Kitabı oku: «Protestantism and Catholicity», sayfa 57

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the causes which contributed the most to the development of the human mind was the creation of great centres of instruction, collecting the most illustrious talents and learning, and diffusing rays of light in all directions. I know not how men could forget that this idea was not due to the pretended Reformation, seeing that most of the universities of Europe were established long before the birth of Luther. That of Oxford was established in 895; Cambridge in 1280; that of Prague, in Bohemia, in 1358; that of Louvain, in Belgium, in 1425; that of Vienna, in Austria, in 1365; that of Ingolstadt, in Germany, in 1372; that of Leipsic in 1408; that of Basle, in Switzerland, in 1469; that of Salamanca in 1200; that of Alcala in 1517. It would be superfluous to notice the antiquity of the universities of Paris, of Bologna, of Ferrara, and of a great many others, which attained the highest renown long before the advent of Protestantism. The Popes, it is well known, took an active part in the establishment of universities, granting them privileges, and bestowing upon them the highest honors and distinctions. How can any one, then, venture to assert, that Rome has opposed the progress of learning and the sciences, in order to keep the people in darkness and ignorance? As if Divine Providence had intended to confound these future calumniators of His Church, Protestantism made its appearance precisely at the time when, under the auspices of a renowned Pope, the progress in the science, in literature and the arts was most active. Posterity, judging of our disputes with impartiality, will undoubtedly pass a severe sentence upon those pretended philosophers, who are constantly endeavoring to prove from history, that Catholicity has impeded the progress of the human mind, and that scientific progress has been all owing to the cry of liberty raised in central Germany. Yes; sensible men in future ages, like those of our own times, will form a correct judgment upon this subject, when they reflect that Luther began to propagate his errors in the age of Leo X.

Certainly, the court of Rome could not at that time be reproached with obscurantism. Rome was at the head of all progress, which she urged onwards with the most active zeal, the most ardent enthusiasm; so much so, indeed, that if she were censurable at all – if there were in her conduct any thing of which history should disapprove – it was rather that her march was too quick than too slow. Had another St. Bernard addressed Leo X., he would assuredly not have blamed him for abusing his authority to impede the march of the human intellect and the progress of learning. "The Reformation," says M. de Chateaubriand, "deeply imbued with the spirit of its founder – a coarse and jealous monk – declared itself the enemy of the arts. By prohibiting the exercise of the imaginative faculties, it clipped the wings of genius, and made her plod on foot. It raised an outcry against certain alms destined for the erection of the basilica of St. Peter for the use of the Christian world. Would the Greeks have refused the assistance solicited from their piety for the building of a temple to Minerva? Had the Reformation been completely successful from the beginning, it would have established, for a time at least, another species of barbarism: viewing as superstition the pomp of divine worship; as idolatry the chefs-d'œuvre of sculpture, of architecture, and of painting, its tendency was to annihilate lofty eloquence and sublime poetry – to degrade taste, by repudiating its models – to introduce a dry, cold, and captious formality into the operations of the mind – to substitute in society affectation and materialism in lieu of ingenuousness and intellectuality, and to make machinery take the place of manual and mental operations. These are truths confirmed by everyday experience.

"Amongst the various branches of the reformed religion, their approximation to the beautiful and sublime is always found to be proportioned to the amount of Catholic truth they have retained. In England, where an ecclesiastical hierarchy has been upheld, literature has had its classic era. Lutheranism preserves some sparks of imagination, which Calvinism aims at utterly extinguishing; and so on, till we come to Quakerism, which would reduce social life to unpolished manners and the practice of trades. Shakspeare, in all probability, was a Catholic; Milton has evidently imitated some parts of the poems of St. Avitus and Masenius; Klopstock has borrowed very largely from the faith of Rome. In our own days, in Germany, the high imaginative powers have been put forth only when the spirit of Protestantism had begun to decline. It was in treating Catholic subjects that the genius of Goethe and Schiller was manifested; Rousseau and Madame de Staël are, indeed, illustrious exceptions to this rule; but were they Protestants after the model of the first disciples of Calvin? At this very day, painters, architects, and sculptors, of all the conflicting creeds, go to seek inspiration at Rome, where they find universal toleration. Europe, nay, the whole world, is covered with monuments of the Catholic religion. To it we are indebted for that Gothic architecture, which rivals in its details, and eclipses in its magnificence, the monuments of Greece. It is now three centuries since Protestantism arose, – it is powerful in England, in Germany, in America, – it is professed by millions of men, – and what has it erected? It can show only the ruins it has made; on which perhaps, it has planted gardens or built factories. Rebelling against the authority of tradition, the experience of centuries, and the venerable wisdom of ages, Protestantism let go its hold on the past, and planted a society without roots. Acknowledging for their founder a German monk of the sixteenth century, the reformers renounced the wonderful genealogy that unites Catholics, through a succession of great and holy men, with Jesus Christ Himself, and, through Him, with the patriarchs and the earliest of mankind. The Protestant era, from the first hours of its existence, refused all relationship with the era of that Leo who protected the civilized world against Attila, and also with the era of that other Leo, at whose coming barbarism vanished, and society, now no longer in need of defence, put on the ornaments of civilization." (Etud. Histor., François I.)

It is much to be regretted that the author of such noble sentiments, who so accurately describes the effects of Protestantism on literature and the arts, should have said, that "the Reformation was, properly speaking, philosophic truth, under the guise of Christianity, attacking religious truth." (Etud. Histor., Preface.) What is the meaning of these words? We shall best understand them from the illustrious author's own explanation. "Religious truth," says he, "is the knowledge of one God manifested in a form of worship. Philosophic truth is the threefold knowledge of things intellectual, moral, and natural." (Etud. Histor., Exposition.) It is difficult to imagine how any one who admits the truth of the Catholic religion, and, as a necessary consequence, the falsehood of Protestantism, can define the latter to be, philosophic truth at war with religious truth. In the natural, as well as in the supernatural, order of things, in philosophy as in religion, all truths come from God, all end in Him. There cannot, therefore, be any antagonism between truths of one order and truths of another order; between religious and true philosophy, between nature and grace, no antagonism is possible. Truth is that which is; for truth resides in beings themselves; we should rather say, it consists of beings themselves such as they exist, such as they are in their substance; and hence it is quite incorrect to say that philosophic truth has ever stood in antagonism to religious truth.

According to the same author "Philosophic truth is neither more nor less than the independence of the human mind; its tendency being to make discoveries, and lead to perfection in the three sciences that come within its sphere, viz. the intellectual, the moral, and the natural. But philosophic truth," he continues, "looking forwards to the future, has stood in opposition to religious truth, which adheres to the past, owing to the immovable nature of the eternal principle upon which it is founded." (Etud. Histor., Exposition.) With all the respect due to the immortal author of the Génie du Christianisme and of the Martyrs, I must take the liberty to observe, that we find here a lamentable confusion of ideas. The philosophic truth of which M. de Chateaubriand here treats, must be either science itself, considered as an aggregate of truths, or a general knowledge, in which truth and error are commingled; or, in fine, the whole body of men of learning, considered as constituting a very influential class in society. In the first case, it is impossible for philosophic truth to be in antagonism to religious truth, – that is, to Catholicity; in the second case, the alleged opposition is nothing extraordinary, for error being in this case mixed up with truth, will on some points be found to be opposed to Catholic faith; and, finally, as regards the third hypothesis, it is unfortunately too true, that many men, distinguished by their talents and erudition, have been opposed to Catholicity; but, on the other hand, as great a number of men equally eminent have triumphantly maintained the truth of Catholicity; hence it would be extremely illogical to affirm that philosophic truth, even in this sense, is opposed to religious truth.

It is not my wish to give an unfavorable interpretation to the words of the illustrious writer; I rather incline to think, that, in his mind, philosophic truth is nothing but a spirit of independence considered in a general, vague, and undefined sense, and not as applied to any object in particular. This is the only way to reconcile assertions so different; for it is quite clear, that, after he had so severely condemned the Protestant Reformation, the writer could not proceed to admit that this same Reformation carried with it philosophic truth, properly so called, wherein it became opposed to Catholic doctrines. But, in this case, the language of the illustrious author is unquestionably wanting in precision; this, however, need not surprise us, as, upon reflection, we shall find that, in treating historico-philosophical subjects, precision is not to be expected from writers whose genius has been wont to soar into the highest regions on the wings of a sublime poetry.

It was not either in Germany or in England, but in Catholic France, that the philosophical movement advanced with the greatest freedom and daring. Descartes, the founder of a new era in philosophy, that superseded the Aristotelian, and gave a fresh impulse to the study of logic, of physics, and metaphysics, was a Frenchman and a Catholic. The greater part of his most distinguished followers were also in communion with the Roman Church. Philosophy, then, in the highest sense of the word, owes nothing to Protestantism. Before Leibnitz, Germany could scarcely reckon a single philosopher of any note; and the English schools that attained to any thing like celebrity arose after Descartes' time. We shall find, upon reflection, that France was the centre of the philosophical movement from the end of the sixteenth century; and at that period all the Protestant countries were so backward in this kind of study, that the active progress of philosophy amongst the Catholics was scarcely noticed by them. In like manner, it was in the bosom of the Catholic Church that the taste arose for profound meditations on the secrets of the heart, and on the relations of the human mind to God and nature, and that sublime abstraction which concentrates man's faculties, sets him free from the body, and elevates him to those exalted regions that appear destined to be visited exclusively by celestial spirits. Is not mysticism, in its purest, most refined, and most elevated form, found in our Catholic writers of the golden age? Since that time, what has been published that may not be met with in the works of St. Teresa, in those of St. John of the Cross, in the venerable Avila, in Louis de Grenada, and in Louis de Léon?

And Pascal, that man of thought, one of the most vigorous geniuses of the seventeenth century, who was unhappily deceived for some time by a hypocritical and canting sect, was he a Protestant? Was it not he who laid the basis of that philosophico-religious school, whose investigations, directed at one time to the deepest questions of religion, at another to those of nature, or to the mysteries of the human heart, have surrounded truth with a flood of light? Do not the apologists of Christianity, whether Protestants or Catholics, when engaged in combating indifference or incredulity, avail themselves by preference of his Pensées? Authors who have written on the philosophy of history have perhaps surpassed all others in their eagerness to vilify the Church as the enemy of enlightenment, whilst they represent Protestantism as the great bulwark of the rights of the mind. Now, gratitude alone should have induced them to proceed more circumspectly; they should not forget that the real founder of the philosophy of history was a Catholic, and that the first and best work ever written on this subject came from the pen of a Catholic Bishop. It was Bossuet, in his immortal Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle, who first taught our modern thinkers to take a lofty survey of the human race; to embrace at one view all the events that have marked the course of ages, contemplating them in all their vastness and intimate connection, with all their phases, effects, and causes, and to draw from them salutary lessons for the instruction both of princes and people. Now, Bossuet was a Catholic, and, moreover, one of the most trenchant adversaries of the Protestant Reformation. His fame is heightened too by another work, in which he completely overthrows the doctrines of the innovators, by proving their continual variations, and demonstrating that theirs must be the way of error, seeing that variation is incompatible with truth. We may ask the abettors of Protestantism, if the Eagle of Meaux feels in his flight the fetters of the Catholic religion, when, glancing at the origin and destiny of mankind, at the fall of our first parents and its consequences, on the revolutions of the East and West, he traces with such wonderful sublimity the designs of Divine Providence?

As regards the literary movement, I might almost consider myself relieved from all necessity of combating the reproaches cast upon Catholicity by its enemies. What, in fact, was the literature of all the Protestant countries together, at the time when Italy produced those orators and poets, who, in succeeding ages, have been universally received as models? Various descriptions of literature were already quite common in Catholic countries, that were not even known in England or Germany; and when, at a later period, an attempt was made to fill up the hiatus, no better means could be found for the purpose than to take for models the Spanish writers, who had been subject to Catholic obscurantism and the fires of the Inquisition.

Neither the mind, the heart, nor the imagination of man owes any thing to Protestantism. Before the Reformation these were all in graceful and vigorous progress; after the Reformation, this progress continued in the bosom of the Catholic Church as successfully as before. Catholicity displays a bright array of illustrious men crowned with the glories they have won amidst the unanimous plaudits of all civilized nations. Whatever has been said of the tendency of our religion to enslave and hoodwink the mind, is but calumny. No; that which is born of light, cannot produce darkness; that which is the work of truth itself, need not fly from the sun's rays to conceal itself in the bowels of the earth. The daughter of heaven may walk in the brightness of day, may dare discussion, may gather around her all the brightest intellects; well assured that the more closely and attentively they see and contemplate her, the more pure, the more beauteous and enrapturing will she appear.