, Petrus, waylayers rather than overseers of the Church of Con- ' For the facts as stated see Mansi, vol. XI; Hefele, 296-324. stantinople: also Honorius, who has not illuminated this apostolic Church with the doctrine of apostolic tradition, but by a profane betrayal has permitted the immaculate faith to be defiled." Equivalent terms were used by .Leo II in communications to Spanish dignitaries. More- over, the formula of condemnation which was thus sanc- tioned by the pope contemporary with the sixth ecumen- ical council, was subscribed by a long line of popes. "In the 'Liber Diurnus,' " says Hefele, "that is, the Book of Formularies of the Roman curia (from the fifth to the eleventh century), is found the old formula for the pon- tifical oath, prescribed without doubt by Gregory II (at the beginning of the eighth century), according to which every new pope at his entrance upon his office is bound to give oath that 'he acknowledges the sixth ecumenical council, which laid an eternal anathema upon the authors of the new heresy, Sergius, Pyrrhus, etc., together with Honorius, because he gave encouragement to the de- praved assertions of heretics quia pravis haereticorum assertionibus fomentum impendit.' " J What more could be asked in the way of papal confirmation ? Doubtless it is possible for the one who wishes to take refuge in technicality to allege that in the papal form of the anathe- ma against Honorius he is described rather as a patron of heresy than as a heretic. But in moral effect the papal anathema undoubtedly went to reinforce the conciliar verdict which pronounced Honorius both a heretic and a patron of heresy. The entire age during which it was kept in view was given a very intelligible lesson on the fallibility of the Roman pontiff. To suppose the content of the Vatican decree to have had any place in the con- 1 Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, second edit., 324. 193 THE ROMAN TYPE sciousness of that age is simply to sacrifice history to the extravagant demands of dogma. In any case the verdict of the sixth, seventh, and eighth ecumenical coun- cils is quite as authoritative as that of the Vatican Coun- cil, exposed to objection as was the latter verdict in respect of moral unanimity and the means by which its possibility was secured. The significance of the conciliar and papal censure is not largely dependent upon the deserts of its subject. Its significance lies in the testimony which it bears to the fact that the Vatican theory of the infallibility of the Roman pontiff was foreign to the conviction of the universal Church, and that, accordingly, it could only come in as a stupendous variation from original Christianity, and in defiance of rightful traditionary authority. This much follows whatever may have been the real fault of Hon- orius. For our part, we are not reluctant to believe that he was quite as good a Christian as was the average man among those who, whether in the council or in the line of Roman pontiffs, permitted their unseemly dogmatism to overflow in anathemas against the dead. The man who made himself a mouthpiece of that sort of cursing presented as poor a certificate of his infallibility as was ever furnished by the condemned pope. Nevertheless, it is in order to observe that even modern Roman Catholic scholarship, in individual instances, has been ready to admit that Honorius I is amenable to the charge of hav- ing given an ex cathedra sanction to heresy. Dollinger, in 1863, while yet he held a position of high honor and distinction in the Roman Catholic Church, declared that the anathematized pontiff could be excused from the charge in question only on the basis of an interpretation PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 193 of the phrase ex cathedra which seems not to be required by the Vatican decree. 1 Hefele, wlriting before the Vatican legislation, remarked: "Honorius rejected the technical orthodox term of two energies, and declared the specific heretical term, one will, to be correct, and prescribed this twofold error as an article of faith to the Church of Constantinople." 2 As this language implies, Hefele judged that the pope had expressed his doctrinal views in ex cathedra form. Writing after the Vatican Council, and after his own submission to its legislation, the learned historian, though careful to excuse Honorius from heterodox intent, did not conceal his sense of the unfortunate character of some of his expressions, and felt obliged still to affirm that the writings containing them were of the ex cathedra order. Speaking of Pennachi as a prominent supporter of the affirmative, he said : "I, for my part, confess my agreement in this connection with Pennachi, since Honorius designed to give to the Church of Constantinople immediately, and to the whole Church implicitly, a prescription respecting doctrine and faith ; and in his second letter employed the very expres- sion, 'Ceterum, quantum ad dogma ecclesiasticum per- tinet . . . non unam vel duas operationes in mediatore Dei et hominum definire debemus.' " 3 It looks, in truth, as though Honorius exhibited very poor fidelity to the Christological standard set up at Chalcedon. But, as was observed above, the significance of his case is by no means dependent upon a precise determination of the extent of his dogmatic trespass. The Council of Constance, which met near the close of 1 Die Papst-Fabeln des Mittelalters, pp. 131-151. a Causa Honorii Papae. * Conciliengeschichte, second edit., 398. 104 THE ROMAN TYPE the great papal schism, and wrought successfully for the displacement of the contesting pontiffs, clearly asserted in its fourth and fifth sessions the superiority of an ecu- menical council to the pope both in respect of adminis- trative and doctrinal authority. Its decrees may be char- acterized as the precise opposites of those passed by the Vatican Council on the absolute supremacy and inde- pendent infallibility of the Roman pontiff. As formu- lated at the fifth session the declaration of the council was in this form : "The Council of Constance lawfully assembled in the name of the Holy Ghost, and forming an ecumenical council representing the Catholic Church, has its power immediately from Jesus Christ, to which every person of whatever rank and dignity, the papal itself included, is bound to yield obedience in those things which concern the faith, the extirpation of the aforesaid schism, and the general reformation of the Church in its head and members. It likewise declares that if any, of whatever condition, rank, or dignity, the papal itself in- cluded, shall contumaciously refuse obedience to the com- mands, statutes, ordinances, or precepts of this or any other ecumenical council legitimately assembled, in rela- tion to the aforesaid matters acted upon or to be acted upon, unless he shall repent, shall be subjected to condign penance and be duly punished." 1 A more unequivocal assertion that the power of the pope is in perpetuity subordinate to that of an ecumenical council could not well be imagined. Nor did this assertion lack for con- firmation in the further developments of that period. Martin V, who was elected in accordance with a special plan sanctioned by the council, gave at least implicitly a i Mansi, XXVII. 590. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 195 double approval to its legislation. On the one hand, as appears in the bull Inter cunctas, he required of suspected parties an acknowledgment of the ecumenical character of the Council of Constance. On the other hand, he de- clared his assent to whatever in matters of faith the coun- cil had determined conciliariter, or in regular session. 1 At the second session of the Council of Basle the Con- stance decree was solemnly approved. This means that the decree received an ecumenical sanction. For, as Maret remarks, 2 the Council of Basle, as respects its first sixteen sessions, met all the requirements of an ecumenical assembly, since it was called by a pope, was presided over by papal legates, was sufficiently representative of the Church universal, and received for its acts the papal approbation. It is true that during a section of this period Pope Eugenius IV engaged in a factious opposition. But he received so little countenance in this course that he deemed it best to come to terms with the assembled fathers. Accordingly, in the bull Dudum sacrum he de- clared the canceling of all censures against the council and his adherence to that body. Moreover, in assuming later (1437) to transfer the Basle assembly to Ferrara he as much as confessed its legitimacy. His opposition, therefore, after that point, had no virtue to cancel his previous recognition ; and even to this opposition an offset was provided in the bull Tanto nos, by which Pope Nicholas V undertook to annul all the censures of Eugenius IV against the Council of Basle. 3 1 Mansi gives the text as follows : Quibus sic factis sanctissimus dominus noster dixit respondendo ad praedicta, quod omnia et singula determinata, conclusa et decreta in materiis fidei per praesens concilium conciliariter, tenere et inviolabiliter observare volebat, et nunquam contravenire quoque modo. Ipsaque sic conciliariter facta approbat et ratificat, et non aliter, nee alio modo (XXVII. 1199). * Du Concile General, I. 461. Dollinger, Der Papst und das Concil, pp. 360, 361., 196 THE ROMAN TYPE The offsetting considerations which have been urged against these formidable facts cannot avail to annul their force. For instance, the allegation that the Council of Constance was not ecumenical when the fourth and fifth sessions were held, since the following of the schismatic popes, Gregory XII and Benedict XIII, had not yet been united with it, carries little weight. This following had been reduced to a paltry remnant, and the council at that stage was quite as representative of the Church as were, in their time, a number of the assemblies which have been ranked as ecumenical. Moreover, the bull of Martin V which made assent to the ecumenical character of the council obligatory had particular reference to its cen- sures against the Wycliffite and Hussite teachings, and these censures were passed before the "obediences" of Gregory XII and Benedict XIII had been formally recon- ciled. A second allegation, namely, that the action of the Constance assembly in the fourth and fifth sessions was subject at the time to some question as to its regularity, seems to have very slight foundation. Historical evi- dence is wanting that the given action was seriously challenged. That it was assailed with a criticism at all comparable in measure with that which was directed against the legitimacy of the order of proceedings in the Vatican assembly, there is no good reason to believe. A third allegation, or that based on the assumption that the word conciliariter, as used by Martin V in his confirma- tory sentence, can fairly be made to shut out the decrees of the fourth and fifth sessions from the range of con- firmation, is at least of very doubtful validity. Dollinger gives the probable significance of the limitation contained in that term when he says of Martin V: "He wished PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 197 thereby to withhold his approval from two decisions which had been passed over annates and over a book of the Dominican Falkenberg, which had not been enacted by the council in full session, but in the congregations of the nations singly," 1 conciliariter being thus contrasted with nationaliter. A remaining allegation, namely, that Martin V, before the close of the council, issued a con- stitution in reprobation of the idea of appealing from the pope to any higher tribunal, deserves a somewhat larger consideration. That a manifesto of that kind was projected by the pope is evidenced by the adverse com- ments of Gerson. But it is to be noticed that the probable occasion of the purpose to issue the manifesto was the known intention of the Hussites to appeal to a future council from the rigorous judgment pronounced against them by the pope. Lenfant specifies this occasion, 2 and it is very distinctly suggested by the conditions. Viewed as being thus motived, the constitution, though not agree- able to the standpoint of the council, would not be indic- ative of such forwardness and set purpose in Martin V to antagonize the Constance legislation that he would care to initiate the project in an academic fashion. Further- more, evidence is wanting that the bull was published, and not simply meditated or discussed. "The constitu- tion," says Friedrich, "does not exist; Pius II does not mention it ; and also Gerson, who alone makes note of it, had not himself seen it, but speaks from hearsay, and only respecting a sketch (minuta) . . . Hinschius cor- rectly remarks on the subject, that in any case this de- liverance was not suitably published, on the contrary was 1 Dpllinger und Friedrich, Das Papstthum, pp. 159, 160, 463. 3 Histoire du Concile de Constance, vi. 44. 198 THE ROMAN TYPE ignored, and Martin V himself in connection with a like occasion at the forty-fifth session did not recur to it." 1 Possibly Martin V may have bethought himself that, inasmuch as he was the creature of the council, he could not afford to assail its authority. At any rate, there was excellent occasion for him to indulge in a reflection of that kind. It was the action of the council, especially in deposing John XXIII, which provided the vacancy in the papal office. Furthermore, the electoral college, to which he owed his choice to the papal office, was con- stituted in a special way by the act of the council. To impugn, then, the supreme authority of the council would be equivalent to impugning his own title; and this once done, the standing of his successors would be subject to suspicion, since one who was not legitimately a pope would vitiate the electoral college in so far as he should make appointments to the office of cardinal. 2 Enough has been said to illustrate the difficulty which meets the apologist for papal infallibility in dealing with the Council of Constance. And even if he could make a respectable show of surmounting this difficulty, he has not half accomplished his task, since there remains the legislation of the Council of Basle, having the same tenor as that of the preceding assembly, and claiming also the assent of the pope. 3 It is to be observed, too, that quite as serious a dilemma is made for the pope in the latter case as in the former. If the Council of Basle violated truth and right in reproducing the decree of Constance in favor of the ecumenical council, then Eugenius IV denied his infallibility in declaring his unqualified ad- 1 Dollinger und Friedrich, Das Papstthum, p. 465. 2 Compare Sabatier, Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit, p. 133. Mansi, XXIX. 21, 78. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 199 herence to that assembly. If, on the other hand, the action taken at Basle was within the limits of truth and right, then the Vatican definitions of papal supremacy and infallibility are glaringly false. The attempt to save the cause of papal infallibility by opposing the Council of Florence and the Fifth Lateran to the assemblies convened at Constance and Basle must obviously be fruitless. In point of a legitimate claim to an ecumenical character the former two, composed as they were almost exclusively of bishops drawn from the neighborhood of the pope, belong at the very end of the list. And even if their ecumenical character were unim- peachable, the result would only be that conciliar author- ity, as being involved in most palpable contradictions, would be discredited together with papal authority. It remains to be noticed also that the declarations of these two councils, while they might be regarded as implicitly containing the dogma of papal infallibility, gave to it no explicit mention. Putting the record of the sixth ecumenical council with that of the fourteenth century assemblies at Constance and Basle, and combining with this evidence the papal supplement to the respective records, we are compelled to conclude that the Roman hierarchy is in desperate need of apologetic skill. Rather we are compelled to conclude that no amount of apologetic skill can vanquish the objections which are presented, in this part of the his- torical domain, to the dogma of papal infallibility. Taken in its whole range, the record of the opinions and conduct of the popes is quite as decisive in its bearing on our theme as is the record of the councils. The sec- 200 THE ROMAN TYPE tion of the former which presents instances in which the popes have contradicted one another or the ultimate standards of the Roman Catholic Church on doctrinal points, though not perhaps the most conclusive part, fur- nishes very weighty objections to the infallibility dogma. Not a few of these instances, it may be granted, concern papal deliverances whose ex cathedra character may be questioned. But this fact does not destroy the pertinency of a reference to them. An official gift which fails to act when there is occasion for action advertises itself, to the extent of the failure, as a pretense rather than an actuality. The accumulated instances of errancy on the part of the popes have a real bearing on the question of their official outfit, and an attempt to deny their force by appealing to technicality simply shows that the apologist has gotten off the track of reality, and assimilated divine rule to a kind of red-tape regime. We are not, then, parading irrelevant matter in presenting the following list of items from the records of the popes in relation to questions of doctrine. Liberius, according to the judgment of Athanasius and other representatives of the post-Nicene age. denied the orthodox faith, in that he subscribed to a semi-Arian creed. 1 Vigilius in the controversy over the "Three Chapters" alternated in a marvelous way between the role of approval and that of condemnation. 2 Innocent I and Gelasius I made the reception of the eucharistic ele- ments so indispensable, even for young children, as to deny the possible salvation of those dying prior to their 'Athanasius, Hist. Arian. ad Monachos, 41; Apol. cont. Arian., 89; Jerome, Chron., Catalog. Script. Eccl. ; Sozomen, Hist. Eccl., iy. 15. * Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 258-276; Dollinger und Friednch, Das Papstthum, pp. 7, 323. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 201 reception 1 a view which the Council of Trent thought fit to anathematize. 2 The latter of these two popes em- ployed, furthermore, language which unmistakably ex- cludes the doctrine of transubstantiation. "Truly the sacra- ments," he wrote, "which we receive of the body and blood of Christ are a divine thing, because through the same we are made partakers of the divine nature, and, nevertheless, the substance or nature of bread and wine does not cease to be tamen esse non desinit substantia vel natura panis et vini/' 3 Gregory II gave expression to what looks marvelously like a sanction to polygamy in certain special cases. 4 Nicholas II, along with a council held at Rome in 1059, approved a formula dictated to Berengar, which supposes the body of Christ to be subject to real mastication in the mouth of the communicant, 5 whereas the Tridentine doctrine that the body of Christ is entire under every separate portion of bread implies a contrary conclusion. In contradiction to the maxim of the Church that ordination is not invalidated by the bad character of the ordaining bishop, a number of popes, notably Gregory VII and Urban II judged that ordina- tion is vitiated by guilt of simony in the ordainer. 6 John XXII, in connection with the question of the demands of 1 Innocent I, Epist. xxx (ad Concilium Milevitanum) ; Gelasius I, Epist. vii (ad Omnes Episcopos per Picenum). 2 Sess. xxi, cap. iv, can. 4. 3 De Duabus Natuns. 4 Quod proposuisti, quod si mulier infirmitate correpta non valuerit debitum viro reddere, quid ejus faciat jugalis? Bonum esset si sic perma- naret, ut abstinentiae vacaret. Sed quia hoc magnorum est, ille qui se non poterit cpntinere, nubat rnagis; non tamen subsidii opem subtrahat ab ilia quam infirmitas praepedit, et non detestablis culpa excludit (Migne, Patrologia, Epistola xiv, ad Bonifacium). 5 Consentio et profiteer panem et vinum, quae in altari ponuntur, post consecrationem non solum sacramentum sed etiam verum corpus et san- guinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi esse, et sensualiter non solum sacra- mento, sed in veritate manibus sacerdotum tractari, franzi et fidelium dentibus atteri (Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 555). Hefele, 539, 558, 585, 587, 601; Bellinger, Der Papst und das Concil, p. 56. 202 THE ROMAN TYPE the gospel ideal of poverty, as disputed among the Fran- ciscans, took ground contrary to the decisions of Nicholas III and Clement V. 1 The same pontiff also propounded the theory that the saints do not attain to the vision of God till after the general judgment, and sustained it with stubborn resolution until the strength of the protest which was called forth advised him to seek safety in retreat. 2 Eugenius IV, in a decree relative to the Armenians, de- fined as a constituent of the sacrament of penance a form of absolution which the Greek Church never used, and which the Latin Church itself did not employ for eleven centuries. 3 Innocent IV admitted that a pope may err in matters of faith, so that it is necessary to ask rather what the Church believes than what he believes 4 ; and Adrian VI, after his election to the papal office, per- mitted a book written by himself to be republished, in which he not only declared that a Roman pontiff can hold and teach heresy, but also affirmed that several Roman pontiffs had actually been heretics. 5 Urban VIII gave the force of papal approbation to the sentence of the In- quisition (1633), wherein the Copernican theory, as taught by Galileo, was condemned as false and contrary to the Scriptures doctrinam falsam et contrariam Sacris ac Divinis Scripturis. 6 Alexandria VII supplemented > Hefele, 704. 2 Hefele, 704; Raynaldus, Annales Eccl., annis 1331, 1334. J Bullarium Romanura, anno 1439. 4 Papa etiam potest errare in fide, et ideo non debet quis dicere: credo id, quod credit papa, sed illud, quod credit ecclesia, et sic dicendo non errabit. (Cited by Dollinger, Der Papst und das Concil, p. 395.) 5 Dico: quod si per ecclesiam Romanam intelligitur caput ejus, puta pontifex, certum est quod possit errare, etiam in iis quae tangunt fidem, haeresim per suam determinationem aut decretalem asserendo : plures enim fuere pontifices Romani haeretici. In what follows John XXII is mentioned as an example. (Cited by Bossuet, Defensio Declarationis Conventus Cleri Gallicam, Praevia Dissertatio, xxviii.) * See Henri de 1'Epinois, Les Pieces du Proces de Galilee; Karl von Gebler, Galileo Galilei. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 203 the action of his predecessor by specifically confirming the censures contained in the Index of 1664, in which was included a decree issued under Paul V in 1616 against several Copernican treatises. 1 That subsequent popes were not in haste to interfere with this peculiar sort of pontifical service to scientific truth is attested by the fact that the condemned Copernican writings were not re- leased from the Index of Prohibited Books until 1835. The items enumerated above are not helpful to faith in ) papal infallibility. But the most formidable evidence \ which may legitimately be drawn from the record of the , popes concerns their relation to the moral standard, their \ practical as well as their theoretical relation in other / words, their character and conduct as well as their judg-/ ments. As regards the latter, it will suffice to take note of the astonishing specimen afforded by the bull Unigen- itus, a product of the fierce hostility of the Jesuits against the Jansenists. This was issued in 1713 by Clement XI in condemnation of one hundred and one propositions from the "Moral Reflections" of Quesnel, and was earnestly commended and urged upon the French clergy and people by several succeeding popes. In respect of form the bull, or constitution, lacked no requisite of an ex cathedra character, since it laid its requirements upon all Christians, and denounced punishment against all who should, in relation to a single item, go contrary to its prescriptions. 2 There seems also to be, among recent 1 The text of the confirmatory sentence of Alexander VII is given in the author's Church History, Modern Church, Part I, p. 389. J Omnes et singulas propositiones praeinsertas, tanquam falsas, cap- tiosas, male sonantes, impias, suspectas de haeresi, ac heresim ipsam sapientes, etc., hac nostra perpetuo valitura constitutione declaramus, damnamus, et reprobamus, mandantes omnibus utriusque sexus Christi fidelibus, ne de dictis propositionibus sentire, docere, ac praedicare aliter praesumant, quam in hac eadem nostra constitutione contmetur. 204 THE ROMAN TYPE exponents of Roman orthodoxy, no doubt about its ex cathedra quality. Thus Scheeben, speaking of the differ- ent species of ex cathedra decisions, says: "The most solemn and definitely expressed form is given in the so- called dogmatic constitutions or bulls, which set forth and promulgate judgments in the form of universal church laws, and under sanction of stringent punishments, exam- ples of which are given in the constitution Unigenitus and Auctorem fidei against the Jansenists, and in the Ineffabilis Deus on the immaculate conception." 1 Now, in this dogmatic and ex cathedra constitution the pope has smitten with his solemn reprobation the following proposition: "The fear of an unjust excommunication ought never to hinder us from doing our duty. We are not severed from the Church, even when we appear to be cast out of it by the wickedness of men, so long as we are united to God, to Jesus Christ, and likewise to the Church by means of charity." 2 We submit that the con- demnation of this proposition is nothing less than an as- sault against a perfectly indubitable principle of a sane and Christian morality. The proposition is not false, heretical, ill-sounding, or blameworthy in any respect. The possibility which it contemplates is one which scholars of the very best reputation for orthodoxy and wisdom have been entirely free to discuss. The senti- ment to which it gives expression would not be out of place in the very heart of the gospel. Indeed, Christ may be regarded as having substantially anticipated it in the 1 Handbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, I. 228, 32. Compare J. Hergenrother, Catholic Church and Christian State, pp. 41, 42; Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, III. 167. 2 Proposition 91. Excommunicationis injustae metus numquam debet nos impedire ab implendo debito nostro: nunquam eximus ab ecclesia, etiam quando hominum nequitia videmur ab ea expulsi, quando Deo, Jesu Christo, atque ipsi ecclesiae per charitate affix! sumus. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 205 estimate which he placed upon the experience of his fol- lowers in being unrighteously cast out of the synagogue. 1 Who can think of infallibility in relation to the con- demnation of such a proposition ? It is not even a decent form of fallibility that comes to view in this connection, but a scandalous misdirection of official judgment, an expenditure of controversial venom through a damna- tory sentence which might better have come from the court of antichrist than from the seat of Christ's vicar. And there are other items in this constitution which are suited in almost equal degree to cast contempt upon the claim to infallibility. Surely it requires a peculiar men- tal subjection not to give way to an impulse of scorn when one thinks of the formal reprobation of a propo- sition like this: "The Lord's day ought to be sancti- fied on the part of Christians by pious reading, and above all by the . perusal of the Holy Scriptures. It is harmful to wish to keep back a Christian from this reading." 2 We are loath to suppose that the fathers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore wished to do despite to the solemn judgment of an infallible mas- ter; but anyone can see that they ran squarely in the face of that judgment when, in their pastoral letter, they set forth such a complete equivalent for the condemned proposition as is contained in the following sentence: "It can hardly be necessary for us to remind you, beloved brethren, that the most highly valued treasure of every family library, and the most frequently and lovingly made use of, should be the Holy Scriptures." 3 Who will say 1 John ix. 35 ; xvi. a. 1 Dies Dommicus a Christianis debet sanctificari lectionibus pietatis, et supra omnia Sanctarum Scriptuarum. Damnosum est velle Christianum ab hac lectione retrahere. (Proposition 82.) * Acta et Decreta, p. Ixxxix. 206 THE ROMAN TYPE that words like these deserve to be blotted ? But if they are to abide over against the Unigenitus constitution, they must serve as a window to let in the light on the wretched errancy of that ex cathedra document. In short, the Unigenitus constitution, condemning as it does some of the plainest maxims of morality and common sense, is enough by itself to turn the dogma of papal in- fallibility into a subject of derision. Were it not that there is a chance to question its ex cathedra character, a deliverance of Urban II might well take a rank only secondary to that of the Unigenitus con- stitution as a disproof of papal infallibility in matters of moral theory. In writing to a bishop respecting certain slayers of excommunicated persons, he expressed the judgment that those who out of zeal for the Church may chance to kill the excommunicate are not to be accounted \ homicides, and only need to do penance for the sake of \ covering any reprehensible element which, in their human frailty, they may have mixed with their deed. 1 In taking account of the character of the popes we are quite well aware that we must incur a charge of ir- relevancy. The statement is frequently upon the lips of the Roman apologist that considerations of that order are impertinent. "Infallibility," it is said, "has nothing to do with prudence in conduct. Neither has it anything to do with the moral character of the pope." 2 So run the defensive remarks of the apologist; but instead of protecting the dogma of papal infallibility they afford 1 Epist. cxxii (Migne). Non enim eos hpmicidas arbitramur, quod adversus excommunicates zelo catholicae matris ardentes, eorum quoslibet trucidasse contigerit. 1 Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, I. 445. Compare Procter, The Catholic Creed, 1901, p. 144; Russo, The True Religion and its Dogmas, pp. 116, 117. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 207 against it a very serious ground of impeachment. They show the pernicious tendency of that dogma to work toward the substitution of a scheme of unethical magic for the ethical standpoint of the New Testament. A glance into the Gospels and Epistles cannot fail to dis- close the great lesson that clarity of vision, insight into the verities of the divine kingdom, depends upon holy character and righteous living. Those who do the will of the heavenly Father are to know of the doctrine, and parties making claims to high prerogatives are to be judged by their fruits. In answer, therefore, to the charge of irrelevancy, we only need to say that if we are to proceed from the point of view of the New Testament, and not from that of pagan magic, papal character and conduct are of vital moment in a consideration of the dogma of papal infallibility. Criticism on this basis has the very best right; and it is somewhat a mat- ter for surprise that the opponents of the dogma at the time of the Vatican Council did not resort to it more largely. Maret took note of the intrinsic connection be- tween character and doctrinal inerrancy, 1 and in the dis- cussions of the council one at least of the bishops seems to have assumed the propriety of affirming such connec- tion 2 ; but for the most part the very serious import of this consideration was ignored. It may be thought, possibly, that the bad character of a minority of the popes need not be prejudicial to the high claims of the rest. But in case of a gift which per- tains to the office, and not to the person, which must therefore be as truly the property of one incumbent as of Du Concile Gn6ral, II. ioofi. 1 Granderath, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils. III. 412. 208 THE ROMAN TYPE another, every instance of a character incompatible with the supposed gift testifies to the falsity of the notion that the gift is really attached to the office, or to the person merely in virtue of his possessing the office. Nor is the difficulty which confronts the infallibilist on this side to be evaded by the contention that bad popes have not at- tempted to put forth doctrinal decisions. Even if it should be granted that they have not done so, there is no guaran- tee against their doing that very thing, unless the opera- tion of a drastic form of determinism is an established fact. But it is not to be granted that we have anything like an adequate assurance that the badness of popes has not been a factor in the doctrinal determinations which have been made through the centuries. Badness does not consist merely in harboring those gross kinds of evil which advertise a man as a sensualist and a criminal. Pride of office, thirst for dogmatic distinction, appetite for rule may work mightily in men who in other respects stand before their fellows clothed in the garments of eminent respectability. Depravity in other forms has in- vaded the papal office. Who will inform us by authority that depravity in the specified forms has not invaded that office? To suppose that it has not is to suppose the in- credible. It may be said, in truth, that the notion of an official infallibility is essentially self-canceling. Where the mere entrance upon a given station means approx- imate deification the sense of official importance tends to overgrowth, and can with difficulty be kept, even in the most elect subjects, from eventuating in tempers which are incompatible with the best inward illumination. The object of a perpetual offering of incense, taught to regard his own will as superior to every other standard upon PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 209 earth, officially immune from all contradiction, the re- putedly infallible pontiff is no partaker of common flesh and blood if he is to resist fully and uniformly the tempta- tion to self-worship. Dollinger spoke none too strongly when he said : "All absolute power corrupts the man into whose possession it passes. To this all history bears testi- mony. Is this power in the spiritual order and does it rule the consciences of men, then the danger of self- exaltation is so much the greater, since the possession of such power exercises a specially misleading stimulus and facilitates self-deception, in that the passionate thirst for personal rule is only too easily palliated as care for the salvation of others. Should now the man, to whom such a boundless power has fallen, cherish the opinion that he is infallible and an organ of the Divine Spirit, should he be aware that an expression from him in moral and reli- gious things will be received with universal and even in- terior submission, the well-nigh inevitable result, so far as can be seen, will be that against such an intoxicating consciousness sobriety of spirit will never be preserved." 1 It may be added that the ever-recurring task of defending and asserting his extraordinary authority, which is de- volved upon the pontiff in the role of absolute and in- fallible ecclesiastical monarch, must tend to foster an abnormal consciousness of his importance, and that the incentive which comes from this source is likely to be strengthened by a line of precedents, as well as by the animus of a crowd of subordinates who find in pontifical greatness the surest basis for their own eminence. With this justification of the introduction of the theme, we may proceed to give some illustration of the spirit of 1 Dollinger und Friedrich, Das Papstthum, p. 235. 210 THE ROMAN TYPE those who have sat in the seat of a professedly inerrant judgment in matters of faith and morals. It will not be necessary to make a long catalogue of instances. Neither is there any occasion to insinuate that the popes as a body will not compare fairly well with any extended line of earthly magnates. As was indicated above, since the Vatican dogma makes infallibility an attachment of the papal office, that dogma is descredited by the presence in the said office of men whose character and conduct have been contradictory to the conditions of special reli- gious and ethical enlightenment asserted in the New Testament. Now, history demonstrates beyond all pos- sibility of refutation that various representatives of the papacy have fallen below an average standard of right- eous conduct, and that at least a few in the list have given adequate ground to be rated as specimens of downright depravity. Even as early as the fourth century some of the successors of Peter seem to have yielded to the temptations of worldly display and luxury. The fair- minded heathen historian Ammianus Marcellinus refers to their costly equipage and to their feasts surpassing kings' tables. 1 He also informs us that the episcopal chair was considered worth contending for even at the expense of blood, that indeed the sacrifice of one hundred and thirty-seven lives in the storming of a church was one incident of the struggle through which Damasus was made Roman bishop. 2 It is not determined, to be sure, how great was the responsibility of the victorious prelate for this abhorrent scene ; but it makes an immense strain on charity to suppose that the leader in the shameful con- test was in no wise accountable for the spirit of bloody 1 Rerum Gestarum, lib. xxvii. * Ibid. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM an violence in his followers. Equally dishonorable were the circumstances under which Vigilius gained the episcopal chair at Rome. He came to the high position, so Hefele judges, as the conscious instrument of the intriguing em- press, and at the expense of an outrageous injustice against his predecessor, who was made the victim of false accusations and driven out to provide room for this char- acterless tool. 1 Beginning with Sergius III in 904, the papacy for upwards of half a century was the spoil of un- principled Italian nobles, and especially of the notorious female trio, Theodora and her two daughters Marozia and Theodora. Some of the half dozen popes who be- longed to this period, significantly styled the period of the "pornocracy," were no better than the persons to whose shameless patronage they owed their position. This was true in particular of John XII. 2 In the first half of the following century another period of deep disgrace ensued, and among the popes of this era Benedict IX may be said to have rivaled the evil reputation of John XII. 3 As a class the Avignon popes (1309-1376), if not such abject specimens of spiritual sovereignty as some of their prede- cessors in the tenth and the eleventh century, were yet remote enough from all just claims to religious reverence. By the admission of the Roman Catholic historian Pastor their conduct was in general conspicuous for its worldly tone, and at the worst ran into a demoralizing and dis- graceful extreme of luxury. 4 In other respects also some of them exhibited a temper marvelously contrasted with 1 Conciliengeschichte, 208. Compare Langen, Geschichte der romischen Kirche von Leo I bis Nikolaus I, pp. 34aff. 2 On this section of papal history see Liutprandus, Historia Gestorum Regum et Imperatorum, also Liber de Rebus Gestis Ottonis ; Arnulf cited by Mansi, XIX. 131-133; Baronius, Annales Eccl., annis 904964. 1 Hefele, 538; Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom. IV. 39-70. 4 Geschichte der Papste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, I. 60-77. 212 THE ROMAN TYPE what might be expected of true vicars of the Christ. Clement V, in the fullness of his wrath over the en- croachments of the Venetians upon Ferrara, not only de- nounced against them the full list of spiritual penalties, but made their property liable to confiscation and their persons to enslavement wherever they might be seized. 1 Gregory XI gave vent to his rage against the Florentines in the same extravagant and outrageous terms. 2 Clement VI in his effort to crush the emperor, Lewis of Bavaria, exhausted all the resources of the language of impas- sioned invective. No pen of mortal, we believe, has out- done this strain: "We humbly implore divine power to repress the insanity of the aforesaid Lewis, to bring down and crush his pride, to overthrow him by the might of its right hand, to inclose him in the hands of his enemies and pursuers, and to deliver over to them his prostrate body. Let the snare be made ready for him in secret, and let him fall into it. Let him be accursed coming in; let him be accursed going out. The Lord smite him with folly, and blindness, and frenzy of mind. Let the heavens send their lightnings upon him. Let the wrath of the omnipotent God and of the saints Peter and Paul burn against him in this world and in that to come. Let the whole earth fight against him ; let the ground open and swallow him up alive. In one generation let his name be blotted out and his memory extinguished from the earth. Let all the elements be against him. Let his habitation become a desert ; let all the merits of the saints above confound him, and make open display of vengeance upon him in this life ; and let his sons be cast out of their habitations, and with his own eyes let him see them de- 1 Raynaldus, Annales Eccl., anno 1309. * Ibid., anno 1376. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 213 stroyed in the hands of enemies." 1 Taken all in all, the Avignon pontiffs afford a most pitiful ground of confi- dence as to their possession of a prerogative to give the rule of faith and the law of duty to the human race. But if it is close to absurdity to credit as much as that to them, what shall be said of their successors near the end of the fifteenth century, especially of such repre- sentatives of corrupt administration as Sixtus IV, Inno- cent VIII, and Alexander VI? The sense of spiritual responsibility in these men was completely overshadowed by the ambitions common to secular rulers. As Gregor- ovius remarks: "With Sixtus IV the priestly character of the pope began to vanish, and that of territorial lord became so prominent that the successors of Peter in that era appeared as representatives of Italian dynasties, only accidentally holding the place of popes and wearing the tiara in place of the ducal crown. The thoroughly worldly schemes to which the popes now devoted them- selves required more than ever the use of worldly means, such as financial speculations, traffic in offices and in matters of grace, unprincipled arts of statecraft, and the dominance of nepotism. Never before was nepotism driven with such recklessness. . . . Papal proteges, in most instances the actual bastards of the popes, Vatican princes, being brought upon the theater of Roman affairs with every new incumbent of the papal office, advanced suddenly to power, tyrannized over Rome and over the pope himself, contended for countships in a brief round of craft and intrigue against hereditary lords and against cities, kept in good fortune oftentimes only so long as the pope lived, and founded, even when their power went to 1 Raynaldus, anno 1346. 214 THE ROMAN TYPE pieces, new families of papal princes." 1 Among the rep- resentatives of this strange regime Alexander VI earned the crown of infamy. Having gained his election by a shameless use of bribery, he ruled chiefly in the interest of his children who had been born in adultery, and became virtually a copartner in the criminal career of one of the most unprincipled characters in history, his son, Caesar Borgia. So incontrovertible is the evidence against him that in the better range of Roman Catholic scholarship the hope of any successful defense has van- ished. Pastor emphatically repudiates the possibility of any rehabilitation of. the character of Alexander VI. 2 Though wont to denounce the Reformation of the six- teenth century as the fountain head of modern woes, the popes undoubtedly have derived great benefit from that source. The presence of a neighboring power like Prot- estantism has helped very efficiently to place them on their good behavior. That is not saying, however, that in recent times they have not sometimes manifested tem- pers which appear in glaring contrast with their tremen- dous claims. Even a pontiff so highly reputed for natural amiability as Pius IX gave a conspicuous example of this order of self-manifestation. Referring to the ex- communications visited upon those who had taken part in the project of annexing the Estates of the Church to the kingdom of Italy, he said: "True, I cannot, like Saint Peter, hurl certain thunders which turn bodies to ashes; nevertheless, I can hurl thunders which turn souls to ashes. And I have done it by excommunicating all those who perpetrated the sacrilegious spoliation, or had > Geschichte der Stadt Rom, VII. 231-233. 2 Geschichte der Papste seit dem Ausgang des Mittclalters, I. 588, III. 27 iff. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 215 a hand in it." 1 The pertinent comment is not far to seek. If a tithe of the spirit of arbitrary and inflated sovereignty which breathes through these words was operative as a motive power in Pius IX when he was pressing for the promulgation of the dogma of papal infallibility, then a broad black zone of suspicion is spread over that dogma, since the pontiff was the most potent factor in securing its declaration. A very serious bearing upon the present theme must | be assigned to the part which the popes have fulfilled / in the history of intolerance. No right-minded man wilK care to deny that persecution for cause of religion has \ constituted a dismal tragedy, and left a most deplorable ) blot upon the records of Christianity. Nothing besides in those records is so well adapted to invite the scorn and aversion of the non-Christian nations. Manifestly, then, no slight ground of impeachment stands against those by whose consent or command the tragedy has been enacted. Nor will it answer to plead that in this matter the popes have been no worse than their times. If they were in truth infallible vicars of Christ, they ought to have been better than their times, instead of acquiescing in proceed- ings which were to be a capital horror in the contempla- tion of future generations. Moreover, it cannot be said unqualifiedly that they were as good as their respective eras. Proof has already been given that the nineteenth century popes as a body fell in their teaching below the standard of tolerance which the general movement of civilization tended to establish. 2 As regards those who 1 Discorsi, I. 158, cited by William Arthur, The Pope, the King, and the People, I 40, 41. 'Chap, i, sect. iii. 2i6 THE ROMAN TYPE ruled the Church in the darker eras of persecution, a considerable percentage may not have been distinguished by extra zeal for measures of harsh repression. But some of them were thus distinguished. In the mandatory epistles of Innocent III nothing is more prominent than the stern order to coerce the heretics and to visit them with severe punishments. 1 The action taken at the Fourth Lateran Council, held under his auspices, was perfectly in line with his administration as a whole. In the article De Hareticis the council instituted a regular plan of search for heretics, a scheme which served as the germ of the Inquisition. By the same article the tem- poral lord was put under bonds to exterminate heresy. "If a temporal lord," says the decree, "after being sum- moned and admonished by the Church, shall neglect to purge his land of heretical defilement, the metropolitan and the bishops of the province shall bind him with the excommunication. If he refuses to give satisfaction within a year, his case shall be brought before the supreme pontiff, and he shall declare his vassals released from their allegiance, and shall give over his land to the occupation of Catholics, who having exterminated the heretics, shall possess it without challenge and preserve it in purity of faith." 2 Innocent IV instructed Italian inquisitors to require magistrates fully to observe a code in which obstinate heretics were sentenced to death by fire. 3 By the same pontiff the practice of withholding from the person charged with heresy the names of both accusers and witnesses was explicitly justified. 4 Inno- 1 Lib. i. epist. 81, 509, ii. i, iii. 3, vii. 212, ix. 18, 102, x. 130, 149. Mansi, XXII. 987. Eymeric, Directorium Inquisitorum cum Commentariis Francisci Pegnae, Appendix pp. 5-15. * Directorium, p. 137. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 217 cent VIII, when the magistrates of Brescia, in 1486, refused to execute the sentences of the Inquisition with- out seeing the trials, ordered the inquisitor to excom- municate them if they did not render compliance within six days 1 an incident among many which shows that the office of the secular government in the punishment of heretics was essentially ministerial, and was so re- garded by the ecclesiastical power. 2 Leo X in the bull Exsurge Domine (1520), which seems to have been is- sued in perfect ex cathedra form, 3 gave a pontifical sanc- tion to the burning of heretics by condemning this soberly-worded statement of Luther, "It is contrary to the will of the Spirit that heretics should be burned." 4 Pius V warned the French king, Charles IX, that if he failed in his duty to make an end of the Protestants in his realm he might expect to earn the retribution which came upon King Saul for his refusal to smite the Ama- lekites, charged him to exterminate heresy even to the roots and the fibers of the roots (radices, atque etiam radicum fibras), and plied him, as well as other mem- bers of the royal family, with admonitions well calculated to incite to such a tragedy as the Saint Bartholomew 1 Bull Dilectus filius, Sept. 30, 1486, Directorium, Appendix, p. 84. 1 The statements of Bellarmine indicate how free eminent exponents of Roman Catholicism were in a former age to admit the responsibility of the Church for the severities used against heretics. Referring to Luther's view that capital punishment ought not to be inflicted on heretics, he says: "All Catholics teach the contrary. . . . That heretics have often been burned by the Church (quod hasrctici sint saepe ab ecclesia combusti), can be shown if we adduce a few examples from many. To omit unnumbered others (alios infinites) John Huss and Jerome of Prague were burned at the Council of Constance by the Emperor Sigismund" (Be Membris Eccl. Mil., lib. iii. cap. 21, 22). Anyone can see from his language that the distinguished dogmatist considered the secular power, in the matter of burning heretics, simply instrumental to the Church. ' Billot numbers it among documents indubitably ex cathedra (Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Tertius, De Subjecto Potestatis, 1900, p. 167). 4 Proposition 33. Haereticos comburi est contra voluntatem Spiritus (Bullurium Romanum, edit, of 1638, I. 452). 218 THE ROMAN TYPE massacre. 1 Gregory XIII, a little later, ordered a public rejoicing over the accomplished tragedy, and memorial- ized it by a coin bearing the inscription, "Ugonottorum strages." Furthermore he had an historical picture exe- cuted, one of the scenes of which was set off with the significant words, "Pontifex Colinii necem probat" "The pontiff approves the slaying of Coligny." 2 Y In the history of the forcible repression of dissenting j faiths the maximum horror attaches to the Spanish In- \C[Uisition. How were the popes related to that work? Two things have been said in an attempt to minify their responsibility. It has been claimed that the readiness of the popes to receive appeals from the sentences of the Spanish tribunal was a token of an indisposition on their part to sanction the proceedings of that tribunal. But the claim is without any substantial ground. It has been customary with the Roman pontiffs to jealously guard their appellate jurisdiction. At the time when the In- quisition was doing its most fearful work it was finan- cially profitable to entertain appeals, since wealthy "Con- versos" were ready to buy at Rome the mercy which was denied them in Spain. Men of the stamp of Innocent VIII and Alexander VI cared nothing for the victims who appealed to their grace, and showed as much by taking back with one hand what they gave with the other. A signal instance of this double-dealing was fur- nished by the latter, September 17, 1498, when he "ad- dressed a brief to the Spanish inquisitors empowering them to proceed against all heretics, notwithstanding all 1 De Potter, Lettres de Saint Pie V. See in particular letters xii, xiii, xvii, xyiii, xxiv, xxix, xxxii, xxxiii. * Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots, II. 533. For a very full compendium of evidence on the relation of the popes to repressive measures against heresy, see Eymeric, Directorium Inqvusitorum, Appendix. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 219 letters of absolution and redintegration heretofore or hereafter issued, for all such letters were to be held as having been granted inadvertently." 1 With popes of a higher character the motive for receiving appeals was at best a doubt as to the sufficiency of the grounds of con- viction. The compassionate desire to spare real offenders against any item of reputed orthodoxy was, to all appear- ance, a perfectly insignificant factor during the prolonged epoch of inquisitorial terror. The second ground of ex- culpation, or that based in the assumption that the Spanish Inquisition was preeminently a political insti- tution, is equally unavailing. Even if it had been of that character, the popes would not stand absolved of respon- sibility for its merciless and destructive enterprise. In- deed, it might be contended that for them to subordinate their power to the service of an instrument of political despotism would have involved a specially disgraceful abuse of their office. As to the actual character of the Spanish Inquisition, while it is true that it had a some- what intimate connection with the State, it was neverthe- less a distinctively ecclesiastical institution, devoted to the ecclesiastical purpose of purging the land of heretical defilement, and receiving for its servants special immuni- ties and privileges by grant of pontifical authority. Its supreme officials obtained their commissions from the popes, .and were treated by them as eminently worthy of applause. Extant letters of Sixtus IV and Alexander VI show how effusive they could be in praising the work of a Torquemada. 2 And more substantial tokens of approval than these verbal encomiums were rendered. 1 Lea, History of the Inquisition of Spain, II. 113-114. J Ibid., I. 174. 220 THE ROMAN TYPE Thus Pius V in the bull Si dc protegendis, April I, 1569, ordered the delivery to the secular arm, for the punish- ment due to high treason, of anyone maltreating or even threatening an official of the Inquisition or destroying or altering its records. 1 This bull, if not meant specifically for Spain, included that country. "The Spanish Inquisi- tion claimed the benefit of it, and had a Castilian version of it published every year." 2 In individual instances papal zeal outran even that of the Spanish heresy-hun- ters. A case in point was furnished by Paul IV, who in 1559 authorized the Spanish tribunal to hand over for execution even such recanting heretics as had never re- lapsed, provided the genuineness of their repentance was suspected. 3 So the evidence of well-attested facts refutes the grounds of exculpation. The spectacle of blazing fagots, so cruelly frequent in Spain, must ever offer its effective comment on the claims of those who profess to be the infallible vicars of the Prince of Peace. The delinquency of the popes as respects guiding Christendom toward the platform of religious tolerance has been well-nigh matched by their fault in relation to the witchcraft delusion. Innocent VIII in the bull Summis desiderantes gave full sanction to the wildest notions respecting the destructive powers of witches, 4 and some of his successors also made their contribution to one of the most fatal epidemics of foolishness that ever ravaged civilized communities. The popes in this matter may not have been worse than many others, whether Catholics or Protestants. The pertinent con- sideration is that by their deadly fallibility they helped 1 Bullarium Romanum, edit, of 1638, II. 210. * Lea, III. 189. * Raynaldus, Annales Eccl., anno 1559, n. 18. * Ibid., anno 1484, n. 74. PAPAL ABSOLUTISM 221 on the insane excesses of the age, and through their teachings raised barriers against the incoming of more enlightened views, so that the effective safeguard against a recrudescence of the witchcraft delusion has been pro- vided rather by the progress of science and culture in general than by the consensus of Roman Catholic theo- logians. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the preceding discussion stands in close logical relation with the subject-matter of the closing section of the preceding chapter. Since the Roman Catholic Church has accepted the dogma of papal infallibility, the evidence which serves to refute that dogma serves at the same time to discredit the claim of the Church to infallibility, at least so far as the Church is identified with the Roman Catho- lic communion. CHAPTER III SOME FEATURES OF THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM I. THE GENERAL CONCEPTION OF THE SACRAMENTS y' THE Council of Trent gave such large attention to th_ sacraments, and affirmed so specifically the characteristic ideas of mediaeval scholasticism on this theme, that little room was left for further developments. In a sketch, therefore, of Roman sacerdotalism in the nineteenth cen- tury it will not be necessary to award a lengthy consid- eration to the sacramental system. It will suffice to show that recent dogmatists have neither ameliorated the ex- treme features of the mediaeval and Tridentine system nor furnished any satisfactory means of defending those features against most serious objections. As respects the function of the sacraments in the sphere of Christianity, very full evidence is afforded that there has been no abatement from the ultra- ceremonial standpoint on the part of Roman Catholic theologians in times adjacent to the present. The enormous importance which they attach to that func- tion is evinced, in the first place, by the broad con- trast which they draw in common between the sacra- mental rites of the Old Testament and those of the new dispensation. "The sacraments of the old law," says Monsabre, "invited men to ask for the righteousness, the holiness, the life of God ; the sacraments of the new law confer directly these great gifts. The sacraments of the old law were only directive signs, the sacraments of the THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 223 new law are efficacious signs." 1 "If the proper character of sacraments," writes Hurter, "is located in this, that they are causes of sanctification, then the sacraments of the Old Testament are called sacraments only by way of analogy ; for the sacraments of the New Testament cause true sanctity, while the sacraments of the Old Testa- ment effected only the shadow and figure of true sanctity, namely, a legal sanctity." 2 Heinrich and others insist in like manner upon the wide difference between the sacra- mental rites of the two dispensations. 3 In the second place, the vast importance which the latest dogmatists attach to the office of the sacraments is shown by the resoluteness and unanimity with which they assert that these rites, so far from being simply signs and pledges of grace, are instrumental causes of grace, producing their proper effects ex op ere operate in subjects who do not interpose an obstacle. Even the Scotist view, though it does not necessarily detract from the benefits connected with the sacraments, is repudiated as not doing full jus- tice to these sacred ordinances of the new law, since it makes them rather occasions for special workings of the Divine Spirit in the recipients than actual bearers or in- strumental causes of grace. In the view of Sasse it is simply the requirement of the faith to attach to them the latter character. "It is a revealed dogma," he says, "that the sacraments of the new law are instrumental causes of the grace which they signify, so that, indeed, by virtue of the visible sign itself, duly applied according to Christ's institution, grace is immediately conferred upon i Exposition du Dogme Catholique, XI. 88, 89. z Theolpgiae Dogmaticae Compendium, eleventh edit., III. 243. 'Heinrich, Lehrbuch der Katholischen Dogmatik, 1900, p. 622; Sasse, Institutiones Theologies de Sacramentis, I. 49, 83-89. 224 THE ROMAN TYPE men not opposing an obstacle." 1 The like conception of the sacraments is set forth by other writers, if not as re- vealed dogma, at least as indubitable truth. 2 On this basis it evidently follows that good motions and dispo- sitions in the recipient do not positively condition sacra- mental grace, but only serve to remove a hindrance to a cause which works with an intrinsic and independent efficiency. As Heinrich, quoting from Bellarmine, puts the matter: "Will, faith, and penitence are necessarily required in the receiving adult as dispositions on the part of the subject, not as active causes; faith and penitence do not, indeed, effect sacramental grace, nor give efficacy to the sacraments, but merely take away obstacles which hinder the sacraments from exercising their efficacy; wherefore in infants, where the disposition is not re- quired, justification takes place without these things." 3 Again, the tendency of recent Roman Catholic thinking to espouse the most emphatic views of the virtue of the sacraments is clearly evinced by the well-nigh unquali- fied stress which is placed upon their necessity. As will be shown later, Roman Catholic theology, even within the last few decades, has put in evidence an overwhelm- ing consensus on the side of the conclusion that untold millions of human beings are eternally excluded from the kingdom of heaven for no other cause than failure to receive a sacrament in relation to which they had no sort of knowledge or opportunity. The last statement furnishes by itself a most formida- ble objection to the estimate which is placed upon the 1 Inst. Theol. de Sacramentis, I. 275. * Hurter, III. ti^fi. ; Heinrich, pp. 6ojfi.; Billot, De Ecclesiae Sacra- mentis, fourth edit., I. 535. Lehrbuch, p. 618. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 225 sacraments in Roman sacerdotalism. What becomes of \ a truly ethical and spiritual religion when the mere lack of an external condition is supposed to condemn countless / souls to an eternal exclusion from heaven? In another ' point of view also the sacramental teaching of Romanism invites to a most serious challenge. The contrast which it draws between the rites of the old law and those of the new affords a basis for a piece of externalism in religion that amounts to a veritable desecration of the Christian standard. From a consideration of the emptiness and inefficacy imputed to the Old Testament sacraments, on the one hand, and of the treasure wrapped up in the New Testament sacraments, on the other hand, an incen- tive arises to assert that the interior conditions of salva- tion are less under the Christian than they were under the Hebrew dispensation; that, in fact, the subjects of the former, on account of their superior sacramental privileges, can be released in part from the demand for penitence and love which rested upon the subjects of the latter. This strange induction, which puts a premium on machinery as against ethical religion, and sinks Chris- tianity far below the plane of prophetical Judaism, may not have been a matter of universal advocacy in later Romanism. But it has been asserted in widely circulated books, and distinctly maintained, as will be shown in the concluding section of this chapter, by writers who have been loaded with extraordinary honors. It makes, there- fore, a valid comment on the tendency of the ultra sacra- mental theory with which we are dealing. Among remaining grounds of objection let a brief mention of two suffice in this connection. The theory under review violates the demand for perspective in 226 THE ROMAN TYPE dealing with the New Testament content. How much of the recorded discourse of Jesus was given to inculcating ceremonial obligations? Not above two or three sen- tences, if we exclude, as we have a right to do, a sacra- mental import from the sixth chapter of the fourth Gospel. How much of the apostolic message was occupied with the description or inculcation of sacramental rites? Not so much as a single chapter of average length. That which filled the thought and overflowed in the speech of Jesus and of his first ambassadors evidently lay in the sphere of ethical religion, and not in that of ceremonial performance. The dogmatic aberration which makes the sacraments of chief consequence is more akin to the Pharisaism withf which Jesus came into mortal conflict than to the spiritual ideal of the New Testament. Philosophically also the ultra sacramental theory is chargeable with no slight dif- ficulty. One can conceive of a physical entity or transac- tion as being mediately the cause of a spiritual effect; that is, as having a certain efficacy to remind of truths or facts which are adapted to quicken thought and feel- ing. But who can figure the manner in which a physical entity or operation actually bears a spiritual grace and directly imparts spiritual benefits to a spiritual subject? One might as well undertake to express faith and love in terms of chemistry as try to fulfill such a task. The postulated agent is quite disparate with the effect. Doubtless the manner of working of the Divine Spirit is hidden from us, but the Spirit is at least the right kind of an agent for the working of transformations in a spiritual subject. The rejected Scotist theory is therefore any amount more credible than that which has been given the stamp or orthodoxy in the interest of THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 227 a higher rating- of the mystery and importance of the visible rites. In a system which places quite as much emphasis upon ceremonial transactions as upon subjective conditions it is not illogical to insist that the sacramental grace will be forfeited by a fault in the sacramental performance. J This consideration may help to explain in a measure why Roman dogmatists have retained a fairly strict doctrine of intention, notwithstanding the hazard to which it exposes faith in the validity of the ecclesiastical organ- ism. According to this doctrine the ministrant of a sac- rament must intend to do therein what the Church does, that is, to fulfill the general purpose of the Church in that particular rite, otherwise no sacrament in fact oc- curs. The doctrine has a conciliar basis. At the Council of Florence it was declared : "All sacraments are effected by three factors, namely, by things as matter, by words as form, and by the person conferring the sacrament with the intention of doing what the Church does; if any of these is absent the sacrament is not performed." 1 The Council of Trent ordained : "If anyone saith that, in ministers, when they effect and confer the sacraments, there is not required the intention at least of doing what the Church does: let him be anathema." 2 The council furthermore emphasized the need of intention in the min- istrant by calling in question the validity of the sacra- ment of penance in a case where the priest had no intention of "acting seriously and absolving truly." 3 According to the natural interpretation of these decisions, 1 Deer. pro. Armen. * Sess. vii, De Sacramentis in genere, can. n. * Sess. xiv. De Poenitent. et Extrem. Unct. Sacramentis, cap. vi. 228 THE ROMAN TYPE the intention to go through the mere form of the sacra- ment, without regard to its meaning and purpose, does not suffice. A few writers, following Catharinus, who set forth his view at the time of the Tridentine Council, have limited the necessary intention to the bare externals. But the weight of conciliar authority was too plainly against them to permit their theory to gain any large currency. It seems also to have been squarely excluded by the act of Pope Alexander VIII, near the end of the seventeenth century, in condemning the following propo- sition : "Baptism is valid, being performed by a minister who observes the entire external rite and form of baptiz- ing, but resolves with himself in his heart: I do not intend what the Church does." 1 The language of Leo XIII in his letter on Anglican orders might appear, it is true, to conflict with the sentence of his predecessor. "The Church," he says, "does not judge about the mind and intention in so far as it is something by its nature internal; but in so far as it is manifested externally she is bound to judge concerning it. When anyone has rightly and seriously made use of the due form and the matter requisite for effecting or conferring a sacrament he is considered by the very fact to do what the Church does." 2 This statement might suggest the sufficiency of the intention simply to go through the customary ex- ternals of a rite. However, there is no likelihood that Leo XIII designed to sanction that view. He may be understood to say, not that the Church is sure of the validity of a sacrament when the proper externals are fulfilled, but only that she does not consider herself 1 Cited by Hurter, Theol. Dogmat. Compendium, III. 258. * Letter Apostolicae Curae, Sept. 13, 1896. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 229 authorized positively to challenge the validity of any individual case of sacramental performance where the given conditions have been observed. The pontiff, there- fore, did not open the door for the return of the theory of Catharinus; and if we consult the verdict of recent theologians we are assured that the door is effectually barred against that theory. "Whoever," says Scheeben, "wills merely to posit the outer rite, he wills to act merely with his own natural faculties and not in the name of Christ; he does not will to use the ministerial power granted by Christ for the performance of a sacra- ment, and so can bring about no sacrament." 1 "An intention mere externa," affirms Heinrich, "which is directed to the external transaction and not to the sacra- mental transaction in no way suffices." 2 "The proposi- tion of Catharinus," writes Hurter, "which affirms that by the deliberate external action itself and the external adjuncts the matter and form are so determined to the character of a sacrament, that the validity of the sacra- ment is not able to be hindered by any interior contrary intention, which may be hidden in the mind of the min- ister, cannot be admitted." 3 Statements of identical im- port are made by Sasse and Billot in their respective treatises on the sacraments. 4 In short, it may be re-A garded as a well-established item of Roman Catholic 1 dogmatics that the intention mere externa does not suf- / fice for the valid performance of a sacrament. What guarantee, then, have we that there is any valid ministry in the Roman Catholic Church? What avails the parading of an ecclesiastical pedigree running back 1 Compendium, III. 257. * Sasse, I. i48ff.; "Billot, I. igoft. 230 THE ROMAN TYPE to Peter, so long as the serious possibility stares us in the face that one or another in the line may have received nothing more than the semblance of baptism or of or- dination, on account of the withholding of the proper sacramental intention? Who can offer us any adequate guarantees that the succession has not been broken again and again, so that now the Roman hierarchy is as desti- tute of the supernatural grace supposed to be tied to a valid priesthood as is the ministry of any schismatic or heretical communion on the face of the earth? On the basis of tangible verifiable evidence no such guarantees can be found. The best that Roman apologists and dog- matists can do is either to pass over the matter in silence or to appeal to divine providence. Those who adopt the latter alternative contend that God will do whatever is necessary to maintain a perfect succession in the priest- hood. In case the succession, says a representative of this contention, should be threatened by the fault of the ministrant of the rite of baptism or of orders, "our Lord, not desiring his own system to break down, would then either constrain the consecrator (or the baptizer), to supply the needful intention, or else would himself im- part the gift of orders (or of baptism) to the candi- date." 1 Such a way of arguing may be satisfactory to one who is already thoroughly imbued with the convic- tion that a priesthood with continuous outward connec- tions is the most essential thing in the cosmic system. But for one who does not share that conviction such argumentation will count for nothing. Moreover, he will in all likelihood be vexatiously inquisitive on one or two points. He will be inclined, relative to the first of *S. P. Smith, The Doctrine of Intention, 1895, pp. 13, 13. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 231 the two alternatives mentioned, to inquire after the war- rant for supposing that it suits divine administration to override the will of the priest who happens to be a con- cealed infidel or man sold to evil, and to put into him the correct intention by main force. In relation to the second alternative he will be disposed to ask, Does not the sup- position of a divine bestowal of sacramental benefits apart from the functioning of Roman machinery, even though it be done for the conservation of the said ma- chinery, at least suggest that God is not helplessly tied to that instrumentality? And, if that is the case, is it not derogatory to his character as a benevolent God to suppose that he will refuse to bestow his grace, in un- stinted measure, upon those who in all good conscience seek his gifts through other channels than the perform- ances of a particular line of priests? On the whole, the thing most worthy of the Roman apologist would be the frank confession that his system has run aground on the subject of necessary intention, and that the way to con- serve a monopoly of divine benefits to his own party has become grievously darkened. II. THE NECESSITY OF BAPTISM The strong statement of Bellarmine, "Whoever is not baptized, or at least does not desire baptism, is not saved, though the lack results from ignorance or impotence," 1 embodies the standard teaching of his Church in the en- tire modern era. According to that teaching a catechu- men who is looking forward to baptism, but is cut off before the administration of the rite, can be saved in 1 De Sacramentis, lib. i, cap. 22. 232 THE ROMAN TYPE virtue of his faith, desire, and purpose. Only on the basis of this sort of inward compensation does the lack of the outward rite cease to be fatal. It follows, since infants cannot offer this inward compensation, that they are not saved if they die unbaptized. So evidently the Council of Florence judged when it reprobated delay in administering baptism to children on the ground that there is no other means of rescue for them. 1 The Coun- cil of Trent used language in treating of the subject of original sin which seems to involve the same judgment. 2 In the Tridentine catechism, which has high, if not com- plete, dogmatic authority, the given conclusion was ex- pressed in unmistakable terms. "Nothing can be more necessary," we read there, "than that the faithful should be taught that the law of baptism has been so prescribed by the Lord to all men, that unless they are reborn to God through the grace of baptism, they are generated for everlasting misery and destruction by their parents, whether they be believers or unbelievers. . . . Since for infants there is no way of obtaining salvation, except baptism is afforded to them, it is easily understood with , how grave a fault those bind themselves who suffer them to be without the grace of the sacrament longer than \ necessity requires." 3 Attempts to escape this somber conclusion on the fate of infants dying without baptism have been made by an occasional Roman Catholic writer. Cajetan in the six- teenth century entertained the supposition that the prayers of parents may avail for such offspring as have been deprived of the sacrament. Amort in the eighteenth century gave a qualified acceptance to this supposition. 1 Deer, pro Jacobit. Sess. v, can. 4. Pars ii, cap. ii. 31, 34. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 233 In the first half of the nineteenth century Klee ventured to suggest that infants may be so enlightened in the article of death as to be able to desire baptism, and more recently Schell has given countenance to the view that the sufferings of infants may be rated as a kind of sac- rament, and so may serve to secure for them a title to salvation. These instances of an ameliorated judgment are inter- esting as tokens of the direction which even Roman Catholic thinking would almost inevitably be driven to take, under modern conditions, were it not subject to the shackles of an ironclad dogmatism ; but it cannot be said that they have borne any apparent fruit. A perfectly overwhelming consensus stands on the side of the con- clusion that infants dying without baptism, though not subject to any positive infliction of pain, never gain the proper goal of redeemed spirits, being eternally ex- cluded from the kingdom of heaven. Thus in the well- known Catholic Dictionary of Addis and Arnold we read: "Infants dying unbaptized are excluded from the kingdom of heaven." 1 In the Kirchenlexicon of Wetzer and Welte the statement is made: "For those who can- not effect an opus operantis or awaken a votum sacra- menti the actual reception of baptism is an indispensable means for the attainment of justifying grace." The plain inference contained in this language, that unbap- tized infants remain outside the kingdom of grace, is drawn in what follows, and every attempt to secure for them an entrance into that kingdom is repudiated as illegitimate. 2 Precisely the same ground is taken in the 1 Article "Baptism." Compare Catholic Encyclopedia edited by I arm and others. l Article "Taufe," Vol. XI, pp. 1271, 1272. Herber 234 THE ROMAN TYPE very full discussion of the subject of baptism in the Dic- tionnaire de Theologie Catholique issued under the direc- tion of Vacant. Referring to the decisions of councils and the declarations of popes, the writer says : "All these documents prove in an evident fashion how useless and vain are the attempts made by some theologians to find, in case of necessity, some equivalent for baptism, and to insure by this means the eternal salvation of unbap- tized infants." 1 The above expressions can easily be paralleled by cita- tions from numerous writers who are in repute for orthodoxy. Thus Perrone wrote : "Infants departing from this life without baptism do not attain to eternal salvation." This proposition, he maintained, is de fide, or a part of the established faith. 2 "Though children dying without baptism," says Scheeben, "are eternally excluded from the glory of heaven, and accordingly are so far damned, as they endure the so-called pocna damni, still they are not visited with the same positive punish- ments which befall those who on account of grave per- sonal sins are destined to hell." 3 "Infants," observes Palmieri, "if they fail of baptism, although they are with- out fault, nevertheless do not obtain salvation." 4 "The lot of infants dying without baptism," contends Mon- sabre, "is a veritable damnation, because it is the effect of a malediction pronounced upon the human race in the person of their first parent. But it is to be well under- stood that there is damnation and damnation." 5 Hein- rich writes: "For children, aside from the baptism of 1 Article "Bapteme," Vol. II. p. 364. * Pnelect. Theol., second edit., IV. 409. Handbuch, Vol. IV. 362. 4 Tractatus de Romano Pontifice, second edit., p. 19. * Exposition du Dogme Catholique, XI. 186. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 235 blood, there is nothing which can take the place of the sacrament." Referring to the views of Cajetan, Klee, and Schell, he adds: "All these opinions stand more or less in contradiction with the teaching of the Church on the necessity of baptism." 1 "The Church," Sasse main- tains, "does not pray nor teach the faithful to pray God that he will save infants dying without baptism; since, indeed, there is no hope or probability of their salva- tion." 2 "Regeneration," argues Hurter, "is effected by baptism. Therefore baptism is to infants absolutely necessary for salvation." 3 "Theologians," remarks Bil- lot, "are unanimously agreed in this: the actual sacra- ment has been in any time whatsoever an altogether necessary means of salvation to all thoe who never have had the use of reason." 4 "It is of faith," asserts Russo, "that children dying unbaptized are excluded from eternal life; they will never enjoy the supernatural hap- piness which the blood of Christ purchased for all ; never contemplate face to face the infinite beauty of God ; never become citizens of the kingdom their more fortunate brethren are called to possess." 5 It is difficult to imagine by what process of dogmatic desiccation nineteenth century theologians could have\ qualified themselves coolly to repeat such a creed of gratuitous damnation. Surely thought and feeling alike in them must have been sadly fettered through enslave- ment to the prescriptions of a past age which viewed the 1 Lehrbuch, p. 642. 2 Inst. Theol. de Sacramentis, I. 229. 1 Theol. Dogmat. Compendium, III. 280. 4 De Ecclesiae Sacramentis, I, 255. 5 The True Religion and its Dogmas, p. 149. Compare Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, III. 229; Coppens, A Systematic Study of the Catholic Religion, p. 226; Byrne, Toe Catholic Doctrine of Faith and Morals, 1892, pp. 224, 225. 236 THE ROMAN TYPE subject of the eternal destinies of men from a wrong V angle and treated it with heartless superficiality. The portion of the race which has died in infancy without baptism makes an enormous aggregate. What kind of a God can he be, who is supposed eternally to close the door of the kingdom to this countless throng for the mere lack of a ceremony which, if applied to them, could have no meaning to their undeveloped intelligence, and no effect other than one purely magical? Should a human father disinherit his children because on a given day they failed to wash their faces before the breakfast hour, though without any fault of theirs it was absolutely impossible to secure a drop of water for the purpose, the common judgment would be that the paternal character in that father had given place to the impulses of the madman or soulless tyrant. What, then, is to be said of a God who ordains an eternal forfeiture for a great part of the race just on account of the lack of a few drops of the baptismal element ? Certainly the inference must be that he is totally destitute of the fatherly disposition, that he cares nothing for men, that his bosom is steeled against the claims of benevolence. If he seems to make cost for the salvation of the race, it must be that he consents to the expenditure simply because he considers it more agreeable to occupy himself with some enterprise than to remain idle. Were he really concerned to save men he would have no inclination to put into his scheme of salvation such an arbitrary element as in the nature of the case must become a sure ground of the damnation of a great part of mankind. As well imagine a mother debarred by some paltry item of social etiquette from rushing to the rescue of her imperiled child, as represent THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 237 a God of real love to be excluded from saving offices to immortal souls merely because he had not been invited to pay attention to them by a two-minute ceremony on some earthly field. It is the very deification of method, as against the ends to which all rational methods must be subordinated, which meets us in this abhorrent dogma. All attempts to justify it serve only to discredit it the more. Every one of them assails the thought of God as a truly ethical being. Take, for instance, the following statement: "Protestant difficulties on this point arise from inadequate ideas on the grace and the sovereignty of God. Heaven is a reward which is in no way due to human nature, and God can withhold it as he pleases without injustice." 1 What have we here but a picture of frozen majesty, a God without a heart, a being who considers not the best which he can do for his children, but only what falls within the legal prerogatives of lord- ship? Manifestly a God who governs on that plan, who condemns unnumbered souls, instrinsically as well quali- fied as are any for the highest good, to a dwarfed and im- poverished existence for an endless age, when he might just as well exalt them to be eternally blessed and eternally a blessing in the kingdom of heaven, is no ideal for human contemplation. In short, this dogma of the necessary damnation of unbaptized children is a grievous affront to the ethical nature of God. The hierarchy which has published and tenaciously maintained it has advertised in large and ineffaceable characters its fallibility. It has subscribed such a refutation of its own claim to infallible authority as cannot fail to be effective in any community which is not hermetically 1 Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, article "Baptism." 238 THE ROMAN TYPE sealed against the saner ways of thinking which an ad- vancing civilization tends to introduce. /It may be expected that we should take account of the .scriptural ground of the dogma which we have criticised. /And certainly, if there were any such ground, it would be incumbent upon us not to pass it by in silence. But it remains to be discovered that any New Testament writer had the slightest intention to deal with the subject Vof baptism in relation to infants. 1 Every clear reference, in the Gospels and Epistles, to baptismal obligations and privileges was evidently penned with reference to adult subjects to whom belonged the full responsibilities of adults. And even for them a large part of the impor- tance attached to baptism belonged to the peculiar condi- tions of the time. The candidates had not been brought up in the sphere of Christianity, but in domains generally distinguished by sharp hostility to the new religion. Ac- cordingly, baptism meant a most radical change of rela- tionships. It meant a public declaration of a new and all-comprehending allegiance. The obligation to it was the obligation to a loyal confession of the holy one ac- cepted as Lord and Saviour. The rite, too, was com- monly administered in immediate connection with the springing up of faith in that Saviour, and consequently seemed to fulfill the function of a completing act in the appropriation of Christianity. Speaking in view of these special conditions the New Testament preachers might conceivably be incited occasionally to use rather strong language on the function of baptism. As it was a great 1 In saying this we by no means intend to deny that the New Testament affords ground for inferring a religious relation of children, a relation to which a solemn dedicatory rite like baptism may render a suitable recogni- tion. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 239 initial act of confessing Christ, they could feel warranted in connecting with it the rich blessing which is associated by the gospel with loyal confession, and believe that Christ would meet his witness in the baptismal transac- tion with the quickening and purifying presence of his Spirit. But with all this appreciation of the office of baptism they have made it evident that they did not at- tach to it a tithe of the importance which they ascribed to the great ethical conditions of salvation. A few casual statements embrace the whole sum of their references to the subject. To proceed on this scanty and indefinite basis to infer such a necessity for baptism that even an innocent lack of it must involve an eternal forfeiture of salvation is to do violence to the spirit of the New Testa- ment writers and to the indubitable tenor of their teach- ing. It is difficult to speak of an induction of that sort as anything less than a defamation. The extravagant and inflexible ceremonialism which it represents is dis- tant by a whole diameter from the free spirit of Jesus. III. TRANSUBST AN TIATION This term, which more than any other expresses the\ mystery attached to the eucharistic rite in Roman Catho-: ) lie dogmatics, was authoritatively defined by the Council/ of Trent as follows : "If anyone saith, that, in the sacred ^ and holy sacrament of the eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that won- derful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood the species only of the bread I 240 THE ROMAN TYPE ' and wine remaining which conversion, indeed, the ! Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation : let \hirn be anathema." 1 Language of identical import is employed in the Tridentine catechism. 2 It will be ob- served that in the supposedly infallible declaration of the council the change which is assumed to take place in the eucharistic elements is described as a conversion of one substance into another. The representation is not that the substance of the bread is annihilated, and that the body of Christ, made substantially present, is brought into the place rendered vacant by the act of annihilation ; rather the council teaches that the bread is converted into the body of Christ. Since now the eucharistic transac- tion was not viewed as giving Christ a new body, we have the authority of the Tridentine assembly for the conclusion that in every valid celebration of the Lord's Supper one substance is changed into another already existing substance, the substance of the bread being con- verted into the preexisting body, and the substance of the wine into the preexisting blood. 3 To escape this con- clusion the Roman Catholic dogmatist would need the hardihood to impute to the council a loose use of lan- guage. In other words, he must make bold to say that the Tridentine fathers spoke of the conversion of one substance into another when they really meant something else. Virtually, if not formally, this has been done by some who have preferred to think rather of annihilation and substitution than of conversion of substance. But naturally Roman Catholic theologians, with their un- 1 Sess. xiii, can. 2. * Pars ii, cap. iv. 37, 41. 1 Bellarmine leaves no doubt as to his understanding of the Tridentine teaching. He says : Non enim panis convertitur in praesentiam corporis domini, sed in ipsum corpus dommi (De Sac. Eucharist., lib. iii, cap. 18). THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 241 measured respect for dogmatic precedent, have generally felt themselves debarred from taking that alternative. Moreover, in the most recent times the powerful in- fluence which has been used in favor of the authority of Thomas Aquinas has tended to hold theological opinion to the natural sense of the Tridentine formula. For Aquinas in very unmistakable terms ruled out the notion of annihilation from the interpretation of the eucharistic mystery, and asserted conversion of the substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. 1 There is very little hazard, then, in saying that Roman^ Catholic teaching is anchored to the doctrine of conver- sion of substance as opposed to the theory of annihilation and replacement. Expression is given to the doctrine in question by Scheeben. While granting that the retirement of the substance of bread and wine bears a certain analogy to annihilation, he says: "As respects the mode of its genesis transubstantiation cannot be interpreted as anni- hilation of the substance of bread and wine conjoined with substitution of the substance of the flesh and blood of Christ; for the cessation of the former substance is not directed to pure nothingness, but to the presence of the flesh and blood of Christ under the visible forms; it results also not from a withdrawing of the upholding of God, but from the positive working of the transforma- tion." 2 "It is the general custom," remarks Heinrich, "to define the transformation as the passing over of one thing into another, 'transitus unius rei in aliam.' ' He 1 Summa Theol., Pars III, quaest. 75, art. 3. Cum per conversione et non alio modp corpus Christi in eucharistia esse incipiat, post consecrationem substantia panis vel vini non resolvitur in praejacentem materiam, nee annihilatur, sed convertitur in verum Christi corpus. 3 Handbuch, IV. 597. 242 THE ROMAN TYPE notices that the opposing supposition, according to which the substance of the bread and wine is annihilated and the body and blood of Christ are adduced in its place, has had some currency, but pronounces it inadequate to the proper notion of conversion. 1 Sasse refers approv- ingly to the exposition of Aquinas, and offers this defini- tion: "The eucharistic conversion is a conversion of the whole substance of bread into the body and of the whole substance of wine into the blood of Christ, which properly and most aptly is called transubstantiation. Conversion is the transition of one thing into another." 2 An equivalent definition is given by Hurter, who further says, in conformity with the view of Aquinas: "As re- spects the substance of the bread, though it ceases alto- gether to be, nevertheless it cannot be said to be anni- hilated." 3 Billot contends that the annihilation theory is contradictory to the Tridentine doctrine of conversion of substance. He maintains also that it is discordant with common linguistic usage. "Conversion excludes annihilation, and annihilation conversion. Annihilation is the opposite of creation, the reduction of a thing to nothing. But conversion is the change of one thing into another." 4 As conciliar decisions and the general consensus of theologians bind Roman Catholic conviction to the doc- trine of the conversion of one substance into another pre- existing substance, so also do they require belief in the actual separation of accidents or attributes from sub- stance, and in the real existence of the accidents or at- tributes thus separated. We say accidents or attributes; 1 Lehrbuch, pp. 668, 679. 2 Inst. Theol. de Sacramentis, I. 378, 379. 1 Theol. Dogmat. Compend., III. 336, 347 4 De Eccl. Sacramentis, I. 34sff. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 243 for, while the former word is commonly used in the eucharistic terminology of Romanism, it covers all the known attributes of bread (or wine) ; indeed, the plain implication is that it covers absolutely all the attributes of this substance, since it is the substance which is said to be converted, and no pretense is made that any possible investigation would find what is left behind destitute of a single power which belonged to the bread prior to con- version. In other words, the opposition between sub- stance and accidents is just simply an opposition between a predicateless ground and the whole sum of predicates connected in the natural order with that ground. By the diremption effected in the act of transubstantiation bare substance is removed and converted, and everything else is left intact. This is the meaning which the standard discussions authorize us to attach to that act, though, of course, there is no great occasion to emphasize the fact, since in a rational point of view the diremption and separate existence of a part of the attributes of a sub- stance involve essentially the same difficulties as the diremption and separate existence of all the attributes. As respects the conciliar verdict on the point in ques- tion, it was given in unambiguous form by the Council of Constance in the condemnation of these Wycliffite propositions: "The natural substance of bread and similarly the natural substance of wine remain in the sacrament of the altar. The accidents of bread do not remain without a subject in the same sacrament." The condemnation visited upon these propositions was, as all parties admit, confirmed by Pope Martin V. Accord- ingly, an ecumenical and reputedly infallible decision stands on the side of the conclusion that the accidents of 244 THE ROMAN TYPE the eucharistic bread exist without a subject after the conversion of the substance. The Council of Trent is to be regarded as reaffirming, at least incidentally, this decision, since the "species" which it represents as re- maining after the conversion of substance denote in cus- tomary Roman usage the same thing as the accidents referred to by the Council of Constance. Prior to both councils the authority of Aquinas had been given with perfect definiteness in favor of the view of the separate existence of the accidents. "The accidents of bread and wine in the sacrament," he wrote, "do not remain ex- isting in any subject; but they exist solely by divine power without subject." 1 To overcome so great a weight of authority would require an extraordinary counterpoise. As a matter of fact, nothing like an adequate offset has been furnished. Some theologians, it is true, have thought it admissible to regard the so-called accidents or species remaining after conversion of substance as rather divinely wrought subjective appearances than objective entities of any sort. But this view seems not to have been able to command so much as tolerance. "At various times it has been condemned by the Roman congregations." 2 Most of the theologians who have been cited above on the subject of the eucharist treat the given view as distinctly inadmissi- ble, and resolutely advocate the theory of Aquinas. Thus Heinrich describes the eucharistic accidents as real ob- jectively existing accidents sustained by divine omnipo- tence apart from inherence in any substance. 3 "The sac- ramental species," says Sasse, "are not mere modifica- 1 Summa Theol., Pars III, quaest. 72, art. 3. 1 A. Schmid, article "Altarssacrament" in Kirchenlexicon of Wetzer and Welte. Lehrbuch, pp. 680, 681. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 245 tions immediately produced by God in our senses or in adjacent bodies, but true accidents, physical realities, re- maining from bread and wine." 1 Hurter contends for the real objective existence of the accidents after the retirement of the substance of the eucharistic elements, and affirms that since the Councils of Constance and Trent the weightier theologians have rated this view as pertaining to the faith. 2 Billot takes identical ground, and cites from a number of post-Tridentine theologians the opinion that the real existence of the accidents apart from a subject must be ranked as belonging to the domain of certified truth or dogma. 3 We contemplate, then, according to the orthodox Roman teaching, accidents or attributes torn apart from substance and existing without any natural base when we give attention to the earthly factor in the eucharist. What is offered to our contemplation when we take notice of the other factor, the body of Christ present under the species? In the heavenly sphere, as every Roman dogmatist will confess, this body has all the characteristics which pertain to the ideal of manly form and stature. Now, the whole Christ is asserted to be in. the consecrated wafer, and in every separated portion thereof, even though it be as small as a needle's point. The inquiry, then, necessarily arises as to what has be- come of the characteristics the accidents or attributes which belong normally to the body of Christ. Has a diremption also taken place here between substance and accidents ? No, say the dogmatists ; but they offer a full equivalent for that violent supposition. They assume 1 Inst. Theol. de Sacramentis, I. 420. * Theol. Dogmat. Compend., III. 354-356. ' De Eccl. Sacramentis, I. 4i?ff. 246 THE ROMAN TYPE that a body can exist in the same indivisible instant in contrary modes exist, that is, as an extended entity in heaven and at the same time upon earth as a subject to which the notion of extension is essentially foreign. They as good as strip off from the body present in the eucharist all the corporeal attributes of which we have the slightest conception. Formally, indeed, the nexus between these attributes and the bodily substance is not declared to be severed, but practically it is cut asunder, and an interval as wide as that which parts earth from heaven is interposed between the two terms. /" Such an eccentric dogma, which utterly confounds the /senses and puts reason on the rack in the vain struggle to / construe its possibility, ought certainly, in order to have any claim upon faith, to be solidly based in the Scrip- 1 tures. But the fact is quite the reverse. In the Synop- \ tical Gospels we have the words of institution. They are just the words which Christ would naturally have em- ployed if he had meant to institute a simple memorial rite, in which bread and wine should be employed to . symbolize the body given up and the blood poured out in the sacrificial death upon the cross. He inclined to vivid condensed speech, to speech replete with metaphor. It would not have been like him to say to the disciples, "Your office in the world can be symbolized appropriately by light and salt." Much rather it suited his energetic way of speaking to say, "Ye are the light of the world ; ye are the salt of the earth." So it would not have been like him to say at the last supper, "This bread symbolizes my body given for you, and this wine symbolizes my blood shed for you." Much more accordant was it with THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 247 his vivid style of speech to say, as he set the elements before his disciples, "This is my body; this is my blood." For that company, who had listened to his parables and knew well his dialect, the given form of words involved no danger of mistaken interpretation. There was no hazard at all that any one of them would have his brain set to reeling by an attempt to figure how the body of Christ could be at the same instant intact before the company, in the hand or mouth of each disciple, serving as an instrument of discourse while in its entirety it was being eaten by each, and being even capable of being eaten by the Master himself, so that the same subject should be at once the eater and the eaten. Nothing could be more gratuitously unhistoric than the supposition that those companions of Jesus were conscious of any occa- sion for such dumfounding cogitations. The symbolism of their Master's words was transparent to them, and apart from an inheritance of exaggerated and artificial conceptions there is no reason why it should not be so to us. The Synoptical Gospels, then, yield absolutely noth- ing in favor of the dogma of transubstantiation except as it is arbitrarily read into them. Scarcely better is the basis for the dogma which can be drawn from the Gospel of John. The sixth chapter speaks, indeed, of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man. But this is the language of mystical discourse, as unmistakably parabolic in intent as the kindred discourse in the same Gospel on the vine and the branches. No less than four things advertise how far away it is from the plane of literalism. In the first place, precisely the same benefits are ascribed in the first part of the chapter to the exercise of faith in Christ as 248 THE ROMAN TYPE subsequently are attributed to eating and drinking, a fact which serves to indicate that the latter terms were used as a striking figurative description of the spiritual appro- priation of Christ as the impersonation of truth and source of true life. As Augustine observed, "To believe ] on the Lord is to eat the living bread." 1 In the second-/ place, an indication is given that the eating and drinking denote a spiritual function through the absence of any qualifying statement, any condition as to the saving re- sult. A literal eating might be worthy or unworthy, and in the latter event would earn only condemnation. That participation in a higher life flows unconditionally from the stated condition is evidence that the condition is in the spiritual order; in other words, that eating and drinking in this connection are equivalent to an inner appropriation of Christ for the satisfying of the soul's hunger and thirst. Again, a safeguard against a literal- istic interpretation is provided by the representation that the living bread which the Son of man is to give for the life of the world came down from heaven. This could not be said of his actual bodily substance, which no more came down from heaven than did that of anyone in the multitude addressed. The stress is thus placed upon the heavenly personality, the spiritual factor in the Christ, and a hint is given that the effectual source of true life is there and not in the literal reception of any physical aliment. Finally, the hint thus supplied was clarified and enlarged into a formal repudiation of a materialistic in- terpretation of the recorded discourse in the grand dec- laration: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I have spoken unto you 1 Tract, in Joan., xxvi. i. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 249 are spirit, and are life." With this ending the Johannine parable becomes not so much a legitimate basis for the dogma of transubstantiation as a rebuke beforehand to the whole range of ideas which provides a standing- ground for that dogma. After the Synoptists and John only one other biblical writer remains to be examined, namely, the author of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. It has been alleged that s if Paul had not believed in the transubstantiation of the eucharistic elements he would not have charged those who partook unworthily of being guilty of the body and; blood of Christ. The allegation, however, is quite base- less. To treat the flag of a nation with disrespect is to do despite to the nation. So to treat irreverently the emblems of the Redeemer who gave himself in holy sac- rifice is practically to contemn that sacrifice and to do despite to the body that was pierced and to the blood that was shed. Again, it is claimed that Paul in speaking of the communion of the body of Christ has given counte- nance to the supposition of transubstantiation. But this is an entirely gratuitous inference. Paul could have used the given expression with full warrant if his reference had been simply to the body symbolized by the bread and apprehended in spiritual contemplation as that which had been pierced for the sins of men. Indeed, he has intimated with sufficient clearness that such was his reference in identifying that which is eaten in the eucha- ristic rite with bread. "The bread which we break," he asks, "is it not a communion of the body of Christ ? See- ing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread." (i Cor. x. 16, 17.) Having so trivial a ground in Scripture, the doctrine 250 THE ROMAN TYPE of transubstantiation is exposed to the full force of the rational objections which assail its credibility. Its primary assumption, as set forth by conciliar authority and asserted in the theological consensus, is quite be- yond, not to say beneath, intelligent apprehension. Con- version of one thing into another already existing thing is not properly thinkable. Supposing an orange and an apple to lie upon the table before us, and that divine power is capable of transforming the apple into an orange, the wonderful metamorphosis would give us a second orange. To assume the transformation of the apple into the preexisting orange without any addition to the latter is equivalent to assuming that i-j-i=i. So defiance is paid to mathematics by the orthodox doctrine of transubstantiation. Bread is said in any number of instances to be converted into the body of Christ while yet that body remains just what it was before, receiving no increment whatever from the converted substance on thousands and thousands of altars. Probably it was the inability of Rosmini to make his way through the mathe- matical puzzle involved in the traditional view, which led him to conclude that the substance of the bread, in- stead of being converted immediately and unqualifiedly into the body of Christ, is converted into a kind of heavenly nutriment which becomes identified with the Redeemer's body by assimilation. This shift of the philosopher may not have been particularly eligible. In condemning it, however, the Inquisition and the pope only served to strengthen the demand for a perpetual feud with rational thinking. 1 1 For the text of the condemned Rosminian propositions, as also for the related passages, see Billia, Quaranta Proposizione Attribuite ad Antonio Rosmini , pp. 376ff. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 251 The second offense of the transubstantiation dogma against the demands of sane intelligence is like unto the first. It is a very curious philosophy which supposes that substance and attributes are so artificially related that the former can be taken away and the latter be left. Every concrete entity must have particular modes of subsistence. A particular thing is such only by virtue of particular ways of acting and being acted upon. Now, accidents or attributes name these particular modes of subsistence or powers of action. To take them away, therefore, and to suppose the substance to remain is to suppose that a particular thing can subsist without sub- sisting in any particular mode. That is too great a con- tradiction to be wrought by any sort of power. The pred- icateless substance is not and cannot be any part of the sphere of reality. It is a mere abstraction. Bread robbed of its predicates is a nonentity, and consequently no subject for conversion into anything. On the other side, particular modes cannot subsist without being the modes of some particular thing. If the substance of the eucharistic bread disappears, the accidents must vanish also, otherwise there could be modes of being without a being. Divine power might conceivably produce a coun- terfeit of the vanished accidents, but no amount of power can separate the inseparable or make the different iden- tical. The appearances wrought by divine intervention would be merely a substitute for the real accidents once pertaining to the bread substance. The validity of the foregoing criticism, it may be observed, is not dependent upon a precise determination of the ultimate philosophical signification of the term "substance." It rests on the rational consideration that 252 THE ROMAN TYPE in a given thing a diremption cannot be made between ground and characteristics without negating both the one and the other. Let the ground of the eucharistic wafer, if you please, be simply a divine energizing. It takes a specific form of the divine energizing to produce just the wafer with its complex of recognizable character- istics. The energizing being the same, the same charac- teristics will result; othenvise the characteristics must be rated as fortuitous. If, then, the energizing is sup- posed to be isolated from the characteristics, or not to be productive of them, it is supposed not to be the same. Moreover, on this supposition, the characteristics have no intelligible ground of continuance, and the most that can be thought of, if an appearance of them is to be kept up, is a second specific energizing which shall duplicate the results of the first, in other words, effect a wafer like the one with which we started. Thus no intelligible basis for the Roman dogma is furnished by the given conception of ground or substance ; and we hazard noth- ing in asserting that no basis can be found in any other conception which modern philosophy will consent to rate as tolerable. The strange capabilities ascribed by the expositors of transubstantiation to the body of Christ, as resident under the species of the eucharistic bread, invite to com- ment. But there is small demand to follow these ex- positors into the details of their representations, or to occupy space in any attempt at refutation. The body with which they deal is a purely notional subject, free from all the restrictions which belong to things in the sphere of corporeal reality, and consequently perfectly responsive to any demands which it may be convenient THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 353 for ecclesiastical dogma to impose. Does it suit the dogmatic demand to have a body so very peculiar that it can be in its entirety in the most infinitesimal space, then the purely notional subject readily takes this char- acteristic. Must the body present in the eucharist be at the same time in the heavenly sphere and also upon ten thousand altars distributed through the world, then the notional subject, as being capable of anything and everything that is wanted, makes no delay to respond to this requirement. Furthermore, it lends itself per- fectly to the demand that in its entirety it should be able to move, or at least to make a change of location, in all directions at the same instant. No matter how difficult the feat assigned by the dogmatic authorities may be, this marvelous subject is completely furnished for its execution; and there is no reason why it should not be, since it is a purely notional subject, reached by no induc- tion from the sphere of known reality, and opposing, therefore, not the slightest resistance to being endowed with any capability which the theological imagination or the dogmatic interest may call for. A second subject so convenient and accommodating was probably never heard of in all the universe. But, of course, what apologists and dogmatists say respecting this notional subject proves nothing, except their sense of the exorbitant de- mands of the dogma of transubstantiation. One who is not already in the attitude of implicit faith will listen to their declarations with much the same incredulity which he would oppose to the man who should make the dec- laration that he carries the sun in his pocket. This man, it is true, were he well read in treatises on the eucharistic mystery, would not be wholly destitute of means of de- 354 THE ROMAN TYPE fense. Should you say to him, "My dear sir, the sun cannot be in your pocket, for there it is shining brightly in the sky," he could respond, "You should know that you see only the accidents of the sun up there in the firmament, and should not be so rash as to infer that the sun in his substantial being must be conjoined with the accidents." Again, should you say to the man in ques- tion, "The sun is a great blazing orb, immensely larger than the earth, and could not possibly be contained in your pocket," he could answer, "The sun is in my pocket in the way of substance, or after the mode of spirit, and the quantitative category does not apply in that range as it does in the phenomenal sphere." And so the man professing to have pocketed the sun might go on answer- ing your objections. But he would make no progress toward convincing you of the truth of his proposition. You would observe that he was playing with makeshift notions, and was not offering you a scrap of induction from the sphere of reality. With all the rest, the self -cancel ing character of the eucharistic dogma, as authoritatively formulated in Roman Catholicism, offers a ground of legitimate criticism. The dogma insists that the present body of Christ is truly eaten. We read in the decrees of the 1 Council of Trent: "If anyone saith that Christ, given in the eucharist, is eaten spiritually only, and not also sacramentally and really: let him be anathema." But what kind of eating can there be where no division or assimilation of substance occurs? Who can frame the least idea of what is meant by the eating of a thing so perfectly absolved as is the body of Christ from the ordinary spatial characteristics and limitations of cor- THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 255 poreal entities? The truth is, that in order to secure the presence of the body of Christ, and to safeguard it against maltreatment, the dogmatists have been obliged to turn it into a notional subject, to the eating of which no consistent meaning can be attached. The objections to transubstantiation are such that they could not be counterbalanced, to an appreciable de- gree, by any amount of patristic testimony. As respects the actual import of that testimony it will suffice to note the following facts : ( i ) Many of the fathers were quite\ fervid rhetoricians. As they were not careful to keep [ within the bounds of sober discourse on other themes, I they might be expected, on a subject making so strong \ an appeal to religious emotion as does that of the eucha- rist, to use sometimes a style of speech that mounte^ above the level of deliberate judgment. (2) At a c paratively early date in the history of the post-apostolic Church there was a development in the direction of what might be termed institutional mysticism, a movement toward an exaggerated conception of ecclesiastical offices ^. and rites which tended more or less to compromise the simplicity and the emphatically ethical character of orig- inal Christianity. Such a development naturally worked toward supplying a basis for the doctrine of transubstan- tiation. But this is far from saying that in its earlier stages it actually introduced the doctrine known by that title. (3) A due rating of the vague mysticism with which the contemplation of the eucharistic rite was en- veloped may properly deter one from putting into the terms employed the proper sense of later dogmatics. It is not to be presumed as a matter of course that when the fathers spoke of the body of Christ as present in the sac- 256 THE ROMAN TYPE rament they meant either the emblematic body or the real body born of the Virgin. Indeed, there is good ground for concluding that many of them meant neither the one nor the other, but a mystical power or virtue flowing from the presence and operation of the Logos. Speaking of the post-Nicene era, Gieseler says : "It was the dom- inant teaching at this time concerning the elements of the eucharist, that the Logos so unites himself with them as he did once with humanity, and that they receive thereby a divine power, and to this extent undergo an inner change and transformation. As related to the body and blood which Christ assumed in his incarnation, bread and wine were pronounced mere images and signs." 1 Re- ferring to a type of realism which many of the fathers represented, Harnack writes: "They are 'symbolists' in respect of the real presence of the true body; indeed, as regards this they are in a way not even symbolists, since they had not that body in their minds at all. But they know of a mystical body of Christ which is for them absolutely real it is spirit, life, immortality, and they transferred this as real to the celebration of the supper." 2 f (4) As respects the ante-Nicene fathers, though it is clear that some of them went beyond the purely sym- bolical view, it is not proved, or even made credible, that \ any of them were advocates of the proper dogma of tran- V substantiation. 3 (5) Several of the fathers who wrote after the middle of the fourth century used language 1 Dogmengeschichte, p. 411. 1 History of Dogma, Eng. trans., IV. 291, 292. 'See Justin, i Apol., Ixvi; Irenaeus, Cont. Haer., iv. 18. 4, v. a. 3; Ter- tullian, Adv. Marcion, iii. 19, iv. 40; De Resur. Cam., viii; De Pud., ix; De Orat., vi; Cyprian, Epist. Ixii; Clement of Alexandria, Psed., i. 6, ii. 2; Strom., v. 10; Origen, Comm. in Matt. Series, Ixxxv; In Gen., Horn. x. 3: In Ex., Horn. vii. 8; In Lev., Horn. vii. 5; In Num., Horn. xvi. 9; In Matt xi. 14; Cont. Celsum, viii. 33. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 257 which can be understood in a sense closely allied with the theory of transubstantiation ; but others used lan- guage quite incompatible with that theory. Sentences can easily be selected from the most illustrious repre- sentatives of the epoch which seem to be exposed to the Tridentine anathemas. 1 IV. JUDICIAL ABSOLUTION IN THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE According to the very full specifications of the Council \ of Trent, the sacrament of penance is for those who have '-\ . , lirT1 jijmiia~i' fallen after baptism into any mortal or serious transgres- * sion, necessary unto salvation. The form of the sacra^ ment lies in the words of the minister, "I absolve thee." The matter of the sacrament consists in three acts of the penitent, namely, contrition, confession, and satisfaction. A perfect contrition is able to reconcile to God in advance of the sacrament, but not independently of a desire there- for. The imperfect contrition called attrition, which springs from such motives as the fear of hell or a sense of the turpitude of sin, cannot secure justification apart from the sacrament, but nevertheless, if it is attended with the will not to sin, it disposes the penitent to ob- tain the grace of God in the sacrament. The confession to which the penitent is obligated is of divine right neces- sary to all who have fallen after baptism, and must cover all mortal sins that a diligent self-examination can bring to remembrance. The satisfactions which the candidate 1 See Eusebius of Caesarea, Dem. Evang., i. 10; De Eccl. Theol., iii. 12; Athanasius, Epist. ad Serapion, iv. 19; Basil, Epist. viii. 4; Theodoret, Dial., i, ii; Augustine, Tract, in Joan., xxvi, xxvii; Epist. xcviii (ad Boni- facium); De Trin., iii. 10; Cont. Adimant., xii. 3; Cont. Faust., xx. 13; In Psalm., iii. i, xcviii. 9; Serm. Ixxxi; De Civ. Dei, xxi. 35. 258 THE ROMAN TYPE must engage to fulfill (but which ordinarily are dis- charged after the absolving sentence) are due to divine justice and work toward the canceling of the temporal penalties which still remain after sin has been pardoned as respects the principal or eternal penalty. These satis- factions consist in such works of piety as fastings, prayers, almsdeeds, as also in the patient endurance of providential inflictions. The opinion that "the best penance is merely a new life" the council disallowed and even anathematized (canon xiii). On the judicial char- acter of the absolving sentence of the priest the Triden- tine decree employs the following language: "Although the absolution of the priest is the dispensation of another's bounty, yet it is not a bare ministry only, whether of announcing the gospel, or of declaring that sins are for- given, but is after the manner of a judicial act, whereby sentence is pronounced by the priest as by a judge." 1 On most of these points it would be superfluous to cite the judgments of recent theologians. Their words are little more than echoes of the authoritative decisions of the council. Occasionally a Roman Catholic writer has given a description of the priestly prerogative in the sacrament of penance in more rhetorical terms than the doctors saw fit to employ. Thus Gaume represents the /priest as standing in respect of his power to absolve / sinners above the whole hierarchy of angels and even above the mother of God, the queen of angels and of V men. "Still more ; suppose that the Redeemer comes down personally and visibly into a church, and takes up his place in a confessional to administer the sacrament of penance, while there is a priest in another at hand. The 1 Sess. xiv. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 259 Son of God says, 'I absolve you/ and the priest on his\ part says, 'I absolve you'; in both cases the penitents alike are absolved. Thus the priest, as powerful as God, can in a moment snatch a sinner from hell, render him worthy of paradise, and from a slave of the devil make him a child of Abraham. God himself is bound to hold to the judgment of the priest, to refuse or to grant par- don, according as the priest refuses or grants absolution, provided the penitent is worthy of it. The sentence of the priest precedes : God only subscribes to it. Can any- one conceive a greater, a higher dignity?" 1 Few ex- ponents of Roman Catholicism would care to repeat the phrases of this specimen of the descriptive art of sacer- dotalism. And yet it cannot be said to go appreciably beyond the logical implications of the current theory. If the priest is not under divine coercion in absolving or refusing to absolve; if he really exercises his own dis- cretion in this great function ; if, furthermore, his absolv- ing sentence is ordinarily a condition of remission, then Gaume's picture of a God, who must wait for the priest and order his own act according to that of an earthly ministrant, is true. Now, so far as we have been able to discover, Roman dogmatists do not challenge a single one of these premises. Aside from the rare instance of a perfect contrition outside of the sacrament, they make the priest with his absolving sentence the indispensable condition or medium of the remission of sins. "Accord- 1 ing to the true Catholic doctrine," says Sasse, "the power \ of remitting and retaining sins is a true power, though ministerial, by itself and immediately effecting the remis- sion of sins, and its act or the absolution pronounced by / 1 Catechism of Perseverance, II. 546, 547. 26o THE ROMAN TYPE the priest is immediate cause of this remission. . . . If without the sacrament remission of sins could be ob- tained, the priest would not have the efficacious power of retaining sins. And, indeed, that this power may be efficacious, the priest in retaining sin or denying absolu- tion ought to be able to effect that the sin should remain in the sight of God." 1 "In the forum externum" writes Heinrich, "the judge declares the innocence of the ac- cused, while the judge in the sacrament of penance effects innocence through the absolution. This has its ground in the purpose of this sacrament to free from sins, and in the peculiarity of this tribunal, in which the judge takes the place of God and therefore can remit affronts to him." 2 "In the words of our Lord," observes Russo, "the forgiveness of heaven is made to depend upon that which the Church, through her ministers, gives on earth ; so that those are not to be pardoned there whose sins are retained by the Church. This, however, would not be the case were there any other means of pardon. Therefore, forgiveness cannot be obtained save through the ministerial office of the Church." 3 /^The Tridentine teaching implies that there is no pos- I sible remission of sins committed after baptism except \through the sacrament of penance received in act or at Aeast in purpose. Even perfect contrition will not avail unless the penitent has the will to betake himself to the sacrament. This seems to insure the damnation of a multitude only less numerous than that which is shut out of the kingdom by the lack of baptism. Indeed, the result which is inferred from the necessity of the sacra- 1 Inst. Theol. de Sacramentis, II. 39, 97. * Lehrbuch, p. 720. 1 The True Religion and its Dogmas, p. 237. Compare Byrne, The Catholic Doctrine of Faith and Morals, pp. 255. 267. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 261 ment of penance may be regarded as rivaling in its ap- palling character the fate which Roman dogmatics ap- points to that great section of the race which dies without baptism in the estate of infancy; for it is not simply a negative damnation which overtakes those who fail to hear the absolving sentence of the priest. Doubtless since the age of the Tridentine Council somewhat of a tendency has been developed to a formal admission of the possible salvation of those who, being bound by in- vincible ignorance, are true to the light that is given them. But, on the other hand, the most recent dogma- tists repeat the Tridentine supposition that only perfect contrition with desire for the sacrament of penance is an adequate compensation for the lack of the sacrament. They do not say that invincible ignorance excuses the absence of the desire; and even should they admit this much they would be slow to grant that the requirement of perfect contrition is often met by non-Catholics, since the admission of that much would amount to an acknowl- edgment that sanctity is no distinctive mark of the Catho- lic Church. It is quite certain, therefore, that from the standpoint of Roman orthodoxy the asserted necessity of the sacrament of penance amounts to an assumption of the eternal perdition of great multitudes. They may have virtue and piety enough to give them a pronounced gravitation toward God and toward all the beautiful and lofty ideals of his kingdom; but being askew in their relation to Roman machinery there is but the smallest fragment of a hope for them. The terms have been noticed in which the Council of Trent spoke of attrition. The ecumenical assembly left no doubt about its intention to assert the value of attri- 262 THE ROMAN TYPE tion, but did not declare in a perfectly definite form that this imperfect repentance is an adequate basis for the execution of the sacrament of penance, though the lan- guage employed is suggestive of such adequacy. There was, accordingly, opportunity for further development on this point. The development may not have gone for- ward in a straight line ; but on the whole it has not belied the inherent tendency of ultra sacramentalism to magnify the virtue of ecclesiastical mechanism. It was not long before the inference was drawn, and published in the most outspoken terms, that the inferior penitence styled attrition suffices for the sacrament of penance, and that consequently under the new dispensation less, in the way of interior conditions, is necessary, in order to the remis- sion of sins, than was requisite under the old dispensa- tion. In 1644 Pinthereau testified: "The Jesuits teach unanimously that attrition alone, even when it has for motive only the fear of hell, provided it excludes the will to sin, is a sufficient disposition for the sacrament of penance, and they hold this teaching to be very Catholic, proximate to dogma, and entirely in harmony with the Council of Trent." 1 How free this party was to draw the inference that the sacrament abridges the require- ment for interior conditions of salvation is illustrated by the following statement of Laymann : "There is this dis- tinction between the state of things under the evangelical law and the state obtaining before the grace of the gospel : that before the law of grace no adult person could be freed from mortal sin and justified without true contri- tion, including the love of God above all things; more- 1 Dollinger und Reusch, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der romisch- katholischen Kirche seit dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert, I. 81. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 263 over, that the sacraments of the old law were empty signs which by themselves did not confer the grace of God, but excited faith in Christ, which, if it had been formed by an act of love and contrition, had power to justify. But under the new law after the commission of a mortal sin true contrition is not necessary to a man who is about to receive the sacrament of baptism or of pen- ance ; but attrition suffices, even if it is known to be such : wherefore, it is wont to be said, that from attrite by virtue of the sacrament a man is made contrite." 1 It was this sort of teaching which drew from Pascal the exclamation, "This is the climax of impiety! The price of the blood of Jesus Christ paid to obtain for us a dis- pensation from loving him." 2 But no Jansenist protest could drive out the doctrine of the attritionists. It met, indeed, with much objection for a period. The declara- tions of Pope Innocent XI were favorable to its opponents rather than to its advocates. On the other hand, the decisions of Alexander VII and Benedict XIII, while not positively commendatory, were on the side of rating it as a tolerable doctrine; and in the latter part of the eighteenth century it gained an efficient means of ad- vance through the advocacy of Liguori. The statements of this writer fully match the passage cited from Lay- mann. "It is asked," he says, "whether for the valid reception of the sacrament of penance contrition is re- quired, or whether attrition suffices. It is a certain opinion, and one common to the doctors that perfect con- trition is not required, but that attrition suffices. . . . An objection is made to our view of the sufficiency of attrition as follows: A sinner turned away from God 1 Theologia Moralis, 1625, lib. v, tract, vi, cap. a. * Provincial Letters. 264 THE ROMAN TYPE cannot be converted to God except through love formal and actual. We reply: This indeed is required outside of the sacrament, and the occasion is that, as through sin which is actual contempt of God a man is turned away from God, so through actual love he ought to convert himself to God. But another thing is to be said concern- ing the remission of sins within the sacrament, since the sacrament has the virtue of blotting out sin, and does not, except through the infusion of grace which is itself habitual love, suffice for obtaining grace, so that the sinner is disposed through attrition to receiving the sac- rament, in virtue of which without actual love he is con- verted to God, as outside of the sacrament he is converted through love. And so it is understood how a sinner from attrite is made contrite ; that is, by virtue of the keys he is made as good as contrite, as say in common all the advocates of our opinion." 1 Liguori, it is true, includes in attrition a certain love of God, but it is only an in- ferior grade which is born of the rising hope of escaping the torments of hell. His teaching is perfectly explicit in making ecclesiastical mechanism to take the place in part of the interior conditions of salvation which obtained under the Jewish dispensation. Pascal's remark on the maxims of the seventeenth-century Jesuits applies to his teaching. It carries the conclusion that the blood of Christ has purchased release from the necessity of loving God with a true and positive affection. Now, Liguori, as has been indicated in another connection, has been honored by ecclesiastical authority above all modern writers, having been canonized by Gregory XVI and declared a doctor of the Church by Pius IX. Such tokens 1 Theologia Moralis, lib. vi, tract, iv, n. 440-442. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 265 of extraordinary appreciation, while not an explicit sanc- tion of Liguori's attritionism, amount to a declaration that it is not to be regarded as a perilous tenet, but rather as quite admissible. And so we find it considered by representative writers. Gury, for instance, asserts that it is morally certain that attrition with the sacrament suf- fices for justification, and that the attrition which is thus effective involves no such degree of love to God as would be requisite outside of the sacrament. 1 Sasse lays down this proposition: "From the teaching of the Council of Trent (sess. xiv, cap. 4) it is inferred that attrition arising from the fear of hell, if it excludes the will to sin and is conjoined with the hope of favor, is a proximate and sufficient disposition for obtaining justification in the sacrament of penance." He also states that under the New Testament scheme there is a less demand for love toward God, as a condition of justification, than existed under the Old Testament dispensation. 2 "That sacra- ments may work," argues Hurter, "it suffices that the obstacle be removed. But the obstacle in the sacrament of penance, namely, adhesion to sin, is sufficiently re- moved by attrition, which is grief of mind and detestation of sin, with the purpose not to sin further, even if this is called forth by the fear of hell. Therefore such attrition suffices." 3 Heinrich speaks in like manner of the suf- ficiency of attrition, and while he supposes that love is implicitly contained in this imperfect penitence, he denies the warrant for making a demand for any positive act of love as a condition of a proper sacramental grace. 4 1 Compendium Theplogiae Moralis, 1857, pp. 337-340. Compare Pruner, Lehrbucn der Katholischen Moraltheologie, p. 317. * Inst. Theol. de Sacramentis, II. 139, 149. Theol. Dogmat. Compend., III. 457. ' Lehrbuch, pp. 736-739. 266 THE ROMAN TYPE "The opinion," remarks Billot, "which asserts the suf- ficiency of attrition can be called certain enough, espe- cially since the faithful are commonly taught in accord- ance with it, the Church not objecting, yea, even favor- ing, while yet an error in this matter would not by any means be harmless." 1 Lehmkuhl makes no question about the adequacy of attrition, though he is careful to put into the term the maximum meaning attached to it in theological usage. 2 That attrition with the sacrament suffices for the forgiveness of sins is treated by Koch as a certain proposition. 3 In the Catholic Dictionary of Addis and Arnold we meet this broad statement: "At present the opinion that attrition with the sacrament of penance suffices is universally held." 4 And so at the end of the nineteenth century the Roman Catholic teaching justifies the inference of Laymann, Liguori, and others that under the Christian dispensation sacramental per- formance takes the place in part of the interior conditions of salvation. A Christian can obtain the pardon of his sins at a lower level than could a Jew or a heathen before he proclamation of the gospel. In criticising the Roman Catholic doctrine of the sac- rament of penance, especially as regards the feature of judicial absolution, it is warrantable in the first place to r charge against the doctrine that it authorizes the priest to pronounce a sentence which cannot be known to fit the case to which it is applied. There is no pretense that the priest has any sure means, natural or supernatural, 1 De Eccl. Sacramentis, II. 158. 'Theologia Moralis, 1902, II. 2<>4ff. 1 Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, 1907, 57. 4 Article "Attrition." Compare corresponding article in Catholic En- cyclopedia. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 267 of knowing the heart of the penitent, and consequently \ of discovering whether or not the applicant for grace is fulfilling perfectly indispensable conditions of remission. J The utterance of a judicial sentence is, therefore, an act which pays the poorest sort of respect to the demands of truth. According to indisputable and generally acknowl- edged premises the confessor may be uttering a down- right falsehood when he says, "I absolve thee." The scheme of sacerdotal assumption, within which he stands, puts him to acting the part of a judge when he does not know the case. Again, it is to be charged against the Roman teaching* on this theme that it subordinates God in a most incredi- I ble manner to the acts of a fallible earthly tribunal. To suppose that God, before determining his own attitude toward a penitent, waits for the sentence of a priest, is to suppose that he fetters his omniscience and divests/ himself of his ethical nature. As omniscient he rrfust take cognizance of genuine contrition the instant that it arises in the heart of the penitent. As the living God, perfectly alive in his moral nature, he must respond with favoring judgment and complacent love to the one who approaches him in hearty repentance for past misdeeds and with earnest resolves for future obedience. Better to assume that the puny hand of a mortal can gather up all the rays of the sun and quench the shining of that mighty orb than to suppose that the intelligence and benevolence of God can be restrained from immediate recognition and approval of the rightly disposed person. He would deny himself if he delayed a favoring judg- ment for the fraction of a second. That judgment, too, once rendered is absolutely determinative of the status of 268 THE ROMAN TYPE the individual. So long as the conditions remain un- changed it cannot rationally be counted a subject for revision any more than God can be counted a subject for reformation. The only thing to be done after its utter- ance in the divine mind and heart is to convey its import to the penitent; and even for this purpose any earthly official is a blundering insufficient instrumentality com- pared with the Spirit that beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. The insuperable rational objections to the Roman the- ory of absolution in the sacrament of penance strongly suggest that an improbable and unnecessary interpreta- tion is put into the scriptural texts which are cited in its behalf, namely, those on binding and loosing and on for- giving and retaining sins. 1 Even when taken in their bald verbal sense these texts do not justify the Roman sacramental theory. There is no declaration in them that sins cannot be forgiven in response to a direct appeal to God. When Christ said of himself, "The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," he was far from declaring that the forgiveness of sins was bound to his formal sentence. Who, then, is authorized to say that he could not have spoken of a function of forgiveness on the part of his disciples, without any thought of tying up the matter of forgiveness in general to their judgment? Certainly it is perfectly supposable that under the form of words used he meant only to refer to a function which would unavoidably be called into exercise in connection with known offenses against God and against the Chris- tian brotherhood. Any religious society which has any sort of stanch discipline must fulfill an office of binding 1 Matt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18; John xx. 23. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 269 and loosing, must pass sentence on offenses. How gratui- tous, then, to suppose that a reference to such an office necessarily involved a demand for unveiling secret sins to an official and for waiting upon his volition for a grant of remission! The institution of the confessional runs far ahead of the New Testament texts even when they are taken broadly. But there are ample reasons for taking them with certain qualifications. Indeed, the rea- sons for so doing are absolutely compulsory. In the nature of the case the words spoken by Christ could not apply unconditionally. He spoke here, as he did in other connections, and as his apostles did also, from the standpoint of the ideal. When we hear him saying to his followers, "Ye are the light of the world," we know that he meant that in the ideal fulfillment of their voca- tion they would be a source of spiritual enlightenment, not that actually they would never be a source of con- fusion and darkness through inconsistent living. In like manner, when we hear John uttering the emphatic words, "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, and he cannot sin because he is begotten of God," we appre- hend readily that he is setting forth an ideal of sonship toward God, and meant to show how contrary sin is to that ideal, rather than actually to assert the impossibility of sin in the reborn man. In connection with such texts we obey the dictates of common sense in supplying the necessary qualifications. But the demand of common sense for qualifying considerations in the instances ad- duced is not a whit greater than in connection with the texts on binding and loosing, or on forgiving and retain- ing sins. These vivid forms of expression picture an ideal. They presuppose that the disciples in full meas- 270 THE ROMAN TYPE ure will be animated and guided by the Holy Spirit, and promise, with that condition in view, that their adminis- tration of discipline in the Church shall be conformable to a heavenly pattern. Remove the presupposition that they will act as true agents of the Holy Spirit, and the liability is presented at once that their judgments should rather be overruled than confirmed in the court of heaven. With this qualification a second must be conjoined as an equally imperative dictate of common sense. Even when fulfilling their vocation to pass judgment on offenses in the very best manner the disciples cannot be regarded as really giving the initiative to divine action or as con- trolling divine judgment. If their verdicts are confirmed in heaven it will be just because of their agreement with the foregoing judgments of God, which annihilate time in their instant response to spiritual conditions. To picture God as standing idle until the earthly sentences are passed is to indulge in a preposterous use of the imagination. The things done in the visible sphere can have a title to be seconded in the invisible sphere only on the score of their harmony with the verdicts already passed in the latter sphere. Even Christ himself, in forgiving sins, never dreamed of conditioning the act of the Father. "The Son," he declared, "can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing." How, then, shall a disciple, gifted with no infallible insight, himself a sinner, be able by his mere formal act in the confessional either to hasten or to delay the divine forgiveness? The thing is past rational conception. Yielding to the compulsion of common sense, we are compelled to conclude that for- giveness of sins in the primary and fundamental sense belongs to God alone, and that he can no more have a THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 271 finite partner in the matter than he can have such a part- ner in the formation of his thoughts. In a secondary sense only does forgiveness belong to the Christian brotherhood or to any set of officials in that brotherhood. The officials, acting in behalf of the brotherhood, can extend or refuse to extend reconciling grace to those who have offended against the terms of communion. The emphatic words of Christ to the disciples amounted to a promise that in the discharge of this high responsibility they should be assisted by the Holy Spirit, and so be able to hope that their acts, as being conformable to divine discretion, would be seconded or confirmed in heaven. Taken in this range, those words have a sufficiently lofty significance. It would be a wonderful achievement for any communion to deal so well with its individual mem- bers, or with candidates for membership, that their rela- tions to the visible society should be a true reflex of their relations to the invisible kingdom. Historically the above interpretation is confirmed by the absence from the New Testament of everything like an injunction to sacramental confession. James speaks, indeed, of confession (v. 16), but, as his language plainly imports, he had reference simply to a mutual confession of faults as a means of interchange of sympathy among brethren and a motive to prayer in each other's behalf. There is not the remotest hint of auricular confession or of a sacrament of penance in what he says. The New Testament, furthermore, records no instance of an at- tempt to pardon or to retain sins in the eminent sense on the part of an apostle or his delegate. Paul, it is true, speaks of delivering over a scandalous offender at Corinth to Satan. But this form of statement, if not merely a 272 THE ROMAN TYPE rhetorical equivalent for expulsion from the Church, de- notes the consignment of the transgressor to a special physical chastisement, a supernatural infliction upon the body, in return for his grievous trespass. In either case no ground is afforded for supposing that the apostolic sentence determined the status of the culprit in the sight of God. Apostolic practice, so far as recorded, affords no single scrap of evidence in favor of the priestly pre- rogative assumed to be exercised in the confessional. f It took a long age to reach the complete doctrine of the sacrament of penance which rules in Roman Catholicism. In the early Church there were doubtless ways of thinking and customs which were suited to serve as starting-points of the doctrine. Especially influential was the notion that sins committed after baptism are hard to be forgiven, and therefore require special satisfactions. In order to be sure that he was rendering the appropriate satisfac- tions the penitent had occasion to take counsel of the bishop or priest. It began also to be an accepted maxim that voluntary confession has a certain merit and may properly be a ground for a lessened penalty. There was thus a growing demand for recourse on the part of peni- tents to priestly offices. Still, for several centuries con- fession, where not simply to God, was mainly in the pres- ence of the congregation. And when the penitent went to the priest with his confession it was for other ends than the obtaining from him of a sentence of absolution in private. The absolution took place before the congre- gation, which united in the prayers for the one who had confessed his need of pardon. The priest was adviser, intercessor, doorkeeper of the Church, and as such pos- sessed a large importance, but he was not rated as the THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 273 efficacious and indispensable medium of divine forgive- ness. Even a man so largely impregnated with the sacer- dotal temper as Cyprian speaks freely of the liability of priestly sentences to be revised at the divine tribunal. 1 He remarks also : "The Lord alone can have mercy. He alone can bestow pardon for sins which have been com- mitted against himself, who bore our sins, who sorrowed for us, whom God delivered up for our sins." 2 A like point of view comes out in a remark of Firmilian. Among the occasions, he says, for the yearly assembling of prelates and priests is this, "that some remedy may be sought for by repentance for lapsed brethren, and for those wounded by the devil after the saving laver, not as though they obtained remission of sins from us, but that by our means they may be converted to the under- standing of their sins, and may be compelled to give fuller satisfaction to the Lord." 3 In line with these statements, and as little indicative of a necessary sacramental absolu- tion, are the references of Socrates and Sozomen to a general lapse, in the Eastern Church, of the practice of confession, so that men were left to their own consciences as to participation in the eucharist. 4 Had it been an accepted maxim that the pardon of sins requires con- fession to a priest and the utterance of an absolving sen- tence by him, the state of things described by these his- torians could not possibly have had place even tempo- rarily. Supplementing all other evidence we have the\ great fact that the conciliar decisions of the early centu- j ries do not so much as recognize the existence of the con- J fessional. Their regulations relative to penitents all have 1 Epist. li. 18 (ad Antonianum). * De Lapsis, 17. 1 Epist. Ixxiv. 4, in works of Cyprian. 4 Socrates, Hist. Eccl., v. 19; Sozomen, Hist. Eccl., vii. 16. 274 THE ROMAN TYPE reference to public penance and to reconciliation before the congregation. It is alleged, indeed, by various Ro- man Catholic writers that, aside from the regime which thus comes to manifestation, sacramental confession and absolution were customary. Relative to this claim a com- petent investigator remarks : "The modern assumption that alongside of this jurisdiction in the forum externum there was a corresponding authority exercised over the forum internum, and that a system existed through which absolution was granted for secret sins, which the sinner shrank from confessing openly before the congregation, is wholly gratuitous." 1 In the view of Harnack it was by an extension of the discipline of the monastery to the laity generally that the custom of a comprehensive con- fession of sins to the priest became current in the West. He holds also that well into the Carlovingian period various points embraced in the ultimate theory respecting confession and absolution were left indeterminate. 2 Con- joining with these evidences the acknowledged fact that up to the twelfth century the regular formula for absolu- tion was precatory rather than judicial, 3 and taking cogni- zance of the further fact that even in the scholastic period men of the rank of Peter Lombard and Pullus made the sentence of the priest simply declaratory rather than causal in relation to the remission of sins, 4 we may con- clude with good warrant that it was by a long process of accretion that the Romish dogma of the sacrament of penance came into being. It follows, accordingly, that several of the canons of the Council of Trent invoke 1 H. C. Lea, History of Confession and Indulgences, I. 18. Compare Newman, Essay on the Development of Doctrine, second edit., p. 365. 'History of Dogma, V. 325, 326. 1 Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon, I. 124. 4 Lombard, Sent., iv. 18. 5, 6; Pullus, Sent., vi. 61. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 275 damnation on men for no worse fault than that of refus- ing consent to fictions. For the unbiased mind there is another historical eyi-\ dence quite as cogent as any that has been mentioned. \ The Romish dogma makes recourse to the judicial sen- tence of the priest, in fact or in desire, to be essential to the pardon of sins. But the experience of vast multi- tudes of devout Christians in each succeeding generation demonstrates that such recourse is quite unnecessary. Without a consideration for priestly offices they gain the blessing of a divine peace and love in their souls and are able to march on with joyful hope to a triumph over death. Blind indeed must be the one who does not see in a spectacle like that a decisive judgment on the bravado of sacerdotal dogma. If space permitted it would not be going outside the domain of legitimate criticism to speak of the practical effects of a scheme of enforced confession and judicial absolution. At the best it makes prominent an earthly tribunal to the relative hiding of a divine, fosters to a greater or less extent a mechanical dealing with sin, and through its exorbitant demand for the weighing and measuring of transgressions easily becomes a source of perverse casuistry. At the worst it becomes a snare for both confessor and penitent. According to the records of the Spanish inquisition for the period between 1723 and 1820, the number of cases entered against priests for the crime of solicitation in the confessional was thirty- seven hundred and seventy-five. 1 Let it be supposed that in more recent times like instances of priestly sacrilege have been relatively much less numerous, still the liability 1 Lea, History of the Inquisition of Spain, IV. 135. 276 THE ROMAN TYPE of their occurrence has been clearly demonstrated. More- over, it is quite evident that what occurs in the confes- sional may prepare the way for evil solicitations outside of the confessional. Under a law which requires the un- veiling of every serious trespass, inward and outward, together with all the circumstances which affect its char- acter, enforced confession has its dubious aspects even when the listening and catechising priest is of the better sort. Where a priest of the coarser grain occupies the confessional, enforced confession is a thing intrinsically odious to a sane contemplation. CHAPTER IV THE OUTLOOK FOR ROMAN SACERDOTALISM IF exposure to insuperable objections were a sure pledge of speedy defeat and downfall, then the gigantic system of sacerdotalism, which is so firmly intrenched in Roman Catholicism, might be expected to be doomed ere long to such loss of influence in the world and to such a slackened hold upon its constituents as would amount to a prophecy of disintegration. The principle of author- ity upon which that system rests, as has been shown, is commended by nothing more substantial than its con- venience for those who aspire to a monopoly of ecclesias- tical sovereignty. Scriptural data are utterly inadequate to accredit the existence of any infallible hierarchy, and do not so much as contain the least semblance of a refer- ence to an inerrant authority of a Roman priesthood. The theory of the Scriptures which the Roman hierarchy has felt compelled to maintain, in order to safeguard its own claim to infallibility, is confuted by overwhelming evi- dence, and cannot possibly be kept in credit in the face of scientific scholarship. Then, too, a rational psychology cannot see how an infallible Church or hierarchy can be obtained by the combination of fallible units, and an un- biased examination of the history of the Church brings to light such a sum of folly, sinfulness, and contradiction as amounts to a demonstration that infallibility has been foreign to the collective body. So the principle of au- thority which underlies the system of Roman sacerdo- 377 ,. 278 THE ROMAN TYPE talism is discredited when applied to the Church or the hierarchy in general. When applied to the pope that principle is still more conspicuously discredited. The tremendous dogmas of papal supremacy and papal infalli- bility make a mock of early Christian history, stand in flagrant contradiction with a fair interpretation of a long line of events, and publish their aberrant character by the compulsion which they put upon apologists to utter propo- sitions that affiliate rather with pagan magic than with the ethical standpoint of the New Testament. Objections of overwhelming weight stand also against the sacra- mental system of Romanism. The plainly revealed tend- ency of the system as a whole is to intrude mechanism into the place of the spiritual conditions of salvation, and in some of its features it dishonors God and subjects rea- son to gratuitous crucifixion. This condensed statement of objections may serve to direct attention to the basis of the hypothetical proposi- tion with which the chapter opens. But it does not pro- vide a certain means for passing from the hypothetical to the indicative form of statement^,/ While in the long ange truth may be favoraBIe^ to perpetuity, a system that is cumbered with great falsities can exhibit immense per- tinacity in maintaining itself. In the case of Roman ^sacerdotalism the power of a consummate organization and the prestige of historical associations may be ex- pected to operate as efficient means of support and propa- gation. It is not to be presumed, however, that even such means can withstand the tide of modern influences apart from a most energetic employment of certain practical ex- pedients. ^/We may say, indeed, that the problem of the continued maintenance of the system of Roman sacer- (*' i< THE OUTLOOK 279 dotalism, as a great world power, is the problem of the successful employment of three expedients of capital sig- nificance for such a system. The firstof these may be defined as a high pressure of sentimental devotion. In a double point of view this expedient is of first-class impor- tance. On the one hand, it tends to exorcise the spirit of cool reflection, to check the critical temper and to keep it back from prying too closely into the grounds of sacerdo- tal assumption. On the other hand, it works to induce a mental attitude that is directly favorable to a relative prostration before ecclesiastical potentates. Those who have been led to a vivid sense of dependence upon the Virgin and the saints, and have acquired the habit of pouring out their hearts in unstinted devotion to these creaturely patrons, constitute just the elect subjects for the required pitch of obeisance before "the vicar of Christ." It has been in obedience to a perfectly logical de- mand that the Jesuits, who have been the foremost cham- pions of papal absolutism and infallibility, have been also most conspicuously active in fostering sentimental devo- tion. As men endowed with a fair degree of practical sagacity they could not fail to see that, in order to gain an established place for the former, full scope must be given to the latter. A previous page has indicated how influential this factor was in preparing the way for the Vatican dogmas. The point to be emphasized here is that the same factor must be kept at work in full vigor if those dogmas are to be upheld against the inroads of critical investigation. The question then arises, Can sentimental devotion of the specifically Roman type be kept at the needful pitch? This question cannot be well answered in advance of a response to the further question, 2&> THE ROMAN TYPE Is the New Testament to be an open book to Roman Catholics generally and to have a real opportunity to shape their religious consciousness? Should an affirma- tive response be given to this question, a rather substan- tial ground would be afforded for a negative response to the preceding question. To a religious consciousness of the New Testament order Greek mythology is scarcely more strange than are the dialect and the conceptions of Romanism on the side of sentimental devotion. There are papal encyclicals of recent date whose language and doc- trinal tenor give an occasion for inquiry as to whether they even belong to the general dispensation represented by the Gospels and Epistles. In short, there is very little reason to suppose that the extra-biblical cult of Ro- manism, in which the element of sentimental devotion comes to manifestation, could maintain itself against the natural effect of a genuine impact of the New Testament content on the minds of the great multitude ; we say gen- uine impact, such as would result, not from a perfunctory reading, but from an earnest perusal with the purpose of discovering the real tone and tenor of the sacred volume. Can, then, the responsible agents of the hierarchy prevent that impact in the coming age? That they will be able to do this in large measure would seem to be the reasonable inference from past history; but, on the other hand, a growing spirit of independence on the part of a consider- able fraction of the laity needs to be taken into account. Should this spirit become allied with an ambition to look into the authentic mirror of primitive Christianity a move- ment of considerable moment would be likely to result. /"" The second expedient which needs to be employed for \the conservation of Roman sacerdotalism is a_steadfast THE OUTLOOK 281 and comprehensive employment of patronage in its behalf. And here there seems to be very little ground for doubt that the instrument of conservation will be made to work with great effectiveness. Possessing by constitutional provision an absolute administrative authority, standing guard over all episcopal thrones by his prerogative to confirm the nominees, and having immediate jurisdiction over every official in the Church, how should the pope be hindered from placing only such men in positions of responsibility as are known to be thoroughly anchored in the mediaeval system and can be trusted to be thoroughly proof against solicitations to liberal thinking? In truth, the danger of an independent element getting into the officiary of the Church, and thereby setting the door ajar for the incoming of innovating opinions, appears to be guarded against in a most effective manner. Still, per- fect assurance can hardly be said to be afforded even from this point of view, since it is possible for men to undergo some change after being installed in office, and it might conceivably happen that a sufficient number should concur in a given change to make their official decapitation a mat- ter of questionable prudence. Unlimited patronage is in- deed a most potent weapon in the hands of the pope ; but it falls short of omnipotence, and there is a possibility that the spread of democratic sentiments in the secular sphere may breed ultimately somewhat of a distaste for a cen- tralized absolutism in the ecclesiastical sphere. /The remaining expedient consists in ajgdicaj scheme of intellectual surveillance and restriction. Works not congenially related to the sacerdotal standpoint, whether in the line of biblical criticism, history, or philosophy, must be kept out of the hands of the faithful, and Catholic 282 THE ROMAN TYPE minds must be safeguarded against the subtle and pene- trating influences which are abroad in the world of mod- ern thought. Can this be accomplished? One thing is certain : it cannot be accomplished without a serious offset to the apparent victory. In proportion as men are shut away from the real world and tied up to a dictated sys- tem they become enfeebled in their capacity to defend against an aggressive and wide-awake criticism the very system to which they are sacrificed. As respects the pos- sibility of accomplishing adequately the task of repression and isolation, there is room for some measure of doubt. Nothing can be clearer than the fact that the movement stigmatized in recent papal manifestoes as "modernism" was vetoed in advance by the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX and the dogmas of the Vatican Council. It came in across a mighty breastwork which had been erected to bar it out. It may not command a steadfast following large enough to be capable of anything- like successful resistance to the authority which has put it under the ban, but its appearance is in itself ominous of difficulty for the hierarchy in carrying out its scheme of surveillance and restriction. We deem it venturesome to make definite prophecies the future of Roman sacerdotalism. To maintain it intact in the face of critical and scientific research is a .desperate project. A powerful hierarchy is engaged to work desperately to carry through the desperate project. It cannot retreat without relinquishing its claim to in- fallible authority, and to do that would amount to giving up everything, since the whole structure of Roman Catholicism rests confessedly on the foundation of the infallible authority of the hierarchy. THE OUTLOOK 283 In closing this part of the volume it may be a matter of prudence to remind the reader that we have been consid- ering the papal Church on the side most exposed to chal- lenge and criticism, the side of an ultra sacerdotalism. What has been said by no means implies that the complex system of Roman Catholicism does not afford to its sub- jects means of advance toward saintship through the con- templation of many wholesome truths and beautiful ideals. The author thankfully confesses both that he is\ perfectly content to take a long line of anathemas pro-! nounced by the supreme authority of the Roman Catholic! Church, and that he gladly recognizes in that Church aj long line of men and women in whom the spirit of love,; self-denial, and true devoutness has come to eminent 5 manifestation. The things which especially revolt his mind are the towering falsities of the sacerdotal system and the despotic obscurantism which is in perpetual demand for their maintenance. PART II CHAPTER I THE GREEK TYPE, ESPECIALLY AS REPRESENTED IN RUSSIA I. SCOPE OF DEVELOPMENTS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY N leaving Roman Catholicism we pass from the mo- /narchic type of sacerdotalism to the aristocratic, from the system which concentrates authority in a single ecclesi- astical magnate to that which distributes it among a plu- rality. Within the domain of the latter type the most important development in the preceding century was the high-church or Anglo-Catholic movement which occurred in the established Church of England and in communions closely associated therewith by historical antecedents and the possession of a kindred polity. Nothing fairly com- parable to that movement, in the way of a new departure, had place within the bounds of the Greek Church (or, to speak more precisely, the Orthodox Eastern Church). Outside of Russia the principal changes within its sphere have been incidental to the political revolutions by which independent kingdoms have been established at the ex- pense of Turkish sovereignty. As regards dogmatic con- ceptions and the tenor of ecclesiastical management, no very marked developments seem to have been recorded for the Greek Church in any of these kingdoms. . In Russia, which comprises much the greater part of / the Greek Church, the impact of outside influences served Vin some degree as a diversifying agency. Among these 287 288 THE GREEK TYPE influences points of view borrowed from Protestantism had a place. The aggregate result derived from this quarter may not have been large; but it appears in evi- dence that representatives of the Russian clergy, some of whom were men of high standing, were favorably dis- posed to one side or another of the ideals of the Reforma- tion. On the whole, it seems worth while to take the testimony of a few witnesses relative to the presence and the effect of a Protestant element in Russian ecclesiastical thinking for the period under review. For the first part of the century we have a witness in William Palmer, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who, during a visit to Russia in 1840-41, was favored with large opportunities for securing information. From Count Pratasoff he received this statement: "We have had a Calvinistic or Protestant spirit among us, which Platon began ; Philaret (the present Metropolitan of Mos- cow) was somewhat that way inclined; and especially Michael, the late Metropolitan of Kieff. But this has all been corrected, and now there is an orthodox reaction. We said to the Metropolitan of Moscow, that if he wished to show himself a good Christian and humble, he would, with the assistance of his brethren, retouch and correct his own former catechism; and this he did, correcting it and filling up his former omissions." 1 Prince Alexander Galitsin gave a concurring testimony both as to the pres- ence recently of a Protestantizing spirit in some of the Russian divines and as to a corrective having been admin- istered. 2 Mouravieff spoke of the leaning to Protes- tantism which came to a conspicuous manifestation in 1 Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the Years 1840, 1841, p. 119. Ibid., p. 137. SCOPE OF DEVELOPMENTS 289 the reigns of Peter III and Catharine II, but considered that it had been remedied by a widespread reaction. 1 On the other hand, a monk with whom Palmer conversed spoke of the secular priests as being still very much in- fected with liberalism. "Our clergy," he said, "are most accessible of all in the world to new and strange opinions. They read books written by heterodox or unbelieving foreigners, Lutherans and others." 2 Individuals among the priests thus commented upon admitted that a relative lack of a native theological literature gave much occasion to the reading of foreign books, whether Catholic or Prot- estant. Some of them, too, made bold to assert a more liberal theory of the Church than that advocated by the Anglo-Catholic visitor himself. Thus in a colloquy which he had with an archpriest the latter said : "When it is evident that churches and societies excommunicated by the Orthodox Church have erred in such various de- grees, and that so many men have attained in them so high a degree of divine grace, when the grace of the Holy Spirit has so shone in their lives and deeds and writings, how can we do otherwise than acknowledge them for Christians? For my part I cannot think of such men as Thomas a Kempis among the Latins and Arndt among the Lutherans, in whose writings I find the love of Christ and a glowing piety, as heretics to be consigned to perdi- tion. I shrink from the very notion of a man in the Church, perhaps barely, coldly, intellectually orthodox, judging such Christians whose regeneration and spiritual life are so evident." 3 A still broader ecclesiasticism seems to have been represented by the Princess Mes- i Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the Years 1840, 1841, p. 337. Ibid., p. 306. Ibid., pp. 369, 370. 290 THE GREEK TYPE chersky. "I believe," she said, "in the inner or essential Church, which is agreeable to the Bible, and as for par- ticular outward Churches none of them are perfect." 1 Views equally remote from an exclusive devotion to Eastern orthodoxy were declared to be common among university professors and students. 2 In summing up theA results of his investigations Palmer said relative to the Russian clergy : "They are not clear respecting the defini- i tion of the visible Catholic Church, but are either vaguely/ liberal or narrowly Greek." 3 A witness from a little later point in the century, namely, Ivan Gagarin, who was converted to Romanism in 1843, nas testified to the presence in the Russian estab- lishment of a considerable amount of Protestantism. He notices that in the list of text-books for theological stu- dents, which was announced in 1809, Protestant works, including the dogmatic treatises of Buddeus and Turretin, found a place, and that some of the students who went through this sort of a curriculum came to positions of large influence. 4 He calls attention also to the fact that the highest ecclesiastical tribunal in Russia, the Synod, when in 1816 the matter of converting a Prussian prin- cess to the orthodoxy professed by her husband-elect was pending, gave this direction to the party charged with instructing the princess: "In the exposition of the dog- matical teaching of the Greco-Russian Church, it must be explained with the greatest care that the Church recog- nizes the Word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures as the only and perfectly sufficient rule of faith and of Christian life, and as the sole measure of truth; that it ' Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the Years 1840, 1841, p. 499. * Ibid., p. 312. Ibid,, pp. 359, 360. 4 The Russian Clergy, Eng. trans., 1872, pp. 122-125. 2QI doubtless reverences the tradition of the primitive Church, but only so far as it is found accordant with Holy Scrip- ture; and finally, that from this pure tradition it draws noj: new dogmas of faith, but edifying opinions, as also directions, for ecclesiastical discipline." 1 This incident, our informant contends, may be taken without extrava- gance as an index of a Protestantizing movement which has made no little progress, especially in the ranks of the secular clergy. "Without doubt," he says, "the doctrines professed by the Greek and the Russian Church were not the least Protestant in the world; but it cannot be dis- puted that, for a century past, a work has been going on among the Russian clergy separating them more and more from their old traditions, and drawing them every day nearer and nearer to the Protestant ministers." 2 As an advocate of the superior claims of Roman Catholicism, Gagarin may have had a motive to make the most of the intrusion of Protestant heterodoxy into the Russian Church ; but his testimony may be taken as indicating at least the presence of an appreciable measure of Protes- tantizing influence. At the end of the century a well-informed witness serves us in the person of Leroy-Beaulieu. He notices, in conformity with some of the statements made to Palmer, that a relative arrest of Protestant and evangeli- cal tendencies took place from the period when Philaret (in the reign of Nicholas I, 1825-55) was constrained to y rewrite his catechism. "The Russian Church from that time," he says, "ceased to turn its helm toward Luther or toward Anglicanism; it stopped midway on the road on which Peter the Great and his successors had started i The Russian Clergy, Eng. trans., 1872, pp. 125, 126. * Ibid., 132- 292 THE GREEK TYPE it, and has been careful ever since to keep strictly to the principle of traditional immobility." But while this has been the general aim of the ecclesiastical administration, it has not been fully carried out. "Protestant ideas are to this day in great favor with a portion of the clergy, as a rule the most cultivated. This comes from studying Protestant schools and books, and partly also from the late revival of theological studies generally, and the efforts which have been made to raise the intellectual level of the clergy. The spirit of the Reformation is quietly stealing its way into seminaries and ecclesiastical acade- mies along with the works of German theologians. The same with laymen, at least those of the educated classes. Many of these and often the most devout are nothing but Protestant ritualists, though they do not know it." Still, it should be observed that these innovating tenden- cies are kept within bounds. "There is nothing to com- pare to the antagonism of the two or three parties into which the Anglican Church is divided." 1 Aside from the force of dogmatic conviction strong practical motives operate with the Russians as a check upon departure from the inherited system. It is felt, on the one hand, that any noticeable change would be likely to reinforce the ranks of the conservative schismatics, the Raskolniki, who number several millions. On the other hand, there is a conviction that the old orthodoxy is a principal bond of connection between Russia and the out- side branches of the Eastern Church, and that conse- quently any noticeable departure from the ancient eccle- siastical lines would endanger a loss of influence within the domains of these branches. Thus it results that those The Empire of the Tsars and Russians, III. 81, 83. SCOPE OF DEVELOPMENTS 293 who cannot boast of any great amount of orthodox zeal, who even are much inclined to freethinking, as is the case with not a few of the nobles, are rather friendly than otherwise to the ancestral type of state religion. "As far as religion is concerned," said a society woman of Moscow, "I am simply a Christian, unattached to any denomination. If anything, I am rather drawn toward Protestantism. But as a Russian I am passionately Orthodox." 1 This instance may serve to illustrate how the'patriotic motive operates to reconcile to the established religion people who otherwise would be inclined to an attitude of indifference or hostility. In connection with the variation from the prevailing type of Eastern orthodoxy which we have been con- sidering, it should be remembered that the strictly author- itative standards of the Russian Church are somewhat limited, being confined to the decisions of the first seven/ ecumenical councils. Other standards, containing a much larger amount of dogmatic detail, such as the Orthodox Confession of Faith, composed by Peter Mogilas, and the Eighteen Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem, composed by Dositheus, are indeed treated with deference; but they are not regarded as beyond amendment. Only the decisions of the ecumenical coun- cils, representative of the undivided Church, are credited with an infallibility which makes them binding upon the conscience. The lines, therefore, which circumscribe per- missible doctrinal thinking are less closely drawn in the Russian communion than they are in the Church of Rome. A somewhat rigorous and grudging censorship, it is true, may restrict the free publication of personal convictions ; 1 Leroy-Beaulieu, III. 47. 294 THE GREEK TYPE /but that does not import that the convictions may not be with a good conscience^ Over against the subjects 'of papal jurisdiction the Russian apologist is able to affirm : "Even when we are condemned by our bishops, or reduced to silence by their censure, our opinions, our consciences, still remain freer than yours. The decisions of the Holy Synod of Petersburgh, or of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, can have only a local value: neither claims to be infallible. We have no equivalent for your Roma locuta est; we have no judge with authority over consciences to be compared with that of the pope or of the congregations instituted by him; we know nothing of those censures without appeal to which a Fenelon submits, and which a Lamennais resists only at the price of leaving the Church. Here, in Russia, our spiritual censure is hardly more than a matter of ecclesiastical police." 1 The witnesses from whom we have cited have indicated that men of eminence in the Russian Church have been ready to make some use of their liberty, under the stand- ards, to give expression to views more or less divergent from currect traditions. But they have also indicated that these men have been held in check by governmental policy and by the immobility of the great mass of priests and people. We seem to be required, therefore, neither to ignore the action of a diversifying agency in the province of doctrinal thought within the Russian Church, nor to make of it overgenerous account. As enforcing the latter requirement two further facts are deserving of mention. In the first place, it is to be observed that the Russian Church, in common with the rest of Eastern J Leroy-Beaulieu, III. 61, 62. SCOPE OF DEVELOPMENTS 295 Christianity, has indicated very little disposition to make any concessions for the sake of union with other parties. Her prelates, it is true, have been less ready than those of the Roman Church to put forth the lordly pretense to sole ecclesiastical validity. They have never condemned Anglican orders; on the contrary, they have given a more or less positive recognition of them. 1 Nevertheless, in negotiations for union, whether with the Anglicans or the Old Catholics, they have generally spoken as men fully conscious that Christianity in its pure form was with them, so that union could not be seriously discussed except on the basis of conformity to their existing doctrinal system." 2 In the second place, it is not to be overlooked that the more distinguished representatives of a leaning to the Protestant standpoint do not seem to have been inclined to modify materially the pro- nounced sacerdotalism embodied in the traditional sacramental teaching. Logically some modification may have been involved in one or another of their conceptions, but formally it does not appear to have been made by them. The points wherein they have\ affiliated with Protestantism respect more particularly the \ primacy of the Bible, its sufficiency as a compendium of doctrines necessary to salvation, and the supereminence I of faith as a condition of justification. On each of these"\ topics one may detect something of the tone of the J Reformers. Thus Bishop Konissky, in a treatise on the Duty of Parish Priests, which was first printed in 1776, affirmed : "We hold the Word of God, that is, the books of the Old and the New Testaments, as the source, 1 Hore, Student's History of the Greek Church, p. 476. 8 Headlam, Essay on Relations with the Eastern Churches, in Church Problems, edited by Henson, 1900. 296 THE GREEK TYPE foundation, and perfect rule both of our holy faith and of the good works of the law. . . . Neither the writings of the holy fathers nor the traditions of the Church are to be confounded or equaled with the Word of God and his commandments : for the Word of God is one thing ; but the writings of the holy fathers and traditions ecclesiastical are another." 1 A shade more of respect is paid to tradition in the wording of the catechism of Philaret, but it is subordinated quite distinctly to Scripture. "We must follow," it is said, "that tradition which agrees with divine revelation and Holy Scripture." On the office of faith we have the following strong declaration from Platon : "This faith is called justifying faith, because through it man is accounted just before God ; yea, is accounted as such, according to the doctrine of Paul, without the works of the law. For how is it possible for man to have any part in his own justification, when it is impossible to be justified in any other way than by first confessing our guilt before God, and that we have merited his wrath? However, those who are justified by faith must prove the same, and give evidence of their justification, by obeying the holy law of God." 2 Sentences like these would appear suitably located in a book of evangelical Protestant teaching. But, as has been intimated, their authors have not gone on record as interested to retrench appreciably from the high-church conceptions which were current in their communion respecting the necessity and the efficacy of the sacraments. We have thus to take account of a limitation upon the import, for our theme, of the freer type of theological 1 Trans, by Blackmore, 1845. 1 Summary of Christian Divinity, trans, by Pinkerton, 1815. POLITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 297 thinking which had its representatives in the Russian Church in the nineteenth century. II. POLITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE The kingdoms formed during the nineteenth century within the ancient domain of the patriarchate of Constantinople have taken their ecclesiastical model from Russia both as respects inde^ndencejiomjhej^urisdiction of the patriarch and as respects synodal organization. In the empire of the Czar the feature of independence was adopted in 1588-89, when the Metropolitan of Moscow was made patriarch. The synodal organization which involved the abolition of the patriarchal dignity and the vesting of the supreme ecclesiastical authority in a body termed the Holy Synod, was introduced in T by Peter the Great. A closely resembling constitution was formulated in 1833 by the clergy of the recently established kingdom of Greece. According to the tenor of their action, "the Orthodox and Apostolic Church of Greece, whilst it preserves dogmatic unity with the East- ern Orthodox Churches, is dependent on no external authority; and spiritually owns no head but the Founder of the Christian faith. In the external government, which belongs to the crown, she acknowledges the king of Greece as her supreme head." The^sacred synod, it was further stated, was to be wholly composed of prelates appointed by the king, and was to rank as the highest ecclesiastical ajothorrty, and its sittings were to be attended by a royal delegate^_who though without a vote should give his signature to all its decisions as a condition of their yajid2jgjr~ln the constitution granted in 1864 relation 1 Hore, Student's History of the Greek Church, p. 457. 298 THE GREEK TYPE with the Eastern Church in general was recognized in these terms : "The Orthodox Church of Greece, acknowl- edging for its Head the Lord Jesus Christ, is indissolubly united in doctrine with the great Church of Constantino- ple, and with every other Church holding the same doc- trines, observing, as they invariably do, the holy apostolic and synodal canons and holy traditions." A parallel scheme as respects interior arrangements and outward relations was adopted in Roumania, Servia, and Bul- garia. Thus it appears that in the sphere of the Greek Church the principle of national establishments is pre- dominant. Between the several branches of that Church the chief bonds are adhesion to the same doctrinal stand- ards and heirship to a common body of historical associa- tions. They constitute rather a confederacy of Churches than a strict ecclesiastical unity. The Holy Synod of Russia as first constituted con- sisted of four bishops, seven archimandrites (or abbots), and two priests. More recently the membership of the Synod has been confined to bishops with the exception of two priests, one of whom is the Czar's confessor and the other the chief chaplain of the army and the fleet. A layman bearing the title of Chief Procurator attends the meetings of the body, and acts as an intermediary between it and the Czar. Though without a vote, the Chief Procurator is a potent official in the ecclesiastical assembly. The prerogatives of the Holy Synod have been described as follows: "It is its duty to care for purity of doctrine and good order in worship; to oppose heresies and schisms; to prove narratives relating to the saints; to root out all superstitions ; to watch over the preaching of 299 the Divine Word; to select worthy men for the chief pastoral positions and to place them therein ; to give such the needful counsels in doubtful matters, and to pass upon the complaints of those who are dissatisfied with the management of their ecclesiastical superiors. In par- ticular to it belongs supervision over all institutions for the education of the clergy, the censorship of religious writings, the critical inspection of relics and miracles, as also the associated function of canonizing. Its jurisdic- tion covers doubtful marriages, or those contracted within the forbidden degrees, and likewise cases of divorce. In general, whatever pertains to the doctrine, worship, and administration of the national Church falls under the care and judgment of the Synod." 1 With respect to the selec- tion of the chief pastors, or bishops, it should be noted that this function is shared with the Czar. Customarily the Synod presents the names of three candidates, and from these the Czar makes the final choice. Doubtless a prominent motive with Peter the Great for putting the Synod in place of the patriarchate was the conviction that such a body, composed as it is of a variety of clerical factors, would be much less liable to get into conflict with the administration of the State than would a single prelate exalted to a position of ecclesiastical head- ship. Nor can it be disputed that his judgment was worthy of his practical sagacity. The Synod, as a matter of fact, has served as a congenial ally of the absolutist monarchy of Russia. But the saying of this much by no means imports that as an institution the Synod is not well adapted to make connection with a more liberal form 1 Philaret, Geschichte der Kirche Russlands, ins Deutsche ubersetzt von Blumenthal, II. 174. 300 THE GREEK TYPE of government. It accords with the traditions of Greek Christianity generally to pay large respect to the su- premacy of the State. As respects the bearing of the autocratic sovereignty of the Czar upon ecclesiastical matters somewhat diverse judgments have been rendered. On the one side, it is con- tended that this sovereignty is perfectly overshadowing, and reduces all spiritual authority to a purely instrumental position. Advocates of Roman polity, among others, give emphatic expression to this judgment. Thus Ga- garin remarks : "The Russian clergy has not strength enough to contend with the government. Long ago it renounced all power of originating action, and abdicated all independence. . . . The Russian Church is not sub- jected, she is absorbed by the State: she is an inert in- strument, a body without a soul." 1 In this point of view the Czar is a lay pope, and as such quite as truly master of the Russian Church as the bishop of Rome is of the Latin Church. "The real and effectual ruler of the Rus- sian Church," says Tondini, "is the Czar." 2 In confirma- tion of this line of assertions reference is made to the language which is found in the Russian code and in the interpretations of Russian jurists. That language, it must be admitted, gives a broad scope to imperial pre- rogatives. As reported by Palmer it includes these very significant specifications: "i. The emperor, as a Christian sovereign, is the supreme defender and guardian of the dogmas of the dominant faith, and the preserver of orthodoxy and of all good order in the holy Church. In 1 The Russian Church, pp. 7, 262. Compare Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, 1907, pp. 295297. *The Pope of Rome and the Popes of the Oriental Orthodox Church, 1871, p. 21. POLITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 301 this sense the emperor is called the head of the Church. 2. In the government of the Church the autocratic power acts through the most holy governing and directing Synod instituted by it. 3. The original design of laws proceeds either from special intention and direct com- mand of his supreme Majesty, or it arises out of the or- dinary course of affairs, when during the consideration of them in the governing Synod, and the ministries, it is considered necessary either to explain and supplement any existing law, or to draw up a new enactment. In this case these different authorities subject their projects, ac- cording to the established order, to the supreme judgment of his Majesty." 1 On the other side, emphasis is placed upon the limita- tions which attach to the notion of the imperial headship. That headship, it is claimed, falls out of comparison with the dogmatic and administrative supremacy which in Latin Christendom is assigned to the pope. It is a com- monplace in Russian theological teaching that, properly speaking, Christ is the sole head of the Church. Even the seventeenth century creeds strongly assert this, not- withstanding the spirit of opposition to Protestantism by which they were inspired. 2 It is clear, then, that Platon and Philaret were not speaking specially in the character of liberals when they uttered the conviction that Christ alone can appropriately be acknowledged as head of the Church. "Of pastors," said the former, "some are greater, such as bishops, and others are lesser, such as presbyters or ministers. Christ alone is the head of the church government and service, because, as he is the 1 Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church, pp. 104, 105. 3 Confession of Dositheus, decree X ; Orthodox Confession by Mogilas, quest. Ixxxv. 302 THE GREEK TYPE founder of his Church, so he is her only independent governor, who ruleth her invisibly by his word and spirit. Consequently in all matters respecting the essence of faith, the Church can obey no one except himself, and the evident testimony of the Word of God." 1 "The Church," wrote Philaret, "as the body of Christ, can have no other head than Jesus Christ. The Church, being designed to abide through all generations of time, needs also an ever- abiding head ; and such is Jesus Christ alone. Wherefore, also, the apostles take no higher title than that of min- isters of the Church." 2 It follows that in any reference which the code may make to the headship of the Czar the term is understood simply in the sense of external ad- ministration. He is not supposed to be the head of the Russian Church in such manner as the pope is recognized by his subjects to be the head of the Roman Church. "No Russian, no member of any Orthodox Church, admits such a thing for a moment." 3 Along with this limitation upon the recognized office of the Czar in the ecclesiastical domain another is to be associated, namely, that which results from the well- established premise that the ecumenical council alone is competent to define and authoritatively to impose articles of faith. This by itself puts the Czar in fundamental contrast with the pope. He is no living oracle qualified (o add new specifications to the obligatory creed. As respects dogma he has no more of a deciding voice than the humblest of his subjects. Many of those subjects may regard him with a species of religious veneration, but it is no part of the approved theory of the Orthodox 1 Summary of Christian Divinity, p. 135. * Catechism, quest. 259. * Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, HI. 166. POLITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 303 Church of Russia that there belongs to him any lordship over matters of faith. Looking, then, to the different aspects of the subject, we conclude both that the Czar, in point of administrative control, is a mighty factor in the Russian Church, and that his sovereignty is subject to important restrictions which place it in wide contrast with the power authori- tatively accredited to the pope in the Roman Church. Between the autocrat who, while he treats the manage- ment of the Church as falling very largely within the de- partment of state administration, claims no positive divine sanction for his acts, and the pontiff, who poses as the infallible vicegerent, competent to give the law to intellect and conscience, there is a vast interval. Moreover, it is to be observed that the actual exercise of imperial control over ecclesiastical affairs, in the measure in which it has obtained, is not of the essence of Russian church theory. That theory may make little room for antagonism to the policy of the State, but it does not deny the fitness and desirability of a state administration which leaves to the spiritual authorities of the Church a good degree of free movement. In any scheme of close connection be- tween Church and State the temper of the ruler is a very considerable factor. Illustration of this truth can easily be found in the sphere of Latin Christianity, as well as in the East. No Czar ever proceeded more imperiously than did the first Napoleon, and no Russian catechism affords a parallel to the chapter on "Duties toward the Emperor" which had place in the Napoleonic catechism. While the limitation of the province of infallibility may be said to favor religious tolerance, the close connec- tion of the Russian Church with an autocratic State gives 304 THE GREEK TYPE much scope to restriction and repression. The law recognizes the right of those bred in dissenting faiths, such as the Lutheran and the Roman Catholic, to practice their religion. It hedges about this practice, however, by certain regulations, and opposes a bar to propagandism within the bounds of the Orthodox Church. Palmer, at the time of his visit (1840-41), described governmental policy as taking this line : "Any member of the Russian Church joining another communion incurs the penalty of civil death. On the other hand, members of the tolerated communions may, if they comply with certain forms, be received as proselytes from one to another ; and the Rus- sian Church may receive proselytes from them all. The children, too, of all mixed marriages must be bred up as members of the dominant Church." 1 Since the middle of the century considerable concessions have been made to the so-called Schismatics or Raskolniki. By the laws passed in 1883-84 they were granted within limits the status of a tolerated sect; but still enough of restriction was left to serve as an instrument of vexation in case the authorities should wish to resort to such. In dealing with the newer sects less consideration has been shown. At times rigorous measures have been taken against them. In general the extent to which the policy of in- tolerance is carried out depends not a little on the animus of the chief Procurator. To the credit of the clergy, it should be noticed that in the latter part of the century they began to give better heed to the demand for the use of spiritual weapons, such as preaching and missionary efforts. Meanwhile, the element of dissent, being large, i Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the Years 1840, 1841, pp. 35- 36. SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 305 persistent, and variegated, can hardly fail to serve as a means of education on tolerance. Possibly the outcome may be like that which was achieved in England after many generations of struggle. Ecclesiastical pride may stand in the way of such a consummation, but Russian administration is at least not debarred from moving to- ward it by any ex cathedra teaching on the duty of coer- cing or destroying the heretic. III. THE CEREMONIAL AND SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM "A The state religion of Russia has sometimes been charged in emphatic terms with formalism. So far as the employment of a very elaborate ceremonial, the pre- scription of numerous fasts, and the prodigal use of such outward demonstrations of piety as the payment of re- / spect to sacred pictures are tokens of formalism, the charge would seem not to be without foundation. It stands in evidence, too, that at one time or another a part at least of the constituency of the Russian Church has carried the stress upon forms to the point of intem- perate superstition. Had not ceremonies been regarded as veritable instruments of magical effects, the item of making the sign of the cross and giving the blessing with two fingers instead of three could never have been counted a fundamental issue, as it was by the numerous company which went out of the Orthodox Church and be- came known as the Raskolniki. Further, it cannot be questioned, that the existence of a governmental requisi- tion for the reception of the sacrament at least once a year by all Orthodox Russians a requisition supple- mented by a direction to the civil and military authorities, 306 THE GREEK TYPE as well as to the clergy, to see that it is carried out is better suited to a perfunctory than to a spiritual religion, and so far as it is not a dead letter must operate in favor of that type. But, while these considerations are not to be ignored, it would savor of unfairness not to join with /-them certain admissions. In the first place, it is to be / granted that the teaching of the Russian Church has of- fered not a little in the way of correctives to a supersti- tious estimate of forms. On this point a candid student of that Church remarks : "It is essentially ritualistic, and rigorously adheres to the practices of the fourth and fifth centuries. It is often reproached with stifling the essence of religious belief under outward forms. This accusation is, however, true only in part; and the fact, such as it exists, is attributable more to the character and disposi- tion of the Slavonic and Eastern races than to any fault of the Church; on the contrary, it has, from the earliest ages, endeavored to guard against superstition and the surreptitiously degrading influences of the senses." 1 This statement may perhaps put the case in behalf of the Church rather strongly, but it brings forward a considera- tion which must be taken account of in a fair judgment. In the second place, it is not to be overlooked that even among such classes of the Russian people as think most superstitiously of forms, and are given to numerous vagaries, some of them derived from the old paganism of the country, much of the life of piety is still manifest. Leroy-Beaulieu judges that rarely in the lower classes of the West is the force of religious motive so conspicuously revealed as it is in the corresponding classes of Russia. 2 1 Heard. The Russian Church and Russian Dissent, pp. 144, 145. * The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, III. 38. SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 307 The extent to which the New Testament is read affords \ doubtless a part of the explanation of this fact. In relation to the sacraments, the Greek Church has been much less prolific than the Roman in dogmatic specifications. On the importance, however, of these rites, and on the general interpretation of most of them, the one does not appear to stand in emphatic contrast with the other. Baptism is defined in the Russian and in other cate- chisms^of the Greek Church as a rite of remission and regeneration. In the Eighteen Decrees by Dositheus this strong statement respecting its necessity occurs : "We be- lieve holy baptism, instituted by the Lord and performed in the name of the Holy Trinity, is in the highest degree necessary. Indeed, without it no one can be saved ac- cording to the saying of the Lord : Except one shall have been born of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Therefore even for infants it is necessary, as those who also are guilty of original sin and are able to be cleansed by baptism alone." 1 How far this rigorous and merciless view is accepted in the recent theology of the Greek Church we do not find indicated in our sources. Respect for patristic authority would naturally give it a right of way, for many of the fathers exhibited a very scanty sense of its awful im- plications. But it seems not to have gained expression in the standard catechisms. Platon, it is true, uttered the conviction that there is no hope of the salvation of the man who does not receive baptism. However, he adds, "not on account of his not having been plunged into water, but because he hath not believed in the name of 1 Decree xvi. 308 THE GREEK TYPE the only begotten Son of God." 1 The qualifying clause, as implying that Platon was thinking of a lack of bap- tism occasioned by unbelief, cancels the warrant for identifying his point of view with that of Dositheus. Ap- ( parently the Greek Church is less securely tied than the \Roman to faith in the damnation of unbaptized infants. In its exposition of the eucharist the Greek Church, judged by the language of its modern standards, is com- mitted to the doctrine of transubstantiation. In the cate- chism of Philaret it is said that the bread and the wine, at the time of the invocation of the Holy Spirit, "are changed, or transubstantiated, into the very body of Christ, and into the very blood of Christ." 2 In the dec- laration of faith made by Russian bishops at their con- secration like terms are used. The language of Platon and of the catechism published at Athens in 1857 is less specific, asserting only the reception of the real body and blood under the forms of bread and wine. On the other hand, the seventeenth-century creeds by Mogilas and Dositheus not only assert transubstantiation (jteTovoiuois), but give place to the Roman distinctions between sub- stance and accidents. In this attempt, however, to define the eucharistic mystery more closely they seem not to have furnished an effective precedent for the theologians of the Greek communions in recent times. Certainly those of Russia have preferred to remain by general terms and to avoid all attempts at specific dogmatic con- struction. Indeed, there is a considerable party in the Russian Church which is disposed to deny that the word by which their standards express the change in the ele- ments is properly rendered by the Latin transubstantiatio. i Summary of Christian Divinity, p. 142. 2 Quest. 339. SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM 309 This was the contention of Philaret. 1 "There are many," says Headlam, "who probably would be glad to get rid of the word (Greek, nerovoiuois, Russian, pressouchchest- vlenic). There is another party whose aim would be to emphasize the resemblance to Rome. But here, on the presumption of the Eastern Church, there is a previous question. The word was not used in this connection in Eastern theology until the twelfth century. It was in- troduced from a Roman source." 2 Practically, no doubt, the thinking of the Greek communions is strongly per- vaded with the essential conception which underlies the term "transubstantiation," and it is so associated with their ritual transactions as to be almost incapable of dis- lodgment. But no expression of that conception has place in those standards to which they have agreed to impute strict infallibility. Theoretically, then, they are not so\ absolutely attached to transubstantiation as is the Latin/ communion. Relative to the sacrament of penance or penitence the\ Greek Church adheres to the conclusion that it is a neces- I sary and efficacious remedy for sins committed after / baptism. To this extent it agrees with the Roman inter- pretation. There are several points, however, practical and theoretical, in which the sacrament as administered and understood in the East differs from the Roman rite. In the first place, in the former domain there is very little disposition to distinguish between the different grades of repentance which may serve as a sufficient in- ward amend on the part of the penitent. To the question, "What is required of the penitent?" the catechism of 1 Wilbois, L'Avenir de 1'Eglise Russe, pp. 155, 156. 2 Essay on Relations with the Eastern Churches, in Church Problems, P- 235- 310 THE GREEK TYPE Philaret answers simply : "Contrition for his sins, with a full purpose of amendment of life, faith in Jesus Christ, and hope in his mercy." 1 In the second place, Greek custom makes a less onerous demand than Roman as respects confession to the priest. Among the Raskolniki of the priestly branch a fairly detailed confession may be required. But in the Orthodox Church of Russia the demand for close specification is commonly omitted. /"Between Oriental and Latin confession," says Leroy- Beaulieu, "practice appears to have dug a chasm which time may either bridge or widen. The former is briefer V or more summary, less explicit, less searching; it is also less frequent, and both its influence on the worshiper and the authority it confers on the clergy are thus materially lessened. It is generally limited to serious delinquencies, and otherwise is content with general declarations, with- out specifying any particular sins ; it does not delve into the secrets of individual conscience, into the intimacies of private life. The Russian Church does not place in the hands of her followers any of those manuals of minute self-examination which, at one time, were in such general use in Catholic countries; nor does she give her priests any of those manuals of moral theology which carry the anatomy of vice to the length of a repulsive vivisection. In /^ word, Orthodox confession is simpler and discreeter, f more symbolical and more attached to form than Roman V confession." 2 Again, the Greek Church in part adheres ^to the precatory form of absolution which in the early centuries was common to both East and West. That the judicial or indicative form should have gained currency in the Russian division may be imputed to Latin influ- 1 Quest. 353. 2 The Empire of the Tsar and the Russians, III. 143 COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE 311 ence. 1 Once more the Eastern theory of the satisfaction required of the penitent differs materially from the West- ern. The former makes the satisfaction simply a dis- cipline of piety. 2 The latter construes it as a debt due to divine justice, and thus involves, in connection with the scheme of indulgences, the obnoxious conclusion that human discretion is enthroned over the acknowledged demands of divine justice. 3 IV. A COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE OF GREEK SACERDOTALISM In the light of the facts which have been stated it is quite evident that Greek sacerdotalism compares with the Roman very much as an intermediate stage in a progres- sive development compares with an extreme or ultimate stage. In its conception of polity the Greek ChurcnV repudiates the monarchic and absolutist ideal which was built up within the limits of Latin Christendom, and goes back to the aristocratic constitution which divided up Christian territory between several patriarchs, and set above them the ecumenical council as the one author- ity competent to speak with an infallible voice and toy 1 Neale, History of the Holy Eastern Church, Part I, p. loro. 2 Leroy-Beaulieu, III. 134, 135; Wilbois, L'Avenir de 1'Eglise Russe, pp. 147, 148. 3 The Roman position is given a faithful expression in the following propositions: "With the guilt and eternal punishment not always is the entire temporal punishment remitted which is to be paid to divine justice. ... A man in a state of grace is able to satisfy God for the debt of temporal punishment by works of penance in this life. . . . According to the signifi- cance of the word, which usage has determined, an indulgence is called a relaxation of the temporal penalty, still due to God after the remission of guilt, effected through an application of the treasure of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints outside of the sacrament, by him who has legitimate authority for this purpose" (Sasse, Inst. Theol. de Sacramentis Ecclesize, II. 184, 189, 330). 3 i2 THE GREEK TYPE /^give direction to the entire body of Christian believers. 1 ^ Inasmuch as it recognizes the ecumenical character of no assembly since the Second Council of Nicaea (A. D. 787), the compass of the infallible decisions to which it com- mands subjection is much more limited than that of the imperative tenets of the Roman Church, and besides stands a very remote chance of enlargement. Only by a radical revision of its standpoint could it offer a parallel to the innovations by which, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the dogmas of the immaculate con- ception of the Virgin and the unrestricted absolutism of the pope have been thrust into the obligatory creed of all who look to Rome as their ecclesiastical capital. In its sacramental theory also the Greek Church arrests itself at an earlier point than does the Latin. The theory to which it is committed is the vague mystical theory advo- cated by the later fathers, and the bond by which it is held to this theory is the authority of a long-standing consensus rather than the explicit terms of confessedly infallible decrees. It is without equivalent for numerous specifications which, in the Roman Church, have been carried over from scholastic theology into conciliar de- cisions. Judged by its authoritative formulas its sacra- mentalism falls short of the Roman by several degrees. The saying of this much, however, still leaves ample room for criticism. The Greek type, whatever favorable points it may exhibit as compared with the Roman, outruns by far the New Testament standpoint in its exaggerated sacramentalism and theories of priestly mediation. 1 The bearing of the historic standpoint of the Greek Church on the high pretensions of Rome has been noticed in another connection. We add here this judgment of Headlam: "The argument against the claims of Rome, drawn from the history, the position, and the existence of the Eastern Church, seems decisive" (Church Problems, p. 247). CHAPTER II THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC MOVEMENT I. ANTECEDENTS AND GENERAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT < THE terms used in the heading of the chapter may be regarded as the most suitable designation of the very pro- nounced High-Church development which, from various points of view, has been termed "Tractarianism," the 'Oxford movement," and "Ritualism." As respects the antecedents of the Anglo-Catholic movement, it is a notable fact that a congenial basis for the ultra High-Churchism by which it was distinguished was supplied only in a very restricted measure by the his- tory of the Church of England in the sixteenth century. The Edwardean and Elizabethan divines, the framers of the Prayer Book and the Thirty-nine Articles, represented ways of thinking wide apart from the postulates of the Anglo-Catholic party of the nineteenth century. In the compilation of the Prayer Book, it is true, enough phrases were left over from the pre-Reformation liturgy to afford somewhat of a basis for those desiring to conserve a con- siderable part of ancient and mediaeval sacramentalism. But the interpretation of these phrases was modified by the general standpoint of the sixteenth century theolo- gians. They made much less of sacramental efficacy than is made by recent Anglo-Catholics, and stood in distinct contrast with the latter upon the relation of apostolical succession and episcopacy to valid church organization. 313 314 THE ANGLICAN TYPE Cranmer and his associates had no thought of insisting upon the divine right of episcopacy, and showed by their demeanor toward the Protestants on the Continent that they recognized them as belonging to the same house- hold of faith with themselves. 1 It was also remote from the thought of the Elizabethan divines to unchurch Protestant communions for simple lack of an episcopacy reputed to possess apostolic connections. Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, besides speaking about the eucharist and about priestly absolution in a way decidedly afflictive to the Anglo-Catholic mind, distinctly repudiated the no- tion that episcopal succession stands among the fore- most marks of a true Church. "Lawful succession," he wrote, "standeth not only in possession of place, but also, and much rather, in doctrine and diligence. . . . God's grace is promised unto a good mind, and to anyone that feareth him ; not unto sees and successions." 2 The highly appreciative relation in which Parker, the first Arch- bishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth, stood to Jewel is a sufficient guarantee that he was tolerant of the position of this spirited defender of the English Establishment against Roman criticism. Possibly his sentiments may have been less in contrast with the Anglo-Catholic model than those of Jewel; but his High-Church biographer admits that he sometimes gave expression to "ultra- Protestant notions," 3 and it is quite certain that in his conception of ecclesiastical geography the lines were not drawn so closely as to exclude the leading Protestant communions. His successor, Grindal, kept up intimate relations with Bullinger and other foreign Protestants, 1 Compare Macaulay, History of England, I. 56, 57. * Defense of Apology, cited in Froude's Remains, vol. I, part ii, pref. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, IX. 293. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 315 and was confessedly remote in his administration from the High-Church ideal. Even Archbishop Whitgift, with all his hardness toward Nonconformists, took a broad view of the conditions of ecclesiastical validity. "That any one kind of government," he said, "is so necessary that without it the Church cannot be saved, or that it may not be altered into some other kind thought to be more expedient, I utterly deny. ... I find no one cer- tain and perfect kind of government prescribed or com- manded in the Scriptures to the Church of Christ. . . . Notwithstanding government, or some kind of govern- ment, may be a part of the Church, touching the outward form and perfection of it, yet it is not such a part of the essence and being, but that it may be the Church of Christ without this or that kind of government." 1 In thus ex- pressing himself Whitgift agreed with his more distin- guished contemporary, Richard Hooker. In his classic defense of the English Church against Puritan objections the latter plainly taught that the episcopal is rather an eligible than a necessary form of ecclesiastical organiza- tion, and also made room for the conclusion that even if episcopacy was of apostolic institution that fact would not imply beyond all question its indefeasible and exclusive right, since a form of government adapted to a particular stage of history, and chosen on the score of that adapta- tion, is not thereby certified to be obligatory at every succeeding stage. The following are some of his state- ments: "He which affirmeth speech to be necessary amongst all men throughout the world doth not thereby import that all must necessarily speak one kind of lan- guage. Even so the necessity of polity and regiment in 1 Works, Parker Society edit., I. 184, 185. 3i6 THE ANGLICAN TYPE all churches may be held without holding any one certain form to be necessary in them all. 1 ... If we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us were to hold that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of church polity which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all Churches, to all times. But with any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow. 2 . . . Unto the complete form of church polity much may be requisite which the Scripture teacheth not, and much which it hath taught become un- requisite, sometime because we need not use it, sometime also because we cannot. 3 . . . There may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop. Men may be extraordinarily, yet al- lowably, two ways admitted unto spiritual function in the Church. One is, when God himself doth of himself raise up any, whose labor he useth without requiring that men should authorize them ; but then he doth ratify their call- ing by manifest signs and tokens from heaven. Another extraordinary kind of vocation is, when the exigency of necessity doth constrain to leave the usual ways of the Church, which otherwise we would willingly keep : where the Church must needs have some ordained, and neither hath, nor can have possibly, a bishop to ordain ; in case of such necessity the ordinary institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may give, place." 4 The first departure from this standpoint, so character- 1 The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book iii, chap. ii. 1 Ibid., Book iii, chap. x. * Ibid., Book iii, chap. xi. * Ibid., Book vii, chap. xiv. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 317 istic of the fathers of the English Church, seems to have been made by Richard Bancroft. In a sermon preached at Saint Paul's Cross in 1589 (or February, 1588, by the old reckoning) he thought fit to assert, over against the claim made by some of the Puritans for the presbyterian polity, the divine right of episcopacy. It is in evidence, however, that either his words went beyond his meaning, or else he found reason further on not to abide by the conviction expressed on the given occasion. At a meet- ing of the convocation of the province of Canterbury, over which Bancroft presided ( 1604), a canon was passed which evidently implied a recognition of the Scottish Church then without any regular episcopacy as a part of "Christ's holy Catholic Church." 1 Furthermore, in 1610, when the consecration of bishops-elect for Scotland was pending, he gave his voice in favor of the validity of ordinations by presbyters. As one of the bishops-elect has reported, "a question was moved by Dr. Andrewes, bishop of Ely, touching the consecration of the Scottish bishops, who, as he said, 'must first be ordained presby- ters, as having received no ordination from a bishop.' The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Bancroft, who was by, maintained 'that thereof there was no necessity, see- ing where bishops could not be had, the ordination given by the presbyters must be esteemed lawful; otherwise it might be doubted if there were any lawful vocation in most of the Reformed Churches.' " 2 Bancroft, it is true, according to another report, brought forward a second reason for not insisting upon prefacing the ordination to the office of bishop, in case of the Scottish candidates, 1 Grub, Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, II. 281, 282. * Spottiswoode, History of the Church of Scotland, III. 209. 3i8 THE ANGLICAN TYPE by consecration to the office of presbyter, namely, certain historical precedents which might be regarded as sanction- ing the conclusion that the episcopal character could be conveyed at a single consecration, irrespective of any ante- cedent orders. 1 But in thus arguing the archbishop did not withdraw his contention for the validity of presby- terian orders; he simply adduced an additional ground for quieting the scruples of the objecting party. Several years after this incident, recognition was given to the standing of non-episcopal churches by the action of the English king, James I, in designating bishops and theolo- gians to sit in the Synod of Dort (1618-19), and by the consent of the designated persons to take their place in the Synod. /The evidence shows conclusively that the standpoint of the English Church for more than half a century after the outlining of Articles and Prayer Book was remote from the distinctive platform of the Anglo-Catholic party of the nineteenth century. This truth, too, was recog- nized by that party very early in its history. A prominent representative, writing in 1839 relative to R. H. Froude, who died three years before, remarked : "He entered on the study of the Reformers' theology with the general and natural impression that he should find, on the whole, a treasure of sound Anglican doctrine, and a tone of thought in unison with the ancient Church. He found himself greatly disappointed, and the process and result of that disappointment are distinctly enough exhibited in his correspondence." 2 Debarred from appeal to the fathers and founders of 1 Collier, Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, VII. 362, 363. 3 Remains of the late R. H. Froude, vol. I, part ii, pref., p. xxi. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 319 the English Church, the Anglo-Catholic school was obliged to pass on to later generations in the search for congenial forerunners. It was discovered that Laud and others of the Caroline divines had made a very fair show- ing as representatives of Anglo-Catholic principles. At the same time the conviction was reached that the truest representatives of these principles among all the High- Churchmen of the past were the Non jurors, the party which refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, after the expulsion of the Stuarts, and kept up a little abortive schism through the eighteenth cen- tury. As early as 1834 Thomas Arnold wrote to Pusey: "The system at Oxford seems to be leading to a revival of the Nonjurors, a party far too mischievous and too foolish ever to be revived with success." 1 That the first part of this judgment had a basis of fact appears from contemporary acknowledgments of a representative of "the system at Oxford." In 1833 R. H. Froude ex- pressed the opinion that a standing ground could be found only by reverting to Charles I and the Nonjurors, and in the following year he wrote : "I begin to think that the Nonjurors were the last English divines, and that those since are twaddlers." 2 A later writer expressed the con- viction that between the rise of the Nonjurors and the initiation of the Oxford movement the Establishment was characterized by a sad dearth. "The whole of the eighteenth century," he declared, "was an age of shams and humbugs." 3 More recently tribute has been paid to the exemplary ecclesiasticism of the adherents of the lost cause of the Stuarts in these words: "The Church of 1 Liddon, Life of Pusey, I. 282. * Remains, vol. I, part i, pp. 307, 355. 3 R. F. Littledale in Lectures in Defense of Church Principles, 1871, p. 79. 320 THE ANGLICAN TYPE England has not to this day recovered from the loss of the Non jurors, and from the discredit which causes almost entirely political threw upon the school which rep- resented her true spirit and principles." 1 Historical criticism finds no occasion to deny the right of Anglo-Catholics to emphasize in particular the teach- ing of the Nonjurors as an antecedent to their own sys- tem. The Laudian scheme, it is true, was suited to claim appreciation as making large account of apostolic succes- sion, giving acknowledgment to the Roman Catholic com- munion as a true, though not in all respects orthodox, Church, and advocating in connection with the eucharist the doctrine of the real presence. But, on the other hand, Laud conceded, at least practically, a wide province to the Erastian principle of state control. Moreover, his stress upon sacramental efficacy and Catholic ceremonies was not carried to the highest pitch. On these points the Nonjurors seemed to the initiators of the Anglo-Catholic movement to have come nearer to the ideal. The situa- tion of the latter led them to regard with very little com- placency the control claimed and asserted by the State in ecclesiastical matters. Accordingly, the anti-Erastian sentiments contained in the writings of the Nonjurors were very welcome to them. They found here, too, a readiness to disparage the Reformation and to revert with fondness to pre-Reformation ideas and practices a trait quite in conformity with a rapidly developed tendency among themselves. Laud, who had not fully learned to forswear the name of "Protestant" as a thing abhorred, was less able to command their appreciation. Accord- ingly, it came about that the school which was very much 1 Whitham, Holy Orders, 1903, p. 188. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 321 inclined to berate the schism of the Dissenters as an un- pardonable offense affectionately regarded the Nonj tir- ing schismatics of the eighteenth century as supplying the most genuine antecedents of their own ecclesiastical and theological scheme. Described as to its more immediate antecedents, trm Anglo-Catholic movement may be characterized as in a] double sense a reaction. On the one hand, it was the off- 1 , spring of a rebound against the political liberalism which \ came to a signal triumph in the third and fourth decades j of the nineteenth century. In 1828 an open door into / Parliament was set before the Dissenters by the abolition \ of the Corporation and Test Acts. The like privilege was I awarded to Roman Catholics in 1829. To men of Tory / and High-Church sentiments these measures seemed prophetic of humiliation and disaster to the Anglican Establishment. How could the Church, they argued, be safe when the national legislature, which had so large a measure of control over its interests, was thrown open to those who were its natural enemies? The jealousy aroused was further stimulated by various points in the scheme of reform urged forward by the party in power, and finally was kindled to a flame in the early summer of 1833 by the Irish Temporalities Bill, whereby the govern- ment proposed, in order to meet the strained financial condition of the Establishment in Ireland, to suppress a large number of bishoprics in that country. On the other hand, the Anglo-Catholic movement was\ initiated by way of reaction against a doctrinal liberalism, j against what were esteemed lax views respecting polity, j creed, Scripture, and ecclesiastical authority. Men dom- inated by a churchly consciousness, who had been wont 322 THE ANGLICAN TYPE to think of a full round of traditional teachings as properly secure against all challenge, were not a little disquieted by such tokens of independent thinking as were furnished by writers and teachers like Whately, Coleridge, Hampden, and Thomas Arnold. Rumors of destructive work in the field of German scholarship served naturally to quicken their apprehensions, and the more so because of their exceedingly meager acquaintance with German philosophy, theology, and criticism, that which is seen through mist and dimness being apt to take on a specially portentous aspect. Of scholarship in the broader sense the original Tractarians could make no boast. Pusey, it may be admitted, had a fair equipment; but he was an exception, and, besides, the Tractarian movement had been well started before he gave it his countenance. Re- ferring to the initial period, Professor Jowett has re- marked : "None of the leaders were, I think, at that time acquainted with German except Dr. Pusey, who employed his knowledge for the most part in the refutation of the old German rationalism. To say the truth, the learning of that day was of a rather attenuated sort. The energy and ability of that generation were out of all proportion to their attainments. Hardly one had read the works of Kant and Hegel, which have since exercised a great influence upon Oxford study. Very little was known of Plato. The philosophy of that day was contained in Aristotle's Ethics and Rhetoric and Butler's Analogy and Sermons." 1 Evidently conservative Churchmen, who possessed such limited means of understanding the new intellectual era by which they were confronted, were very 1 Cited in Wilfrid Ward's book on W. G. Ward and the Oxford Move- ment, p. 432. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 323 much exposed to a sense of panic, and were liable to resort, in their attempt to gain security, to superficial and ill-chosen expedients. Under pressure of the disquiet and alarm arising from these sources a company of men in the midsummer of 1833 began to devise measures for meeting the crisis which they believed had overtaken the Church of Eng- land. These men were associated with Oxford Univer- sity. One of them, it is true, Hugh James Rose, was a Cambridge man ; but, though the first meeting for form- ing a plan of action was held at his parsonage at Had- leigh, he can hardly be rated as a conspicuous agent in the movement which was set on foot. His death occurred near the end of 1838. In the list of Oxford men were John Keble, R. H. Froude, J. H. Newman, William Pal- mer of Worcester College, A. Percival, Isaac Williams, and Charles Marriott. Among these the first three were the most radical in temper, and may be rated in a special sense as the founders of Tractarianism. Of the three Newman, though greatly stimulated at the start by the other two, fulfilled most largely for about eight years the role of leadership. Froude's course was very brief, being cut short by death in 1836. In the first consultations of this group of Oxfordists the plan of an association was drawn up for the purpose of uniting the friends of the Church of England in its defense. This expedient, however, soon fell into the shade, and interest became cen- tered in the Tracts for the Times, which were started by the initiative of the more radical spirits and became so prominent as to supply one of the names by which the Anglo-Catholic movement is known. The Tracts, espe- cially the earlier ones, were written in vigorous, almost 324 THE ANGLICAN TYPE violent, language, with the purpose of arousing clergy and laity and inflaming them with a High-Church zeal. They continued to be issued till 1841, when the series came to a close on account of the episcopal disapprobation of Tract 90, which was written by Newman, and was charged with vaporing away the natural sense of the Thirty-nine Articles in the interest of an Anglo-Catholic interpretation. The tone and contents of the Tracts will find illustra- tion under succeeding topics. It will suffice to notice here that in respect of the doctrines of a high and ex- clusive ecclesiasticism and an ultra sacramentalism they contained a very good share of the matured Anglo-Catho- lic scheme. On the other hand, as respects a predilection for ritual modeled after Roman practice, and in general as respects an attitude of friendliness and obeisance to- ward Rome, they fell short of what came to manifestation at a later period. During the era of the Tracts various other writings were issued in advocacy of Anglo-Catholic principles. The most noted of these was Newman's Prophetical Office of the Church viewed relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism, issued in 1837, and republished under the title of Via Media. In 1838 the first part of Froude's Remains, prepared under the editorship of New- man and Keble, was sent forth, and gave the public rather startling information on the anti-Reformation animus with which at least one of the founders of Tractarianism was imbued. The same year witnessed also the publica- tion of Palmer's Treatise on the Church of Christ, a work of a stanchly High-Church tenor, but corresponding, on the whole, to the reputed position of the author as a rep- ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 325 resentative of the more moderate wing of the original Tractarians. Having set up an Anglo-Catholic ideal as the true pattern for the Established Church, the Tractarian party was naturally galled by acts of administration which carried an appearance of despite to that ideal. Two or three of these occurred during the period of Newman's leadership. In the first place, much disgust and bitterness were caused (1835-36) by the appointment of Hampden to the chair of Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. The appointment was looked upon as little better than the awarding of a prize for heterodoxy. In 1832 Hampden had given the Bampton Lectures, which, however, were not published until 1834. The theme of the lectures was the Scholastic Philosophy Con- sidered in its Relation to Christian Theology. In the dis- cussion of this subject the lecturer found occasion to contrast the great facts of revelation, which have im- perishable worth and unquestionable validity, with the speculative deductions or dogmatic construction derived from these facts. He also took the liberty to speak in rather disparaging terms of sacramental theurgy. These were great faults in the eyes of those who held a wor- shipful attitude toward Catholic traditions. Hampden seemed to them an irreverent iconoclast, a contemner of the great creeds which are the bulwark of the Christian faith, the representative of a rationalizing method which would expose the most sacred dogmas to reckless assault. This estimate, we are compelled to conclude, was not earned by the Bampton lecturer. In making the distinc- tion which he did between the facts of revelation and dogmatic deductions therefrom Hampden was rather act- 326 THE ANGLICAN TYPE ing the part of the discreet apologist than of the adven- turous rationalist. Moreover, it was manifestly not his purpose to deny the serviceableness of dogmatic deduc- tions, but only to object to their being foisted into the place of primary importance. He conceded a useful office to creeds. "It appears to me," he said, "that the occasion for articles will probably never cease. It would be a rash- ness of pious feeling that should at once so confide in itself as to throw down the walls and embankments which the more vigilant fears of our predecessors have reared up around the city of God. At the same time we must not suppose that the same immutability belongs to articles of religion, which we ascribe properly to the Scripture facts alone." 1 A more eligible position could not well be taken. At the same time it is perfectly intel- ligible that the Tractarians should have entertained to- ward Hampden feelings of radical distrust and hostility, and should have counted his appointment to the divinity professorship a distinct grievance. A second source of disquietude and, in some minds, of incipient despair of the Established Church was the affair of the Jerusalem bishopric as consummated in 1841. This was an arrangement between England and Prussia, in the furtherance of which Bunsen took an active part, for the joint establishment and supervision of an episcopal station in Palestine. "The projected bishop was to take charge of members of the English Church, as well as German Protestants and any others who might be willing to place themselves under his jurisdiction. On the other hand, he was to cultivate friendly relations with the Orthodox Church, and to promote conversions among 1 Second edit., p. 381. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 327 the Jews. On October 5, 1841, an act of Parliament was passed to carry this proposal into effect ; and it was agreed that the British and Prussian crowns should nominate alternately to the bishopric; that Prussia should supply half the endowment, and English subscribers the other half; and that the bishop might ordain Germans who would subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles and the Confes- sion of Augsburg." 1 To High-Churchmen, and especially to the Tractarians, this project seemed to involve the dragging of the Church of England into an unholy alli- ance with heretics and to cancel her claim to be a branch of the Catholic Church. Newman was greatly agitated over the matter, though he confessed at a later date (1865), "As to the project of the Jerusalem bishopric, I never heard of any good or harm it has ever done, except what it has done for me." 2 The unsympathetic, not to say hostile, attitude of the bishops united with these events to chill the confidence and affection of a considerable number of the more ardent Tractarians toward the Church of England, and to nur- ture that appreciation for the Church of Rome which was a logical outcome from their premises. Newman, accord- ing to his own declaration, was on his "death-bed as re- gards his membership with the Church of England" from the end of i84i. 3 Certain obstacles still lay across the path to Rome, but by the ingenious intellectual expedients which came to manifestation in his Essay on the Develop- ment of Christian Doctrine, these were finally disposed of, and in October, 1845, tne most noted of the Tractarian leaders was received into the Roman Church. Within 1 Liddon, Life of Pusey, II. 248. * Apologia pro Vita Sua, 1887, p. 146. Ibid., p. 147. 328 THE ANGLICAN TYPE a brief interval the same refuge from dogmatic responsi- bilities was gained by Ward, Oakeley, Capes, St. John, Coffin, Dalgairns, Faber, Meyrick, Christie, Simpson, Northcote, Morris, Ryder, and Lewis. Some of these men had been virtually advocating the cause of Rome against that of the Church of England for several years before they had the grace to put on the proper badge. Further events of a kind specially obnoxious to Anglo- Catholic feeling facilitated a further exodus from the Anglican Egypt into the Roman Canaan. In 1847 came Hampden's nomination to the episcopal office. While this instance of an exasperating use of patronage was still freshly remembered by Anglo-Catholics the public began to be agitated by the famous Gorham case. This case takes its name from George C. Gorham, whose right to enter upon the living of Brampford Speke, to which he had been appointed, was challenged on account of his denial that regeneration is necessarily effected in baptism, and that baptism is in any case unconditionally efficacious to work regeneration. To those who held, or were in close affinity with, the Tractarian teaching, Gorham's position seemed to contravene Catholic doctrine. Ac- cordingly, when the highest court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, pronounced in favor of the chal- lenged clergyman (1850), they regarded the verdict as equivalent to an advertisement that Catholic doctrine could claim no proper security in the Church of England. And so the Romeward leanings of the Anglo-Catholic party came again to signal manifestation, and the names of Manning, Henry Wilberforce, R. I. Wilberforce, Hope Scott, Maskell, Dodsworth, and Badeley were numbered with the converts to the Roman faith. This was the last ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 329 notable exodus. Thereafter friendship for Rome within the ranks of Anglo-Catholics took mainly the line of efforts to Romanize the English Establishment. Among those of the Tractarians who remained firm in their allegiance to the Church of England Pusey com- manded, on the whole, the widest influence. To the con- cluding volumes of the Tracts he was the most important contributor. Already before the retirement of Newman he had begun to be looked to as a leader, and from that point his position in the Anglo-Catholic movement was so conspicuous that Puseyism was often employed as an equivalent term for Tractarianism. Indeed, it was about this time that he had occasion, in replying to a corre- spondent, to define "Puseyism." The definition was given in the following terms : " ( i ) High thoughts of the two sacraments. (2) High estimate of episcopacy as God's ordinance. (3) High estimate of the visible Church as the body wherein we are made and continue to be mem- bers of Christ. (4) Regard for ordinances, as directing our devotions and disciplining us, such as daily public prayers, fasts, and feasts. (5) Regard for the visible part of devotion, such as the decoration of the house of God, which acts insensibly on the mind. (6) Reverence for and deference to the ancient Church, of which our own Church is looked upon as the representative to us, and by whose views and doctrines we interpret our own Church when her meaning is questioned or doubtful: in a word, reference to the ancient Church, instead of to the Reformers, as the ultimate expounder of the meaning of our Church." 1 To this statement it should be added that Pusey, notwithstanding his opposition to some parts of 1 Liddon, Life of Pusey, II. 140. 330 THE ANGLICAN TYPE the Roman system, especially to the extravagant cult of the Virgin, affiliated conspicuously with important features of Roman as opposed to Reformation dogmas, and up to the eve of the Vatican Council was busied more or less with the project of the union of the Anglican and Roman communions, at least in the sense of mutual recognition. Even for such a feature of practical Roman- ism as the use of eccentric means of self-discipline he cherished a warm appreciation, and applied to himself an ascetic regime supremely adapted to turn a man of less substantial character into a warped and painful martinet. 1 With the earlier representatives of Tractarianism ritual in the Roman style was not a vital issue. Not one of the leaders was a zealot for its intro- duction into the Anglican services. Pusey's attitude toward it was rather that of tolerance and measured ap- preciation than of enthusiastic advocacy. As late as 1873 he expressed distrust of the spirit and policy of the ultra Ritualists. 2 "He greatly doubted the wisdom and disliked the abruptness with which much of the cere- monial had been introduced into the parish churches." 3 From the very start, however, the Anglo-Catholic move- ment provided a logical basis for an efflorescence of ritual through the immense stress laid upon the sanctity and virtue of the sacraments. It is no cause for surprise, therefore, that in the last half of the century the effort to secure a free course for a Catholicized ritual was a promi- nent feature of the movement. Among the points con- tended for were the Eastward position, certain vestments in ancient use, lights, the mixed chalice, unleavened 1 See the particulars in Liddon, Life of Pusey, III. 104, 103 * Ibid., IV. 271. Ibid., IV. 277. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 331 bread in the sacrament, and incense. The attempt on the part of the Ritualists to institute their favorite ceremonies has encountered some rebuffs in the way of legal deci- sions, but on the whole they have advanced toward a wide liberty. In consideration of the large percentage of the clergy who in the present are imbued with Anglo-Catholic prin- ciples, the victory would seem to be with the party which started out in 1833 to push those principles to the front. But in another point of view this party seems to have met with a very considerable failure. However wide a sphere Anglo-Catholic principles may occupy in the clerical body, they have their place there by tolerance, and not by authority. The Establishment is not committed to them, since a free course is given to principles of an opposite character. There has been, in fact, an evolution toward the latitudinarian or Broad-Church ideal which provides room within the Establishment for the full list of ecclesi- astical species, however wide apart those species may be in their characteristics. Looking at the matter on this side one can recognize an element of truth in Wilfrid Ward's statement : "It is not Pusey and Keble who have triumphed ; it is rather Stanley and Jowett." 1 The communions historically associated with the Church of England could not well fail to be affected by the Anglo-Catholic movement. That Episcopalians in Ireland should have been relatively backward in respond- ing to the movement is accounted for by the special con- ditions under which they were placed. As a representa- tive wrote in 1872, the close neighborhood of a prepon- 1 W. G. Ward and the Oxford Movement, pp. 379, 380. 332 THE ANGLICAN TYPE derant Romanism tended to keep down the extremes of feeling and opinion which coexisted in the Establishment across the Channel. "In England, where Romanism is comparatively little known, men of high intellect and refined taste have been attracted to the Roman Church, or rather to an ideal Church of their own imagination which they identified with it. In Ireland, though there have been a few such cases, the majority have been in- fluenced by a violent repulsion from the Roman Catholic Church. That Church displays itself in Ireland in such a guise as to render it almost impossible for any one in actual contact with it to mistake it for the Church which recluses at Oxford imagined in their dreams. Of course, there are in Ireland High-Churchmen and Low-Church- men; and it is a great mistake to imagine the Irish Church to be that low-level swamp of Puritanism which some in England imagine it to be. But all sections of the Church are united in a steady opposition to the claims and power of the Church of Rome. They have the union of men who feel that they are face to face with a common danger, and an enemy who is ever ready to profit by their divisions and mistakes. Ritualism (properly so called) has no sympathizing party in Ireland." 1 In the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States there was a greater receptivity for the Oxford leaven. At the time of its organization, in 1785-89, this communion undoubtedly was predominantly Low- Church. Bishop Seabury, of Connecticut, it is true, rep- resented at that stage a High-Church element; but much the larger party was in cordial agreement with Bishop 1 J. C. Macdonnel, in the Church and the Age, second series, edited by Weir and Maclagan, p. 352. ANTECEDENTS AND HISTORY 333 White, of Pennsylvania, whose Low-Church standpoint is abundantly attested. How remote he was from the Tractarian habit of disparaging the Reformation is indi- cated by the following statement in his Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church : "It will be a most impor- tant use of the review to notice the undeviating intention of the Church to make no such alterations as shall inter- fere with the maintaining of the doctrines of the gospel, as acknowledged at the Reformation. That point of time should be kept in mind, in order to protect the Church, not only against threatened innovations from without, but also against others, which have occasionally showed their heads in the Church of England, and may show their heads in this Church, betraying a lurking fondness for errors which had been abandoned.'' 1 The "lurking fondness" for Roman peculiarities, or for close approx- imations thereto, came quite speedily to manifestation. High-Church sentiment, which had made considerable gains among the younger clergy by the third decade of the century, received an impetus from the writings of the Oxford school, and the result soon appeared in defections to Rome, the most noted being that of Bishop Ives, of North Carolina, near the end of 1852. It is estimated that up to the year 1885 about fifty presbyters and deacons of the Protestant Episcopal Church had entered the Roman communion. 2 Shortly after the close of the war of the rebellion the subject of ritual became a source of serious agitation. Judged by the canon which was passed by a very large majority in 1874, the authority of the Church was distinctly asserted against the practices 1 Page 316, edit, of 1820. ' W. S. Perry, History of the American Episcopal Church, II. 290. 334 THE ANGLICAN TYPE of the advanced ritualists. But the constitutionality of the canon has been disputed, and the practices of which it disapproves seem not to have been discontinued by the minority which sets a high value upon them. Within this party, too, some very pronounced specimens of High- Church literature have been produced in recent years. We judge that no representative of the Anglo-Catholic movement in any quarter has written a treatise more thoroughly steeped in sacerdotal postulates, or more closely affiliated with the Roman Catholic system, than is the Manual of Catholic Faith and Practice, by A. G. Mortimer. II. THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY AS RECOGNIZED BY ANGLO-CATHOLICS From the beginning of their movement the Anglo- Catholic party laid immense emphasis upon patristic authority. It was a maxim with them that the patristic consensus affords an obligatory norm of faith, not, in- deed, as setting the Bible aside, but as overruling indi- vidual interpretation and showing what doctrines can properly be elicited from the sacred oracles. On ques- tions of dogma, it was claimed, the verdict of Catholic antiquity is decisive, and on other questions is entitled to profound reverence. How strongly this maxim was put in the Tracts for the Times will appear in the follow- ing citations : "There is evidently no security, no rest for the sole of one's foot, except in the form of sound words, the one definite system of doctrine sanctioned by the one apostolic and primitive Church." 1 "We cannot allow ourselves to think slightingly of apostolical fathers, > Tract 60. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 335 without thinking so, in some degree, of apostles ; and we cannot think slightingly of apostles without lowering our veneration for our Lord himself." 1 "When the fathers speak of doctrines they speak of them as being universally held. They are witnesses to the fact of those doctrines being received, not here or there, but everywhere. We receive those doctrines which they thus held, not merely because they held them, but because they bear witness that all Christians everywhere then held them." 2 The fathers doubtless were very free to allegorize the Scrip- tures and to affirm mystical meanings in a large propor- tion of texts. But this in no wise prejudices their author- ity as interpreters. It is rather a mark of heresy to con- duct exegesis on a different plan. "As Scripture itself, both in substance and in form, is surely far unlike what mere human wisdom would have anticipated, so it is more than possible that the true method of interpreting it may conduct us on a very different line from any which would be pointed out by merely human criticism." 3 "The char- acteristic difference between the interpretation of Catho- lic Christians and those of heretical teachers is, that the latter lower and bring down the senses of Scripture as if they were mere human words, while the former consider the words of divine truth to contain greater meanings than we can fathom, and therefore amplify and extend their significance." 4 Equivalent assertions of the paramount authority of Catholic antiquity were often made by the original Trac- tarians. Froude argued that the apostles were infallible judges of controversies, and that consequently any por- tion of their decisions or interpretations of Scripture, Tract 80. 'Tract 83. Tract 89. 'Tract 87. 336 THE ANGLICAN TYPE even though delivered orally, if only credibly attested is of binding authority. He appended this statement: "It will be found that such a portion of these doctrinal inter- pretations of Scripture was actually secured and recorded in primitive times, and has been transmitted to us, by means of history, as is sufficient to answer the purpose of an unerring guide, so far as the mysteries of religion are concerned." 1 Newman in his Anglican period laid down the follow- ing rules for the determination of disputed questions: "Scripture, antiquity, and Catholicity cannot really con- tradict one another. When the sense of Scripture, as interpreted by the reason of the individual, is contrary to the sense given to it by Catholic antiquity, we ought to side with the latter. When antiquity runs counter to the present Church in important matters, we must follow an- tiquity ; when in unimportant matters, we must follow the present Church. When the present Church speaks con- trary to our private notions, and antiquity is silent, or its decisions unknown to us, it is pious to sacrifice our own opinion to the Church." 2 As to the period covered by the antiquity to which he attached so high an authority, New- man did not venture to be precise. "This much is plain," he said, "that the termination of the period of purity cannot be fixed much earlier than the Council of Sardica, A. D. 347, nor so late as the second Nicene or seventh general council, which was held A. D. 787." 3 Subse- quently, when his hold on Anglicanism was giving way, Newman wrote: "The supremacy of conscience is the essence of natural religion; the supremacy of apostle, or 1 Remains, vol. I, part ii, pp. 348, 349. * Via Media, I. 134, 135. * Ibid., I. 207. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 337 pope, or Church, or bishop, is the essence of revealed." 1 By this time an uneasy suspicion had crept into his mind that private judgment could be deployed in interpreting Catholic antiquity, and that consequently Anglicanism had no consistent means of banishing private judgment in favor of a general and unimpeachable authority. 2 The same suspicion was generated in Manning a little later. 3 Meanwhile neither Newman nor Manning gained insight into the fact that there is no way to prevent the deploying of private judgment in interpreting the vast system of Rome, except by turning the subjects of that system into a kind of wooden substitute for living personalities. The assignment of a deciding weight to the patristic consensus was reckoned by Pusey among the first prin- ciples of correct procedure. "We have ever wished," he said, "to teach what is agreeable to the Old or the New Testament, and as to the test of its being agreeable, we would take, not our own private judgments, but that of the universal Church, as attested by the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops." 4 Again he remarked : "The gen- uine English system, being founded on Holy Scripture as interpreted by Christian antiquity, possesses a deep reverence for Scripture as the source of the faith, and for antiquity as its witness and expositor." 5 A similar deference toward antiquity is contained in such statements of Pusey as emphasize the authority of the Church uni- versal, since in his view it was in particular the ancient undivided Church which gave forth decisions that can claim to be representative of the whole body of Christians. 1 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, edit, of 1878, p. 86. Apologia, p. 113. Purcell, Life of Manning, I. 600. 4 Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, printed in the Tracts for the Times, p. 20. e lbid., p. 40. 338 THE ANGLICAN TYPE From this point of view he wrote : "Our own Church is the immediate, the Church universal, the ultimate visible authority: she is the representative of the universal Church, as the Church universal is of the Lord. . . . To our own Church we owe submission, to the decisions of the Church universal, faith." 1 "We should say, All the articles of the creed are true, as being the teaching of the 'Church universal throughout the world' ; if, then, an individual do not see them to be true, he is in fault somewhere ; he should submit, and so he would see. The ultra Protestants, on the other hand, deny this necessity of submission, and assert that to be truth which each individual himself derives from Holy Scripture." 2 William Palmer, of Worcester College, expressed him- self in terms which closely resemble those employed by Pusey. "I maintain," he said, "that Christians cannot possibly admit that any doctrine established by universal tradition can be otherwise than divinely, infallibly true. . . . We do not appeal to the fathers as inspired and authoritative writers, but as competent witnesses of the faith held by Christians in their days. . . . The doc- trine of the universal Church from the beginning must condemn that of all modern sects, in every point in which they differ from our Catholic and apostolic Churches; and therefore on every such point they are in error and misinterpret Scripture, and the Church is in the right." 3 Later writers of the Anglo-Catholic school have not diverged materially from the original Tractarians as re- spects the necessity of granting a deciding voice to Chris- tian antiquity. Thus a contributor to a volume of essays i Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, printed in the Tracts for the Times, p. 35. * Letter to Tholuck, Nov. 19, 1839, cited by Liddon, Life of Pusey, II. 159. A Treatise on the Church of Christ, II. 36, 43, 46. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 339 published in 1868 asserted the universal and binding au- thority of the doctrinal determinations of the primitive Church in this emphatic language: "Whatever was be- lieved by the Church previous to the great schism is the faith of the divided portions since. Nothing that any section of the Church has done since that time can change that. No pope, no patriarch, no council of a portion of the Church can alter one hair's-breadth the decrees of the faith before determined. Until another ecumenical council composed of the three sections of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox, the Roman, the Anglican is con- vened and speaks, there can be no change." 1 Again, in a volume of recent date, a representative of Anglo-Catholic teaching declares that no surrender of any part of the ancient standards can be justified. "The inspiration of Holy Scripture, the absolute certainty of the Catholic creeds, the authority of the universal traditions of the Church, these things are too sacred to make a present of to anyone who demands the surrender, whether in the name of philosophy, or research, or progress, or any name that is named." 2 In the citations which have been made the proposition is evidently contained implicitly, that the truly ecumenical council, or the general council representative of the early undivided Church, must be credited with infallibility on questions of faith. Leading Tractarians not only gave a ground for inferring this proposition, but formally as- serted it. Newman noticed, indeed, that Article XXI of the Anglican creed seems to assert the fallibility of gen- eral councils, but by supposing a distinction between gen- 1 E. L. Blenkinsopp, The Church and the World, edited by Orby Shipley, III. 554. * Whitham, Holy Orders, 1903, p. 186. 340 THE ANGLICAN TYPE eral councils and general councils he thought that the article could be saved from denying the infallibility of such general councils as Anglo-Catholic sentiment wished to exalt to a perfectly unimpeachable authority. 1 Pusey seems not to have been in any wise abashed by the article. In 1836 he wrote: "A real general or universal council, we believe, could not err, because of our Lord's promise that he would be always with his Church." 2 Again he wrote: "We believe that, although councils which have been termed general, or which Rome has claimed to be so, have erred, no real ecumenical council ever did." 3 Once more, he declared : "In principle I agree that upon any point which a general council received by the whole Church should pronounce to be de fide private judgment is at end." 4 The reverse side of the profound stress laid upon Chris- tian antiquity, namely, the disparagement of the right asserted by the Reformation to appeal directly to Scrip- ture and to draw from its pages the meaning which satis- fies intellect and conscience in the present, naturally came to expression. Newman, it is true, discovered at one point that it was the habit of the fathers to follow prac- tically the line of procedure insisted upon by the Re- formers, in that they allowed nothing to compete with Scripture in respect of doctrinal weight. In 1835 he wrote to Froude : "I am surprised more and more to see how the fathers insist on the Scriptures as the rule of faith, even in proving the most subtle parts of the doctrine of incarnation." 5 Newman seems to have been con- 1 Tract 90. 2 Liddon, Life of Pusey, I. 402. * Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 29. 4 Eirenicon, 1876, part iii, p. 3. s Cited by Walsh, The Secret History of the Oxford Movement, popular edit., p. 188. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 341 vinced, however, that it would not answer in these later times to follow the example of the fathers in this respect. In a passage already quoted he taught the necessity of setting Catholic antiquity over Scripture as its authorita- tive interpreter. He found also a sufficient ground for doing so in the fact that "Scripture is not so clear as to hinder ordinary persons, who read it for themselves, from being Sabellians, or Independents, or Wesleyans." 1 Pusey was equally alive to the hazard of permitting people to look at the contents of Scripture with their own eyes. "All true theology," he said, "must of necessity be scriptural ; but that which terms itself a 'scriptural theol- ogy' has always been a stepping-stone to Socinianism and rationalism. It begins in an ungrateful spirit, setting at naught the teaching of the Church, and leaning upon its own understanding." 2 The same point of view was expressed by a writer whose speech always rose to the plane of hyperbole when he was declaiming against the sins and aberrations of Protestantism. "Scripture with- out an authorized interpreter," he declared, "is worse than useless." 3 This emphatic statement is scarcely com- plimentary to the self-evidencing virtue of truth in its scriptural form. Indeed, the whole line of deliverances which confronts us on this subject suggests an unhappy skepticism on the competency of the Bible to discharge the office of revelation. Nor is the imputation of skep- ticism to be rebutted by the claim that the Bible fulfills the office of revelation to the Church as a whole. To sup- pose the Scriptures suited to guide the whole body, while they are not suited to yield salutary guidance to the in- 1 Via Media, I. 149. * Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 15. 1 S. Baring-Gould in The Church and World, III. 235. 342 THE ANGLICAN TYPE dividual, is to perform in open day the feat of dragging in the fallacy of the universal. The qualification which the premises of thoroughgoing Anglo-Catholics put upon the function of the Bible implies by logical connection a limitation of the function of reason. The advocates of those premises may not have enlarged greatly upon their bearing in this direction ; but they have not left us entirely destitute of instruction and admonition. In an early manifesto we have a caveat against the dangers of close investigation and attempted amendment of old formulas. "A taste for criticism," it is said, "grows upon the mind. When we begin to ex- amine and take to pieces, our judgment becomes per- plexed, and our feelings unsettled." 1 Again, it is urged that all attempts rationally to construe the great truths of the Christian system tend rather to confusion than to clarification. 2 From a later exposition we have the fol- lowing more emphatic declaration: "It is the province of reason to judge the natural; with the supernatural it has no right to interfere. There faith is our guide, stand- ing in the same relation to it that reason does to the natural. And so it is that the controversy between Catho- lic and Protestant, no less than between Catholic and rationalist, is from the metaphysical point of view the supernatural against the natural; from the logical point of view, faith against reason." Against both Protestant and rationalist "is ranged a compact united body the Catholic army, maintaining the supremacy in matters of religion, external as internal, of authority over intellect, of faith beyond reason." 3 Another exponent of the ' Tract 3. * Tract 80. E. G. Wood, in The Church and the World. III. 324. PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 343 Anglo-Catholic platform gave in different terms an equally emphatic expression of his conviction on the su- premacy of ecclesiastical authority over reason. "We have seen," he exclaimed, "and do see, what the so- called emancipation of the intellect has done for Protes- tants. It has produced all the heresy, and schism, and infidelity of the last three hundred years, from Martin Luther to Joe Smith." 1 All this evil and trouble, it seems to be assumed, would have been avoided had not the human intellect become obstreperous and broken through the bounds set for it in the accumulations of patristic and mediaeval thought and fancy. But for the Reformation, Christendom might have remained united upon such beliefs as that it is right to burn heretics and witches, to damn unbaptized infants, and to visit upon the unsaved the infliction of literal fire for endless ages. A deviation from the assumption ordinarily entertained in the Oxford school was made by Newman between 1842 and 1845. I* was at this time that ne thought out and prepared his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. A full consideration of this writing would not be appropriate here, since it belongs rather to the Roman Catholic than to the Anglo-Catholic period of its author's career. It is no injustice to say that it was framed for the purpose of conquering the difficulties placed by early Christian history in the way of accepting the Roman Catholic system. The thing to be achieved was to ex- plain the glaring contrasts between patristic thought and practice and later Roman thought and practice. For in- stance, the first Christian age brings to view no such official as a pope in the mediaeval or modern sense; and 1 E. L. Blenkinsopp, in The Church and the World, I. 192. 344 THE ANGLICAN TYPE the demand was to justify the appearance and divine right of the pope as known in later history. Again, so far was the Church of the first Christian age from honoring the Virgin in the later Roman sense that she was included in the prayers which were offered for the imperfect dead in common ; the demand, accordingly, was to show the legit- imacy of advancing to a conception of the Virgin as the crowned queen of heaven, who is so transcenclently ex- alted above the need of the prayers of others that all others are dependent upon her efficacious intercessions. How did Newman meet requirements of this kind? By postulating a theory of development in which the assump- tion rules that perfectly authoritative doctrines and in- stitutions may have existed only in germ and have been practically hidden from sight at the primary stage, their disclosure and definition and acceptance by the Christian body being brought about through successive stages. The ultimate form may look very unlike the original; but if only it was reached by a sufficiently continuous process, and without a reversal of type, it cannot be challenged as invalid. Formally Newman did not deny that corrup- tion and caricature of an element in original Christianity might ensue from excessive development, even though that development should run on in a straight line. How- ever, in applying his theory in behalf of historic Roman- ism he as good as ignored this liability to corruption and caricature by excess. And with this capital weakness in his apologetic construction another was conjoined. He by no means justified an ecclesiastical prerogative to place the seal of infallibility on particular formulations of the supposed outcome of antecedent developments. What makes it certain that the decrees of popes and Roman PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY 345 assemblies have any valid claim to be taken as finalities ? Who can afford substantial assurance that Romanism is anything more or better than an imperfect type, which through conflict with an opposed type may contribute to movement, but yet in itself is largely aside from the path to the true goal? Plainly, vastly more is needed to jus- tify historical Romanism than is furnished in the theory of development. Newman virtually confessed as much in supplementing his theory by an arbitrary appeal to convenience as the test of truth. "The most obvious an- swer," he said, "to the question why we yield to the authority of the Church in the questions and develop- ments of faith is that some authority there must be if there is a revelation, and other authority there is none but she. . . . The absolute need of a spiritual suprem- acy is at present the strongest of arguments in favor of its supply." 1 Some of our contemporaries have found it very convenient, in the interest of an unbroken placidity, to deny the existence of disease, sin, and death. The majority of sane people, nevertheless, continue to reckon with these things as extremely real. Theorizers are not allowed to install an ideal world in place of the actual, just because it suits a demand of convenience. No more is it warrantable, on the plea of convenience, to thrust an ideal Church into the place of the actual. Newman in his Essay on Development may have done something to explain the origin of the Roman Catholic Church, but so far as justifying her peculiar dogmas and assumptions is concerned he accomplished next to nothing. Newman's theory evidently agreed ill with the de- mands of the Anglo-Catholic scheme. It tended to 1 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1846, pp. 126, 127. 346 THE ANGLICAN TYPE abridge the normative character assigned therein to Cath- olic antiquity, and to give the preference to later deter- minations of doctrine, though, as has been noticed, it failed to gain any secure basis for faith in the finality of the determinations reached at any given stage. Anglo- Catholics could not regard it with complacency. Glad- stone, whose High-Church predilections at that time were rather pronounced, and who held friendly relations with some of the men affiliated with the Oxford movement, declared that Newman's reasoning seemed "to place Christianity on the verge of a precipice." 1 Manning's judgment was equally unfavorable. "Newman's mind," he wrote, "is subtle even to excess, and to us seems cer- tainly to be skeptical." 2 Pusey had several objections to offer. He considered Newman's doctrine of development "more likely to be effectively employed in advancing de- structive theories than in the interests of the creed of any portion of the Christian Church." He also regarded it as opposed to the Vincentian rule of the quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus, which to his mind was the base of the Tractarian movement. 3 Furthermore, he judged that it was obviously out of harmony with as- sumptions which had been given a place in Roman Catho- lic standards. "The Council of Trent," he said, "goes, not on what Newman goes, development, but on apostolic tradition, and that in a very strict sense [as containing things], 'which, received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even to us, trans- mitted, as it were, from hand to hand.' " 4 This last 1 Purcell, Life of Manning, I. 315. Ibid., I. 311. Liddon, Life of Pusey, II. 303- * Ibid., III. 207, 208. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 347 criticism was by no means groundless. A practical resort was doubtless made to Newman's theory in the bringing in of the dogmas of the immaculate conception of the Virgin and the infallibility of the pope; but it plainly contravenes the standpoint of the Council of Trent, and has been far from claiming the unmixed approbation of Roman Catholic authorities in recent decades. As will be noticed subsequently, it is implicitly condemned in the encyclical of Pius X against "Modernism." III. THE DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION In their ambition to awaken such a zeal in the Anglican constituency as would rescue the Church of England from threatened peril the original Tractarians had a motive to distinguish that Church as widely as possible from all communions of Dissenters. In fulfilling this purpose the expedient most immediately suggested was a proclama- tion of the virtue and necessity of apostolical succession. The proclamation was made in vigorous terms. In the first of the Tracts for the Times the writer remarks: "I fear we have neglected the real ground on which our authority is built our apostolical descent" In Tract 4 we read, "Why should we talk so much of an establish- ment, and so little of an apostolical succession? Why should we not seriously endeavor to impress our people with this plain truth that by separating themselves from our communion they separate themselves not only from a decent, orderly, useful society, but from the only Church in this realm which has a right to be quite sure that she has the Lord's body to give to his people?" In Tract 35 we are taught that the promise of grace and power for 348 THE ANGLICAN TYPE the fulfillment of the high commission which was given by Christ to the apostles passed over from them to their successors, the bishops. "But to those who have not re- ceived the commission, our Lord has given no such promise. A person not commissioned from the bishop may use the words of baptism, and sprinkle or bathe with water on earth, but there is no promise from Christ that such a man shall admit souls to the kingdom of heaven. A person not commissioned may break bread, and pour out wine, and pretend to give the Lord's Supper, but it can afford no comfort to any to receive it at his hands, because there is no warrant from Christ to lead communi- cants to suppose that while he does so here on earth they will be partakers in the Saviour's heavenly body and blood. And as for the person himself, who takes upon himself without warrant to minister in holy things, he is all the while treading in the footsteps of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, whose awful punishment you read of in the book of Numbers." Tract 47, somewhat after the pat- tern of mediaeval thinking, which provided in the limbus puerorum a kind of intermediate place between the proper heaven and the proper hell, postulates a midway station for those outside the lines of apostolical succession. "So far from its being a strange thing," says the writer, "that Protestant sects are not in Christ in the same fullness we are, it is more accordant to the scheme of the world that they should lie between us and heathenism. It would be strange if there were but two states, one absolutely of favor, one of disfavor." To this rather remarkable specimen of classification (from the pen of Newman) an agreeable supplement was added by Pusey. In his Eirenicon he wrote: "I do not mean any disparagement APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 349 to any pious Presbyterians, but, believing the holy eu- charist to be what we, in common with the whole ancient Church, know it to be, we cannot but know that they who receive it worthily have a much greater closeness of union with our Lord than they who do not. Presbyterians have what they believe; we have what we believe. But they who have observed pious Presbyterians and pious English Catholics have discerned among our people a spiritual life of a kind which is not among theirs; in a word, a sacramental life." 1 Among those who figured in the initiation of the Ox- ford movement William Palmer had the liberality to admit a qualification of the necessity of apostolical suc- cession for the existence of a true Church. While it was certain to his mind that none of the sects in England was any part of the true Church, or had any excuse for cum- bering the ground sacred to the Establishment, he granted, in harmony with the early Anglican divines, that the Lutheran and Reformed communions on the Continent might be regarded as possessed of ecclesiastical legitimacy in spite of their defects. He said : "Since the Churches of the foreign Reformation, during the six- teenth century, were not devoid of principles which, if rightly applied, would lead to unity in faith and com- munion; since there is no evidence that they were guilty of schism or heresy, it seems impossible to deny that they constituted, on the whole, a portion of the Catholic Church, though it is unquestionable that errors and even heresies were taught by some of their members. In this respect, however, they were superior to the Roman Churches, in which errors and idolatries of a far more ' Part i, p. 275. 350 THE ANGLICAN TYPE pernicious description were widely disseminated." 1 Palmer conceded on similar grounds that the Protestant body as originally established in Scotland stood within the limits of the true Church. He concluded, however, that the Scotch Presbyterians in driving out episcopacy, after the Revolution of 1688, were guilty of a great act of schism, and that consequently their ministers have no lawful standing, and are incompetent to administer the sacraments. We have not discovered that Palmer's modification of the demand for apostolical succession has been seconded by Anglo-Catholic writers. Certainly it has been their general habit to deny the existence of a valid ministry in Churches deprived of that succession. Such statements as the following have been put on record by them : "The Greek, the Roman, the Anglican are all portions of the one Catholic Church, because they hold the common faith and retain the one priesthood. . . . The Protestant bodies in Europe form no portion of the one body, because they have renounced the one priesthood. They estab- lished a system independent of the Church, external and even hostile to it : consequently they have cut themselves off from participation of the one Spirit as living in the Church and flowing through the sacraments, which are the veins and arteries of the one body." 2 "There is, and can be, no real and true Church apart from the one society which the apostles founded, and which has been propa- gated only in the line of the episcopal succession." 3 "A Church stands or falls by the apostolic succession. . . . There never has been a Church without a bishop, and 1 A Treatise on the Church of Christ, I. aooff. nd the \\ Church, 1873, p. 83. .ijcauac uii LIIC %^unwu UL i^iinai, x. 2 E. L. Blenkinsopo, in The Church and the World, 1867, I. 189. E. M. Goulburn, The Holy Catholic Ch APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 351 there never can be." 1 "We must try clearly to grasp the importance of this doctrine of an apostolical ministry, for without it the Church would be deprived of all sacra- ments except baptism and holy matrimony." 2 "The Churches which have a ministry of apostolic descent fully admit that the teachers of other Christian communities may possess excellent natural qualifications and many genuine spiritual gifts, but they do not admit that there is any clear ground for believing that such teachers can either remit sin or bestow the Holy Ghost or feed human souls with the body and blood of Christ, or have any share in bestowing the gift of spiritual authority which Saint Paul describes as given by the laying on of his hands." 3 "While the validity of any other than an epis- copally ordained ministry is open to serious objection, yet it might be charitably admitted that a prophetical office, if this is all that sectarians seriously claim, might be exer- cised by license and not by ordination." 4 "Ordination is clearly of the nature of a sacrament. . . . The eucharist cannot be validly consecrated except by one who has re- ceived episcopal ordination to the priesthood." 5 As some of these extracts indicate, the Anglo-Catholic teaching does not assume that those who are outside the lines of an episcopacy claiming apostolic descent are wholly desti- tute of divine grace ; but there is no mistaking the trend of that teaching as enforcing the conclusion that all such people are deprived of proper ministerial offices and are relatively in a God-forsaken condition. Emphasis upon the doctrine of a necessary apostolical ' V. Staley, The Catholic Religion, 1894, pp. 23, 31. 3 A. G. Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice, 1897, I. 87. 3 L. Pullan, The Christian Tradition, 1902, p. 69. 4 C. C. Graf ton (Bishop of Fond du Lac), Pusey and the Church Revival, 190:1, p. 49. * A. R. Whitham, Holy Orders, 1903, pp. 80, 115. 352 THE ANGLICAN TYPE succession has often been conjoined by Anglo-Catholics with a peculiar theory of the conditions of the presence and operation of the Holy Spirit. Taken according to the apparent sense of the terms in which it is expressed, the theory implies that the Holy Spirit obtained its primary reservoir, in this world, in the apostolic group, and thence by means of continuous physical connections has gained distribution through the widening company of believers. In the first of the Tracts for the Times we read: "The Lord Jesus Christ gave his Spirit to his apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should succeed them; and these again on others, and so the sacred gift has been handed down to our present bishops." Froude gave an equivalent statement, in repre- senting advocates of the churchly view as holding, "that before Jesus Christ left the world, he breathed his Holy Spirit into the apostles ; giving them the power of trans- mitting this precious gift to others by prayer and the imposition of hands; that the apostles did so transmit it to others, and they again to others ; and that in this way it has been preserved in the world to the present day." 1 In more recent versions of the theory language of like import is employed, as appears in the following specimen statements : "Without the divinely appointed ministry of the Church we have no guarantee that the flow of cove- nanted grace would continue. Should the apostolic suc- cession die out, there would be need of a second appoint- ment directly by our Lord, and of a second day of Pentecost with a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit." 2 "In them [the twelve apostles immediately after Pente- 1 Remains, vol. I, part ii, p. 41. 3 Staley, The Catholic Religion, p. 23. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 353 cost] conjointly dwelt for the present the fullness of the Holy Spirit, in so far forth as he was given from Christ to be transmitted for the sanctification of mankind. Per- sonal graces, administrative graces, all the diversities of gifts to be given in many divisions to men in the Church through human agency, were to issue from that great gift which, hitherto undivided except to twelve holders, rested for such transmission upon them alone. As in the case of the miraculous feeding of the multitude of four or five thousand, the Lord gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude, so the gifts which were to sanctify the innumerable company of the members of the body of Christ in all future ages should flow down from one single source through twelve channels." 1 "Be- fore Pentecost the Church was like the body of Adam ere God breathed into it the breath of life. It was as yet like Solomon's unconsecrated temple not filled with the Spirit. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit, yet not leaving the divine humanity in which with- out measure he dwelt, filled the temple. . . . Christ in his now mediatorial reign at the right hand of power no longer prays for the world, but in and for his Church. . . . Out of it none have a covenanted share in his redemption or priestly intercession. The Church indwelt by the Spirit is the organ of Christ and speaks and acts with his authority." 2 The extraordinary external mani- festations of the Spirit's presence were withdrawn after the early period. "But his gifts of internal grace to illuminate and sanctify the mind and heart are as much needed now as then. These gifts, accordingly, are merci- i G. Moberly, Bampton Lectures for 1868, p. 40, approvingly cited by W. C. E. Newbolt, Religion, 1899, p. 242. 3 Graf ton, Pusey and the Church Revival, pp. yff. 354 THE ANGLICAN TYPE fully continued in the Church, and the means of con- ferring them remain the same, the ministry of those whom our Lord commissions to act in his name." 1 Though the last two writers do not, in the cited words, speak formally of apostolical succession, their general standpoint leaves no room for doubt that they recognized in that succession the great appointed channel for the dis- tribution of the gift of the Spirit. According to this whole group of writers any ministry of the Holy Spirit outside the province of the succession must be rated as something beyond and apart from the regular economy of grace, a streamlet which uncovenanted mercy permits to flow in vagrant and unconsecrated channels. In connection with this theme one might easily be tempted to see a providential recompense to Anglo- Catholics for their fond leanings toward the Church of Rome. Certainly, if any wages of affliction became due on that score, the payment could not have been made through a more appropriate medium than the apostolical letter of Leo XIII, whereby it was declared that "the ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been and are absolutely null and void." 2 In this document the pope brought forward three main grounds for the given decision. He alleged, in the first place, that ordinations performed according to the Edwardean or- dinal had been treated by his predecessors as invalid. He contended, in the second place, that the form of ordina- tion, both in relation to the priestly and the episcopal office, as prescribed by the Edwardean rite, and as 1 A. C. A. Hall (Bishop of Vermont), Confirmation, p. 16. The Apostolical Letter Apostolicae Curse, 1896. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 355 used for a long period, was defective in not defining properly the office or power intended to be conferred, and that the amendment of this defect came too late to render any service in rescuing Anglican orders. Finally, he maintained that the modifications of the old rite, which were made in constructing the Edwardean ordinal, afford clear evidence that those who employed that ordinal did not associate with their acts the inten- tion necessary for valid ordinations, namely, the intention to institute true priests, or those endowed with the prerog- ative to offer the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood. A very scanty demand rests upon us to weigh the pope's arguments. Indeed, to go into the matter at length would be incongruous with our standpoint, since we consider it a piece of utter rashness to hang any real interest on the integrity of either the Roman or the Anglican suc- cession. It has never entered into our heart to conceive that the kingdom of God in the world should be at the mercy of such trivialities. We may be permitted, how- ever, to express the conviction that respondents in behalf of Anglican orders have very fairly answered the first two objections of Leo XIII. 1 History seems to show that Roman authority in the sixteenth century did not steadily and consistently treat the ordinations performed by the Edwardean rite as invalid. Respecting the alleged want of a definite designation of the office intended in the con- secratory act, it can legitimately be urged that the objec- tion is superficial, since the rite taken as a whole left no ambiguity on that point. The third objection involves greater difficulty, at least for those who wish to conserve * Lowndes, Vindication of Anglican Orders; Whitham, Holy Orders; Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice; Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, Appendix. 356 THE ANGLICAN TYPE the sacerdotal standpoint. Anglo-Catholics are obliged to admit that the Prayer Book affords no counterpart to the Roman doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice. "Neither in the Book of 1549 nor in that of 1552 was there any explicit assertion of the eucharistic sacrifice." 1 There is very good ground, therefore, for questioning whether those who undertook to convey orders according to the Edwardean rite put into their acts the intention which the modern Roman theory declares to be necessary. There is a chance, to be sure, to retaliate in kind, by questioning the intention of the apostles and their immediate succes- sors to institute a sacrificing priesthood after the Roman pattern. Indeed, the historical evidence is emphatically against the supposition that they had the least design of that sort. So, on the premises of Leo XIII, the Roman priesthood must be regarded as not of apostolic or primi- tive institution in other words, as resting on fictitious claims. But to employ this way of getting even with the pope hardly suits the standpoint of the Anglo-Catholics. Their fondness for the notion of a sacrificing priesthood tends to rob them of the advantage of an appeal to the facts of apostolic and early patristic thought and purpose. They could make a much better case against Roman criticism if they would consent to return to the standpoint of the Anglican fathers of the sixteenth century. IV. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING Under this topic it will be our endeavor to give a con- densed view of Anglo-Catholic teaching on the relative importance of the sacraments in the Christian system, on 1 Darwell Stone, The Holy Communion, 1904, p. 147. Compare G. R. Prynne, The Truth and Reality of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, 1894, p. 132. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 357 the function of baptism, on the eucharist, and on sacra- mental confession and absolution. Respecting the first of these points it was no uncertain note which was sounded in the Tracts for the Times. The advertisement to the first volume of these historic documents took pains to emphasize the importance of lodging in the mind of the Anglican child the firm con- viction that "the sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of divine grace." Tract 35 represents that the pastor holds the keys of heaven, in that the ministration of the sacraments is committed to his hands. In the advertisement to the second volume occurs this extraor- dinary passage: "There are those whose word will eat as doth a canker ; and it is to be feared that we have been overnear certain celebrated Protestant teachers, Puritan or Latitudinarian, and have suffered in consequence. Hence we have almost embraced the doctrine that God conveys grace only through the instrumentality of the mental energies, that is, through faith, prayer, active spiritual contemplation or [what is called] communion with God, in contradiction to the primitive view, accord- ing to which the Church and her sacraments are the ordained and direct visible means of conveying to the soul what is in itself supernatural and unseen. For ex- ample, would not most men maintain, on the first view of the subject, that to administer the Lord's Supper to in- fants, and to the dying and apparently insensible, how- ever consistently pious and believing in their past lives, must be, under all circumstances, and in every conceiv- able case, a superstition ? and yet neither practice is with- out the sanction of primitive usage." In Tract 73 the sacraments are described "as the principal channels 358 THE ANGLICAN TYPE through which Christ's merits are applied to individ- uals." Later representatives of the Anglo-Catholic school found it difficult to transcend these statements, but some of them certainly did not fall behind. In a series of essays, which we have often had occasion to cite, one of the contributors furnishes this succinct description of the method of salvation : "Baptism, confirmation, com- munion, and penance are the means whereby union with Jesus is begun and strengthened, is sustained and re- stored." 1 The same writer gives the following inclusive test of religious character: "All persons are religious persons who are in sacramental union with the man Christ Jesus." 2 A companion essayist remarks: "The sacramental system is, in a true sense, the continuation of the presence of Christ upon earth erected by himself upon earth as man, and perpetuated through and in the Church, which is his body, to the end of the world." 3 The most pronounced Roman sacramentalist would not care to revise the following statements : "A living body must have the means of growth and self-propagation, and of supplying the waste of its tissues, all which are effected in Christ's body, the Church, by the sacraments. . . . All grace flows from the incarnation, and chiefly through the sacraments. . . . The Christian sacra- ments do not merely signify grace; they actually confer it. Their action is ex opere operate, not ex opere operan- tis. The phrase opus opera-turn implies that the efficacy of the action of the sacraments does not depend on any- thing human, but solely on the will of God as expressed 1 W. Humphrey, in the Church and the World, II. 508. *Ibid., II., p. 515. Ibid., II., p. 533. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 359 by Christ's institution and promise." 1 From the same source we have a statement which may properly recall the Brahmanical view of priestly rites as central to the system of things and necessary to its sustentation. "The eucharist," it is said, "is to the moral world what the sun is to the material." 2 The reservoir theory of grace, to which there was occasion to refer in connection with the topic of the pre- ceding section, came naturally to expression in discus- sions on the functions of the sacraments. Stated in brief the theory is that the Holy Spirit, as the fountain of covenanted grace, resides in the glorified humanity of Christ, and is imparted thence through the medium of the sacraments. A pretty full glimpse of this theory may be obtained from the following passages: "It is one of the consequences of the resurrection and ascension of our Lord that a characteristic of the dealings of God with souls under the Christian dispensation is that the channel of covenanted grace between God and man is the glorified humanity of the risen and ascended Christ. . . . Since the day of Pentecost, the day of the creation of the Christian Church, the ordinary way in which God be- stows grace on the souls of men is through the glorified humanity of our Lord and the working of God the Holy Ghost. The closest means of union with the glorified humanity of Christ and the most immediate mode of contact with God the Holy Ghost are in the mystical body of Christ, that is, the Church, and are open to man in the use of the sacraments. . . . Sanctification is ac- complished in ordinary cases through the instrumentality J Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice, I. 86, 100, 122. * Ibid., I. 251. 360 THE ANGLICAN TYPE of the sacraments, which unite the soul to the humanity of Christ and bestow on it the possession of the Holy Ghost." 1 "The benefits of the incarnation are made over to the individual by the dispensation of the grace of God. The covenanted sphere of grace is the Church, the cove- nanted channels are the sacraments. Within that sphere, preeminently though not exclusively through those chan- nels, the grace of God is poured into the soul, and man is brought into union, and kept in union, with him through the life-giving humanity of the Lord incarnate." 2 Throughout the Anglo-Catholic movement great stress has been laid upon baptism as the appointed means of regeneration. At an early point in that movement Pusey took pains to glorify the efficacy of this rite in as rhetor- ical a sentence as he ever penned. "Baptismal regenera- tion," he declared, "as connected with the incarnation of our blessed Lord, gives a depth to our Christian existence, an actualness to our union with Christ, a reality to our sonship to God, an interest in the presence of our Lord's glorified body at God's right hand, a joyousness amid the subduing of the flesh, an overwhelmingness conferred on human nature, a solemnity to the communion of saints, who are the fullness of Him who filleth all in all, a sub- stantiality to the indwelling of Christ, that to those who retain this truth the school which abandoned it must needs appear to have sold its birthright." 3 An estimate scarcely short of that contained in this strained and ful- some outburst crops out in the assertion that "there are but two periods of absolute cleansing, baptism and the 1 Darwell Stone, Outlines of Christian Dogma, 1900, pp. 112, 149, 226. 1 H. V. S. Eck, The Incarnation, 1901, p. 250. Tract 67, p. 16. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 361 day of judgment." 1 It is quite suggestive, too, of Pusey's way of thinking that he should have approved of conditional baptism for those who may have been baptized by persons destitute of the proper ministerial character. 2 A significant item in Newman's estimate of baptism is given in the dependence which he thought fit to assert for faith upon this rite. "Faith," he said, "as gaining its virtue from baptism, is one thing before that sacred ordinance, another after. Baptism raises it from a con- dition into the instrument of justification from a mere forerunner into its accredited representative." 3 No words could more clearly assert the primacy of baptism over faith as a condition of justification. An equally high level of sacramental theory appears in recent references to the virtue of baptism. Few of these are more strikingly significant than that in which the writer shows that the parable of the vine and the branches suggests to his mind, not immediate spiritual communion with Christ, but connection with him through the medium of a physical transaction. "It is probable," he says, "that the relation described when it is said that Christ is 'the vine' and Christians are the branches, is the union which Holy Scripture connects with baptism. In that sacrament the stream of habitual grace is poured into the soul, as the life of the vine flows through its branches." 4 How the author of this interpretation con- strued the emphasis placed in the parable upon the de- mand that the disciple should constantly abide in Christ and have Christ's words abiding in him is not exactly ap- * Hall, Confirmation, p. 92. 1 Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 62. Hal * Cited by M'llvaine, Oxford Divinity, p. 185. 4 Stone, The Holy Communion, p. 26. 362 THE ANGLICAN TYPE parent. It takes a very peculiar Anglo-Catholic imagina- tion to interpolate here a reference to a ceremonial wash- ing in place of the bond of faith, love, and loyalty. In more dogmatic form the writer just cited exalts the rite of baptism by ascribing to it the following benefits: "i. It unites the person who is baptized to the sacred man- hood of Christ, and makes him a member of Christ's body. 2. It removes the guilt of original sin, and of all previously committed actual sin, and also the eternal pen- alties due to sin. 3. It confers on the soul the gift of God the Holy Ghost. 4. It makes the baptized person to be a son of God. 5. It gives the capacity for receiving the other sacraments. 6. It imprints on the soul what is called character, which cannot be effaced." 1 Emphasis on the efficacy of baptism logically runs very close to the assumption of its necessity for salvation. Anglo-Catholics evince their sense of the logical demand by their hesitation to put forth any open and confident expressions of hope for the unbaptized. In a representa- tive monograph on baptism the writer contends that "in the New Testament no other means of becoming a Christian is anywhere mentioned or implied," 2 and satis- fies himself with simply suggesting that the divine ad- ministration may perhaps in some cases resort to an extra expedient. Thus infants who die unbaptized are left in the shadow of an uncertain fate. The dogmatic hardi- hood, which is ready to go on to the assertion of their certain exclusion from salvation, we judge to be quite exceptional among the advocates of the Anglo-Catholic system. It is in evidence, however, that even this extreme 1 Outlines of Christian Dogma, p. 158. Stone, Holy Baptism, pp. 110-116; see also his Outlines of Christian Dogma, pp. 161, 162. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 363 has been reached. The Roman Catholic .theory, in all the length and breadth of its affront to the wisdom and benevolence of God, comes to expression in the following statements: "Baptism is absolutely necessary to salva- tion, for a person can have no life who has not been born. This is called necessitous medii, since baptism is the means by which the supernatural life is given to the soul and the individual is incorporated into Christ. . . . Are all un- baptized persons lost ? If we mean by lost that they can never see God in heaven, we must answer, yes. If we mean by lost that they are in the torments of hell, no; unless they have sinned against the light of nature." 1 In other words, unbaptized infants are certainly shut out of heaven. They are lost, but not in the worst sense of the term. In relation to the eucharist it may not have been char- acteristic of all who have been associated with the Anglo- Catholic movement to assert an objective corporeal pres- ence of Christ as opposed to a presence simply spiritual. 2 But the predilection for asserting the former type of presence has been decidedly prominent. Pusey's teaching unequivocally favored that type. 3 He was not satisfied with Calvin's theory of a virtual or efficacious presence. While he rejected transubstantiation, and argued against it at length, he claimed that the body and blood of Christ are to be accounted objectively present under the forms of the consecrated elements, so as to be received by the wicked. Others in the numerous school of the Objectiv- 1 Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice, I. 127, 134. * For a moderate and guarded view see Charles Gore, The Body of Christ. Letter to the Bishop of Oxford; also The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, 364 THE ANGLICAN TYPE ists were free to describe the eucharistic presence in terms quite as realistic as suited the taste of Pusey. At a meet- ing in 1871 of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacra- ment, a society established in 1862, one who gave the sermon made this declaration : "That the holy eucharist is the body and blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine, that therein is Christ himself, his body, soul, and divinity, as truly as at Bethlehem, or Nazareth, or Calvary, or at the right hand of God, we take as certain." 1 A paper read before the Confraternity the same year de- fined eucharistic terms as follows: "When we say that the presence of Christ is objective we understand that it is there without communion as with communion, abiding un- der the outward and visible form in the consecrated ele- ments, so long as the elements are unconsumed." 2 Even a plea for naturalizing the term "transubstantiation" was made at a gathering of the Confraternity in 1889. "Those teachers," said the advocate of the Roman formula, "who profess to accept a real objective presence, while repu- diating transubstantiation, are placed in a hopeless dilem- ma, as was plainly seen by Zuinglius, when he maintained that there was no alternative between transubstantiation and the figurative view which he himself upheld. . . . To avoid misunderstanding, whilst I hold that the time has come when we must ourselves recognize the identity of our own teaching with that which is expressed in the Tridentine canons by transubstantiation, and with the authorized formularies of the Eastern Church, it is only gradually, as they are able to learn, that we should expect that we should bring this conviction home to the minds 1 A. H. Ward, cited by Walsh, Secret History of the Oxford Movement, popular edit., p. 153. Walsh, p. 156. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 365 of our weaker brethren whom we are striving to bring over." 1 How rapidly the weaker brethren have advanced to a state of receptivity for the strong meat of transub- stantiation has not been made very clearly manifest. The tenor of recent statements, however, leads us to conclude that most Anglo-Catholics are still disinclined to make a closer approximation to the dogmatic formula of Rome than is contained in the declaration of a real objective presence. A representative furnishes us with this state- ment: "There is agreement among Eastern Christians, Roman Catholics, and the successors of the Tractarians in the Church of England as to that central part of the doctrine of the eucharist, the expression of which by the English Church Union in 1900 may be cited as a con- venient illustration. It was there declared 'that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper the bread and wine, through the operation of the Holy Ghost, become, in and by consecration, according to our Lord's institution, verily and indeed the body and blood of Christ, and that Christ our Lord, present in the same most holy sacrament of the altar under the form of bread and wine, is to be worshiped and adored.' Any such statement is not ac- ceptable to, and is sometimes strongly resisted by, those members of the Church of England who avail themselves of the freedom of the English formularies by limiting their positive assertions to a reception of Christ by the faithful communicant, and by those who in disregard of the formularies hold the Zwinglian view." 2 The development of the doctrine of the real objective presence was naturally accompanied by a corresponding 1 Urquhart, cited by Walsh, p. 157. 8 Stone, The Holy Communion, pp. 186, 187. 366 THE ANGLICAN TYPE development of the conception of the eucharist as a sacri- fice. Pusey described it as a "commemorative impetra- tory sacrifice." The author of a monograph on the subject, who followed the general line of Pusey's inter- pretation, has thus expressed the importance of the ele- ment of sacrifice in the rite as compared with that of commemoration: "Doubtless it is a memorial to us also of God's infinite mercy toward us, his sinful creatures, as manifested in the incarnation and self-sacrificing life and death of Christ, and therefore well-calculated to fill our hearts with love and gratitude; but the great and grand idea is that it is a memorial sacrifice offered to God." 1 A writer who finds the term "commemorative" or "me- morial" inadequate, and who advances squarely to Roman Catholic phraseology, makes this statement: "On the cross our Lord offered visibly to God his body and his precious blood. In the eucharist he offers under the forms of bread and wine that body which is no longer visible to our earthly eyes. . . . It is a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead, that is, it is offered in expiation and satisfaction for the sins of those in God's Church on earth and in purgatory." 2 In some of the secret associations within the Anglican Establishment this point of view has been countenanced both in theory and practice. At a meeting of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in 1880 the author of a paper spoke of the eucharist as perpetuating and applying the sacrifice on the cross. "Are we troubled," he added, "about those who in the shadow of death are awaiting the judgment? The blood of the sacrifice reaches down to the prisoners 1 Prynne, The Truth and Reality of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, 1904, p .13. * Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice, I. 341, 246. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 367 of hope, and the dead, as they are made to possess their old sins in the darkness of the grave, thank us that we offer for them the sacrifice which restores to light and immortality." 1 This efficacy of the eucharistic sacrifice in affording relief to the dead, is a point of special em- phasis in the Guild of All Souls, which was established in 1873. Doubtless, to take societies of this cast as fully representative of the Anglo-Catholic party would not be a judicial procedure ; but still they bear witness to tenden- cies that work energetically within that party. It is safe to infer that its members do not care to meditate fre- quently upon this declaration in the Thirty-nine Articles : "The sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphe- mous fables and dangerous deceits." 2 Confession and absolution are much too important features in theoretical and practical Romanism to be neglected by a Romanizing faction. It is no cause for surprise, therefore, that Anglo-Catholics from the start have been disposed to set a high value on these means of religious direction and priestly control. Before the Trac- tarian movement was launched Froude began to agitate the subject in his own mind, though apparently without reaching determinate results. 3 In the original Oxford group Pusey was one of the most pronounced advocates of confession and absolution. While he did not go the full length of the Roman doctrine of the necessity of con- fession or of the judicial character of priestly absolution, he did consider it highly appropriate that the penitent 1 Walsh, p. 149. 2 Article xxxi. * Remains, vol. I, parti, pp. 98, in. 368 THE ANGLICAN TYPE should open his sins to an ordained confessor, and credited to the latter a real, though ministerial or instru- mental, function in the forgiveness of sins. 1 The same point of view was represented in a declaration signed by twenty-six Puseyites in 1873. Meanwhile the party was far from contenting itself with the advocacy of theoretical points. The confessional was put into opera- tion, though with a very considerable degree of secrecy in the first stages. Pusey was so active in this line that in 1850 he drew from Bishop Samuel Wilberforce this trenchant comment: "You seem to me to be habitually assuming and doing the work of a Roman Catholic con- fessor, and not that of an English clergyman. Now, I so firmly believe that of all the curses of Popery this is the crowning curse, that I cannot allow voluntarily within my charge the ministry that is infected by it." 2 The rebuke was sharp; but it was characteristic of the Trac- tarians to exalt the bishops in theory and to override their will in practice, and Pusey probably was not enough of an exception to feel at all hampered by the episcopal censure. He kept on his way, and among other tokens of his zeal for the cause of the confessional in the Church of England he sent out for the use of confessors a modi- fied edition of Gaume's Manual. 3 Before Pusey had delivered himself of his manual a translated and adapted edition of Gaume's book had been secretly distributed among clergymen favorable to the confessional, under the title of The Priest in Absolution. The book was exposed in Parliament in 1877, extracts being read to show the prurient and indecent character 1 Liddon, Life of Pusey, I. 401 ; III. 61. * H. W. Clarke, The Confessional in the Church of England, 1898, p. 14. 1 Liddon, Life of Pusey, IV. 303. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 369 of some of its contents. Remarking on the quality of the extracts, Archbishop Tait said before the House of Lords : "No modest person could read the book without regret. It is a disgrace to the community that such a book should be circulated under the authority of clergy- men of the Church of England. ... I cannot imagine that any right-minded man could wish to have such ques- tions addressed to any member of his family; and if he had reason to suppose that any member of his family had been exposed to such an examination, I am sure that it would be the duty of any father of a family to remon- strate with the clergyman who had put the questions, and warn him never to approach his house again." 1 The Priest in Absolution was circulated under the auspices of the Society of the Holy Cross, which was founded in 1855. It was largely due to the authorities of this society that a petition, signed by four hundred and eighty-three of the clergy, was prepared and pre- sented to Convocation in 1873, making request that this body would "consider the advisability of providing for the education, selection, and licensing of duly qualified confessors." 2 Convocation was not minded to grant the petition, and in referring to it shortly afterward the archbishops said: "We believe that through the system of the confessional great evil has been wrought in the Church of Rome, and that our Reformers acted wisely in allowing it no place in our reformed Church, and we take this opportunity of expressing our entire disap- proval of any such innovation, and our firm determina- tion to do all in our power to discourage it." 3 A resolu- 1 Walsh, pp. 69, 70. * Ibid., pp. 49, 50. * Liddon, Life of Pui Pusey, IV. 263. 370 THE ANGLICAN TYPE tion of Convocation in 1877 indicated that a majority of that body shared the judgment of the archbishops. The resolution reprobated the idea that any "minister of the Church is authorized to require from those who may resort to him to open their grief, a particular and detailed enumeration of all their sins, or to require private con- fession previous to the holy communion, to enjoin or even to encourage the practice of habitual confession to a priest." 1 What effect have the reproofs from episcopal and other sources had upon the party laboring for the subjugation of the English Church to the confessional? Apparently none. Books have been put in circulation for the in- struction of children in which confession of sins to a priest is laid down as a prime duty and matter of neces- sity. 2 Representative writers in the ranks of Anglo-Cath- olics make bold to speak of sacramental confession, not as a thing justified by some exceptional exigency, but as an expedient in the cure of souls to which full scope should be given. Surely it is no restricted province that is claimed in the following declaration : "The laity have a right to know, as a practical remedy for sin, the exist- ence in the Church of private confession, absolution, and direction. It is easy to raise objections from national character and the past abuses of the confessional, but the plain fact remains that God has provided the sacrament of penance, and those who disparage or deliberately ignore it are running the risk of blood-guiltiness." 3 An American representative of Anglo-Catholic principles is not less emphatic in his estimate of the value and neces- 1 Liddon, Life of Pusey, IV. 311. 9 Clarke, The Confessional in the Church of England. Whitham, Holy Orders, p. 190. SACRAMENTAL TEACHING 371 sity of the confessional. He has improved on Pusey sufficiently to recognize in the priestly absolution a judicial sentence. In other respects also he approaches the Roman standard, including the verdict that attrition together with the sacrament may suffice. He is con- siderate enough, however, to suggest a possibility of salvation apart from sacramental absolution. "We know," he says, "of no revealed way by which the mortal sin which we have committted since baptism can be remitted, save by absolution. God, however, is not tied down to means, and for those who sincerely repent, and through no fault of their own (from ignorance or preju- dice) are unable to seek absolution, we may hope and believe that their penitence is accepted with God." 1 Another American, if he has not formally asserted a universal obligation to make use of the confessional, has used arguments which imply the existence of such an obligation. Since the incarnation, he maintains, it is not sufficient for men to confess simply to the invisible God. "It is against the man, Christ Jesus, they have sinned, and they must go to those who represent him. Thus they fulfill the promptings of honor and love." 2 The logic of this passage is not by any means impressive, since, after Christ no less than before, it is the dictate of common sense that the one who needs forgiveness should go to him who in his omniscience knows the sin, and whose judgment is so instantaneously responsive to the condi- tions, and so absolutely authoritative and final, that no slow-going earthly official can possibly anticipate it or have partnership in it to the least extent. But aside from 1 Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice, I. 173. * Graf ton, Pusey and the Church Revival, pp. 65, 66. 372 THE ANGLICAN TYPE its deserts in logic the passage is of interest as a sign of the Anglo-Catholic goal on this theme. The goal is plainly the reimposition upon the whole body of the faith- ful of the Roman prescription of auricular confession. Practice has added its comment to expressions of theory on this theme. Though there is not a scrap in either the English or the American Prayer Book which warrants the use of any pressure to induce private con- fession, pressure has been brought to bear. So at least we are assured by reputable witnesses for the English do- main. Instances have occurred in which the sacrament has been refused to the dying for lack of compliance with the sacerdotal demand for confession. 1 In various ways effort has sedulously been put forth to transmute option into obligation. Bishop C. J. Ellicott, speaking in 1878, had occasion to remark : "While it has been admitted (for it could not be denied) that confession is not com- pulsory in the system of the Church, in the sense in which it is compulsory in the Church of Rome, confession has nevertheless been pressed both in public and private ex- hortations constantly and cogently. And not confession merely, in the general sense in which it seems mainly alluded to in the exhortation in the communion service, but sacramental confession confession to be followed by and designed to procure absolution. Without this absolution it has been implied aye, and I fear far more than implied that there is no security for the forgive- ness of post-baptismal sin." 2 A concordant testimony was given in the Times twenty years later, as follows : "Habitual confession to a priest is not compulsory. But 1 Clarke, The Confessional in the Church of England, pp. 10, n. * Some Present Dangers of the Church of England, pp. 44, 45. ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTESTANTISM 373 between compulsion and strong recommendation the line is often finely drawn; and where habitual confession is held up as a counsel of perfection by the spiritual guides of any congregation or other body of persons, their zeal and earnestness and their personal will go far toward presenting it as a duty. That this is what is going on at this moment in the more advanced regions of Anglican- ism there is unfortunately little room to doubt ; and this, we believe, is what more than anything else alarms the Protestant laity of England. They know by the same verdict of history and experience that, whatever may be the spiritual benefit of confession in special and isolated cases, its inculcation as a universal spiritual duty has always been attended with the gravest consequences, both to the individual conscience and to family life." 1 V. ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTESTANTISM AND ROMANISM RESPECTIVELY It has been noticed that the Tractarians in carrying out their High-Church theories speedily made the dis- covery that they could not build with any security or comfort on the fathers of the Anglican Establishment, on the men who wrought in the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth. The Non jurors were found to be more congenial forerunners, and with that party they turned a reverential glance toward Christian antiquity, and located in the consensus of the early fathers the obliga- tory standard. Somewhat of a function was still con- ceded by the Tractarians to the Reformation. It was 1 Times, Aug. 23, 1898, cited by Clarke, The Confessional in the Church of England, p. 12. 374 THE ANGLICAN TYPE credited by them with having accomplished a necessary work in cutting off certain abuses and corruptions which had been brought in since the patristic era. But with this ground of approval they were moved to conjoin grounds of radical disapproval. It seemed to them that the Reformers had cast aside very much that ought to have been conserved, and that large deference to them was incompatible with loyalty to the Anglo-Catholic ideal which they conceived to be the true pattern for the Church of England. They began, in fact, to take their historical association with the Protestant Reformation as rather a burden than a benediction. Enamored with the notion of connection with an ancient Catholic Church, they wished to have it understood that the English Church belonged to an entirely different genus from that of the Protestant communions. Temperament and reach of historical insight naturally have had much to do in determining the degree of viru- lence which Anglo-Catholics have put into their criticisms and denunciations of Protestantism and the Reformation. The more impetuous the disposition, and the narrower the conception of the tremendous exigencies which lay back of the revolution of the sixteenth century, the more full and intense have been the expressions of hatred and condemnation. Men of the stamp of Newman and Pusey have exercised a fair degree of restraint in their animad- versions. On the other hand, throughout the Anglo- Catholic movement there have been men who have been prodigal of bitter comments on the Reformation and on its transmitted results. Near the startingpoint of Trac- tarianism Froude supplied a model for this company. In 1834 he wrote: "As to the Reformers, I think worse and ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTESTANTISM 375 worse of them." 1 Again, near the end of the same year he declared: "Really I hate the Reformation and the Reformers more and more, and have almost made up my mind that the rationalist spirit which they set afloat is the false prophet of the Revelation." 2 A little later he asked of his correspondent : "Why do you praise Rid- ley? Do you know sufficient good about him to coun- terbalance the fact that he was the associate of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and Bucer? ... As for me, I never mean, if I can help it, to use any phrases, even, which can connect me with such a set. . . . Nor shall I ever abuse the Roman Catholics a.? a Church for anything except excommunicating us." 3 It was due to Froude also that Tractarian sentiment was given expression in the much-quoted formula, "The Reformation was a limb badly set it must be broken again in order to be righted." 4 Froude had a genuine successor, as respects indisposition to put a bridle upon his tongue, in the per- son of W. G. Ward. The attitude of the latter toward the Reformation was made apparent in his book on The Ideal of a Christian Church (1844). It crops out in the contrast which he takes pains to institute between the Reformers and the founder of the Jesuits. "About the time," he says, "when the Church of Christ was harassed and outraged and insulted by the foreign Reformers, within the Church appeared the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius." 5 But the most envenomed expressions of con- tempt for the Reformation in Ward's book were those in which he excoriated the Church of England as a wretched and misshapen offspring of the Reformation. i Remains, vol. I, part i, p. 380. * Ibid., p. 389. Ibid., pp. 393-395. * Ibid., p. 433. * Page 80. 376 THE ANGLICAN TYPE It would be difficult certainly to outdo the following specimen of the art of depreciation : "Believing, as I most firmly do, that ever since the schism of the sixteenth century the English Church has been swayed by a spirit of arrogance, self-contentment, and self-complacency, re- sembling rather an absolute infatuation than the imbe- cility of ordinary pride, which has stifled her energies, crippled her resources, frustrated all the efforts of her most faithful children to raise her from her existing degradation, I for one, however humble my position, will not be responsible for uttering one word, or implying one opinion, which shall tend to foster this outrageous delusion." 1 That a man holding official position in the Anglican Establishment could have written in this strain has the appearance of a psychological wonder. The psy- chological marvel, however, is explained, though at the expense of a moral mystery. Ward at this time had re- nounced all faith in the Church of England. "He had felt bound to retain his external communion with her members, because he believed that he was bringing many of them toward Rome." 2 Later Anglo-Catholics, similar in temper to those who have just been cited, have favored us with similar tokens of appreciation of Protestantism. One of them tells us, "The worst form of Catholicism is a better religion than the best form of Protestantism." 3 He furthermore in- forms us that the Lutheran doctrine of justification is "the most anti-missionary and anti-Christian of dog- mas." 4 Another witness expends his wrath upon the same item in the Protestant system, and paints its doleful 1 Page 55. * Wilfrid Ward, W. G. Ward and the Oxford Movement, p. 356. * R. F. Littledale, in the Church and the World, III. 63. * Ibid., A. 49. ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTESTANTISM 377 effects in these emphatic terms : "Of the terrible ravages effected by this doctrine among Dissenters, who proclaim it without qualifications, it is scarcely possible to speak too strongly. It has been a matter of experience to find among them the most deplorable deterioration of morals combined with the loudest protestations of faith." 1 A testimony quite in line with this is furnished by a writer who has given the Anglican bishops the benefit of a thick volume of instruction and admonition. Speaking of Protestantism, he says : "Not only has immorality grown with its growth, but infidelity almost invariably follows in its wake. Nor is it difficult to perceive the reasons of such results. Where faith is corrupted it is impossible that the morals can be pure." 2 Again, referring to the sins of the Broad-Church party, he remarks: "It is one of the bitter fruits of Protestantism that miserable system of negation which a rationalistic philosophy would substitute for the Catholic faith, the eternal and unchangeable truth revealed to us by God himself in the person of the only-begotten Son." 3 Scarcely more ami- able in tone are the references of an American writer who has thought fit to make use of two figures in characteriz- ing Protestantism, depicting it on the one hand as the tares sown among the wheat in the sixteenth century, and on the other hand as the petty confined pool left in the sand by the receding waves. 4 As was intimated at the beginning of this topic, we have not assumed that all Anglo-Catholics would care to speak in the style of these extracts. In all reason it must be supposed that many of them have gained the 1 S. Baring-Gould, The Church and the World, III. 242. 2 Lendrum, The Principles of the Reformation, 1875,0. 35. Ibid. r p. 125. * Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice, I. 219, 94. 378 THE ANGLICAN TYPE conviction that Protestantism has been a mighty world- power in the modern era, and is destined to be a mighty factor in the religion of the future, as not being con- temptible even in respect of the number of its adherents, and much less in the resources of that independent reli- gious manhood which in the long run must be more than a match for manhood repressed and abridged by subjec- tion to priestly despotism. Aversion from Protestantism and inclination to Rome are phrases of nearly identical meaning when applied to the Anglo-Catholic movement. Still, there is room for a measure of distinction. A person dissatisfied with the results of the Reformation might also be quite hostile to various features of Romanism, and conclude that the true course lies in the via media. Formally that was precisely the standpoint assumed by the originators of the Oxford movement, and it has not ceased to be repre- sented among their successors. In fact, as was dem- onstrated in the experiences of too many of the leaders themselves, the so-called via media had a Romeward in- clination. But this was not due to deliberate choice, and the failure to take note of it resulted from defective vision as to the logical dictate of the positions taken. So we find in the Tracts for the Times polemical matter against Romanism. A part of this may be attributed to the quite mundane motive of fending off charges of Romanizing tendencies. Still, it would be an odious insinuation which would find the whole explanation in a motive of that sort. The Tract writers may be credited with having meant a large part of what they said in their criticisms of the Roman Catholic system. Taken together these criticisms ATTITUDE TOWARD ROMANISM 379 constitute a rather serious impeachment. Referring to the transition effected at the Council of Trent, the author of Tract 15 says: "Then indeed, it is to be feared, the whole Roman communion bound itself by a perpetual bond and covenant to the cause of Antichrist." In Tract 1 8 the Reformers are commended for cutting off "the monstrous doctrine of merit" taught by Rome. Tract 20 praises the grandeur of the ceremonies in use among Roman Catholics, but at the same time emphasizes the impossibility of union in these energetic terms: "Their communion is infected with heresy ; we are bound to flee it as a pestilence. They have established a lie in the place of God's truth; and by their claim of immutability in doctrine cannot undo the sin they have committed." Tract 35 declares of the Roman Catholic clergy: "They are mere intruders in this country, have no right to come here, and besides have so corrupted the truth of God's word that they are not to be listened to for a moment." In Tract 38 the Tridentine articles are pronounced un- christian, and a long list of specifications, following in the line of Bishop Hall's strictures, is added to show in what respects they sin against scriptural truth. Among these specifications are the following : "That the doctrine of transubstantiation, as not being revealed, but a theory of man's devising, is profane and impious. That the denial of the cup to the laity is a bold and unwarranted encroach- ment on their privileges as Christ's people. That the sacrifice of masses, as it has been practiced in the Roman Church, is without foundation in Scripture or antiquity; and therefore blasphemous and dangerous. That forced confession is an unauthorized and dangerous practice. That the invocation of saints is a dangerous practice as 38o THE ANGLICAN TYPE tending to give, often actually giving, to creatures the honor and reliance due to the Creator alone. That the Romish doctrine of tradition is unscriptural. That the claim of the pope to be universal bishop is against Scrip- ture and antiquity." A considerable number of these grounds of complaint are reiterated in Tract 71, where we have also mention of the doctrine of priestly intention as necessary to the validity of the sacrament, and of the unwarranted anathemas in which the Roman Church has indulged. After the era of the Tracts the polemic against Rome, though not conducted with much vigor and persistence, still came into evidence occasionally. Pusey greatly crippled his ability to contend against the Roman system by his declared readiness to accept the whole mass of the Tridentine decisions relative to justification and tradi- tion 1 ; but still he continued, as has been observed, to urge objections against various points in Roman theory and practice. The Vatican Council greatly strengthened his feeling of opposition, and drove all thought of union schemes out of his mind. In 1880, two years before his death, he wrote to a friend: "The majority of the Vatican Council crushed me. I have not touched any book of Roman controversy since. Pope Pius IX devised and carried two new articles of faith; and the absolute personal infallibility of the pope, to which they sacrificed Dollinger, stands in my way, contradicting history. All other questions sink into nothing before this. Our creeds must be reformed [so as to run] : 'I believe in the pope,' instead of 'I believe in the holy Catholic Church/ I have no heart left. I could not the other day read some ency- 1 Eirenicon, part i, p. 19; part ii, pp. 4, 5. ATTITUDE TOWARD ROMANISM 381 clical of the present pope because I did not know whether I was to read it as a third or a thirtieth general epistle of Saint Peter. My only hope is that Antichrist will somehow drive the Church into one." 1 Thus gloomily the author of the "Eirenicon" sketched the outlook. Others among Anglo-Catholics might be mentioned who expended a portion of their zeal in combating Roman errors. This was conspicuously the case with R. F. Littledale. In spite of the hard sayings which he flung at Protestantism he was far from being enamored of Romanism, and composed against it a very trenchant polemic. Some of his descriptions of practical Romanism may serve as a corrective to the uncritical procedure of his fellow Anglo-Catholics in lauding the papal Church and charging all badness upon Protestantism. Thus he remarks: "Romanism is at its worst where it has had entire liberty and long monopoly. In every such country the educated classes are, as a rule, alienated from the Church; unbelief is widespread, rancorous, and increas- ing." 2 Again he writes : "In our own day, despite much visible improvement, the moral standard of the Roman Catholic clergy is very unsatisfactory in many places, reaching its lowest point in Spanish and Portuguese America, but far from what it should be in Austria, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and even France; while the cus- tomary usage of hushing up scandals, and merely trans- ferring clerical offenders to other places, without bring- ing them to trial, is so far from producing belief in the impeccability of the clergy that it brings innocent mem- bers under suspicion, just because immunity from official 1 Liddon, Life of Pusey, IV. 362. 2 Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Rome, tenth thousand, 1880, p. 144. 382 THE ANGLICAN TYPE censure is no proof of good character." 1 That the Vatican Council canceled all reasonable ground of deal- ing with Rome was no more a matter of doubt to Little- dale than to Pusey. "The Vatican decree," he contended, "which declares that the pope's decisions are 'irreform- able even without the consent of the Church,' has de- stroyed the mark of apostolicity by destroying the Church itself. For what it means, put as a piece of arithmetic, is this: Pope-}-Church=Pope Church, and therefore, Church=o." 2 So much for the anti-Roman phase of the Anglo- Catholic movement. That phase deserves a measure of consideration. Still, it cannot be denied that the move- ment was permeated with a Romanizing tendency. The evidences reach along its whole course and obtrude them- selves at this very day. Writing but a short interval after the publication of the Tracts for the Times, William Palmer had occasion to remark : "Within the last two or three years a new school has made its appearance. The Church unhappily has had reason to feel the existence of a spirit of dissatisfaction with her principles, of enmity to her Reformers, of recklessness for her interests. We have seen in the same quarter a spirit of almost servil- ity and adulation to Rome. ... So far has this sys- tem of adulation proceeded, that translations from Rom- ish rituals and devotions have been published in which the very form of printing and every other external pecu- liarity have evinced an earnest desire for uniformity with Rome. Romish catechisms have been introduced, and formed the models for similar compositions. In con- 1 Page 191. On the method of dealing with clerical offenders compare Crowley, The Parochial School. * Ibid., p. 199. ATTITUDE TOWARD ROMANISM 383 versation remarks have been sometimes heard, indicating a disposition to acknowledge the supremacy of the see of Rome, to give way to all its claims however extreme." 1 A Roman Catholic observer spoke judicially when he said : "It seems impossible to read the works of the Ox- ford divines, and especially to follow them chronologic- ally, without discovering a daily approach toward our holy Church, both in doctrine and affectionate feeling." 2 But testimonies of this sort are rendered quite super- fluous in view of the exodus to Rome in 1845, an d again about five years later. In the latter part of the century the continued existence of a strong Romeward current has been attested not only by a transference of allegiance to the papal Church on the part of individual clergymen and by an extensive advo- cacy of various peculiarities of Romish belief and prac- tice, but also by organized effort, through the medium of secret associations, in behalf of corporate union with Rome. From 1877 an association has been at work whose name, that of the Order of Corporate Reunion, declares its design. From published expressions of its members it is made clear that the order is not at all squeamish in respect of terms, and would be quite ready to swallow the full Vatican program if only by that expedient the English Church as a whole could be brought into junction with Rome. Their greatest burden of spirit seems to result from a sense of the unworthiness of the Church of England to be an object of Roman re- gard, so long as it remains in the low and pitiful condi- 1 Narrative of Events Connected with the Publication of the Tracts for the Times, 1843, p. 53. 2 Wiseman cited by Henrv Rogers, Essays on the Theological Contro- versies of the Time, p. 7. 384 THE ANGLICAN TYPE tion of a communion whose title to ecclesiastical validity is subject to suspicion and denial. Accordingly, they have been laboring to infuse into it a strain of legitimacy. Some of the officials of the order have secured episcopal consecration from a source which is believed to be above challenge, and through their instrumentality the clergy within the range of their influence are receiving a mark which it is hoped will pass inspection at the Vatican. A Roman Catholic periodical reported progress, in 1894, in these terms: "We have heard just lately that there are now eight hundred clergymen of the Church of Eng- land who have been validly ordained by Dr. Lee and his co-bishops of the Order of Corporate Reunion. If so, Dr. Lee's dream of providing a body with which the pope could deal seems likely to be realized." 1 Other secret associations, such as the Order of the Holy Redeemer and the Society of Saint Osmund, have labored, though apparently in a more limited range, to promote the cause of corporate reunion with Rome. 2 Even in the United States an organization has been formed (1908) with the declared object of forwarding the same end in connection with the Episcopal Church in this country. It has not been stated that the organizing party has found much sympathy. But certainly in common with their English brethren of like purpose they deserve recognition. Their humility is marvelous. Rome has poured contempt on their ecclesiastical standing, first by treating their bishops as mere laymen, or part and parcel of the general body of non-Catholics, in the framing of the invitations sent out in connection with the Vatican Council, and then 1 Catholic Standard and Ransomer, Nov. 22, 1894. For the facts see Walsh, pp. 102-iia. * Walsh, pp. i63ff. ATTITUDE TOWARD ROMANISM 385 again by formally declaring Anglican orders null and void. That they should still labor to shape themselves into a present which Rome may be persuaded to accept certainly shows that in one sense they are entitled to be classed with the poor in spirit. If prizes should be dis- tributed for ecclesiastical abjectness, there ought to be no difficulty about identifying the most worthy candidates. Those who are exposed to the allurements of the Roman tempter might profitably review the experiences of their predecessors, and be warned against being tricked by too ideal a picture of things coveted. As one and another historian has taken pains to indicate, very scanty knowledge of Romanism as a practical working system was possessed by the first converts from the ranks of the Anglo-Catholics at the time of their conversion. One at least of the prominent converts had not so much as seen a Roman Catholic priest prior to the occasion when he sought one for the sake of being received into the Roman communion. Even the most noted in the list had enjoyed very narrow opportunities for any practical acquaintance with Romanism. Manning, as his biog- rapher testifies, was quite an exception in respect of first- hand information about the people and the institutions with which he decided to connect himself; and even his information was no valid ground for boasting. 1 There was very considerable opportunity, therefore, for the converts to make discoveries the reverse of grati- fying a chance to find the Roman Catholic Church much less of an ideal institution than they had imagined it to be. Dollinger was probably not far out of the way 1 Purccll, Life of Manning, I. 412, 413. when he remarked : "If Newman, who knows early church history so well, had possessed equal knowledge of modern church history, he never would have become a Roman Catholic." 1 Quite certain is it that in his rela- tions as a Roman Catholic he found a plenty of sore vexations. Newman himself frankly admitted the fact, though claiming that he never regretted that he entered into those relations. "I have had," he said, "more to try and afflict me in various ways as a Catholic than as an Anglican." 2 One source of this affliction was the hostile attitude toward himself of a section of his Roman Catho- lic brethren in England. He was made conscious for many years that, as an advocate of moderate views, he was an object of dislike, of secret opposition, and of open disparagement, on the part of the radical Ultramontane party in England, the party of which Manning was the most potent leader and Ward the most intemperate spokesman. In the decade preceding the Vatican Coun- cil this opposition reached the point of outrage. The day on which Manning was consecrated archbishop of Westminster (June 8, 1865) Ward wrote to him de- nouncing Newman as "a disloyal Catholic." As editor of the Dublin Review, Ward made use of its columns to slur the distinguished convert. And this seems to have been done with the connivance of Manning. Referring to the evidence of his correspondence with Talbot, at the Vatican, Purcell remarks : "For those aspersions, then, on Newman which did appear in the Dublin Review and they were fierce and frequent Archbishop Manning Cited by A. H. Hore, The Church of England from William III to Victoria, II. 315. 8 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, postscript, Feb. a6, 1875, p. 349 in Diffi- culties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, 1876. 38; was responsible, since they were published under his tacit sanction." In this time of polemical virulence some of the Ultramontane zealots were unkind enough to de- clare: "Newman's conversion is the greatest calamity which has befallen the Catholic Church in our day." A letter from Rome, which was published in the Weekly Register, April 6, 1867, sharply attacked him; and when some of the Catholic laity undertook to protest against this treatment their interposition was considered a proper ground for increased spite. So we may judge from these words which Talbot transmitted from the pope's neigh- borhood, April 25, 1867: "It is perfectly true that a cloud has been hanging over Dr. Newman in Rome ever since the bishop of Newport delated him to Rome for heresy in his article in the Rambler on consulting the laity on matters of faith. None of his writings since have removed that cloud. Every one of them has created a controversy, and the spirit of them has never been ap- proved in Rome. Now, that a set of laymen with Mr. Monsell at their head should have the audacity to say that a blow that touches Dr. Newman is a wound inflicted on the Catholic Church in England, is an insult offered to the Holy See, to your Grace, and to all who have opposed the Oxford scheme." 1 The Oxford scheme mentioned in this connection was a project to open at Oxford, under Newman's supervision, an institution for Catholic youth. Manning opposed the scheme to bring Catholic youth to the seat of the university, according to his own statement, on two grounds "the one that the Catholic Church would abandon all future effort to form its own univer- sity, and the other, that our higher laity would be, like > For the facts stated see Purcell, Life of Manning, II. 231, 309-318. 388 THE ANGLICAN TYPE the laity in France, Catholic in name, but indifferent, lax, and liberalistic." 1 In considering the basis of the hostile attitude of an English faction toward Newman we are apprised of an- other sore vexation which was in store for the convert. His co-religionists opposed and maligned him as one who was unfriendly to the Vatican program. That they made a substantially correct estimate of his feeling toward the high papal scheme is not to be doubted. For, while Newman, as respects his personal beliefs, may not have been violently opposed to the dogmas of papal absolutism and infallibility, he did profoundly question the propriety of putting the clamps and fetters of such exacting dog- mas upon the consciences of Catholics universally. He was greatly distressed over the movement toward the declaration of the dogmas in question. This we know from the words which he addressed to Bishop Ullathorne words never designed to fall under the eye of the pub- lic. "I cannot," he wrote, "help suffering with the many souls who are suffering, and I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions which may not be difficult to my own private judgment, but may be most difficult to maintain logically in the face of historical facts. What have we done to be treated as the faithful never were treated before ? When has a definition de fide been a luxury of devotion, and not a stern painful neces- sity? Why should an aggressive insolent faction be allowed 'to make the heart of the just sad whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful' ? Why cannot we be let alone, when we have pursued peace and thought no evil?" 2 1 Purcell, II. 349. * Cited by Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 1890, pp.339, 2 4- Among real troubles, though perhaps of lesser moment, which the convert encountered in the Roman refuge, was the necessity of paying tribute to Liguori as a saint and doctor of the Church, in spite of his loose casuistry. Manning, as a man of the expediency type, found no difficulty with Liguori, but Newman was plainly revolted at his undisguised approval of equivocation. "As to playing upon words or equivocation," he wrote, "I sup- pose it is from the English habit, but, without meaning any disrespect to a great saint, or wishing to set myself up, or taking my conscience for more than it is worth, I can only say as a fact that I admit it as little as the rest of my countrymen: and without any reference to the right or the wrong of the matter, of this I am sure, that, if there is one thing more than another which prejudices Englishmen against the Catholic Church, it is the doctrine of great authorities on the subject of equivocation." 1 The accession of Leo XIII brought to Newman a measure of pontifical recognition which was quite impos- sible during the rule of Pius IX. But again under Pius X a bitter reward has been rendered to the convert, in that men claiming a relation of discipleship to him have been smitten with the sternest tokens of papal displeasure. Their alleged discipleship, it is true, is open to consider- able question. Newman never thought of bringing the New Testament content itself under any such wide- reaching law of development as is postulated and applied by Loisy. No more did he intend by his theory of doc- trinal development to license the conclusion of Loisy and Tyrrell that the formulated dogmas of the Church have only a relative perfection, having served to give suitable 1 Apologia, 1887, note G, p. 360. 390 THE ANGLICAN TYPE expression to Christian beliefs at a particular stage, but not necessarily to be counted fully suitable forms of ex- pression for all time. These distinguished representatives of Modernism, and others with them, have advocated views which Newman had no inclination to sanction. The censures, therefore, visited upon them, whether in the denunciations of the Encyclical against Modernism or in sentences of personal excommunication, are not precisely of the nature of adverse judgments upon his teaching. But that teaching helped to naturalize in their circle the theory of doctrinal development or doctrinal evolution. When, therefore, the voice of the pontiff con- demns, as their capital offense, the making of everything "dogma, Church, worship, the books we revere as sacred, even faith itself" subject to the laws of evolu- tion, 1 the natural result will be that the reproach which falls upon them will be carried over in some measure to the first prominent advocate among Catholics of the theory of doctrinal evolution. What Newman achieved was the respect of the English people for his literary gifts and for the strength of his religious aspirations. The rewards flowing out of his new ecclesiastical relations were paltry, and there was always an artificial element in his adjustment to the Roman system. For the construction of a companion picture out of the fortunes of the other distinguished convert there seem, at first sight, to be no materials. Linked from the begin- ning of his course as a Roman Catholic with the winning party, promoted to the position of highest trust that was open to a member of his Church in England, and lauded in all Ultramontane circles as one of the foremost agents 1 Encyclical Pascendi Gregis, Sept. 8, 1907. ATTITUDE TOWARD ROMANISM 391 in the consummation of the Vatican enterprise, what occasion did Manning ever encounter for disillusionment or regret ? Well, in the first place, he did not run across an ideal state of things at Rome. In connection with his visit in 1876 he complained to a friend that "Pope Pius IX was growing old and garrulous, and not to be trusted with a secret." He found, in fact, the holy city a decidedly comfortless place. "Seeing," says his biog- rapher, "how things were drifting from bad to worse, with no hand to stay the evil, no master mind to discover and apply a remedy, what wonder that Cardinal Man- ning, after a brief sojourn of three weeks, left Rome, 'sorrowful of heart/ as he said, 'even unto death' P" 1 In this mood, we can easily imagine, the cardinal may almost have repented of the part which he had taken in turning the pope into an earthly god. At a later date he had occasion to comment on the incapacity of the Holy Office and on "the essential injustice of its procedures and its secrecy." 2 Furthermore, he had an experience of cold- ness, not to say of displeasure, at headquarters because he had ventured to advise the ecclesiastical authority to modify its policy of brusque hostility to the kingdom of Italy on the score of the lost temporal power. The editor of an influential paper was directed not to mention his name with approbation, and, according to his own phrase, he was looked upon in Rome as an "Italianissimo." 3 In the second place, Manning found in England a Catholic laity provokingly apathetic and unresponsive to the demands of philanthropic reforms. He noticed that from the days of Wilberforce all such reforms had been 1 Purcell, Life of Manning, II. 573, 574. Ibid., II. 583. Ibid., II. 615. 392 THE ANGLICAN TYPE the work of Noncomformists and Anglicans, the Catho- lics of England having for the most part stood aloof. He virtually turned advocate for these parties, and credited them with a generous share of the sanctities of Christian character and life, as against the unfriendly judgment of the members of his own communion. Referring to these outsiders, he testified: "I have intimately known souls living by faith, hope, and charity, in constant medi- tation on Holy Scripture, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, personal work among the poor; in a word, living lives of visible sanctification, as undoubtedly the work of the Holy Ghost as I have ever seen. I have seen this in whole families, rich and poor, and in all conditions of life." 1 Thus Manning in his mature years, after a full experience of what could be found in the Church of Rome, bore witness that sanctity is no exclusive mark of that Church. With all his service to the Ultramon- tane cause, he retained, as did Newman, too large a rem- nant of independent English manhood to quite agree with the Roman model. Both men, in the sum of their experiences, furnish lessons that may well have a sobering effect upon those Anglo-Catholics who are too much in- toxicated by the lofty and obtrusive pretensions of Rome to have a clear view of her real characteristics. VI. ESTIMATE OF THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC MOVEMENT A severe judgment on the element of sacerdotalism in the Anglo-Catholic movement would not necessarily imply that the movement was not attended with certain apparent benefits. A fresh religious interest, though 1 Purcell, II. 715, 779-781. ESTIMATE 393 starting from a very imperfect theoretical basis, may well be armed with a considerable potency for good, at least for a limited period. The untoward results which logic- ally are connected with the imperfect basis may be ex- pected ultimately to come to manifestation, but for a time they may be outrun by the salutary results which the fresh religious interest itself tends to generate. Now, the movement which began at Oxford in 1833 undoubtedly operated as an awakening agency within the English Establishment. It thrust certain ecclesiastical ideals into the face of the clergy, and compelled attention to them. It impinged against clerical habitudes, and supplied a motive for earnest contemplation of the demands of the clerical vocation. The consequence was that it became less easy for the clergy to maintain the attitude of half- interested functionaries or placemen. From the impact of Anglo-Catholic teaching a number of them derived not only an increased sense of pastoral importance, but also an enlarged incentive to pastoral enterprise. Whether the new zeal was according to knowledge or not, it had the worth of zeal in the direction of practical activity. It tended to limit sloth and slovenliness, and to multiply the manifestations of church life. On the side of the externals of religion the Anglo-Catholic scheme was adapted to work a transition which, within limits, might be counted an improvement. Through the vast signifi- cance which it attached to sacramental rites it furnished an incentive to give large heed to the adornment of the sanctuary and in general to pay respect to the aesthetic requirements of worship. That the given scheme was an indispensable means of this result there is no sufficient warrant for assuming. Pastoral industry and a prudent 394 THE ANGLICAN TYPE regard for the aesthetic demands of worship are not bound by any intrinsic bonds to Anglo-Catholic postu- lates. We simply have the fact that in the actual condi- tion in which the Anglo-Catholic movement found the Church of England it made, to all appearances, an ap- preciable contribution to the specified interests. Just what estimate should be made of this contribution it is difficult to determine at so early a date. The period also has been too short to bring to adequate manifestation the practical results of a less creditable order. We notice that an observer, who seems to write in a judicial temper, imputes to the Anglo-Catholic movement a portion of the responsibility for aloofness and indifference to religious dogma exhibited recently by a considerable body of English laymen. 1 Whether such a result has been worked out already or not, we are compelled to regard it as being in the natural order. It would be a cause for abundant surprise if such a system as that which was framed by the Tractarians and developed by their suc- cessors should not entail a reaction in the direction of in- difference and skepticism. We cannot believe that it is well suited to the kind of men which England has grown since the papal yoke was cast off. A continued attempt to press it upon them must result in a recoil. I. With this much of remark on the practical grounds of an estimate, we proceed to judge of the Anglo-Catholic movement by the essential content of the system which it has been instrumental in framing and propagating. And here it will be appropriate to follow the order of topics observed in the historical exposition. We have, then, -in 1 Sir Samuel Hall, A Short History of the Oxford Movement, 1906, p. 350. ESTIMATE 395 the first place, to consider the merits of the principle of authority to which the authors and advocates of the movement made appeal. That principle, as has been observed, was expressed in the proposition, that on questions of doctrine a decid- ing voice must be given to Catholic antiquity, and on other questions a profound deference be accorded to its verdict. In challenging the right of this proposition, it is not necessary to enter into any wholesale disparage- ment of the early Christian fathers. Considering the enormous difficulty of the task of construing the data of a new religion and building up a system harmonious in itself and true to the original data, they accomplished a work deserving of much praise and gratitude. But why should their work be taken as giving the authoritative standard? The Tractarians have told us that no claim of a special patristic inspiration is to be maintained. What, then, qualified the fathers to speak with definite authority? Their nearness, it has been said, to Christ and his inspired apostles, and their consequent ability to serve as authentic witnesses to the true content of Christianity as a revealed system of truth. But surely mere chronological proximity, while it may have been helpful in some respects, was an imperfect guarantee of an unbiased and rounded understanding of things ante- cedent. Cerinthus was as near the foundation epoch of Christianity as was Clement of Rome or any other of the apostolic fathers. He was not proof, however, on that account, against serious aberrations. The Ebionites were in evidence as a distinct party close to the verge of the New Testament era. Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, and other founders of Gnostic sects were quite as early 396 THE ANGLICAN TYPE as Justin and the group of apologists associated with him in the central part of the second century. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria had occasion to comment upon a great and motley throng of heretical parties which had preceded them. Theodotus, Praxeas, and other Anti-Trinitarians were on the field by the age of Ter- tullian and Hippolytus. Sabellius taught in the time of Origen, and Paul of Samosata followed shortly after. Arius preceded Athanasius, and Apollinaris was contem- porary with Basil. Throughout the fifth and sixth cen- turies beliefs that came to be stamped as heresies had a large following. And so the record runs. How, then, does the proximity of the fathers to the fountain-head of Christian teaching attest their competency to give a per- fectly correct version of that teaching? If proximity in itself were a complete safeguard on the side of orthodox opinions, it ought to have kept Cerinthus, the Ebionites, the Gnostics, and all the rest in the long and continuous line of the heterodox no less true to the proper Christian faith than were the contemporary fathers. An illegitimate play with the term "fathers" gets into operation when those who were thus entitled are allowed to occupy the whole field of vision, and are rated as authoritative just because they make a continuous chain back to the apostles. Why is a certain succession of men called "fathers," and why is that title denied to a line of their contemporaries? Plainly for no other reason than that in the judgment of later generations the former were sane and reliable in construing the primitive data of Christianity as compared with the latter. They do not have a title to authority simply because they were fathers ; rather they have been classified as fathers, in distinction ESTIMATE 397 from many of their contemporaries, because they have been regarded as doing relatively well in the interpreta- tion of the Christian system. The Tractarian, or Anglo-Catholic, would perhaps claim that justice is not done to his point of view in the foregoing representation, since he locates authority not in the individual judgments of the fathers, but in their concurrent decisions. This aspect of his contention, it is to be admitted, deserves some consideration. We reply, then, in the first place, that the argument from mere prox- imity to the original sources must fail to hold of the fathers collectively, in so far as it fails to hold of them individu- ally. If each of the fathers had heterodox contemporaries, then the whole group of fathers had heterodox con- temporaries, and heterodoxy is proved to have been quite as possible as orthodoxy in the age following the apostles. In the second place, we reply that the concur- rence of the fathers in their doctrinal views was subject to so many and so serious limitations that one who looks to that concurrence as affording the decisive standard is likely to experience very considerable embarrassments. Divergent and even contradictory views were held in the ranks of the fathers on themes of very considerable im- portance on the second coming and millennial reign of Christ, on the position of the primitive Adam and the results of his fall to his posterity, on the character of Christ's redemptive work, on the method of grace, on divine election or predestination, and on the proper in- terpretation of the eucharist. Even on a topic of such capital importance as the person of Christ individual fathers made statements which could not be carried out to their logical results without coming into conflict with 398 THE ANGLICAN TYPE the Nicene and Chalcedonian standards. In the third place, we answer that approximate or even complete unanimity of the fathers relative to a given point would not be adequate to prove that point an indubitable part of an original and incorrupt Christianity. Doubtless the unanimity would afford a certain presumption in its favor. A measure of probability would be established thereby that it could claim to be in the line of the dogmat- ic impulse proceeding from Christ and the apostles. But probability is not certainty. The item supported by the patristic consensus would need to be discoverable in the Xew Testament oracles by a sober exegesis, and be found conformable to the controlling spirit of those oracles, in order to be able to make any cogent claim on acceptance. False drifts have ruled the great body of Christian teachers in one or another matter through later periods. What gives assurance that there were no such drifts in the patristic age? Rather we may ask, How could the fathers, as pursuing comparatively untried paths, escape giving too much of an inclination to one side or another? They were under the pressure of great practical exigen- cies, and we should need to suppose them exempt from common human infirmities not to count them liable to yield too much to the pressure. Take, for instance, the ordeal imposed upon them by the outcropping of factions and heresies in startling profusion a generation or two after the disappearance of the apostolic leaders. What wonder that in face of these centrifugal forces, which seemed prophetic of the disintegration of Christianity, those who felt a responsibility for conserving the unity of the Church were driven to such an accentuation of priestly and episcopal authority as was pronouncedly ESTIMATE 399 beyond the level of the polity delivered by the apostles, intrinsically adapted to work a one-sided development of the notion of ecclesiastical magistracy. If the Trac- tarians, in order to safeguard the Anglican Establishment and to exalt it far above the plane of all Dissenting bodies, were moved to magnify very greatly the office of Anglican priests and bishops, why should not the Catho- lic fathers be supposed to have proceeded under the stimulus of a similar motive? Take again the exposure of the fathers on the side of sacramental mysticism. The same cause which led them to an incautious exaltation of the dignity and authority of priest or bishop would tend to put them off guard against an undue magnifying of the rites which it was the prerogative of the priest or bishop to administer. Moreover, an incentive in the same direction could easily be fostered by a felt demand to outdo a competing heathenism. The contemporary classic religion had its famed mysteries to which great virtue was attached. How easy for an apologetic spirit to be inclined to commend Christianity by lauding the superior efficacy of the Christian mysteries. Then, too, a rhetorical poetizing disposition, which claimed a large constituency among the fathers, might very naturally become auxiliary to such forms of description of the chief Christian rites as would favor the growth of an ultra sacramental mysticism. These illustrations may serve to show the liability of the fathers as a body to yield to a dubious or false drift in theory and practice. The in- evitable conclusion is that even general consent among them does not afford assurance of an authentic induction from original Christianity or of real agreement there- with. Of course, the fact of a false drift in patristic con- 400 THE ANGLICAN TYPE viction is not to be assumed on merely speculative grounds. But no more is the fact to be denied on the same kind of grounds. A patristic consensus is open to examination. It cannot be made immediately and un- conditionally authoritative on the basis of reason or known fact. 1 What has been said applies obviously to the Trac- tarian assumption of the infallibility of an ecumenical council representative of the early undivided Church. Such a council may conceivably have done work fitted to stand through all subsequent ages. But there is no pledge in the nature of the case that its decisions should be irreformable. As was shown in an earlier part of the volume, the gospel promises which have been sup- posed to contain a pledge of infallibility have been made to include it only by having it read into them. But aside from these promises no pledge of an inerrant assembly can possibly be discovered. An aggregation of fallible units cannot make an infallible whole. Even complete unanimity on the part of a so-called ecumenical assembly, and on the part of the Christian constituency represented by it, could not earn the stamp of infallibility for its decrees. It would still be possible for a later age to inquire whether some fault in philosophy, in criticism, or in the interpretation of practical demands had not de- flected the judgment of the Christian body as a whole from the true line. Indeed, so plainly void of proof is the contention for strict infallibility that some Anglo- Catholics have preferred to claim simply that the Church 1 The question of the authority of original Christianity obviously does not need to be considered here, the point of objection to Tractarianism being that it failed to justify its assumption that a patristic consensus must accord with that original Christianity which it confessed to be au- thoritative. ESTIMATE 401 is "indefectible." meaning by this statement that in the long run it will not be given over to any serious error. The overburdensome task which the Tractarian im- posed upon himself in undertaking to assert his high claim for patristic authority was made very conspicuous in the extravagant estimate which he was constrained to place upon the exegesis of the fathers. As was indicated by citations from the Tracts for the Times, he felt compelled to justify the mystical allegorizing method of interpreta- tion so largely current in the first centuries. What better is this than the canonizing of an obvious defect ? On the basis of such an exegetical method the exploits of an ingenious imagination are made to take precedence of critical judgment, and texts are compelled to yield, not the significance which a due consideration of conditions and context would elicit, but that which it may be con- venient to have them yield. The fathers doubtless did some good exegetical work, but the cause which needs to count their prodigal use of mystical meanings as quite normal advertises itself as put to difficult straits for means of defense. Isaac Taylor, in his book on Ancient Christianity, may not have said the best that can be said in behalf of the fathers ; but he made a perfectly true statement when he remarked : "Either to worship the pristine Church, or to condemn it in the mass, would be just as unwise as to treat the Church of our own times, or of any other times, in a manner equally indiscriminating." 1 Had not the Tractarians looked through the golden mist of ecclesias- tical fancy and ecclesiastical convenience, they never 1 Vol. I, p. 56, edit, of 1844. 402 THE ANGLICAN TYPE could have felt justified in ascribing to Catholic antiquity so unrestricted an authority. In proportion as the Tractarian leaders and their suc- cessors failed to justify the exaltation of Catholic an- tiquity into a standard, they very much abridged the right, claimed at least by some of them, to berate the Protestant principle of private judgment. Indeed, as one or another of them came to see, though Catholic antiquity should be counted authoritative, it was such a multifold, varied, and extensive thing that, unless an infallible in- terpreter should be set over it, a great field would still be open to private judgment. What has been said else- where leaves little occasion to add that the bringing in of a so-called infallible interpreter would not legitimately avail to banish private judgment, since there would still be a demand to pass on his credentials, and also to dis- criminate as to the sense of his interpretations if these should become a considerable body, with the well-nigh inevitable result of suggesting different meanings. And here we are happy to find ourselves in accord with an Anglo-Catholic who certainly cleared himself of all sus- picion of extravagant fondness for Protestantism. "A person," says Dr. Littledale, "of ordinary understanding and liberty of action can no more get rid of private judg- ment than he can jump off his own shadow." 1 Of course, this point of view does not deny that a profound moral obligation rests upon every man not to judge in a rash ultra-individualistic and egoistic manner. The right of private judgment is not, morally considered, the right of private caprice. In place of repeating the Tractarian stress on the 1 Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Rome, p. 1 28. ESTIMATE 403 authority of Christian antiquity, some representatives of the Anglo-Catholic school in recent times, who have been constrained to give considerable scope to the idea of doc- trinal development, have preferred to emphasize the standing infallibility of the Church Catholic in all matters of fundamental belief. As an energetic advocate of this standpoint maintains, what the Catholic Church (in its several branches) has agreed to hold and continues to hold bears the seal of infallibility. 1 With all respect to the learned advocate we are compelled to say that he asserts rather than proves his proposition. On the side of a supposed scriptural basis he can only repeat what Roman Catholic apologists have said in behalf of the dogma of ecclesiastical infallibility; and we have already seen how far are the relevant texts from containing the dogma. 2 As respects a rational justification of the dogma he also comes far short. All the individual minds in the Church, he fully admits, are fallible; nevertheless, he argues, the Church is infallible because its "corporate mind" is under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. But what is this corporate mind? Obviously nothing in the sphere of reality, but simply a convenient fiction for associating together minds that in some par- ticulars have a similar content. The individual minds are the only real subjects for the Holy Spirit to operate upon. In order, therefore, to reach an infallible result, he must overcome, or effectually negate, the fallibility of the individual minds in relation to that result. And for accomplishing this task, within any specified interval, omnipotence itself cannot be pronounced indubitably ade- P. J. Hall, Authority, Ecclesiastical and Biblical. Part i, chap, i, sect. iv. 404 THE ANGLICAN TYPE quate. It is possible that the perverse wills of men. should introduce a false drift and bring forth a long-standing consensus in error. Indeed, there is a weighty judgment in the domain of devout and enlightened scholarship that this very thing has taken place within the bounds of so-called Catholic teaching. To mention a prominent item, there is a growing conviction that the doctrine of original sin, as held in common by the great sacerdotal parties the doctrine, namely, that all men, irrespective of real personal agency, are born in a state of condemna- tion has but a paltry basis in the Scriptures, is fla- grantly at variance with a rational interpretation of re- sponsibility, and amounts to a grave imputation against the righteousness of divine administration. Here cer- tainly is a. challenge to the infallibility of the "corporate mind" of the Church which requires a better answer than has yet been given. Challenges of like cogency could be drawn from the sacerdotal doctrines of the eucharist and priestly absolution. Anglo-Catholics might also re- flect very appropriately upon the adverse bearing which the act of a majority of all who boast the name of Catholic, in accepting dogmas of such fundamental con- sequence as those proclaimed by the Vatican Council, has upon the notion of an infallible corporate mind in the Church. If a majority can thus go astray on matters of the greatest dogmatic moment, why not three quarters, or four fifths, or nine tenths? Why not practically the whole Church? II. Relative to the Anglo-Catholic maxim on apos- tolical succession, viewed as an indispensable condition of the existence of a true Church, a ground of objection ESTIMATE 405 is furnished, in the first place, in the improbable character of the assumption that it was the divine pleasure to tie up Christianity for all time to a particular administrative scheme. Doubtless it can be urged that the New Testa- ment administrators seem not to have given any place to the notion of a possible breach of ecclesiastical continuity ; that the apostles apparently went on the supposition that those who were immediately commissioned by them to fulfill pastoral offices would commission others, and so in perpetuity the bond of connection between one genera- tion of officials and another would be conserved. In reply, it is to be said that in proceeding thus the apostles adopted a course which governments of every description naturally adopt. All parties endowed with governmental prerogatives presume upon continuity, upon the observ- ance of some regular scheme of official succession. But is legitimacy of government forever dependent on the observance of the scheme? Has England been without legitimate government for more than two centuries be- cause the Stuarts were driven out ? Hardly a man, prob- ably, in the whole British domain would care to elect that conclusion. It is recognized in the secular sphere that there may be just occasion for a breach in the suc- cession, and that legitimate government may survive the breach. So by analogy, we may conclude, is it in the ecclesiastical sphere. Legitimacy here is not to be judged by a narrow external standard. Those who claim to bear rule in the line of descent from the apostles may conceivably be so remote from apostolic Christianity that no practical expedient may be left for saving the interests of that Christianity except by breaking connection with them. The severing of the external bond under the stress 406 THE ANGLICAN TYPE of such an exigency is rather a means of conserving than of destroying ecclesiastical legitimacy. Moreover, it is not to be overlooked that the normal progress of ecclesias- tical society may very well be regarded as justifying and even demanding changes in forms of administration. The propriety of such forms is by no means independent of the character of the constituency to which they apply. In the civil sphere the growth of a self-govern- ing faculty in the people tends universally to abolish absolute monarchy and to introduce a type of govern- ment either virtually or formally republican. This involves no usurpation on the part of the people ; it is in the rational order, and therefore in the divine order, and no record of anointed kings who have ruled with a high hand can bring its rightfulness into dispute. Sim- ilarly, for aught that anyone is authorized to assert, growth in religious intelligence and in ability of self- direction may legitimate changes in ecclesiastical admin- istration, more or less comprehensive movements from a hierarchical type toward a republican or democratic type. The assumption that, because Christ gave special responsibilities to a select group of disciples, therefore all legitimate ecclesiastical authority must be in a straight line of succession from them, and no change is warrant- able except by the initiative of the upper rank of a hier- archy, is a thoroughly disputable assumption. The choice of the specially trained group was a practical ex- pedient for securing the establishment of Christianity in the world. No one is qualified to say that it supplies the authoritative norm for the perpetual government of the Church. As peoples, in the order of divine providence, reach a stage of self governing capacity, so it might be ESTIMATE 407 that the general body of Christian citizens should come to a point of competency to shape ecclesiastical govern- ment, and be guilty of no disloyalty to Christ in so doing. The Anglo-Catholic inference as to Christ's intention overreaches probabilities as well as certainties. In the second place, the propriety of insistence on apostolic succession may be challenged on the score of the absence of satisfactory proof that any such thing has been maintained in the Church of England or anywhere else. Archbishop Whately was not speaking rashly when he said: "There is not a minister in all Christen- dom who is able to trace up with any approach to cer- tainty his own spiritual pedigree." 1 The ability to give merely a presumably unbroken catalogue of names in an episcopal succession, it should be observed, is by no means the whole demand. Some scheme of means must be supposed necessary for the transmission of the apos- tolic gift from one episcopal incumbent to another, and it must be certified that this scheme of means, in every requisite item, has been used in every one of the whole series of ordinations from the apostles down. "Now the evidence," as Frederic Myers argues, "which is necessary to the establishing of this is of too complex and subtle a character to be conveyed through the ordinary channels of human testimony." 2 That the scheme of means, requi- site for maintaining the succession, has not been duly observed in the Anglican Establishment has been solemnly declared by Roman Catholic authority. The grounds of this adverse decision, we have admitted, are not very substantial. But doubt as to the conclusiveness 1 The Kingdom of Christ, Essay ii. 30. * Catholic Thoughts on the Church of Christ and the Church of England, pp. 102, 103. 4 o8 THE ANGLICAN TYPE of particular papal criticisms affords no justification for a positive acceptance of the integrity of the Anglican succession. Where a great part of the pertinent data is beyond the range of possible inspection who can tell what is the fact? It would appear, too, that Anglo-Catholics themselves have not all been able to rest in a comfortable certitude. If they were possessed of the full assurance of faith why should hundreds of them submit to be reor- dained? They are provided, to be sure, with the plea that their submission to reordination is an act of accom- modation to Roman prejudice, and is designed to work toward corporate reunion. But it is hardly credible that, if they were disturbed by no doubts, they would be will- ing to go through a performance which amounts to flagrant contempt of the standing of their ecclesiastical superiors in the Church of England. They ought cer- tainly to give a better demonstration of their faith in the Anglican succession before asking anyone outside of their ranks to accept it as one of the historic certitudes. Inability to give satisfactory proof of the fact of an unbroken succession evidently goes far toward disprov- ing its necessity. Who can suppose that a God of wisdom and benevolence would consent to make the continued existence of the Church dependent upon a condition of such a character that nobody can tell whether it has been observed or not ? Connection with historical antecedents is indeed no matter of indifference. But the connection which has real worth is not a disputable physical one, but one rather which is effected through a spirit of love and loyalty to all that is good and imitable in the belief and practices of those who have preceded. Another objection to the Anglo-Catholic thesis on ESTIMATE 409 apostolical succession lies in the lack of New Testament evidence for any such thing. Of episcopacy proper, or the rule of an ecclesiastic of a superior order over a com- pany of clergy belonging to a lower order, the New Testament does not so much as indicate the existence; and, of course, therefore, it gives no hint of a binding obligation to perpetuate an episcopacy of that kind as being indispensable to a true Church. The later books agree with the earliest in the lack of mention of anything having the semblance of diocesan episcopacy. All the bishops who come to mention seem to stand in the same plane with presbyters. In the Acts Paul, or his narrator, calls the same officials presbyters in one instance, and in another, bishops. 1 In his Epistle to Titus the apostle directs his lieutenant to ordain presbyters, and then goes on to mention the characteristics which ought to distin- guish bishops, just as if the two names denoted for him one and the same party. Both in Ephesians and First Timothy he passes directly from the mention of bishops to that of deacons, leaving presbyters entirely out of account, whereas the connection strongly demands a ref- erence to them unless it is understood that they come to recognition in the naming of bishops. The usage re- vealed in the Petrine Epistles in no wise contradicts the Pauline. The elder apostle is represented as addressing the presbyters in a way agreeable to the supposition that they stand at the summit of local church authority. The Johannine literature fails equally to disclose a distinct episcopal rank. In the Apocalypse, it is true, we have a mention of the angels of the seven churches of procon- sular Asia, and High-Church imagination is very ready Chap. xx. 17, 28. 4 io THE ANGLICAN TYPE to discern in them the forms of the bishops for which it makes eager quest. But a due consideration of the imagery of this symbolical book will lead us to see in the angels of these churches merely ideal representatives of the churches themselves, 1 who are made recipients of the messages for the several groups of Christians simply in accommodation to the demands of picturesque dis- course. This interpretation is clearly favored by the fact that in every instance the message has not the slightest reference to the standing or history of an individual of- ficial, but is wholly occupied with portraying the condi- tion and needs of a Christian community. So the bishop of the type demanded, the one suitable to stand at the head of the succession, is not disclosed here. No more does he appear in any other New Testament quarter. Timothy and Titus, as special ambassadors, or ministers extraordinary, of the apostle, do not answer to his de- scription ; and the James who figured in the church at Jerusalem, as owing his ascendency to his personal rela- tions, character, and essentially apostolic rank, can be associated with the typical bishop only on the basis of an arbitrary selection for that purpose. The probable inference from this line of New Testa- ment data is that the apostles had no direct connection with the origination of episcopacy of the type contem- plated by the Anglo-Catholic theory. In controverting that theory, however, it is not necessary to insist upon that much. It is enough to know that in no recorded apostolic word is episcopacy, in the given sense, declared obligatory, and that the attempt to make it a necessary 1 "The angels of the seven churches seem to be ideal personifications of the temper or genius of the churches" (Charles Gore, The Church and the Ministry, 1900, p. 233). ESTIMATE 411 condition of the existence of a true Church must be based upon something else than any ascertained message of the apostles. Quite possibly for minds not over particular a supposed message may answer. The appreciative atti- tude of the fathers toward episcopacy may be construed as a proof that the institution was grounded in apostolic authority. But the fathers, as was noticed above, had a practical motive, in contending against the forces making for schism and disruption, to exalt the episcopal dignity. They are witnesses to us as to the actual role fulfilled by episcopacy in their respective generations. That they were exempt from the liability to judge of earlier times too much by the conditions of their own, or had the neces- sary information to judge correctly of the conditions under which the episcopal system originated, we are by no means assured. Nothing like a demonstration that episcopacy came by apostolic mandate can be derived from the fathers. With Professor Jowett, there is good reason to say: "We cannot err in supposing that those who could add nothing to what is recorded in the New Testament of the life of Christ and his apostles had no real knowledge of lesser matters, as, for example, the origin of episcopacy." 1 This was said more specifically of the fathers of the third and fourth centuries, but will apply to those of the preceding century who have given any intimation of their conviction as to the rise of an episcopal constitution. It is noticeable that the same Irenaeus who was inclined to speak of a succession of bishops from the apostles speaks also of presbyters as receiving the "succession from the apostles." 2 The 1 The Epistles of Saint Paul, 1894, I. 375. * Cont. Haer., iii. 2. 2; iv. 26. 2. 412 THE ANGLICAN TYPE double form of statement indicates the indefiniteness of the tradition in the time of this father. Good Anglican scholarship has given a verdict in line with the foregoing conclusions. As judicial and compe- tent an investigator as Lightfoot has remarked: "It is clear that at the close of the apostolic age the two lower orders of the threefold ministry were firmly and widely established ; but traces of the third and highest order, the episcopal, properly so called, are few and indistinct. For the opinion hazarded by Theodoret, and adopted by many later writers, that the same officers in the Church who were first called apostles, came afterward to be desig- nated as bishops is baseless." Again, in terms not at all suggestive of a conviction that any legislative action was taken by the apostles in the matter of episcopacy, he has declared of the evidences: "They show that the episco- pate was created out of the presbytery. They show that the creation was not so much an isolated act as a progres- sive development, not advancing everywhere at a uniform rate, but exhibiting at one and the same time different stages of growth in different churches." 1 A like view has been asserted by Dean Stanley as follows: "It is certain that throughout the first century, and for the first years of the second, that is, through the latest chapters of the Acts, the apostolical epistles, and the writings of Clement and Hermas, bishop and presbyter were con- vertible terms, and that the body of men so called were the rulers so far as any permanent rulers existed of the early Church. It is certain that, as the necessities of 1 First dissertation on Paul's Epistle to the Philippians. It is noticeable that, while R. C. Moberly thinks it necessary to reject the supposition of a proper development of the episcopate from the presbyterate, he comes very near to Lightfoot in his conception of the facts illustrative of New Testament polity (Ministerial Priesthood, chaps, v, vi). ESTIMATE 4U the time demanded, first at Jerusalem, then in Asia Minor, the elevation of one presbyter above the rest by the almost universal law which 'even in republics engen- ders a monarchical element, the word bishop gradually changed its meaning, and by the middle of the second century became restricted to the chief presbyter of the locality." 1 A theory, it is to be admitted, which stands measurably in contrast with that of Lightfoot and Stanley, has gained considerable currency, the theory, namely, of Harnack and others that the primitive bishop, as being in particular the almoner of the congregation and the superintendent of its worship, was from the first distinguished in a measure from the simple presbyter. But even if this view should be given the preference and we are not convinced that it deserves that much no good historical basis for the Anglo-Catholic contention for a necessary episcopal constitution has been provided. Almoners and superintendents of worship, commonly subsisting in the plural in connection with each local church, cannot well be counted identical in office with the representatives of the supreme third order, the diocesan lords who came ultimately upon the stage. An apostolic approval of the one would not involve an apostolic sanction, and much less a perpetually binding apostolic injunction, of the other. A further objection to the Anglo-Catholic theory lies in the failure of the communions which are credited with the apostolical succession to demonstrate that they are the recipients of a measure of grace quite impossible to those who are not in connection with that select channel. 1 Christian Institutions, 1881, p. 187. 4 i4 THE ANGLICAN TYPE It is not in the best taste, perhaps, for either side to initiate comparisons. But as opposed to Anglo-Catholics, who condemn all outside the lines of episcopal succession, if not to the outer darkness, at least to the dimly lighted region of the uncovenanted mercies of God, it is legiti- mate for the outsiders to ask for the proofs that An- glicans, as such, are furnished with peculiar grace. In response to the ultra High-Church assumption it is quite in order to say, as Dr. Forsyth said at the Oxford Con- ference on Priesthood and Sacrifice: "I would ask whether the continual and fertile presence of the Holy Ghost in the long history of the non-episcopal Churches is not a surer fact than any exclusive commission from Christ to a ministry of a particular kind." 1 A legitimate criticism may also be based upon the fact that in upholding their doctrine of apostolical succession Anglo-Catholics have felt constrained to advocate the reservoir theory of grace. But this theory has been utilized by them in connection with the general theme of sacramental efficacy, and therefore may properly be ex- amined in relation to the topic immediately to receive our attention. III. In consideration of the resemblance which the Anglo-Catholic teaching on the sacraments bears to the Roman Catholic, and of the space which has been given to the criticism of the latter, it will not be appropriate to enlarge very much upon this part of our theme. Since, however, in the Anglo-Catholic system the doctrine of the sacraments is a controlling feature, it will be advis- able, even at the expense of some slight repetition, to 1 Report edited by Sanday, 1899, p. 163. ESTIMATE 415 take at least a swift glance at the points in the doctrine which invite to a challenge. It is a ground of objection, in the first place, against the Anglo-Catholic teaching, that in its enormous empha- sis upon the sacraments it utterly fails to observe the perspective which a just dealing with the New Testa- ment requires. Most of the New Testament books con- tain not one solitary sentence on the effect of sacramental performances, and not one of them makes of this matter a principal theme. When, therefore, we find the Oxford school condemning faith, prayer, and active spiritual con- templation to a secondary place, describing the sacra- ments as the principal channels through which flows the grace made available by the incarnation, and asserting that these rites effect the continuation of Christ's presence upon earth, we wonder how they can imagine that they learned these things from Christ and the apostles. Christ spoke of worshiping the Father in spirit and in truth, with comparative independence from all material accessories, and pictured the Father as more willing to give the Holy Spirit than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children. The apostles thought of true believers as being so illuminated and enlivened by the Spirit of God, continually resident in them, as to be habitually filled with a joyful sense of sonship. They thought, furthermore, of Christ as dwelling in their hearts in response to their faith, and as being in them a source of crucifixion to the world, a spring of righteous- ness, the power of an endless life. No deistic scheme of a necessary mediation through creaturely instrumentali- ties dominated their minds. The apostles, like their Master, were possessed with a consciousness of the im- 4i6 THE ANGLICAN TYPE mediacy of the divine. In their view there was no de- mand to bring up Christ from beneath or down from above. They knew him as the light and life of men, as always with them, as the principle of that spiritual energy in them which enabled them to triumph over all obstacles and adversaries. To suppose that men with that order of spiritual sense thought of the grace of the new dispen- sation as cornered and inclosed and principally shut up in certain physical media or transactions is to suppose the incredible. No doubt they made a few statements which can be understood as paying high tribute to the fruit of sacramental rites. But when we consider the informing tone of their teaching there is good reason to take these statements, as we do various other sayings of theirs, as spoken according to an ideal point of view. There was no intention on their part to lend countenance to the notion that sacraments have any efficacy as applied to merely passive subjects, or to indifferent subjects, but only to recognize the truth that where the subject brings to the solemn rite the suitable disposition there is, in some sense, a concurrence of symbol and reality. They could not in consistency admit that the reality was tied to the outward symbol or rite; that would contradict their per- vasive representation as to the immediacy of divine bene- fits for true Christian faith. In consideration, however, of what the rite signified both to the brotherhood and to the individual they could regard it as an eminent occasion of grace to the rightly disposed person. Especially was it open to them to do this in connection with baptism, since under primitive conditions this rite was naturally regarded as a completing act in the appropriation of Christianity, and therefore could be included among ESTIMATE 417 things instrumental to the gracious results of that appro- priation, though it was not the most fundamental factor therein, as must have been plainly suggested in cases where the Holy Spirit was manifestly operative prior to its administration. 1 In short, the Anglo-Catholic expo- sition of the sacraments turns what is accessory and sub- ordinate in the total view of the New Testament into a matter of principal account. We might well charge upon it the fault which a writer, who had the honorable distinction to earn the special dislike of the Tractarians, charged against the sacramental teaching of mediaeval scholasticism in the following apt terms : "The simplicity of Scripture truth has been altogether abandoned, in the endeavor to raise up, on the solemn ordinances approved by our Lord, for the edification, and charity, and comfort of the Church, an elaborate artificial system of mystical theurgy." 2 This brings us to a second general objection to the Anglo-Catholic doctrine relative to the sacraments. We refer to that ingredient in this doctrine which may con- veniently be described as the reservoir theory of grace. The assumption is that the Holy Spirit, as an available source of replenishment to believers, is resident in the glorified humanity of Christ, and is mediated thence through the sacraments, which are styled by one writer the veins and arteries of the Church, and very commonly are characterized as the preeminent channels for the transmission of saving benefits. Now, the appropriate remark on this theory is that it is crude, fantastic, and unwarranted in every item. The Holy Spirit is not a 1 Acts x. 44-48. - Hampden. The Scholastic Philosophy Considered in Relation to Chris- tian Theology, p. 341. 4 i8 THE ANGLICAN TYPE subject either ontologically or ethically for reservoir treatment. He is not a static entity ready for movement and capable of movement only in response to propulsion through certain specified ecclesiastical channels. He is a living omnipresent agent, most intimately united with and operative in all finite being. As the Spirit of holiness and love he is under stress to work illumination and sanc- tification wherever thought, hope, desire, aspiration, and faith, in the minds and hearts of rational beings, are turned, or can be turned, toward the better ideals. New Testament universality and spirituality rebel against this narrow and materialistic reservoir conception. It pre- sumes upon an arbitrary and artificial localization of the divine, the very thing which most of all invites to reproba- tion in pagan systems. As symbolical rites, setting before the contemplation the hallowed truths of a holy faith, and serving an important end of the social element in religion, the sacraments are beautiful, seemly, and useful. Taken artificially as necessary means of connection with a reservoir of essentially static grace, they are a clumsy invention, quite unsuited to any recognition in a rational and spiritual creed. In a few notes on individual sacraments sufficient re- spect will be paid to the teaching of Anglo-Catholics re- garding baptism by recalling a tendency of that teaching to which attention has already been directed. By logical compulsion it works toward a cold and hesitating, not to say a despairing, view of the fate of the unbaptized, and especially of those among the unbaptized who can offer no compensation for their lack of the sacrament. If the rite is so tremendously important, so fundamental in the divine economy for bringing human beings from ESTIMATE 419 the estate of wrath and corrupted nature into that of filial acceptance and gracious renewal, what basis of secure hope is there for infants who die unbaptized? Anglo-Catholic dogmatists, in truth, are debarred from giving expression to a secure hope. Very rarely, it may be, have they put on the iron fetters with which Rome binds her children to the abhorrent doctrine of the dam- nation of hapless innocents. But it is a potent comment on the vicious and vitiating implications of their creed that they do not repudiate this dogma with the resolute- ness and indignation which it so richly deserves. The doctrine of the eucharist advocated by Pusey, and so largely maintained by Anglo-Catholics as to be en- titled, though not held by all, to be regarded as the stand- ard doctrine among them, is exposed to a great part of the objections, scriptural and rational, which hold against the Roman Catholic dogma. It burdens the Christian system with a perfectly gratuitous mystery, gratuitous both in the sense of not being required by any known data, and not serving any intelligible purpose. No scrip- tural language makes any apparent demand for it, except the form of words employed in the mystical parable recorded in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel; and this last negatives the demand not only by features and ele- ments of the parable, but by the categorical declaration, which is appended, that "the flesh profiteth nothing." 1 What more comprehensive and decisive formula could have been used for the purpose of repudiating the notion that spiritual sustenance can possibly come from the eating of corporeal substance. It is urged, to be sure, that Christ repelled the notion of eating his literal flesh, * See part i, chap. Hi, sect, iii 420 THE ANGLICAN TYPE but not that of eating his glorified and heavenly body. This, however, is a controversial makeshift that is in no wise concordant with the text. What Christ puts in antithesis to the "flesh" is not a body of any kind or in any state, but quickening, inspiring, life-giving truth. "The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." It contradicts, therefore, the expressed out- come of the discourse to find therein any warrant for the supposition of a real eating of the body of Christ. This concluding statement also favors the doubt, which on other grounds it is legitimate to entertain, respecting the possibility of any good purpose being served by such eating. What is there in a body of any kind, gross or etheric, terrestrial or celestial, that can minister suste- nance to the ethico-religious nature of spirit? When it comes to efficient working upon a subject of that kind, who can think of anything which can possibly enter into competition with the absolute source of life, the creative and sustaining Spirit of God? Thus in a double sense it is a gratuitous mystery which is loaded upon the minds of Christians in the assumption of a real eating of the body of Christ in the eucharist. And the mystery, too, is replete with bewildering enigmas. While one element of difficulty included in the Roman Catholic theory of the real presence, namely, the arbitrary severance of sub- stance and accidents, is not involved in the usual form of the Anglo-Catholic doctrine, all the other elements of difficulty are common to the two. The latter no less than the former involves an utter contradiction of all the known capabilities of bodies as respects occupancy of space, multipresence, and movement. Accordingly, the one as well as the other gets into straits which make ESTIMATE 421 virtual self-cancellation unavoidable. It asserts a real eating of the body of Christ ; but in order to provide for the presence of the body here and there and yonder, and within all sorts of spatial limits down to the most in- finitesimal, it is under compulsion to assert that the body is present in the mode of spirit. Now, authentic informa- tion is wanting as to the possibility of body and spirit exchanging modes. But even if this ground of challenge could be evaded, the question still remains as to what is meant by the eating of a body which is present in the mode of spirit, and which cannot be granted to be any the less truly outside because it is presumed at any moment to be inside. "Real" would seem to be about the last epithet that could deserve to be applied to an eating of that sort. In so far as the Anglo-Catholic school give a truly optional character to sacramental confession and absolu- tion, their position on this theme is differenced from that of Roman Catholics by a point of very considerable moment. It lies, however, in the very logic of their estimate of the worth of these transactions that they should be beset with a tendency to lift them out of the category of optional matters. Granting, then, whatever the facts of history may require in relation to this aspect of the subject, we have to say that the prerogative ac- corded by representative Anglo-Catholic writers to the priest relative to the pardon of confessing penitents is in desperate need of rational justification. We have not discovered that these writers have met such objections as were urged, in the criticism of the Roman sacrament of penance, 1 against a substantially identical prerogative. 1 Part i, chap, iii, sect. iv. 422 THE ANGLICAN TYPE Neither has it been made apparent that they are able to afford suitable guarantees that desirable practical conse- quences will flow from the introduction of the confes- sional into the Church of England and the allied com- munions. Some judgments on this point from high official sources have already been given. We make room for two or three more in this connection. "The system of obligatory confession/' said Bishop Wilberforce, "is one of the worst developments of Popery. As regards the penitent, it is a system of unnatural excitement, a sort of spiritual dram-drinking fraught with evil to the whole spiritual constitution. It is nothing short of the renunciation of the great charge of conscience which God has connected with every man the substitution of con- fession to man for the opening of the heart to God the adopting in every case of a remedy only adapted to ex- treme cases which can find relief in no other way." 1 "Let all be said that can be said," wrote Bishop Ellicott, "and this terrible spiritual fact remains that the danger of the confessor taking the place of Christ is found to be in practice irremovable. The evidence that can be col- lected on this subject is simply overwhelming. Poor human love of power and poor human trusting in some- thing other than Christ, both terribly cooperating, bear their daily witness to this appalling form of spiritual peril." 2 From the bishop of Gibraltar came this assur- ance: "Englishmen are a reserved, proud, independent, self-reliant, and manly people, and to these qualities we owe our national greatness. They will never again sub- mit to a system which requires themselves, their wives, 1 Cited by Clarke, The Confessional in the Church of England, p. 73. * Some Present Dangers of the Church of England, p. 55. ESTIMATE 423 and daughters to tell into the ears of man their most secret sins, and the most sacred confidences of their per- sonal and their domestic lives. They will never again bow their necks beneath a yoke which their forefathers found to be intolerable." 1 The episcopal verdicts do not seem to us to be over- drawn. It is justly chargeable against the confessional that it fosters a mechanical dealing with sin, tends to make the moral record a matter of an earthly courtroom, and generates inevitably a miseducating mixture of legal- ism and laxity. But the objection to the confessional which overshadows all others in our contemplation is the element of mockery which it sanctions, the travesty of truth and sanity which it perpetrates in assuming to clothe an ignorant and fallible mortal with the preroga- tives which in the nature of the case belong to a holy and omniscient God. 2 IV. In criticising the attitude of Anglo-Catholics toward Protestantism and Romanism respectively ac- count needs to be made of some diversities in their posi- tion. It is keeping quite within the limits, however, to say that the party, viewed in its aggregate record, has shown a marked tendency to slur Protestantism and to treat Romanism as worthy of praise and imitation. Now, of course, it has not been incumbent on Anglo- Catholics to idealize the Reformers, or their work, or the results of their work. No Protestant apologist has occasion to attempt that much. It is enough for him to show that the Reformation, by striking off the fetters of a pretentious infallibility which bound the Christian 1 Clarke, p. 67 "See pages 266-268. 424 THE ANGLICAN TYPE religion to the imperfect and corrupted form of the mid- dle ages, provided for that religion thoroughly indispen- sable opportunities for the progressive realization of its true character and purpose in the world. Grant that some mistakes were made and that some aberrations got started ; under the system of freedom which the Reforma- tion inaugurated, or which at least was so plainly the logical implication of its principles that it must result sooner or later, there was a possibility of rectification; whereas under the scheme of an imperious hierarchy, claiming infallibly to represent God in the world, and commanding, under the heaviest pains imaginable, the service of a temporal sword, chance either to retreat or to advance to a normal interpretation and practice of Christianity was absolutely debarred. To break through the gigantic barriers the tremendous crisis was requisite ; for a self-deified hierarchy was never known to give way except under compulsion. This was the immortal merit of the Reformation, this breaking through of barriers and purchase of opportunities. It argues, therefore, a peculiar eclipse of historical vision when those who are in the line of succession from the martyrs and heroes of the sixteenth century, and who owe a great part of their goodly inheritance to the work achieved in Europe by these stalwart spirits, think it behooves them to refer to the Reformation in terms of disparagement or even of contempt and denunciation. The unfairness with which the more intemperate Anglo-Catholics treat the claims of Protestantism is illustrated in the sweeping assertion of its responsibility for all unbelief, heresy, and extravagant freethinking of the modern era. It seems to have passed out of their ESTIMATE 425 recollection that the circle of culture in the neighborhood of the papal throne, the Italian Humanism, was honey- combed with skepticism on the eve of the Reformation. Equally is it hidden from their contemplation that the France which had been made unitedly Catholic by the extirpation and banishment of the Huguenots grew speedily that harvest of fierce and unsparing infidelity which was one of the chief aspects of terror in the French Revolution. No more does their outlook take in the wide domain which at this day reaction from priestly rule and ambition devotes to indifference and skepticism in lead- ing Roman Catholic countries. When their vision clears they will see, not only that Protestantism is not responsi- ble for all modern outbreaks of the spirit of infidelity, but also that it is a great bulwark against anarchistic violence in theory and practice, a means of security from which the sacerdotal Churches profit immensely. Throw down this bulwark and the floods will smite against those Churches as they do not and cannot under existing conditions. For the attitude of the greater Protestant communions toward them is moderation and friendship itself compared with the attitude that would be taken by the great and growing multitudes which, but for these communions, would be unloosed from ecclesiastical bonds and religious restraints alike, and left free to mass their antipathies against sacerdotal institutions. A second illustration of a capital unfairness might be drawn from the style in which Anglo-Catholics have sometimes commented on the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith. Exception may doubtless be taken to one or another representation in which this or that advocate of the doctrine has indulged. Luther's rhetoric- 426 THE ANGLICAN TYPE al extravagance naturally betrayed him into the utterance of sentences which, taken in an isolated fashion, place him in a bad light. His meaning, however, in case one has the candor to attempt to understand him, will general- ly be found within the pale of tolerance. It is noticeable that Newman confessed to a strain of fellow-feeling with him in connection with the notorious pccca fortiter propo- sition, one of the most obnoxious statements, in its verbal sound, that the fiery Wittenberger ever uttered. Re- ferring to the casuistical shift by which the Roman expert has sought, under the name of allowable amphibology or equivocation, to secure for lying the credit of truth- telling, he remarked : "I can fancy myself thinking it was allowable in extreme cases for me to lie, but never to equivocate. Luther said, Pecca fortiter. I anathematize his formal sentiment, but there is truth in it when spoken of material acts." 1 Had the Reformer toned down his overrobust way of putting things, he would have afforded less of a handle to his enemies. But he was not far from the heart of the gospel in the essential tenor of his teaching on justification and good works. To works done in conformity to gospel precepts he had no intention to attach a slighting estimate. Witness his emphatic words: "Apart from the cause of justification, no one can commend good works prescribed by God in a sufficiently lofty strain. Who indeed can proclaim sufficiently the utility and fruit of one work which a Christian does from faith and in faith ? It is more precious than heaven and earth." 2 What Luther reprobated was the foolishness of the person who, in his sore need of 1 Apologia, Appendix G, p. 360. * Comm. in Epist. ad Galat., cap. iii. ESTIMATE 427 justification, brings his performances into the presence of God and rests upon them as a means of purchasing the divine favor. In such relation, he taught, the only fitting thing to do is to cast oneself upon the grace of God in Christ, get the paternal response in the heart, and then work under the impulsion of gratitude and love. Viewed as to its essential import, stress upon justification by faith, as imposed by Luther and by Protestantism generally, was only another name for emphasis upon the great cardinal truth that Christianity is the religion of sonship, the religion in which the inner disposition, the spirit of filial confidence and love, has the primacy, not as being antithetic to outward performances, but as being the logical antecedent and the efficient spring of per- formances characterized by true worth. This truth is the real core of the doctrine of justification by faith. Had Anglo-Catholics looked into the subject more sympathet- ically and deeply they could never have felt at liberty to pass such judgments as at least individuals among them have expressed. As respects the Romeward leanings of Anglo-Catho- lics, we pass by the basis of comment afforded by their appropriation of various phases of Roman belief and practice which have no foundation in the New Testament, and simply remark upon an incongruity which is charge- able upon a great proportion of them. The incongruity is of the most glaring description. Who, in fact, can imagine anything more ridiculously incongruous than an attitude of semi-obeisance to Rome on the part of those who do not give in to the claims of Rome by an act of surrender to her authority? Those claims are of tremendous consequence. No one who accepts what they 438 THE ANGLICAN TYPE assert can use his Bible at first hand. He must see it in the light of the interpretation which the Roman pontiff places upon it. In all questions of faith and morals he must count his power of rational induction as naught over against pontifical decisions. Even in matters of less consequence he is under bonds to yield obedience, ever keeping in mind the ex cathedra declaration, that to be subject to the Roman pontiff is altogether necessary to salvation. Now, these claims, which make the very corner stone of the Roman system, are either true or false. If they are false they are a stupendous falsehood, and so vitiate the system to which they are fundamental as to necessitate a decided recoil against it in any healthy mind that is convinced of their falsity. On the other hand, if they are true they are a truth of tremendous con- sequence. True or false they must be; for infallibility and indivisible sovereignty are not subject to any process of reduction or compromise. Let, then, the Anglo- Catholic pay a decent respect to the demands of con- gruity, and learn practically to treat the most exacting claims ever made for an earthly official as either true or false. In its Romeward relation the Anglo-Catholic move- ment scarcely falls short of being a reductio ad absurdum. At one end it is precisely that. It does not follow, how- ever, on this account that the movement will be con- demned to a speedy collapse. Sacerdotal assumption, when once it gets thoroughly ingrained into a company of men, is one of the most desperately tenacious things known to human society. Among those who have re- ceived it by inheritance and training only the larger and more generous spirits can be expected ever to cast off its ESTIMATE 429 dominion. To the whole mass of mediocre clerics, in whose minds it has found lodgment, it must so commend itself as the indispensable basis of their own importance that it would require almost a miracle of grace for them to escape the persuasion that it is ordained of God and necessary for the Church. To surrender their sacerdotal badge must seem to them a woeful sacrifice, since in that event they would become as other men and even as these poor Protestant pastors. If, then, the Anglo-Catholic movement is to be brought to a halt and turned back, it will be through the operation of exceedingly potent forces. Let it be hoped that historical and philosophical studies will exercise a leavening influence, that men of the larger mold will come to the front, that tendencies to an ultra sacramentalism and ecclesiasticism will be toned down, and that, accordingly, the successors of the Anglo-Catho- lics of the past generations will combine with others to realize the splendid possibilities of the Church of Eng- land. Surely a vastly better fate is to be coveted for this historic Church than to be made an auxiliary to that over- grown system of sacerdotalism which, having passed the limits of sanity in its pretensions, necessarily places the sacred interests of freedom and rational religion under compulsion to enter into conflict with itself. CHAPTER III LESS IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS OF SACER- DOTALISM I. THE STANDPOINT OF THE MORE RADICAL NEO- LUTHERANS THE reference here is to the party which represented what might be called High-Church Lutheranism in the period of reaction which followed the revolutionary move- ments of 1848. In this party as a whole churchly feeling was at a high level. Though differing from Tractarianism in its attitude toward the theory of apostolical succession and the notion of state control, it was largely imbued with the maxims which were characteristic of the Oxford movement. Such pronounced and energetic representa- tives as Kliefoth and Vilmar were scarcely outdone by the most stalwart of the Tractarians in their emphasis upon the Church as a visible institution and channel of divine grace. Speaking of the line of thought advocated by the former in his work on the Church, 1 an historical critic remarks : "There is so little question in the whole of this system of the personal relationship of the soul with Christ, that at moments it seems as if, in order to be saved, it suffices to be put into contact with the establish- ment in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and in which the Spirit acts by means of the sacraments." 2 As is implied in the citation, extraordinary value is attached by Klie- 1 Acht Bucher von der Kirche, 1854. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 1889, p. 438. 430 NEO-LUTHERAN THEORIES 431 foth to the sacraments, as being objective instrumen- talities for the impartation of divine benefits, instrumen- talities relatively unhampered by subjective conditions. "The sacrament," he says, "has always been the refuge and the rock of the true and divine objectivity of the Church." 1 The like sentiment is expressed by Vilmar. "The sacrament," he remarks, "is much more exclusively than the word God's own deed. Furthermore, the word works through the Spirit from above upon man; the sacrament, on the other hand, is a corporal act of God upon man, and works from below though the corporeity upon the entire personality of man for the redemption of spirit and body." 2 It was quite in accord with the primacy given by these men to objective ecclesiastical agencies that they should set a high value upon the practice of individual confes- sion and absolution. This was notably the case with Kliefoth. He deplored the well-nigh total disappearance, among Lutherans, of the practice in question, and the substitution of the comparatively unmeaning performance of a public general confession and absolution. While he was so far true to the Lutheran tradition as not to advocate a compulsory private confession, or to insist upon a detailed enumeration of sins by the penitent, he did urge the desirability of a general custom of private confession. Moreover, he accredited to the absolution of the minister a very positive virtue. He denied, it is true, that the minister acts as judge in the confessional, and claimed that he serves merely as an instrument in passing over to the penitent the divine sentence of pardon. 1 Cited by Pfleiderer, Die Entwickelung der Protestantischen Theologie in Deutschland seit Kant, 1891, pp. 170-172. 2 Pfleiderer, pp. 173, 174. 432 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES But at the same time he contended that the absolving sentence is not, as Peter Lombard rated it, merely declar- atory ; on the contrary, it is effective, a means of actually imparting a divine benefit. 1 Accordingly, in spite of his qualifying clauses, he appropriated a central factor of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the sacrament of penance, and wrought for the installation of a sacer- dotal principle in the interpretation of ministerial func- tions. The high-church propagandism of Kliefoth, Vilmar, and other Neo-Lutherans seems not to have been very effectual. The permanent results were too inconsiderable to figure conspicuously in the records of nineteenth cen- tury sacerdotalism. In the United States a type of doctrine akin to that just described in its magnifying of the function of the Church and the sacraments, in its stress upon ministerial prerogatives, and in its valuation of the use of private confession and absolution, was represented by J. A. A. Grabau, the founder of one of the smaller Lutheran bodies, called the Buffalo Synod. 2 II. IRVINGITE THEORIES Following out the incentive which came to them from the conviction that the peculiar manifestations which at- tended the ministry of Edward Irving in the years im- mediately preceding his death, near the end of 1834, were nothing less than a renewal of the gift of tongues, 1 Liturgische Abhandlungen. Band II, Die Beichte und Absolution. 3 Neve, A Brief History of the Lutheran Church in America, 1904, pp. in, IRVINGITE THEORIES 433 the disciples of the eloquent preacher took up the scheme of reproducing the apostolic model so vividly called to mind by the supposed return of the primitive charism. They believed that model to be the obligatory pattern for church constitution and administration to the end of time. As appears in the manifesto which they addressed to the Christian world, they argued : "The Church is what it is by God's ordination and constitution for the accomplish- ment of a specific end and purpose, and is adapted in all the completeness of its parts to that end. If, therefore, God's purpose is to be accomplished, the Church cannot be different from, or other than, that which he constituted it; and if at any time it have deviated from its original constitution, if the instrumentality ordained of God be in any of its parts deficient, that deviation must be over- ruled and corrected and that which has become defective must be restored." 1 In the plan of the "Catholic Apos- tolic Church," as the Irvingites called their new organiza- tion, they attempted to fulfill the task of restoration. Within this plan great prominence was given to the four- fold ministry, which was conceived to be distinctly set forth in the New Testament and especially in the writings of Paul. "There were to be, first, apostles, who should regulate and order the affairs of the Church. They were to be directly appointed from above 'neither of man nor by man' and are supposed to have the power of ap- pointing all the other ministers in God's Church. Next come prophets, who are inspired directly from heaven, but are appointed and ordained by the apostles. In all ordinations the call is made by the prophet, the appoint- 1 The Great Testimony. This document is given as an appendix to Vol. I of Edward Miller's History and Doctrines of Irvingism, or the so- called Catholic Apostolic Church. 434 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES ment by imposition of hands is conferred by the apostle. Third in order are evangelists, whose duty is to bring the glad tidings of salvation to those who are outside of the Church. Lastly come pastors, who are employed in taking care of the souls of those who are in full com- munion with the body; so that when the evangelist has sufficiently instructed anyone who requires information, he hands his disciple over to the pastor for further atten- tion and care. The Lord Jesus Christ was declared to be the sole great apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor, who ruled his Church through the first order, enlightened it through the second, educated those who needed edu- cation by means of evangelists, and watched for their souls through his pastors." 1 Besides these four divisions of the ministry, distin- guished each by its special functions, the Irvingites made room for distinctions of "order" under the titles angels or bishops, priests, and deacons. The latter list was understood to specify ranks, not outside of the four divi- sions, but within any one of them, except the apostolate which represented at once the supreme order and the supreme division of the fourfold ministry. Thus from the Irvingite point of view it was quite appropriate to distinguish evangelists as angel-evangelists, priest-evan- gelists, and deacon-evangelists. In fact, these compound titles came into use. Great importance was attached in this ideal of church polity to the apostolate. It was regarded as a necessary basis of ecclesiastical unity throughout Christendom, a warrantable ground for an all-comprehending administra- tion, whereas the monarchical power asserted for the 1 Miller, History and Doctrines of Irvingism, I. 204, 205. IRVINGITE THEORIES 435 Roman bishop was of the nature of a usurpation. Further, it was given a large significance in connection with the millennarian theories, which were current among the Irvingites it being assumed that the apostles were the proper agents for sealing the hundred and forty-four thousand, and that in fulfilling this office they would pre- pare for the immediate advent of Christ. Above all, the apostolate was given a preeminence as an instrument or channel of divine grace. "While every ministry," we are told, "is a ministry of life, the apostolic ministry is a ministration of the Spirit of Life immediately from the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus becomes the source of strength of every other ministry. It is the ordinance for bestowing the Holy Ghost, whose gifts are to be exercised by all ministers, yea, by all the baptized." 1 In making room for ^prophets authorized to speak in the name of the Lord, as well as for apostles qualified to rule as agents of divine authority, Irvingism attempted a combination of prophetical and priestly theocracy. There was a chance under the conditions for a conflict of jurisdiction. In fact, something of the sort occurred, with the result that the subordination of the office of prophet to that of apostle was emphasized. In the ordering of ecclesiastical vestments and in the compiling of their liturgy the officials of the Catholic Apostolic Church were quite free to take suggestions from the older sacerdotal Churches. As respects sacra- mental teaching they adopted a platform closely re- sembling that of the Tractarians. It is possible that in this matter they were influenced by the Tracts for the Times and the related writings, since the development > The Great Testimony. 436 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES of their system was contemporary with the early stages of the Oxford movement. At any rate, the Irvingites came to advocate a rather emphatic type of sacramental- ism. They were not content to regard the sacraments merely as symbolical or commemorative rites, but main- tained that "they are present actings of Christ in the midst of his people, and so operate that which they ex- press." 1 Relative to baptism they affirmed, "God doth use the element of water, for the washing away of sins, and for saving us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the washing of regeneration." 2 In their interpreta- tion of the eucharist they gave expression to the doctrine of the real presence. It does not appear, however, that they distinguished closely between a virtual presence of Christ's body, or a presence by efficacy, and an actual local subsistence of that body within the area of the consecrated elements. In other words, they fell short of an unequivocal declaration of an objective presence in the Puseyite sense. 3 They seem also to have been outstripped by the Anglo-Catholics, at least by the more zealous of them, as respects ambition to introduce the confessional. Though they recognize private confession, it is not customarily practiced among them. The review indicates that in point of theory Irvingism represents a sufficiently pronounced sacerdotal system. Its exponents, however, have generally eschewed a bel- ligerent temper, and have not been conspicuous for a proselytizing ambition. In comparison with the exalted mission supposed to pertain to the Catholic Apostolic 1 The Great Testimony. Ibid. Compare Miller, History and Doctrines of Irvingism, II. 69, 70. MORMON THEORIES 437 Church their demeanor has been distinguished to a nota- ble extent by modesty. III. MORMON THEORIES Though built upon as transparent a fable as ever deceived an ignorant and uncritical people, or attracted a set of adventurers, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints yields the palm to no rival in respect of sacer- dotal assumption. It claims to have the one true priest- hood upon earth, so as not to be chargeable with violating truth and sobriety when it speaks of all outside com- munions, of whatever name or distinction, as "Gentiles" and "sectarians." This priesthood is armed in the full sense with theocratic sovereignty. Its primary head, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), repeatedly exercised the prerogative to publish revelations by divine authority. His successors in the Mormon presidency, whatever their discretion may have dictated about a formal use of direct revelations, have by no means renounced the right to lay a binding message from the Almighty upon men. A recent book, published under official sanction, thus defines the powers which obtain at the summit of the Mormon hierarchy : "The first presidency constitutes the presiding quorum of the Church. By divine direction a president is appointed from among the members of the high-priest- hood to preside over the entire Church. He is known as president of the high-priesthood of the Church, or presid- ing high priest over the high-priesthood of the Church. He is called to be a seer, a revelator, a translator, and a prophet, having all the gifts of God which he bestows upon the Church. His station is compared by the Lord 438 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES to that of Moses of old, who stood as the mouthpiece of God unto Israel." 1 Terms equally emphatic respecting the high powers of the president, or of the priesthood as a whole, abound in Mormon literature. In the authorita- tive book of Doctrine and Covenants we read: "The power and authority of the higher or Melchizedek priest- hood is to hold the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the Church to have the privilege of receiving the myster- ies of the kingdom of heaven to have the heavens opened unto them to commune with the general assembly and Church of the firstborn, and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant." 2 "The priesthood," wrote Parley P. Pratt, "including that of the Aaronic, holds the keys of the revelation of the oracles of God upon the earth; the power and the right to give laws and commandments to individuals, churches, rulers, nations, and the world; to appoint, ordain, and establish constitutions and king- doms; to appoint kings, presidents, governors, or judges, and to ordain and anoint them to their several holy call- ings, also to instruct, warn, and reprove them by the word of the Lord. It also holds the keys of the adminis- tration of ordinances for the remission of sins, and for the gift of the Holy Spirit ; to heal the sick, to cast out demons, or work miracles in the name of the Lord; in 1 J. E. Talmage. The Articles of Faith, 1899, p. 2rj. Respecting the higher or Melchizedek priesthood, Talmage says: "This priesthood holds the right of presidency in all the offices of the Church; its special functions lie in the administration of spiritual things. . . . The special offices of the Melchizedek priesthood are those of apostle, patriarch, or evangelist, high priest, seventy, and elder" (p. 209). Of the lower or Aaronic priesthood, the same writer says: "This priesthood holds the keys of the ministering angels, and the authority to attend to the outward ordinances, the letter of the gospel; it comprises the offices of deacon, teacher, and priest, with the bishopric holding the keys of presidency" (p. 208). 2 Doctrine and Covenants, cvii. 18, 19. MORMON THEORIES 439 fine, to bind or loose on earth and in heaven." 1 "The bishops," declared Heber C. Kimball, "are our fathers, our governors, and we are their household; they are potters to mold you, and when you are sent forth to the nations of the earth you go to gather the clay, and bring it here to the great potter, to be ground and molded until it becomes passive, and then to be taken and formed into vessels, according to the dictation of the presiding potter. I have to do the work he tells me to do, and you have to do the same ; and he has to do the work told him by the great master potter in heaven and on earth. If brother Brigham tells me to do a thing, it is the same as though the Lord told me to do it. This is the course for you and every other Saint to take." 2 The following words of Wilford Woodruff are quite in line: "Whatever I might have obtained in the shape of learning by searching and study respecting the arts and the sciences of men. whatever principles I may have imbibed during my scien- tific researches, yet if the prophet of God should tell me that a certain theory or principle which I might have learned was not true, I do not care what my ideas might have been, I should consider it my duty at the suggestion of my file leader to abandon that principle or theory. Supposing he were to say, the principles by which you are governed are not right that they were incorrect, what would be my duty? I answer that it would be my duty to lay those principles aside, and to take up those that might be laid down by the servants of God." 3 "Some people," remarked John Taylor, "ask, What is priest- hood? I answer, It is the legitimate rule of God, 1 Key to the Science of Theology, pp. 66, 67. 2 Journal of Discourses, vol. I, p. 161. 3 Journal of Discourses, V. 83. 440 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES whether in the heavens or on the earth ; and it is the only legitimate power that has a right to rule upon the earth ; and when the will of God is done on earth as it is in the heavens, no other power will bear rule." 1 "It is a dread- ful thing," exclaimed George Q. Cannon, "to fight against or in any manner oppose the priesthood" ; and a brother Mormon provided a sanction for the theocratic sentiment in this bit of theological disquisition : "Men who hold the priesthood possess divine authority thus to act for God ; and by possessing part of God's power they are in reality part of God." 2 Naturally a theocratic consciousness, like that which pervades the above utterances, when embodied in men of an assertatory temper came to some rather striking prac- tical expressions. Sufficient illustration is furnished in the record of Brigham Young. On one occasion, re- ferring to a dissenting party in the Mormon community, he blurted out : "I say, rather than that apostates should flourish here, I will unsheathe my bowie knife and con- quer or die. Now you nasty apostates clear out, or judg- ment will be put to the line and righteousness to the plummet." 3 "No man," he exclaimed on a second oc- casion, "need judge me. You know nothing about it, whether I am sent or not ; furthermore, it is none of your business, only to listen with open ears to what is taught you and to serve God with an undivided heart." 4 In an- other instance, alluding to the presence of a United States judge whom he and his following had treated with very scanty courtesy, he said : "Every man that comes to im- pose on this people, no matter by whom they are sent, 1 Journal of Discourses, V. 187. . Roberts quoted by J. D. Nutting, The True Mormon Doctrine. Journal of Discourses, I. 83. * Ibid., I. 341. MORMON THEORIES 441 or who they are that are sent, lay the ax at the root of the tree to kill themselves. I will do as I said I would last conference. Apostates, or men who never made any profession of religion, had better be careful how they come here, lest I should bend my little finger." 1 We have not yet taken the full measure of sacerdotal assumption in the Mormon system. According to that system the effective powers of priesthood not only extend by right over this world, but reach into the heavenly sphere, and serve to exalt one rank there to a genuine godhood as against the angelic or ministerial position which is accorded to the less favored. This comes about through the function of the priesthood which is indis- pensable in the solemnization of celestial marriages, or of marriages that hold good for eternity, and not merely for time. As Parley P. Pratt put the matter: "The union of the sexes, in the eternal world, in the holy covenant of celestial matrimony, is peculiar to the or- dinances and ministrations of the apostleship, or priest- hood after the order of the Son of God, or after the order of Melchizedek. . . . All persons who attain to the resur- rection, and to salvation, without these eternal ordinances, or sealing covenants, will remain in a single state, in their saved condition, to all eternity, without the joys of eternal union with the other sex, and consequently without a crown, without a kingdom, without the power to increase. Hence, they are angels, and are not gods; and are min- istering spirits, or servants, in the employ and under the direction of THE ROYAL FAMILY OF HEAVEN THE PRINCES, KINGS, AND PRIESTS OF ETERNITY." 2 Other 1 Journal of Discourses, I. 187. See Linn, The Story of the Mormons, pp. 461-464. 2 Key to the Science of Theology, pp. 172, 173. 442 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES priesthoods have claimed powers which have an im- portant bearing upon the fate of souls in the other world ; it is the peculiar distinction of the Mormon priesthood that it boasts of a prerogative to raise its special clients to the position of a divine and immortal aristocracy, to be served eternally by all the rest of the inhabitants of heaven. Still another extraordinary item in the sacerdotal as- sumptions of Mormonism merits notice. So privileged is the priesthood of the Latter-day Saints that it is com- petent squarely to contradict itself without apology or apparent abashment. This was strikingly illustrated in connection with the subject of polygamy. In the Book of Mormon the practice of plural marriage was denounced and forbidden in these vigorous and uncompromising terms: "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord, wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old. Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord ; for there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none; for I, the Lord God, delighteth in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts." 1 In giving forth the Book of Mormon as a divine revelation Joseph Smith subscribed, before the 1 Fifth European edit., Book of Jacob, chap, ii, 6. Compare Book of Ether, chap, iv, 5. MORMON THEORIES 443 world, to the conclusion that polygamy is prohibited by divine authority. Moreover, in revelations of which he assumed himself to be the direct recipient he used lan- guage which clearly implies the standpoint of monogamy. In February, 1831, he penned this deliverance: "Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else; and he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her shall deny the faith, and shall not have the spirit, and if he repents not he shall be cast out." 1 The following month, claiming to speak again by revelation, he said: "Marriage is ordained of God unto man ; wherefore it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." 2 But this same Joseph Smith twelve years later, at a time when it had become convenient to protect himself against his own record by turning God into the patron of his amours, categorically approved polygamy and celestial marriage in a revelation which his followers, after keeping it in the background for a period, gave forth in Utah in 1852 as his inspired production. 3 And this authoritative publication has been supplemented by priestly declarations of the most decisive and peremptory character. Said Brigham Young in one of his addresses : "If any of you will deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned ; and I will go further and say, take this revela- tion, or any other revelation that the Lord has given, and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned." 4 Others have spoken with scarcely less fervor and decision for the creed of polygamy. By a re- markably rapid development it became, along with the 1 Doctrine and Covenants, xlii. 22, 23. * Ibid., xlix. 15, 16. *Ibid., cxxxii. * Journal of Discourses, III. 266. 444 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES supplementary doctrine of celestial marriage, a corner stone of theoretical and practical Mormonism. The most pronounced phallic systems of the pagan world were left in the rear by the Mormon dogmatists, who went on to make the degree of procreation the degree of possible godhood, and to construe God and heaven as well as earthly dignity and weal by the extent and fruitfulness of sexual connections. 1 Such is the high privilege of the Mormon priesthood to trample under foot the demands of self-consistency. After founding its claim to divine authority on the Book of Mormon, it sanctions, exalts, and imposes, under threats of damnation against op- posers, that which the Book of Mormon sternly condemns and prohibits, that which furthermore Joseph Smith rep- robated in his earlier revelations. In respect of sacramental theory the standards of Mor- monism exhibit very few peculiarities. They may be regarded as reflecting on this theme the standpoint of Sidney Rigdon, who more than any other man was the lieutenant of Joseph Smith up to the era of polygamy. 2 and is believed by competent investigators to have had much more to do than his chief in shaping the oracles and the system of Mormonism. 3 The eucharist is de- scribed in these standards as though it were regarded simply as a commemorative rite. No proper sacrament of penance comes to view. The power of binding and loosing is indeed asserted in emphatic terms to pertain to the priesthood, but the reference seems to be to the ad- 1 For specimens see Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, III. 266; I. 50; Joseph Smith, in Doctrine and Covenants, cxxxii; Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology, pp. 161, 162, 171-173. * See the line of references to him in Doctrine and Covenants, sects, xxxv, xxxvi, xlii, Hi, Ixxi, Ixxvi, xc, c, cii, cxv, cxxiv. 1 See in particular Linn, The Story of the Mormons. MORMON THEORIES 445 ministration of government and discipline in general, and not to a giving or withholding of sacramental absolu- tion. It is to be observed also that the doctrine of a necessary blood atonement for the more heinous sins, in so far as it came to recognition, evidently implied limita- tions on the absolving power of the priesthood. 1 Among sacred ceremonies baptism has been accorded the maximum stress in Mormon teaching. Its treatment in standard writings corresponds in general to Sidney Rigdon's previous association with Alexander Campbell and the Disciples. But some advances were made. The qualifications which Campbell put upon the regenerative efficacy of baptism, and which he did not find it altogether easy to manage in connection with his general theory of the office of the rite, were left aside. In the Mormon expositions baptism is bluntly described as effecting re- mission of sins and as strictly necessary for the salvation of those who have reached the age of moral discernment. We read in the book of Doctrine and Covenants : "Verily I say unto you, they who believe not on your words and are not baptized in water in my name for the remission of sins, that they may receive the Holy Ghost, shall be damned." 2 "Baptism," says Jedidiah M. Grant, "is an institution of heaven sanctioned by the Father, revealed by the Son, taught by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost ; and is the method by which a man's sins can be remit- ted." 3 "The special purpose of baptism," writes Talmage, "is to afford admission to the Church of Christ with re- mission of sins." 4 The same writer declares : "Inasmuch as remission of sins constitutes a special purpose of bap- 1 For unequivocal expressions of the doctrine see Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, IV. 49, 51, 219, 220. 2 Ixxxiv. 74. 1 Journal of Discourses, II. 229. * Articles of Faith, p. 124. 446 LESS IMPORTANT TYPES tism, and as no soul can be saved in the kingdom of heaven with unforgiven sins, it is plain that baptism is essential to salvation." 1 In the Mormon catechism it is taught that "no person who has arrived at years of accountability, and has heard the gospel, can be saved without baptism." 2 So thoroughly is it the conviction of the Mormons that salvation for those who have per- sonally sinned is impossible apart from baptism that they have sanctioned baptism by proxy in behalf of the un- baptized dead. 3 The grounds of objection to Mormonism are so plainly revealed in its history, and stand out so distinctly in the character and contents of its special oracles, that it would be a work of supererogation to award them a formal state- ment. The sacerdotal system of Irvingism is also quite too destitute of any substantial grounds of acceptance to make it worth while to give any specific attention to its claims. There is the less need to do this in considera- tion of the fact that some of its prominent assumptions are exposed to criticisms which have been passed upon other systems. Page 130. 3 Cited by Nutting, The True Mormon Doctrine. * Doctrine and Covenants, cxxiv. 32-39; Talmage, Articles of Faith, pp. 152. 382- CONCLUSION AT the first view it seems a strange anomaly that the century distinguished by the greatest industry, freedom, and daring in all lines of intellectual activity should have witnessed such aggravations of sacerdotal theory and such vigorous attempts to subjugate the world to the dominion of the sacerdotal principle as have been de- scribed in the preceding pages. But on deeper considera- tion the concurrence of the contrasted developments is made quite intelligible. The intellectual activity appeared to numerous representatives of the sacerdotal systems to bode ill to their interests to be, in truth, a downright menace to the whole scheme of priestly tutelage and sovereignty. They bestirred themselves, therefore, to provide means of defense and offset. And naturally the means preferred by them corresponded to the instinct of sacerdotalism, to its dislike of free intellectual scrutiny, and to its appetite for appeals to authority. As the age called with special vigor to free investigation, so they sought to forestall all possibility of the admission of troublesome verdicts by exalting ecclesiastical authority to the highest pitch. In different ways Oxfordism and Vaticanism both were reactionary schemes, attempts through stiffening the demands of authority to safeguard sacerdotal fabrics against the assaults of criticism. The one made a rash ill-considered appeal to the decisive voice of Christian antiquity. The other sought to outdo the Hobbesian remedy for dissent and disorder by turning 447 448 CONCLUSION the ecclesiastical ruler, the Roman pontiff, into a great Leviathan, capable of swallowing up all dogmatic and all practical opposition alike. In a theoretical point of view this sacerdotal response to the exigency created by an age of unwonted intellectual daring and activity may seem ridiculously inadequate, a choice of the road leading to speedy and certain downfall. The response was, in truth, an arbitrary makeshift rather than a genuine attempt to deal with the new intellectual conditions. But still it would argue haste and super- ficiality if one should conclude that no formidable result is involved in these recent developments of sacerdotalism. When high pretense once gains the support of historic as- sociations and well-compacted organization it finds means of perpetuation in bold, unblushing, intemperate assertion of itself. Tried by the test of a searching and unbiased inspection of its grounds the supremacy claimed by the Brahmanical caste may not have deserved a moment's respectful attention. Nevertheless, twenty-five centuries have not availed to wrest the yoke of that supremacy from the necks of vast multitudes in India. History teaches no lesson more plainly than that sacerdotal pretense backed by efficient organization is not a thing to be lightly esti- mated. It results from what has just been said that in an enumeration of the demands imposed upon evangelical Protestantism by the developments recounted in this volume mention should be awarded first of all to its obli- gation to recognize the seriousness of the task of main- taining itself against sacerdotal aggression and of securing what it believes to be the due right of way for spiritual and rational religion in the world. It should not 'blink CONCLUSION 449 the fact that it is confronted by a powerful, determined, and aggressive antagonist. No more should it depend upon the spirit of the age to wage the effectual warfare against that antagonist. That would be a piece of optim- istic foolishness. More than one spirit works in the age, and the degree to which the worthier spirit is to gain dominion must depend upon the number, energy, and practical wisdom of its agents or representatives. Evan- gelical Protestantism may doubtless take heart from the conviction that the progress of the spirit of free investiga- tion, whatever temporary difficulties it may involve, must ultimately work as its friend and as the foe of its foe. But that is simply a ground for cheerful courage, not an excuse for inertness. The day has not yet come, and no prophet can foretell the time of its coming, when the children of the Reformers can, with any degree of pru- dence, abandon their watch or rest upon their weapons. Deplorable as was the polemical bitterness of the past, it was more respectable than is the apathy which gives no proper heed to the demands of a cause vital to the welfare of mankind. By all means let the bitterness be avoided ; let the old-time fury be forever banished; let work for the kingdom of Christ be leavened with the spirit of Christ; but let there be no lack of alertness to inquire what ought to be done, and no lack of resolution to dis- charge the obligation of the hour. On no other basis have the heirs of the Reformation a right to look toward an horizon bright with promise. A second and most obvious obligation resting upon evangelical Protestantism is that of striving earnestly to abate the mischief of needless subdivision and to work toward unity of heart and enterprise. Even were no 450 CONCLUSION powerful antagonist in the field, the plainest dictates of economical and rational procedure would imperatively demand the steadfast pursuit of this end. In the face of the encroaching antagonist it is nothing less than criminal folly to sacrifice any feasible unity to a policy of wasteful division and narrow-minded competition. It does not follow, however, that indorsement is due to any summary method for compounding Protestant communions. The superficial empiricist who sets out to achieve Protestant unity in short order is quite certain to enhance the evil of the existing conditions. Organic unity is not a thing to be achieved tomorrow. It is not certain that under earthly conditions it will ever be quite desirable. But allowing it to stand as an ideal, which can and ought to be greatly approximated, we cannot expect to make sub- stantial progress toward it without paying due respect to preliminary stages. For one thing, evangelical Protes- tant communions, in so far as they are willing to entertain the thought of union, or to look toward it with any sort of serious purpose, are bound in consistency to emphasize the greatness and importance of the things which they hold in common, and to recognize the comparative trivial- ity of most of the differences by which they are separated. Seen in true perspective many of these differences must be granted to be well-nigh of contemptible import. Again, it is incumbent on these communions to exercise a broad- minded fraternity, a rational and large-hearted comity in adjusting matters of mutual concern. For instance, it ought to be an acknowledged principle with them to dis- courage the maintenance of a superfluous number of churches in towns of small size and comparatively sta- tionary population. It may require abundant grace and CONCLUSION 451 wisdom to fulfill the delicate task of reducing the number of denominational organizations by which a vast number of communities are overburdened. But as surely as evan- gelical Protestantism has any divine vocation in the world, it is called of God to exercise the unselfish and fraternal spirit requisite for the fulfillment of this ex- ceedingly difficult task. Successful practice along the line of this most needful comity will be a beautiful dem- onstration of heart-unity, and may well be followed up by organic unity, first on the part of communions closely akin, and then on the part of those whose history has run in somewhat more divergent channels. That among recent events the historian is able to recount several which look like a prophecy of a greatly extended comity and work of unification is properly a source of enheartenment to those whose longing and purpose reach toward that consummation. We speak only of the obligation of Protestant com- munions to consult for unity among themselves, and we do this in obedience to the dictates of the history recorded in this volume. It will be time to broach the subject of unity in a broader sense when the sacerdotal Churches have shown an altogether different spirit and made an altogether different record from that which they have put on exhibition in the last century. Prior to that vast transformation nothing beyond relations of mutual toler- ance and courtesy can rationally be contemplated by either side. As well attempt to combine the antipodes as endeavor to unite Protestantism with the nineteenth- century type of Romanism. A third demand which rests upon evangelical Protes- tantism is the diligent cultivation of a spirit of catholicity, 452 CONCLUSION that is, a spirit prompt to appreciate and to reckon as a part of its own inheritance all superior manifestations in character and deed throughout the whole domain of Christianity from the days of the apostles to the present. A number of considerations unite to enforce this demand. In the first place, it is commended by the fact that there is nothing in the nature of evangelical Protestantism that is incompatible with such a spirit of catholicity. The broad range which it gives to private judgment provides a logical basis of a friendly estimate of the piety of men who may have been at fault in some of their theological opinions. Renouncing for itself, as well as denying to all rivals, a doctrinal infallibility, it does not place those who may have failed to give the precise dogmatic pass- word under the shadow of irreversible anathemas. In perfect accord with its platform it can extend interest and appreciation to all men of saintly record in the pre- Reformation and in the post-Reformation Church alike. No sacerdotal communion is half so well-conditioned as respects a consistent basis for the exercise of the spirit of catholicity. Furthermore, the fostering of this spirit is emphatically appropriate, since it is the natural foe of partitions and the natural ally of unity. The narrow provincial outlook has been responsible for many of the divisions of Protestantism. In instance after instance a man has gotten hold of some idea, and excited by his sense of possession has hastily drawn the conclusion that he was called to make over the world according to the pattern of that idea. Had his contemplation been lifted above the local horizon, he would have discovered that it was neither possible nor desirable to make over the world in conformity to his contracted scheme. Once more, CONCLUSION 453 through the cultivation of a spirit of catholicity evan- gelical Protestantism will gain a compensation for the ecclesiastical continuity which is the boast of the sacer- dotal Churches. What matters it that the former is charged with falling short in respect of external connec- tions ? Sense of kinship in the spirit is the superior bond. So long as Protestantism, in the temper of true catholicity, makes a retrospect of the ages, and claims an in- heritance in all true thoughts about God and about man, in all Christlike traits and deeds, it is nor- mally linked with the ancient and the intermediate, with the primitive and the modern, and has no occasion to be abashed by reference to any marks of historical connections in which a rival may think fit to glory. In this larger communion with the good and the true of all the centuries it is, of course, to be understood that the requirements of a sane historical criticism will not be abandoned. Official catalogues will count for next to nothing. No dubious character of an earlier age, who in point of Christlikeness is excelled by thousands of men and women in the present, will be placed upon a pedestal, just because a foolish custom has prefixed the word "Saint" to his name. Catholicity means, not obeisance to badges and titles, but heart-fellowship with all the genuinely good and true, with all who have given evi- dence of close union with the center of fellowship, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is worth considering whether a further demand does not rest upon evangelical Protestantism, namely, the de- mand to bestow increased study upon the problem of edifying forms of worship. Thoughtful people will hardly care to deny that it is a matter of very considerable 454 CONCLUSION importance to bring Protestant worship as near as possible to the happy mean between excessive plainness and a burdensome superfluity of forms. A legitimate motive to incline to the side of plainness may exist where there is a liability that forms should be regarded superstitiously. But when once ceremonial has been divorced from all connection with magic and theurgy, and has come to be rated simply as a means of expressing the subject-matter of faith by emblematic act or symbol, liberty in its use will properly be limited only by the extent to which it can be made useful in impressing truth. Doubtless the man of pronounced intellectual habitudes is likely to feel very little need of ceremonial, and may even be disposed to speak rather contemptuously of it as a mere kindergarten expedient. He might properly be advised, however, that not all people are predominantly intellectual beings, and that there is room for a profitable employment of kinder- garten expedients. The danger of excess, it is true, is something which needs to be kept in mind; but, on the whole, there is good reason why evangelical Protestantism should give earnest heed to the question whether in the matter of ceremonial it is furnishing the best ministry within its power to the religious needs of men. The more determined it is to eschew the folly and untruth of the sacerdotal Churches, the more ready should it be to re- ceive from them any useful suggestion which they are able to furnish. The catalogue of demands would be left incomplete did we not recur to one which received a passing reference at the very beginning of this volume. We conclude, then, by saying : Above all else it behooves the evangelical com- munions, in all practical ways, with constant fidelity and CONCLUSION 455 love, to put forth the evangelical message, the proclama- tion of the fullness, nearness, and perfect accessibility of divine grace, the doctrine of the universal call to men to come directly to God as revealed in Christ, and to expect at his hands an unstinted supply for their deep needs. In spirituality, depth, effectiveness of appeal, and fidelity to the gospel, this is the unrivaled message. May its sweet and solemn notes be voiced in the coming age more per- suasively than ever before. INDEX Absolution, doctrine of priestly, 257 ff., 310, 367 ff., 431; criti- cism of the doctrine, 266 ff., 421 ff. Absolutism, papal, 55 ff. Adrian VI, 202 Alexander VI, 214, 218; Alex- ander VII, 202 f., 263; Alex- ander VIII, 228 Ammianus Marcellinus, 210 Amort, E., 232 Anglo-Catholic movement, 313 ff., 392 ff- Anselm, 95 Apostolate, Irvingite theory of the, 433 ff. Apostolical succession, doctrine of, 347 ff., 404 ff. Aquinas, Thomas, 95, 108, 135 f., 241, 244 Arnold, T., 319, 322 Arthur, W., 215 Attrition, 261 ff., 371 Augustine, 174 ff., 248, 257 Authority, principle of, as re- garded by Roman Catholics, 3 ff., 44 ff., by the Greek Church, 293; by Anglo-Cath- olics, 334 ff., 394 ff. Bailly, L., 57, 87 Baird, H. M., 218 Bancroft, R., 317 Baptism, Roman Catholic doc- trine respecting its necessity, 231 ff. ; criticism of the doc- trine. 235 ff. ; Greek Church doctrine, 307; Anglo-Catholic doctrine, 360 ff., 418 f . ; Ir- vingite doctrine, 436; Mormon doctrine, 445 f. Baring-Gould, S., 341, 377 Barrow, I., 164 Basil, 173, 182, 257 Basle, Council of, 114, 198 f. Baur, F. C., 39 Bellarmine, R., 92, 217, 224, 240 Benedict IX, 211; Benedict XIII, 263 Billia, L. M., 250 Billot, L., n, 183, 187, 204, 217, 229, 235, 242, 245, 266 Blenkinsopp, E. L., 339, 350 Bonald, L. G. A. de, 71 Boniface VIII, 19 Bouix, D., 36 Boutard, C., 83 Bright, W., 158, 170 Byrne, W., 235 Cajetan, T. de V., 232 Campbell, A., 445 Canus, M., 96 Carthage, Synods of, 154, 163 Catholicity, obligation of Prot- estants to cultivate, 451 ff. Cecconi, E., 38, 58, 62, 90, 99, 103, no Chalcedon, Council of, 166, 169, 171 ff., 186 Clarke, H. W., 368. 370, 372 f., 422 f. Clarke, R. H.. 69 456 INDEX 457 Clement of Rome, 156 Clement V, 2 1 2 ; Clement VI , 2 1 2 Collier, J., 318 Concordats, the nature of, 23 Confession, auricular, 257 ff., i 309 f., 367 ff., 421 ff. Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, 364, 366 Constance, Council of, 114, 193 ff- 243 Constantinople, First Council of (second ecumenical), 166, 177; Second Council of (fifth ecu- menical), 170 f. ; Third Coun- cil of (sixth ecumenical), 188 ff. Conway, J., 29 Coppens, C., 12, 235 Costa- Rossetti, J., 21, 34 Crowley, J. J., 382 Cullen, P., 88, 115 Cyprian, 151 ff., 256, 273 Cyril of Alexandria, 158, 186 Czar, the, 299 ff. Dalberg, K. von, 59 Dechamps, Victor, 60 Deposing power, 175. Devivier, W., 5, 35 Devotion of the sentimental type, 100 ff., 129 ff., 279 f. Dionysius of Alexandria, 148 Dollinger, I. von, 39, 61, 88, 102, 108, in, 124 ff., 130, 161, 168, 192, 195, 200, 202, 209, 385 f. Dositheus, 293, 301, 307 f. Doyle, J., 66 Drey, S. von, 61 Eck, H. V. S., 360 Ellicott, C. J., 372, 422 Errington, G., 89 Eucharist, Roman Catholic doc- trine of the, 239 ff., 246 ff. ; Greek Church doctrine, 308 f . ; Anglo-Catholic doctrine, 363 ff., 419 ff. Eugenius IV, 195, 198 f., 202 Eusebius of Caesarea, 157 f., 257 Ex cathedra, meaning of the phrase, 119 f. Eymeric, 216, 218 Faguet, E., 72, 83 Florence, Council of, 114, 199, 227, 232 Forsyth, P. T., 414 Fortescue, A., 300 Frankfurt, Synod of, 188 Friedrich, J., 60, 62, 71, 75, 88, 90, 97, 102, 104, 110, 112, 114 Frohschammer, J., 7, 87 Froude, R. H., 314, 318 f., 323, 335 f- 352. 367. 375 Gagarin, I., 290, 300 Gallicanism, 55 ff. Gaume, J. J., 4, 13, 84, 258 f. Gelasius I, 200 f. Gibbons, J., 5. 51 Gibson, W., 84 Gieseler, J. C. L., 256 Gladstone, W. E., 25, 66 f., 129, 346 Gore, C., 363, 410 Gorham, G. C., 328 Gorres, J. J., 60 Goulburn, E. M., 350 Grabau, J. A. A., 432 Grafton, C. C., 351, 353, 371 Granderath, T., 36 f., 58, 63 ff., 85, 115, 187, 207 Gratry, A., 102 Greek Church, 287 ff. INDEX Gregorovius, F. A., 211, 213 Gregory I, 167; Gregory II, 201; Gregory VII, 201; Gregory XI, 212; Gregory XIII, 218; Gregory XVI, 39 ., 83, 264 Grindal, E., 314 Grub, G., 317 Guettee, A. F. W., 58, 87 Guild of All Souls, 367 Gunther, A., 7, 87 Gury, J. P., 265 Hall, A. C. A., 354, 361 Hall, F. J., 403 Hall, S., 394 Hampden, R. D., 322, 325 f., 328, 417 Harnack, A., 145, 256, 274, 4i3 Headlam, A. C., 295, 309, 312 Heard, A. F., 306 Hefele, C. J. von, 61, 121 f., 154, 169, 190 f., 193, 200 f., 211 Heinrich, J. B., 6, n, 31, 128, 223 f., 234 f., 241, 244, 260, 265 HergenrSther, J., 33, 112, 204 Hergenrother, P., 5, 22, 31, 34, 36, 128 Hermes, G., 61, 87 Hoensbroech, Graf von, 24 Honorius I, 115, 189 ff. Hontheim, N. von, 59 Hook, W. F., 314 Hooker, R., 315 f. Hore, A. H., 295, 297, 386 Hosius, 170 f. Humphrey, W., 358 Hunter, S. J., 12, 206, 235 Hurter, H., 8, 223, 228 f., 235, 242, 245, 265 Hutton, R. H., 388 Immaculate conception of Mary, 93 Index, Congregation of the, u, 37 f -. 62 Inerrancy, dogma of scriptural, 9 ff. Infallibility, of the Church, 3 ff., 44 ff., 403 f. ; of the popes, 55 ff., 109 f., 179 ff. Innocent I, 200; Innocent III, 39, 96, 216; Innocent IV, 216; Innocent VIII, 213, 216 f. ; Innocent XI, 263 Inquisition, the, 218 f. Intention, doctrine of, 227 ff. Intolerance, record of the popes in respect of, 39 ff., 215 ff. ; extent of in Russian admin- istration, 303 f. Irenaeus, 144, 148 ff., 256, 411 Irving, E., 432 Irvingism, 432 ff. Ives, L. S., 333 Jerome, 161, 200 Jewel, J., 314 John XII, 21 1 ; John XXII, 201 f. Jowett, B., 322, 411 Keble, J., 323 Keenan, S., 4, 67 Kenrick, P., 66 f., 69, 180 Killen, W. D., 89 Klee, H., 233 Kliefoth, T. F. D., 430 ff. Koch, A., 266 Konings, A., 27 f. Konissky, G. f 295 Lacordaire, J. B. H. D., 84 Lagrange, M. J., 12 Lamennais, F. de, 76 ff., 85, 104 INDEX 459 Langen, J., 62, 138, 185, 211 Lateran Council, the Fifth, 199 Laud, W., 319 . Laymann, P., 262, 266 Lea, H. C., 219 f., 274 f. Lehmkuhl, A., 266 Lendrum, A., 377 Lenormant, P., n Leo I, 164, 167, 169, 172, 184 f.; Leo II, 190; Leo X, 217; Leo XII, 39; Leo XIII, 10, 26, 28, 41 ff., 130 ff., 228, 354, 389 Lequeux, J. F. M., 58, 87 Leroy-Beaulieu, A., 85, 291 ff., 302, 306, 310 f. Liberatore, M., 19, 23, 30, 33, 127 Liberty of conscience, worship, and press, 31 ff. Lichtenberger, F., 88, 430 Liddon, H. P., 319, 327, 329 f., 340, 368 f. Lightfoot, J. B., 412 Liguori, A. M. de, 129 f., 263 f., 266, 389 Linn, W. A., 441, 444 Littledale, R. F., 319, 376, 381 f., 402 Loisy, A., 12, 389 Lourdes, 127 Lowndes, A., 355 Luther, Martin, 425 ff. Macaulay, T. B., 314 Macdonnel, J. C., 332 M'llvaine, C. P., 361 Maistre, J. de, 71 ff., 85, 104 Malou, J. B., 92, 101 Manning, H. E., 60, 68, 103, 127, 328, 337, 346, 385 ff., 390 ff. Mansi, D., 190, 194 ff., 211, 216 Maret, H. L. C., 75, in, 195, 207 Martin V, 194, 196 f., 343 Michaud, E., 57 f., 88 Miller, E., 433, 436 Moberly, G., 353 Moberly, R. C., 355, 412 Modernism, 282, 389 . Mohler, J. A., 8, 61 Mogilas, P., 293, 301, 308 Molitor, W., 20 Monsabre, J. M. L., 222 f., 234 Montalembert, C. F. de T., 34, 38, 84 f., 112 Mortimer, A. G., 334, 351. 355. 359. 363. 365. 37L 377 Murray, D., 66 Myers, F., 407 Neale, J. M., 311 Neo-Lutherans, their type of sacerdotalism, 430 ff. Neve, J. L., 432 Newbolt, W. C. E., 353 Newman, J. H., 4, 67, 323 ff., 336 f., 339 ff-. 343 ff- 361, 385 ff., 426 Nicaea, First Council of, 159, 169 ff. ; Second Council of, 188 Nicholas II, 201 Nielsen, F., 39 Nonjurors, 319 f..373 Nutting, J. D., 446 Old Catholic movement, 65, 124 Oman, J., 53 Optatus, 162 Order of Corporate Reunion, 383 f- Orders, Anglican, 354 ff., 407 f. Origen, 155, 182, 256 Orthodox Eastern Church, 2875. Outlook for Roman Sacerdotal- ism, 277 ff. 460 INDEX Palmer, W. (of Magdalen Col- lege), 288 ff., 300, 304 Palmer, W. (of Worcester Col- lege), 323, 338, 349, 382 Palmieri, D., 24, 36, 234 Parker, M., 314 Pascal, B., 263 Pastor, L., 211, 214 Pelagius II, 184 Penance, the sacrament of, 257 ff., 39 f- Perrone, J., 9, 92, 234 Perry, W. S., 333 Peter, the apostle, his alleged primacy, 137 ff. Pfleiderer, O., 431 Philaret, 288, 296, 302, 308 ff. Phillips, G., 4, 16, 32 Pius V, 20, 217; Pius VII, 39, 70; Pius IX, 24, 27, 40, 87 ff., 105 ff., 214, 264; Pius X, 10, 137, 347. 389 f. Platon, 296, 301, 307 f. Polity, in the Orthodox Eastern Churches, 297 ff. ; Anglican theories respecting, 313 ff., 347 ff., 404 ff. Polygamy in the Mormon sys- tem, 442 ff. Pratt, P. P., 438, 441 "Priest in Absolution, The," 368 f. Priesthood, Mormon, theory of, 437 ff. Private judgment, 52, 402 Procter, J., 12, 206 Protestant Episcopal Church, 332 ff- Pruner, J. E., 265 Prynne, G. R., 356 Public schools, judgments re- specting, 27 ff. Pullan, L., 351 Puller, F. W., 160, 171 Purcell, E. S., 17 ff., 68, 89, 91, 103, 385. 387. 39i f- Pusey, E. B., 100, 322, 329, 337, 340, 346, 360, 363, 367 ff., 380 f. Putnam, G. H. P., 48 Raskolniki, the, 292, 305, 310 Raynaldus, O., 202, 212 f., 220 Reformation, antipathy to the, 374 ff., 423 Renouf, Le Page, 88 Riegger, P. J., 59 Rigdon, S., 444 Ritualism among Anglo-Catho- lics, 330 f., 332 f. Rogers, H., 383 Romanizing tendencies, 378 ff., 427 ff. Rose, H. J., 323 Rosmini, A., 135, 250 Russia, ecclesiastical develop- ments in, 287 ff. Russo, N., 6, 206, 235, 260 Sabatier, A., 198 Sacraments, estimate of, in Roman Catholicism, 222 ff. ; in Russian Church, 305 f. ; among Anglo-Catholics, 356 ff., 414 ff. ; among Neo- Lutherans, 430 ff.; among Irvingites, 435 f. Salmon, G., 51, 157 Sanday, W., 414 Sardica, Council of, 164 f., 168 Sasse, J. B., 223 f., 229, 235, 242, 244, 259, 265, 311 Schanz, P., 5, 183 Scheeben, M. J., 6, n, 204, 229, 234, 241 INDEX 461 Schell, H., 233 Schlegel, K. W. F., 60 Schulte, J. F. von, 25, 62, 122 Seabury, S., 332 Simon, R., n Sixtus IV, 213 Smith, Joseph, 437, 442 f. Smith, S. B., 22 Smith, S. F., 230 Society of the Holy Cross 369 Spalding, M. J., 14, 68 Spottiswoode, J., 317 Staley, V., 351 f. Stanley, A. P., 412 Stap, A., 95 f., 101 State, the, as related to the Church, 15 ff. Staudenmaier, F. A., 61 Stephen I, 153 f., 157 Stone, D., 356, 360 ff., 365 Strossmayer, J., 122 . Supremacy, papal, 117 f., 137 ff. Syllabus of Errors, 25, 41,85,98 f. Synod, the Holy (of Russia) , 29 7 ff . Talbot, G., 68 Talmage, J. E., 438, 445 Taylor, I., 401 Tertullian, 147, 256 Theiner, A., in Tondini, C., 300 Tractarianism, 313 ff. Tracts for the Times, 323 f., 334 f-, 347 f-. 3?8 f. Transubstantiation, 2395., 246ff. Trent, Council of, 120, 227, 232, 239 f., 244, 257 f., 346 Tyrrell, G., 389 Ultramontanism, 16, 56 ff., 70 ff., 86 ff. Unam Sanctam, the bull, 19 f. Unigenitus, the bull, 203 ff. Union, as an obligatory ideal for Protestants, 449 ff. Urban II, 206; Urban VIII, 202 Vatican Council, 9, 16, 104 ff. Vatican decrees, 1 1 7 ff. Veuillot, L., 84, 91, 102 Victor I, 156 f. Vigilius, 2ii Vilmar, A. F. C., 430 f. Virgin, the, devotion to, 100 f., 130 ff. Walsh, W., 340, 364 f., 367, 369, 384 Ward, W., 34, 322, 331, 376 Ward, W. G., 34, 328, 375 f., 386 Werner, K., 60 f. Wessenberg, H. von, 59 Whately, R., 322, 407 White, W., 333 Whitgift, J., 315 Whitham, A. R., 339, 351, 370 Wilberforce, H., 328 Wilberforce, R. I., 328 Wilberforce, S., 368, 422 Wilbois, J., 309, 311 Wiseman, N. P. S., 89, 383 Witchcraft, papal attitude to- ward, 220 f. Wood, E. G., 342 Young, B., 440, 443 ff. " "" "mi "in UNI HIM II mi || 000752217 o I