chapter ix

, pages 94 and 95, an extract is given from certain regulations framed by this council during the last decade of the 16th century. The wording is as follows:

“Publick and private libraries must be searched and examined for books, as also all bookbinders, stationers and booksellers’ shops; and not only Heretical Books and Pamphlets but also prophane, vane, lascivious and other such hurtful and dangerous poysons, are utterly to be removed, burnt and suppressed, and severe order and punishment appointed for such as shall conceal these kind [_sic_] of Writing; and like order set down for printing of good things for the time to come.”

* * * * *

“The earlier editions of the Index expurgatory,” says Mendham, “were distributed with the utmost caution and were intended only for the possession and the inspection of those to whom they were necessary for the execution of the provisions. The reason is obvious. It certainly was little desirable that the dishonest dealings with the authors here censured should be known, either to those who were injured by them and to whom they would offer the opportunity of justifying themselves; or to the world at large whose judgment they must know would in many instances be at variance with their own. And evidently it was not to their interest to discover and to point out those very passages and writings, not only of reputed heretics but of reputed Catholics, which exposed the most vulnerable parts of their own system.”[179]

“The _Indices Expurgatorii_ are very good commonplace books and repertories, by help of which we may presently find, what any author (who has fallen under censure) has against them [_i.e._ the Catholics]. We are directed through the Index to the book, chapter, and line, where anything is spoken against any superstition or error of Rome; so that he who has the _Indices_ cannot want for testimonies against Rome.”[180]

In an article printed in 1861, in the _Katholik_ of Mayence, the writer says:

“We are prepared to place upon any inquirer the responsibility of determining whether the Congregation of the Index in the whole series of its operations has ever committed an essential blunder.... The policy and method of ecclesiastical censorship as carried out through the Index is the most moderate, the most tolerant, and the wisest that could be conceived.... The Congregation of the Index secures in the shaping of its judgments the service of the scholarship and of the consciences and capable labour of wise and devout counsellors; and its decisions may be accepted as the conclusions of a scientific Areopagus which is entitled to the fullest respect and the most implicit obedience; and he who does not render such obedience is a stranger to, and an opponent of, the spirit of the Church. ... It is through the Index that the Holy See exercises one of the most important of its functions.”[181]

In 1868, in an article having to do with the Council of the Vatican, the _Katholik_ says:

“The sting of the Index (to its critics) rests in this, that it represents a judgment exercised by the highest authority in matters of faith over individual knowledge. It is the sting of infallible truth.... The Index has from the beginning been the most trustworthy teacher of sound theology and defender of true Faith.”

Bishop Baillès of Luçon, writing in 1864, says:

“The Index contains no single book the condemnation of which was not arrived at under general rules.... It may be considered as itself one great book in which are characterised with more or less precision all the errors, heresies, and schisms of the ages--a book which for all devout scholars may be accepted as a trustworthy chart on which have been marked with a skilled and trusted hand all sunken rocks and other perils of the deep. The Index is the incomparable master work of the wisdom of the Church.” Baillès says further: “No bibliographical work can be considered as complete until it has been collated with the Index.... The date of the prohibition of a book, taken in connection with the date of its first publication, indicates the time during which it has become more pernicious.... The Index is to be classed as the most essential of critical bibliographies, one which no library should be without.”

Bishop Plantier of Nismes, in a pastoral letter of 1857, describes the Congregation of the Index as “the throne of good sense, the magistracy of truth, and a tribunal each utterance of which constitutes an indispensable service to true philosophy.”[182]

Minister Jules Ferry, speaking in the French Senate, May 31, 1882, says:

“We will never recognise the decrees of the Congregation of the Index. We propose to maintain the traditions of the French State and of the Gallic Church. Where would the State be if the decisions of the body which has placed its interdict upon the great spirits of mankind, such as Descartes, Malebranche, Kant, Renan, and has even condemned the Dictionary of Bouillet, should be accepted as the law of the land?... The ground that has been assigned for the condemnation of the Handbook of Compayré was the statement contained in it ‘that it was more important for the French child to know the names of the Kings of France than those of the Kings of Judea.’... The Index-decree went over the head of the Ambassador in Rome and of the Nuncius in Paris, in order to start a conflagration in our State.

“In a manual by André Berthet, published in 1882, (which did _not_ find its way into the Index), stand the following questions: ‘What is God? I know not. What becomes of us after death? I know not. Are you not ashamed of your ignorance? One need not be ashamed not to know what has not yet been known to any one.’”

[Sidenote: The Church and Science]

Father Searle (writing in 1895) maintains that the Church does not prohibit Catholics who are competent to undertake scientific investigation, from so doing. She places absolutely no obstacle in the way of their penetrating into all the facts of nature as it stands or of their considering the probable indications as to its past history or of their weighing actual historical testimony.... The Church forbids, as against reason, common-sense, and the welfare of man, liberty of thought on matters, whether in the material or spiritual order, which have been clearly demonstrated and definitely ascertained; she refuses to abandon it on those matters which are still open to reasonable question, as is the case with certain scientific hypotheses not as yet proven.[183]

Such a statement, if accepted to-day as authoritative, would make it evident that the policy of the Church in the 20th century has changed very materially from the policy that was in force, with some strenuousness, in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Hilgers points out that the Church is naturally much more concerned with the protection of the morality and of the spiritual nature of the people than with any formal intellectual development such as is to be secured from the study of the so-called classics. If a classical work, for instance, teaches that suicide is praiseworthy or is defensible, it is the duty of the Church to keep such work out of the hands of the believers. In like manner, the Church prohibits writings of any kind which make defence of the propriety of divorce or which make reference to divorce as if it were a necessary condition of society. The Church can further give its approval either formally or tacitly to no work which attacks the inspiration of the Scriptures or the binding force of scriptural doctrine, and must bring its condemnation upon any writer, however great he may be, whether Catholic or Protestant, historian or litterateur, philosopher or theologian, whose utterances tend to undermine faith in the word of God.[184]

There are, however, not a few expressions of opinion from Catholic sources which are by no means in accord with the conclusions reached by Father Hilgers as to the wisdom and beneficence of the literary policy of the Church of Rome. These critics have pointed out that the censors, whether in Rome, Madrid, or Paris, had been so seriously concerned with matters of doctrine, that they had given small measure of attention to publications of a scandalous character, and the influence of which was _contra bonos mores_.

[Sidenote: Sleumer on the Index]

A volume published in Osnabrück (Hanover) in August, 1906, may be cited as an example of cordial support given to the present censorship policy of the Roman Church by a loyal Catholic of North Germany. The author is Albert Sleumer, Doctor of Philosophy, and his book, issued under the title of _Index Romanus_, claims to present a complete record of all the German publications which have been placed upon the Roman Index, together with the titles of books other than German which have been condemned since 1870. Dr. Sleumer’s volume is issued with the approval of Hubert, Bishop of the historic diocese of Osnabrück. Sleumer’s volume had been originally issued in 1901 and now appears in a later revised edition. The contentions submitted by him in regard to the necessity of the Index, and as to the wisdom with which, from the beginning, the censorship of the Church has been conducted, are substantially in line with the position taken by Father Hilgers, whose larger and more important treatise has already been referred to. Sleumer is, like Hilgers, interested in citing examples of censorship by the State which are less consistent in principle and more extreme in application than similar actions by the authorities of Rome. He quotes, for instance, Thiers (whom he describes as “a well-known, free-thinking author of France”) saying, in 1830, that there could be no danger to the community in giving unrestricted freedom to the press.

“Truth alone,” says Thiers, “can have abiding influence; that which is false can do no harm and in the end brings its own refutation and no government can ever be injured by libellous publications.”

In 1834, Thiers takes a different ground:

“The representatives of the People are having their influence impaired by the falsifications of the Press.... The wickedness and lack of responsibility on the part of the Press have brought grave misfortunes upon the community.... It is essential for the safety of the State that there should be a close supervision of the Press.

We may remember that, between 1830 and 1834, the Bourbon government of Charles X had been overthrown and that Thiers was now a leader of influence under the administration of Louis Philippe.

Sleumer has himself no doubt that the press has to-day become “the most important expression of the ‘Evil One.’”[185]

“Who could,” he says, “deny to the State the right to control, with all the authority that has been confided to it, the development and the influence of a power that can undermine the authority alike of the family, of the government, and of the Church? But if such authority is necessary to maintain the foundations of the State, who shall deny an equal right and duty to those who are responsible for maintaining the foundations of the Church?”[186]

In presenting the lists of the German books condemned, Sleumer points out that it is of course an impossibility for the Congregation of the Index to compile with any measure of completeness the titles of all the books deserving condemnation. He contends however, that the books selected may be accepted as fairly typical of the classes calling for condemnation and that the Index schedules can, therefore, be utilised by the more intelligent of the faithful for their own guidance and by the confessors who have the responsibility of directing the reading of their flocks.

[Sidenote: Tyrrell on the Index]

It is interesting to compare with the implicit acceptance given to the censorship policy of the modern Church by the scholarly Jesuit Father Hilgers and by the good Dr. Sleumer, the more discriminating and more critical analysis of this policy by a scholarly Jesuit in England, Father George Tyrrell, whose monograph entitled _A Much Abused Letter_, comes into print while this volume is passing through the press. Father Tyrrell had, it seems, been applied to for counsel by a devoted friend in the Church (since identified as St. George Mivart) who, in middle life, in connection with certain scientific pursuits and investigations, had found himself in perplexity as to the foundations of his faith. The friend had not been able to bring into accord the conclusions which he had arrived at through his scientific investigations with the latest utterances of the Church authorities having to do with the matters at issue. Seriously troubled at the thought of being forced out of relations with the Church in whose communion he had grown up, he had asked Father Tyrrell for advice as to his present duty. The Father had in his reply (which in compass and character constitutes an essay on the relations of faith with intellectual pursuits) taken the ground that there was nothing in the scientific conclusions that his friend had accepted which made it necessary for him to abandon the communion of the Church. It was the Father’s judgment that the spiritual relations of the believer were to be considered quite apart from his scientific opinions or intellectual development. The letter, which was intended to be purely personal and which had for its purpose the saving to the Church of a valued member, through some inadvertency came into publication, and, as a result, Father Tyrrell was dismissed from the Order of the Jesuits. The unauthorised publication of the letter had presented an incorrect, not to say a garbled, text, and the Father now felt at liberty to print the corrected text with some commentary on his own relations to the matters at issue. The document is of decided interest as an expression of the spiritual and intellectual status of a scholarly Catholic of to-day. The selection of opinions of Catholics on the present policy of the Church runs the risk of being unduly extended, but I think it in order to make one or two citations from the volume of this earnest English Jesuit.

“The express purpose of the Confidential Letter was to dissuade my friend from a breach with the Church which would mean an assertion of individualism and a denial of authority and corporate life.... My whole line of argument was to insist that the reasonable and moderate claims of the Church over the individual were not invalidated by any extravagant interpretation of those claims.... The heroes of moral romance sail serenely through life’s darkest storms, cheered by the certainty of their rectitude and by the hearty applause of a thoroughly satisfied conscience. But in real life, it seems to me that such serenity, and the undoubted force and energy which it secures, are the privilege not so much of the heroic but of the unreflective.[187]... Only when we take the word ‘faith’ in its ethical and evangelical sense, is it true to say that loss of faith necessarily implies some moral weakness or imperfection. But the saying is palpably false when faith is made to stand for theological orthodoxy, for assent to a dogmatic system. It is admitted on all hands that such faith as this may, and often does, go with the most extreme moral depravity--with sensuality and cruelty, with injustice, with untruthfulness and hypocrisy, prejudice and superstition. Temporal and selfish interests of one sort or another, or more commonly still, an absolute lack of all sympathetic and intelligent interest in their religion, will keep the great majority of such men in the paths of orthodoxy as long as orthodoxy is in public fashion and favour.[188]... For one reason or another theologians have, for generations, been letting their accounts get into disorder; they have trusted to the one general principle of ‘authority’ for the quieting of all possible doubts and have paid less and less attention to

## particulars. They have forgotten that, by a necessary law of the

mind, the claims of authority will _de facto_ inevitably be called in question as soon as the reasons on which those claims rest are cancelled or outweighed by those which stand against the particular teachings of authority; that though a Catholic as such cannot consistently call this or that Catholic doctrine in question, he can consistently call his Catholicism in question.[189] However unwilling a man may be to raise doubts in his own mind, he cannot live in an age and country like yours [England] without these being thrust upon his attention. In Mediaeval Spain, where index and inquisition were practically workable methods of protection, it was otherwise. There and then one needed only not to think in order to be at peace; here and now one needs also not to see or hear or read or converse or live.

There is now no educational grade so low as to be exempt entirely from the spirit of criticism, whose influence is of course still more strongly felt as we ascend to the higher grades.[190]... Turning to the clergy, we find a great readiness on the part of individuals to disclaim the honour [of having authoritative knowledge] and also a curious vagueness as to the precise depositaries for the final authorities [on intellectual difficulties]. Taken individually, they frankly say that they are themselves incompetent to deal with such problems, but they imply that they have an unbounded confidence in their own collectivity, or in certain persons (unknown and unknowable) whose specialty it is to adjust the claims of sacred and secular knowledge. Thus the responsibility, divided over the whole multitude of the Church’s children, is shifted from shoulder to shoulder, and comes to rest nowhere in particular;[191]... The conservative positions (in the Church) are maintained by ignorance, systematic or involuntary.... The close historic study of Christian origin and development must undermine many of our most fundamental assumptions in regard to dogmas and institutions.... The sphere of the miraculous is daily limited by the growing difficulty in verifying such facts, and the growing facility of reducing either them or the belief in them to natural and recognised causes.[192]... If the intellectual defence of Catholicism breaks down (as far as the individual is concerned) does it straightway follow that he should separate himself from the communion of the Church? Yes, if theological ‘intellectualism’ be right; if faith mean mental assent to a system of conceptions of the understanding; if Catholicism be primarily a theology or at most a system of practical observances regulated by that theology. No, if Catholicism be primarily a life, and the Church a spiritual organism in whose life we participate, and if theology be but an attempt of that life to formulate and understand itself--an attempt which may fail wholly or in part without affecting the value and reality of life itself.[193]... Must we not distinguish between the collective subconsciousness of the ‘People of God’ and the consciously formulated mind and will of the governing section of the Church? May not our faith in the latter be at times weak or nil, and yet our faith in the former strong and invincible?... Let us recognise that, in spite of its noisy advertisements, this self-conscious, self-formulating Catholicism of the thinking, talking, and governing minority is not the whole Church, but only an element (however important) in its constitution.[194]... Faith is the very root and all-permeating inspiration of life. Not the faith of mere obedience to authoritative teaching, which is at best a condition of spiritual education ... not the faith of merely intellectual assent to the historical and metaphysical assertions of a theology that claims to be miraculously guaranteed from errancy. After all, your quarrel is not with the Church, but with the theologians [we are to bear in mind that Tyrrell is still addressing his friend whose scholarship has brought him into doubt]; not with ecclesiastical authority, but with a certain theory as to the nature and limits and grades of that authority, and of the value, interpretation, and obligation of its decisions.[195]... Who formulate these decisions, determine their value, interpret them to us; who have fabricated the whole present theology of authority and imposed it upon us, but the theologians? Who but the theologians themselves have taught us that the concensus of theologians cannot err? These are, however, mortal, fallible, ignorant men like ourselves.”[196]

May not Catholicism, like Judaism, have to die in order that it may live again in a greater and grander form? Has not every organism its limits of development after which it must decay, and be content to survive in its progeny? Wine-skins stretch, but only within measure; for there comes at last a bursting-point when new ones must be provided.

[Sidenote: Briggs on Censorship]

Another volume expressing the views of scholarly Catholic believers in regard to the present intellectual policy of the Church comes into print in 1906 while these pages are going through the press. It bears the title of _The Papal Commission and the Pentateuch_ and is the work of two authors, the Reverend Charles A. Briggs, Professor of Theology and Symbolics, of the Union Theological Seminary of New York, and Baron Friedrich von Hügel, at present of Cambridge, England. The work and career of Dr. Briggs are, of course, familiar to all who have knowledge of the issues of later years between the creeds and dogmas of the Churches and of the difficulties of the great scholars of the present generation who have been investigating the texts and records upon which these creeds and dogmas have been based. Of these scholars, Dr. Briggs is known as one of the most authoritative and conscientious and also as one possessing the greatest reverence for the purposes and the spiritual power of revealed religion. Dr. Briggs, now a member of the Episcopal Church, has from time to time brought into expression certain ideals in regard to the development of the Church Universal. If one understands him aright, he looks forward to the reconstruction, under the new conditions of the twentieth century, of a world’s Church or Church Universal, which was so nearly realised under the very different conditions of the fifteenth century. He is, therefore, sympathetically interested in the policy of the Church of Rome and he is in close personal relations with not a few of the scholarly leaders of that Church. He has united with his friend Baron von Hügel in the production of a monograph made up of two letters, one from himself and one from Baron von Hügel, which have for their purpose the analysis and criticism of the conclusions arrived at by the recent Papal Commission in regard to the origin and the history of the Pentateuch. The report of the Commission (of the text of which I have no direct knowledge) appears to have taken strong ground against the results of the so-called higher scholarship, that is to say, of the latest investigations concerning the origin and the formation of the writings going to make up the Pentateuch. Dr. Briggs cites from the record of the Papal Commission the statement that

“certain faulty readings in the text of the Pentateuch may be ascribed to the error of an amanuensis concerning which it is lawful to investigate and judge according to the laws of criticism.... But in so doing ‘Due regard must be paid to the judgment of the Church.’ It is admitted [says Briggs], (by the Papal Commission) that investigation and judgment must be ‘according to the laws of criticism.’ If this is so, then it necessarily follows that the laws of criticism must determine the entire investigation, and not merely any definite part of it.”[197]

[Sidenote: Von Hügel on Censorship]

The Baron’s division of the monograph applies, of course, more directly to the subject of the present chapter as an expression of the views of a scholarly Catholic on the present intellectual policy of the Church. He writes as follows:

‘For you cannot teach whom you do not understand, and you cannot win the man with whom you cannot share certain presuppositions.... The cultivated non-Roman Catholic world is, in part unconsciously, often slowly yet everywhere surely, getting permeated and won by critical standards and methods. A system cannot claim to teach all the world and at the same time erect an impenetrable partition-wall between itself and the educated portion of that world.[198]... This opinion of the Biblical Commission is surely but one link in a chain of official attempts at the suppression of Science and Scholarship, beginning with Erasmus and culminating with Richard Simon and Alfred Loisy, but never entirely absent, as witness the lives of countless workers, well-known to their fellow-workers.... When and where has Rome finally abandoned any position however informal and late its occupation, and however demonstrated its untenableness? Where, in particular, is the case of its permission to hold critical and historical views even distantly comparable in their deviation from tradition to those here presented by us? But if no such cases can be found, then, surely, Rome stands utterly discredited....”[199]

The Baron recalls that, on January 13th, 1897, there appeared,

“approved and confirmed by Pope Leo XIII, a Decree of the Holy Office, in the highest Roman tribunal next after the Pope himself, and which, unlike the Biblical Commission, claims directly doctrinal authority, giving a negative answer to the question, ‘Whether it is safe to deny, or at least to call in doubt, the authenticity of the text of St. John, in the First Epistle,